Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Bill

Order for Consideration of Lords Amendments read.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered," put, and agreed to—[ Mr. Ormsby-Gore.]

Lords Amendments considered accordingly.

Clause 6—(Power To Adopt Enactments, Etc)

(1) His Majesty may, by Order in Council.—
 (d) make such provision with respect to the management of the National Debt and Government Securities and Annuities (including India Stock) as may be necessary to secure that the management thereof shall not as respects any part thereof be transacted within the Irish Free State;
 and any such Order in Council may contain such supplemental, consequential and incidental provisions as may appear necessary or proper for the purposes of the Order, and any such Order shall, subject to revocation or alteration by a subsequent Order, have effect as if enacted in this Act.

Lords Amendment:

In Sub-section (1, d), leave out the words "as respects any part thereof," and insert
 "except to such extent as may be authorised by the Order."

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Douglas Hogg)
I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment." The question raised by this Amendment is quite a simple one. It arises under Clause 6, Sub-section (1, d), by which leave was given to make arrangements by Order in Council with regard to the management of the National Debt and Government securities and annuities, so that the management "shall not as respect any part thereof be transacted within the Irish Free State." It has been pointed out that the result of the Clause as it stands would be that  either the whole management of the Debt would have to be removed or it would have to be left just as it is at present. The purpose of the Amendment is to secure a certain elasticity, so that, if thought advisable, the management can be partly removed and partly allowed to remain where it is. It seems to the Government that is a reasonable course to pursue, and that it will assist in arranging the necessary Order.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
I do not rise to criticise the decision to which the Government have come, but to ask for a little further explanation as to what lies behind the Amendment and what is the real meaning of it. It would seem to me that the natural place for the management of the National Debt under the new circumstances was London. Do the Government contemplate that they will keep a register in Dublin as well as in London, and, if so, for what reason? Is it a question purely of convenience as regards the management of the debt, or is it a question partly of the rights to the proceeds of taxation raised upon the interest of the debt and affected by the place where the register is kept? I would ask my right hon. and learned Friend to answer those questions if he would be good enough. I do not rise to criticise, but only in the hope that by his aid I may understand.

Sir D. HOGG
The Amendment does not introduce any new provision in order to exclude or include Dublin. Under the Bill as it left this House, power was given to remove the debt altogether, but one either had to remove it altogether or leave it just as it is now. At present there is a register in Dublin and a register in London, and stockholders can be registered in whichever they please. It has been thought that it might be desirable at any rate to alter to some extent that provision having regard to the considerations which my right hon. Friend has pointed out as to taxation and also to convenience of management, and we are taking power here by Order in Council to do that to such extent as seems desirable, of course reserving to Parliament, by the express language of the Section, power to revise any action that we may take.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER
Will this Amendment cover the point which I raised in Committee and also enable the  Joint Exchequer Board to set up machinery which will not be overlapping as between the Board of Inland Revenue in this country and the collecting authority in the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.

Sir D. HOGG
This has nothing to do with the collection of taxation in Northern Ireland. This is only a matter of the register as between Dublin and London.

Sir JOHN SIMON
It seems to me that the right lion, and learned Gentleman has not answered the question put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. A. Chamberlain). I quite follow, and the House follows, that there was some change made, and that, as the Bill left this House there would be power to make an Order in Council which would exclude this matter altogether from the territory of the Irish Free State, or allow things to remain as they are, and I quite follow that by the modified words as proposed it would be able to make a more partial arrangement. But that does not seem to answer the question put by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, whether this change or the proposal as a whole has any effect in deciding how the proceeds of taxation may be distributed according to the place where people register.

Sir D. HOGG
Undoubtedly, it might have an effect because it might affect, for example, provisions as to Income Tax and as to Estate Duty by reason of the place in which the particular stock was registered. The House, however, will remember that this matter was discussed in Committee when there was an Amendment to omit this Sub-section, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer then explained that we were not necessarily going to act under this power, but we thought it necessary to be armed with the power, and an undertaking was given that before actually acting we would give consideration to and hear representations from both the Irish Government and any other interested parties, which include, among other persons, the Dublin stockbrokers and the Bank of Ireland itself.

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

Lords Amendment:

In Sub-section (1, d), after the word "State," insert
 "or to enable the business of the Bank of Ireland in relation thereto to he partly transacted at an office of the Bank of Northern Ireland, and in the latter case to apply in respect of any securities or annuities inscribed or registered in the books and registers kept at such office the provisions applicable in respect of securities and annuities inscribed or registered in the books and registers kept at the Bank of England or the Bank of Ireland;"

Sir D. HOGG
I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment." The purpose of this Amendment is to fulfil a promise which was given by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Debate in Committee upon this Clause, when he stated that, if he found that under this Clause there was no power to make arrangements for those domiciled in Northern Ireland to be able to remove the registration to Belfast, and if that be more convenient than London, then he would have words suggested in another place, and they would come before the House of Commons again. My right hon. Friend has ascertained that in order to fulfil that intention it is necessary to have these words added. If we want power to open a register in Belfast, it may be necessary to have these words, and, in pursuance of that pledge, we now move to have them added.

Mr. WISE
Supposing the books and registers are kept at the bank of Northern Ireland, may I ask what the cost will be, and whether the Government are satisfied as to the standing of this bank? I know that it is an old bank, but banks change, and it is important from a business point of view that the standing of the bank should be taken into consideration. May I also ask whether there is any precedent for such a thing being carried on in this way?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore)
I think my hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. It does not refer to the Northern Bank of Ireland, but to the Belfast branch of the Bank of Ireland, which, when this Bill becomes an Act, will become the Bank of Northern Ireland—the State bank, as it were The register now in the Bank of Ireland in Dublin will, for those domiciled in Northern Ireland;  be transferred to the Bank of Ireland branch at Belfast, and that Bank of Ireland branch in Belfast will become known in future as the Bank of Northern Ireland.

Mr. WISE
Cannot that be altered? It is very misleading. What would be the consequence?

Sir F. BANBURY
This gives the Bank of Ireland the right to use the offices of another bank in the North of Ireland. The Amendment says "or to enable the business of the Bank of Ireland in relation thereto to be partly transacted at an office of the Bank of Northern Ireland." If that does not mean that the Bank of Ireland is to have the right to transact part of its business in the office of another bank in Northern Ireland, I do not know what it does mean.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE
The Clerk at the Table points out that in the print circulated to the House there is a very important misprint, and that instead of the words being "the Bank of Northern Ireland," it should be "the Bank in Northern Ireland." It is quite clear that it is the Bank of Ireland, and the bank referred to is the Belfast branch of the Bank of Ireland.

Sir F. BANBURY
In these circumstances, will it not be necessary to move an Amendment to leave out the word "of," and to insert instead thereof the word "in"?

Mr. SPEAKER
I had observed the misprint, and corrected it in my copy. It is quite correct in the Bill.

Mr. A. CHAMBERLAIN
I am still not quite clear. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for the Colonies said that the branch of the Bank of Ireland, situated in Belfast, will become the Bank of Northern Ireland. Does he mean that the Bank of Ireland will be divided into two in future, and that there will be that part of the Bank of Ireland which remains in the Free State existing as one independent institution, and that those branches which were in the six counties are to exist as a wholly separate and independent institution?

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE
No. The institution will remain entirely the same. The misprint must have misled me on this point. I think I can now make it  quite clear. The only tiling that will be divided is the register. There will be two separate registers, but the Corporation of the Bank of Ireland will not be separated.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN
I am quite satisfied.

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment," put, and agreed to.

First Schedule

Modification Or The Government Of Ireland Act, 1920, &C

1.—(2) The appointed day for the transfer in relation to Northern Ireland of the powers, which by the principal Act are made powers of the Council of Ireland, shall he such day as may hereafter be fixed by Order in Council not being earlier than the day on which any such identical Acts as aforesaid come into operation or the expiration of the period of five years from the passing of this Act, whichever may first happen.

Lords Amendment:

At the end of paragraph 1 (2) insert:
 "Provided that the appointed day for the purposes of so much of Section ten of the principal Acts as enacts that 'the rates, fares, tolls, dues and other charges directed by the Minister of Transport under the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, and in force on the appointed day, may be charged until fresh provision shall be made by the Council of Ireland, or the Parliament of the United Kingdom, with regard to the amount of any such rates, fares, tolls, dues and other charges' shall he the date of the passing of this Act; bin until such fresh provision is made, the Railway and Canal Commission shall have the like power of modifying such charges in Northern Ireland as is by Section sixty of the Railways Act, 1921, conferred on the rates tribunal as respects railways in Great Britain."

Sir D. HOGG
I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment." This is an Amendment, in regard to which I must ask for tin indulgence of the House while I make a rather intricate explanation. The position is, that under the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919, power was given to the Ministry of Transport to sanction certain fares and charges on railways. That power extended over a maximum period of 3½ years from the passing of the Act, and that time comes to an end on the 15th February, 1923. By the Government  of Ireland Act, 1920, provision was made for continuing these charges until the Parliament of the United Kingdom or the Council of Ireland made any alteration, and the way in which it was done was by enacting that the rates in force at the appointed day should continue in force until the Council or Parliament made an alteration. We have, as the House will remember, altered the date of the appointed day, and the appointed day now is at least five years off, unless Northern and Southern Ireland otherwise agree. The result will be that the appointed day will not come before 1928, and the powers of the Ministry expire in February, 1923. Therefore, what would happen would be that on the 15th February, 1923, all the rates which have been fixed for Irish railways, and under which they are now operating, would automatically come to an end, and they would go back to pre-War rates. However desirable that might be for the people of Ireland, it would spell immediate bankruptcy for all the railways. It is in order to prevent that, that these words are inserted, which keep the rates in existence, and also protect the users of the railways, because, as the House will see, we are giving to the Railway and Canal Commission, the same power to modify the rates until the Parliament of the United Kingdom legislates, as the Rates Tribunal has in this country under similar circumstances. It is really to prevent an unfortunate mistake which crept in through the alteration of the meaning of the words "appointed day," without having worked out what effect that would have under the Act of 1919. I hope that this explanation, which I admit is a complicated one, is intelligible to the House.

Question put, and agreed to.

King's Speech

Debate On The Address

[SIXTH DAY.]

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [ 23rd November],
 "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—

MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN,

We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great. Britain and Ireland, in Parlia-  ment assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."

Question again proposed.

Agriculture

Sir RICHARD WINFREY
I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add the words: "But humbly represent to Your Majesty that, having regard to the insecure and gravely unsatisfactory position of the great industry of agriculture, to the constantly decreasing population in rural districts, to the high cost of living, the low returns from the labour and investment in land, to the existence of an economic wage frequently lower than a living wage, to the inequitable incidence of rates and the unfair burden of transport, and the urgent need for credit facilities and co-operation, it is of immediate importance that Your Majesty's Government should institute an inquiry for the purpose of formulating a policy which would establish security, stability and confidence in the industry, and so secure the greater productiveness of the soil and ensure the contentment of those concerned in the industry." I think this Amendment will receive a large amount of sympathy from all sides of the House, because Members generally begin to realise the serious condition in which agriculture is placed at the present moment. Since my Amendment was placed on the Paper, the Government have informed us that they are about to set up a Departmental Committee to make some inquiries. The Terms of Reference of that Committee have not yet been published, at least I have not seen them, but I understand that the Committee is to be confined to the question of the middlemen's profits in agriculture. In other words, the Committee will try to narrow the gap between what the producer sells for, and what the consumer has to give. So far so good, but it does not go far enough, and I shall not be satisfied if the Government cannot meet us considerably further than that. The depression in agriculture has this year very much extended and deepened. I am not going to paint too gloomy a picture, because I am one of those who farmed through the dark days of the early nineties, and I realise that the depression is not so great or serious up to the present moment as it was in those days. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] That is my view. Fortunately, owing to the good years which the farmers had during the last two years of the War, and the  two years afterwards, the old hands in agriculture have up till now been able, to weather the storm; but the new men who have come to agriculture during the last three or four years are to-day struggling with losses which I fear must-bring them to the ground, unless some immediate alleviation is found for their position. Some hon. Members will remember the previous agricultural depression. It lasted a very long time. I think it began in 1885 or 18S6, and went on for 10 years. During those years we were selling wheat at less than 20s. a quarter. For two or three seasons in succession the whole of our potato crops were spoiled by the wet seasons, and we had a deplorable condition of affairs. In my judgment, we have not, thank goodness, reached that state up to the present time, and I am very hopeful that if the Government will come to the assistance of agriculture we shall avoid getting into the slough of despond in which we were in those years. May I remind the House of what Parliament has done for agriculture since 1917? In that year, owing to the menace of the Gorman submarine, and the daily losses of our ships that were bringing food to this country, it became absolutely necessary and vital that we should try to produce more food in this country, and the result was that Parliament passed the Corn Production Act. That Act was a step in the right direction. It is true that it was a War measure, and only passed for a period of five years. It set up War Agricultural Committees which were, to some extent, to control the industry. It gave power to those committees to have grass lands ploughed up, and 2,000,000 acres of grass land were so ploughed up. As the result of that great effort, although we were short of labour at the time—all honour to the agricultural community for the way they put their backs into it at the time—we were able to boast that in the 1918 harvest we were able to produce more food than we had done in time of peace. We did that by giving the farmer and the labourer some security against losses. We said to the farmers: "If we insist upon you ploughing up your grass land against your wishes, and insist upon you growing certain crops which otherwise you would not have grown, we must give you some security." Therefore, we put in the  Act a minimum price, and we said, "If wheat or oats fall below that price we will pay you the difference." The price was for wheat, in the first year, 60s., coming down to 45s., and the price for oats was 38s. 6d. in the first year, coming down over the five years to 24s. That was the security which we gave to the farmer. Fortunately prices remained high and the farmer never had to ask for any guarantee under that Act, but there it was. Then we said to the labourer, "We must give you security also," and we set up the Agricultural Wages Board which resulted in giving the agricultural labourer a satisfactory wage. After the War the farmers, I think, made a great mistake. They started agitating for fresh legislation. The Farmers' Union and other bodies passed resolutions in favour of immediate legislation. I ventured to say in this House, "Let the Corn Production Act run its course, and then you will see what it is wise to do for agriculture." It would have come to an end this year, but some of us were over-ruled and the Government set up a Royal Commission to inquire as to what permanent things we should do in the way of legislation for agriculture. That Royal Commission represented landowners, farmers and labourers. By a majority of one it reported in favour of immediate legislation. The Government accepted their Report and passed the Agriculture Act. That Act was based on the same lines as the Com Production Act. It was a guarantee to the farmer and the labourer, but it differed in this important particular, which I think brought the Act on the rocks. Under the Corn Production Act we—I say "we" because I was partly responsible for that Act—had definite figures, as to the guarantee which I have given, and the Government knew from day to day and from week to week exactly how they stood, but under the new Act the whole machinery was altered. That Act provided a guarantee for the farmers, but in order to arrive at that guarantee it was provided that the Government should send Commissioners throughout the country to ascertain what had been the cost of production of a quarter of wheat in a different area. I do not think that these Commissions were ever set up, but the Act went on to say that they were to take the cost in 1919 as the standard. It was assumed, according to the Report of  the Royal Commission, that a quarter of wheat cost 68s. to produce in 1919. That was to be the standard, and these Commissioners were to go all over the country and ascertain what the cost of production was in that particular year as compared with 1919. I always felt that this could not be worked. The cost of production in various counties varies tremendously. It varies even in the same parish. How the clever men of the Board of Agriculture ever thought out such a scheme I do not know. In the early stage of the operation of this Act the Chancellor of the Exchequer very rightly said to the Minister of Agriculture, "What subsidy do you want for the farmers?" The Board of Agriculture could not tell him. They could not tell even within millions. They could not say whether they wanted £5,000,000, £10,000,000 or £20,000,000. They said, "You must wait until after we set up these Commissioners and get their Report. It will be Christmas before they Report. Then we shall be able to tell you what we want from the Exchequer." The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, "That will not do for me. I have got to make up my Budget early every year, and I must know there or thereabouts what the Board of Agriculture require," and so that ill-fated Act of Parliament was wiped off the Statute Book. That is a very brief history of the doings of Parliament; with regard to agriculture during the last five or six years. Agriculture has been very seriously let down. As to the present position, I do not want to paint too lurid a picture, but, to put the case in a nutshell, in my judgment we are suffering from a rapid fall in prices while there is no corresponding fall in the cost of production. While I say this, I want the House to realise that although agriculture is in an unfortunate position we are not yet by a long way so badly off as we were in the 'Eighties and 'Nineties. Wheat to-day makes 43s. a quarter. Lord Selborne's Committee only supported a subsidy up to 40s. a quarter. Compare that with the price even in 1896, after we had got through the worst time of depression, when wheat was selling at 26s. a quarter. Oats to-day are 27s. a quarter, while in 1896 they were 12s. to 14s. a quarter. The barley position is the most serious. At present there is hardly a market at all for malting barley. Good  samples of barley at present are making anything from 16s. to 24s. a coomb. Maltsters all over the country are, buying freely malting barley from California, Chili and Denmark. I fear very much that there is a ring of buyers who are depressing the barley market, and owing to the present condition of agriculture farmers are obliged to sell to get ready money. So at present barley growers in Norfolk and other parts of the country are in a. very serious position. Turning now to livestock. Good agricultural horses, which during the War brought from £100 to £120, can be bought to-day for £50, and second-rate horses, worth £50 then, can be bought to-day for £10, but farmers do not have many horses to sell. Beef to-day is 13s. a stone, and it was 7s. in pre-War days. Good wether sheep to-day are worth £5 compared with 50s. before the War, so that there is no tremendous fall in the price of beef and mutton. In potatoes the slump has come most of all. We have got excellent crops of potatoes, because, owing to the Corn Production Act, thousands of acres of good grass land were ploughed up. In those areas represented by the hon. Member for the Holland Division (Mr. Royce), he will tell you that magnificent new land is being used for potato cultivation, and the result is that we have got a million tons more potatoes in the country to-day than I think we have ever had previously in our history. Therefore, the drop in the price of potatoes is a very serious matter indeed. During the War we controlled the price of potatoes. The control prices were, I think, from £6 to £8 a ton. The moment the control was taken off prices went up actually to £14 a ton. To-day potatoes cannot be sold for more than £2 at most. The price is from 30s. to 40s. a ton for good sorts of potatoes. Owing, I daresay, to the announcement in the newspapers that I was to move this Amendment, various cases have been sent to me. I have got to-day a case from the Spalding Division of two ex-service men who are farming on our colony at Holbeach. They sent 15 tons of potatoes to Manchester and they got back 2s. 6d. I have a case in my own division in Norfolk of a smallholder who sent 10 tons of potatoes to the London market. They realised £29, and he got home £16 after paying carriage and other costs. That  is some indication of the slump in prices. Turning to the cost of production, the price of artificial manures is double what it was in pre-War days. With linseed cake it is the same. Steam ploughing is very necessary for those potato-growing districts, and costs 22s. an acre as against 10s. to 12s. an acre in pre-War days. On railway carriage there is an increase of 75 per cent., plus a flat rate charge which brings it practically to double what it was in pre-War days. Then as to rates, I have received this morning from someone in Bedfordshire a letter which says that the writer lives in a bungalow and farms 75 acres of land. He sends me his demand notes, which show that they are asking him 15s. in the £ rates on a smallholding in Bedfordshire. No doubt that is exceptional, but roughly we may say that rates are from 10s. to 12s. Tradesmen's bills are double, coal is high, and shoeing horses cost three times as much as before the War. All those costs—and I could enumerate others—are beyond the farmers' control. The only thing which the farmer can control with regard to the cost of production is labourers' wages, and that, of course, recently he has dealt with. Now look at the matter from the point of view of the three partners in the industry—the landowner, the tenant farmer and the labourer. The landowners of the old school—who, I regret to say, are becoming fewer—will do, I am sure, as they have always done, and meet the tenants by reductions of rents, and they will very soon get back to pre-War rentals in all cases where the rent has been increased. I could give cases where, and rightly so, the rents were increased. Therefore the men who are tenants in those conditions are lucky men. But I have to deal with another class, and that is the comparatively new landowner, the man who has bought his estate during the last few years. What is his position? I will quote the case of one such in my constituency. Ten years ago, just before the War, he purchased 1,800 acres of land for £40,000. There are upon it a manor house and farm houses. These are the figures which he has given to me: He says: "My gross rentals are £2,500 a year. I am letting my land at £1 8s. an acre, and my cottages at £4 direct to the working  men, because I do not believe in tied cottages. After I have paid all my outgoings, tithe and all the other charges, I get a net rental of £1,350 a year. But my average expenditure for repairs during the last three years hag been £1,340. In other words, I have not a penny interest on my £40,000 investment, except the manor house and a few acres of land upon which I live." Fortunately he has another business and he can make things go. But fancy the position of anyone who has invested £40,000 in land and has not an alternative business upon which to fall. I come to the next class of owner, the occupying owner. His case is very serious. Thousands of acres of land have been put on the market during and since the War. I am not blaming anyone for that, but it is the fact that hundreds of tenants have been obliged to buy their holding or be turned out. Very often they have had to buy in the open market, and very often they have had to give very heavy prices for the land. That class of man is in the most serious position of all. What is to be done with him? The men who bought during 1920 and 1921 say, "We should never have touched this if it had not been for the Agriculture Act." I say to the Minister of Agriculture that to all that class of occupying owner the State owes something. The State has "let them in." The men bought because of the Government guarantee, and therefore they have a right to expect some assistance from the Government. I think it can be done. These men have heavy mortgages on their property, and they very often have heavy bank overdrafts. It is the duty of the State now to lend such men money at a reasonable rate of interest, and to place them in a more secure position. That is the only reasonable course which can be taken. I come next to the tenants. First of all I want to deal with the ex-service men. The ex-service men have been abominably treated by the Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Coalition Government!"] That may be. But one Government has to bear the sins of the last Government, as new Members will find as they continue in this House. £20,000,000 of money was provided to place these ex-service men on the land. After the Land Settlement Act was passed the county councils were forced by the  Ministry of Agriculture to go into the open market in 1919 and to buy land at its highest War price. In my own constituency for land which in pre-War days was selling for £40 an acre, they bought land for £70 and £80 an acre. Then they started to equip it. They were warned that if they would buy land at such high prices there would be gigantic losses to the nation and that the ex-service men would suffer. But the county councils went on. That land was equipped in many cases: with houses and buildings just when everything was at its dearest, just when the Addison scheme of housing was in progress. Money was poured out by the county councils. When the ex-service men came to settle upon the land the Ministry of Agriculture, in order to reduce the loss as much as possible, and in order that it should not have to defend the heavy loss in this House, forced the county councils to charge these men excessive rentals, sometimes twice the rental that the land was letting for in pre-War days. I have in my own constituency men who to-day are struggling with land at £4 an acre—land which we were glad to lot at 30s. an acre before the War. It is a disgraceful state of affairs. I can quite understand that the Minister of Agriculture will say, "Ah, yes; but we have instructed our Commissioners to go round and give these men abatements of rent." That is true, but they are doing it in a most niggardly way, and unless the matter is tackled properly there are thousands of ex-service men who will come to grief within the next six months or year. I do not think the House wishes that that should be the result. Let us cut our losses. It makes one's heart bleed to see the waste of public money, but it was done by a Government Department with their yes open. They insisted upon county councils buying this land at excessive prices. The nation will have to bear the loss and these men must get their land at something like reasonable rents. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who got the money?"] New Members of this House do not seem to understand. This £20,000,000 has been invested in lands and buildings. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who got the money?"] We want the men to have the land at a fair rental. The land is vested in the county councils. I come to the pre-War smallholder. There are thousands of men who were put upon the land tinder the Allotments and  Smallholdings Act of 1908, men who got established before the War, some of whom were flourishing. After the War the Ministry of Agriculture said, "Although you are paying a rent equal to the repayment of interest and sinking fund on what the land cost, that is not enough. We must put up all your rents." In order to minimise the loss on the ex-service men's land they raised the rent of all the pre-War smallholders also. I do not think that that was a proper thing to do, and unless some active steps are taken with regard even to the pre-War smallholders they will come to grief. Let me pass to the tenant farmer. First and foremost, what he complains of is the burden of rates. All local authorities during the War got the fever of extravagance, and I am afraid that many of them are not yet repentant. But there is a move in the rural districts for cutting down expenditure, and it will go on. The incidence of agricultural rating should be dealt with, as has been promised repeatedly. I have been a Member of this House for 17 years, and almost every year during that time one Government or another has promised that it would deal with the incidence of local rating. It has not been done to this day. I ask the present Minister of Agriculture to consider whether he cannot deal with it effectively. There are two main burdens in rural rating, and they are largely responsible for the enormous increase in our local rates. They are education and main roads. I have always held that you must treat rural education rather differently from town education. We in the rural districts are educating our boys and girls not to stay with us. They do not stay with us; they leave us, and rightly leave us, and go into the towns or to the Colonies, and help to people the great centres. Every year certainly half the children whom we educate do not remain with us. In these circumstances we have a right to ask for a greater grant from national sources than that we now get. With regard to main roads, I am quite sure that during the General Election hon. Members have seen what is going on. We have great transports coming along out of the large towns, linking up one city with another and using our main roads, and often some of our rural district roads as well. That sort of thing will go on  and increase. But it is not fair to put the burden upon the local ratepayers. We have a right to ask Parliament to see that we are fairly treated. We ask for no more. 5.0 P.M. I do not want to over-draw the picture. Therefore, I must put in a word here and say that, so far as I am concerned, I make no complaint about Imperial taxation. I think the farmer is a very lucky man with regard to Imperial taxation. I have always thought so and I think so to-day more than ever. In the last Budget the farmer was given tremendous assistance. To-day the farmer pays Income Tax only on his rental value. If his rent is £l an acre he pays only as if his profits were £l an acre. If he gets no profits at all, he goes to Schedule D—he need not go on the three years average—and he escapes Income Tax altogether. The result of that is that there is not a farmer now farming 200 acres or under who is paying one penny of Income Tax. He is absolved from all those wretched brain-racking forms, with which others have to deal. He is in a favourable position in regard to Imperial taxation, and it is only right that the fact should be taken into account. Now we come to the most difficult problem of all, and that is the problem of the middle man's profit. How is it that the farmer down in Lincolnshire is only getting one farthing a pound for his potatoes and you are paying a penny a pound for them up here in London? Then there is the question of the price of bread. I was constantly asked during the last Election, how was it that bread was being sold at 8½d. and 9d. per loaf when wheat was only 45s., whereas in pre-War days, when wheat was 45s., the 4-lb. loaf was sold for 5d. or 6d.? It is all in the cost of production. I do not say that the baker or anybody in the trade is getting a bigger profit than they did before the War. The whole matter wants looking into, and I hope it will be looked into by the Committee. The moment a sack of wheat leaves the farmer and goes to the miller it is a question of the miller's costs of grinding. Those costs have gone up considerably as compared with pre-War days. Wages and all the things used in the mill are at a higher figure. Therefore, when the miller has produced his sack of flour, that sack of flour has cost more than it  would have cost in pre-War days, even though the miller has only paid the same price for the wheat. When that gets to the baker what happens? I have here a very interesting statement of the costs of producing bread as they affect the baker. Yeast cost 3s. 6d. for 7 lbs. before the War and it is now 7s. 7d. Salt cost 40s. a ton and is now 74s. Flour per sack was 25s. before the War and is 43s. to-day. Coke per ton was 18s. and is now 30s. Bread-makers' wages were 28s. and are now 70s. Deliverers' wages were 24s. and are now 60s. The keep of a horse per week was 10s. and is now 17s. 6d. Lighting cost 2s. 6d. per thousand feet before the War and now costs 4s. 2d., while rates have increased by 50 per cent. Each item which enters into the cost of making a loaf of bread is practically double what it was in pre-War times. That completely answers the question as to why bread is 8½d. a loaf instead of 6d., as it used to be when wheat was 45s. previously. What is the remedy? The remedy is organisation. That is a gospel which has been preached for a good many years to the farmers, but it is easier said than done. Fifteen years ago I tried to establish an agricultural trading society among my smallholders. I became president and chairman, and was responsible to the bank for a considerable overdraft. At one time I thought I should have to pay up. We have gone through 15 years of vicissitudes, but I think we have put that society on a proper basis. I think it is going to be a success. There is a large turnover and we sell everything collectively and co-operatively, and we buy things in the same way. But it all depends upon management, honesty, and integrity, and these are things that it is not so easy to get. I have had considerable experience, and I recognise the difficulties, but still it has got to be done. We must have more organisation in agriculture. The Wholesale Co-operative Society have tried it. There are two or three hon. Members here representing the co-operative movement who will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the Wholesale Co-operative Society bought large tracts of land in the Isle of Ely and the Isle of Axholme, and started farming. They had the organisation, yet I venture to say every farm which is being farmed by the society is losing money at the present time. Therefore they have to make their profit by selling their produce  to the consumer. What they lose on the swings they get on the roundabouts. That is what the farmer will more and more have to do. I personally have more faith in Government assistance in this direction of forming agricultural trading societies than in expenditure on teaching science in agriculture. Mark you, I do not want to decry the teaching of scientific agriculture. I think it is very necessary, but in that respect you only teach a few, and you certainly will not teach the present generation. The farmer wants immediate help. He is a poor co-operator. He prefers to paddle his own canoe, and if he makes a mistake he grins and bears it. That will not do. Every business is the better for good organisation and we have to teach the farmer that he must have organisation. Farmers' unions, I am glad to say, have made very considerable progress. They are much better organised, they are bringing a larger body of farmers into their organisation, and there is machinery ready to hand which, I am sure, will assist the Ministry of Agriculture in bringing about the desired co-operation. I come to the question of the labourer, the most difficult problem of all. What is the position with regard to the labourer? His wages are being reduced to, I think, below pre-War level, when you fake into account the cost of living. It wants careful working out, but I think there are five counties, including Norfolk, in which these wages are 25s. a week, and, I understand, when compared with the present cost of living, that means less than the pre-War rate of wages. It is quite true, also, that wages were very low before the War. In the winter before the War in my constituency men were getting 14s. per week, and we had a strike in East Norfolk as to whether they should have 13s. or 14s. The condition of affairs is so bad that I see different boards of guardians in Norfolk propose to meet together to see how they shall assist the labourer who has a large family and is being paid 25s. per week. They are seriously contemplating in Norfolk a subsidy from the poor rate to such men. I have no immediate remedy. I have tried to state the case, and I have done so, inadequately perhaps, but I have not exaggerated, and I ask now that we should have an all-round Government in-  quiry. I am glad to see the Prime Minister here. We do not consider that an inquiry into the middle man's profits is enough. It may be said, and, I believe, is going to be said, that the problem is so urgent that we cannot wait. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] That is what I thought was the view of hon. Members. Well, if we cannot wait, we must know from the Government what they propose to do. I have indicated some directions in which I think the Government can give immediate relief. They can give immediate relief to the occupying owner by lending him money at a reasonable rate of interest. They can give relief to the ex-service man and the smallholder by reducing rents, and there are other ways. In 1913 I was a member of a Committee which made an exhaustive report on the land position. I attached my name to that land inquiry Report. It was an exhaustive, painstaking, and impartial inquiry, and had we not had the War, I believe my right hon. Friend the late Prime Minister would, before now, have attempted legislation on the lines of that Report. I recommend the study of that Report to those who desire that the British farmer and the agricultural worker should be placed in a sound and secure position. That Report still holds the field. I was reading through part of it the other day; I withdraw nothing from it, nor have I much to add to it. There is another report. The landowners and the farmers and the labourers, I am glad to say, are coming together in my county, and have formulated a policy. I have it here in my pocket. I would ask the hon. Members to get it and examine it carefully, and I think the Government ought to examine it. I have no difficulty in subscribing to the joint proposals which come from these three classes in my own county. I say, in conclusion, that this is no party question. It is in the interests of the whole nation that the oldest and the premier industry should flourish, and I appeal to the Government to help it.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I beg to second the Amendment. I rise in a position which I have not occupied for at least 17 years to second the Amendment which has been placed before the House with such consummate ability and great knowledge by my hon. Friend (Sir  Richard Winfrey) who spoke last. I join with him in urging the Government to broaden out their inquiry, whether they like to prosecute this particular inquiry in order to deal with an urgent problem or not. That is a matter which they can best judge for themselves, but I am going to urge that they should have a wider and deeper inquiry into the whole position of agriculture in this country. My hon. Friend the Mover of the Amendment has stated the case from the point of view of those who are actually engaged in the industry. I should like to place the question before the House from the point of view of the contribution which the industry makes to the production of food and the employment of the people, and I say that from both these points of view it is disappointing. Last week we discussed in this House the gravest problem of unemployment with which we have been confronted in this country, certainly for a century. In its actual dimensions, in its prolongation, I think it is more serious than any employment crisis we have ever witnessed in this land. Something just short of 1,500,000 people are out of work. Many of them have been out of work for two years. No one here can predict that this figure will be reduced to 1,000,000 in a twelvemonth, and I should like to meet the man who would pledge his reputation to the prediction that you have not got, under present conditions, a surplus of at least half-a-million people which cannot be absorbed within the next few years into the work and industry of this country. I am putting it at a low figure. That is a very serious problem, it is a very serious outlook, and it demands remedies of a very drastic and a very far-reaching character. I had come to that conclusion before I left office. I had been dealing with the problem of unemployment in this country for two years. I had been dealing in the main, I admit, with expedients, based on the assumption that it was a temporary crisis, a temporary evil which would pass away when the world recovered and you had a restoration to normal conditions. I had come to the conclusion for some time that that was not the case, and that it would be idle merely to deal with something which, in my vision, is a permanent problem with temporary expedients and temporary  shifts. For that reason I had called the attention of my colleagues, as right hon. Gentlemen there know, to proposals of a more permanent character. I had invited an expression of opinion from the Ministry of Agriculture. Those proposals were formulated. I am not urging those proposals. On the contrary, I had come also to the conclusion that it needed a little more investigation and a good deal more consideration, but I do urge that the time has come for putting before the country some proposals of a drastic, far-reaching, and wide character, which will deal with this problem of surplus labour as if it were going to be one of the permanent features of our economic life for a good many years to come. The expedients we discussed last week were, in the main, temporary. The proposals of the Government, at best, covered 10 or 12 per cent. of those who are out of work. I am not complaining, because they were proposals which had been formulated by the Government of which I was the head, find, therefore, I am not putting it as a criticism. In fact, I am not here to criticise, and I think I can promise that, from beginning to end, I shall avoid criticism or attack. But I am going to make suggestions, and I am going to give my reasons for the conclusion which I had come to for a long time, that this is the only hope— the only hope—of dealing with a problem which is one of the most serious with which any Government can be confronted. The expedients were of a temporary character. As far as Labour was concerned, they covered only 12 per cent, as a maximum; the rest was a question of allowances. I listened to that Debate for two days, and I read the speeches which I did not hear, and I was very much struck that even from my hon. Friends on the Labour Benches there were no proposals which seemed to me to cope with the whole of the difficulties and to promise a solution.

