Defence Of The Realm (Beans, Peas, And Pulse Orders) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
I desire to invite the House to give statutory effect to certain Orders of the Food Controller which have been challenged in the Courts, and which cannot be used as the instrument for carrying out the intentions of the Ministry of Food unless this Bill be passed into law. On the 1st May, 1917, Lord Devonport made an Order taking over from the original consignee all Burmah beans which should thereafter come into the United Kingdom, at a price to the original consignee, which was agreed to, of £37 per ton, and all contracts for sale made by them or contracts made under such contracts were cancelled. On 16th May, 1917, a similar Order affecting all other kinds of beans, peas, and pulse was made, the only difference between the two Orders being that the price in the latter case was left for future settlement. Under the first Order about 58,000 tons were affected, and under the second Order about 120,000 tons. These two lots of beans have been taken over by the Ministry as a result of the Order, and over 80 per cent. of the goods in question have already been dealt with. The persons and the dealers who were interested in the purchases and in the Orders of the Food Ministry acted under the Orders for three months, and the Orders proved quite workable in practice, and at any rate from the moral standpoint did not mean the slightest injustice to any person whatever. When the articles arrived possession was taken of them, the original consignees were paid, and the goods were placed upon the market at a price which enabled them to be sold retail in shops at a figure which the then Food Controller, Lord Devon-port, had fixed. In no instance has the original consignee been made in any degree responsible for the goods coming into this country, and in no instance has any such consignee complained of the treatment meted out as a result of the Order. 4.0 P.M. The persons who have complained combined, and, at their instance, legal proceedings were taken against the Attorney-General as the nominal defendant. The case was heard on the 30th July last year by Lord Justice Rowlatt, and it was decided that the Food Controller's powers did not enable him to take over from the original consignees articles which they had agreed to sell, and the property in which had passed on to other purchasers by virtue of the transaction which had taken place. In the circumstances the Food Ministry did not think it advisable to appeal against that decision, and the alternative course has been taken of coming to this House to report the circumstances, state the facts, and to ask the judgment of the House of Commons on whether legal effect should be given to the Order of the Food Ministry issued in May of last year. The decision of the Court nullifies the whole object of the Order, and, in effect, secures to the persons who had dealt in these articles profits which I do not think any Member of this House, in the course of the discussion, will seek to justify. The articles had been dealt in extensively, and prices have risen to an extraordinary level. In the main, these dealings have been indulged in by persons not ordinarily accustomed to buying peas and beans—new-comers, who took advantage of war conditions and of a shortage of cereals and foodstuffs, and who found that they could sell articles of food in a very short space of time without ever seeing them, and with the mere cost and trouble of passing on the goods to some other persons who was prepared to pay a very high price. These dealings were profiteering, pure profiteering, or impure profiteering, which I hope no Member of this House will be found to defend. Persons, with no previous connection with the trade, who engaged in buying and selling beans and peas, though they could in no sense be regarded as persons who dealt in these commodities, should not be allowed to reap or retain the enormous profits which prevailed at that time.There is the Excess Profits Tax.
The market price for Burmah beans at the date the Order was made was £78 per ton. The pre-war price, the price prevailing not so very long before, was £22 per ton. I will give two examples—and there are a good many which I could cite, but two suffice—to prove the necessity of this Bill being passed into law. Three hundred and fifteen tons of Madagascar butter beans arrived here on the steamships "Sidon" and "Warrior," and they were bought by Amis, Swain and Company, on the 2nd January of last year, at £43 per ton. On 9th March they sold them for £70 per ton, plus half per cent. c.i.f., a profit on the transaction amounting to £407, or about 64 per cent. reached in that very short period. Five hundred and fifteen bags of Madagascar butter beans arrived here on the steamships "Sidon" and "Warrior," and they were bought by Amis, Swain and Company on the 17th November at £36 per ton, and sold to Gaskain, Barker and David, Limited, on the 13th December, at £44 per ton c.i.f. Those were resold on 30th March by Gaskain, Barker and David at £90 per ton. The total profit on these two transactions amounted to no less than £1,311 14s., or a percentage of profit of about £147 per cent. on the original purchase price of £36. If this Bill is not passed into law it will mean that persons who, as I have said, were not legitimately entitled to be engaged in this process of buying and selling, will retain these profits. They were content to recognise the reasonableness of the Order till they became organised and were stimulated by various forces acting upon them, and these persons, unless the Bill is passed, will be able to claim very large sums indeed from the Food Ministry or the Wheat Commission. In each of these cases the Wheat Commission as hitherto treated those sales as invalid, and they relied on the efficacy of the Order issued by the Food Minister, prior to its being challenged in the Court of Law.
How much?
If the right hon. Gentleman would wait until the end of the hon. Gentleman's speech, he would understand, but really it is not fair to keep on making these running comments.
The Wheat Commission would have to pay each of these various bodies the profit made by them. My right hon. Friend on the other side asked how much. I could not say how much each of these claimants asks for, but I believe that the entire sum involved is very considerable. I have heard the figure put at £600,000, but I do not assert specifically that that is the sum. The order which was issued, whatever its other effects, had a very good moral effect not only on this particular trade but on a great many other trades in the country—the effect being, in the first instance, to considerably limit if not to stop much of the gambling which was then going on in the country in foodstuffs, and to considerably reassure the public mind, which was then in a very disturbed state, and which, as Members recollect, readily welcomed the action of the Food Controller at that time in taking measures to put an end to transactions of this character. I believe that objection is taken to such a Bill as this on the ground that it is an unprecedented interference with the sanctity of contracts. My answer to any such argument is that transactions of that kind at such a time cannot be regarded as contracts that should be observed and carried out as though we were living and trading under normal conditions. Possibly in peace time that might have been done, but under war conditions people are entitled to look to the action of the Food Ministry to prevent prices of foodstuffs being run up to an excessive and an unreasonable level, as was the case in this instance. These were not ordinary trading or contract transactions; they were speculations; they were indulged in without the slightest justification, and I hope, the House of Commons will not give them any legal warrant. I submit, having given these few brief reasons and facts, that the Bill will become law. Those persons who come under it cannot claim to have suffered any loss, on the ordinary trading of the year, of a commercial character on their transactions. The most they can claim is certain inordinate profits were withheld from them which, having regard to the circumstances in which the country was placed at the time, they were not entitled to' make. Claims of that character should not fall to the advantage or lot of any section of the community. I have already said that I have every reason to refrain from making any general charge, or indulge in any general complaint against the mass of traders and food producers in this country, but I feel on that account all the more justified, when cases of this kind are brought to our notice, in asking that the House shall take measures which will effectively prevent any such extraordinary profiteering as that which I have shown to the House, and for which this Bill ought to get a Second Reading, in. order to wholly prevent it in future.
The hon. Gentleman has founded all his arguments in support of the Bill upon the statement that certain people have made indefinite profits, of which he gave two instances, in one of which, as far as I remember, the person made a profit of £400 and in another over £l,000. If those profits were inordinate the Excess Profits Tax would have applied, but, as a matter of fact, at the bottom of this Bill there is a very vital and very important principle. The hon. Gentleman has not merely got to meet a case in which he can rely only upon the statement that certain people were making profits out of food. That is not the matter which I desire to go into at the present moment. I want to deal with the real objection against this Bill. What are the facts? The Defence of the Realm Act gave great powers to Government Departments. I am not at all sure that if the majority of the House of Commons had known that the powers which they gave were going to be used in the way they have been used by various people appointed to different Committees, that they would have passed the Act as it was. If the liberty of the subject is to be preserved at all we must look to those people who, up to the present time, have been impartial, wise and sound, in their judgments, namely, the Courts of Law, for our protection. What is taking place? I believe a very great many illegal Orders have been issued under the Defence of the Realm Act. In this particular case, an illegal Order was issued, and the people aggrieved went to their only protectors, the Courts of Law, who decided that an illegal Order had been issued. What does the hon. Gentleman say? He says: "We prefer" (that is, the Food Controller) "not to appeal against the judgment, but to come to the House of Commons, that is to say, the Food Controller does not choose to be bound by the law of the land, and he comes to the House of Commons, when there are only a few Members present, the majority of Members not having read the Bill, but who may have heard that it is something about profiteering, and who say that they could not vote against any action in respect of profiteering, and will support the Government. If a King had done that, he might have lost his head.
The right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to bring in the name and personality of His Majesty.
I said "a king." I would not have done such a thing for the world.
I misunderstood. What king?
Charles I.
The right hon. Gentleman is trifling with the House.
No, Sir. I consider this Bill one of the most tyrannical at- tempts on the part of the Ministry of Food to get over a legal decision. And what I said was that if a king—I was not alluding, of course, to His Gracious Majesty—if a king had done that sort of thing he might have lost his head, and I repeat that a more tyrannical action was never done, and if the right hon. Gentleman comes down and says that he has so weak a case—
No!
Oh, yes! Why not go to the Court? If the right hon. Gentleman is right, why does he not go to the Court of Appeal?
It is because we are not so much concerned about law in this case as we are concerned about justice.
On a point of Order. It is extremely inconvenient that the Law Officers of the Crown are not here.
That is not a point of Order.
I always thought justice was to be found in the Law Courts. I am not at all sure it is to be found in a Government Department. The Bill is retrospective. It seeks to annul contracts which were entered into more than a year ago. If the desire of the Food Controller were to enact that after a certain date any further contracts which were entered into should be subject to certain disabilities or liabilities, I do not think anyone would have had anything to say. It might have been perhaps a tyrannical exercise of his powers, but it would not have been unjust nor have broken a contract. The hon. Gentleman seems to attach very little importance to breaking contracts. The whole foundation of business is based on contracts, and if they are to be broken and any disadvantage that arises from it is to be met by coming down to ask for an act of indemnity for the Ministry that has done an illegal act, there is an end of all liberty of the subject and all business transactions. I have here a letter from the London Chamber of Commerce, who regard this matter with great seriousness. They put the matter very shortly and very clearly. They say:
These are the simple facts, and I do not know that I can do better than leave the matter where it is. In these few words the whole charge against this Bill is gummed up. It adds, "That the passage of this Bill be opposed, and Members of Parliament for the City of London and Members of Parliament who are members of the London Chamber of Commerce be requested to oppose the Bill." I have also a letter from the London Cora Trade Association to the same effect. I really no not think I need say anything more, but I cannot conceive it possible that the House of Commons will pass a Bill to give an indemnity to a Ministry who have been found by the Courts of Law to have done an illegal action. If this sort of thing is to go on, in future, whenever any Minister chooses to see his wishes done regardless of whether it is legal, if he is permitted to do it, and the Courts of Law says he has done an illegal act, he can come down to this House for a Bill to indemnify him and allow him to repeat the illegal act. I have much pleasure in moving to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months.""This Bill is presented by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food and seeks to retrospectively legalise certain Orders, issued nearly a year ago, which had been declared by the Courts to be in some respects ultra vires. My executive had adopted the following resolution: 'That this meeting of the executive of the London Chamber of Commerce having considered the Bill entitled Defence of the Realm (Beans, Peas, and Pulse Orders), presented to Parliament by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food Control, declares that its provisions are subversive of the principle of the sanctity of contracts and the foundations of commerce as carried on in this country. The Bill seeks to retrospectively legalise Orders made by the Food Controller which have been declared by the Courts to be ultra vires, and is devised to protect the Ministry of Food from being mulcted in damages in respect of contracts illegally interfered with by these Orders.'"
I would first like to apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, for an involuntary interruption of my hon. Friend who was explaining the Bill. I really only had a sincere desire to understand it, and I confess I do not understand the explanation that has been given us. The House is placed in an extraordinary position, and I hope my hon. Friend will not resent it if we ask for further information as to the extraordinary position in which we are placed by the Bill, and the speech he has made. I do not think at the present moment the House in the least understands the position. My right hon. Friend says in May last an Order was issued by the Ministry of Food Control in which peas from Burmah, beans and pulses, and all articles of that kind, were taken over. He then mentioned casually that 58,000 tons of one and 100,000 tons of the other, which are large quantities, have been dealt with, and the whole thing is working quite smoothly. I do not think the House quite realised that. The purpose of the Order, so far as it is an honest purpose, has been accomplished without friction. The goods have passed into the hands of the Food Controller. Everything he wishes has been done, and I may inform the House that a second Order was issued about a year ago greatly extending the first Order, taking over all productions such as tapioca, sago, potato flour, and cereals, and everything of that sort. That was issued in September, about a year ago. It was also accepted like the first Order. Every article which comes under the head of profits which the Government desires to take over will be voluntarily and pleasantly surrendered, and the Government can do as it pleases. I do not think the House realised that. I think the House is confused by the speech of the hon. Member in charge of the Bill. He has suggested that there has been some friction with regard to the working of the Order or a date which he did not clearly give. He used the word "recently." This is May, 1918, and I asked him what that word meant. It meant July, 1917. That is not recently in a transaction like this. From that word recently one would think there had been friction in regard to these Orders. I wish the House to understand there is nothing of the kind. There is no resistance to the Ministry. On the contrary, they are doing exactly as they please with this as with every other commodity.
