^* in the Government factories, and they had had the experiment by the hon. Member for Gorton in favour of the limitation of hours, though in that case it was not per day, but per week.

By voluntary action.

said, he was now stating the tendency of public opinion. He was not arguing the question whether it should to be by legislation or by voluntary arrangement. An account of what professed to be the Report of the Labour Commission had appeared in The Times, and this Report as published in the newspaper appeared to him to give a somewhat doubtful expression of opinion on the subject. The Report seemed to indicate that at present the members of the Commission had not made up their minds; but he did not know on what authority the Report had been published in The Times, or which members of the Commission were in favour of the Report. He believed, however, that he was right in saying that the evidence given before the Commission was in one respect partial. The Miners' Federation did not send representatives, and this Organisation embraced a very large number of coalminers in the country. The Federation was in favour of this Bill. The arguments for the Bill appeared to be mainly two—first, that the Bill was intended to satisfy the demands put forward for the regulation of their own trade by the great mass of the workers in that trade. He was aware that he would be met at this point by the hon. Baronet the Member for Barnard Castle, who said the previous day that there were 231,000 miners in Northumberland and Durham and the South Wales district who were opposed to the Bill. But, according to the Census, the total number of miners in Northumberland was 27,000, in Durham 80,000, and though he had not the precise figures as to the part of South Wales where there was strong opposition, he would place them at about 15,000. He believed it was put by one of the witnesses before the Labour Commission at 15,000.

said, his figures were taken from Returns prepared by Inspectors of the number of men employed above and below the surface in Northumberland, Durham, and South Wales.

said, that the figures for the Northern Counties were 114,000, and for Monmouth and Wales 118,000, making a total of 232,000, which so nearly corresponded with the 231,000 mentioned by the hon. Baronet that he could not help thinking that the figures were derived from the same source. But those figures ought to be divided by at least one-half, and then they would obtain the number for that part of South Wales where the opposition was strongest and the number for the whole of Northumberland and Durham, where, however, it was well-known there was a considerable minority in favour of the Bill. In April, 1893, the hon. Member for Mid Durham (Mr. J. Wilson) stated that a ballot had been taken in Northumberland and Durham upon the question, and there voted in favour of the eight hours day 12,000, the number voting against it being 28,000, making a total of 40,000 voting out of a total of 60,000 or 70,000 men. It was clear, therefore, that the hon. Baronet's figures ought to be cut down first to 122,000, and out of that they must knock off the large number who might be said to be indifferent in the matter, or in favour of the proposal. It was the question of Northumberland and Durham which occasioned him the greatest difficulty when the matter was brought before him, before he had become a candidate for a seat in Parliament, and, in his opinion, it was the greatest difficulty now. In these districts there were difficulties in working; but these might be overcome if people chose to put themselves to it, and he thought that the main argument which put these districts out of court was that boys were working at least 10 hours a day in the mines there.

said, that the word "working" was misapplied in that case. The boys did not work 10 hours a day, although they were down in the pit for that time.