Captain O'GRADY
They were made years ago!

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I hope my hon. Friend will allow me to develop my argument.

Captain O'GRADY
May I point out—

HON. MEMBERS
Order, order!

Captain O'GRADY
May I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. SPEAKER
Some of the hon. Member's colleagues will have an opportunity of speaking later on.

Captain O'GRADY
Then we are to allow mis-statements to go on being made?

Mr. SPEAKER
Not mis-statements, but statements made from a different point of view.

Captain O'GRADY
It was a mis-statement.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think the House—

An HON. MEMBER
On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. SPEAKER
Hon. Members have not yet, some of them, learned what is debate. It is a clash of arguments. I shall soon be calling upon some hon. Members on this side to give their view of the case, but that cannot be done by mere negative or by interruption. That would spoil all debate.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I think I may claim that, whether my speech is a helpful one or not, it is not going to be a provocative one. That is not the object of it. I was dealing with the only hon. Member who, I thought, approached the problem of solution in a way which I regarded as hopeful, the hon. Member for the Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), whose speech impressed the House very much indeed, and I must say that I was one of those who was very deeply impressed by it. I do not think that, surveying all the proposals which have been put forward, there is anything on the horizon which gives promise of a solution except a far-reaching, drastic dealing with the whole problem of agriculture. I am not deprecating the suggestions which have been made about Empire development. On the contrary, that was also one of the proposal? which we intended to put forward. Schemes had been formulated by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Swansea (Sir A. Mond), and I am sure they were helpful. I am very glad the Government have taken them up, and I am sure they will prosecute them with the whole of their power. But it will  not solve the problem of unemployment, however successful it is. Other countries have been confronted with the same difficulties. They have grappled with them, and some of them have grappled successfully. In the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend there is a reference to the problem of rural de-population. There is no more serious feature in the life of Britain than that fact, which is covered by a single phrase in the Amendment. At the beginning of the last century 35 per cent, of the population of this country was engaged in— lived on—agriculture. I think the last figures indicate that something around 9 per cent, depend on agriculture. There is no country in the world in that predicament except ours. It is a peril. I have constantly called attention to what I regard as the top-heavy economic and social construction of our society. It is an inverted pyramid, the point, upon which it is resting, crumbling away from decade to decade until it is becoming finer; the base, which is in the air, broadening out and becoming heavier, and I am afraid of what may ensue. Those are the figures of rural de-population, and my hon. Friend in his statement showed that we are not quite at the end of it. European countries were confronted with the same problem. It is a problem that ought to have been attended to here 50, 60, or 70 years ago. I am not going into the question of the very mistaken policy when cash and cheapness dominated the statesmanship of England for a very long time, and, if I may say so, one of the- greatest misfortunes of that period came from the fact that the championship of agriculture was associated with a perfectly hopeless cause, a cause which involved the raising of the price of food for the people. That is one of the misfortunes of agriculture. The consequence was that agriculture is a more neglected industry in this country than in any other civilised land under the sun. If Members of the House of Commons will take the trouble—and I have no doubt a good many of them who take an interest in this matter have done so—to look at the figures, the statistics, of the population engaged on the land in countries with the same difficulties and the same problems as ours, and compare those figures with the figures of the popu-  lation engaged on the land in this country, they will see the extent to which we have neglected efforts for solving the problem. I will just give two or three figures which will show what the position is. In this country, out of those who are engaged in occupations of various kinds, only 9·2 per cent, are engaged in agricultural pursuits. France one does not quote, because it is more of an agicultural country, but it is worth noting that the figure there is 42·7 per cent, of the population, and that that gives a stability to France, a power of recovery to France, which no other country in the world probably possesses. But take two countries which are rather similarly situated to ours, great industrial countries, Belgium and Germany. Belgium produces more factory stuff, goods manufactured in the factories and workshops, per head of the population than this country. In spite of that fact, 22·7 per cent, of the occupied population is engaged in agricultural pursuits-—22·7, against 9·2 here. Take Germany, whose industrial development was one of the phenomena of the end of the nineteenth century, whose imports and exports very nearly overtook ours— 35·8 per cent, of the population is engaged on the soil; and it is worth while following why that was done. On the Continent of Europe military exigencies forced statesmanship to grapple with this problem in time. You have the same process of rural degeneration, the same flight from the land to the towns, the same allurements in the city, not merely higher wages, but the amenities of life, drawing the population—the same hæmorrhage of the soil. They did not allow it to bleed white, as we did in this country. Their soldiers said, "This is a serious problem. Sturdy, vigorous, robust, enduring people were reared on the soil; those have vanished, they are flocking into the towns; you will have a population grown under the unhealthy, depressing conditions of industrial life." [An HON. MEMBER: "C3!"] Yes, a C3 population, of which we had a higher proportion, I am sorry to say, than any of the combatant nations. They therefore said, "As a military problem, you must stop this." I am not sure it is not a military problem here. Those who were engaged in  directing the great struggle, when there was a real danger of starvation, when our ships were sunk by German submarines at the rate in one month of 700,000 tons, know the anxieties with which we were faced, because we would have been starved out in a single year if we had not been able to protect our ships. The seas were trackless and the cavalry of the sea was only numbered by hundreds, and the lines of communication were very long. Thanks to the resourcefulness, the gallantry, the skill of our sailors, thanks, also, to the assistance we had from our scientific men, whose services have not been sufficiently appreciated, we were able to face that menace. I am not going to say that it will ever occur again. I hope not. I hope there will be no more war. Mankind has had its lesson. Yes, but it has had it before, and if we are going to base the security, the life of the country, upon the assumption that, under all conditions, at all times, the passions of mankind will not wrest the lever out of the hand of reason, it is rather a precarious security for any land. And it is rather ominous That even now there is one Power that insists on building submarines, in spite of the protest of every other Power in the world. I do hope that even that lesson will not be forgotten when you come to the question of food production in this country. But that is not the chief ground on which I am urging this to-day. I am urging it rather on the ground now of finding some means of healthy productive employment for the surplus population of this country, and to secure the restoration of the rural life which has even fed our industries for two or three generations, without which it would have been impossible to continue our industries, and to make them prosperous. I say that other countries have considered this problem and have found their remedies. There is no country in Europe, except Russia, where the proportion of labour to the 100 acres is as low as ours. That is a very serious fact. Let me give the figures. Take the numbers employed on 100 acres of cultivated land in this country. It is 4·5. Go to Denmark, with no great market except across the seas. We have the greatest markets of the world at our own door. In Denmark there are 7 per 100 acres, France 10 per 100 acres, I Belgium 16 per 100 acres, and Germany  18 per 100 acres. Now the comparison with Germany, I think, is the most fruitful of all. I pointed out that in the eighties Germany discovered this flight from the land. There was a great patriotic appeal made to all sections of the community to come in and remedy this evil. Landowners came in, farmers came in, labourers joined, banks came in, soldiers assisted for military reasons, and the State played its part. There was a great combined patriotic effort made to rescue rural Germany from the fate of rural England. When the experiment began, the soil of Germany was inferior to ours. Take the produce of German soil in the 'eighties and compare it with ours. I recommend my hon. and right hon. Friends to peruse a very able document produced by Sir Thomas Middleton during the War. Unfortunately, it was during the War, when people were engaged in other tasks, and therefore it did not attract the attention it ought to have attracted. He gives the reasons for the development in Germany, and most of the figures, although not all, I get from that document. He points out that in the early 'eighties the produce of German soil was inferior to ours—considerably inferior. He then gives the produce after 25 years of that joint great patriotic effort, which was made to revive German agriculture, and the contrast is a very remarkable one. In the 'eighties the produce is considerably inferior to ours; 25 years later it has exceeded ours by 50 or 60 per cent, for the same number of acres. This is how he sums it up, and it is a very remarkable summing up. On each 100 acres of cultivated land, the British farmer feeds from 45 to 50 persons; the German farmer feeds from 70 to 75 persons. The British farmer grows 15 tons of corn; the German farmer grows 33 tons. The British farmer grows 11 tons of potatoes; the German, 55 tons. The British farmer produces four tons of meat; the German, 4¼ tons. The British farmer produces 17½ tons of milk; the German, 28 tons. The British farmer produces; a negligible quantity of sugar: the German farmer produces 2¾ tons. That is a very remarkable testimony to what can be accomplished by a great, earnest, serious patriotic effort to lift an industry from a condition of depression to a condition of productivity, where it enriches its own land, and where it  provides profitable employment for a large population. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why did you not do it?"] An hon. Member asks why I did not do it. In the first place, during the War I made my effort. I was not satisfied with it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nor anyone else."] If I were satisfied with it I would not be here. If the hon. Gentleman who interrupts wishes to be offensive, that really does not help debate. That agricultural effort, which included compulsory cultivation, a very remarkable principle to introduce, increased the amount of food produced in this country from food for 14,500,000 to food for 19,000,000 people. When the hon. Gentleman is able to do by one act as much as that, I will listen to his criticism. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is not the whole story."] In addition to that, in Germany there are the great German forests, which provide employment for a population of 500,000. What I want the Government to do is this. I make my proposals. I do not ask them to accept those proposals. My right hon. Friend will find them there. I do not put them forward. On the contrary, I think they require further investigation. We were in process of investigation, but I felt, the more we investigated them, that it required a more thorough and complete sifting of the whole problem, and what I am really urging the Government to do is to have an inquiry into all these methods which have been adopted abroad, and into the whole position and conditions of agriculture. My hon. Friend sitting below me has pointed out that, bad as things were, they are better now. He pointed out some encouraging features in the present depression. I am going to point out some discouraging features. I remember going through all the old agricultural depressions; I was then practising as a solicitor in a rural district, and all the farmers there came to me with all their troubles, and I knew far more about their financial position than their landlords. In those days the rates were comparatively low. The Income Tax was something like 8d. in the £. The landlord was in a better position to assist. He could afford to give his 10 per cent., 15 per cent, or 20 per cent, remission, and what he did very often, when he did not remit, was not to press, and the remission of 25 per cent. did not always represent his contribution. On the contrary, there were rents which he absolutely forgave; that was, he never pressed for them. He is not in a position to do it now. His Income Tax then was 8d. in the £; he now pays half his income away in Income Tax. His rates are treble or quadruple what they were, and I know landlords who are not getting a quarter of their income available for their own use. The other point is this. As my hon. Friends associated with agriculture know very well, the landlord used to return anything from 10 per cent, to 20 per cent., according to whether he was an improving landlord or not, to be put back into the land in the way of repairs and improvements. I had a good deal to do with that when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, after investigation, we fixed the amount at 12 per cent., which, on the whole, was fair as an average. He has no longer money available to put into the land. What is the result? Who is going to do the repairs? Who is going to make the improvements? Who is going to provide new buildings and repair old ones? Who is going to do the necessary drainage? There is no one to do it. The landlord can do it no longer, the farmer cannot afford it, and certainly the poor labourer cannot contribute. The banks are not prepared to do it, because in the old days, when you had little proprietary banks, where the banker—it was the case when I started down in Wales—knew every farmer, and he lent money until the bad times were over, because he knew the man was an honest man. You have got now a system of a different character. There is no one to do it. What is the result? The land will become more and more derelict, more and more neglected, and, therefore, it is an urgent problem which I am pressing upon the Government. I know it is said that unemployment is a temporary problem, that you have only got to wait until the world settles down, until the exchanges are restored, until the purchasing power of the world is filled up from its present depleted condition, and then there will be a boom. It is said that if you engaged in great agricultural schemes, it would involve the diversion of a good deal of labour on to the land, and the moment  you have the boom in industry those labourers will quit their tasks and go back to where they can get better wages and live in an atmosphere to which they are more accustomed. I do not believe it. If that were true, there are two alternative risks. One is the risk that when you have the boom the schemes which have been started may be left derelict. Even then there will be employment provided and it is better than tramping every week to the Exchanges to draw the allowances. In addition to that, however, some good will have been done, some improvement will have been effected. The other risk is this: Supposing trade does not absorb your surplus population, suppose you still have some years hence hundreds of thousands of willing workers with no work for them, those years will be years of misery. More than that, they will be years of peril; because this surplus population living on allowances is a source of irritation to the body-politic which at any moment might develop into a formidable fever. Therefore the risks of not doing things are greater than the risks of making a mistake. But is unemployment a temporary state" [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If the House will bear with me for a moment I should like to give the conclusions to which I have come, because they bear upon this problem of finding employment in agriculture. I am not doing it in order to engage in another investigation. I want it to be a contribution to what we are discussing. It is assumed that the moment the world settles down, when the threads of the exchanges are bound together again, that all will be well.

Mr. S. WALSH
Assumed by whom?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
I do not say it is assumed by my right hon. Friend, but there are those who do assume it, and perhaps I may be permitted to argue with them. It is assumed that the moment the world settles down and you get restoration of prosperity that all will be well. Are you quite sure? What is the position now? We have two formidable trade rivals, Germany and the United States of America. The United States cannot sell to the best advantage because her exchange is too high. Every man who buys in America has to buy dollars, and dollars are the most ex-  pensive commodity in the world at the present moment. Therefore, there is that detriment to their trade. Go to Germany. The German exchange is low. That means cheap labour in Germany. You might have imagined that that would have enabled Germany to flood the markets of the world with cheaper goods than our own, and cut us out. She is not doing it. Why? We are selling this year 70 per cent, of the commodities which we were selling before the War. Germany, in spite of her cheap labour and low exchange, is selling 40 per cent. Dr. Rathenau told me at the beginning of the year they were only selling 25 per cent. Why? Does the world know? The first reason is that the material for manufacture is more expensive because of the low-ness of her exchange. The second reason is the fluctuations in the exchange which make it impossible to do business. I heard the other day of a man whose firm wanted to buy a couple of machines which the Germans produce better than we do. He could buy them at £1,000 less than the price here. He saw the quotation. It was filled with conditions dealing with the exchanges, labour conditions, and the peculiar aspects of German economic and industrial life. He did not buy the machines. His firm preferred to pay the £1,000 more here for inferior machines, because they were certain to get delivery. That is the second reason. The third reason is the prejudice against the German salesman. It still exists. These three things will pass away. Sooner or later the German exchange will be stabilised, and that is what matters. It is not the figure at which it is stabilised. It is the fact of stabilisation. The prejudice against the German salesman is wearing thin even now. It will ultimately disappear.

Royal Assent

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went, and, having returned,

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—
 1. Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922.2. Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act, 1922.

Debate On The Address

Agriculture

Question again proposed, "That those words be there added."

6.0 P.M.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
There is nothing with which I am better pleased to be interrupted in the middle of a speech than to hear that the Irish Free State Constitution Act has been placed upon the Statute Book. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I was dealing with the problem of whether unemployment was likely to be permanent, or whether it was simply a temporary feature which will vanish as soon as credits are restored in the world and the exchanges are repaired. It is rather a remarkable feature of unemployment or, at any rate, of the present aspect of unemployment, that you have as many engaged in the various industries as you had before the War, and in spite of that fact you have, roughly speaking, 1,500,000 people out of work, and that in spite of the fact that the curtailment of the hours of labour has provided more work. There has also been an arrest of emigration, and there is the fact that we are not taking sufficiently into account that every year you have 500,000 fresh hands that come into the labour market as against 250,000 that pass out of it. I was just calling attention to the prospects of the future in view of the results of the War. There are two or three aspects of it which have given me the deepest concern, and I think they fill the future with great uncertainty, great doubt, and great anxiety. There are three or four questions which I have put to myself many times when I have tried to study this question, and I have put them to almost every expert I have had the privilege of meeting, and one is, has the War simply dislocated the machinery of commerce, or has it seriously diminished and impaired the purchasing power of the world? It may seem a very easy problem, but you will not get the same answer from any two men. There is a certain measure of agreement that the foreign securities we have spent are a loss of purchasing power to us. The external debt we pay, and that is a loss to us. The fact that Russia with a population of 200,000,000 is no longer a producer and therefore no longer a purchaser, that is a loss, to  the world. But taking the world as a whole, is its purchasing power reduced? A good deal depends' on the answer to that question. What is the effect of the huge debts which have accumulated during the War? Is it merely a paper re-arrangement of our wealth or is it a real burden upon the community? Here is a problem which I think is a very serious one, and I should like to know the answer to it. We have four competitors for our manufactures, the United States of America, Germany, Belgium, and France. By a process of inflation France has wiped out three-fifths of her debt, and the process is going on, and I do not know when it is going to stop. Belgium has a debt which is not more than one-fifth or one-sixth per head of her population. The United States of America has a debt per head of her population one-fourth or one-fifth of ours. Germany has wiped out her internal debt, and I heard only last week that her external debt was to be wiped out as well. When the prosperity of the world is restored, when its exchanges are repaired, when business begins again, are we going to be handicapped by the fact that our debt alone stands, in fact, has even appreciated since the War? Are we going to be handicapped in the markets of the world by the fact that we alone have got a debt which is unimpaired and which, if anything, has increased, in competing in the same markets with those who have a reduced debt per head of population, whether they are engaged in industry by brain or hand? Germany will pay for pensions and debts between £5 and £10 per head of her workers. France will pay about the same, and Belgium less. The United States will pay about the same, but our own workers will be paying between £30 and £40 per head. I cannot tell what the effect of that will be. It might well be that it is simply the money which circulates here and does not diminish the general wealth of the community, but I cannot believe that it is not going to have some effect in handicapping us when the struggle comes. May I put another consideration which rather perplexes me? The standard of living in some industries has gone up. The hours of labour have gone down, and the population has increased, although  trade is restricted. Our burdens, local and Imperial, have trebled and quadrupled. How long will the ice hold? Upon the answer to those three or four considerations depends the answer to the question whether unemployment is going to be a serious and menacing problem with which we are to be confronted for years to come. I am full of doubt and concern when I look at all those questions, and I have been, and I say that it is essential that the Government of the day should seriously consider them. I do not mind hon. Members condemning me because I have not done it. Have your indictment and your verdict; have your sentence, but you do not remove the problem. I will accept anything people say about that. I say here now that these things have filled me with concern. I am putting them before the House without attacking anybody or criticising anybody or blaming anybody. I am appealing to everybody to help to get us out Of this difficulty. What do you propose? There is a proposal from the Government. I have my proposals. I do not put them forward. I ask the Government to go into the matter and appoint a competent tribunal of investigation. It is not enough for Ministers to say that they will do it themselves. The reason I say that is not because I have no confidence in my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture, but I know that Ministers are so overwhelmed with the details of their daily task—no one knows it better than I do—with things that pursue them from morning till night and distract them, that they cannot give the continuous examination which is necessary in order to enable them to consider a problem of this magnitude, and, therefore, I urge them to appoint some competent tribunal of investigation to deal with it. I am not suggesting a Royal Commission. A Royal Commission is very often an excuse. It is not necessary; there have been plenty of Commissions and the material is there as the result of individual inquiries and of collective inquiries. It is all there, but you do want somebody with knowledge and experience to co-ordinate and present recommendations to the Government, so that they can deal with it in the coming Session of Parliament. I beg them to deal with it boldly and broadly. We have all been attempting to deal with  it, and I say at once that the proposals which were made by the late Government were inadequate to deal with the problem. We made further progress in the proposals which we put forward during the War than any proposals ever made. But they were not relevant to the conditions of peace altogether. You have had Agricultural Holdings Acts, Agriculture Acts, Small Holdings Acts, and proposals with regard to rating. But they have not yet arrested the decay of agriculture. I know that hon. Members are good enough to tell me that the reason why Germany was able to cope with her problem was because she had a swingeing tariff. I wonder whether the hon. Member who said that has read the very remarkable paper which was presented to the British Association by one of the ablest agriculturists in this country—Lord Bledisloe. I recommend my hon. Friend to read this document. Lord Bledisloe is a man who has been associated with agriculture all his life. No man can say that by his associations or he is sympathies he is antagonistic to landlords. No man can say that by his associations he is antagonistic even to tariffs. He is a member of the party opposite, and this is what he says about the German tariff in reference to this matter: "German agriculture flourished in pre-War days not in consequence of but in spite of its Protectionist policy." That is his view of the matter. I would like to say this, further. I know there are suggestions made that you should reduce the rates. There are other suggestions put forward to deal with the middle man. There are other suggestions put forward of a different character. I d not believe you will deal with these problems by any one specific. It is by a combination of a variety of suggestions each helpful, some cutting down the loss, and perhaps the smallest of them making the profit. Agriculture, everybody agrees, is a badly organised industry, and, as everyone in business knows, organisation is what makes the difference between profit and loss in business. All these things have to be considered, and I urge the Government to consider them now. There is no passion now. The land question for the moment is not in the sphere of controversy. At any rate, there are no great passions aroused at the present moment, and you can consider the question in an atmosphere of calm and tran-  quillity. There is an advantage in that. If it is neglected, passions will be aroused, the struggle will begin again. I do not see that that is an atmosphere in which you can find remedies. I therefore urge the Government to consider now, to inquire now, to be prepared now, with recommendations, because I believe that in directing our attention and our energies to the revival of the rural life of this country, in that and in that alone you will find security for the State, prosperity for the land, and safety for the Realm.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Bonar Law)
I had not intended to take part in this Debate and the House will not expect me to deal in detail with the subject which we are discussing. That will be done by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, but I venture to think, whether rightly or wrongly, we have had a speech so important from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon (Mr. Lloyd George) that the House will see it is right I should say a word or two. My right hon. Friend knows that when we were working together it was a joke among all my colleagues that I was always a pessimist. In some respects the tables are turned, to-day I am the optimist, and my right hon. Friend has become the pessimist. After a war, one does not know when you will, return to normal conditions, but there is at least some hope that that will happen. Let the House remember—I do not say it is a complete analogy, but it is to the point —that after the Napoleonic Wars we had a debt which, in comparison with the annual income of the country, was precisely the same as the debt we are bearing now. And I put this point, which I know my right hon. Friend and the House have constantly in their minds, that internal debt is a very serious thing, but it is not nearly so fatal as external debt. For example, when we have paid the £300,000,000 interest to our people at home, it means that with this exception, and it is a very big exception, of what the State takes in taxation, that money returns to fructify in the pockets of the people and is available for the development of industry in any direction. I said I was a pessimist. I am afraid my right hon. Friend does put an exaggerated idea on what can be done in the way of the development of agriculture  in a country like ours. I do not disagree with what he said about the importance of agriculture. Indeed, I may add one other item which I do not think he mentioned, namely, the terrible evil of the relative diminution of the rural population. It does not affect the rural population alone, when they do not get work and have to seek employment elsewhere. It means that wages all over tend to fall. As I listened to the eloquence of my right hon. Friend with great interest and great pleasure—I know I can never rival him— I recalled words which will even compete with those of the right hon. Gentleman. They were written very long ago by Disraeli, and had reference to a controversy which my right hon. Friend only very incidentally raised. This is what Disraeli said: "But, believe me, I speak not as your enemy when I say that it will be an exception to the principles which seem hitherto to have ruled society, if you can succeed in maintaining the success at which you aim without the possession of that permanence and stability which the territorial principles alone can afford. Although you may for a moment flourish after their destruction, although your ports may be filled with shipping, your factories smoking on every plain, and your forges flame in every city, I see no reason why you should form an exception to that which the page of history has mournfully recorded, that you, too, should not fade like the Tyrian dye and moulder like the Venetian palaces." That is a repetition 70 years ago of something of the views of my right hon. Friend. I do put this to the House, as I think it has a direct bearing on the speech of my right hon. Friend. No one can pretend that a population so great as that which is now to be found in this country can continue unless there is a development of trade which will give employment. It is quite evident that this population cannot be maintained in this country by agriculture alone. This is where, I am afraid, my right hon. Friend is too optimistic. The moment you go outside of land that is specially suitable for agriculture, and take land which is a little less suitable, the costs rise in every way. It is what economists call the law of diminishing returns. Then you come to a position where there is no rent at all, and where it will be impossible for food to be produced in competition with world prices. What follows from that? You can have as much agriculture as you like if you are  willing to pay the price. We found that during the War. I was a Member of the Government then, and, therefore, to praise it is to take praise"—which I do not deserve—for myself; but I do not think that anything that was done during the War was more effective for the purpose we then had in view. It was a splendid performance. I do, however, feel this. My right hon. Friend has got to face not only the fact that the quantity of land available for agriculture is now far less; he has got to face the conditions. What are those conditions? Once you get outside the kind of land that is suitable for growing wheat and other kinds of produce, you are faced with the fact that you have great difficulty in maintaining it except in one of two ways, both of which are barred, namely, Protection or subsidy. My right hon. Friend tried that during the War. I also was responsible for it, and I am not blaming him. We tried, after the War, to continue the same system which had succeeded during the War, and my right hon. Friend knows what happened. Within six months we had to reverse the whole thing. I do not blame him. I think, as he said himself, that it is better sometimes to make mistakes than to make nothing at all. That, however, is the fact—it was a complete failure; and we are up against this position, that, however much we may improve our agriculture, the conditions are such that there is a very definite limit to the increase which can take place without a change in our system, either in the direction of Protection or of subsidies, both of which are barred, My right hon. Friend will excuse my arguing with him. I have no desire to do so, because he was very uncontroversial. He dwelt a great deal upon other countries, but, in my opinion, the only analogy which at all applies is Belgium, because there they are more or less Free Traders as regards agricultural products.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
There is Denmark.