The House may ask, What is the Bill about? It is very surprising, and it goes back behind the date on which the Order was issued and rakes up transactions of six or nine months previously, and the House is asked to go into these transactions on partial and incomplete evidence. He asks this House to arrive at the conclusion that mercantile trans actions through all that period should be opened up, and that the House should arrive at conclusions with regard to the morality of the people who carried through these transactions. I do not wonder at my right hon. Friend's in dignation about that. If this is to be done, there ought to be a fair trial to these people. If a charge is to be brought against them, it ought not to be brought up here eighteen months after the transactions take place. Everybody is entitled to a trial in this country, and the thing should be plainly slated. The charges must be stated, and it will be better to deal with it in a Court of Justice than to bring this moral question to be decided in a House of Commons with about twenty Members and the rest whipped in to carry the matter on a Division. It is an exceptional proceeding to take, and the House ought to understand that this is the point we are discussing here at this time. We are left entirely to a partial statement of my hon. Friend in regard to this matter. One case has been inquired into and that is the case of Hindhaugh. That was the case which was brought up in Court. The case was tried on 31st July. Does my hon. Friend allege there was any large profiteering in this case? None whatever. It only affected 15 lbs. of beans. So far as I can make out the price was almost the same as the old one except a small commission. The application of the Food Controller was heard before four judges, and there were present the Attorney-General (Sir Frederick Smith) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow (Sir J. Simon). The judge who was in charge of the proceedings made certain remarks about the Ministry of Food which would have been very helpful to this House if my hon. Friend had read them out. I will read to the House one or two sentences. The judge said with reference to the Order—Was that a part of the judgment?
No, Sir. The judge said:
That is the true position. This Order was badly drafted. It did not achieve any of the purposes which my hon. Friend has stated the Ministry desired it to achieve. When the judge was asked, he declared that the Order was ultra vires. The Attorney-General did not object to that, and accordingly there could be no defence in Court. The judge said:"I have no authority to redraft Orders as they ought to be drafted. I judge that this Order was improperly drafted."
That is exactly what the judge found ought not to be done, and could not be done, and that is exactly what my hon. Friend asks us to do to-day. The judge says you cannot go into these back transactions, but in effect supported the Ministry to this extent, that you want to take over the beans, and from the moment you declared you wished to do this thing from the date of your Order you have done it. But to go back to the past is an illegal and impossible thing, as the judge declared, and as I ask the House of Commons to declare also. The Bill is for no other purpose than to rake up these old transactions. If we were going to do a thing like that this House would want to approach it most carefully, and rake up every transaction. The only case examined was a clean transaction. Why did the hon. Gentleman not mention the case of Hindhaugh? Because it did not suit him. Hindhaugh was a perfectly honest man and a bean importer, and had made no particular profit. Instead of his case being taken as a typical case, we have had a few other cases upon which no one can pronounce an opinion, because we have never heard of them before. My hon. Friend said he approached the thing from the moral standpoint. So do I. If these people made a profit on these beans, there might be a dozen ways of explaining the profit. The question of importation is a very subtle one. There are often profits and losses, and often the profits got are caused by some action over which the people engaged in the business have no control whatever. For instance, at that period the chief thing which caused the extraordinary profits was the action of the Government in buying huge stocks for the Ministry, giving big prices for them and putting up the markets. Two or three small cases, not amounting to 1,000 bags altogether, are mentioned here, and we are asked to believe those were extraordinary profits. I am told that the Ministry took over beans at £37 10s. a ton and fixed the price at £59 a ton, and sold tons of beans at £20 profit. There is profiteering for you, if you like! It has been carried on on the most gigantic scale, and we must not take isolated examples of one or two things mentioned here by the Minister when we have not heard the people, but let us take the large transactions of the Ministry itself. There was a huge scheme of profiteering carried through by the Ministry in regard to these beans. The effect which would be produced by his Bill, my hon. Friend said, would be to check gambling. That is a very desirable object, but it ought to be aimed at exact transactions, and I think there ought to be a long inquiry before this House is asked to take action upon it. This is a most peculiar Bill. It is a Government Bill, and no doubt the Government Whips will tell in support of it. There is only one name on the back of the Bill and it is that of my hon. Friend who has explained the measure to the House. It has these extraordinary provisions of a retrospective character to which my right hon. Friend has rightly called attention. This House is suspicious of retrospective legislation. It is generally unjust legislation, and on the last occasion we had a Bill from the Ministry before us, the moment I pointed out its retrospective character, my hon. Friend at once agreed, and said he would strike that out. That is what I ask the House to do to-day, as this Bill is retrospective, and as it is entirely unnecessary to enable the Government to do what they want to do, as everything is working quite smoothly. They have all these things in their hands, with the usual result, I regret to say, to the people—the usual result of high prices and large profiteering. But they have got it all in their hands. Let them be satisfied, and let them not ask this House to go back nearly two years into transactions, unless the particulars of those transactions are given. The hon. Gentleman said that the effect of the Orders was to check gambling. I do not know anything about the gambling or the trade in question, but more facts ought to be given to us before we pass a Bill of this character. Another effect of the Bill will be to check importation, and to create scarcity. It is part of the policy of the Food Controller, no doubt, as he thinks, for a moral purpose, and because he has got popular opinion behind him, but the effect is very hard on the people of this country. We cannot get any cheese now. For the same reason we cannot get these beans. We are now dependent upon the Ministry for these useful articles, with the result that the scarcity which exists in every other article and the high prices will be created in these articles also. The House has got the bulk of the facts before it—that the Bill is retrospective, and deals with certain transactions not explained to us or inquired into; secondly, the whole business of taking over these beans, peas, and pulse is working quite smoothly, and they have been taken over in gigantic quantities; and, thirdly, the Ministry comes here to appeal against the decision of a Court of Justice. It seems to me a most amazing thing that the Ministry should do that. Yet my hon. Friend said in so many words that that was his object."It seems to me unintelligible to requisition beans from a man who has parted with bills of lading. I do not know how it can be done."
dissented.
My right hon. and learned Friend was not here.
I am not challenging the mere words which were said to have been employed. No doubt, if this Bill is carried, the effect will be to get rid of the decision, but nobody appealed from that decision, because it was recognised that in law the decision was right. The object of this Bill is to alter the law, which is quite a different thing from appealing from a decision of the Court.
That is a careful and very different explanation from what we had from the Minister in charge of the Bill. My hon. Friend said the decision went against them in the Court, and, instead of appealing from the decision, they decided to come to this House to put it right.
Because the decision was recognised as right.
We will not go into the reasons. If the decision was not right—
I said it was right!
Then why should the House of Commons reverse it?
Because the Regulation was wrong.
Yes, and the Regulation is a year old now. It took over a year to summon up courage to come here. It is all right as regards the future, and from the day the Order was made, but the retrospective part of it the judge said was wrong, and I think this House ought to say it is wrong also, because retrospective legislation of this kind is very objectionable. I desire to put one point only, in conclusion, with regard to this matter. It has not been alleged by the Minister in charge of the Bill that the people who carried through these transactions acted illegally. They were within their legal rights. True, the hon. Gentleman said they were profiteering, but we cannot tell without a great many more facts. This House ought to be chary of pronouncing judgment on a few cases suddenly mentioned, without hearing the people charged, and I would ask the House to pay attention to this, that these people have exercised rights which have been supported in a Court of Justice. What is the reason why these men should be mulcted in damages and cases raked up against them? The appeals are heard, the money is paid, the transactions are over, and we are invited to tear everything up on this ex parte case which has been put before us. I say this is an unjust proposal to make to us. This House is the fountain of law in this country, and nothing is law except that which is approved by this House. These people committed no offence against this House; they broke no law. There may be a different side entirely to the judgment that is pronounced on their action by the hon. Member. I say they acted legally. They were also importing food which we wanted badly at that time, and this House will set a very evil precedent if it goes into these retrospective transactions without most carefully knowing what it does, or without giving those charged an opportunity of speaking.
On this matter of profiteering the hon. Member has a most extraordinary experience. Before he became a Minister he was a member of a Committee appointed by this House to examine into profiteering, and they called forty or fifty wit-necesses before them. The Report of the Committee did not make out any case about profiteering. Why? Because they had to get the facts out—to bring up the people. There is, therefore, no Report of the Committee to support the charges the hon. Member has made here. Under these circumstances, this is one of the most extraordinary proposals I ever remember hearing submitted to the House of Commons, and I think the House ought to go very carefully in regard to it. I have shown that there is no practical point whatever in the Bill. We do not know the extent of the transactions. My hon. Friend merely mentioned two or three cases—not 1,000 bags altogether—but he told us that the Ministry had dealt with 200,000 tons. Surely there is no necessity to go back to those little transactions to-day. I think the House ought to pay attention to the recommendation of the chambers of commerce. We have all got a memorandum, I believe, pointing out that the Bill would put an end to all commerce in a civilised country. It seems to me an example of the sort of action that has been going on in Russia lately. We are asked to assume that public opinion is behind it, just because the hon. Member says it, and because perhaps a number of hon. Gentlemen who have not listened to the Debate, but have read the Bill, will come in presently to vote for the Second Reading. I do ask those who have been good enough to give the matter some attention to consider what they are asked to assent to in this matter, and if they feel any doubt about it to support the Motion of my right hon. Friend.I am rather surprised, when a Bill is brought in by one member of the Government, to find that member of the Government conspicuous by his absence. Although I appreciate the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General is here, he is not backing the Bill. Therefore, I certainly think, out of courtesy to the House of Commons, the Minister in charge of the Bill should have made it his business to be here.
May I say my hon. friend was called away a minute ago, and will be back in the course of a few minutes?
I will accept that, but I am sure the learned Solicitor-General realises that the House does expect, when a Bill is in charge of one member, that he should be here. I join hands with my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London. I cannot understand how it is the Government should have brought in this Bill and expected the House of Commons, by a stroke of the pen, to turn round a decision which has been arrived at in the Courts of Law, and to say that, so far as we are concerned, we are going to upset what has been done there. The reply given by the right hon. and learned Solicitor-General was quite different from the reply given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Ministry, when he was challenged why he did not go to the Court of Appeal. It is rather astounding that a member of His Majesty's Government should have said that, "Instead of going to the Court of Appeal, we came to this House, where we expect to get justice." Surely it is a bad—
If the hon. Gentleman is professing to be quoting the words of the right hon. Gentleman, I can assure him that he is wrong, and that the right hon. Gentleman drew a special distinction between justice and what he said was a moral right.
Of course. I bow to your decision, but I shall look carefully into the Official Report to-morrow. I would venture to suggest, with all due deference, that the House was led to understand that the reason why the Government did not go to the Court of Appeal was because they wanted to get justice. I think this House is always prepared to have regard to justice in any case, but it Should be very careful before it attempts to upset decisions which, after careful investigation, have been given by a learned judge. Take our position at the present moment. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Islington (Mr. Lough) stated, probably in the event of the Government deciding to press this Bill to the bitter end, there will be Members coming into this House who are engaged on other business at the present time, and who, thinking that this is a Government measure of the utmost importance, will give it their support unaware of the fact that they are thereby upsetting practically the whole legal machinery of this country. I am sure that the Solicitor-General has the greatest possible respect for decisions arrived at in the Courts, and I can understand the in-vidiousness of the position in which he finds himself at the present moment in being called upon to defend the policy of a Government which has stated that the decision of a Court of Law, although admittedly properly arrived at, does not suit them, and asks the House, therefore, to upset that decision.
We are told much with regard to the sanctity of contracts. This is a subject which should not be dealt with in a spirit of levity. I am one of those who believe in the sanctity of contracts. A contract having been made ought to be carried out. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Controller has stated that gigantic profits have been made by various persons who have never even seen the goods which produce those profits. Everybody who has anything to do with a merchant's business must know that it is not usual for a merchant to go down and look at the goods; he buys or sells them while they are on board ship or at the docks, and that is what has been done in this case. Certain people who sold the goods within two or three days of their arrival made, it may be, a profit of £2 or £3 per ton, and then because within a week or so certain circumstances happened which caused the prices of the commodity to go up by leaps and bounds the goods were passed on to another purchaser at a profit, say, of £4 per ton, and he in turn again sold them, making a profit of £20 per ton. That is not profiteering; it is the usual course of events; it is a contingency which arises in business contracts. The merchant takes the risk; in some cases the outcome is satisfactory, but these transactions are not always satisfactory, and the result to those who participate in them is not in every case what is anticipated. The Government were asked to give us some figures, and the reply was that these transactions represented £1,000 or thereabouts, the Secretary to the Food Ministry adding in an undertone something about £600,000. But, as far as I am concerned, it is not a question of £l,000 or £600,000; the question is, is it right or wrong? I think it will be one of the greatest mistakes ever made if, as soon as the Government find themselves in a bit of a hole—and in these days of emergency, when they are seeking to control everything, for this House has always given them the necessary powers, mistakes can easily be imagined—it would be a great mistake to come down to the House of Commons and. say that because there was a mistake made eighteen months ago we must bring in a Bill the action of which shall be retrospective, so that transactions by all sorts of people in all sorts of commodities may be gone into by the Government or someone else—apparently it will not be the Courts of Law, for they are not to decide the matter—and someone is to be called upon to refund something. That is a vicious system which the House of Commons has always set itself against, and I hope it will continue to do so. We do not want to hear these charges of profiteering thrown across the floor of the House; we do not want to do anything to assist, facilitate, or increase profiteering in any way, but I do suggest to the Government that when they use that particular word they should be very careful indeed, because some of us happen to know the prices at which shipping is chartered at the present time, and the prices charged for the commodities delivered here by those ships. They are not always on the basis of 6s. or 7s. per ton dead-weight, but we find in many instances that the articles are charged for on the assumption that the market price is £12 or £15 per ton. I do not venture to say that that is profiteering, because it comes under Government handling, but I do think I have a right to say that a Government which has allowed itself to do that under other circumstances places itself in a very invidious position when it proposes to deal with people in the manner indicated in this Bill. I hope the Government are not going to press this matter. I do not think I have voted against any Government measure since the outbreak of hostilities, and I shall feel very sorry to have to do so on this occasion. We are often reminded of the necessity for abiding by our contracts. I consider myself bound by my contracts, and I have entered into many, good, bad, and indifferent. Unfortunately many have belonged to the category of bad, but bad as they may have been one has had to recognise them. We want to maintain that spirit; we do not want in the City of London or in any commercial centres in the world to have it thought that while there are to be no concessions and no remedies given to the merchant, yet the Government, by a stroke of the pen, shall secure what remedy it likes. There cannot be a very large number of contracts to be gone into if this Bill passes. If the Solicitor-General considers it necessary to bring in a Bill in any shape or form to govern any of these prices, let him do so, and I will unhesitatingly give him my support, but I do desire to protest against this proposal. I want to maintain contracts, I want to uphold business integrity, and, if the Government persist in pushing a Bill through for which there is no real necessity, a Bill affecting transactions carried out many months ago, the books In connection with which ought now to be closed, I cannot see my way to support them. Let bygones be bygones. If somebody has made a profit, let him retain it. If the original purchaser has not made as large a profit as the person to whom he sold, he is not going to take action because of that. I do hope the Government will reconsider their decision and see the necessity for withdrawing this proposal. I am sure a large majority of the members of the Government are in accord with the view I am stating. Unless the Bill is withdrawn I cannot help feeling that a great majority of those who have had the opportunity of hearing the present Debate may deem it their duty to support the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London if he presses his Amendment to a Division.5.0 P.M.
Having been so long connected with the City of London, where I know feeling is very strong at the present time in regard to this subject, I wish to say a few words on this Bill. I have, of course, no sympathy whatever with profiteering, and I know nothing of this class of industry. It has, I believe, been stated by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Controller that 80 per cent. of these transactions were perfectly satisfactory, and, therefore, it is only a question of dealing with the remaining 20 per cent. of them. I am informed, too, that all the contracts contained a Clause with regard to arbitration and, if these matters were submitted to arbitration then if profiteering can be shown it can be dealt with in a proper way and the persons who made the undue profit will not get the gain which they anticipated. I am further informed that the Government did offer arbitration but were not prepared to pay the penalty if they lost. After all it is a very serious thing to interfere with the sanctity of contracts. Are we not at the present time conducting an awful war to uphold the sanctity of treaties? Surely then there ought to be a very strong case made out to justify any interference with the sanctity of contracts. If there has been any injustice cannot that injustice be remedied in some other way? If I am correctly informed that these contracts did contain an arbitration clause and that under them any gross cases of profiteering can be dealt with, it seems to me the Government are taking a wrong line. They have not made out a case to justify such extreme action, and, in view of the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary only cited two cases of profiteering as justification for a measure of this kind, it does seem to me that the Bill goes a little too far. As I say, I have no sympathy whatever with profiteering, but I do think the Government ought to hesitate before they, so to speak, bring in a new departure with regard to upsetting contracts without the gravest justification.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Dulwich (Colonel Sir F. Hall) was good enough to say that he thought I was for the moment in an invidious position. Perhaps he will believe me if I say that until he suggested it I was not aware of it. He said that the task upon which we were engaged was nothing less than the task of upsetting the whole legal machinery of the country. If I may, for the sake of the argument, and only for the sake of the argument, assume that those words were seriously intended, I should like just to look at exactly what this Bill is doing, and what is the mischief which it is intended to remove. As the House is aware, among the Defence of the Realm Regulations there is a certain Regulation 2 F which gives the Food Controller very large powers in regard to the distribution and the price of food. Under that Regulation the Food Controller, on the 1st day of May last year, issued a Regulation, which is conveniently reprinted in the Schedule to this Bill, and "undoubtedly the intention of that Regulation was to enable the Food Controller to control the price of all future supplies of beans, peas, and pulse. One hears from time to time—I have heard many times, and always with sympathy, in this House during the last sixteen months—protests against what are called technical objections. The House is naturally so eager that one's mind should be directed to the substance of the matter and not to the mere letter of the law. The substance of that Regulation was to give the Food Controller control over all beans, peas, and pulse, but for some reason the drafting of it did not technically quite succeed in the object, and there followed, after an interval of a fortnight, a further Regulation, also printed in the Schedule, dated the 16th of May, and that Regulation it was thought did completely fulfil the object and satisfy all the technical requirements. That Regulation gave control over all beans, peas and pulse which had arrived, or would arrive, so long as they were within the hands of persons owning or having power to sell or dispose of them. Once more the intention was plain, but once more a technical objection might be raised, "Is the Regulation quite comprehensive in its terms?" For three months nothing happened except that the Order was loyally observed, and then on the 30th of July—the importance of the date was that it was precisely on the eve of the Long Vacation—there was a case tried before a learned judge in the King's Bench Division, in which it appeared upon the facts that the food in question was not in the hands of the original consignee, although it was in his hands that it was sought to be attached. The original consignee had agreed to sell the property, and the person who then had power to sell or dispose of the property was not before the Court. It was made clear that there was still left a gap that had to be filled, and that was the case where the original consignee had parted with the property by an agreement to sell. Therefore this Bill comes in. No doubt there has been some lapse of time since then.
Hear, hear!
No doubt there has, but the fact that a Bill of this kind was pending was, I should have thought, sufficiently well known in this trade. In any case, the point I am seeking to make is that so far from any attempt to upset what the hon. and gallant Member for Dulwich is so much concerned about, the legal machinery of this country, what the Government is now engaged upon is the task of filling up that little gap which the learned judge disclosed. If we had gone to the Court of Appeal and argued—and argued vainly—that the learned judge was wrong, we might then have been open, to that observation, but, as it is, what the Government is doing is to accept that position and proceed to fill up the gap.
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if that is all it is desired to do, why it is necessary to make this retrospective?
Because it must be retrospective; and for this reason—that the gap which you had to fill up is a gap which is filled by persons who have in fact—that is to say, in the past—parted with the property. That is what retrospective means. If my hon. and gallant Friend, who, I am sure, has no other interest in this matter except perfectly to understand it, will be good enough to look at Section 1 of the Bill he will see that that is made perfectly plain. The simple object is to provide that these Orders which are in the Schedule, the imperfection of which has been pointed out in a Court of Law, shall apply to the original consignees of the beans, peas, and pulse, not with standing that, at the date of the making of the Order affecting any beans, peas, or pulse, such consignees thereof had parted with the property. That is to say, they were the original consignees. They had ceased to hold the property, but, notwithstanding that, this Order shall apply. Whatever may be thought of that measure, I do respectfully submit that it cannot be said to amount to an upsetting of the whole legal machinery of the country. It is, on the contrary, a recognition of the fact that the learned judge has pointed out a flaw in the existing Regulations, and that in the absence of further legislation that flaw cannot be made good. My right hon. Friend the Member for Central Hackney (Sir A. Spicer) spoke of the sanctity of con tracts—
Hear, hear!
a phrase which is never mentioned in this House without exciting cheers from at least one hon. Member. Nobody here is attacking the sanctity of contracts. What the Government is doing is simply to say that where the original Regulation, by a mere defect of terminology, failed to accomplish the purpose at which it obviously aimed it is not going to be deterred from giving effect to that intention because, in the meantime, certain contracts have been made. When one looks at the figures—I am not going to repeat the figures given by my hon. Friend (Mr. Clynes)—I suggest that never could the sanctity of contracts be invoked in a less exhilarating cause than that of the person who was the consignee of commodities of this kind, and who sold them six or seven times and made this enormous profit. My right hon. Friend went further and said there were only two cases. Of course, my hon. Friend is so fair a controversialist that he picks out two cases that are fair samples. Those are two typical cases, but if it were the fact that there were only two cases, might I ask my right hon. Friend to consider this? If there were only two cases of contracts that had to bet cancelled, or cancelled both in themselves and in the subsidiary contracts to which they had given rise, how small is the hardship caused by this Bill! The two things cannot be true, that on the one hand this Bill is going to tear up an enormous number of contracts to the great hardship of a large number of people, and that, on the other hand, it is going to relate only to two contracts. The fact is that these two contracts were typical contracts, and it may well be that a good many contracts may have to be cancelled under this Bill. I do venture to ask the House to support this Bill, because it is a measure obviously intended to give effect to the original intention of the Government, to fill up the lacuna which the judge has pointed out, and not, as is suggested, to override the decision of the Court.
How about the Arbitration Clause?
The Arbitration Clause is not before me, but I cannot, in the absence of the document, conceive an Arbitration Clause so wide that it will be able to accomplish the purposes of this Bill in the absence of legislation.
I do not wish to associate myself with any idea of defending what has been stated by the hon. Member who introduced the Bill to be profiteering, but I really feel that the hon. Member, in introducing the Bill this afternoon, has undertaken the task of defending a Department in which he was not interested at the time these transactions took place. The gravamen of the argument, from such information as was given to me at the time, arises not only from the fact that the Bill itself is to prevent profiteering, but that the Government did not reduce the prices to the public to anything like the amount at which they were taken over by the Government, and that the prices still remain. The hon. Member was able to say, in a general way, that the amount of money involved was somewhere about £600,000. May I ask, before we go to a vote, that we may have the amount given of the difference between the price realised by his Department and the price given to the consignees for the goods which are included in this, so that we may have some idea of both sides, because profiteering is just as bad on the part of the Government as it is on the part of the individual, with this exception—an hon. Member says: "No," because, I suppose, we all share in it, but to the individual the process is just as harmful as though it were obtained by individual sale? I have no desire to opposo the general object of the Bill, namely, to prevent profiteering in foodstuffs, but I want the hon. Gentleman to state what was the amount of money the Government have netted?
That seems hardly relevant to anything in this Bill. It would seem to be a very suitable matter for discussion on the Vote for the Food Controller's Department.
I rather want to make an appeal to the Government that, owing to the great misunderstanding there must be about this Bill, they should either withdraw it or that the Parliamentary Secretary should give an undertaking that some settlement will become to with reference to the past transactions. Everybody in the House wants to stop profiteering as much as possible, but on considering what happened when these transactions took place—there was a great speculation which it is a matter of history did take place in beans—I do as a Member of Parliament and as a business man want to know how far these transactions were unwarranted. I might say that one of the reasons why I ask the hon. Gentleman to postpone the Bill or to make some statement as to what he proposes to do is that only last week a deputation came before the Commercial Committee of the House of Commons—a private group of commercial Members and that deputation assured us that the number of outside transactions which took place—that is the people who were not legitimately engaged in the trade—was very small. I do not know whether that is so or not, but they promised to bring evidence to put before the Committee of three members appointed to go into the transactions, so that the Commercial Committee might be told whether there was a large outside speculation or not.