The PRIME MINISTER
My right hon. Friend did not mention that country, but I will refer to it. My right hon. Friend is not speaking about something in which he takes an interest for the first time. There is nothing in which he has been more interested during all his political life  and many a lecture he gave me on the subject in private. Belgium was one of his favourite examples. At that time I pointed out—but it never had any effect on him—that in Belgium the agricultural labourer, and his family as well, worked far longer hours and had really a far lower standard of life than obtains here. Then my right hon. Friend turned to Germany. I do not want to raise the fiscal controversy, but after my right hon. Friend's speech I have had hopes that, if I lived for four years, I would be following him in advocating a different policy altogether. He pointed out the remarkable fact that about 1880 Germany, which had been sending every year a far larger number of emigrants than we had, ceased to send them. It was precisely at that time that the Germans set up a tariff, and all German economists of every school maintained that it was the development of industry coupled with the protection of agriculture which did give employment in Germany and enabled the population to stay at home. There is another fact in regard to this matter which I should like to point out. My right hon. Friend gave figures, which sounded very alarming, about the reduction in acreage and in the number of men employed. I have a liking in a small way for arithmetic, and this is the conclusion that I came to from my right hon. Friend's figures. He told us that the number of men employed per acre in Germany was more than twice the number per acre here, considered in relation to the amount of produce; but, as I worked out the proposition, the net result is that if yon look, not at the acre, but at the man, the German engaged in agriculture produces only half the amount of foodstuffs produced by the English agricultural labourer. That is a very remarkable fact, and the explanation is, I think, that our higher standard of wages has made it a necessity to use machinery to the utmost and to get the work done in some other way so as to employ as little labour as possible. I do not want to give the idea that nothing can be done to help agriculture under the present system. I do not think that for a moment. Denmark is a far more remarkable case than Belgium. I think it was after their trouble with Germany, in 1864 or thereabouts, that they had to set their house in order, and I  am told that there is no place in the world where farming is carried on in anything like the scientific manner that it is in Denmark. There is, however, one weak spot even in the comparison with Denmark. They sell their produce, not in their own market, but here; and if we set up a protective tariff, what would become of Denmark then? For all that, we can get a tremendous lesson from what has been done in Denmark. I think myself that, as was pointed out by the hon. Member who moved this Amendment, and is well realised by my right hon. Friend, the greatest fault of our agriculturists is not that they do not know how to farm, but that they do not know how to do the business of farming as well as other people. They seem to dislike, more than any other people, allowing anyone else to know what they are doing, and in consequence it is very difficult to get co-operation among them. There is this further difficulty. Taking it all round I think our farming is well done. At least it will compare with that of other countries; but I do not agree with the hon. Member who moved the Amendment that research and scientific work are not so important as other measures. On the contrary, I think my right hon. Friend did a good thing, when he found it necessary to repeal the Agriculture Act, in giving the large sum which is now devoted to agricultural research. I am sure that that is a good thing. I think, however, that perhaps the greatest evil from which our farmers suffer is in the way they sell their produce. My right hon. Friend has already appointed a Committee, which I hope will act quickly, to deal with that particular aspect. Then there is another evil, almost as important, which requires a remedy. As the result of our Agriculture Bill, apart from the general evils from which our farmers are suffering, they were encouraged to buy their farms at what are now absurdly high prices. They are suffering from it terribly, and, therefore, credit facilities are needed, not only for them, but all round. I know, for example, that in a large part of the country there are farms so small as fifty acres or less, where they have no banking account at all, and it is obvious, taking the industry all round, that nothing can be more important than to see what credit facilities can be given. My right hon. Friend appointed a Committee to deal  with that very subject, and I am told that it is going to report very soon. I do hope, and from the nature of the Committee I almost believe, that they will make recommendations which will be of real service in regard to this matter. Then we know that agriculture suffers from many other evils. There is, for instance, the question of rating. That question will certainly be examined before next Session, and it is our hope that we may be able to make definite proposals to deal with it. There is another evil, which is, perhaps, exaggerated, but which I think is a real one, namely, the cost of transport. I cannot promise any cure for that, but both the Government and those who are interested in the matter have to bear in mind that we must try to get that improved. As the House knows, the power over railways, unless you pass some special Act of Parliament for the purpose, is well defined, but I hope that, in the reductions which are sure to come in railway, rates, the railway managers will realise that whatever trade they can cultivate on their own lines is permanent, and that, therefore, it is above all their interest to give such facilities as will encourage production on their own systems, because in that way they get the whole of it, and do not depend, as in the case of imports of agricultural produce from abroad, on haphazard business. The railway companies are threatened with the competition of motor traffic, and I hope they will recognise that it is in their interest to cut down rates as much as they can. The Government will do what they can to induce them to do so. Perhaps I am going more into details than I might have done. I really rose to deal with my right hon. Friend's request for an inquiry. My right hon. Friend knows that to put this request in the form of an Amendment to the Address makes it impossible for the Government to accept it. I believe it has never been accepted in any ease. I am sure, however that my right hon. Friend has no such idea. He really wants to help us, and I will say to the House that the mere fact that my right hon. Friend, with all his experience and interest in this subject, presses upon us a more general inquiry, makes me inclined to try. I am sure my right hon. Friend does not expect me to say here and now that we will undertake to have  an inquiry on account of this Amendment. He could not ask that of us, because, after all, we have only been in office for some five weeks, with an election intervening. I do not think it is a question of my saying here and now that I accept the terms of the Amendment, but I will say that I am willing to the fullest extent to consult with my right hon. Friend or anyone else who is interested in the subject, not only as to the advisability of an inquiry, but as to the nature of the inquiry. I will go further, and say that, provided it does not interfere with our immediate plans, I see no reason whatever why such an inquiry should not be held.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE
Will the right hon. Gentleman be in a position to make an announcement as to the character of the inquiry before the House rises, so that if it be not satisfactory there will be an. opportunity for the House to consider it again before we rise, because it is an urgent problem.

The PRIME MINISTER
I will try to do it before the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Mr. PRETYMAN
I am sure the House has listened with very great interest and satisfaction to the two speeches we have just heard. I know very well that the late Prime Minister has a real interest in agriculture and that agriculture has always had a friend in him. I entirely agree with the attitude which he has adopted, that this is a national and not a controversial party question. I am certain there is no party in the House or the country, or any single Member in the House, who does not wish well to agriculture and would not be prepared to give the very best assistance to any effort or any labours which he believed would benefit the industry. The trouble we all have is not want of goodwill, but that no one cansee how the end we all desire can be obtained, which is to restore agriculture to some reasonable measure of prosperity. I think there never has been a moment since I have been connected with agriculture or with politics when the nation was more awake to this necessity than it is at present, and if we wanted another proof of that it would be found in the two speeches we have just heard delivered. But if we look at the real fundamental cause why we constantly find such insuperable difficulties in restoring any measure of prosperity  to agriculture, it is for the very simple reason that we are an industrial system and the whole system is an industrial system and is not fitted for agriculture. If agriculture is to be prosperous, it has, in the face of world competition, to bring the cost of production below the price at which the produce can be sold. That is really the fundamental problem, and the real difference between agriculture and other industries is that agriculture is open on every side, with no shelter whatever, to the working of economic law in competition with the whole world, whereas every other industry has some considerable shelter in one form or another; and if we want proof of that, there is no easier way to show how this works than to take the four stages which have to be passed through by a loaf of bread before it is sold for consumption. The first stage is growing the wheat, the second is transporting it to the mill, the third is the milling, and the fourth is the baking. We have been discussing the first, and it is clear that in that stage the agricultural industry has to meet the fiercest foreign competition, in consequence of which the profits of the farmer are reduced to a vanishing quantity and the wages of the labourer are reduced to a point below the subsistence level for a large family.

Mr. W. THORNE
What about the landlord?

Mr. PRETYMAN
The landlord has nothing left at all. I was not going to deal with the landlord's side of the case, because from the numerical point of view that may be less important, but if the hon. Member interrupts me on it, I can only tell him that, as far as my knowledge goes, on any agricultural estate in the country the position is very simple. The owner of an estate, with the income that he receives from rents, is just about able to pay the necessary costs of management, maintenance and repair and to pay the Income Tax. He cannot pay the Super-tax, there is not money enough to do it, and if he is going to pay Super-tax, he has either to sell the estate or to find the Super-tax from other sources outside the estate itself. When my right hon. Friend spoke of the facility with which rents were reduced in the hard times of the 'eighties, there would be quite equal facilities in reducing the rents now, because it does not much matter to the  landlord what rent he gets. It is all taken by the State—the whole of the surplus and more. I do not think it is right that taxation and rates should be levied upon any form of property to such an amount that it is impossible to carry it on at a reasonable profit. I did not rise to put the landowner's ease, but when it is suggested that the landowner is getting something out of the land, it is my duty to state the actual facts. If the hon. Member who, I know, wishes well to all classes of agriculture will look into the figures for himself, and would like to be supplied with any figures, I shall be happy to supply him, so that he can satisfy himself that what I have said is true. All these three classes concerned are at the very last gasp. The landlord is getting less than nothing, the farmer is on the average getting no profits, and the labourer is getting less than a living wage. That is the first stage of the production of bread in this country. That is economic law—fierce competition and no shelter. Then we come to the second stage. That is where the wheat is transported to the mill. There we have the railway companies, who have to pay interest to their shareholders, and who have an agreement with their men to pay them a fair living wage for an eight hours' day. They say, "In order to carry out those obligations it is necessary for us to charge a 75 per cent, increase on our pre-War railway charges," and they do it. They have the power to do it. Why should they have the power to do it when the farmer has no power to do it? The effect on the price of bread is exactly the same whether the 75 per cent, is put on by the railway company for transport or by the farmer on to the price of the produce that he sells. Then you come to the miller. Figures have already been given by the Mover of the Amendment showing that the miller does exactly the same as the railway company. He puts on an additional cost to cover the higher wages that he pays to his men, to cover the interest on his capital and those other charges to which my hon. Friend referred. He can and does fix those prices to cover his outgoings. He and the railway companies make their prices cover their outgoings, and by that means they are able to carry on. Then you come to the baker, who is in exactly the same position. He also fixes prices himself which cover the  cost to the industry. That being so, it hardly seems necessary for the Minister of Agriculture to hold an inquiry as to why bread is dearer than it was. It is plain that in three stages out of the four, in all except the preliminary stage of growing the wheat, the charges are up by anything from 75 per cent, upwards. This is not a question only of profiteering by the employer. The agricultural labourer does a longer day's work and as highly skilled a day's work as any other class of the community. I do not believe it is possible to find a higher class of skill than that of a man, such as a shepherd or herdsman, who is in charge of a valuable herd of breeding animals. That man is always on duty. He has to know something of the particular character and requirements of every single animal under his charge. The success of the herd or flock depends upon his knowledge, upon his constant vigilance, upon his having technical qualifications which would combine those of several scientific professions put together in dealing with the human race, and yet that man, simply because of the pressure of economic law upon the industry, with no shelter of any kind, has to take a bare subsistence wage, whereas a railway porter can receive a fair and reasonable wage for an eight hours' day for far less skilled work, simply because he has the shelter which is denied to the other individual.

Captain O'GRADY
Wages are coming down rapidly.

Mr. PRETYMAN
That may be, but they are still over £1 a week more than those of the agricultural labourer. That is the present position, and I do not agree with my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment when he said that the condition of affairs' in agriculture to-day was less serious than it was in the 'eighties.

Captain O'GRADY
My interjection might be misunderstood. I said that the wages of the men engaged in the three stages of wheat growing until it gets to the bread had gone down, and I quite admit that although they have gone down the farmer is not getting the benefit of it but the railway companies and the millers and the transport companies.

Mr. PRETYMAN
I was not raising the question whether the farmer was getting any benefit or otherwise, or whether em-  ployers and employed in those three stages are actually getting adequate profits and wages although they are falling. The question is not only whether a wage is falling. A real wage cannot be measured in cash. It is measured in purchasing power. For instance, supposing a man's wages in francs in France to-day were paid at 50 per cent, more than before the War, they would be 100 per cent, below the purchasing power they had before the War. Therefore you have to take purchasing power into account. I think I am not very far from the truth when I say that the fall in wages in the three stages to which I have referred outside agriculture is about on a parity with the actual increase of purchasing power, and therefore the real wage remains more or less the same. But in the case of the agricultural industry the exact reverse has happened. Wages have slumped down, not on a parity with the increase of purchasing power of the money, but with no regard to it whatever, by the simple unshielded operation of the economic law of competition. Therefore it points to this. It is the duty of this House and the Government to do something to put the agricultural industry and the agricultural labourer in a position to pay his way under present conditions. These measures may have to be temporary. I am not in favour of Protection or of going outside the ordinary economic law. Far from it. I am all for it. But you must deal with temporary emergencies of this kind in order to prevent an industry from collapsing. The industry cannot protect itself, and surely it is futile for the House or the country to say, "We do no mind 75 per cent. increase in railway rates. We do not mind 75 per cent, increase in milling and baking charges added to the price of bread, but we will not have one pennyworth of percentage going on to the price of bread in order to save the agricultural industry from extinction." 7.0 P.M. Is that a reasonable attitude for the House to take? That is the point of view from which I look at it; from the practical side. Those of us engaged in farming poor land today are doing our utmost and straining every nerve to keep that land in cultivation in face of enormous difficulties, and with burdens and charges upon us which are intoler-  able. As I have said in the House before, I found difficulty enough to farm that land when the rates and taxes together were 1s. in the £. Now the rates are up to 15s. and the Income Tax and Super-tax are up to and above 10s. in the £. How can those burdens be borne? That is what I meant when, perhaps rather awkwardly, at the beginning of my speech I said that agriculture was suffering because it was merely a part of the industrial State. Income Tax, Super-tax, rates largely for health purposes, education, and the maintenance of roads —every one of these charges are those of an industrial State. Surely that largely answers the comparison which has been made between England and Denmark. If England were an agricultural country, as in Denmark, we should not have these expenses and taxes—they are of art industrial character, and they are all imposed by the industrial population upon the agricultural community—then, unless you are prepared to modify to some extent these burdens and charges and this industrial system, they will destroy the agricultural industry. There is no other way in which you can restore it except by modifying the system. These systems are held up as if they were a sort of law of the Medes and Persians and a kind of religion, which, because they are good for the industrial community, are good for agriculture. That is the case, because from a practical knowledge of 30 years I have seen the system working. I am not now using the language of a prepared speech in this Debate; I am speaking, from my heart, the result of years and years of observation, borne in on me day in and day out. What is happening now is that that process, which has always been grinding us to powder, has now reached a more acute stage than before.

Mr. WALLHEAD
We, on these benches, do not accept that point of view with regard to industry.

Mr. PRETYMAN
Does the hon. Gentleman mean that he does not feel it necessary, or that he does agree with me that it is not necessary to apply this industrial system to agriculture?

Mr. WALLHEAD
We do not lack sympathy with the agricultural position;  but we do not stand for pure industrialism as against agriculture.

Mr. PRETYMAN
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his explanation. I would remind him that I began my speech by saying that I knew the agricultural industry had the absolute sympathy of every hon. Member in this House. I am quite sure it has his sympathy, but we want sympathy carried a little further. I thank the hon. Gentleman even more than for his sympathy, for his expression of the definite opinion that those for whom he speaks do not consider it necessary to tie agriculture down to the industrial system. I will not labour that point any more, but I believe it to be absolutely vital and to be at the root of the whole question, and it must be faced and understood. If this inquiry is to be held, one of the points which must be most strongly laid before it is that agriculture must not be tied and bound by the industrial system which governs taxation and legislation at the present time. I wish to make another point, because there is great misapprehension about it. I notice that a very large proportion of people, inside and outside of the House, when they are told that agriculture is in difficulties and that farmers cannot make their living, perpetually put forward the remedy of some form of intensive cultivation. That is to say, "Farm better, get more out of your land, and you will make more profits." The Prime Minister spoke of the law of diminishing returns, but I venture humbly to suggest that he rather misapplied it. The law of diminishing returns is a very different one. It is that with which I am dealing. It is that the more intensive the cultivation the greater the cost of the product. It is an unalterable law, that the more intensively you cultivate the greater the cost per unit that you produce.

Mr. A. McLAREN
The relative cost?

Mr. PRETYMAN
The actual cost per unit.

Mr. McLAREN
Only after a certain point.

Mr. PRETYMAN
Where does the competition come from which keeps down our prices?

Mr. McLAREN
Denmark.

Mr. PRETYMAN
Does it come from countries which are intensively cultivated?

Mr. McLAREN
Denmark.

Mr. PRETYMAN
No, not in regard to wheat prices.

Mr. McLAREN
Dairy produce.

Mr. PRETYMAN
Yes, you may get dairy produce from Denmark, but that is different. Take the countries from which wheat comes.

Mr. McLAREN
Russia.

Mr. PRETYMAN
Is there intensive cultivation in Russia, in the Argentine or on the prairies of the Western States? Where do cheap stock and meat come from? From the open prairie, where there is no cultivation at all. Is it not more expensive to grow meat on an English farm than on an uncultivated prairie? The interest of the actual cultivator is to make a living and a profit. If he is driven, as he is being now, and has to produce cheaply, he can only do so, not by increasing and intensifying his methods of cultivation, but by reducing his labour and the costs of production per acre. That is the only way in which he can make two ends meet, and it is directly contrary to the national interests, which are that he should grow more. That is absolutely the same point as the other, and is that if the nation wants more food grown on its land it must be prepared to make some sacrifice and to put agriculture outside its industrial scheme in order to enable it to be done. The farmer must be able to obtain a price which would justify more intensive cultivation, instead of being driven down to a price which pushes agriculture to much thinner lines than it is upon to-day. It is thoroughly understood that land is put down to grass instead of being ploughed because prices are low. That is merely another way of stating what I said just now. There is another thing on which there is some misapprehension in the minds of a good many people, though it is not so serious as the other. It is that there are two different methods of farming, one being to raise stock and the other to grow corn. Any hon. Member with a knowledge of farming will understand  and realise that you cannot grow corn without stock and that you cannot raise stock without growing corn. The two are interdependent. The more stock you have the more manure you will get for your corn, and the more corn you grow the more straw you will have for the stock to tread down into manure. The four-course shift is the one foundation of all satisfactory farming in this country. In that, you have two years of fodder crops and two years of cereal crops. It is a constant circle, in which every crop affects to some extent the crop which comes after it, and is also providing for the requirements of the stock. One thing is absolutely impossible, and that is to make out a really correct and final balance sheet for any particular process on the farm, because it always owes something to what goes before it and leaves something to what comes after it. To endeavour to obtain a correct figure is really to try to square the circle. We have had an illustration this year in the effort to grow particular crops. My Noble Friend (Lord Bledisloe), who is a great authority on agriculture, and from whom the late Prime Minister quoted, suggested to the agricultural industry in another place somewhat more than a year ago that the one thing necessary to bring it into a more profitable position was to grow pigs and potatoes. By adopting his advice, something like 20,000 additional acres of potatoes were sown this year. We have heard the result from the hon. Member who moved the Amendment to-day, and who said that the price of potatoes was down to a totally un-remunerative figure.

Sir R. WINFREY
Pigs are still rather dear.

Mr. PRETYMAN
Pigs are still rather dear, but they will have their turn. Of course, the moral of that is that the potatoes are a crop for which there is a limited demand. Although you may grow a particularly special crop, on particular special soil, on an individual farm, and make a profit out of it, the only way of dealing with agriculture as a whole is to make it possible to grow at a profit staple products. Unless you can do that, it is no use suggesting that agriculture can be restored by such actions. The staple products are really only three—cereals, meat and milk—and  unless it is profitable to produce them in this country, agriculture cannot be restored to prosperity. I wanted to make these points quite clear, and I will now refer to what is to toe done. I listened with great pleasure to the speech of the Prime Minister, and I have here a list of matters which should be immediately dealt with. I heard what my right hon. Friend said about an inquiry. I certainly agree entirely with the attitude he took up, that an inquiry can do nothing but good, provided it is not so carried on as to delay the things which were obviously necessary and which can be done immediately. My right, hon. Friend held out hopes of rating reforms next Session. We have had that hope before us, as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Sir R. Winfrey) has said, for 17 years, but I hope we shall get something a little more real this time. The question bristles with difficulties. The hardship of rates and the injustice of rates levied on agricultural land cannot be exaggerated. I am afraid, however, that the amount of benefit which agriculture is likely to get out of any adjustment will not go a very long way toward removing the present causes of depression. I should be very sorry if this House were to think that any relief to rates which is likely to be given by any such Measure as that foreshadowed by the Prime Minister, is going to be a cure for agricultural depression at the present time. Then there is the question of credit facilities for farmers, and I welcome the statement of my right hon. Friend that he proposes to deal with that question. I entirely agree with what has been said on that subject. In regard to railway rates, that is a very pressing subject from the point of view of agriculture. The mere figures that were given by my hon. Friend who moved the Motion, when he spoke of people who send their produce to the market in considerable quantities and only get back half-a-crown, shows the urgency of this question. The money largely goes in railway rates. [HON. MEMBERS: "And to middlemen."] I am not speaking at the moment of middlemen, but of railway rates. There may be various hands through which the produce passes, but I think that that difficulty to some extent can be overcome by better organisation. The farming industry is  far better organised than it has been in the past, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. Another agricultural matter to which the late Prime Minister referred is timber. At the present time, if you grow timber other than in the immediate neighbourhood of a coalfield, the railway carriage is absolutely prohibitive. The district in which I live is eminently suitable for growing pit timber. The peculiarity of the soil, it is poor soil, makes it suitable for growing soft woods for 30 years, and at the end of that time the trees do not do very much. You can get excellent trees of from 25 to 30 years' growth, a comparatively short space of time, in good quality. During the War it was found possible to use these woods to great advantage, but now it is impossible to carry on with that trade because the railway rates absorb the whole value of the timber. The trade in timber is, therefore, rendered hopeless. Nobody will go on planting when they cannot sell what they produce. That produces unemployment. In this connection I should like to mention a small matter which will interest hon. Members. Forestry schemes were started last year, and employers were told that if they took the unemployed into forestry schemes—I daresay the same encouragement was given in connection with other schemes— a grant would be made, proportionate to the acreage planted. A good many people, partly from patriotic motives, carried out that arrangement, but if any hon. Member of this House happened to carry on such a scheme, they were told that nothing could be paid to them because they were Members of Parliament. That, I think, is rather an unfortunate experience. There is another matter which is very important to agriculture, and I hope that the Minister of Agriculture will mention it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that is the revision of the Beer Duty. If he would consider whether some part of the duty on beer might not be transferred to a duty on barley, it would be doing still greater benefit to the industry. Hon. Members may think that a duty on barley would increase the price of beer. I do not know whether they will still be of that opinion if they notice that the price of beer is exactly the same to-day when barley is bought at 40s. as it was when barley was fetching  89s. We cannot be told in the same breath that a fall of 49s. in the price of barley does not justify any fall in the price of beer, and that a duty on barley might increase the price of beer. There is another direction in which work might be found for the unemployed. The want of fertility in our soil is due to the lack of lime and chalk. I should say that 90 per cent, of the poor land in this country is poor, not because it is really lacking in the nourishment for the plants, but because the nourishment is not available through want of lime and chalk in the soil. We have untold millions of tons of chalk lying idle in this country, to be had for nothing, and if local schemes by agricultural committees could be undertaken and that chalk could be raised by the unemployed and sold at a reasonable price and put on the land, the fertility of the land of this country would be enormously increased. It would be a far better way of spending money than in giving doles. It is not skilled work and would not in any way interfere with an existing industry. I will not deal now with the question of the death duties on agricultural land. I have referred to the position of owners, and I hope hon. Members will realise the position of the owner of an agricultural estate who is unable out of his income even to pay his Super-tax and can only just pay his Income Tax. What happens when death duties also come along? It means the absolute destruction of the estate. The estate has to be broken up and sold, and I do not think that the consequences to the country are of very great advantage. The country then has to finance the people who bought the land at a very much greater cost than would be the case if a certain proportion of death duties were remitted. I do not think the State does very well out of this. I am certain that the conditions of agriculture to-day are so critical that the whole agricultural industry is waiting and watching to see whether or not their burdens are to be relieved, and whether they are going to carry on. I think it was the Prime Minister in a recent Debate who said that the one thing that the country wanted to-day was confidence. There are many farmers to-day who will go on straining every nerve, and  who will go to their very last resources to keep their men employed on the land during the coming winter, if they have confidence that this House will do something for them when the House meets again; but if they have no confidence and feel that it is all mere talk, that nothing, is going to be done, and we keep them in the old groove, and say to them, "You must make the best of it," then the outlook is black indeed, and the fault will be ours.

Mr. S. WALSH
The House has listened to three very interesting speeches this afternoon. The speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down is in complete agreement with everything I have heard him say in this House during the last 15 or 16 years. Whoever else may have altered, he, at least, has been consistent. He has put exactly the same points of view on almost the same topics as he did in the year 1906, when we first knew each other. One speech, coming from the quarter that it did, is the most amazing deliverance that I have ever heard. I refer to the speech of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), who spoke on the Amendment calling for a Committee of Inquiry and calling for a broadening of that inquiry. The Amendment says: "Having regard to the insecure and gravely unsatisfactory position of the great industry of agriculture, to the constantly decreasing population in rural districts, to the high cost of living, the low returns from the labour and investment in land, to the existence of an economic wage frequently lower than a living wage, to the inequitable incidence of rates and the unfair burden of transport, and the urgent need for credit facilities and co-operation, it is of immediate importance that Your Majesty's Government should institute an inquiry for the purpose of formulating a policy which would establish security, stability and confidence in the industry, and so secure the greater productiveness of the soil and ensure the contentment of those concerned in the industry." The late Prime Minister comes to this House this afternoon, 2½ years after a Measure was brought forward in this House, at the time he was Prime Minister, purporting to deal with the very facts referred to in this Amendment. He was the Prime Minister of the most powerful Government this country has ever known, secure in an enormous majority, and dealing with a problem which had been referred to specifically in the King's Speech of 1919. In the King's Speech of  1919, specific reference was made to the grave condition of agriculture and to the necessity of the Government dealing drastically with it. This was followed in June, 1920, by a Bill which was to put right, so far as Government Measures can, the grave condition of agriculture. The right hon. Gentleman speaks here this afternoon as though he were the first person directing attention to the vicissitudes and dangers that will befall this country unless his panaceas were adopted. The condition of agriculture has been an annual topic for the last 100 years. Every year, without exception, as anyone can see by consulting the columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT and of Hansard, the condition of agriculture has been referred to. I will not say for the last 100 years, but, certainly, from 1842.

Sir R. WINFREY
The Conservative Government came into office in 1895, and from then until 1906 they only devoted four hours to agriculture.

Mr. WALSH
I am not saying anything as to what Governments have done. I am speaking of the references that have been made to the grave condition of agriculture, either by Motions of private Members or in the King's Speech. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, in June, 1920, brought in a Bill which he said was to be the permanent policy of the nation. He grounded the reason for the introduction of that Bill upon certain admitted facts. He said: "From the year 1854 to 1879 agriculture was signally prosperous in this country.… it is quite true that up to the War there was no definite agricultural policy. Farmers were left to shift for themselves, and the State stood severely aside. The Government do not intend to let agriculture be neglected. They do not intend to let it slip back to the condition in which it WHS before the War. They have, therefore, boldly taken the main headings of the recommendations of the Reconstruction Committee appointed by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Asquith) and have embodied them in a Bill of a comprehensive character, which aims at putting agriculture in a position of security and endeavours to make the best use of our greatest national asset, namely, the land of these islands. That is the object of the Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th June, 1920; cols. 78–82, Vol. 130.] Remember that there had been a Reconstruction Committee in existence for a great many months. It contained, I suppose, some of the ablest brains in  the nation, and the Cabinet at least contained some of the ablest brains in the nation. Indeed, I do not know any more brainy people in the country, so far as their own testimony goes, than the Cabinet that was recently dissolved. That certainly was a Cabinet of all the talents. They had the recommendations of the Reconstruction Committee submitted to them. They bring them forward in pursuance of the pledge given in the King's Speech in 1919. They have the Second Reading of the Bill in June, 1920. Six months were occupied by this House in passing the Bill into law. It left the House on 23rd December in the same year with the complete agreement of all parties. It gave, first of all, a guaranteed wage, not an economic wage, not a wage based upon industrial competition, to the farm labourer. It gave guaranteed prices for wheat and oats, for a number of years at least, to the farmer. It gave the State the guarantee of efficient cultivation, and altogether we were told that we were never again to be so dependent upon foreign nations for our food supplies as we had been in the past. The land was to be made as it ought to be made, our greatest national asset. The Bill left this House amid the unanimous acclamation of its Members, and in the following Session, 1921, the whole Act was scrapped, and now in 1922 the present Prime Minister agrees with the late Prime Minister that an inquiry should be set up to put again our greatest national asset upon a paying basis. If ever (here was a case that showed with how little wisdom the world is governed, and the complete and scandalous waste of time on the part of those who describe themselves as statesmen, this is a case paramountly above all others of which I have had any knowledge.

Mr. PRETYMAN
Why did you assent?

Mr. WALSH
We assented to it because we believed that the farmer should have a decent profit, that the farm labourer should have a decent wage, and that agriculture ought not to be conducted upon the basis of competition, but that the land of the nation ought to be used to feed and clothe the people, for use and not for private profit. This was an approach to it. It did take the farm labourer and his family out of the condition of panic and constant apprehension in which they  had found themselves up to that year. What has happened since? The guaranteed minimum wage has vanished, like mist before the sun, until the wages of farm labourers are now down below pre-War level.

Mr. PRETYMAN
In purchasing power but not in money.

Mr. WALSH
In purchasing power they are down far below pre-War level.

Mr. PRETYMAN
That is right.