I think if it could be proved that there was a large outside speculation—and what I mean by that is, not that the people usually engaged in the bean or pea trade, have, in the ups or downs of ordinary trading, gained or lost by it—but that persons engaged in the sugar or the tea trade have come into this business as speculators; and this is the point, as I understand, which is recognised by the Government as profiteering, that that outside speculation should be dealt with. If it is found when those contracts have been gone into that there has not been a great amount of profiteering, that the Government should consider the appeal which has been made by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Islington, and should reconsider their decision. I think there is a great deal in what has been said about the sanctity of contracts. The Solicitor-General, with his great legal ability, rather wiped that aspect of the case aside. I do, however, think that those persons who are in business—their legitimate business—which they are doing within the four corners of the law, though we know we live in somewhat unusual times—we quite admit that—and who were not informed that they must not trade in this way, should not be dealt with as suggested. It is an unwise course to adopt. I certainly must point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that the City of London feels very strongly on the matter. They feel that legislation may be brought up to go back on other transactions. There is an Arbitration Clause in these contracts. I have not seen the contracts in this particular case, but I know the usual clause, which says that any dispute arising between a buyer and a seller shall be settled by arbitration in the usual way. Having regard to the fact that these contracts all have that arbitration Clause in, as I think is admitted by my hon. Friend opposite, would it not be wiser for the Government to hold its hand for a while? I am bound to point out to the Government that we do not want to hinder in this matter at all. We want to help the right hon. Gentleman and his chief. It, however, would seem to be desirable that he should agree that some commercial man of high standing should be appointed by the Government as sole arbitrator. It would be his function to go into these transactions. If they are found to be speculative transactions by people not usually engaged in the bean and pea trade action can be taken accordingly. There may be a small number with contracts of the sort. Their profits should be eliminated, and the differences which have arisen should be paid in the ordinary way. I think then that the Minister would feel quite justified in having his Bill to deal with the other transactions. I make that suggestion to him in good faith. Many of us want to help him. There has, however, evidently been a mistake made by the Department. If the right hon. Gentleman agrees with what I propose it will not be difficult for him to get a man to carry out this arbitration on behalf of the Government quite fairly, and subsequently the Government will have no difficulty in getting their Bill and, further, of preventing transactions of this kind, which, I agree, are most objectionable.I rise to support the suggestions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Islington. This Bill contains a new and a dangerous principle, which is that a Government Department may issue an illegal Order, causing loss to a large number of bonâ fide commercial people, and then bring in a Bill to legalise that action without putting in the Bill any Clause to compensate the people who have suffered by their illegal action. That is, I say, a new and a dangerous principle. I wish my right hon. Friend the Solicitor-General had remained here. I asked him to come. He did so, but he has gone again. This question cannot really be absolutely decided without some knowledge of the law. I should have liked the right hon. and learned Gentleman present while I put to him a few simple questions. For instance, "Was this an illegal Order?" The right hon. and learned Gentleman has tried to lead the House to imagine that it was a mere drafting or technical slip. To my mind, it was nothing of the kind. The Defence of the Realm Regulations have no power to cancel contracts retrospectively. That being so, the Order was absolutely illegal. I have here a report of a case before Mr. Justice Rowlatt, who himself in his time, before he became a judge, was one of the Law Officers of the Crown. For many years, I think, he was junior counsel to the Treasury. He is thoroughly cognisant of the powers of the Law Officers of the Crown, of the various Government Departments, and of the duties of the Attorney-General. When the case was being argued he said:
That is to say, you cannot tear up a contract after the contract has been completed, the property and goods have passed, and the money has been paid."It seems to me unintelligible to requisition from a man who has parted with the bill of lading. I do not know how it can be done."
"To say to a man: Repay the money now. Go to the person to whom you sold the goods and get the goods back. I think the Government should repay."
There may be other persons.
I am glad of that interruption. He will have to go to a second or a third man, and you might find ultimately that the beans or peas had been dispersed: that they could not be got.
Eaten up!
It has been an illegal Order, and not merely a slip in drafting. I wish the right hon. and learned Gentleman had been here to say whether I am right or wrong. I myself have been in the law for more than thirty years, and I say that a Government Department has no power to make this Order. I am confirmed in that opinion by the report of the case to which I have just referred. It proceeds—"Meantime he would go to the other man and demand his money back, a state of things which upsets all commercial arrangements, and puts all matters of commerce into chaos and confusion."
Therefore, not only Sir John Simon said, but the Attorney-General admitted, that this was an illegal Order, and not at all what the learned Solicitor-General wanted to lead the House to understand—a mere drafting or a technical slip. The Order being illegal, the Government are, in the words of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Ministry, liable to damages—that is to say, the people that this Bill would bring in would be able to recover from the Food Minister, or the Wheat Commission, or the hon. Gentleman. The Parliamentary Secretary is neither a lawyer nor a millionaire. It is only due to him to say that, for I very much contest the proposition, and that is why I wanted the Solicitor-General to be here. There is no power over the part of the Food Minister in the direction indicated. There may be a series of actions between the people who sold some cargo to the Minister, and a great deal of injustice may be done. I very much doubt, however, whether any action at law can lie against the Food Minister for an illegal act, for that would be against the constitution of his office. It is a principle of law, and the thing cannot be done. I only know of one case in which something similar was done, and I myself was concerned in it. The Postmaster-General was sued under the Telegraphs Act, but that was held to be done, not in the course of his office, but under the special terms of an Act of Parliament. If, then, those to whom a very great injustice may have been done, and who have lost money, cannot recover from the Food Minister, their remedy would be against the actual person—his private estate, not out of Government funds—who made or who enforced the Order. I said that my hon. Friend beneath me, the Parliamentary Secretary, is not a millionaire. I do not suppose that if judgment were obtained against him for £600,000 that he would be able to pay it."Sir John Simon said he wanted to find some word, the least offensives word he could, to describe the transaction, whereupon, the Attorney-General said: 'Oh, it is no question of offence.' Sir J. Simon: Very well. The most moderate word I can find is that the Order was ultra vires—that it is beyond the powers of the Department to make. The Attorney-General: I do not particularly care. I would rather not have any general statement."
Would it rather not be the Food Controller?
The Food Controller probably did not make the Order himself, or did not personally enforce it, and in this class of case it is only those who do the damage themselves who can be sued. I have no objection, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to this Bill being passed. The Government are quite right in coming here and saying that something has been done by the Department. I believe in perfect good faith, for I do not suppose for a moment that the Ministry of Food knew they were doing wrong, for if they had known it, they would not have done it. I make no charges or insinuations of any sort or description against the Ministry, but they have found that they have done something which they had no power to do, and people have lost by it. The Department have a perfect right to come to this House and ask that that action should be legalised. This House, no doubt, will legalise it, and will not allow the Minister, or a subordinate official of any Minister, who has made or who has enforced an Order which has caused loss to people to be personally subject to any heavy damages. Therefore the House will pass a Bill of this kind, provided always that the Government, whose responsible servant the person is, will make up the loss to the individuals injured by the illegal Order. That is the whole case against the Bill, that it does not contain any Clause for the compensation of these people upon whom loss has been inflicted by the action of the Government. I am sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food has imported a little prejudice into the case, because it has given rise to charges and counter-charges of profiteering—profiteering by individuals and profiteering by the Government. That is not at all relevant to the matter at issue, which is that these merchants—I have a list of 100 of them supplied to me by the London Chamber of Commerce who have lost money over these transactions—have been guilty of profiteering. Any Committee set up by the Parliamentary Secretary should be set up for the purpose of doing what is right in the matter, of seeing that the losses are reimbursed, and not allow any profits to these people which in any shape or form could be called profiteering. All that we ask the hon. Gentleman is that he shall say that all these transactions shall be gone into by some able and impartial authority with full power to award only what is just and fair to these people.
This Bill contains a new and a dangerous principle; it is a Bill to legalise acts which have caused great losses without giving any compensation to the people who have suffered. Let the Government put in a compensation Clause and everybody will be satisfied, and the Bill may go through possibly all three stages in one day. The mere fact that the Bill has been brought in proves that the Ministers admit they have been guilty of illegality. There has been a great deal of talk as to why the Government, instead of going to the Court of Appeal, came to this House. They did not go to the Court of Appeal because they knew they would do no good there, and they were obliged to come to this House. In the language of lawyers, the Parliamentary Secretary is in mercy. Suppose a person has committed an illegal practice at a General Election, he makes an application to the Court to whitewash his offence, and he is said to be in mercy. This Bill has been brought in because the Department has exceeded its powers, and they are in mercy. I agree that somebody should be appointed to thoroughly investigate these transactions, so that none of them shall lose by the illegal act which has been committed. The compensation should be quite fair and nothing in the nature of profiteering. This new and dangerous principle goes to the root of all commercial security and confidence. If in future the merchants and traders of this country are to have no compensation at all in cases where a Government Department issue an illegal Order causing enormous losses and cancelling past contracts and then come here and simply pass a Bill legalising those illegal transactions without compensation, then I think commercial confidence and security will be very much injured in this country.I am one of those, and I am sure there are a large number in this House and in the country, who has a very high esteem of the hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill, and I congratulate him upon the very successful way in which he has discharged his duties. It is therefore with very great regret that I have to point out that this Bill is not quite so simple as it looks. No legislation of this kind can ever have a retrospective effect, and we have not got to such a stage that people, acting under Regulations, can alter the law of the land without Parliamentary authority. That would be an extraordinary position to get into, and when the learned Solicitor-General suggested that this Bill is of a general character, he could not have looked at it closely, because it is expressly confined to the two Orders in the Schedule, and it does not deal with the general law; if it did, it would be proposing to give to those who administer Regulations a power which no one else has, and which no one, I hope, ever will have, of attempting to regulate the rights of people without an Act of Parliament by retrospective legislation. Such a power the House would not look at. I think profiteering is a very good word on which to justify support of this Bill. We all have a strong opinion against profiteering, such a strong opinion that 80 per cent. of the War profits come back to the Treasury. Besides this 80 per cent. they have to pay Income Tax and other charges, which brings it down to something like 14 per cent. of the profits, to which I think they are honestly entitled under the law passed dealing with excessive profits.
Just consider what this Regulation proposes! It suggests that a man who has parted with property shall be held to still have that property, and that he should still be considered to possess those goods, which are to be valued at a certain rate per ton. The original consignee could not get back the original bill of lading; there- fore, under this Order, he has been asked to do a thing which is impossible. I suggest that, inasmuch as it comes down now to 14 per cent. of the legitimate profits, and inasmuch as we are rather bold in our legislation and our ways of carrying out Acts of Parliament, we should look with grave suspicion upon legislation which affects the rights of individuals and Regulations issued contrary to the law of the land without compensating the individual who suffers. I should be very sorry in a small case of this sort that the House of Commons should say that, inasmuch as the administrative power has passed a Regulation which assumes the right of retrospective legislation, and affects the rights of individuals, this House is to come in and make that bad Regulation a good one. I really think it is asking the House of Commons to do too much.The real interest I have in this Debate is to endeavour to see the facts in their true perspective. The Food Controller made certain Orders beyond his powers, and they were simply waste paper. Proceedings arose in the Courts with regard to them, and the Courts held that those Orders were waste paper. The Minister tells us, and the Solicitor-General also tells us, the reason why the judgment given is right is because the original Orders were wrong. That being a statement of the facts, this Bill proposes to make what was originally wrong right with the legislation of this country, and that is a very serious proposition. Of course an oversight occurred, but once the bills of lading passed into the hands of other trading parties the original consignee has no property in them. Orders were issued by the Food Controller extending to those who have now got control of the goods. This is not a case of profiteering at all, but it is a case of interfering with contracts. There may have been fairly large profits in connection with these transactions, but that is all in the usual course of trade. [An HON. MEMBER: "There might have been losses!"] Yes; there might have been losses, but there is nothing in this case to impeach anybody with anything in the nature of wrongdoing. Simply under the operation of the law these goods have passed into the hands of other parties, and you are now endeavouring to undo all these transactions, and to establish them as was originally intended by the Food Controller at certain prices. The Food Controller will subsequently communicate to these people the prices he will be prepared to pay for the same, but that seems to me to be a very extraordinary power. Of course we have no desire to embarrass the Government in this matter, but I think the best thing to do is to recognise the mistakes, face the actual situation, and bear the loss.
It is only by permission of the House that I can say a few words and address myself again to the subject of this Debate. I wish to take this opportunity mainly to respond to the suggestions that have been made to consider further the position of men who were not engaged in any speculations or were not outsiders, and men who have quite a legitimate case and station in the ordinary way of trade. The Bill is not designed to impose upon any section of the trading community the losses which have been referred to by one or two speakers. Even if we did everything possible to consider and to settle the claims of those who had quite legitimate dealings at the time in question, a Bill like this would be necessary. Therefore I ask that a Second Reading should be given to this Bill, and I am quite prepared between now and the Committee stage to go fully into the matter and consider what may be required to safeguard properly the rights and businesses of those who have claims on the lines which have been indicated by various speakers. I do not accept the view that this is merely a point of law. I make no claim to understand the technical points that are raised by the decision of the Courts. As I understand the matter, the whole question at issue is this, whether certain men at a time when there was severe food shortage had a right to engage in transactions which meant selling the same article six or seven times over, and at each sale considerably increasing the cost of that article to the consumer. In submitting this Bill to the House, I showed that in a very short time profits had been made in connection with these transactions amounting to 147 per cent. increase on the original sum that was paid. That is not legitimate business, and the defence of the Realm Acts and the Regulations made there under have involved so many millions of people in this Kingdom in personal loss and in property loss that I say, if such a Bill is necessary in order to repair the Regulations made under those Acts in connection with these contracts, then contracts must not be set up as the sole thing in this country which must stand above the Defence of the Realm Regulations. I do not mind doing even some damage to the understood sanctity of contracts if the damage amounts to no more than merely preventing men at such a time as I have indicated engaging in transactions which I do not think were creditable to them, and which I am certain at the time were strongly resented by public opinion.
Do you include Hindhaugh?
I cannot now give any pledge or any particular promise.
The question is not whether the profits were excessive or not. The hon. Member is endeavouring, not to stop excess profits on contracts in the future, but to go back on the past and to declare a contract which has been entered into to be null and void. That has never been done by anyone. The Food Controller does not intend to go back and say that the decision which was given by Mr. Justice Darling and two other justices in the tea hoarding case is to be reversed, and there is not going to be a Bill passed making the Order against tea hoarding retrospective. This is the first time that an Order has been made retrospective, and it is the retrospective nature of the Order to which we object.
I can assure my right hon. Friend that was just the point to which I was coming. I want candidly to say to the House that if this Bill were not made retrospective it would be valueless. It is intended to deal with transactions which cannot be adequately dealt with by the Regulations made by the Food Controller who preceded my Noble Friend who at present occupies that office. Candidly, this is a Bill to repair the defects of the Food Regulations that were made in May, 1917. We ask the House to pass it for the reasons which I have already given. I hope that a Second Reading may be unanimously accorded to it, but I say, in asking for that Second Reading, that we have no wish to cast any reflection whatever, or to impose any losses upon those who, in the ordinary course, were engaged in legitimate trade at the time.
Who is to adjudicate and decide whether the trade was legitimate or not?
It is not for me to answer at this moment, but if my right hon. Friend asks me, I should say, if any step is taken to adjudicate upon that matter, it ought to be a matter of mutual agreement, in order that we have confidence reposed in it. Whatever may be done, I think the House will agree that, in the main, those were transactions which the country could not tolerate in connection with that or any other trade, and this Bill is justified, even although it is retrospective, because we must go back in order to make matters right.
I am anxious to arrive at an agreement if the hon. Gentleman will agree to some Committee—I think that was the word he used—being set up to adjudicate on retrospective contracts and to settle them in some fair way.
Will the hon. Gentleman promise that in Committee he will amend the Bill by making provision for arbitration to take place by some expert who can tell whether the transactions were legitimate or not?
I have not, I think, referred either to a Committee or to any beard of arbitrators. I had in mind the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Islington (Mr. Wiles), when he referred to the fact that
Division No. 34.]
| AYES.
| [5.53 p.m.
|
Adamson, William | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Hughes, Spencer Leigh |
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. | Cowan, Sir W. H. | Hunter, Major Sir Charles Rodk. |
Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte | Crooks, Rt. Hon. William | Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H. |
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire) | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire) | Jacobsen, Thomas Owen |
Anderson, William C. | Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas | Jones, Sir Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) |
Arnold, Sydney | Denniss, E. R. B. | Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) |
Baker, Rt. Hon. Harold T. (Accrington) | Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir J. B | Jones, W. Kennedy (Hornsey) |
Baker, Maj. Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.) | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney) |
Baldwin, Stanley | Essex, Sir Richard Walter | Jowett, Frederick William |
Barnett, Capt. R. W. | Faber, George Denison (Clapham) | King, Joseph |
Barnston, Major Harry | Fell, Sir Arthur | Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement |
Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick Burghs) | Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson | Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton |
Bathurst, Col. Hon. A. B. (Glouc., E.) | Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) |
Bellairs, Commander C. W. | Foster, Philip Staveley | Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) |
Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Galbraith, Samuel | Levy, Sir Maurice |
Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish. | Gibbs, Col. George Abraham | Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert |
Bethell, Sir J. H. | Gilbert, J. D. | Lloyd, George Butier (Shrewsbury) |
Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Gilmour, Lieut.-Col. John | Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston) |
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Glanville, Harold James | Loyd, Archie Kirkman |
Boyton, Sir James | Greenwood, Sir G. G. (Peterborough) | MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh |
Brace, Rt. Hon. William | Greenwood, Sir Hamar (Sunderland) | McMicking, Major Gilbert |
Bridgeman, William Clive | Gulland, Rt. Hon. John William | Maitland, Sir A. G. Steel- |
Bryce, J. Annan | Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight) | Marshall, Arthur Harold |
Bull, Sir William James | Hanson, Charles Augustin | Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred |
Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence | Morgan, George Hay |
Butcher, John George | Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) | Morison, Hector (Hackney, S.) |
Buxton, Noel | Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry | Morison, Thomas B. (Inverness) |
Carew, C. R. S. | Henry, Sir Charles | Morton, Sir Alpheus Cleophas |
Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon | Newman, Major John R. P. |
Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hills, Major John Waller | Parker, James (Halifax) |
Clynes, John R. | Hodge, Rt. Hon. John | Pease. Rt. Hon. H. Pike (Darlington) |
Coates, Major Sir Edward Feetham | Holmes, Daniel Turner | Peel, Major Hon. G. (Spalding) |
Collins, Sir W. (Derby) | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Pratt, J. W. |
Colvin, Col. Richard Seals | Hudson, Walter | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) |
there was already in contracts an arbitration Clause. I said that I would be quite willing to look into the matter to see how legitimate trade could be brought within that provision.
The hon. Gentleman says that he will look into the matter, but will he appoint persons who really understand, and can ascertain from their knowledge, whether these transactions were legitimate or not?
I venture to suggest that there are many experts in the City of London and in various parts of the Kingdom, and if some Committee is going to be set up to deal with this intricate question, one would have more confidence in it if the hon. Gentleman, for instance, would apply to one of the chambers of commerce and ask them to appoint the Committee.
I hope my hon. Friends will forgive me. They are rather trying to extract from me a promise which I do not feel at the moment qualified or ready to give, and I cannot go beyond the general assurance which I have given and which I hope they will accept.
Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
The House divided: Ayes, 134; Noes,23.
Raffan, Peter Wilson | Thorne, William (West Ham) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
Randles, Sir John S. | Tickler, T. G. | Wilson-Fox, Henry (Tamworth) |
Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) | Wolmer, Viscount |
Rees, G. C. (Carnarvonshire, Arfon) | Waring, Major Walter | Wood, Hon. E. F. L. (Yorks, Ripon) |
Richardson, Arthur (Rotherham) | Watson, J. B. (Stockton) | Wright, Henry Fitzherbert |
Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) | Wedgwood, Lieut.-Commander Josiah C. | Yeo, Sir Alfred William |
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) | Wheler, Major Granville C. H. | Younger, Sir George |
Rowlands, James | White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston) | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
Sanders, Col. Robert Arthur | Whiteley, Sir H. J. | |
Snowden, Philip | Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N.W.) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Lord Edmund Talbot and Mr. Dudley Ward. |
Stirling, Lieut.-Col. Archibald | Williams, Col. Sir Robert (Dorset, W.) | |
Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North) | Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R. |
NOES.
| ||
Archdale, Lieut. E.M. | Kiley, James Daniel | Pringle, William M. R. |
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Lindsay, William Arthur | Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert |
Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset) | Lonsdale, James R. | Sutherland, John E. |
Booth, Frederick Handel | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Thomas, Sir A. G. (Monmouth, S.) |
Burns, Rt. Hon. John | McCalmont, Brig.-Gen. Robert C. A. | Watt, Henry A. |
Hamilton, Rt. Hon. Lord C. J. | McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | |
Haslam, Lewis | Meux, Adml. Hon. Sir Hedworth | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir F. Banbury and Lt.-Col. Sir Fred Hall. |
Henderson, John M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Pearce, Sir William (Limehouse) | |
Hogge, J. M. | Peto, Basil Edward |
Main Question put, and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for to-morrow (Tuesday).—[ Mr. James Hope.]
Post Office (No 2) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
This Bill in itself is really a very simple one. It deals with the new rates of postage—the increase of the ½d. postcard to a 1d., and the various increases on the Inland book packet. It is desirable, however, in view of the probable general discussion that will take place, that I should explain to the House the various increases it is proposed to make which will be carried out by Executive action and not through the legislation of the House. As to the increased rates which the Retrenchment Committee, which sat in 1915, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Monmouthshire (Mr. McKenna) was Chairman, advised should be made in the services rendered by the Post Office, some of them have been carried out, but the proposal to abolish the 1d. post was not persisted in. Certain changes were made which added some £2,000,000 to the profits of the Post Office at the time, and this at a time when the Post Office was making quite reasonable and normal profits. I will read just a few lines of the Report of the Retrenchment Committee, which says:If at that time, when we had had a little over one year of war—I think it was September 1915, that these changes were brought in—the matter was so urgent when we had what looked like a very large Budget, although it would seem a very small one now—it was then a Budget of £272,000,000—there is much greater urgency for it now when we have a Budget of £842,000,000 with which to help to defray the cost of the War. In 1915 there were many sources of taxation which were untapped. I think most of them have been touched now, and we have to go further a field and look for other sources where the money can be raised. The increased cost of the work of the Post Office, compared with what it was at the beginning of the War, is enormous. Materials of all kinds have increased very largely in price. I will give the House one or two examples which are the most striking. A purchase of hard-drawn copper and bronze wire cost before the War £242,000. The present day cost would be £436,000. The pre-war price of iron wire and a certain amount of iron stores amounted to £65,000. To-day's cost of that is probably £163,000. Twine in pre-war days cost £43,000; now it is exactly double—£86,000. The cost of equipping a postman before the War was £2 17s. 2d.; now it is £6 18s. 2d. Not only is there the increased cost of the services of all kinds and the prices of raw materials that are used, but the war bonus which has been awarded to the staff amounts, in round figures, to £6,000,000, and at present there is a further claim before the Arbitration Board which, if it is granted, will amount—I have not the exact figure—it is estimated, to something like £5,000,000 more. Before the War the profits of the Post Office were something like an average of £5,000,000 per annum. This year, after putting accounts on a commercial basis, we estimate that the net profit will be only something between £2,000,000 and £2,500,000. The uncertainty of the market prices makes it rather difficult to fix an exact sum of what the profits will be. These figures may be, perhaps, a little bit confusing to hon. Members when they look at the figures which were given in the White Paper, but these are made up on a peace basis, and any deficiency is made good by issues from the Vote of Credit. The estimated expenditure in the White Paper for 1917–18 is £25,980,000, and the estimated receipts for 1917–18 are £35,300,000. But when the accounts were compiled on a commercial basis we find that the actual expenditure for 1917–18 came to £38,600,000, and the actual receipts to £43,000,000. The actual expenditure includes payments made by the Post Office for other Government Departments and the increased cost of working the Post Office. The increased receipts are accounted for by taking credit for services rendered to other Government Departments. The Estimates for expenditure in the White Paper for 19l8–19are £26,141,000, and the estimated receipts on the existing basis of taxation at £34,600,000. The estimated expenditure for 1918–19 on a commercial basis is £42,500,000 and the estimated receipts on a commercial basis for 1918–19, on the present rates of postage, are £45,000,000, and, on the new rates, £48,400,000. The House will see that really the profit is getting very near the vanishing point, and if the Post Office is to pay its way there must be some increase in the charges made for the services rendered to the public. It will be generally admitted that the user should pay for the services rendered to him and that it should not be a charge on the taxpayer. As to the inland rate of letters, from 1897 to 1915 it was 1d. up to 4 ozs. with a ½d. extra charge for each 2 ozs. over the 4 ozs. In 1915 the Retrenchment Committee recommended a ½d. on all postal communications, and extra charges on heavier letters—up to 1 oz. l½d., 1 to 2 ozs. 2½d., and a ½d. for every 2 ozs. increase above 2 ozs. This proposal was not then carried out, but the scale adopted was 1 oz. and under 1d., 1 oz. to 2 ozs. 2d., and 2 to 4 ozs. 2½d. The scale at present proposed is to put all these three scales on to one flat rate of l½d.—that is to say, under 1 oz. l½d., 1 to 2 ozs. l½d., and 2 to 4 ozs. l½d., with a ½d. per 2 ozs. for every additional 2 ozs. above 4 ozs. Before the War, the letters of 1 oz. and under comprised 86 per cent. of the total. It is now proposed on that 86 per cent. to add one ½d. Of the remaining 14 per cent., one-third were over 1 oz. and under 2 ozs., and on these the reduction will be ½d."We assume that in view of the cost of the War it will now be generally admitted that the Post Office administration should endeavour to to secure as large a net revenue as possible to the State, with due regard to the needs of the business community and to the principle of paying fair wages."
Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the 86 per cent. sent at a 1d. paid as a business transaction.
It paid as a business transaction under the normal conditions, but it will not do so in future. The sample post did not exist from 1897 to 1915. In 1897, when the charges were reduced, the sample post was merged into the letter rate. This was re-established in 1915, in order to meet certain objections which were raised to the scale at the time. The administration of the sample post has proved full of difficulties, and continually causes friction with the public owing to the difficulty of deciding what is and what is not a sample. A very considerable staff is kept employed at the Post Office engaged in trying to settle various disputes which arise from time to time with the public as to what should be a sample and what should not. It is proposed now to merge the sample post with the letter post. Book packets not exceeding 1 oz. will not be changed; exceeding 1 oz., but not exceeding 2 ozs., will have id. to pay, and above 2 ozs. will be merged in the letter rate. Ordinary notices, receipts, insurance cards, circulars, etc., largely sent by approved insurance societies, trade unions, and benefit societies, will in consequence suffer no increased postage rates on the large part of their business.