Mr. WALSH
In many of the counties in 1916 farm labourers' wages were only 19s. a week. But, taking the value of money to-day, those people on the same basis ought to have at least 30s., and the vast majority of them have less than 25s. We believe that a great national industry ought not to be conducted on these "come day go day, God send Sunday" lines. That is why we supported the Measure of 1920. But I cannot conceive statesmanship outside Bedlam that would act on the lines of the Government of 1921. of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Borough was Prime Minister. And when he comes here and speaks as he spoke this evening he is carrying out the instructions which he gave to the Trade Union Congress in 1915, when, parodying the words of Dan-ton, he said that trade unions in the future, when the War was over, should be audacious, ever audacious, and pitch their demands in a high key. He has pitched his audacity in the highest key which I have ever heard. He comes to us this afternoon and talks to us in this way upon matters which were known 60 or 80 years ago. I was a member of a deputation that met the right hon. Gentleman a few months ago, and we pointed out the profoundly unsatisfactory condition of a great industry. We pointed out that the wages which were being paid to people engaged in that great industry were from 40 to 50 per cent, below the admitted cost of living. We pointed out that people wore being reduced to a state little better than that of semi-slavery, and we asked for an inquiry. The terms of this Amendment might have been drafted in reference to the position which the miners occupied, but that inquiry was refused. Providence alone,  he said, was responsible for the conditions in the mining industry, and to Providence alone, I suppose, our appeal must be made, because He alone could help us. Only this afternoon we have heard the present Prime Minister speak in terms of great sympathy as to the necessity for an inquiry in respect of agriculture on the ground of the terms contained in this Amendment—the gravely unsatisfactory conditions, the low returns from labour, the existence of an economic wage, frequently lower than a living wage, the whole series of facts which the Prime Minister himself admitted. In the case of the miners we only asked for an inquiry, but no inquiry could be instituted; but on exactly the same set of facts an Amendment is framed for agriculture which expresses truly the position of the mining industry. In the one case we have the two Prime Ministers falling over each other in their mutual sympathy and desire to broaden the terms of the inquiry and to say that it shall really be made effective in every sense. In the other case, where the facts are exactly the same, where a basic industry is carried on, in conditions in which four-sevenths of the working population receive wages less than what would keep a slave in decency, the inquiry is refused by both right hon. Gentlemen. That does not lessen in any sense the necessity for, or our agreement with, an inquiry in the case of agriculture, except that we do hope, when we were talking about inquiries and Commissions and Committees, that it will not have the fate that attended the Sankey Commission which was set up in 1919. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs made a certain reference to unemployment, and he took up the position that one ought to believe that once normal trade was restored unemployment would vanish. I have known very few Members of this House who had any such idea. I think that he evolved that opinion entirely out of his own inner consciousness, because we know well that under the capitalistic system you are bound to have, and always have had since the system was established, thousands and tens of thousands who were unemployed. Why, the very Government that came in in the year  1905, in which the right hon. Gentleman himself once held office, was presided over by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who in that very year stated that there were 13,000,000 on the verge of starvation and hundreds of thousands of unemployed. And anybody who cares to search the returns can easily find out, if he does not already know—and I can hardly imagine any Member of Parliament who does not know—that even when prosperity was at its very highest stage, in the '70's, as a consequence of the Franco-Prussian War, in the middle '60's and in the '80's, in all those periods, which may be numbered by decades, there were tens of thousands who were constantly unemployed. Therefore it is not a mere return of normal prosperity that will do away with the spectre of unemployment. I warn hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the House never to assume what I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs simply assumes for himself. We say, "No, there is no remedy to be found in the mere return of normal prosperity." But I do ask the House to consider how wasteful has been its procedure during the last few years. Whether we are looked upon as Conservatives or Labour representatives or Liberals, we do desire, when we are Sere, that the time of tic House shall be effectively utilised. There is not a single Member who does not know that six months of the time of this House were given to the Agriculture Act, 1920, and yet, after a few weeks of the next Session, the whole thing was scrapped, and again we are debating the necessity of an inquiry to place agriculture on its feet once more. I would ask the House to consider that and to see whether there is not a great deal that can be done to utilise the time of the House more effectively and to bring to members of the Government a deeper sense of responsibility than they have hitherto exhibited. The Members of the present Government were very largely Members of the late Government. There are some who were not, and upon them no responsibility can be placed. But quite seven-eighths of the Members of the present Government were Members of the last Government, and they remind me of the French saying which may be translated: "The more it changes, the more it remains the  same." And these men are directly responsible for the position of agriculture at present. They are directly responsible for the disgraceful level of the wages of the agricultural labourer. They are directly responsible for the position of many of the farmers, and for the fact that hundreds of thousands of acres have gone out of cultivation, as was admitted by the late Minister of Agriculture. They are responsible, first of all, for bringing in a Measure which was to be the permanent policy of the nation, and then for turning it completely inside out. It is a pitiful, if not a shameful waste of time. I ask the House to consider that there is another great industry, the wages of which have been pressed down to a level far below that which represents a living wage, and that the inquiry which we are all agreed to grant in relation to agriculture—there is no more deserving class than the farmer and the farm labourer—should be implemented by an investigation into the conditions of the miners.

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM
The fact that at the recent General Election so many charges and statements were made that a woman could not possibly know anything about agriculture, impels me to crave the indulgence of the House while I make what really is my maiden speech on the subject. I was often told that I would be very much better occupied at home darning my stockings than in attempting to explain the difficulties of agriculture. But I was sent, here as the representative of an agricultural constituency, and I take this opportunity of making a few remarks on the subject. I make a plea for agriculture to be considered without delay. Most of us have come from constituencies which have pressed us to bring this subject in its various aspects before the House. The Amendment is so comprehensive that it touches all branches of the subject, and I should regret its withdrawal. We have to consider agriculture not only from the farmers' point of view, but from the labourers' point of view. Unlike most industries, agriculture is not able to pass its burdens on to the consumer, and it cannot be closed down under the stress of bad times. There are three remedies which suggest themselves to me for the improvement of agriculture. They are the introduction of credit facilities, a revision of the rating  system, and an inquiry as to the difference between the price paid for a commodity to the producer and the price ultimately paid for that commodity by the consumer. Let me deal first with credit facilities. During the War many farmers bought their farms at very high prices, and they now have to pay a very high rate of interest for money owing. Credit facilities would greatly help such farmers. If we are to grant credit facilities for industries in the towns, it is only right that we should take similar steps in order to help the country. We have been told that the revision of rating as it affects agriculture has been discussed for 17 years in this House. I shall not go into details. Revision would take time, unfortunately, and what we want is that agriculture should be dealt with at the moment. The burden of local rates is too heavy for the farmer to bear. Rates have greatly increased since 1896. There are increased burdens for education, for road maintenance, and for police. These things ought to be considered far more from a national than from a local point of view. Then there is the question of the difference between the price paid for a commodity to the producer in the country and the price ultimately paid for that commodity by the consumer in the town. I welcome the inquiry that has been promised on the subject, but as a housekeeper, and in a small way as a farmer, I want to know why the difference between the price I get as a farmer in the country and the price I pay as a housekeeper in the town for the same commodity is so great. The difference applies not only to bread, but to bacon and milk and potatoes and meat. We ought to have an assurance that as the result of the promised inquiry the worker is to benefit as well as the farmer. The worker must get an adequate share of what we hope will come from prosperity. The agricultural worker wants the guarantee of an impartial tribunal to fix hours and conditions of work and wages. The present Conciliation Committees are not satisfactory in the majority of districts. An impartial tribunal would legislate, perhaps, for the bad farmer rather than for the good farmer. The agricultural labourer is placed differently from those engaged in industry in the towns. The agricultural labourer is not insured against unemployment, and when he is out of work he receives no benefit. To  seek work he has to go to an Employment Exchange, which in the country districts is not an easy thing to do, for it often means a journey of many miles. In the meantime he spends the few savings he has possibly been able to get together, and when these are gone his only alternative is to seek help from the guardians. We do not want to lose these men from the country districts. They are skilled workers who cannot be replaced in one generation or in two generations. In my constituency last week I attended a ploughing match dinner. It was extraordinary what good samples of ploughing, hedging, ditching and drainage the agricultural workers could show. Men of that kind cannot be replaced. During the War, I believe, it was said that a Cabinet Minister could be replaced more easily than a skilled carter. We want the skilled worker to remain in the country districts. We want to give him leisure and recreation and to make the countryside as attractive as possible, so that he will remain there. The person in whom I am even more interested, perhaps, is the agricultural worker's wife. We have heard a great deal about heroes and heroines. The agricultural worker's wife is, indeed, a heroine, and one can learn many lessons from her. Women in my district who manage to keep a house and maintain a family on the average wage of 26s. a week are, I consider, all heroines. In the case of a man and wife and four children the least they can live on is one loaf a day, which costs ninepence. That means that out of the 26s. no less than 5s. 3d. is spent on bread alone. In this matter I hope that the promised inquiry will benefit the worker's wife. In 1913 a sack of wheat cost round about £1, and then bread was old. 5½a loaf. Now a sack of wheat costs about the same amount, but the loaf costs 9d. Some explanation of the difference is needed. The woman is in charge of the budget of the home and she is indeed a very clever person to make the money spread out as she does. I was talking recently to a man in receipt of a wage of 26s. a week. He paid 2s. a week for his rent. That left 24s. He had eight children. Two of them were in service and the remaining six had to be maintained out of the 24s. He pointed out to me that when divided up his wage worked out at 2d. per head per  meal, allowing for three meals a day. I asked him how he did it. He said, "I don't do it; it is the missus who does it.' "The missus" is the clever person in the agricultural world. I fear that the only thing she can do is to act on the principle of the woman who in the Hungry Forties said she found out what her family did not like and gave them plenty of it. I recall Joseph Arch's Grace: "Oh, heavenly Father, bless us,And keep us all alive;There are ten of us for dinner,And food for only five." We shall be returning to those times if we cannot do something to prevent further depression in agriculture. Whatever is done: we must have an assurance that it will help the worker. We have read and heard much of big demonstrations of the unemployed. I have no objection to the publicity given to them, but the House should know that unemployment among agricultural workers, if not so largely advertised, is extremely acute. They are not insured and so have no claim to any doles. We want goodwill in the countryside and to attain it we must assure the worker that he is to have a fair deal. Agriculture is the basic industry of this country. A stable agriculture will be a national asset, but a crippled agriculture will be a national liability.

Mr. LAMB
If there is one thing which I have learned as a new Member it is the value of brevity, especially in the early hours of the morning. As one who is actively engaged in the agricultural industry I feel that I must contribute my quota to the statements as to the disastrous condition in which agriculture finds itself to-day. When I read the Amendment I made up my mind to oppose it on the ground that we did not require any more inquiries. After I heard the statement of the Prime Minister I felt that I could not quite adopt that attitude. But T must emphatically declaim against any delay in the inquiry and in the giving of relief to the industry. An hon. Member has referred to the delays which have occurred over a great number of years. They have been nothing less than a scandal. I sincerely hope that the Government and this House will see that something is done that is efficacious and immediate. The greatest depression in agriculture is in the arable areas. It  will be noticed that those are the districts where there has been the greatest reduction in wages. 8.0 P.M. We agriculturists are looked upon as being slow. We may possibly be slow, but that is because we are dealing with Nature, and you cannot hurry nature. Consequently, to a certain extent, it may be just to say that we have got somewhat into the ways of Nature, but even then we are not as slow as Parliament. The reason why there is great danger in delay is because in agriculture you are dealing with something which must be done in its particular season. The main thing in agriculture is arable cultivation and the preparations for the year's crop take place very largely in the Spring. I quite admit that our Autumn wheat crop is already in the ground, but it is not as great as it should be That might be remedied in certain districts by a considerable amount of sowing of Spring wheat. In regard, not only to wheat, but other arable crops, however, preparations have to be made in the Spring, and if we are going to have unnecessary delay, this disastrous condition of agriculture will be continued, at any rate one twelvemonth longer than it should be. I have been very pleased with the tone of the speeches made from the opposite side of the House because it has always been my own contention that agriculture is a national and not a party question. It should be above and outside all party-politics. I am proud to stand in this House as one pledged to support the Conservative Government, but on the question of agriculture I am absolutely free and I have received that freedom from those who sent me here. We should all adopt the attitude towards agriculture that it is a national industry and a national necessity. If we looked upon the question of agriculture more as a question of food production, and not so much in the light of that despised term "farming" as is done in our urban areas, we should get a very much better conspectus. I have said it is not a party question and it is certainly not a sectional question. On that point I am again pleased that the attitude of those who have preceded me in the Debate. Let us take those actually engaged in the industry, putting the worker first. There is the worker, there is the occupier, and there  is the owner. There is also another person who is very much interested in agriculture, that is the consumer. Unless the interests of all these sections receive fair consideration, we cannot possibly hope for a solution of this most difficult question. Taking the case of the worker, I do not propose to say much on the subject of wages which has been so ably dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Prety-man), but I wish to drive home this point—that the industry must be put on such a footing that it can give a decent living wage to the workers whom it employs. I also emphasise the fact that it is not so much a question of the actual wage received as of the purchasing power of that wage. Wages have fallen, but even now a proportion of the wages being paid in many districts is not being paid from the proceeds of the industry. Farmers as a whole have great practical sympathy with the men who work for them. I do not say there are not individuals among farmers, as in all classes of society, who are prepared to take advantage of those who work for them, but I say emphatically that farmers as a whole are actively sympathetic with those who work for them. I do not wish to labour the question of the price of bread, but I would point out that it takes 3 lbs. of flour to make a 4-lb. loaf, but it takes 4 lbs. of wheat to make 3 lbs. of flour. If the bread be made from British wheat only, the amount which the producer gets for the 4 lbs. of wheat is 4½d. out of 9d., the cost of the loaf. Therefore 4½d. goes in distribution, which I consider is far too high a proportion, and I believe I have the support of the House in saying so. As a matter of fact, the average loaf of bread is not made exclusively from English wheat, because of the demand of the public for a particularly white bread, and perhaps for certain other reasons as w-ell. Foreign wheat is considered to be of a stronger nature, and is consequently used in baking. The bulk of the bread which is made contains two-thirds of foreign wheat and one-third of English. The prices then work out as follows: 4¾d. for the producer and 4¼d. for the distribution. Again it is far too high a proportion for distribution. One of our great regrets and great complaints is that when prices are bad  for us as agriculturists the people who get the benefit are not the consumers, and my argument has always been, that if the consumer gets the benefit of a temporary lowering of the price, it makes a better customer of him, or rather of her, because, as the hon. Member for Louth (Mrs. Wintringham) has reminded us, it is the lady who spends the money. The demand in such a case would become greater and the industry would have the advantage indirectly. In regard to milk, the present charge for distribution is 1s. per gallon. That is far too high. It may be that at the present time a farmer is getting about 1s. 8d., but what happens in the summer time when the farmer is only getting 1s., and in some cases only 10d. or 11d.? The cost of distribution remains practically the same, and in that case Is. is being charged for distributing what the producer has to produce for 10d. or 11d. The difficulty comes in here, that the man who is working with the cows is only getting half the wage of the man who is walking round delivering it in the village or the town. There is a much greater danger with regard to labour. If the labour is not kept on the land it is going to become a competitor with labour in the towns, and it is a class of labour which is the most formidable competitor with labour in the towns. Industries are only too pleased to receive the virile and powerful men— the healthy individuals who have come straight from the land. It is a great problem for those in the towns, to consider how far they can do something to assist, in maintaining a healthy population on the land which is not going to be a constant competitor with them in their industries. Again, with regard to the health of the nation, where do you get the new blood to resuscitate the virility of the town population? It is from the country districts. If you are going to beat down the conditions of life in the country districts or to deplete the population in the country districts, then the towns are going to suffer very seriously in the question of health. The rural population of the country was referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). The rural population has decreased very largely. From 1891 to 1921 it has fallen from 28 per cent, down to 20 per cent. That is the population in  the rural areas, and not those engaged in agriculture. Those engaged in agriculture have gone down to about 9 per cent. Since 1918 the area of wheat land has decreased by no less a number of acres than 202,000. The acreage of the total cereal crops has decreased by 1,597,000 acres. Remember that it is the arable land and not the grass land which employs labour, and it is the arable land which is the main factor in the detention of the population upon the land. With regard to the occupiers of the land, the fall in their receipts is very severe. Wheat in June, 1921, was 89s. 3d., now it is down in some cases to 42s., and there is wheat being sold at even less than that. Oats have dropped in the same period from 43s. 8d. down to 24s. or 25s. We were told by the Mover of the Amendment that oats have been sold at very much lees than that, and it was said that the condition of agriculture has been as bad at other times as it is to-day. Let me point out that the conditions under which agriculture was carried on formerly were very different with regard to the power of agriculturists to get back again to prosperity. Although an hon. Member referred to oats being Gold at 12s., I remember a time when Indian corn could be bought at 10s., and one can see from that, the advantage which the farmer in those days enjoyed of feeding his stock en the cheap food that was then brought into the country. The question of potatoes has been dealt with by other speakers, and I will not refer to it further than to say that it is one crop which we can produce in this country in a degree adequate to the demands of the consumer in this country, and we ought to remember that. Reference was also made to the sale of horses. In this country we are the best breeders of horses in the world. It is all very well giving figures as to what horses are making to-day. Those of us who are practically occupied in the industry know that you cannot find customers for them very often, and that we have more horses on the farm than we know what to do with. I come now to the question of rates. An Agricultural Rating Act was passed in 1896 giving relief to agriculture to the extent of one half on agricultural land. That was 24 years ago, and the basis arrived at then on which grants were  made to local authorities has never been altered since. Let me read what has been said by the late Prime Minister and the present Prime Minister on this subject as long ago as 1914. On 16th February, 1914, the late Prime Minister said: "There was no doubt that farmers had a great grievance under the present system." Then our present Prime Minister, about the same time, speaking to a deputation said: "You have pointed out that the system of rating is at present unfair to agriculture, and I agree." That was as long ago as 1914, and yet we have had no redress. The great danger is in this criminal delay which is taking place in doing something for this great national industry. That is why we are asking that the rating system should be reconsidered and that we should get immediate relief on that particular point. Another point in regard to the occupier is this, that in a very large proportion he has been saddled with the expenses and the responsibilities of becoming a landowner. In 1913 there were 48,760 holdings above one acre, and in 1921 the number of holdings had risen to more than 70,000, showing the extent to which ownership has become changed from the landlord to the occupier. I could give the acreage affected, but I do not know that hon. Members require too many figures. The proportion in percentages is from 10½ per cent, in 1913, as the total acreage occupied by owners, to 12 per cent, in 1919, and now, since the scrapping of the Agriculture Act, it is 20 per cent., showing to what extent the difficulties which I am putting before the House are affecting agriculture. I say definitely that the sale of estates was the greatest blow that this country's food production ever had. The owners of estates did not sell those estates because they wished to sell them, but because they were absolutely compelled to do so, owing to the conditions which had grown up. I am not dealing now with their position, but with that of the occupier, the man who bought the farm. He did not buy because he wished to buy, but because he was forced to do so, in order to maintain a home and an opportunity to carry on his industry, and in many cases he was compelled to buy at prices much higher than they should have been, although, on the other hand, I will say  that there were certain of the landowners who gave first preference to their tenants and did very handsomely by their tenants. The result was disastrous, all the same, because they bad not the money to pay for those farms, and they had to obtain the one-third, possibly, by taking it out of some money they had or by depriving what ought to have been their working capital of some of that capital, and the other two-thirds they took up on mortgage, with the result that there are thousands of farmers to-day who find themselves saddled with interest on money, borrowed at a far higher rate and amounting to a very much greater sum than the rent they paid before, while they have lost the one-third, which has now gone in the depreciation of the value of the farm itself. In addition to being saddled with a rent in the shape of interest on money borrowed, higher than pre-War, they have also this. They have the expenses of the upkeep of the farm, and they have to pay taxation both as owner and as occupier. All of these charges are not only charges upon the farmer, but they are charges upon the agricultural industry, which is the food production of the people. That is one of the reasons, and the greatest, why we ask for credit for the industry, and I sincerely hope that the words that have fallen from the Prime Minister to-night are indicative that we are going to receive these credits, for which we make a very reasonable demand. The reforms which I have enumerated, however, in reference to taxation, credits, transport facilities, education, grants for research, and all that sort of thing, are palliatives, and nothing more. They are not remedies, and do not let this House for one moment believe that they are the remedies which will be necessary to put agriculture in a reasonably flourishing condition again. They are not, and what we look for and demand, with respect, from the Government is this, that they shall at the very earliest moment bring forward a policy which we and this House can debate and a policy which we hope in future will give stability to the industry. Is the land in this country to be cultivated? That is another question that we ask. It ought to be cultivated. Why spend millions of money in sending men out to other countries to cultivate land while we have the land here waiting  to be cultivated? That is a question we want to ask the Government, and I think we ought to have a reply. They have already, with the Empire Settlement Act, put on one side £3,000,000, which, spread over 15 years, will go very largely to deplete this country of agricultural labour, because what is it that they require abroad? It is not the skilled artisan in other trades. They do not want him; they have told him so. They want the virile, skilled, agricultural labourer, and that is what they are going to rob this country of, when we ought to keep him here to produce corn and food on the land of this country and thus enable us to sell it without the extra expense of the transport in bringing it here from other countries. I do not think I had better detain the House longer, and I may have an opportunity of speaking on some future occasion, but I would finish by making this statement. Ever since the world has been there has been an obligation lying upon land, and that is lo find food and to produce food for the people who live upon it, and no man has any right, either to own land, occupy land, or work upon land, if he is going to deprive the land of the opportunity of performing its obligations to the people. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Come across to the Labour Benches."] I should be glad to see some of those hon. Members on this side. On this question of agriculture, I hope we shall have the support of all parties, and I believe we shall, though I am a little doubtful as to the methods which some hon. Members opposite may propose later on. My final re mark is this. Having made a statement with regard to the obligation which lies upon land, I say definitely that we farmers are prepared, as I believe are the landowners and, I know, the workers, too—the whole of us—to accept that obligation, and we are prepared to do all we possibly can to produce food, but in doing so we ask the general consumer, the general public, to perform their obligation to us, which is, to give us a decent living while we are performing our obligation to them.

Mr. NOEL BUXTON
It is really very refreshing to us on these Labour Benches to hear an hon. Member speaking from the Conservative side who is prepared seriously to advocate that all other considerations should give way to the best  possible use of the land for agriculture. I can only hope that his example will be followed by everybody on that side of the House. I desire, from the point of view of the Labour party, to support the Amendment in favour of an inquiry. I do no also from the point of view of one who worked for many years as a member of the Agricultural Organisation Society, usually having as colleagues, I am sorry to say, not Radicals on this side of the House, but Conservatives, many of whom sat on those benches, and among them I wish we had still with, us the late Member for Chester (Mr. Yerburgh), who was such a valuable promoter of agricultural reform. I do not, however, find that in placing myself on the Labour Benches there is anything at all inconsistent with my old outlook as a member of the Agricultural Organisation Society's Committee. On the contrary, I feel that a Labour programme would be of much more use to the Agricultural Organisation Society than the programme of any other party. Nobody denies that the condition of agriculture is very serious to-day. We may, for the moment, on these benches represent in the main urban interests, but we are not the least behind other parties in urging that there should not only be inquiry, but that there should be early action in regard to agriculture. If Labour had been in office, let us think what would be said about the responsibility of the Labour Government for the present plight of agriculture. I am sure we should have been told it was entirely the fault of having in power a lot of idealists who did not understand land. Of course, it is true that the Conservative party ought to understand the question very much better than we. In the first place, they own the land, generally speaking, and, although so much land has changed hands, they are still the chief factor in the control of the use of land, and in this House they represent almost all the rural divisions. The odd thing is that their policy is criticised most severely of all, not by us, but by Members of their own party. They produced a great agriculturist in the late Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Prothero, now Lard Ernie, who said the other day that the Labour party is the only section of the community which has put forward a definite programme of agriculture, and  that the Conservative party have lost credit with the agriculturists. It is a most extraordinary thing that the benches opposite produce great experts in agriculture and then entirely ignore them. The hon. Member who has just sat down, I am sure, regrets this fact, but it seems to me one of the oddest things in our public life that the Conservative party produces prophets, and then it kills the prophets and stones those who are sent unto it. They killed Prothero with a peerage, and he is not the only one of the great experts whom they have ignored. It is a curious thing, perhaps, that I have supporting me a great many farmers. I suppose it is because of this neglect of a serious agricultural attitude by the Conservative party. Just think what it means that farmers should be members of the Labour party. Does it not expose the balderdash which has been talked about this party being a Bolshevist party? These farmers are Labour because they think that the Conservative party, dominating the late Government, is to blame for a great deal of the present trouble. In the first place, they know that the late Government, which was a Conservative Government, spoilt our foreign trade, spoilt world prices by destroying markets throughout Central and Eastern Europe, and, on that account, spoilt the consumptive power of markets in England, whore men have been thrust out of employment; and, thirdly, by destroying the currencies of those Eastern countries, put an artificial premium on imported things. For instance, potatoes, with a depreciated currency, have been a serious evil to a great many farmers in this country. Again, as we have all heard this evening, they hold the Government to account for the volte-face in repealing the Agriculture Act, which brought so many farmers to ruin. The owners in many cases got out very well. If I had been a landowner myself, and especially if I had suffered from heavy mortgages on my property, I could not have asked for a better turn than was done for many landlords, in the opportunity afforded by the Agriculture Act and the Corn Production Act of getting a good price for land. Unfortunately, only owning about 20 acres myself, I was unable to take advantage of the situation. If I had been a farmer, and had become the slave of my mortgagees, as we have heard  described this evening, I think I should feel no Government ever swindled a large class of traders so badly as the farmers who have been induced to buy, and have been tricked into a bad purchase. There is another general reason which, I think, induces even farmers, with all the natural conservatism of the country, to despair about Conservative policy and to turn even to Labour. They really do not feel that the Conservative party has ever been quite serious about agriculture, and that is really what I complain of. There is plenty of evidence from their own side. We have had some allusion this evening to a man who was regarded as, perhaps, the greatest authority when I was last in the House—Mr. Charles Bathurst, better known as Lord Bledisloe. Let me tell the House what he said the other day about the Conservative and the landlord section of the community. He also was a colleague of mine on the Agricultural Organisation Society, and had all the prejudices of a landlord, but he said that, unless the landowners justified themselves by working at agriculture, public opinion would demand their extinction. Those are quite strong words. It is amusing to think how very much a fish out of water Lord Bledisloe would be in the smoking rooms of most country houses, which represent great estates, if at a late hour of night he were to begin to talk about agriculture. I think the smoking room would empty rather earlier than usual, as, indeed, sometimes these benches emptied when he gave us his views upon gooseberry-mildew or other kindred subjects. Seriously, if any Members of the Labour party were invited to such a country house, they would not be bored by Lord Bledisloe, even on gooseberry mildew, because they are deeply concerned about the business aspect of agriculture. I think indeed they would be very surprised to find that, even in territorial houses, representing large agricultural estates, it would be quite difficult to find among the newspapers anything you can regard as seriously agricultural. I do not allude to "Country Life," which puts you off with one article on an agricultural subject, but even the "Field" is more sporting than agricultural. You would hardly find anything serious in that direction on the newspaper table, except, I think, the publications of the Central Landowners' Association. That is really our complaint against Conservative policy, that it has allowed landowning to become a recreation in this country. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] TO a great extent it is a recreation compared with other countries. In other countries it is a trade—a profession. What have we to compare with the outlook of large landlords such as there are in France, or especially in Germany? I happen to know a man who owns 20,000 acres in Pomerania. He farms the whole of it himself. It may be a very feudal system, but it is a going concern. The whole system of landowning there is a serious affair. That man is busy from dawn to dark, and a good deal longer, with every kind of agricultural business. What have we to compare with that in this country? You would be rather fortunate, I think, on a foreign estate, to come across anything of the kind. You would not hear so much talk of the latest kind of motor-car; you would hear more talk of agricultural implements, could myself give instances of the loss of production and obvious injury to agriculture under the present system of owning the land of this country. You have only got to go down the Portsmouth line, and, on the right hand, as you approach Haslemere, you can see, in one case, quite a considerable area of farming land turned into a sort of sporting enclosure. That is an extreme case, perhaps, but that is the attitude we take in this country towards the land. The Prime Minister spoke about the impossibility of protection and of artificial aid unless we were willing to pay the price. It seems to me it is another price that the land-owning community has got to pay. They have got to be willing to put agriculture first and to put other less business interests aside. If they were willing to do as the great landowners of Japan did, to hand over the control of their land for public purposes in return for an annuity, everyone knows that a very different face might be put upon agriculture in this country. I only wish that the Conservative party had half the genuine interest in agriculture that is felt on these benches. We say that it is our greatest industry, and it cannot be played with from either of two points of view; either from that of the national food supply or from that of the happiness of the  workers. We offer a policy of economy and of science, but all policies fail if yon neglect the human factor. You must take the human view of industry. Therefore we are sympathetic to the under dog— because the agricultural labourer is an under dog at the present time. In our view the supply of food is of vital importance. What is it that the Government proposes? We do not yet know. I hops we soon shall know. And the sooner the better. But if there is not to be artificial aid in regard to prices, which I understood from the Prime Minister there is not to be, then it is a question of reducing expenses, or of increasing efficiency by other means. The fact is, of course, that party government is hampered by vested interests, and I suppose that, is why another expert produced in that political quarter, Mr. Christopher Turner, a very great expert, has been so greatly ignored—shamefully ignored by those who might put his theories into practice. Take the farmers' interests first. We are told that to urge a better wage for the labourer is out of place until we can show that there is a margin in the profits of the farmer. We have to face that. We all depend greatly on the ability and energy of the farming class. We know the very serious outlook of the farmer, especially upon arable land. A Conservative paper in Norfolk put it the other day that wages are 24s., land is 30s. an acre, and barley is 24s. a quarter. Rather an extreme way to put it, but not entirely untrue. What I wish to show is that there is a margin which might be increased, and therefore that it is not idle to talk about a better wage for the labourer. Farming has been hampered in unnecessary ways, and the proposals of the Labour party would relieve it. We have heard about many of them to-night. We have heard a great deal of talk about the rates. I only allude to one aspect, and that is the effect of rating improvements. It has a deadly influence on farming, and stands quite apart from the general incidence of rural and urban rating. Rating of improvements would be swept away by a Labour Government. The co-operation which you get in every foreign system which is successful cannot be established without being virtually imposed by the Board of Agriculture in that country. We hear again about the  excessive profits of the dealers. We are getting to the time when combines are making excessive profit because they are approaching a monopoly. The Labour party would not shrink from taking control of a monopoly if it became a bloodsucker in the community. The milk supply might quite well be placed upon a truly economic basis by public control in any particular area such as London or any of the great towns. Insurance has not, I think, been alluded to. We on these benches say that there is a great deal of unnecessary expense in insurance and that public control might come in there. We have heard about loans. The old local banks are gone. The landlord is no longer the capital, supplying agency that he used to be. There is a particular case in which we should advocate credit facilities, and that is the case of the man who has been victimised by giving too much for his farm for various well-known reasons. In these eases we say, further, that there might be a just claim for purchase by the State, where the man has given such a price that his own capital has been entirely eliminated. There is, of course, a great economy which can be effected in regard to game. Control did, during the War, eliminate waste by controlling game. Anybody who knows the country knows how much land in arable counties is diminished in rental value by game. I could take hon. Members to a wood in Norfolk around which I have heard the agent say that several scores of acres were reduced in value by 10s. per acre merely by hares alone. There is no other country where waste of that kind would be tolerated. There is no other country where you would allow the owner to prohibit his tenants keeping movable chicken houses about the fields in order to prevent them interfering with partridges nesting, which is a very common practice on light land. We all know —and this is another point to which allusion has not been made—how many farmers are injured by bad farming and the prevalence of weeds on other farms. In other countries, European or Dominion, you have elaborate systems for preventing destruction by weeds, and, of course, we are neglecting economy in this fact. We have heard about science and the value of demonstration farms. We know there is in this most conservative of countries heartfelt contempt for scientific learning.  I once assisted a young farmer to go to the county agricultural school in his district, and he wrote after a few days: "They tell us a lot out of books. If we wanted that sort of thing we could buy the books ourselves." All that sort of contempt has to be controlled and modified if you are to say that we are making the best use of the land. As a basis for these reforms Labour proposes three things. You cannot get away from the need of control, much as it is disliked by many farmers. You cannot, secondly, get away from the need of much more secure tenure. I know a property in Yorkshire, a very large one, where no repairs are done at all and the tenants are told: "You can take it or leave it, you shall have no more than an annual tenancy," and the natural result is that the buildings are constantly falling into disuse, some perishing altogether. That is no economy, and ought, again, to be controlled. You cannot get away, thirdly, from the necessity of a revision of rents. Rents ought to be fair and they ought to be economic. On a falling market, as you have now, farmers are driven to uneconomic courses and they lose openings for profitable business because at the moment they are short of cash. It is the legal obligation to pay the rent which makes them adopt uneconomic courses, very often get rid of men, and cause unemployment in the villages which would not be caused if there was machinery for the adjustment of rents. On these grounds, surely, if the Government were in earnest on this matter, it would be rushing on this Session a Rent Courts Emergency Act, for this reason. You may have the sort of thing you had in the seventies. There were then vast numbers of good farmers in the eastern counties ruined by the fact that they were held to their obligations in rent, and they went under. Many owners regretted afterwards that they had not been more lenient in their own interests, because they never succeeded in replacing those men by equally competent men. You lose the knowledge which is the result of long experience, and which cannot be got together again. It is a national injury which leads to stinted farming and loss of men with knowledge. We say there is a margin to be made if  you treat agriculture seriously, a margin through economies of this kind, and a margin through rent. After all, there is a vast amount of land in this country rented at all events over £l, a great deal over £2, and the increase of wage which would be involved in the re-establishment of the Wages Board would not probably amount to expenses equal to more than 10s. an acre in the arable counties. Rents have risen very often and fallen very often. There must be an adjustment, and is it not economic that there should be rapid adjustment by Rent Courts? There is a potential margin, and therefore no unavoidable obstacle to a decent wage. For these reasons I have left the worker to the last, because it requires to be shown that there is a fund out of which he can be paid. The proposal of the Government is, apparently, that there should be an inquiry, but I trust that inquiry is to cover the case of the labourer. That we do not yet know. So far the Minister of Agriculture, in reply to questions of mine and other Members, has declined an inquiry, and we must assume that there is no intention of re-establishing the Board. Virtually, the proposal on the other side is, reduce the wages first. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!:"] I do not wish to be at all unfair. I mean, that there is no other easy means of relieving the situation which presents itself to the Government or to the farmer. We say, reduce wages last, exhaust the possibilities of economy before you I reduce wages, and that not merely because it is a humane question, but because it is a national question. The right hon. Member for Carnarvon (Mr. Lloyd George) replied to a question of mine, I remember, in 1913 on this subject of a minimum wage, and he then urged with very great force the necessity of regulating wages quite apart from any other compensating provision in the way of prices. Later on he said that you could not make an A1 Empire out of a C3 population. We say it is a national question, as he then argued, because, in the first place, this is the largest industry in the land, and the happiness of the workers is a very important public consideration. At the same time, you must also safeguard the health of the whole country, as the populations of the towns are almost solely fed in the course of generations from the villages. Therefore, you must regulate, and there is no  way of regulating except by a Board. I would like to quote another authority on this point from the other side of the House. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. A. Chamberlain) said the other day: "If we are going to sit idly by and see the agricultural labourers' wages screwed down to pre-War level, then I do not believe that this House of Commons, no matter what party is in the majority, would permit it." I trust everyone on the other side of the House is in agreement with him. The position of the labourers has been developed to-night. It is very pitiful indeed. It has got back to something like the position of a century ago when relief by the guardians became almost inevitable. There are other grievances besides wages. There is the shocking housing, too many tied houses, want of means of recreation, indifferent schooling, little opportunity for small holdings, and, lately, there has been a great tendency to prevent the labourer even keeping a pig. The main thing is wages, and we say that the wage should be a first charge on any industry. That is expressly the case in the agricultural industry, because there is no resort for the agricultural labourer to turn to in the event of his losing his job on the land. In Norfolk lately we had the Chairman of a Board of Guardians who was applied to by an agricultural labourer with five children, saying it was a most pitiable case, because if only 2d. was spent on each meal for the family it would exhaust 24s. a week; in fact, the food even at that low rate would monopolise the whole of that man's wages. The Minister of Agriculture has lately stated in the House that the lowest wage was 25s., but it is a melancholy fact that in Norfolk the common wage is 24s. and not "5s. Men are working at 6d. per hour in winter. There is also a great deal of unemployment. There are very sad cases indeed of widows with sons who came back from the War to look after their mothers and who have no chance of getting work. They are compelled to emigrate, and are getting nothing from the Government but a ticket for one of the Dominions. 9.0 P.M. It would be very interesting, if time permitted me, to give the House details of family budgets which illustrate the  terrible position of the labourer's family. It could not possibly be argued that 25s., and much less 24s., buys nearly as much as was bought in 1913 with the 15s. wage of that day. I find that the labourers living in similar houses buy much less of the little luxuries of the poor. They buy less jam, less currants, and less syrup, while in regard to clothes and boots, those things are regarded as a sort of buffer item which must be adjusted according to the state of their finances. The children must go worse clad and shod if the money does not go far enough, or else the parents get the goods on trust in the hope of being able to pay for them out of the harvest money in the following year. There is one further point I would like to urge, and it is with regard to the Wages Board. There is a very hostile attitude to the idea of that Board, and the Minister of Agriculture has refused it. But I have here an interesting opinion from a well-known county councillor in Norfolk which might allay some of the fears that have been felt and might make more possible the re-establishment of the Board. This man says that if you fix the Wages Board, although it may not materially affect wages one way or the other, it would mean stabilising wages and eventually by compelling the employers and workers to get together to discuss the matter the industry would benefit, as also would both the farmers and the labourers. I would like to ask the hon. Member who represents the Ministry to bear in mind that the proposal for a Board is not solely devoted to the idea of forcing up the wage, but there is also attached to it the advantage of stabilisation which I know many farmers would admit to be worth having. The Board, when it was established, succeeded very well, and we say it is wanted in all circumstances, just as much as a Board is wanted in sweated trades, such, for instance, as the chain makers. Agriculture, in fact, is an industry which cannot do without it. We appeal strongly for the regulation of wages as a general principle. In this case we deem it to be a necessary basis of prosperity. It is so in every low paid trade. I should like again to refer, in conclusion, to the valuable incursion made into the agricultural field by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, and I should like to repeat one or two  of the expressions which the right hon. Gentleman used in regard to the question of wages in 1913. He said that the agricultural wages in many counties were a perfect scandal in this country. He also said there was no economic reason, and there were social and political reasons, because high wages were paid in counties very far from the market and on bad land. I think I cannot do better than close my remarks by reminding the House of what the right hon. Gentleman said in generally summing up the question of agricultural wages. His words were: "You cannot get a great country built up on conditions which make rural life unpopular."