The next point I come to is for letters to troops abroad. This alone, with the parcel post, is really a very large traffic to handle, and causes the employment, varying with the various seasons of the year, of from three to five special trains per day. The proposal was that they should have the same increase as the inland post, which would bring in about £500,000 a year. We considered that this would not inflict any hardship on the relatives of soldiers at home as the free letters would still come from the troops home, and those who wanted 1d. communications would be able to do it on the postcards, on which it is arranged that the rate should remain at 1d. But since this proposal was first brought forward we have had good evidence that the troops abroad would consider that rather a hardship. The last thing in the world that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I wish is that these men should be put to any hardship, or even imagined grievance, which would leave them rather sore when they are undergoing such dreadful trials and real hardships at the front. I am told they appreciate correspondence from home move even than parcels containing luxuries, which they can get at the canteens at the front, but they cannot get news so easily from their people unless they have the cheap post. After consultation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it has been decided to withdraw this proposal. Letters to the Colonies are to go at the rate of 1½d. an oz. instead of the present rate of 1d. It may be urged on sentimental grounds that for the small sum of money, £140,000, which it would bring in, it is really not worth while to make this change, but it would be a very illogical position to take up to send a letter from London to Australia for 1d. while at the same time charging 1½d. for sending a letter from one end of London to the other.Are we to understand that the rate will not be raised for correspondence to soldiers overseas?
It will not be raised. Inland postcards will be raised from ½d. to 1d. This is absolutely necessary, because if the price is not increased there will be a very considerable leakage of letters from the 1½d. post to the ½d. postcard, and in order to enable the full benefit to be derived from increasing the letter post it is necessary to increase the postcard to 1d.; otherwise the estimated increase of revenue of £2,700,000 which is hoped to come in from the letter post, the book post and the sample post would be very much reduced. The parcel post was increased in 1915 by 1d. per lb., which brought in about £300,000 a year. The parcel post has always been a loss to the Post Office, for some years before the War running up to as much as £1,000,000 per annum. Now it is proposed, instead of having eleven scales of payment, starting at 4d. for 3 lbs. up to 1s. for 11 lbs., to introduce the triple scale, which is very largely used in foreign countries and in the Colonies, of 6d. up to 3 lbs., 9d. from 3 lbs. to 7 lbs., and 1s. from 7 lbs. to 11 lbs. I am told by my expert advisers this will reduce counter work very much, as at present nearly every parcel which is handed in has to be weighed, but in future only about one-third of them will have to be placed in the scales. The additional revenue from this source is estimated at £500,000, which with all the others, after making a slight allowance for any inaccuracies which may have crept into the estimates, will give about £4,000,000 in a full year, or about £3,400,000 this year. I am sure the right hon. Baronet (Sir C. Hobhouse) will not envy my position to-day of having to abolish the 1d. post, which has been of such inestimable value to everyone, not only in this country but in all the other countries where it was introduced. But there is one point, what one may call an extenuating circumstance, that the British Post Office is the last of all the great countries to abandon this historical, epoch-making rate, which was established in 1840. Canada, France, Germany—which, by the way, is doubling the letter rate, which will produce an extra, income of £6,250,000 per annum, and nearly doubling the parcel-post rate, which added together, taking the present profits they are making, will increase them to £16,500,000—Holland, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United States, and Austria have all abolished their cheap postage rates. We have gone carefully into all the figures, and the rates have been very considerably increased. As we have these examples before us from other countries, even those which are not at war, I trust the House will pass the Second Reading promptly.
I certainly do not rise for the purpose of delaying or opposing the passage of this most necessary proposal. I can fully sympathise with my right hon. Friend in finding himself in the position of having to abolish the 1d. post, but if he had to increase the revenue of the Post Office, and to make a considerable charge upon the public for the transmission of any postal matter whatever, it is quite certain that he would be obliged to have had recourse to the transmission of letters for the charge of 1d. in order to secure that increase. There are a great number of Departments in the Post Office which are quite unprofitable from the revenue-making point of view. The whole of the revenue of the Post Office is derived from the transmission of inland letters in the great industrial centres of the country. It is the profit on the transmission of letters in towns like Liverpool, Manchester, London, and elsewhere, from which the bulk of the Post Office revenue and profit is derived. Therefore it was only natural that, if an increased charge was to be made for postal rates which was to give a real profit to the Revenue, the penny post should be that part of the Post Office revenue which should provide that money. I am quite sure the House will have welcomed my right hon. Friend's decision not to press the increased charge which he proposed to make on letters written to soldiers in the field, and I am sure he himself is as relieved as anyone in announcing the decision at which he has arrived, in spite of the sacrifice of the £500,000 involved. He said truly that soldiers in the trenches welcomed their letters even more than their parcels. I cannot conceive, having witnessed at a distance some portion of this dreadful War, anything which would be a greater deprivation than, before receiving same attack or delivering some offensive, to be deprived of messages of consolation, hope, and cheerfulness which come from their relations here, and which are, perhaps, the last, as they are the greatest pleasure upon earth. Therefore to have done anything to impede the transmission of messages from this country to the men at the front would have been an action which could only be resorted to in the last extremity. No one supposes for a moment that the Revenue of this country is in so parlous a condition as to necessitate a charge such as that which was originally proposed. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to remind him that when this War started it was a question whether any charge should be made on the letters of relatives to soldiers written from this country and sent to he various fronts, and a charge was only imposed for this reason, that it did something—though probably that would be less and less as the years went on—to restrict the traffic on the railways. If there had been no restraint on this correspondence in the early period if the War, it would have been perfectly impossible to handle it when it got to the other side. I understand that the railway communications have been improved of late, but it was felt that unrestricted traffic would have imperilled the transport of the necessary munitions of war. It was for that reason only that a charge was imposed upon any letters to the troops.
The right hon. Gentleman tells us that he hopes to get a revenue of £4,000,000 as a result of these proposed charges.. He gets rid of the difficulties connected with the sample post. It has always been very troublesome to know what was and what was not a sample post. It was one of those puzzles which has always been presented to every department of the Post Office. It is exceedingly difficult to solve, and occasionally we have given some most extraordinarily inadequate solutions. Therefore any extra charge which gets rid of the difficulty of answering these puzzles is to be welcomed. I would go further: I have always thought that every Department of the Post Office in regard to every charge levied upon the public for the transmission of postal matters ought in itself to provide revenue sufficient for the postal service involved. A great number of Departments of the Post Office are not so self-supporting. Urged by Members of this House and by deputations from the public for one reason or another, the charges have been reduced until in many cases they are far below the cost of carrying the postal matter involved. If the particular increase of revenue which is proposed by this Bill tends to re-establish the balance between the cost and the revenue, I would welcome it, and certainly should offer no opposition of any sort or kind to the proposals now made. For the same reason, I think the increased charge upon parcel post is a fair one. I understand that whereas the present charge is 1s. for 11 lbs., hereafter it is to be 6d. for 3 lbs., 9d. for parcels from 4 lbs. to 7 lbs., and 1s. from 7 lbs. to 11 lbs.The charge is to be 6d. up to 3 lbs., 9d. up to 7 lbs., and is. from 7 lbs. to 11 lbs.
That will, of course, although it means an increased charge, simplify the charge so far as the Post Office is concerned, and will get rid of any troublesome amount of weighing. I look upon this with a little more hesitation than I do upon some of my right hon. Friend's proposals. If he can establish the balance between the cost and the revenue I hope he will not go further until the War is over than by making the revenue derived from these charges balance the cost of expenditure in carrying out the distribution. The increased charge on postcards must follow the increased charge upon letters, otherwise that would materially decrease the profits on the increased charge upon letters. I do not suppose there will be any opposition to this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman pointed to Germany having increased her charges to the amount of, I think he said, £16,000,000.
I said their proposed increases would come to £6,250,000, and that added to the profits made before would amount to £16,500,000.
They are making £16,000,000 profits, and we are making about £5,000,000. It cannot be said that in this case we are indulging in profiteering on the part of the Post Office. It must be borne in mind that there are other taxes which we lay upon the people of this country which the Germans have not laid upon the people of their country, and, therefore, there is a reason why the amount of profit to be derived at the expense of the letter writers and the Post Office users generally should be limited to a greater extent than it is in Germany. Therefore, while I think the Postmaster-General is justified during the War in abolishing the 1d. post and in making the other increased charges, I hope he will not base himself too much upon the German precedent and attempt to get anything like a revenue of £16,000,000 out of the British Post Office, because if he does I can assure him, from my own experience, he will have a very rough time of it in this House.
We are all grateful for what the Postmaster-General said about the soldiers' letters overseas, but many of us would like to know how far the concession goes. I do not think the Postmaster-General can confine his attention entirely to soldiers serving overseas. Let me put to him a difficulty which will occur to most Members as being a real difficulty. Supposing a soldier is invalided home through wounds and is in one of the many hospitals in this country, does this concession mean that so long as a parent is writing to a soldier with a regimental number the postage will be 1d. in this country, as well as abroad?
indicated dissent.
The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I take that to mean that the concession is confined entirely to soldiers who at the time they receive the letter are actually overseas. Let me put another query to him which arises in connection with the treatment of soldiers under the Review of Exceptions Act. Is a soldier who serves in Ireland serving overseas, and will the postage on a letter addressed to a soldier serving in Ireland be Id. or 1½d?
I am afraid my hon. Friend is rather stretching the expression overseas. It means on active service in France or Mesopotamia or other places overseas.
:I was not stretching it. In certain circumstances a soldier engaged in the Irish rebellion was considered as having been engaged in service overseas, and he claimed exemption for that reason under an Act which was passed in this House. I am only putting two interesting points to the right hon. Gentleman. If parents are to be allowed to write to their boys overseas for 1d. as usual, why should parents be deprived of the opportunity of writing at the same postal rate to their boys who are in hospital here? They are still in the Army and are still in service. I do not know how far it is possible to make the concession and what money would be involved in it, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether it might not be much better as a means of solving the whole difficulty to arrange that the concession should be granted whenever a letter was written to a man with a regimental number. That would include every case and would not wipe out hospitals or any other service in which the soldier might be engaged. I am sorry that the Government find it necessary to increase the 1d. postage. I do not see why the one section of the Post Office which pays should be further taxed in order to carry those portions which do not make a profit. [An HON. MEMBER: "It always has been!"] Then there is less reason why it should be increased now. We have had discussions about Press telegrams, which arc carried at an enormous loss, as everybody knows. That has always been so. I have heard reasons given why it was so. I believe it was part of an old agreement. The fact remains that Press telegrams are carried at a loss. Why should the ordinary communication of 1d., which always has carried a profit be taxed now at a time when interchange of correspondence which is a material part of the social fabric of the country, especially in war-time, in order that other portions of the Post Office which do not pay should escape taxation?