Mr. MACPHERSON
I am reminded that a great many Members are anxious to speak on this question, and therefore I promise that I will only occupy a very few minutes. I stand as the first Scottish Member to address the House on this question to-night, and as Chairman of the Highland party representing one of the great agricultural districts in Scotland, I would like to be reassured by my hon. Friend who represents the Minister of Agriculture that the inquiry will apply to Scotland. I realise that my right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works cannot possibly be here to-night as he is away on official duties. He courteously informed me of that fact, and therefore I quite understand why he is not on the Front Bench. We in Scotland have our problem just as much as you have in England, and in many cases it is much more deep. We have in Scotland the problem of rural depopulation which is mentioned in the forefront of the Amendment to the Address. In one district in my own country where there were 1,084 voters in 1886 there are only 321 to-day, and as the House will understand, after the prowess of the 51st Division in the Great War, they come of the finest stock in the country. We have been most anxious in Scotland to settle ex-service men on the land. We realise very well, however, that it is almost a crime to settle a man on the land when the land is dear, when stock is dear, and when machinery is dear. We are hopeful that under new conditions the problem of settling these men on the land will be solved satisfactorily to all concerned. There is another problem which is closely connected with rural depopulation. The Highland smallholder, or crofter as he was called in the old days, was very proud of his home. He very rarely made a fortune in it. We who represent the Highlands of Scotland are anxious to see afforestation developed to the fullest possible extent. We believe that no land is too good in Scotland for the ex-service man. There are thousands of acres in the North on the hillside which cannot be cultivated, and inasmuch as in the old days trees did flourish on that land, we say that if you establish afforestation over these moorland tracts you can provide for the crofter and smallholder additional occupation for his spare months when he has nothing to do on his croft or small holding. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman who spoke last was quite fair to my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs in his reference to wages. We in Scotland are deeply concerned with the wages of the ploughmen and farm servants, and I do not know anyone in the House who is more responsible for bringing forward the lowness of the wages of the agricultural labourer in Scotland than my right hon. Friend. I do not think it is very gracious of any Member who has an accurate knowledge of the agricultural history of this country to accuse my right hon. Friend of now showing sincerity with regard to that point. He was a pioneer in trying to improve the wages of the agricultural labourers of this country, and he had to endure the obloquy of a great many people because of the attitude that he took upon that point. As a Scottish Member, I feel proud that I was associated with him, and I also feel proud that the ploughmen of Scotland still believe in him. [Interruption.] Whatever hon. Members of this House may say, they ought to remember that every Member from the Highlands of Scotland is here by the support of the ploughmen of the North of Scotland, and there was not one who was not returned under the influence and with the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs. I think it is the highest form of ingratitude on the part of the party who sit above the Gangway  to-day to turn round upon my right hon. Friend, who, as I have said, was the pioneer in this movement. I am very anxious, not only that the wages of the ploughmen and agricultural servants should be the last to be reduced, but also that their hours should be fair. The hours in agriculture are bound in many ways to differ from those in a factory, because agriculture depends entirely upon climate and climatic conditions. The worker in the factory can go in under a roof and do his eight hours whatever the weather may be, but it is different with the man who is accustomed to work where Nature has to be considered. I should like to see an impartial tribunal instituted to consider the question of hours for farm servants and agricultural labourers. I am certain that, if the good old friendly spirit between fanner and farm servant prevails, that difficulty will be easily overcome. I am also anxious that there should be full security of tenure as regards the crofting part of Scotland. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) had a question down with reference to that to-day. We are determined, as a Highland party, to see to it that that great acquisition, procured for the crofters of Scotland by a Liberal Government, shall be conserved to them, and I hope my hon. Friends above the Gangway will assist us in that.

Mr. JOHNSTON
Does that apply to the Island of Raasay, where you put the men in goal?

Mr. MACPHERSON
I am referring now to security of tenure. That particular case had not to do with any administration of mine, and there was no question of security of tenure involved. I am trying to defend a principle which has been fought for in the Highlands, and I hope that my friends and myself, in fighting for that principle, will have the support of those hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway who represent Scotland. I agree with a great deal that has been said as to the difficulty that the owner or occupier of land has in making both ends meet at the present time. The incidence of rates, particularly for education and roads, is very heavy indeed. Every Scotsman likes to see the road of education open to the youngest and poorest in the land, right up to the very top, and he has never in reality grudged  any rate that would be charged upon him for education, provided he realised that the administration was run upon efficient and economical lines. He has, however, a great grievance against the road rate, because the roads, in the North of Scot land particularly—I am not referring so much to the main roads as to the others —are in a very bad condition. They were built for the farmer and his gig, so that he might get to market and back, but nowadays he finds, owing to the beautiful scenery of the Highlands, that the whole countryside is practically devastated by motor care of very high power, which destroy the roads, and he is strongly of opinion, and many of us agree, that the larger burden of these rates ought not to be local but Imperial. We are anxious, if an inquiry is to take place, that transport facilities in the Highlands, and in Scotland as a whole, should be reconsidered and improved. In my constituency we have a railway—the Dingwall and Cromarty Railway—such as ought to be instituted in other districts. I believe that it is only by such means as cheapening rates, facilitating transport and the cooperation of all parties—farmers, farm-servants, and crofters—

Mr. JOHNSTON
And landlords?

Mr. MACPHERSON
And even landlords—it is only by those means that we shall be able to increase the productiveness of the land and give security and stability to the industry. Above all, we are anxious, if possible, to improve the life of the countryside; in other words, to disregard the cinema and look after the sunset. We desire to maintain as many people happy and contented upon the land as may be possible, and if any such inquiry as has been promised by the Prime Minister to-day will produce a policy conducive to the better interests of all concerned in this industry, it will have our whole-hearted support.

Commander BELLAIRS
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Pretyman), earlier in the Debate, covered the ground very fully as an expert and also as Chairman of the Agricultural Committee—a position which you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, once filled with such distinction—and I desire unreservedly to congratulate him on reaching that position. I can only speak as a student, and I speak also, I am afraid, rather among the pessimists than among  the optimists with whom the Prime Minister classed himself. I spoke on the Second Reading of the Agriculture Bill in 1920 as a pessimist, and I said then that I believed the Ministry of Agriculture to be all wrong in their forecasts that prices would not fall. I said they would fall considerably. I still speak as a pessimist in regard to agriculture. I think anyone who has read the "Times" articles and who takes the position of the agricultural labourer, living in the same village alongside unskilled workmen on the railways and getting only half their wages, can only speak as a pessimist. The Amendment before the House proposes ah inquiry. We have had any number of inquiries and they have had no result. We had an inquiry in 1916. Nothing could have been better than its report from the point of view of agriculture. We had another inquiry in 1919, the Selborne Royal Commission. Again nothing could have been better than its Report from the point of view of agriculture, but no satisfactory result followed. Agriculture has always been put off with words, and therefore it is that I welcome the intervention of the leader of the National Liberal Party, who has lifted the whole controversy beyond the mere region of words. The Prime Minister, in response to his speech, said, "We will get along with the reforms we want to carry out dealing with the rates and with railways, and so forth, but we will have the inquiry as well," and as far as I can make out the inquiry is likely to be along the lines which I advocate in the Amendment to the Address that I have put down—a conference, to a large extent, of the leaders of all political parties. That would take the thing out of party controversy in this House, and when one remembers the measure of success which was nearly come to in 1913 in connection with the Irish Conference at Buckingham Palace, where there were vital differences of opinion, I think if the leaders of political parties would come to an agreement as to the form of inquiry and agree to use their influence with their parties, we could remove agriculture from the mere party scores and party cries which have such dominance on the Floor of this House. That would take agriculture from the position of the Cinderella among our industries, and when one knows of  the services that agriculture has rendered to this country I think we ought to take it out of the region of party controversy and see what we can do for it. The leader of the National Liberal party referred to what took place during the War. He said there was one month in which 700,000 tons of shipping were sunk —I think it was something like 800,000 tons—and I believe the Sea Lords at that time represented to the Prime Minister, that is, the leader of the National Liberal party, that we had to make peace, that we could not possibly hold out more than a few months. It was then that he made his great appeal to agriculture to conic to the rescue, and later on, in 1918, that appeal was supplemented by a fresh appeal, in which it was pointed out that for every million quarters of wheat that were produced in this country we could release shipping to carry 100,000 American soldiers and victual them in France. It was then that agriculture made its noble response and saved the situation. Had Germany adopted our policy prior to the War, she would have been beaten in three months. Germany before the War had the greatest potato crop in Europe, and the greatest rye crop in the world. It was by the judicious mixing of potatoes and rye with wheat that they made their bread and were able to hold out for several years of war. What I want to know is, what of the future? According to the Census returns, we are adding to the population of England and Wales, in each ten years' period, a population equal to the population of Ireland. That can only make the position become worse and worse, and when people say, "Why not alter that position," I carry my mind back to the time when the Leader of the Labour party and I were both entering upon our Parliamentary careers and we heard a Cabinet Minister on this bench say that "minorities must suffer; it is the badge of their tribe." Our agriculture is doomed as a minority. I do not agree with the figure given by the Leader of the National Liberal party of 9·2 per cent, of the population. Of the population of England and Wales I think it is only 7½ per cent. That is a very small minority indeed. I do not see how in this House of Commons you can turn the position of the representatives of the great towns, who care little for agriculture, except by some such agreement as I  have proposed, getting all the political parties to list this question of agriculture above all party controversy, for remember we are weaker than ever. We used to have the support of 80 Irish votes. We have no longer the support of those 80 votes which represented agriculture in Ireland, and it is far more the case that the foundations of this century in which we live are dug deep down in the coal mines. Coal is the industry which dominates politics far more than agriculture. Coal, forming 70 per cent, of our export cargoes before the War, gave freights one way and gave cheap return freights on food to be sent to this country. We have all been paying attention to the food of the machine and not to the food of the individual. I take the special case of our exports to the Argentine before the War. Four and a half million tons of coal were sent to the Argentine every year. One railway took as much as 700,000 tons. That coal was used to carry wheat and meat, to replenish the fuel of our ships, and to bring the wheat and meat to this country, and, in fact, throughout the present and last centuries it is British coal which has been fighting British agriculture more than any other commodity. I ask myself, what has been gained by this policy which we have pursued all these recent years? The towns have lost a great market in the country. Workers have been driven from the country into the towns, depressing the wages in the towns. We nearly lost the War through the fact that we ignored the Report of the Royal Commission before the War, which reported that at times there were only six weeks' supply of wheat in this country. Agriculture came to the rescue. We grubbed our hops in Kent and laid down wheat instead. From 1870 up to 1914 we lost nearly 4,500,000 acres of cultivated land. We got back 1,750,000 acres during the War, but we have lost that again. [An HON. MEMBER: "NO!"] I think we have pretty well lost it. What are the root causes of this charge? The Mover of the Amendment dealt with the cost of production, and that is the root cause of the whole thing. In 1913, according to wheat costings by Herbert Grange, it cost as much as 32s. to produce a quarter of wheat. The profit was only 3s. In 1922 the cost was 64s. 5d. per quarter and the net loss was 23s. I do not think we need look further than  that for the reason why the land has bean drifting out of cultivation. In 1921, 77 per cent, of our wheat supply was imported into this country. Apart from the alleviations which have been proposed by the National Farmers' Union, I can only see three remedies. The first is Protection, which we have tried and repudiated. It is the method adopted by every other country in the world. The second is a bonus on the acres cultivated. That, I think, we have never tried. The third is what was tried and failed, the method of guaranteed prices. Why did that fail? It failed because the forecasts which were made by the Board of Agriculture and their experts, that prices would not fall, were all wrong. The result of their erroneous forecast was that the country would have had to pay from £30,000,000 to £40,000,000 a year in subsidies. If those subsidies had been given, we know that the Labour party would have demanded subsidies for the mines as well, and the Government had to abandon that position. The reason why I am pessimistic is this: We have now got wheat to half the price at which it stood when the Agriculture Bill was before us. We have not even brought Russia into the field. She used to supply one-fifth of the wheat production of the world. She has not yet come into the field, but I think it is a certainty that she will be in the field, exporting as formerly, within three years' time. There has been an enormous increase in the cultivation in Canada, America and Australia. There are 33,000,000 more acres of wheat being cultivated in the United States, Canada and Australia than was in the case in 1914. The United States, Canada and India between them this year increased their supply of wheat by 43,000,000 tons, or more than six times our whole production. I doubt whether our production this year amounts to as much as 7,000,000 tons. The result is that agriculture is liable to be overwhelmed at any moment by the imports from foreign countries. So far as the assistance to farmers has gone it has been all the other way up to now. Empire development and Empire emigration is intended to develop markets in the Colonies. I think it is quite a right policy, but it will have the effect of increasing the food supplies from our Empire. The Trade Facilities Bills will  start by setting up the basic industry of agriculture in foreign countries. The Safeguarding of Industries Act protects manufacturers. It does not protect agriculture in any way. It can only increase the prices to agriculturists. The agricultural workers do not get an unemployed dole. As regards them, it can only tend to increase the price of their beer, their "baccy," their tea and their sugar. Therefore, so far as legislation in this country has been concerned, it is all against agriculture. I hope in what the Government are going to do now in regard to rates, railway rates and credit facilities, and in regard to this inquiry, which I suppose will be a rapid one, they will do a great deal for agriculture. You owe agriculture some reparation for the past; you can at least give it some security for the future.

Mr. ROYCE
The hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down is almost as cheerful as a farmer would be contemplating snow at harvest time. He sees no hope for the future, except through the agency of the inquiry which, in essence, he condemns from previous experience. I am not sure that I am very sanguine myself with regard to the inquiry. I heard the late Prime Minister this afternoon, and I was intensely interested in his speech. I was expecting every moment that he would indicate what his idea was, but he was careful, just when he was coming near the point and exciting my curiosity, to sheer off, and say: "You need not bring out the thing you have got upon your shelf at the present time. You can do as you like, and I will help you." I wish to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether, when this inquiry takes place, all parties in the House will be represented upon it? I believe the industrial element in the Labour party will help you very considerably to come to a conclusion favourable to agriculture.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir Robert Sanders)
I want to understand the question the hon. Member has asked. Is he referring to the inquiry which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) suggested should be set up, or to the Departmental Inquiry about prices, which I announced a short time ago?

Mr. ROYCE
I am referring to the inquiry suggested by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and not to the Departmental Inquiry. I have no doubt the Minister of Agriculture has sufficient perception to know quite a number of hon. Members on these benches who could give him a great deal of information and assistance in departmental matters.

Sir R. SANDERS
Hear, hear!

Mr. ROYCE
The Labour party will help you for one reason, and for one reason only. That reason is their interest in the workers on the land. As long as you will give the workers on the land an opportunity to live, the Labour party will assist you. The Government must not think that the Labour party will assist you if the agricultural element persist in their idea that they will submit to no control. They cannot have assistance without control. There must be control; there must be something in the nature of a wages board. That is what we want, and we will go a long way to help you if you will set it up, with a really serious intention of benefiting the interests of the workers on the land. We are most anxious for that, and we will help the Government as much as we can in that direction. This inquiry will take some time. I know quite well the urgency of paying attention to agriculture, especially to arable agriculture. There are some matters, however, which cannot wait. I refer especially to the case of the smallholders, whose condition is really pitiable. They have expended all the money they could possibly rake together in order to get on to the land. They have drawn from every possible source, from relatives and others, as much as they could obtain, and to-day they are practically at the end of their tether. I know quite well that land was bought at a high rate, and the cost of building and equipment also was high. The Government, however, should have cut their losses, and put them in on the land at a rent which they could reasonably expect to pay. What is the use, from time to time, of these men going to the agents whom you have set up in charge of the various localities, and begging for some reduction in rents? Five pounds an acre for rent, and, in addition to that, a high rent  for farm buildings and housing on these small farms! What happens? I am not talking now about rapacious landlords, but of land that belongs to the State. You have tenants on some of your land paying from 30s. to £2 an acre. On the other side of the fence there are some of these poor soldier settlers, whom you are charging £5 per acre. In addition to that, there is the high cost of the houses and farm buildings. They suffer in many ways. Not only do they pay you a rent that is impossible, even in prosperous times, and utterly futile to expect at a period like the present, but their rating and all their expenses are correspondingly high in consequence of their higher annual value. Therefore, their condition is terrible. I bog the right hon. Gentleman at once to come to a conclusion, and to settle their rent. The Government should cut their losses, and do it at once, and thus ease the minds of these men, so that they can settle down and work with some prospect of obtaining a decent livelihood. I have nothing to say with regard to the policy that brought the men there. Whether it was good, bad or indifferent I will not say, but the fact remains that the late Government brought them there, and made certain promises to them, and in honour the Government ought to fulfil the promises, and not put the men on the land under conditions which make it impossible for them to prosper. I am speaking with a distinct object, knowing that the Minister of Agriculture will soon be approached by some of these people, and I hope that he will take this matter into consideration and take steps to assist the smallholders. The rents of these smallholders were raised by the action of his Department, and I ask that the rents should be brought down to something like their economic value at the present time, or at any rate to their pre-War value. If he will do that, he will be doing something to assist the smallholders, who are suffering perhaps more than any other section of the agricultural community.

Lord ROBERT CECIL
The hon. Member who has just sat down began by complaining, and perhaps his complaint was justified, that the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) had made an interesting speech, but had not furnished any suggestion as to what was to be the conclusion of the arrangement. That was true. It was a  tantalising speech. It seemed as if he was going to tell us something, but it never materialised. The same criticism applies to the Labour party on this occasion. I listened to the speech of the hon. Member who preceded me, and I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. S. Walsh), and there was not any suggestion as to what was the Labour party's policy in regard to this matter. [HON. MEMBEES: "Nationalisation!"] I do not know that that is so. The outstanding feature of the Debate is the very general agreement as to the facts of the case. Everybody is agreed that agriculture is in a very serious, indeed a very dangerous position. I do not think there is any dispute about that. I do not want to say too much about the landowners, although they are suffering. The two classes that are suffering particularly are the farmers and the labourers. The Mover of the Amendment has far more experience than I have, but, speaking for my own part of the country, I think he underrated the evils through which the farmers are going at the present time. I doubt whether there is a single farmer in my district who has not made a very serious loss in the last two years, and I am afraid that many of them are approaching the condition when their financial stability will be in danger. There is no doubt that the labourers' position is very serious. The hon. Member for Louth (Mrs. Wintringham), who made a very interesting speech, described, with a great deal of pathos, the position of the labourer's wife at the present time. There is no doubt that in many parts of the country labourers are now being paid a wage, a real wage, less than they were before the War. That is a serious state of things. The cause is the sudden fall of prices. Prices have fallen very rapidly, whereas the cost of production has not fallen, and, therefore, the farmer is unable to make a profit. In spite of these facts, I do not take so gloomy a view as the late Prime Minister. I was reading the other day, Cobbett's "Rural Rides," a book familiar to hon. Members of this House, and a very interesting and attractive book it is. No one ever was so confident about so many things on which he was wrong. The striking thing about it is, that in 1822 the position of affairs was almost identical  with the position of affairs to-day. The language Cobbett used might have been used in this Debate. He prophesied the immediate ruin of the farmers, and he drew a picture, which certainly was not overcharged, of the terrible hardships of the labourers even down to the price of beer. The same complaints are made, and many of the same remedies are suggested. They did not endure in that case, and I hope they will not do so to-day. Prices went up, and the cost of production gradually came down, and by 1830 Cobbett is addressing an audience of farmers at Norwich and describes them as an audience of opulent farmers. Therefore, in eight years a very considerable change had taken place, and if you will look at the price of wheat you will see that the price of wheat had steadily gone up. I am inclined to think, although it is very dangerous to prophesy, particularly in the presence of so many people who know much more about the subject than I do, that things will improve. I do not take so gloomy a view as many hon. Members who have spoken. It seems likely that prices will go up. I do not believe that the view of the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs) that Russia will become in three years a producing country which will be able to supply the needs of a large part of the world, will materialise. I wish I did believe it, because the miseries of the population of Russia are so great; but I am afraid that they are likely to be out of the market for a long time. That being so, and the production from many countries being much less than it was, it balances, I think, very nearly the increase of production from the countries which my hon. Friend mentioned, and, of course, there is the increase of population which normally would have, produced an increased demand. The fundamental fact is that the cause of the distress in agriculture is the same thing that has caused the distress in other industries, namely, the general economic dislocation caused by the War. I differ from the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs in believing that as that dislocation passes away there will be, and there must be, a very considerable return of prosperity. Whether that will be permanent or not no one can say, but that  there will be a very considerable return of prosperity I have no doubt, and I hope and believe that agriculture will share in the return of the prosperity when it takes place. The present condition of agriculture is, however, very grave. I am not going to examine elaborately all the remedies that have been proposed. I warmly support the policy of the Government as announced. I much prefer it to the more flamboyant policy that they might have pursued. I do not believe that it is honest to suggest that you can cure the evils from which agriculture is suffering by some great Measure of reform. I believe that the remedies must be sought in a number of relatively small matters, the cumulative effect of which will be to relieve the pressure on agriculture at the present time. For that reason I am glad that the Government are appointing this small Committee to inquire into some of the more immediate matters, and I hope that they will not allow that Committee to be delayed by any larger inquiry which they may be pursuing into the general subject. I hope we shall see some alleviation in the matter of transport and of rates, though hope deferred maketh the heart sick in the matter of rates, as we have so often been promised reforms in the rating system and these promises have not been carried out. I hope for a great deal from increased co-operation amongst farmers, and some measure of credit which will enable them to get over the immediate difficulties which are upon them. I attach even more importance into an inquiry into the cost of living, because that is going, if it does produce any lowering in the price of food, to be of direct assistance to those who are most in need, even more in need of assistance in this matter than the farmers themselves. I would like to say a word or two upon the larger measures which have been advocated by Members of the Labour party in the country, though they have not been advocated in this House. My Labour, opponent was very keen on the nationalisation of the land. How is that by any conceivable possibility going to help agriculture at the present time? I do not suppose it is suggested by anybody that the land is to be taken for nothing. You are going to buy it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Tax it."] Tax or confiscation, call it one thing or another, it  makes very little difference to the owner of the land, if in fact nationalisation means acquisition of the land by the State. I do not think it is worth while arguing with hon. Members opposite, because they have either got to pay for it or otherwise they are going to do the most frightful injury to the credit of the country. Even if you take it for nothing, what are you going to do? Suppose you run the risk of the great injury to the credit of the country, which you would certainly effect, what are you going to do? Are you going to hand it over to the farmers?

Mr. KIRKWOOD
We will manage all that.

Lord R. CECIL
There is no good in talking that way in the House of Commons. You have got to define what you propose. I have listened to many speeches from the Labour Benches, and I have heard nothing but mere meaningless objurgations. Supposing you take the land for nothing, you are not going to give it to the farmers. You are going to make them pay rent.

Mr. KIRKWOOD
How did you get it?

Mr. JOHNSTON
What right has the Noble Lord to make allegations about the dishonesty of the Labour party? Can he say how did the Cecils get their land?

Viscountess ASTOR
How did Abraham get his? [HON. MEMBERS: "He pinched it!"]

Lord R. CECIL
Observations of the kind made by the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Johnston) do not do the party opposite the slightest good. Hon. Members opposite know very well that—

Mr. MAXTON
We do not want lectures.

Lord R. CECIL
You have either got to take the land for nothing or you have got to pay for it, and, whichever you do, the farmers will have to pay rent. How is that going to help agriculture? It cannot be of any service to agriculture at the present moment. Hon. Members know that they would have to pay for it. This would add enormously to the burdens on the country and to the taxes of the people, in order to pay for purchasing the land, and, so far from improving  things, it would make them a great deal worse. Therefore I am not surprised that it is not advocated even in that strange programme of the Labour party. Another suggestion made was that the landowners' rents might be applied to the assistance of the farmer and the labourer. Hon. Members always seem to imagine that the land of this country is held mainly by those who have inherited it.