I should like to know why these increases have been made. I understand there are two reasons, one is the Revenue reason, and the other is the question of handling the work in the Post Office. I understand that the question of labour in the Post Office is somewhat difficult, and by increasing the postage on certain articles and letters it is hoped to diminish the work. There are other ways of diminishing the work if it is a question of diminishing the work. If the right hon. Gentleman would get the heads of other Government Departments to send fewer bulky and useless documents through the Post Office, it would be relieved of a very great deal of work. For instance, the chairman of an insurance company in Edinburgh sent me to this House a number of picture postcards which had been sent to him from the Ministry of Information. They were postcards of dumps of shells in France, portraits of admirals and soldiers which had been distributed to him by the Ministry of Information in order that he might prosecute the War more industriously. Members of this House also know that we get through the post such things as a weekly paper from the Food Department, which is a very large and bulky document which none of us ever read. I never read it. I have difficulty enough in getting my food without reading about it. That kind of thing is going through the post. Take the question of War Loan circulars. Every Member of this House has received more War Loan circulars than he knows what to do with. He has exhausted all the money he can put into War Loan before he has exhausted the receipt of these circulars. There is a tremendous bulk of unnecessary material passing through the Post Office in that way. Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether he is making these charges for Revenue purposes alone or whether he is attempting at the same time to reduce the work in the Post Office and to save labour? If it is the intention to save labour, there are other ways in which it could be done. I suppose it is useless to oppose this Bill on the ground of the 1d. postage, but I would like to see that charge kept as it is, I do not like to put in a plea for Members of this House of Commons, but I think they have a right to be considered in a matter of this kind. I suppose every Member knows that since the War broke out the correspondence that comes to us from our Constituents and from other people's interests in many questions has grown very largely. One has a duty in replying to the letters of one's Constituents, but we get hundreds of other letters from people up and down the country asking for information which many of us can give, and which many of us give freely, and this addition to the postage is a heavy tax upon the ordinary Member who gets nothing apart from the £400 a year at which everybody sneers. When one remembers that the same letters go to heads of Departments and replies are franked, I do not see why Members of the House of Commons should not be considered in that respect. If we are to be asked to pay the extra postage, which I do not object to do, I will suggest to the Postmaster-General that he should look round the Departments of his colleagues and see that his colleagues, who now, in replying to the same letters, pay nothing, should be charged the 1½d. which we are charged. I think that some other means could have been found for finding this money. The amount, which has been stated at £4,000,000, could be got by increasing the Income Tax by 1d. or 2d., or by a Stamp Duty on a good many things. If you put a 1d. stamp on all delivery orders in this country it would probably provide a large proportion of this money. At one time in this country delivery orders used to be stamped, and this would produce a very large revenue. At a time like the present, and in a House like this, one cannot put up a fight on a question of this sort, but I very much regret that the simple method of exchanging information for 1d., which was previously possible, has gone. I hope that the Postmaster-General will come to a definite decision on the question of soldiers and sailors so that no distinction will be made between men overseas and men who are in hospital at home.In view of the statement of the Postmaster-General, it will be unnecessary to move the Motion of which I had given notice. I am grateful that this is so, because it will save a lot of time. I think if the Government had pressed it, even with their majority, they would have found that the proposal to impose a Stamp Duty on letters to the Army would have been very unpopular. I do not quite associate myself with what my hon. Friend has said with regard to the same charge being made on letters to soldiers and sailors who have come home to hospital and on letters to those who are abroad. The man abroad, especially the man in very distant places, is one whose letters should be increased rather than diminished. Reference has been made to the strain of war in France, and that is undoubted, but in the case of those distant areas there is always the possibility of the mail which was so long expected being sunk on the way, and no post arriving for the officers and men. So although the strain is not so acute, the monotony is greater and the chances of leave are very much less and letters are most welcome. I offer no opposition to this Bill, but I would point out a matter which should not be overlooked. This Bill is based on the Post Office Act of 1908, and the Postmaster-General is given power to impose fresh duties on postcards and postal packets. He has the power now by Royal Warrant to increase the rate on postal letters. It seems to me that the House ought not to allow the Postmaster-General to have the power to deal with postal letters without being a party to the settlement of it themselves. If there is anything wrong with the Act of 1908, it should be remedied. The Postmaster-General should come to this House if he wishes to increase the postal rate on letters. The Act of 1908 has been overlooked, and it should be remedied some time, when opportunity offers, when a purely drafting Bill could be introduced and passed.
I was a member of the Retrenchment Committee to which the Postmaster-General referred. None of us like these increases of ½d on letters and postcards. Like all taxation, it is disagreeable, and I share the regret that we are, abolishing for a time the 1d. postage. But this is a war tax, and I understand that it is being presented to us as a war tax, and it is one which I think is perfectly justified. I only regret that it was not put in force some time ago. No doubt the Postmaster-General has profited by some of the criticisms that were advanced when the proposals of the Retrenchment Committee were before this House two years ago and has somewhat altered the rates which were then proposed, but for all that I think it was a mistake that the extra ½d was not imposed some time ago, and I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman has taken his courage in his hands and is imposing it now. Other countries have gained considerable revenue in consequence of such a change. I am not at liberty to mention one or two figures which were submitted to the Retrenchment Committee in consequence of inquiries from overseas, but it was partly due to them that I, at any rate, cordially at that time supported the increase of the 1d. post to 1½d. A few months ago I asked the present Postmaster-General whether he had made inquiries in some of the countries where the extra ½d. had been imposed. He told me that he would make inquiries. I do not know whether he has, but I feel fairly confident that, if we can judge from the original results of imposing this extra tax, it will be well worth doing from the point of view of revenue. The Retrenchment Committee was a very representative Committee, representing every shade of opinion in this House, from the most reactionary member to the most extreme member of the Labour party, and after careful consultation in private together we were unanimously of opinion then that the extra ½d. should be imposed. It is a fair tax all round. It taxes most those who are most busy and most prosperous, because their correspondence is large. It taxes to a less extent those who are not so busy and not so prosperous, because their correspondence is small. I am glad that an exception has been made as regards soldiers serving overseas. That will be welcomed throughout the country. in view of the great sacrifices which they are making for us and their conspicuous bravery, it is only right that this privilege should be extended to them. But I do not share the view of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh that soldiers who are in hospital here should have the same privilege. I think that that would lead to great confusion, and possibly also to a certain amount of fraud, because relations and friends might make use of these soldiers as addressees of letters and thus get reduced postage on letters which are not intended for the wounded soldier at all, but for his friends or relations. I am quite certain that the exception should be made for soldiers on active service abroad, but beyond that it would not be right or wise to go. I cordially support the Second Reading of the Bill.
7.0 P.M.
While the House appreciates the concession made by the right hon. Gentleman in the case of soldiers, he did not quite make clear what would be the position of letters sent to sailors. Are letters sent to sailors in the Grand Fleet to pay id. or 1½d?Are letters sent to sailors in ports to pay 1d. or 1½d? I hope that we shall have some statement from the right hon. Gentleman on that point. I support the suggestion of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh, that letters addressed to soldiers in this country should be sent for 1d. As is well known, the main source of cost in the Post Office is the cost of delivering the letters, and in the case of letters sent by the Post Office to men in the Army in this country the Post Office is freed entirely from the cost of delivery. If that be so, the main argument advanced by the Postmaster-General in favour of this increase falls to the ground, as the Post Office itself does not bear any share of the cost of delivering the letters to soldiers. Therefore, I hope that the Postmaster-General, having gone some way to meet the wishes of the House, may go further, and that letters sent to soldiers in this country may be sent for 1d., and, in addition, that letters sent to sailors who have served may also be sent for 1d. But I shall be sorry if the House passes this Bill. In the financial statement of the year we were told that the profits of the Post Office were £9,000,000 a year, and yet this afternoon we were told that the profits of the Post Office are only £2,000,000 a year. I would ask the Assistant Postmaster-General, What are the profits of the letter post? What are the profits of the parcels post? What is the profit and loss on the telegraph system, and on the telephones? Are we raising rates for certain Post Office services which are profitable, while we are leaving untouched unremunerative rates for other branches of the postal service. I sincerely hope that later in the year the Postmaster-General will present to this House an ordinary commercial profit and loss statement, showing to the House and to the country that certain services are being run at a loss to-day, while others are being run at a profit. If such a statement had been presented to the House to-day I am very certain that the House would not pass this Bill. I believe that a large profit is being made by the Post Office from the 1d. post, and the loss is not on the 1d. post, but on other branches of the service. My hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh referred to Press telegrams, on which I think there is a loss of about £500,000 a year; and there is a heavy loss on certain telephone services, certain private telephones, in different parts of the country that are being subsidised by the taxpayer to-day. In view of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman differing so materially from the financial statement presented by the Chancellor on his annual Budget that the profit was £9,000,000, and we are now told that it is £2,000,000, I should like that the House should receive some assurance that accounts in future will be presented in such a clear fashion that we shall know exactly what services are remunerative and what services are carried on at a loss.
I had intended to support the Amendment of my hon. Friend which stands upon the Paper, and with him, therefore, I welcome the decision of the Government on the subject of letters to soldiers. I am bound to say, however, that I think the decision has possibly been arrived at a little hastily, having regard to the sister Service, the Navy. The question of the Naval Service should be considered. As I understand, letters for the Navy are addressed to the care of the General Post Office. Whether the sailor is serving at home or on a China station, the envelope addressed to him to all intents and purposes is exactly the same. I certainly suggest that the sailor should get a letter for 1d., but the soldier serving at home would have to pay 1½d I do not agree with what the hon. Member for East Edinburgh suggested—that we should give every soldier at home his letter for 1d. I think that would be exceedingly likely to lead to fraud, for it would only be necessary to put on the letter a regimental number and it would go for 1d. I think the Postmaster-General might get himself into slight difficulty in that matter, and I hope we shall have some assurance on the point. I intended to make a suggestion to the Postmaster-General—assuming he had not given way, as he has done—and it is this, that in order to benefit the class of persons which I take it he is anxious to benefit, the dependant of the soldier or sailor, she be entitled, at the time she draws her allowance from the post office, to draw an envelope, ready stamped, say, one a week, which she can use for sending a letter to the soldier or sailor serving, adding the extra war stamp. I think, by that means, the poor mother or wife would be benefited; while, at the same time, the better class of people who can afford to pay would not—unless they were drawing a separation allowance—participate in the benefit.
I make that suggestion for what it is worth, in the hope that if there be any difficulty about the Navy and the Army the right hon. Gentleman will make use of it. I think it would be a thousand pities if a sailor and a soldier serving at the same station, as they do in many places, were put under different conditions with regard to the letters they receive from relations. I do not quite understand whether the parcel post rates apply to troops or whether as regards troops they remain the same, but I have one more suggestion to make with regard to reducing the bulk of mails, especially to the troops. I am quite certain that a great deal of the bulk of mails carried by the Post Office abroad is very often useless to the soldier, because frequently the letters consist of bills and circulars, that are forwarded, and that are not required at all. I do not know whether the Regulation could be laid down that "forward" letters should not be sent abroad to the troops, and that any letter should be addressed, in the first instance, to somebody in the Service. Letters addressed to someone in England or Ireland to be subsequently forwarded should not be accepted at 1d. for transmission abroad, and by that means you will reduce greatly the bulk of mails sent to the fighting forces. I hope we may have an assurance from the Postmaster-General, if he replies on the Debate, on the subject of the postal relations between the Navy and Army, and that he will consider the suggestion which I have put to the House.:I listened with a certain amount of disagreement with those who approved of the increased postal rates. Personally, I disapprove of the increased rates, more particularly the increase of the penny post, which so materially affects the poorer people. The penny post is a department of the postal service which actually pays, and I think it is grossly unfair to call upon a great mass of poor people to make this contribution for carrying on the War, while the department of the penny post, as it stands, is a department which pays. I think we would be in a good deal better position if we had placed before us the information which was asked for by my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Collins), in order that we might see how all the departments are working. We know that there is a loss on Press telegrams, and we should have more information, so that we may learn where other losses actually occur. It is a legitimate business proposition that where losses are made by particular departments those should be the departments in connection with which charges should be made commensurate with the burden or loss. I think the increase which is proposed will work very unfairly on different classes of business. Many businesses are conducted almost entirely by correspondence, so that the burden will be heavy upon them, while other businesses are carried on with hardly any correspondence whatever, so far as their development is concerned. I have received correspondence on this subject, and the suggestion is made that in the case of those firms which necessarily are conducted by correspondence, there should be some concession made, so far as catalogues and other documents are concerned. These correspondents feel that they are being subjected to an additional grievance, and I therefore place it before my right hon. Friend with a view to his seeing whether anything can be done.
I join in the appeal made to the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the Navy, but I wish also to refer to the mercantile marine, minesweepers, patrol boats, and a very large number of men leading a sea-faring life, who are really in His Majesty's Navy. I hope we shall have a statement from the right hon. Gentleman to the effect that the men in these services which I have indicated will be placed in the same position as others in regard to the concession made this afternoon. I am very sorry to see, as I dare say most people are, that the 1d. post is practically going back. I know something of the work of the Post Office, and I can assure the House that the increase will still continue after the War, but I suggest to the Postmaster-General that, if he means the extra payment to be for the duration of the War, then, in order to preserve the 1d. post, he should allow the 1d. stamp and the ½d. stamp to remain in use so that they can, without difficulty, be continued after the War, and, in the meantime, those who send letters, while using the ordinary 1d. or ½d. stamp, can add the ½d. war stamp for the duration of the War. That would preserve the 1d. post and the ½d. post without any difficulty, after the close of the War. I do not say that the suggestion is original, for it has already been adopted in Canada, and one or two other places. I should like to make a suggestion in reference to the weight of parcels, as between 7 lbs. and 11 lbs. No parcel can be sent to a soldier over 7 lbs. in weight by post. If he sends one over 7 lbs. he has to send it by railway, and he has to send it addressed to the Military Forwarding Officer, But no parcel can be sent in this way which does not weigh 11 lbs. No parcel can be sent to a soldier which weighs between 7 and 11 lbs., the result being that every parcel which is between these two weights has to be stuffed full of packing of various kinds, which, in these days when economy is so necessary, is a very serious mistake, for not only is it a waste of packing, but it takes up more room on board ship than is absolutely necessary. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to raise the weight of the parcel postage to men at the Front from 7 lbs. to 11 lbs., and, at any rate, to see that if some parcels are carried to the soldiers by the railway system, they may be under 11 lbs. in weight.