Mr. KIRKWOOD
From those who stole it.

Lord R. CECIL
Nobody who knows anything about history in this country will pay the slightest attention to the hon. Member. The vast mass of the land has either been bought by the present owners or their immediate predecessors in title. The amount of land now held by those who have inherited under old titles—though why they should be imagined to be bad titles I have never been able to understand—is very small. On what ground are you going to take the rents of people who may have spent large sums of money in buying the land? The thing is not defensible. Nor would it meet the real difficulties of the case because, as has been said over and over again, most of those who would suffer most severely are the farmers who have bought their land, and they would not be provided for at all. Everyone knows that landowners have constantly forgiven either the whole or the greater part of the rent in times of agricultural depression, and I have no doubt they are doing so at the present time, although I am not a landowner and cannot speak of it for myself. Therefore that is no remedy and they dare not put it before the House of Commons. I do not myself see that there is anything which the Labour party has suggested in this Debate which would help in the present position. Other remedies have been suggested. There has been a suggestion of Protection, and a suggestion of bounty on the growth of corn. None of those proposals are practicable or desirable. Protection is out of the question. It would be unjust to the very people who, I think, require most assistance—the labourers—and it would be utterly rejected by the great mass of the electorate of this country. Bounties are impossible. If you give a bounty to one trade you must give it to all. There is a good deal to be said for it in parti-  cular cases, but the experience of this particular industry shows how impossible it is to maintain the system the moment the pressure becomes great, that is to say, at the moment when the bounty would be most useful. There is a proposal which has been advocated by the Labour party and which seems to be on a different footing from other suggestions. That is the maintenance of a Wages Board in order to maintain the wages of the labourer. I have great sympathy in this matter with the labourer. His case is a very strong one. By the admission of everybody he was paid much too low wages before the War. I have never met anyone who maintained that the wages in the southern counties before the War were right or oven economically defensible. The labourer was told at the time—I am putting his case—that the industry could not bear any higher wages. Owing to the methods by which the industry is carried on no accounts are available usually for examination and test of the justice of that statement. When the War came wages went up very much, and for a time the agricultural labourer was in a relatively comfortable position. Now wages have come down again, and the labourer is again asked to accept them on the allegation that the industry cannot stand higher wages. He is unable to obtain evidence—I am not making any accusation or criticism of anyone—by which he can satisfy himself as to the truth or error of that allegation, and it is not surprising in the circumstances that in many cases he has the gravest suspicion as to whether the condition of the industry justifies the lowness of the wages being paid. 10.0 P.M. That is a very strong case. I admire the good temper, the tolerance and the patience of the labourer and his wife more than I can say. Therefore, in principle I should not be unalterably opposed to a Wages Board. I have always felt that it was a mistake, quite apart from the merits of the thing, to have created a Wages Board and then to have abolished it at the very top of the market. It was a pity that while the Wages Board existed wages were always going up, and that wages began to come down the moment the Wages Board was abolished. I also feel the strength of the labourers' case when he asks, "Why should I be paid so much  less than other working men who are not more skilled than I am, who are working in my immediate neighbourhood and are working even in the same Kind of industry"? Men working with bakers or millers get far higher wages than the agricultural labourer. The agricultural labourer feels also the fact that even labourers' wages differ in different parts of the country. In answer to a question in this House a return was given which showed that the wages vary from 25s. in many counties in the south to 35s. in Durham and 40s. in Lancashire. I have heard of wages even as low as 24s. It is very difficult to find an explanation of these differences. It is certainly hard for a man struggling under great hardship to make two ends meet to be told that he is worth only 25s. or 27s. a week, when others are getting much higher wages in other parts of the country. I would press on the House and on my hon. Friends the great strength of the labourer's case. But I am not in favour of the immediate re-establishment of Wages Boards. I do not think they would make any difference in the vast majority of cases, at any rate in the South. They would make no difference in the amount of wages paid, and they would be only an additional disappointment to the labourer. I dislike all forms of compulsion in this matter, if they can be avoided, because they aggravate what is the chief evil—hostility and enmity between the classes engaged in the industry. That is the great evil to be avoided. Class war class consciousness—all those phrases which certain hon. Gentlemen opposite admire, I believe to be a great evil, and that if they once get hold of a country the end and dissolution of that country is near at hand. I, therefore, urge earnestly that we shall avoid them in agriculture if possible. I would like to see exactly the contrary. I would like to see the labourers taken much more into the confidence of their employers. I believe that that is the only way out in agriculture, as in every other industry. You have to give the wage earner a sense of his share in the responsibility and the management of the industry. You have to give him also a share of profits. At the present moment a share in the profits of agriculture would not be worth very much. I earnestly hope that reforms of this  kind, which must come from within if they are to be effective, will be considered by the agricultural community. I have comparatively little influence with the farmers of the country. I hope, however, that some of my hon. Friends will consider seriously where they are going. If they maintain the present system without change, I am satisfied that you cannot endure, that you will be obliged to have some form of compulsion, some interference by the State, and, personally, unlike hon. Members opposite, I am against that interference. I do not believe it answers. I believe it will do more harm than good. [HON. MEMBERS: "TO you!"] Hon. Members are very ready to think that everybody except themselves are either dishonest or unfair. But it really is not so. We are quite as honest as they are, and I think we are not moved by such vehement class feeling. [HON. MEMBERS: "You have no reason!"] I am not so sure of that. I ask the House, therefore, to disregard the political Labour man in this respect, because he does not want a settlement. He would lose the greater part of his opportunity for stirring up strife. I am not referring to such gentlemen as the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) or many others on those benches. I am referring to those who really do desire class war, and who say they desire class war. They are against any proposal for making the present system workable. It is for that reason that I appeal to my hon. Friends around me and say to them: "Here you have your chance. This industry can be saved, can be made peaceful and prosperous, and can be made an example to the other industries of the country. Before it is too late, take the necessary steps." I believe in a union of classes. I believe as much in a league of classes as in a League of Nations—one for national life and the other for international life. I earnestly beg all who have at heart, not any political motive, but the interests of the industry itself, to co-operate and to do their best to make all classes in the industry work together for the common advantage.

Mr. McLAREN
This is the first time I have had the honour of addressing this House, and I hope I shall enjoy a tolerance which I am afraid some hon. Gentlemen find it rather difficult to extend towards this part of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] I am merely  saying that by way of raillery. I am glad in a sense, though I am somewhat apprehensive as to the results, that I follow the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil). He has been rather definite and rather frank in asking us what exactly is the Labour policy regarding the land. In common with many other hon. Members I had a queer experience to-day, listening to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). I followed the right hon. Gentleman's speech very closely, but when he came to the point where he was about to advance to the House a solution of the problem, he said it was on the Paper. I do not know to what Paper ho referred. I could not help noticing that hon. Members opposite were, all the time, apprehensive as to exactly how the right hon. Gentleman was going to jump. Each one had at the back of his mind the Limehouse speech. They were looking across at the right hon. Gentleman wondering if, having lost the grip of the common folk of this country, he was going to retrieve his great position with the people on the land by challenging landlordism. That was written clearly on the faces opposite, but the dexterity with which the right hon. Gentleman manipulated the position without committing himself to a definite policy, and without saying anything which would in any way clash with the feelings of his late friends, was delightful to the last degree. But friends are one thing and principles are another. I am afraid that, looking at society as we see it, with its class interests, with the warring of privilege on the one hand and the bitter struggles of distressed classes on the other, we are faced by one conclusion. If this House will not become big enough, strong enough in vision, to do something great and grand—which means that we must cut right through privileged interests if we are going to do anything at all—if the House will not at this juncture do something for the oppressed masses outside, then I am afraid, much as is said regarding lack of allegiance to constitutional government, the warring of those interests outside will lead to utter disregard for the deliberations of the House. We on these benches would very much regret that. The Labour party has a definite policy, and I am going to enunciate it.[HON.  MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I welcome that cheer, and I wonder if that approval will persist until I am finished. I give one warning, that there is no short cut to a solution of this problem save that which cuts through the privileged interests of someone. There is no good tinkering with the subject. The difference between hon. Members on this side and hon. Members opposite is very great indeed, and it would be well to make it clear at once. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs rather played upon the Amendment as an excuse for emphasising the necessity for opening up some means of employment within the country. He spoke of what was being done in other countries, and suggested that much more could be done in this country. The right hon. Gentleman himself emerged, one might say, from being an unknown quantity into becoming a very great man in the politics of this country, by enunciating certain great principles with regard to the solution of this land problem. I wonder where they went to-day, or what has come over him lately with regard to these matters. We are charged with being enemies of private enterprise and enemies of development. The Noble Lord who spoke last said we are merely politicians who exploited excitement in society in order to give prominence to our own views. I assure the Noble Lord, for my own part, that I think we are a little tired of warring in society. A little more harmony, a clearer understanding of the aspirations of men's hearts, would bring us closer together. Politics must be something more than a mere cockpit fight on the Floor of the House of Commons. We have come here, not to work off our own particular fads, but to lend a hand in the constructive policy of the country, and to raise the country out of the awful mess in which we find it. Asked what to do with regard to agriculture, the Labour party would say that every encouragement must be given to the man who is prepared to use the land to the fullest possible extent. I heard cheer after cheer from hon. Members with regard to the virtues of private enterprise. I ask, How is private enterprise encouraged with regard to agriculture? Agriculture is an operation performed on the face of the earth. I have  got to say that, because I want the basis of my argument to be clear. One man has a piece of land and he uses it not— and there are many such. Another has a piece of land and uses it—he puts manure into it and puts buildings upon it. [Laughter.] I would ask hon. Members to have consideration for the timidity of a new Member, and I am doing my best. One man uses his land, and another man does not. Your rating system, as it now exists in England, your 1836 Rating Act, instructs your assessor to come down and review the situation. One man is not using the land—no rates; the other man, who is using his land, is burdened immediately by a heavy burden of rates every year as long as his improvement stands. That is the private enterprise that hon. Members opposite are so anxious to encourage. The Labour party say that that must be stopped, the rates must come off the farmers' buildings, the rates must be taken off the agricultural holders' improvements, and the site value, whatever that may be—it might be a very low value —the site or marketable value of the land should be made the basis for rating. I notice that there are no cheers now from the opposite side. I should have thought hon. Members opposite, being the champions of private enterprise, would have at last agreed—no, I will put it this way. Hon. Members opposite will surely agree with me that the farmers and agricultural smallholders would be able to carry on their operations with much more ease if the heavy burden of rates were not levied on their improvements. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Exactly, then I carry conviction. Some hon. Members opposite have suggested something in the nature of bonuses per acreage of cultivation. If you take the rates from off the improvements of these men, I submit that that is tantamount to a very good bonus. But if you attempt to develop your land by encouraging improvements and rating your site value, you are still held up in the matter of transport, and I think it is necessary to correlate something we have said already with the Debate that is on hand to-night. We have discussed unemployment, and I know that it is in the mind of the Government to carry out certain developments with regard to arterial roads in order to aid and develop transport. I submit that here again we come  to the whole question that I have already hinted at, the question of land, the opening up of its development, and the question of rating again. What is going to happen? You open up arterial roads tomorrow. The first person you meet is the landowner, who says he wants so much for every acre of land you are going to open up for a national development. No sooner have you made your arterial road, than you have the increase in value asserting itself on each side of the road you have made, and I submit that the hon. Members opposite should give us on this side the credit at least of having some analytical power behind us, and we therefore drive home the policy that the Noble Lord has asked for, namely, our land policy, which would be to take back for the community any value which the land may have by virtue of a communal expenditure upon it. If these arterial roads, which must be made in order to develop agriculture, as well at commerce generally, are going to be carried out, we would recoup ourselves by way of rates and taxes on the value of the land, as against the rates and taxes which you now levy on industry generally. So much for opening up land and encouraging men to use it. So much is Labour's policy— the discouragement of the withholding of land from use, and the driving of it into use by means of the infliction of rates and taxes on the value of the land. If I may give an impression, as a new Member of the House who finds it interesting to watch the by-play, there is no man who has impressed me more, if I may say so, than the Prime Minister. I cannot get away from his personality. He seems to be very honest, and very anxious to do something for the country, and, therefore, I preface what I have got to say by asking the House to accept as friendly my criticism of what he has said to-day. When the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs finished his speech, the Prime Minister, in reply, came back to a statement which he made the other day in reply to the Labour party's Amendment to the Address. He said that it was a danger to go too far along the lines of land development, or wheat growing, because there would come a point at which it would be ruinous to extend development on the land, and, indeed, I think he tried to give us a little lecture on the law of diminishing returns,  although it was obvious, I think, not only to this side of the House, but to hon. Members opposite, that the Prime Minister did not quite grasp the real import of what was meant by the law of diminishing returns. When I listened to the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs speaking of the land as he did to-day, although agriculture was the excuse for the speech he made, I felt that he was not merely confining his remarks to agriculture alone, and we on this side of the House, when we speak of the land question, do not mean merely agriculture. We mean everything in our own country which necessitates the use of land. But I think the Prime Minister was, perhaps, a little too soon in suggesting that we have arrived at, or are within miles of, the point of diminishing returns in this country. It will be quite time enough for the Prime Minister to tell us of the dangers of going beyond the point of development, or intensive culture, when he thinks we have arrived in close proximity to the point of diminishing returns. Nobody, I know, with any knowledge of the land or its possibilities will assert that we are anywhere near the point of diminishing returns in this country. Supposing it were true that we were coining near the point of diminishing returns in wheat-growing, I challenge anyone to say we have come near to the point of diminishing returns in housing, or to the point of diminishing returns in numberless forms of development of the land of this country. I thought I would say what I have said by way of friendly criticism. I noticed that the Prime Minister went a little further. He referred to Denmark as a serious competitor with any other country as an agricultural producing country. I would commend to the attention of hon. and right hon. Members of the Government the latest proposals of Denmark with regard to those who withhold land from use. It is on "all fours" with the policy pursued by the Labour party in this country. It is a singular thing that a country that is pre-eminently an agricultural country, a country which is making more of its land perhaps than any other country in the world, should come along and be, as it were, the first country in Europe to inflict or impose a tax upon the value of its land. I want to say a few  words—as my time is up—in reference to what was said by the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin. He made a comparison between the wages paid to the railwaymen and the wages received by the agricultural labourer. I may be wrong, and I stand to be corrected if I am, but I felt during the time the Noble Lord was speaking that he was more anxious to reduce the wages of the railwaymen to the level of the agricultural worker—

Lord R. CECIL
indicated dissent.

An HON. MEMBER
What did the Noble Lord mean, then?

Lord R. CECIL
What I was endeavouring to present to the House—no doubt very imperfectly—was that the agricultural labourer's wages—no doubt the case is an extreme case—were lower than those of the railwaymen or other workmen. My object would be to raise the wages of the agricultural labourer to something approaching, at any rate, the wages of other workmen.

Mr. McLAREN
I stand corrected, and I agree with what the Noble Lord says. No hon. Members of this House are more conscious of the fact than we on these benches, more especially those who represent the railwaymen of this country, that the wages of the railwaymen have been kept in a deadly rut through the low wages of the agricultural labourer, who have been easily recruited into the railway service owing to that circumstance. Instead of the land of' England being used by the men of England as it was on one occasion before the land was foreclosed, when you had what was relatively the golden age, as Professor Thorold Rogers points out. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] Yes, he may be wrong, but he speaks of the relatively golden age which was known to the agricultural labourers of the country. Historically we know that inasmuch as the land was foreclosed, then closed again to the common use of the people of this country, that there was created these unattached masses of people. They were thus forcibly driven into the towns there to become competitors with the labour of the towns, so to keep the wages in a deadly rut. We know that we cannot get back to any respectable social condition in the indus-  trial areas until we do something in the agricultural areas to make the land more attractive, to make the life of the worker upon the land something worth while, to encourage him to use the land. We ought to do everything possible to discourage the withholding of land from use and to discourage speculation in land. I say this much because the Noble Lord was rather asking what was the Labour policy.

Sir W. LANE MITCHELL
You have not told us yet.

Mr. McLAREN
Perhaps hon. Members were not in at the earlier part of my speech, for there is a point at which repetition becomes mere boredom. We assume, in the first instance, that as man has not made the land, man has no right to establish private property in that land which he has not made. That is the basis of our belief. It may be right or it may be wrong. I have my own private opinions about it. But on that basis we go on and say that whatever value is in the land by virtue of the presence and demands of the human community upon it we will appropriate that for communal purposes. That is the Labour policy on the land problem. I wish to refer to another question which has been raised in the earlier part of this discussion with regard to the game laws. I am instructed that my time is up. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I am very sorry. [HON. MEMBERS: "GO on!"] I can assure hon. Members opposite that I have practised some awful forms of restraint, because I could adumbrate principles which would be very unpopular with them. I have endeavoured to do my best. I only ask for the positive policy of the Labour party. I have thought it my duty to say what I have in order to make it clear that in speaking about nationalisation of land that is a mere vague term. We assume that the land is the property of the people, and we will proceed through rating and taxation to appropriate the values recorded therein. Having said that, I have summed up in a few words what is Labour's policy. I do not know whether you will agree with me or not, but that is it

Sir R. SANDERS
I am sure we all wish to congratulate the hon. Member who has just sat down on the successful way in which he has come through that awful ordeal of a maiden speech. He  pleaded guilty to the timidity which we all feel on that occasion, but I can assure him that that timidity was not apparent to any of us. I am sorry that I now have to intervene, because I know that a great many other Members wished to speak in this Debate. We have had many interesting speeches, and I wish we could have heard even more of those who have recently come back to represent the farmers' interests. We have now three or four Members in the House directly representing the Farmers' Union. I am sure that their advice on agricultural matters will be a benefit to the House, as I am also quite sure it will be a benefit to the Minister of Agriculture. Although, of course, for party purposes I was not unhappy to see them beaten, I hope I may be allowed to say that I think it is a real loss, to the House that we no longer have here those two Members who were in the last Parliament and who represented the Labourers' Union. I think we all recognised both of them as moderate and sensible men, and although I hope they will not use this advertisement in their next election address, I think that is the general feeling of the House. Putting all party feeling aside, all those who are interested in agriculture are sorry we no longer have the benefit of their advice. We console ourselves with the fact that we still have my hon. Friend the Member for Boston (Mr. Royce), who was returned by an agricultural constituency, because they realised what a good old Tory he really is. I think, on the whole, we have had a very interesting and good-tempered Debate. I do not know if it was the influence of last night's Sitting or whether it was the bucolic nature of the subject, but certainly there has been a welcome absence of the heat which has occasionally occurred in our recent Debates. All the speakers have, I think, agreed on one point, and that is that agriculture is at present in rather a bad way. First of all, of course, there is no doubt there have been two bad seasons with regard to the weather. Last year was too dry and this year we have had the unfortunate peculiarity of being very dry when we wanted rain and very wet when we wanted sunshine. I will not say anything so foolish as to repeat that the Government cannot help that. You must average things up. If it is a  bad season for corn in one year, you are very likely to get a good season the next. What is more important is that the great reason of the admitted depression is the very severe drop in prices which has occurred within the last two years. I will not give the figures, because they are well known to all agriculturists here. Although it has been serious in all sorts of farming, perhaps it has been particularly bad as regards corn. Cereal producers have had one of the worst times within memory. It is not only the farmer who is affected. As soon as the farmer begins to lose money he looks to see where he can save expenses. The biggest source of expense are the wages of the agricultural labourer, and, in looking for a way in which he can cut down expenses, there is no doubt the farmer has cut down the wages of the agricultural labourer to an extent which we all deplore. A good deal has been said in the recent Debate on the subject of the Wages Boards. I should regret to see the Wages Boards re-established now. They were established two years ago, and last year they were taken off again. You cannot keep on chopping and changing your policy on such an important subject in that way. A good many of us on this side—we may be right or we may be wrong, but we are quite as anxious as any hon. Members opposite to try to put this matter right—sincerely feel that the interposition of the State in an affair like this may in the long run do more harm to the labourer than if things were left alone. There is no doubt that the influence of the Wages Boards would increase the amount of unemployment in the rural districts. Reference has been made to the fact that the agricultural labourer is left out of unemployment insurance. I have looked into that, and I find that a Committee was set up at the time that the Act was passed, and that Committee, which included Mr. W. B. Smith and Mr. George Dallas, representing the two largest agricultural workers' unions, reported unanimously against the agricultural labourer coming within the terms of the Unemployment Insurance Act. What I look to with hope in this matter is that the farmer does know the value of public opinion and does realise quite clearly that, if he treats his labourers badly, he will not have public opinion with him  when he is agitating on agricultural questions. One other thing that I want to say about the position of the labourer is that, undoubtedly, it is largely affected by a matter on which I am proposing to set up a Departmental Committee, that is to say, the disparity between the price received by the producer and the price paid by the consumer. I am not going to prejudge that question, but, undoubtedly, there are many people who think that there is a leakage somewhere. We want to get that leakage inquired into, and see if there is not some way in which it is possible to stop it. I was asked the other day whether Scotland would be included in that inquiry, and the answer I gave at the time was that I should not dare to do so. Since then I have been asked by the Secretary for Scotland himself that Scotland may be included, and, of course, if Scotland wishes it, I am only too glad to get the advantage of Scottish assistance and Scottish brains, so that we may do all that we can to help to solve the similar problem in Scotland.

Mr. PETO
Will the inquiry include only the profits of middlemen, or will it cover the question of the profits made by manufacturers, such as the great milling combines?

Sir R. SANDERS
I have not the Terms of Reference by me, but the hon. Member can see them in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I think, however, that the inquiry will certainly include all those questions. I have said that on all sides the depression is acute. Agriculture is not the only industry that is depressed, but it has this drawback as compared with other industries, that, while you can close a factory or a mine and can start it again, you cannot throw up a farm without doing it almost irreparable injury. The old remedy for agriculture in times of distress was always to rely on the landlord; but in such a great number of cases now it is the fact that the landlord no longer exists, that that remedy is no longer open, and agriculturists, like other people, want to fall back on the State. It is a bad habit that has rather spread during and since the War that when anyone is in any sort of trouble he appeals to the State, and the State, I regret to say, in this instance means the Minister of Agriculture, with the rather dour presence of the Chan-  cellor of the Exchequer in the background. There is one advantage the Minister of Agriculture has. He gets suggestions. During the short time I have held that office, I have had every imaginable sort of suggestion made to me for the benefit of agriculture. It seems to me that there are only two really big things that can be done to put agriculture on its legs, and both of them one has to turn down. The first is subsidies. Subsidies were tried under the Agriculture Act of two years ago. The last thing anyone would accuse the late Prime Minister of is lack of courage, but even he had not the courage to ask the House of Commons to provide subsidies of anything from £20,000,000 to £30,000.000 during every year for the benefit of the agriculturist, though it must not be forgotten that at the beginning of this year the farmers of the country were actually receiving a subsidy under the Agriculture Act. The other great remedy is Protection. I am not going to enter on that question. I need only say that when Disraeli and Joseph Chamberlain failed to convince the country that it was a good thing, we may fairly assume that the country is not likely to be convinced. At all events, the Government has announced that it is not prepared to bring any Measures for subsidies or for protection of foodstuffs, and when I say that we are not prepared to bring in Measures of food protection I mean what I say. I have had many innocent suggestions made to me. I do not want to discuss them on their merits, but as one who has thought on this question, I can say that if you go in for Protection at all, it is much better to go the whole hog. If you go in for a small measure of Protection, you are not going to conciliate a single Free Trader. I know a good many strong Free Traders. They are very amiable people as a rule, but if you suggest such a thing as putting a 5s. tax on the importation of white elephants, they absolutely see red. That being so, I do not think it is worth while to raise a very big question for the sake of getting a very small advantage. Those are the two big things that can be done for agriculture, and the two things which I am afraid we have to turn down. The fact is that, on main things, we must leave agriculture to work out its own salvation. The State cannot finance it,  and, on the other hand, the State will not presume to dictate to it the way in which the land should be farmed. That is the negative side. As to the positive side, there are ways in which the Government can help, and in which I believe they will help. The first is in regards to rating. Every agriculturist has felt for years that one of the unfair burdens he has to bear is the incidence of rating. This is a subject that has been considered again and again. I suppose that every Minister of Agriculture has advised the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that subject, and he has either found that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is hard-hearted, or else he has found him soft-hearted but impecunious. At any rate, for many years, nothing to ease the matter has been done. The matter, as the Prime Minister announced, is once more seriously under the consideration of the Government, and I hope it will be possible by the time the House meets again at the beginning of next Session to lay some definite proposals on this subject before the House. There are other capacities in which the Ministry may be of use to the agricultural community. One suggestion is that they may be useful as bankers. The matter of credit facilities has been referred to several times in this Debate. The Government fully realise the importance of the subject. The Committee appointed by the last Government is now sitting and is expected to report this week. I hope the result of its Report may be a really useful contribution towards doing something on that subject. Then, the Ministry can do something as schoolmasters. Some things have been said about research and education. I believe a good deal can be done for the benefit of agriculture in that way. At the present time, the State expenditure on education and research is close upon £600,000 a year. Before the War the grants only amounted to £34,000. This large increase is due, to a great extent, to the fact that the farmers themselves, when the Agriculture Act was repealed, asked that a large sum might be devoted to that purpose. The sum of £850,000 was devoted to the furtherance of research and education. There has been some question as to how that sum was to be expended. I can now say that the Government have agreed that this  sum should be expended during a period of five years, ending 31st March, 1927, as an addition to the sum which was previously being spent on education and. research. It is also agreed that the new scheme started out of the £850,000 will involve a continuing charge for maintenance until 1927. We are not only spending money on research, but we have schools and institutes in different parts of the country, where not only can the young farmer-learn all the latest things about his trade, but the sons of agricultural labourers are also able to go there with scholarships and get a thorough grounding in agriculture. The State acts as doctor with> regard to cattle diseases. In regard to the extension of the telephone service to rural areas, the Postmaster-General announced only two days ago that he had already taken that subject up, and had done something substantial to remedy the grievances complained of. Smallholdings and allotments are the particular care of the Ministry. In answer to the hon. Member for Boston, I quite realise the difficulty to which he referred, and when-he comes to me with the smallholders in question I shall certainly do my best to see how far their requests can be met. These are ways in which we may do something to help this great industry. Like the Mover of the Amendment, I do not despair. The farmers do not despair, and that is evidenced because at the present time, in spite of all that is said about depression, it is hard to find a farm to rent. I believe it is true that there may be better times coming for the industry in the future. We cannot make any great promises. We do not say that we are going to work any miracles, but in the small ways I have indicated it is the object of the Government to do everything that is possible to help.

Sir R. WINFREY
As the Prime-Minister, in reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), has promised to widen the scope of the Inquiry, and has also promised to confer with my right hon. Friend, and to state before the House adjourns what are the terms of that Inquiry, and what are his proposals, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

HON. MEMBERS
No.

Mr. PRINGLE
I wish to state why I have taken the course of objecting to the withdrawal of this Amendment. It is because of the contrast between the attitude of the Government to-day and the attitude of the Government yesterday. Yesterday the Government defended themselves for taking measures to promote certain industries on the ground of the Paris Resolutions. Those Resolutions were based on war experience. The position of agriculture stands exactly in the

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|Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte        |Crooke, J. S. (Deritend)              |Hood, Sir Joseph                     |
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|Ainsworth, Captain Charles          |Curzon, Captain Viscount              |Hopkins John W. W.                   |
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|Alexander, E. E. (Leyton, East)     |Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)    |Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)   |
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|Alexander, Col. M. (Southwark)      |Davidson, J. C. C. (Hemel Hempstead)  |Houfton, John Plowright              |
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|Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.    |Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.     |Howard, Capt. D. (Cumberland, N.)    |
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|Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin  |Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)          |Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.       |
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|Ashley, Lt.-Col. Wilfrid w.         |Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)   |Hudson, Capt. A.                     |
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|Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.   |Dawson, Sir Philip                    |Hume, G. H.                          |
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|Astor, J. J. (Kent, Dover)          |Dixon, C. H. (Rutland)                |Hume-Williams, Sir W. Ellis          |
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|Balrd, Rt. Hon. Sir John Lawrence   |Doyle, N. Grattan                     |Hurd, Percy A.                       |
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|Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley           |Edmondson, Major A. J.                |Hurst, Lt.-Col. Gerald Berkeley      |
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|Balfour, George (Hampstead)         |Ednam, Viscount                       |Hutchison, G. A. C. (Peebles, N.)    |
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|Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.  |Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)      |Hutchison, W. (Kelvingrove)          |
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|Banks, Mitchell                     |Elveden, viscount                     |Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.         |
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|Barlow, Rt. Hon. Sir Montague       |England, Lieut.-Colonel A.            |Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.   |
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|Barnett, Major Richard W.           |Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)     |Jarrett, G. W. S.                    |
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|Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar (Banff)  |Erskine-Boist, Captain C.             |Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)   |
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|Becker, Harry                       |Evans, Capt. H. Arthur (Leicester, E.)|Jephcott, A. R.                      |
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|Bell, Lieut. Col. w. C. H. (Devizes)|Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.         |Jodrell, Sir Neville Paul            |
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|Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.      |Falcon, Captain Michael               |Johnson, Sir L. (Waithamstow, E.)    |
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|Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)   |Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray      |Jones, G. W, H. (stoke Newington)    |
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|Bennett, Sir T. J. (Sevenoaks)      |Fawkes, Major F. H.                   |Joynson-Hicks. Sir William           |
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|Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish-     |Ford, Patrick Johnston                |Kennedy, Captain M. S. Nigel         |
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|Birchall, Major J. Dearman          |Forestier-Walker, L.                  |King, Capt. Henry Douglas            |
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|Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.) |Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot      |Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement           |
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|Bird, Sir W. B. M. (Chichester)     |Fraser, Major sir Keith               |Lamb, J. Q.                          |
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|Blundell, F. N.                     |Frece, Sir Walter de                  |Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Colonel G. R.       |
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|Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.              |Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.  |Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow, C.)    |
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|Brass, Captain W.                   |Furness, G. J.                        |Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)            |
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|Brassey, Sir Leonard                |Galbraith, J. F. W.                   |Lloyd, Cyril E (Dudley)              |
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|Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive   |Ganzoni, Sir John                     |Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir P.        |
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|Briggs, Harold                      |Gardiner, James                       |Lorden, John William                 |
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|Brittain, Sir Harry                 |Garland, C. S.                        |Lougher, L.                          |
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|Brown, Major D. C. (Hexham)         |Gates, Percy                          |Lowe, Sir Francis William            |
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|Brown, Brig.-Gen, Clifton (Newbury) |Gaunt, Rear-Admiral Sir Guy R.        |Loyd, Arthur Thomas (Abingdon)       |
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|Brown, J. W. (Middlesbrough, E.)    |Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John   |Lumley, L. R.                        |
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|Bruford, R.                         |Gould, James C.                       |Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm         |
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|Buckingham, Sir H.                  |Gray, Harold (Cambridge)              |McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)   |
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|Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.          |Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)  |Haddocks, Henry                      |
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|Butt, Sir Alfred                    |Greenwood, William (Stockport)        |Makins, Brigadier-General E.         |
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|Button, H. S.                       |Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)  |Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)  |
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|Cadogan, Major Edward               |Gretton, Colonel John                 |Margesson, H. D. R.                  |
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|Calne, Gordon Hall                  |Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.      |Mason, Lieut.-Col. C. K.             |
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|Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.       |Guthrie, Thomas Maule                 |Mercer, Colonel H.                   |
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|Cassels, J. D.                      |Gwynne, Rupert S.                     |Milne, J. S. Wardlaw                 |
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|Cautley, Henry Strother             |Hacking, Captain Douglas H.           |Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)     |
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|Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)      |Hall, Rr-Adml Sir W. (Liv'p'l,W.D'by) |Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)    |
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|Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)  |Halstead, Major D.                    |Molloy, Major L. G. S.               |
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|Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.) |Hamilton, Sir George C. (Altrincham)  |Molson, Major John Eisdale           |
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|Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)   |Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry          |Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.   |
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|Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton         |Harrison, F. C.                       |Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C. |
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|Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) |Harvey, Major S. E.                   |Morden, Col. W. Grant                |
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|Churchman, Sir Arthur               |Hawke, John Anthony                   |Morrison, Hugh (Wilts, Salisbury)    |
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|Clarry, Reginald George             |Hay, Major T. W. (Norfolk, South)     |Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honiton) |
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|Clayton, G. C.                      |Henn, Sir Sydney H.                   |Nall, Major Joseph                   |
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|Cobb, Sir Cyril                     |Hennessy, Major J. R. G.              |Nesbitt, J. C.                       |
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|Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.  |Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)   |Newman. Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)  |
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|Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips          |Herbert, S. (Scarborough)             |Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)  |
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|Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale |Hewett, Sir J. P.                     |Nicholson, Brig-Gen. J. (Westminster)|
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|Conway, Sir W. Martin               |Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank          |Nicholson, William G. (Petersfleld)  |
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|Cory, Sir I. H. (Cardiff, South)    |Hiley, Sir Ernest                     |Nield, Sir Herbert                   |
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|Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.    |Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.    |Oman, Sir Charles William C.         |
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|Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry           |Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone)|Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William            |
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|Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page    |Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy                |Paget, T. G.                         |
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|Crook, C. W. (East Ham, North)      |Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard          |Parker, Owen (Kettering)             |
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same relation in regard to war experience as those industries. [HON. MEMBERS: "Divide!"] Agriculture has been betrayed.

The PRIME MINISTER
rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided: Ayes, 277; Noes, 168.

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|Pennefather, De Fonblanque            |Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)    |Titchfield, Marquess of            |
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|Penny, Frederick George               |Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)      |Tout, W. J.                        |
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|Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)        |Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)   |Turton, Edmund Russborough         |
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|Perring, William George               |Sanders, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert A.      |Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.         |
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|Peto, Basil E.                        |Sanderson, Sir Frank B.              |Wallace, Captain E.                |
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|Plelou, D. P.                         |Sandon, Lord                         |Ward, Col. J. (Stoke-upon-Trent)   |
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|Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton      |Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D.|Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull) |
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|pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.          |Sheffield, Sir Berkeley              |Waring, Major Walter               |
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|Privett, F. J.                        |Shepperson, E. W.                    |Watts, Dr. T. (Man., Withington)   |
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|Raeburn, Sir William H.               |Simpson-Hinchcliffe, W. A.           |Wells, S. R.                       |
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|Raine, W.                             |Skelton, A. N.                       |Weston, Colonel John Wakefield     |
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|Rawson, Lieut.-Com. A. C.             |Smith, Sir Harold (Wavertree)        |Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.       |
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|Rees, Sir Beddoe                      |Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)          |Whitla, Sir William                |
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|Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)     |Sparkes, H. W.                       |Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)      |
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|Remer, J. R.                          |Stanley, Lord                        |Windsor, Viscount                  |
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|Rentoul, G. S.                        |Steel, Major S. Strang               |Winfrey, Sir Richard               |
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|Reynolds, W. G. W.                    |Stephenson, Lieut.-Colonel H. K.     |Winterton, Earl                    |
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|Rhodes, Lieut.-Col. J. P.             |Stewart, Gershom (Wirral)            |Wise, Frederick                    |
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|Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)     |Stott, Lt.-Col. W. H.                |Wood, Rt. Hn. Edward F. L. (Ripon) |
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|Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)|Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-            |Wood, Maj. Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)|
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|Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)  |Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser   |Woodcock, Colonel H. C.            |
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|Robertson, J. D. (Islington, W.)      |Sugden, Sir Wilfrid H.               |Worsfold, T. Cato                  |
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|Rogerson, Capt. J. E.                 |Sutcliffe, T.                        |Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L. |
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|Rothschild, Lionel de                 |Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.   |Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward   |
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|Roundell, Colonel R. F.               |Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley) |Yerburgh, R. D. T.                 |
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|Ruggles-Brise, Major E.               |Thomson, Luke (Sunderland)           |                                   |
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|Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)   |Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)        |TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—             |
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|Russell, William (Bolton)             |Thorpe, Captain John Henry           |Colonel Gibbs and Major Barnston.  |
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|Adamson, W. M. (Staff., Cannock)       |Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvil)            |Newbold, J. T. W.                   |
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|Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')|Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)|Nichol, Robert                      |
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|Ammon, Charles George                  |Hancock, John George                    |O'Grady, Captain James              |
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|Attlee, C. R.                          |Harbord, Arthur                         |Oliver, George Harold               |
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|Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)     |Hardie, George D.                       |Paling, W.                          |
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|Barnes, A.                             |Harris, Percy A.                        |Pattinson, R. (Grantham)            |
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|Batey, Joseph                          |Hastings, Patrick                       |Pattinson, S. (Horncastle)          |
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|Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)         |Hay, Captain J. P. (Cathcart)           |Ponsonby, Arthur                    |
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|Bennett, A. J. (Mansfield)             |Hayday, Arthur                          |Potts, John S.                      |
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|Berkeley, Captain Reginald             |Hemmerde, E. G.                         |Richardson, R. (Houghton le-Spring) |
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|Bonwick, A.                            |Henderson, T. (Glasgow)                 |Riley, Ben                          |
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|Bowdler, W. A.                         |Herriotts, J.                           |Ritson, J.                          |
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|Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.          |Hill, A.                                |Roberts, C. H. (Derby)              |
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|Briant, Frank                          |Hillary, A. E.                          |Roberts, Frederick O. (W. Bromwich) |
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|Broad, F. A.                           |Hinds, John                             |Robertson, J. (Lanark, Bothwell)    |
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|Bromfield, William                     |Hirst, G. H.                            |Robinson, W. C. (York, Elland)      |
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|Brotherton, J.                         |Hodge, Lieut.-Col. J. P. (Preston)      |Rose, Frank H.                      |
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|Brown, James (Ayr and Bute)            |Hogge, James Myles                      |Royce, William Stapleton            |
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|Buchanan, G.                           |Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)          |Saklatvala, S.                      |
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|Buckle, J.                             |John, William (Rhondda, West)           |Scrymgeour, E.                      |
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|Burgess, S.                            |Johnston, Thomas (Stirling)             |Sexton, James                       |
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|Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)              |Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)     |Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)       |
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|Buxton, Charles (Accrington)           |Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)              |Shinwell, Emanuel                   |
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|Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)          |Jones, R. T. (Carnarvon)                |Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)          |
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|Cairns, John                           |Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)         |Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John            |
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|Cape, Thomas                           |Jowett, F. W. (Bradford, East)          |Simpson, J. Hope                    |
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|Chapple, W. A.                         |Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)         |Sitch, Charles H.                   |
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|Charleton, H. C.                       |Kenyon, Barnet                          |Smith, T. (Pontefract)              |
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|Clarke, Sir E. C.                      |Kirkwood, D.                            |Snell, Harry                        |
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|Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)        |Lansbury, George                        |Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)       |
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|Collins, Pat (Walsall)                 |Lawson, John James                      |Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, S.)       |
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|Collison, Levi                         |Leach, W.                               |Stephen, Campbell                   |
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|Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)   |Lee, F.                                 |Stewart, J. (St. Rollox)            |
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|Darbishire, C. W.                      |Linfield, F. C.                         |Sullivan, J.                        |
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|Davies, Evan (Ebbw Vale)               |Lowth, T.                               |Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)|
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|Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)       |Lunn, William                           |Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)   |
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|Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)             |Lyle-Samuel, Alexander                  |Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)   |
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|Dudgeon, Major C. R.                   |MacDonald, J. R. (Aberavon)             |Thornton, M.                        |
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|Duncan, C.                             |M'Entee, V. L.                          |Tillett, Benjamin                   |
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|Dunnico, H.                            |McLaren, Andrew                         |Trevelyan, C. P.                    |
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|Edmonds, G.                            |Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)          |Turner, Ben                         |
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|Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)      |March, S.                               |Wallhead, Richard C.                |
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|Emlyn-Jones, J. E. (Dorset, N.)        |Marshall, Sir Arthur H.                 |Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)    |
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|Entwistle, Major C. F.                 |Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)|Warne, G. H.                        |
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|Falconer, J.                           |Mathew, C. J.                           |Watson, W. M. (Dunfermline)         |
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|Foot, Isaac                            |Maxton, James                           |Watts-Morgan, Lt.-Col. D. (Rhondda) |
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|Gray, Frank (Oxford)                   |Middleton, G.                           |Webb, Sidney                        |
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|Greenall, T.                           |Millar, J. D.                           |Weir, L. M.                         |
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|Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)       |Morel, E. D.                            |Westwood, J.                        |
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|Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)            |Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)         |Wheatley, J.                        |
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|Groves, T.                             |Muir, John W.                           |White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)  |
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|Grundy, T. W.                          |Murnin, H.                              |White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)       |
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|Hall, F. (York, W.R., Normanton)       |Murray, R. (Renfrew, Western)           |Whiteley, W.                        |
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|Wignall, James                        |Wilson, R. J. (Jarrow)           |TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—          |
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|Williams, David (Swansea, E.)         |Wintringham, Margaret            |Mr. Pringle and Lieut.-Commander|
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|Williams, T. (York, Don Valley)       |Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.) |Kenworty.                       |
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|Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)|Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)|                                |
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Question put accordingly, "That those words be there added."

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|Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith) |Gray, Frank (Oxford)                    |Phillipps, Vivian                   |
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|Berkeley, Captain Reginald     |Hamilton, Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)|Roberts, C. H. (Derby)              |
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|Bonwick, A.                    |Hancock, John George                    |Scrymgeour, E.                      |
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|Bowdler, w. A,                 |Harbord, Arthur                         |Shaw, Hon. Alex. (Kilmarnock)       |
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|Briant, Frank                  |Harney, E. A.                           |Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John            |
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|Burnie, Major J. (Bootle)      |Harris, Percy A.                        |Simpson, J. Hope                    |
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|Chapple, W. A,                 |Hillary, A. E.                          |Spencer, H. H. (Bradford, S.)       |
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|Clarke, Sir E. C.              |Hinds, John                             |Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)|
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|Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)|Hodge, Lieut. Col. J, P. (Preston)      |Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)   |
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|Collins, Pat (Walsall)         |Hogge, James Myles                      |Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)   |
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|Collison, Levi                 |Jowitt, W. A. (The Hartlepools)         |White, Charles F. (Derby, Western)  |
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|Darbishire, C. W.              |Kenyon, Barnet                          |White, H. G. (Birkenhead, E.)       |
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|Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)     |Linfield, F. C.                         |Wintringham, Margaret               |
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|Dudgeon, Major C. R.           |Lyle-Samuel, Alexander                  |Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)    |
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|Edmonds, G.                    |Marshall, Sir Arthur H.                 |                                    |
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|Emlyn-Jones, J. E. (Dorset, N.)|Martin, F. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, E.)|TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—              |
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|Entwistle, Major C. F.         |Millar, J. D.                           |Mr. Pringle and Lieut.-Commander    |
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|Falconer, J,                   |Pattinson, R. (Grantham)                |Kenworthy.                          |
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|Foot, Isaac                    |Pattinson, S. (Horncastle)              |                                    |
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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte        |Churchman, Sir Arthur                |Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)   |
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|Ainsworth, Captain Charles          |Clarry, Reginald George              |Gretton, Colonel John                  |
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|Alexander, E. E. (Leyton, East)     |Clayton, G. C.                       |Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.       |
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|Alexander, Col. M. (Southwark)      |Cobb, Sir Cyril                      |Gwynne, Rupert S.                      |
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|Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.    |Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.   |Hacking, Captain Douglas H.            |
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|Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin  |Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips           |Hall, Rr-Adml Sir W (Liv'p'l, W. D'by}}|
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|Ashley, Lt.-Col. Wilfrid W.         |Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale  |Halstead, Major D.                     |
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|Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.   |Conway, Sir W. Martin                |Hamilton, Sir George C. (Altrincham)   |
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|Astor, J. J. (Kent, Dover)          |Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff, South)     |Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry           |
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|Baird, Rt. Hon. Sir John Lawrence   |Courthope, Lieut.-Col. George L.     |Harrison, F. C.                        |
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|Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley           |Cralk, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry            |Harvey, Major S. E.                    |
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|Balfour, George (Hampstead)         |Croft, Lieut.-Colonel Henry Page     |Hawke, John Anthony                    |
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|Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.  |Crook, C. W. (East Ham, North)       |Hay, Major T. W. (Norfolk, South)      |
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|Banks, Mitchell                     |Crooke, J. S. (Deritend)             |Henn, Sir Sydney H.                    |
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|Barlow, Rt. Hon. Sir Montague       |Curzon, Captain Viscount             |Hennessy, Major J. R. G.               |
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|Barnett, Major Richard W.           |Dalziel, Sir D. (Lambeth, Brixton)   |Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)    |
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|Becker, Harry                       |Davidson, J. C. C.(Hemel Hempstead)  |Herbert, S. (Scarborough)              |
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|Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)|Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.    |Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank           |
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|Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.      |Davies, Thomas (Cirencester)         |Hiley, Sir Ernest                      |
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|Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)   |Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S)   |Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.     |
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|Bennett, Sir T. J. (Sevenoaks)      |Dawson, Sir Philip                   |Hogg, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (St. Marylebone) |
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|Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish      |Dixon, C. H. (Rutland)               |Hohier, Gerald Fitzroy                 |
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|Birchall, Major J. Dearman          |Doyle, N. Grattan                    |Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard           |
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|Bird, Sir R. B. (Wolverhampton, W.) |Edmondson, Major A. J.               |Hood, Sir Joseph                       |
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|Bird, Sir W. B. M. (Chichester)     |Ednam, Viscount                      |Hopkins, John W. W.                    |
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|Blundell, F. N.                     |Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)     |Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)     |
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|Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.              |Elveden, Viscount                    |Houfton, John Plowright                |
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|Brass, Captain W.                   |Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)    |Howard, Capt. D. (Cumberland, N.)      |
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|Brassey, Sir Leonard                |Erskine-Bolst, Captain C.            |Howard-Bury, Lieut.-Col. C. K.         |
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|Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive   |Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.        |Hudson, Capt. A.                       |
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|Briqgs, Harold                      |Falcon, Captain Michael              |Hume, G. H.                            |
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|Brittain, Sir Harry                 |Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray     |Hurd, Percy A.                         |
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|Brown, Major D. C. (Hexham)         |Fawkes, Major F. H.                  |Hurst, Lt.-Col. Gerald Berkeley        |
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|Brown, Brig.-Gen. Clifton (Newbury) |Fildes, Henry                        |Hutchison, G. A. C. (Peebles, N.)      |
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|Brown, J. W. (Middlesbrough, E.)    |Ford, Patrick Johnston               |Hutchison, W. (Kelvingrove)            |
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|Bruford, R.                         |Forestier-Walker, L.                 |Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.           |
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|Buckingham, Sir H.                  |Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot     |Jackson, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. F. S.     |
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|Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.          |Fraser, Major Sir Keith              |Jarrett, G. W. S.                      |
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|Butt, Sir Alfred                    |Frece, Sir Walter de                 |Jenkins, W. A. (Brecon and Radnor)     |
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|Button, H. S.                       |Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E. |Jephcott, A. R.                        |
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|Cadogan, Major Edward               |Furness, G. J.                       |Jodrell, Sir Neville Paul              |
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|Calne, Gordon Hall                  |Galbraith, J. F. W.                  |Johnson, Sir L. (Walthamstow, E.)      |
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|Campion, Lieut.-Colonel W. R.       |Ganzonl, Sir John                    |Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)      |
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|Cassels, J. D.                      |Garland, C. S.                       |Joynson-Hicks, Sir William             |
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|Cautley, Henry Strother             |Gates, Percy                         |Kennedy, Captain M. S. Nigel           |
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|Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)      |Gaunt, Rear-Admiral Sir Guy R.       |King, Capt. Henry Douglas              |
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|Cecil, Rt. Hon. Sir Evelyn (Aston)  |Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John  |Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement             |
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|Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Ox. Univ.) |Gould, James C.                      |Lamb, J. O.                            |
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|Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)   |Gray, Harold (Cambridge)             |Lane-Fox, Lieut.-Colonel G. R.         |
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|Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton         |Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hackn'y, N.)|Law, Rt. Hon. A. B. (Glasgow, C.)      |
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|Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood) |Greenwood, William (Stockport)       |Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)              |
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The house divided: Ayes, 52; Noes, 267.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Lloyd, Cyril E. (Dudley)              |Perring, William George               |Stanley, Lord                       |
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|Lloyd-Greame, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip     |Peto, Basil E.                        |Steel, Major S. Strang              |
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|Lorden, John William                  |Pielou, D. P.                         |Stewart, Gershom (Wirral)           |
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|Lougher, L.                           |Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton      |Stott, Lt.-Col. W. H.               |
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|Lowe, Sir Francis William             |Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.          |Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-           |
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|Loyd, Arthur Thomas (Abingdon)        |Privett, F. J.                        |Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser  |
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|Lumley, L. R.                         |Raeburn, Sir William H.               |Sugden, Sir Wilfrid H.              |
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|Macnaghton, Hon. Sir Malcolm          |Ralne, W.                             |Sutcliffe, T.                       |
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|McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)    |Rawson, Lieut.-Com. A. C.             |Sykes, Major-Gen. Sir Frederick H.  |
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|Maddocks, Henry                       |Reid, Capt. A. S. C. (Warrington)     |Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)|
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|Making, Brigadier-General E.          |Remer, J. R.                          |Thomson, Luke (Sunderland)          |
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|Malone, Major P. B. (Tottenham, S.)   |Rentoul, G. S.                        |Thomson, F C. (Aberdeen, South)     |
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|Margesson, H. D. R.                   |Reynolds, W. G. W.                    |Thorpe, Captain John Henry          |
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|Mason, Lieut.-Col. C. K.              |Rhodes, Lieut.-Col. J. P.             |Tout, W. J.                         |
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|Mercer, Colonel H.                    |Richardson, Sir Alex. (Gravesend)     |Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement      |
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|Milne, J. S. Wardlaw                  |Richardson, Lt.-Col. Sir P. (Chertsey)|Turton, Edmund Russborough          |
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|Mitchell, W. F. (Saffron Walden)      |Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)  |Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.          |
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|Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)     |Robertson, J. D. (Islington, W.)      |Wallace, Captain E.                 |
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|Molloy, Major L. G. S.                |Rogerson, Capt. J. E.                 |Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)  |
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|Molson, Major John Eisdale            |Rothschild, Lionel de                 |Ward, Col. J. (Stoke upon Trent)    |
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|Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.    |Roundell, Colonel R. F.               |Watts, Dr. T. (Man., Withington)    |
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|Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C   |Ruggles-Brise, Major E.               |Wells, S. R.                        |
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|Morden, Col. W, Grant                 |Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)   |Weston, Colonel John Wakefield      |
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|Morrison, Hugh (Wilts, Salisbury)     |Russell, William (Bolton)             |Wheler, Col. Granville C. H.        |
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|Morrison-Bell, Major A. C. (Honlton)  |Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)     |Whitla, Sir William                 |
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|Nail, Major Joseph                    |Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)       |Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)       |
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|Nesbitt, J. C.                        |Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)    |Windsor, Viscount                   |
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|Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)   |Sanders, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert A.       |Winterton, Earl                     |
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|Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)   |Sanderson, Sir Frank B.               |Wise, Frederick                     |
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|Nicholson, Brig.-Gen. J. (Westminster)|Sandon, Lord                          |Wood, Rt. Hn. Edward F. L. (Ripon)  |
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|Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)   |Sassoon, Sir Philip Albert Gustave D. |Wood, Major Sir S. Hill- (High Peak)|
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|Nield, Sir Herbert                    |Sheffield, Sir Berkeley               |Woodcock, Colonel H. C.             |
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|Oman, Sir Charles William C.          |Shepperson, E. W.                     |Worsfold, T. Cato                   |
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|Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William             |Simpson-Hinchcliffe, W. A.            |Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.  |
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|Paget, T. G.                          |Skelton, A. N.                        |Yate, Colonel Sir Charles Edward    |
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|Parker, Owen (Kettering)              |Smith, Sir Harold (Wavertree)         |Yerburgh, R. D. T.                  |
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|Pennefather, De Fonblanque            |Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)           |                                    |
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|Penny, Frederick George               |Sparkes, H. W.                        |TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—              |
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|Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)        |Spencer, George A. (Broxtowe)         |Colonel Gibbs and Major Barnston.   |
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Main Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
 "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:

MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN,
 We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of His Majesty's Household.

Supply

Resolved,
 "That this House will to-morrow resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to His Majesty."—[Colonel Gibbs.]

Ordered, That the Estimates presented to this House be referred to the Committee of Supply.

Ways And Means

Resolved,
 "That this House will to-morrow resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the  Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to Has Majesty."—[Colonel Gibbs.]

Trade Facilities And Loans Guarantee Money

Resolution reported,

"That it is expedient—
 (a) to amend section one of the Trade Facilities Act, 1921,—(i) by increasing to fifty million pounds the limit on the aggregate capital amount of the loans the principal or interest of which may be guaranteed thereunder; and(ii) by extending by one year the period within which guarantees may be given thereunder; and(iii) by providing for the charging of fees in connection with matters arising thereunder;(b) to authorise the Treasury—(i) to guarantee to the extent set out in Protocol No. II, signed at Geneva on the 4th day of October, 1922, and the Annexes thereto, a loan to be raised by the Austrian Government of such an amount as, after payment of the expenses of issue, will produce the equivalent of a sum not exceeding six hundred and fifty million gold crowns; and(ii) to guarantee the payment of the principal of and the interest on  any securities hereafter issued by the Austrian Government which are to be repayable out of the. proceeds of the loan aforesaid; and(iii) to make an issue of securities for the purpose of rendering more readily effective any guarantee which may be given by the Treasury as aforesaid and to provide for the redemption of any such securities;(c) to authorise the Treasury to guarantee the payment of the principal of, and the interest on, any loan raised by the Government of the Sudan for, or in connection with, works for the purpose of irrigating the Gezireh Plain not exceeding in the aggregate an amount sufficient to raise three million five hundred thousand pounds;(d) to amend the Overseas Trade Acts, 1920 and 1921, by providing that for the purposes of the provisions of these Acts relating to the period within which the powers of the Board of Trade with respect to the giving of guarantees in connection with export transactions may be exercised, the date on which the Board enter into an agreement to give guarantees shall be treated as the date on which the guarantees are given;(e) to charge on the Consolidated Fund any moneys required to fulfil any such guarantees as aforesaid or required for meeting the principal of, or the interest on, any securities to be issued by the Treasury, as aforesaid, and to provide for the laying before Parliament of statements and accounts with respects to the matters aforesaid."

Resolution read a Second time.

Mr. PRINGLE
I beg to move, at the end of paragraph (a, iii), to insert the words "Provided that no guarantee shall be given in respect of any capital undertaking outside the United Kingdom, or for the purchase of articles in connection therewith, where such undertaking would be in competition with any industry which k for the time being suffering from depression in the United Kingdom." The reason I have put down this Amendment is two-fold. I first of all propose it on general grounds, basing myself on the objects for which the Act was originally passed. The design of those who introduced the Trade Facilities Act in the first instance was to increase employment in this country. But there is a risk that if the guarantees contemplated under the Act are given without adequate inquiry that the result may be not an increase, but a decrease of employment. You may give a guarantee for the purposes of a capital undertaking or for the  purchase of commodities in connection therewith which may give employment in one industry for a few months, particularly if it is one abroad, and may create permanent unemployment for the workers in some other branch of the industry. In these circumstances there should be a clear direction to the Committee to whom these questions are referred that such a result should not come about. The Amendment has been brought to my mind by reason of an application which has been made to the Trade Facilities Committee. It affects the paper-making industry in this country, and as a section of my constituents are engaged in it— [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—I thought it my duty to them to take the first opportunity to protect their interests here. This was why early to-day I endeavoured, under somewhat difficult conditions, to put this matter before hon. Members. I will not repeat the arguments I then used—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—briefly, as I think the records of the House will show. The case I have in my mind is this: An application was made to the Trade Facilities Advisory Committee for a guarantee in respect of a new paper-making plant in Newfoundland. I do not know whether or not that application has been granted. But we have to consider the circumstances in which it is made. First of all, that undertaking had been considered by all sorts of people before it came before the Trade Facilities Committee Endeavours had been made to raise capital for it both in Canada and Newfoundland, and they had failed. Similar efforts were made in the City of London. In every case the proposition was turned down, but when it came before the Trade Facilities Committee on the initiative of Armstrong. Whitworth & Co., then the situation was altered, and there is no doubt that the application was favourably entertained. The point I make, and it is based on the information I have received, is that when this matter was before the Trade Facilities Committee while the applicants were heard by that Committee, other parties interested were not allowed to appear and to state their case. I think hon. Members in all parts of the House will agree that when there is a competition of interest, as there is in this case, all those who are affected in any way or may believe reason-  ably that they can be affected should be entitled to a hearing. What is the position at the present moment? The paper-making industry in this country is depressed. It has been going through a time of very serious difficulty. It is true that for the moment there are indications of improvement. That may be due to the extra work of the General Election, but the fact is that there are at the present time five thousand men out of work in that industry. I say that; in these circumstances this is not the time when the credit of the British taxpayer should be used for the purpose of guaranteeing a competing undertaking outside the United Kingdom. I put it to hon. Gentleman opposite, whether they are interested in that trade or not—is that a wise thing to do in the interests of the industry of this country? The Chancellor of the Exchequer told me last night that it would be two years before this Newfoundland paper works would be producing paper or wood-pulp. That may be so, but have we any right to assume that in two years' time the position of the paper trade in this country will be better? We had a speech this afternoon from the late Prime Minister. He now who was formerly an optimist becomes a pessimist and takes the gloomiest possible view of the prospects of the industry of this country. In the light of that view, based on the extensive information at his disposal, those engaged in this industry are entitled to ask that even two years hence; they should not be subjected to competition which cannot be brought against them apart from the use of their credit as taxpayers of this country. This is only a single illustration, but the same consideration might well arise in regard to other industries in this country. You might have application for cotton mills or jute mills in India. The machinery for these mills would give employment to engineers in this country, but it would increase competition in the cotton and jute trades. I say that, in view of the risk, it is the duty of this House to see that there is a clear direction to the Committee that decides this matter that all such considerations should be before their minds before they come to a decision. I hope the case I have put will commend itself to the minds of the Government. It seems to me that last night the Chancellor of the Exchequer only afforded a very half-  hearted position to it. He admitted the reasonableness of my case, but endeavoured to discount the fears I have expressed. In a case of that kind, when on the admission of the Government legitimate fears may be entertained, it is the duty of this House to take adequate safeguards against those fears being realised. It is in order to secure that safeguard that I now ask the House to accept this Amendment.

Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS
I think my hon. Friend has made a point of substance which is well worth the attention of the Government. This is a very exceptional Act, intended to promote British trade, and having that in one's mind surely we ought not to go out of our way to do something which may injure home industries. I imagine it is not beyond the power of the Government that it would be within their province to set up some safeguard against that.

Sir WILLIAM JOYNSON? HICKS (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department)
May I put the facts in a little more detail before the House, as I think hon. Members, after hearing them, will realise that the action of the Committee was not unwise and that it will inure to the benefit of trade. I quite see the point raised by the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle), but I should not have been quite so surprised if the speech had been delivered by a full-blooded Tariff Reformer. Apparently, if the hon. Gentleman believes anything at all, he believes that the paper-making industry at Penistone ought to be protected from competition by any mill established in one of H.M. Dominions.

Mr. PRINGLE
I say it should be protected from competition subsidised by their own credit.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
It is not the Act itself the hon. Gentleman fears: it is not the fact that the Government guarantee is given for the purpose of relieving unemployment and giving more employment here: it is the fact that guarantees are to be used in this particular case which will have the effect of enabling competition to be established against the Penistone Paper Mill. That is the complaint the hon. Member makes.

Mr. PRINGLE
Subsidised competition.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
Seeing that the subsidy has been approved by this  House in the Act of 1921, it is not open to dispute. Does the hon. Member suggest that the Act is not to be used to encourage an order representing something over £3,000,000 to be spent in the engineering shops of Great Britain, because the effect of that will be that the machinery sent out of this country may be used in competition with the paper mills of Penistone? Surely the hon. Member should go a step further and say that no machinery shall be sent out from Great Britain which will compete with industry in Great Britain. That is the logical consequence of the hon. Member's argument. Let me tell the House exactly what has happened in this particular case. The Act was passed, as the House knows, at a time of very great difficulty regarding our export trade, in order to try and get orders here that might otherwise have gone to different parts of the world. This matter was fully considered by an independent committee—not a Parliamentary Committee, because one of the purposes of the Act was that there should be an independent committee set up on which neither the Board of Trade nor politicians in any part of the House should have any power whatsoever.

Mr. PRINGLE
Were any shareholders in Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. on the Committee?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
If the hon. Gentleman was going to make accusations of that kind, he might at least have given me notice, and I would have had the whole list of the Committee scrutinised most carefully. But I say at present that there is no foundation for his charge. I invite him to mention any member of the Committee who has any shares in Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. If he cannot mention the name, he has no right to make such a charge against a Committee which is voluntarily doing admirable work. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw!"]

Mr. PRINGLE
Is it not in order, Mr. Speaker, when a question is being discussed, for an hon. Member to put a question?

Mr. SPEAKER
If the hon. Member who is addressing the House gives way, a question can be put, and the House may judge it.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
I think the House is quite able to judge. The hon. Member does not either withdraw or substantiate the accusation—

Mr. PRINGLE
I made no accusation.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS
Then the insinuation.