I should like to support the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, with reference to the war stamp on the 1d. postage. If this impost does go through, it will have to be made very clear that it is in the sense of a war tax only. I wish, however, to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not still possible to maintain some form of 1d postage. As the right hon. Gentleman reminded us, 1d. postage was passed in 1840 by Sir Rowland Hill, and it has been of inestimable advantage to this country. The right hon. Gentleman referred to other countries having increased their postal rates, but I am sure he will agree with me that the internal and foreign trade of this country leads the world, and that it has been largely built up by this 1d. postage. When we remember that the figures still show a surplus of £2,500,000— and many of us hope and pray and believe that the War may possibly be brought to an end within the coming year—why, before you come to a deficit, should you interfere with this, which is so essential for building up your trade and commerce? As the parcel post is run at a loss, it might have been wise and advantageous to increase the charges there, and in some other departments of the postal service; but I think that if the 1d. rate could have been maintained, and an increase made in other directions, it would have had a less adverse effect upon trade and commerce. Now that typewriting and other methods enable people to condense their communications, it would be of immense importance to maintain in the trade and commerce of the country the ability to communicate for 1d., and I am by no means certain, as anticipated by the right hon. Gentleman, that the revenue, when 1d. postage is increased to 1½d, will show an increase. It does not by any means follow that you can estimate or budget for an increased revenue merely by putting up your charge. The probability is that many people who have communicated for 1d, in the past will not communicate now when you increase the charge to l½d., so that you may possibly make one Department of your postal service, which produces something like £4,000,000, unprofitable by increasing the rate to l½d., while at the same time you are going to interfere with the commercial community. We are most anxious—and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree with me—to try to nurse the trade of this country when the War is over, and one of the essentials for that will be cheap and easy communication. I do not know if it is yet too late to make this appeal to the Postmaster-General. I understand that the reduction in the amount of weight sent for 1d. has had no adverse effect, and if the Postmaster-General could so have arranged his rates as still to have maintained 1d. postage, even for a limited amount of weight, and if he could have carried on the 1d. postage for another year, with the hope that the War might then have terminated, he would have continued to us what has been of inestimable advantage to the trade and commerce of the country.
I think this Bill is extremely unfair, will interfere a great deal with business, and will be extremely irritating generally. It will bear very hardly on some businesses, and scarcely at all on others. I want to ask the Postmaster-General if there will be any enlargement in the size of postcards, so as to permit of the substitution of communication by postcard for communication by letter? At present many short letters go through the post because they cost 1d., and the normal postcards will not contain their communications. If however, the postcards were enlarged a little, tens of thousands of people would send communications, not of a very private nature, by that means. I do not think the revenue would suffer very much by this proposal, and it would be of great convenience both to business houses and private correspondents.
I think there has been a general feeling of relief in the House to-night that the Postmaster-General has been able to see his way to give up the idea of increasing the cost of letters to the troops in France or in other parts of the War area. Most of the criticisms we have listened to to-night really do not seem altogether to take into account the fact of the enormous amount of expenditure in this country at the present time. I can well remember nearly twenty years ago in this House when Lord St. Aldwyn—Sir Michael Hicks-Beach as he then was—spoke from this desk, and drew a very dark picture of the future of this country because the expenditure of the country for that year was about £150,000,000. If he had come into the door of the House to-night and listened to this Debate, and if he had heard the great speech of my right hon. Friend on the Budget this year, I think he would have wondered that this country has been able so easily to obtain so large an amount of money as was received by the Exchequer during the last financial year. So far as the Id. post is concerned, I am sure that I am only expressing the view of everyone in the country when I say that there is a very deep regret that there should be any possibility of an increase in the postage rate. But we must take into acount the fact that every other country which is at war has been forced to make this increase in the rates, and the fact also that some neutral countries have been placed in the same position. A certain amount of criticism has been made to-night in regard to the question of the revenue which is received from the Post Office in ratio to the amount which is received from the telephone and telegraph department. Of course, it is perfectly true that the revenue received by the Exchequer from the Department comes from postal packets, and letters and postcards, and not from telephone and telegraph charges. But, when it is suggested that we might increase the telephone and telegraph rates, it must be perfectly plain to anyone with an impartial mind in regard to these questions, and who has taken account of the past, that it would be impossible for us to increase these rates and to receive an amount of remuneration which would be of any service to the country, because the increase of the rates in the telegraph and telephone last year has not brought in any extra revenue to any extent, and an increase in either of the rates for the future would probably have the effect of lessening the amount of revenue received at present. Therefore, when it is necessary that the State should receive more revenue from the Post Office Department, there is only one way by which it can be done, and it is by putting on an extra charge on all the Post Office dues.
The hon. Member for Greenock criticised the financial position, and mentioned a speech which was made on the day of the Budget by the right hon. Gentleman the ex-Home Secretary (Mr. H. Samuel), who was Postmaster-General when I first had the honour of becoming a member of the Post Office staff. In the House of Commons on that day he said that he would call attention to the fact that the State already derived its profits from the Tax Revenue of the Post Office of £9,000,000. This figure was taken from the White Paper. I should like to give the hon. Gentleman who mentioned this a statement in regard to the matter, because, although the Postmaster-General dealt with it the other day, I think it is hardly realised by the House. The figures for expenditure are taken from the Post Office Estimates, and do not include the Vote of Credit issues on Post Office account. The Post Office Estimates, like those of all Civil Departments, are compiled on a peace basis, and any deficiency, due to war expenditure, which cannot be met by savings on the Vote, is made good by an issue from the Vote of Credit. The Estimates, therefore, make no provision for such items as war bonus, which amounts now to £6,000,000 per annum, and is at present an integral part of Post Office expenditure. In 1917–18, the Post Office drew from the Vote of Credit about £11,000,000, and it is anticipated that it will, draw about £14,000,000 in 1918–19. If, therefore, the Vote of Credit issues were included, the apparent surplus of £9,000,000 would be converted into an apparent deficit of about £2,000,0000 in 1917–18, and about £5,000,000 in 1918–19. I should also like to say, with regard to the question raised by my hon. and gallant Friend opposite, that there is very great difficulty in regard to the letters sent to the Navy. From an administrative point of view it is extremely difficult for us to make the concession which he asks, but I may say, from conversation which I have just had with my right hon. Friend beside me, that he will consider this question and give some further reply in reference to it when the Committee stage of the Bill takes place. My hon. Friend who spoke last mentioned the question of the size of the postcard. That question, also, will be considered, but I am not in a position to-day to say anything in regard to it. My right hon. Friend mentioned the question of Germany, and said he thought we ought to consider the relations of the Post Office so far as the tax is concerned. But I am inclined to think, taking all the taxation of the country as it is to-day, that the extra charges that he suggested are not unreasonable. I have had the privilege of going to France, and of seeing the work done by the Post Office there. No one is more fully cognisant of the fact that a very large number of people in this country would like to see a reduction in the cost of parcels; but, considering the amount of transport that there is now, and the enormous increase during the last three years, it must be perfectly plain to anyone who considers the question that it would not be wise, from a national point of view, to decrease the charges placed on parcels to the troops in France, because the transport is greater even than this House imagines, and it might have its effect on the War from that point of view. With regard to the question of parcels, which was raised by the hon. Member for Devonport, of course, as is well known to the House, no one is allowed to send a parcel of over 7 lbs. to the troops in France. This is due to the fact that orders have been given by the War Office in regard to the matter, and really it is not a Post Office question. But I think that, as far as that is concerned, I can hardly give a reply. I very much regret the inconvenience which is caused by this. The only other point that I think I have not dealt with is the question of this taxation being a war tax. My only reply is one which, I am sure, will appeal to the House, and it is that no one can possibly realise what the future of this country is going to be. If it is possible at any time in the early future to reduce the tax by taking off the ½d which is put on the ordinary letter, I am sure everyone in this House will be glad; but with a Budget such as we have seen this year, and with the future as it appears to us at the moment, it is quite impossible for anybody to give a promise as to the date on which this Stamp Duty can be reduced. If there is any other question any hon. Member would like to raise with which I have not dealt, I hope he will mention it. I think I may take this opportunity of thanking the House for the way they have received this Bill, which, I hope, will soon be passed into law.Will the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that in future the accounts will be presented in such a form that the House will be able to understand them?
I will see that the matter is considered by the Treasury.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[ Mr. Pratt.]
Horse Breeding Expenses
Order read for consideration of Report of Resolution,
"That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the Expenses of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries under any Act of the present, Session to regulate the use of stallions for stud purposes provided that the total amount payable shall not exceed ten thousand pounds in any one financial year."
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Order be discharged."—[ Lord E. Talbot]
The Government have got themselves into difficulties, and are trying to sneak out without telling us how they are going to face the consequences of their own inefficiency and mismanagement. I am very glad to see the Noble Lord (Lord E. Talbot) on the Treasury Bench. Perhaps he will tell us the real reason for the extraordinary proposal that this Money Resolution which was passed on Wednesday night last, in order to promote horse-breeding in this country, is suddenly to be discharged. It may be remembered that on that occasion, when we discussed this matter, I moved an Amendment limiting the sum to £10,000, and it was promptly accepted by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture (Sir R. Winfrey), who assured me that £10,000 was quite ample, and that they would not expect to have anything like that amount. If that is so, why is this Resolution now to be discharged? Is it because the amount is inadequate?
I am sorry my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture is not here. I understand that when the hon. Gentleman opposite moved the £10,000 my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary was under the impression that it was quite enough, and, I believe, it is quite enough for England, but this Bill applies also to Scotland and Ireland, and it is not sufficient to cover those two countries. Therefore the situation, as I understand it, is this: It is proposed to withdraw this Resolution and set up a new one to cover Scotland and Ireland.
We are very glad to have that explanation, but it shows how even more inefficient the Government is than I expected, because when my hon. Friend (Mr. Watt) interposed an inquiry as to whether Scotland would get money from this Resolution and the advantage of this Bill, he was promptly answered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture that that was so. Of course, I shall not in any way try to prevent whatever solution of this difficulty the Government may be able to put forward, and I shall not, of course, divide the House; but I think I am entitled to say that the Government have mismanaged this little affair very badly indeed. If they cannot manage the little affairs well, how can they manage the great affairs? I hope this will be a lesson to them.
The House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Mr. King) in having elicited from the Government an explanation of their withdrawal of this Resolution. As my hon. Friend has said, this Resolution had been made the very best of from its initiation in the House. It was a Resolution handing over money by the House to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, which is the English institution, and no mention was made of Scotland and Ireland. It is withdrawn with a view to bringing another Resolution in, I have no doubt. I should like, therefore, to ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker, on the question as to whether a similar Motion to that now withdrawn can be brought in in this present Session of Parliament? Sir Erskine May's "Parliamentary Practice" says:
Further on it says:"It is a Rule, in both Houses, which is essential to the due performance of their duties, that no question or Bill shall be offered that is substantially the same as one on which their judgment has already been expressed in the current Session."
I submit that when this Motion comes up again, as it is bound to do, in perhaps a little altered form, it will be against the Rules of the House to consider it."A mere alteration of the words of a question without any substantial change in its object, will not be sufficient to evade this Rule. On the 7th July, 1840, Mr. Speaker called attention to a Motion for a Bill. …Its form and words were different from those of a previous Motion, but the object was substantially the same; and the House agreed that it was irregular, and ought not to be proposed from the Chair."
I understand the Resolution that will be proposed will be different. It will have reference to the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, and the Department of Agriculture for Ireland. It will be, therefore, a different Resolution from that to which the Committee agreed on Wednesday.
Does not that come under "A mere alteration of the words"?
Is it not a "substantial change"? Does the hon. Gentleman mean to say there is no difference between Scotland and England?
Question put, and agreed to.
Order accordingly discharged.
Land Drainage Expenses
Resolution reported,
"That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the Expenses of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries under any Act of the present Session to amend the Land Drainage Act, 1861, and to make further provision for the drainage of agricultural land."
Resolution agreed to.
Supply—18Th April
Resolution reported [ 2nd May],
Diplomatic And Consular Buildings— Class I
"That a sum, not exceeding £23,800, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for Expenditure in respect of Diplomatic and Consular Buildings, and for the maintenance of certain Cemeteries Abroad."
Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Question [ 2nd May], "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
Question again proposed.
When this was before the Committee I took exception to it being passed. The object of my intervention was to raise objection to £2,500 being spent on Consular offices at Harbin, which is a district very much disturbed at the present time. I am informed that, instead of the amount being for buildings to be set up, this expenditure is to be on a site, which is quite a different thing from a building in a disturbed area. Therefore I take no objection to this being passed for a site.
Question put, and agreed to.
Horse Breeding Expenses
Committee to consider of authorising the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the expenses of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, and of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, which may become payable under any Act of the present Session to regulate the use of stallions for stud purposes—( King's recommendation signified)—To-morrow.—[ Sir R. Winfrey.]
The remaining Orders were read and postponed.
Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
May I ask the Noble Lord the Patronage Secretary if he can tell the House what Supply he will take on Thursday?
The Board of Trade Vote.
Is it intended that we shall have a statement about railway travelling from the President?
Yes.
Question put, and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Sixteen minutes before Eight o'clock.