Mr. PRINGLE
I made no insinuation either. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]

Sir W. JOYNSON-HIGKS
The members of this Committee are perfectly well known, and the hon. Member, before he came down to make his speech, might have inquired who they were. They are Sir Robert Kindersley, a financier of the highest experience in the City of London; Sir William Plender, one of the best-known men in the chartered accounting world; and Lieut.-Colonel Schuster. These three men dealt with the matter in a judicial spirit, considering solely whether it was in the interests of employment in this country that this guarantee should be given. What was the position? Here was a very important company proposing to establish paper mills in Newfoundland, and the matter was of such importance that the Newfoundland Government has already guaranteed a further issue of £2,000,000 of debentures behind the issue to be guaranteed by this Government. Paper mills were to be founded, and the only question was whether orders should be given for the machinery in this counrty to the amount of some £3,000,000 —of which we only had to guarantee £2,000,000–whether we should get those orders here or whether they should go either to America or to Germany. That was the sole question which this Committee had to consider. The Committee, without any promptings, either political or from Government quarters, dealt with the matter with the utmost care, and they came to the conclusion that, in the interests of employment, in the interests of getting our export trade increased, it was desirable that this guarantee should be given. Let me say one thing in passing. The hon. Member told us that other parties were not allowed to appear before the Committee. That is not my information. My information is that very strong representations were made by the Papermakers' Association, who, quite naturally, did not  want another competing paper mill established, either in Newfoundland or in any other part of the world. They made the strongest representations against the guarantee. Their representations were fully considered by the Committee, and the Committee came to the conclusion that, in spite of the opposition of the Papermakers' Association, the position of our export trade was such that it was desirable that this guarantee should be given. The hon. Member has no right to have made that second imputation—if he does not like the word" insinuation"—that the Committee did not take into consideration any opposition whatever. I have been at some pains, since the hon. Gentleman gave notice of his Amendment, to find out what is actually being done for our country in consequence of this Measure. The whole House knows—I need not go over the whole Debate on unemployment which took place a week ago—that our export trade is down by just over £300,000,000 in volume compared with pre-War days. If we could get our export trade up by that £300,000,000 we could absorb, if not the whole, certainly upwards of 1,000,000 of the workers who are now out of employment. That is the object of the House of Commons in passing this Bill in 1921, to get rid of unemployment by means of getting our export trade higher than it was at that time. I do not know what object the hon. Member has in moving his Amendment. The guarantee which has been given is a completed transaction. Tenders have been accepted, and the work is on the verge of being begun. It is true it is going to be done by Messrs. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., one of the best firms in the country, and I imagine if the hon. Member were to go to the north-east coast, where their works are, instead of to Penistone he would not be quite so favourably received in making the semi-Protectionist speech he has made as if he made it amongst the papermakers of Penistone. The work is now being started. It will cost £3,000,000 and not merely the £2,000,000 we guaranteed. That will all be for the machinery and plant which will be made here, transported to Newfoundland and put up there in the course of the next few years. The contract was actually signed three or four weeks ago, and one of the heads of the firm has left for Newfoundland. That is the information which I think the House is perfectly entitled to as to the transaction. If the hon. Member has any further accusations to make against either the Committee or the policy of the Act, I should like to hear from him, but I am not prepared to discuss the policy of the Act to-night. That is the decision of the House of Commons come to in 1921 for the relief of unemployment at that juncture. The Act is not a permanent Act. The House is prepared, according to the Resolution we passed yesterday, to extend the Act for another £25,000,000. I believe it is one of the best decisions to which the House has come in dealing with this question of unemployment. I speak in the presence of many members of the Labour party, who are more intimately acquainted with the details of unemployment than I am, but I am perfectly certain they will agree with me that what is wanted to-day in our country is work of a kind which can be done by our skilled engineers and in our skilled machine shops. That work is being provided under the provisions of this contract, and until some much stronger reason has been given than those advanced by the hon. Member, I confidently leave it to the House, and I am sure they will reject his Amendment to-day as they rejected it by a considerable majority yesterday.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY
The hon. Baronet at the end of his speech threw a bouquet at the Labour party. He began his speech by reproving the hon. Member for Penistone for Protectionist leanings. I hope he will not take it as personal when I say it is a good example of the Devil rebuking sin. It is refreshing to find the Government in such a state of sanity that they are prepared to indulge in a kind of witch hunt to look for full-blooded Protectionists in this House in 1922. I think the Amendment is perfectly reasonable, and the fact that my hon. Friend gave only one example, namely, that which he knew very well, the case of the paper mills in the Penistone district, is no reason at all for rejecting the Amendment because the hon. Baronet chooses to deal lightly with the objection that the paper-makers themselves made to this policy. The Amendment is put forward to deal with future cases, but the hon. Baronet says he does not know with what object it was introduced. He is a very old and  very skilled Member of this House, if he will allow me to say so. I had the pleasure of sitting on the same side of the House with him in the last Parliament, though we were very rarely of the same opinion, I am happy to say. That is why the hon. Baronet is where he now is and why I am sitting where I am. He knows perfectly well that this Amendment was put down with the object of influencing the Committee in future decisions. We say that that is a reasonable attitude to take up. When this Bill was brought before the House in the last Parliament we were given to understand that in practically every case the expenditure would be for capital works in this country. If there is good business to be done overseas we may be quite certain that capital will find its outlet there. Capital is peculiarly international; it is the only really international thing in the world to-day. If there are higher profits to be earned in some other countries, then patriotism and the idea of doing the work within its own borders never enters into its calculations at all. Is it altogether a wise policy for us to undertake to subsidise undertakings abroad when there is work to be done in this country? The Government talk a lot about Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. They are quite a good firm of armament makers. In fact, among other armament makers they are almost unique. They are the one great firm of armament makers against whom, so far as I know, no accusation has ever been made. But how about the case of a poor man, with responsibilities and a decent position, who wishes to build a house I Can he come forward and say, "This is a Capital undertaking. Cannot I get a guarantee for the money and go to a builder and get the work done?" That may be a small thing, but if you multiply it several thousand times, you will get houses put Tip. I do not want to go into other things, but very promising schemes in Yorkshire have been turned down because, I suppose, they were not properly supported. The direction to the Committee should be that when it is a case of choosing between these capital schemes, those in this country should be given the preference where Government subsidies are concerned. That is perfectly reason-  able, and I hope my hon. Friend will divide the Committee on the Amendment.

Mr. WHEATLEY
I agree with some of the things that have been said by the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department about the Liberal party on this side of the House. I also agree with a good deal that was said by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut. Commander Kenworthy) as to the policy of the hon. Baronet. Though I fundamentally differ from them both, I differ more from the Liberals than from the Government on this particular question. It surely is a new Liberalism for hon. Members on the Liberal Benches to preach Protection. If there is one damaging suggestion to make to the world to-day it is that we are likely to be injured by the production of more goods. The very basis of the policy advocated by the two hon. Members who have spoken in support of this Amendment, is that our country is going to be injured because the Government might support the production of more goods in other parts of the world. A greater fallacy was never put before an intelligent people than the idea that its poverty must necessarily be increased by the production of more goods by the human labour available in the world. What a right-about face this attitude on the part of these two hon. Members is, compared with what they were advocating two years ago, and with what they said yesterday. I was not present when they spoke, yesterday, but I am not surprised to learn that they advocated something quite different, because my impression of the party for whom they speak is that they are very seldom, if ever, sincere. This, to them, is all a game, a sort of intellectual fencing for English gentlemen. It has no more relation to the realities of life in this country than has any stage production at which we may spend our hours of leisure. Two years ago, we had these same hon. Members, and hon. Members on the other side, telling the working classes that they were ruining the country because they were not producing more goods within a given number of hours, and telling the bricklayer that if he would lay 700 bricks instead of 300 the building trade would come right. Yet to-day, within a very short period, and when faced with a very serious problem of unemployment, they have nothing better to suggest to the workers than that there  should be less production. We are now told that if more paper is produced in Newfoundland it will injure the people of Penistone.

Mr. PRINGLE
I did not say that.

Mr. WHEATLEY
No doubt the people of Penistone will be told that the production of more paper at Penistone is going to injure Newfoundland. The Labour party differ in toto from that idea. We believe that the world will become richer the more useful goods are produced. Our objection is not to production, but to the present system of distribution. If hon. Members on this side and right hon. and hon. Members on the other side would advise the working classes to produce more goods, and explain to them how the system of distribution could be brought up to date, and made to keep pace with the production, the world would benefit by the wisdom of its legislation. I protest in the name of the Labour party against this waste of time, against this unreality, at a time when millions of our people are wondering where they will get the necessaries of life.

Mr. DARBISHIRE
We have just heard a representative of the sincere party who has discovered how to solve the problem of eating one's cake and keeping it at the same time. He has referred to the question of investing capital in Canada, assuming that you can force capital unnaturally as is suggested by the Government, if it is not flowing there in the ordinary course. You cannot send capital there to produce goods and at the same time keep the capital in this country to produce goods here and provide employment here. It is an utterly impracticable and illogical proposition. The hon. Member's reference, in a sarcastic way, to the sincerity of the party for which I stand evoked laughter from the party opposite, who, for two Elections, had old age pensions in their election addresses and who, when they had the opportunity of placing old age pensions on the Statute Bock, did nothing at all.

Mr. SPEAKER
I would remind the hon. Member that this is not a Debate at large. It relates to a small point in the Amendment.

12 M.

Mr. DARBISHIRE
I was only protesting. I will not pursue that subject  further. The Secretary for the Overseas Trade Department has delivered a speech which must convince hon. Members that "the recommendation of the Geddes Committee in favour of the abolition of that office shall be carried into effect at the earliest possible moment. I have had some experience of it in the Straits Settlements, and we have driven it out of the place there, because we found it was an absolutely unnecessary and Useless Department, and I trust that when I have any influence in this House —[HON. MEMBERS: "You will not have any!"]—I hope that I may, and that we shall have an opportunity of relieving the taxpayer of the £400,000 a year spent on the Department of Overseas Trade. Did you ever hear anything so illogical as the speech of the hon. Member? The same proposition was put by the hon. Member for the Shettleston Division of Glasgow (Mr. Wheatley). They cannot be logical—these tariff reformers. We had a speech last night from the Postmaster-General, in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon)—

Mr. SPEAKER
The hon. Member cannot gather up all his lost speeches. He must keep to the question before the House.

Mr. DARBISHIRE
I admit that my speeches during the Election did cause the Tories to get very angry. [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]

Mr. J. JONES
I think that most of us would like to forget our election speeches. I have heard some speeches tonight which are evidently a complete reproduction of the speeches made during the Election by the same hon. Members. Imagine people coming here from Penistone and at the same time forgetting Palestine. We on these benches are not discussing legislation that is going to solve all our problems. What we are discussing is a Bill passed by this House to meet an immediate problem. If we, the Labour party, were in power we would probably pass a different kind of legislation from that which is now under discussion. But the object of this Bill is not a new one. The subsidising of industry is not a new principle in legislation. It has been subsidised before. Some of the hon. Members who have spoken tonight have benefited by subsidies, and would not have been in this House if it  had not been for subsidies, for they could not have afforded to pay their election expenses. But we, the Labour party, are in favour of trying to do the best we can to meet an immediate difficulty. The immediate difficulty is to find work for the people who are out of employment, and in so far as this particular proposal will help to find work for people who are out of employment, some of us at least on these benches are prepared to support it so far as it goes. It does not go far enough, but are not the people of Newfoundland members of the Empire? Is not the problem of our fellow-citizens in other parts of the Empire our problem also? I happen to have been born in a new Dominion just created, and I suggest that if I can do anything in this House to help my fellow-citizens in the new Dominion it would be my duty to do so, and a workman out in Newfoundland is a comrade of mine just as a workman in Silvertown is a comrade of mine. It may be the accident of economic circumstance that by giving work to the man in Newfoundland who is making paper, I may be giving work to an engineer in England making the engines and machinery necessary to produce the paper. Is that a crime? Is it not better for me to subsidise paper-making in Newfoundland for the time being as a temporary palliative than to pay 15s. a week to a man idling in Great Britain? I wish some of our Free Trade Friends would get down to facts, and that they would not always keep on trying to feed the dog on his own tail—

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY
The new Coalition!

Mr. JONES
by preaching economic platitudes against overwhelming odds. The fact of the matter is that unemployment cannot be solved by people talking theory as against the facts. If the facts do not fit the theories, so much the worse for the theories. And to-day they do not fit. We are up against it. The Labour theory is work or maintenance. You are not prepared to provide either.

Mr. PRINGLE
Cheer that!

Mr. JONES
I know they will not cheer anything, but we are going to cheer up.

Mr. SPEAKER
The hon. Member is now being drawn off the track.

Mr. JONES
It is not the first time. I think some hon. Members know my weakness. So far as we are concerned we are not wedded to any particular theory at a time like this. Give us free opportunities, and I am a Free Trader right up to the hilt, but when we are faced with the present position, with Europe in a state of more or less economic bankruptcy and industrial upheaval, we say that legislation of the nature now proposed is not something we can advocate with enthusiasm, but is a proposition we can support with moderation. I do not care who is in it. I am not a shareholder in Armstrong, Whitworth & Company. I am only a member of an ordinary co-operative society, and therefore cannot speak with authority on matters of finance, but if giving this work to Newfoundland is going to give work to engineers in England it is worth doing. I would like to see the Government themselves undertake to do this work instead of giving it to a private individual or firm, but as we are not able to do what we like we must do what we can. I am going to keep all I have and ask for more.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN
This is a very interesting Amendment, and I suppose we all admit that there must be some limit set to the potential load we can lay on the taxpayers of this country through the stimulation of trade by Government guarantee. That is all the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Pringle) asks. All he says is, in stimulating these exports avoid stimulating trade which would create competition with our own industries. I do not understand that to be any infringement of any Free Trade principle. Free Trade is not concerned with a potential subsidy. This is a question of subsidy, and the question is, is it wise or not to subsdise an industry which may conceivably enter into competition with industries already depressed in this country and in which people are already out of work? That is the point which the Labour party have to consider, and on which two opinions are quite possible. You may take the view that the stimulation of the engineering trade is a good thing for the stimulation of the paper trade, or you may take the view that what you gain by stimulating the engineering trade you will lose in competition in the paper trade. Free Trade does not enter into it. We are only concerned with the  effect of the subsidy on trade in this country. That is the only question at issue. I am not concerned with the remark of the hon. Member for the Shettleston Division of Glasgow (Mr. Wheatley) that I belong to the "insincere party." I was a member of the "insincere party" when it was 25 strong in this House, and adversity is a good test of sincerity. Let me ask the hon. Member, is he a member of the sincere party? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!"] Then why did he vote for this Amendment last night?

Mr. BUCHANAN
I rise as one who did not take part in the Division last night, and I wish to correct the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain Benn) on the question of sincerity. In his constituency there is one of the larges frame manufacturing machinery for the production of paper, that I know of, in this country. I suggest that had this contract gone to the firm of Bertram's in Leith, the hon. and gallant Gentleman would not have opposed the Government subsidy. [An HON. MEMBER: "Their application would not have been granted."] It might not have been, but my point is, that the hon. and gallant Member should not oppose something in Penistone which he would not be prepared to oppose in Leith. That is the test of sincerity. Bouquets have been thrown about concerning the sincerity of a party which at one time was only 25 strong in this House. I remember, however, that the Labour party was a party of one in this House in former times, and that the party has grown and is growing. During the War some of us were in a party of only two or three because we dared to say certain things—

Mr. PRINGLE
And nobody in the Labour party would defend you in the House of Commons.

Mr. SPEAKER
The hon. Member who is addressing the House must keep to the point.

Mr. BUCHANAN
On the question of Free Trade against Tariff Reform I wish to contrast the statement made to-night by the hon. and gallant Member for Leith, with statements made on the same subject during the election. The hon. and gallant Gentleman stated to-night that the Government had no right to subsidise this industry, because it was  likely to create great competition with the producers of similar material here at home. Has not his logic always been, that the greater the competition, the better for the people? Has not his logic always been that the more narrowly you restrict trade and commerce, the dearer you make the article, with the consequent reaction against the big bulk of the people in this country? To-night the hon. and gallant Gentleman says that if we restrict competition we are going to benefit the people. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] Let me quote his own words, as nearly and as accurately as the memory of a young man will allow me. He said he was opposed to subsidies in industry, when that industry was competing with the people here at home who are producing that commodity. The theory of free Trade—and I am a Free Trader—has been that you have no right to restrict competition as between country and country. Now you are coming along and telling us that we must oppose the Government's proposal, because it is going to intensify competition between country and country. I cannot follow the logic of it. May I say one word as a new Member of this House? I came here possibly with just the same sincerity as the hon. and gallant Member for Leith—with a sincere desire to raise the standard of comfort, not of the wealthy classes of this country, but of the working classes, and the people whom I represent. I am frankly a believer in the class war theory. I am a Socialist above all other things, and if anything rouses my blood it is this game, this insincere thing that goes on of exploiting the Standing Orders to the last degree, not to raise the standard of the lives or to benefit the people of Hull or Penistone, but to score debating points. I shall never understand the Standing Orders as do my hon. Friends who have brought forward the Amendment, but I do want to say this, that I hope the hon. Members for Central Hull and Penistone will devote their time, not to scoring debating points, but in trying to bring a little more sunshine into the lives of the people.

Mr. BALDWIN
rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Mr. SPEAKER
rose to put the Question

Mr. N. MACLEAN
On a point of Order. The hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain W. Benn) has twitted the party of which I am a member because of their votes last night. May I remind the hon. and gallant Member and other hon. Members that at the commencement of the Debate last night the Labour party protested against taking such a Money Resolution at that hour, and their votes throughout were not given because of their interest in any game of make-believe on the part of members of the Liberal party—

Mr. SPEAKER
That is not a point of Order which entitles the hon. Member to intervene.

Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. SPEAKER
The Amendment handed in by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) is the same as that which was discussed in Committee yesterday morning, and I do not propose to allow it to be moved again.

Motion made, and Question proposed. "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Mr. MACLEAN
I think I am now entitled to state what I was trying to tell the House on the point of Order, namely, that the Labour party yesterday voted as a protest against the Government taking the Money Resolution at an early hour in the morning. We are not going to be a party to any make-believe in which parties only want to score tactical points over each other. We are. here in the interests of the workers, and we are going to protest against matters which affect the workers being taken at early hours in the morning when discussion is limited, and is prevented from being conducted in a serious manner.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY
I will not follow the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) with regard to the point he has raised. He and I have often engaged in Debate on matters in which we have felt strongly, but I have never questioned his sincerity, and I will discuss the question of sincerity with him, I hope, in private. I do not wish to go over any of the ground covered last night, but I wish to ask the Government two  questions with reference to paragraph (c) which were not touched upon yesterday, and which, I think, are of some substance. This is a Resolution to guarantee £3,500,000 for an irrigation scheme in the Plain of Gezireh, which, I believe, has an area of about 300,000 acres, and one reason, we are told, why we should vote for this guarantee is that this area, when irrigated and brought under cultivation, will produce long-staple cotton. I have had information since the Debate yesterday that this area will not produce long-staple cotton at all, because of the climate and the soil. If that be the case, the right hon. Gentleman was unwittingly misleading the House and asking us for money under false pretences. I am informed on excellent authority by an ex-civil servant in Egypt, who held a high position at the Ministry of Agriculture and himself is a landowner, who had the temerity to take tea with Zaghloul Pasha and thereafter was dismissed, that the growing of long-staple cotton can only be effected in Lower Egypt. Attempts to grow it in Upper Egypt have failed. The idea of growing long-staple cotton in the Sudan is therefore preposterous and ridiculous; the only cotton grown in the Sudan—

Mr. W. GREENWOOD
May I interrupt the hon. and gallant Gentleman—

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY
No, I do not wish to give way. The hon. Gentleman will have his opportunity in a few moments, and we shall be delighted to hear him, for he is an acknowledged expert on this matter of cotton. I am told on the authority I have mentioned that it is only Ashmouni or short-staple cotton, brown in colour, that can be grown in Upper Egypt. Long-staple cotton is known in Egypt as Sakellarides, the name of a Greek who discovered it was possible to grow this cotton by a careful selection of the seeds. This long-staple cotton is very strong and is particularly needed for motor-car tyres, aeroplane wings, and other special purposes. Incidentally I may say he made an enormous fortune, lost it in gambling, and is now a pensioner on the Egyptian bounty. If it be true that this cotton cannot be grown in the Sudan, I think this question of guarantee should be reconsidered, because one of the strongest arguments used by the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill was that all  Lancashire, all political parties, all classes both the capitalist and the proletariat, were in favour of this because they wanted long staple cotton. That is my first question. My second question is in the interests of the people of the Sudan. I consider that before we vote this guarantee we should be informed as to the question in the interest of the Egyptians themselves. They are workmen, and they are fellow subjects of ours. I hope I shall not be accused of insincerity if I put a word in for them.

Mr. WHEATLEY
What about Newfoundland?

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY
The hon. Gentleman did not listen to my speech last night; that is perfectly obvious by his interruption. I am told that in order to get a greater output of cotton in Egypt the old three-field system has been abandoned, and the two-field system has been introduced and crops are obtained alternatively. As a result the soil of Lower Egypt has become exhausted—[An HON. METVIBEE: "The Sudan!"] I am talking of what has happened in Egypt, and I am asking that we shall have guarantees of good husbanding in the Sudan. The result of this change from the three-field system of antiquity to the two-field system has been a decrease in the production. That showed that the soil has become impoverished through over cultivation of cotton. I want to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Measure whether His Majesty's Government are alive to this in the Sudan and that he will see that no attempt to get quick returns from the soil is allowed to impoverish the land with which we are now dealing to the detriment of the people who were there, after all, before we went there. My third point is this. I understand that a syndicate has been formed for the exploitation of the land that is to be irrigated by this undertaking. This may be true, but I ask for information. Since the Debate this morning there has been little time to look up the facts and I am willing to stand corrected. Are we as a settled policy in the Sudan going to encourage the native farmer to cultivate his own cotton and other crops by his own enterprise or are we going to allow the land to be alienated as in South Africa and exploited by these great syndicates? Is that our policy in the  Sudan? Is the new economic Imperialism swaying the Foreign Office under the new Government. Are we going to give everything to the benefit of great syndicates who, no doubt, will produce great dividends for a few years, or are we going to encourage, wherever possible, under supervision and instruction, the native Sudanese farmer who is only a premature agriculturist at present. There is no reason why he should not become prosperous like the West African farmer. I think that is a point of substance. I consider it is right to have these three points in the interest of the inhabitants of the country with which we are dealing.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Ronald McNeill)
I do not in the least complain of the three questions put to me. I will only say that I think it was rather unnecessary that so much heat should have been developed in putting them. The first question is as to whether this land, which is to be irrigated under this scheme, will or will not bear crops of long staple cotton. [An HON. MEMBEE: "The hon. and gallant Member says it will not!"]

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY
Well, I am impressed.

Mr. McNEILL
He says he was informed. I did not quite gather the weight of the authority that gave him that information, and I will only give him a little of the information upon which I rely. I do not profess to balance that against him. We have experience to go upon. The Sudan Government, before embarking upon work of this sort and coming to this House for sanction to a loan—it was a very wise thing to do—they thought they would try whether the land would grow the crop that they desired or not, and some 12,000 acres, not of any one part of this area, have been put under crops of this sort for 10 years. Last year about 6,000 acres were so treated, and the report given by the experts under the Egyptian Government commented most favourably upon the experiment. But that is not the only evidence I have. I mentioned last night that a deputation was received not long ago at the Foreign Office. That deputation was introduced, as I stated, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley, and his chief spokesman was the Member for Platting  (Mr. Clynes). The deputation represented a great number of interests in Lancashire, and I would like to tell hon. Gentlemen those who were represented—The Empire Cotton Growing Association, the Federation of Master Cotton Spinners' Association, the Cotton Spinners and Manufacturers' Association, the Bolton Master Cotton Spinners' Association, the United Textile Workers' Association, the Liverpool Cotton Association, the Manchester Cotton Association, the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, the British Cotton Growing Association, the Lancashire Parliamentary Committee and the Empire Development Parliamentary Committee. These were bodies who presumably have some knowledge of the cotton trade, and I do not think they are bodies who would be likely to embark light-heartedly upon a scheme without having conducted their investigations at least as far as the hon. and gallant Gentleman has conducted his. These bodies have put on record their considered opinion, and their considered opinion is that the Sudan is a most promising possession in the Empire so far as production of long staple cotton is concerned. I do not think it is necessary to carry the matter further, and I venture to think that the House will regard the authority which I have been able to quote, at least as good as that of the hon. Gentleman until at any rate he can bring greater authority against it. The second question put to me—a very legitimate question—was as to the method of cultivation. Here, again, I do not know where he derives his information. But this is where he appears to develop the maximum of heat and the minimum of light, because he assured the House that upon his own knowledge or some better authority that a two-crop rotation was to be the method of cultivation—so I understood him to say. That is not the case. The method of cultivation is one-third each year under cotton, one-third each year under leguminous crops, and one-third fallow. That is the method of cultivation to be pursued. The hon. Gentleman displayed some anxiety on behalf of the native population and their rates of wages, which I entirely share. I may tell him that the arrangement is, that the one-third, which each year is to be devoted to the cultivation of leguminous  crops, is to be given entirely to the agriculturist. The hon. Gentleman also asked a question with regard to a syndicate. I quite understand that the very mention of the word "syndicate" is one which always makes hon. Gentlemen opposite sit up. They immediately suspect some very nefarious, grasping financial arrangement. I have freely to confess that in this transaction there is a syndicate involved, but I think it is a most innocent and praiseworthy one, and should have the support of the hon. and gallant Gentleman for the part which it is playing. First of all the syndicate is a syndicate of gentlemen who carried out for the Sudan Government the experimental work to which I have already referred, and, therefore, they are a body who have some familiarity with the country, and they are experts in the cultivation of this particular crop. The arrangement is this. The Sudan Government has entered into an agreement with this syndicate, and the cultivation and management of the area comprised in the agrement will be conducted on exactly the same lines as those of the experimental area were conducted. Under this arrangement the Government, the tenant cultivators, and the syndicate form three co-partners in the undertaking, and the proceeds or profits—which I hope there will be as soon as the scheme gets working—are to be divided in definite proportions as follows: the cultivator 40 per cent., the Government 35 per cent., and the syndicate 25 per cent. The hon. Gentleman and the House will naturally want to know what the syndicate have to do in return for that 25 per cent.: therefore I will enumerate what the syndicate have to do. They have at their own charges to construct and maintain all subsidiary canalisation throughout the area, and such services as drainage, roads, bridges over the subsidiary canals as may be required. Then they have to level and clear the land for irrigation and cultivation, and they have to provide this important item—provide, maintain and work the necessary factories. They have to provide and maintain any store house, dwelling house, offices and other buildings, machinery, stores and supplies as may be required to carry on the work. They have got, generally, to manage and supervise the letting of the land, the cultivation by the tenants, and the collect-  ing, storing and marketing of the crops. They have to maintain an adequate staff to instruct the cultivators, because, I need not remind the House, the syndicate represent the expert knowledge which is not common knowledge there as it is in the Southern States of America. It is an art which has to be learned, and it is part of their duties to instruct. Then they have to make loans to tenants for seeds, implements and cattle.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY
Do I understand that the native cultivator is never allowed to raise his own cotton crop at all and never allowed to raise food crops?

Mr. McNEILL
That was not what I meant. The hon. and gallant Gentleman will see in a moment. This arrangement with the syndicate is temporary. The syndicate in a certain number of years will disappear and the cultivator will be on his own. In the meantime, the leguminous crop, which is one-third of the cultivated area each year, is for the benefit of the man actually engaged in the cultivation. As far as the cotton crop is concerned, he gets his fixed proportion as I have described. The last and not the least important of the functions to be discharged by the syndicate is to see that the sanitary regulations are carried out, a very important matter for the prevention of malaria. They have, accordingly, to supervise the sanitary conditions within their area. I said just now that the syndicate is only a temporary arrangement in order to set the thing going and to teach those engaged in the cultivation how to carry it on. The period for which the syndicate will be part of the machine is 10 years, during the time that the irrigation scheme comes into operation, but there is to be the right of an extension for a further period of four years, provided that they carry out their obligation fairly and to the satisfaction of the Government. That is to say, that they are there for 10 years certain, and, if it is thought desirable, in the light of the experience of those 10 years, the period  may be extended for another four years. At the end of the 10 years, when the syndicate will disappear, the Government will take over their part of the undertaking, and the syndicate will then receive payment for the subsidiary canals, roads, bridges, expenditure on factories, offices, stores, buildings, heavy farm implements, and so on. That is to say, at the end of 10 years there is to be a settlement of accounts, by which the syndicate is to be paid for the actual capital expenditure they have incurred. In the meantime, the scheme will be set going, and we all hope it will be a success and produce long-staple cotton. Afterwards, the syndicate, which has caused so much suspicion in the mind of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, will disappear altogether.

Question, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution," put, and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution by Mr. Baldwin, Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame, Sir William Joyn-son-Hicks, and Mr. Ronald McNeill.

Trade Facilities And Loax Guarantee Bill

"to amend Section one of the Trade Facilitics Act, 1921, and the Overseas Trade Acts, 1920 and 1921, and to authorise the Treasury to guarantee certain loans to be raised by the Government of the Federal Republic of Austria and the Government of the Sudan, respectively," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow (Wednesday), and to be printed. [Bill 6.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Tuesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Eleven minutes before One o'Clock.

Ecclesiastical Committee

The SPEAKEK has, in pursuance of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919 (9 and 10 Geo. V., c. 76, s. 2 (2)), nominated the following Fifteen Members of the House of Commons to serve, for the duration of the present Parliament, upon the Ecclesiastical Committee:
 The Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh Richard Cecil.The Rt. Hon. Sir John Simon, K.C.V.O., K.C.The Rt. Hon. Sir Ernest Murray Pollok, baronet, K.B.E., K.CThe Rt. Hon. Charles William Bowerman.Sir Robert Hunt Stapylton Dudley Lydston Newman.Sir William Ryland Dent Adkins, K.C.Sir George Croydon Marks, C.B.E. Stephen Walsh, esquire.William Stapleton Royce, esquire.Lieut.-Colonel Gerald Berkeley Hurst, K.C.Frank Briant, esquire.Isaac Foot, esquire.John Murray, esquire.Major John Dearman Birchall.Austin Hopkinson, esquire.