said, he would substitute "underground" for "working"; but these boys were employed in hard work to a large extent. [" No! "] Yes. He was speaking from evidence given before the Labour Commission, and the boys were in that position in order that the coal getters might retain less hours. His second argument for the Bill was that it satisfied a large majority of a most im- portant trade in a demand which was reasonable, practicable, and expedient for their own interest and for that of the community. Hours of labour should, as far as possible, be reduced so that those who came into the world without their own choice should have at least some enjoyment while they were in it. He did not go so far as some of the supporters of this Bill. He was not introducing a general eight hours Bill—he did not think it was practicable—but he was introducing a Bill for a particular trade, which seemed to be exceptional in the general character of its work and in the effect disturbances of it had upon the whole trade of the country. Nobody denied that the labour of miners was exhausting, and was also eminently dangerous work. He desired to lessen not only the period of hard work, but also the period of exclusion from the light of day, and of exposure to risks of death and mutilation. He was not going to have any inquisitorial inspection of the manner in which the extra leisure might be employed. He could not help thinking that those who made an objection" on that ground might sometimes consider whether it would not be possible to make a better use of the leisure of those who did not work at all. He should be met with the objection that miners were shown to be healthy and also that the risk was not so great during the late as during the early hours of the shift. He did not attach much importance to the latter argument, as there were natural reasons for the greater risk at the early hours, the roof of a mine being more liable to give way after a period of rest. But as to the statement that miners were shown to be healthy, he thought some of his friends lost a chance of getting money out of exhausted mines by not making them health resorts and organising regular parties to stay there for a time in order to recruit their energies in the healthy atmosphere of a mine. He did not say that mines were proved, on the whole, less healthy than other occupations. It was said that they ought not to interfere with adult labour, and those who used that argument belonged to a school of political economy to which he was to a large extent still attached. He did not want the State to interfere more than was necessary, but it had been shown over and over again that the State could interfere in certain cases with infinite advantage, and they had no right to lay down any specific rule as to interfering only in cases of persons below a certain age. The State interfered last year in the case of railway servants. Factory legislation and the Coal Mines Acts were also cases of interference which restricted indirectly the hours of adults, and people forgot that Statute prevented all Sunday labour. If by interference he could prevent, or have a chance of preventing, disturbances of trade by strikes and secure a greater amount of comfort and safety to the working population, he would not be debarred from voting for it by the notion that they were interfering with the labour of men over the age of 21. He was quite aware that there were great differences in the cases of mines, but it was not the first time that legislation had interfered with a bold hand with a trade that had as great differences. Another objection to the Bill was that it proposed to interfere with the hours of labour by legislation instead of by agreement; but his reason for preferring legislation to agreement was because those interested could not obtain the shortening of their hours of labour by agreement, and, secondly, that the attempt to obtain it would lead to great unsettlement and continual strikes, which was what he wanted to avoid. Nor did he agree with making it a matter of local option, for trade every day was getting less local. During the late coal strike, for instance, his own firm got coals from Wales, Durham, and Scotland. The mine-owners would undoubtedly use great pressure to prevent agreements, and these would be very liable to be upset whenever times became a little bad. He did not believe that this restriction would diminish the output except for the first month or two, and wages would only be diminished where there was a diminished output. At any rate, if wages diminished, that diminution would go to reduce the cost, although he did not think that hours and wages stood in that close relation to one another which some people imagined. As to the bad results which were foreshadowed as the result of this measure if adopted, he had only to turn to history to see that these fears were unfounded. Fifty years ago Mr. John Bright, speaking of the Bill for the redaction of the hours of labour of women and children in factories to 10 hours a day, said—

"The proposition was most injurious and destructive to the best interests of the country and contrary to the principles of sound legislation. It was a delusion practised upon the working classes; it was advocated by those who had no knowledge of the economy of manufactures, and if it became law the necessities of trade and the demands alike of the workmen and the masters would compel them to retrace their steps."

Mr. Bright contended that the Bill would result in a reduction of the output in cotton goods. Statistics showed that at the present moment two and a-half times more work was turned out than in those days. The cost was less, the hours of labour were reduced, and the wages of the people were increased. He commended this experience to hon. Gentlemen who with perfect honesty and perfect justification were opposing the Bill—perfect justification as far as their own fears went. He would not offer his hon. Friend (Sir J. Pease) an opiate, for he knew his horror of opium, but he would give him these facts as a salutary remedy for his fears and apprehensions. He did not say that there were not people in factories who would like the employés to work a little longer than they did now. It was quite possible that there were; but this he would say—that he did not think there was a Member in the House who would dream of reversing the factory legislation, who would dream of lengthening the hours, or who would dream in any way of going back on that legislation. No doubt the Legislature did sometimes interfere with a hand of iron, but it was a hand that gave the worker support and courage. In Lancashire the experiment of eight hours had actually been tried, and was being tried at this moment. This was at the Altham Collieries, and he had received from Mr. M'Alpine a statement with reference to the experiment. He said—

"It must be borne in mind that the experiment has only been in operation for five weeks, and it is perhaps too soon to derive any reliable conclusions from it. On the other hand, everything seems to point to its being a success. The arrangement includes, besides the eight hours from bank to bank for the miners, a 48 hours week for all employés and an eight hours shift for winders. The result of this is that the cost of getting coal is slightly increased, but it is partially balanced by the fact that the machinery, &c., has to run an hour less per day, thus reducing the wear and tear and cost of maintenance. The wage earnable by the miners seems to be reduced by about 4 per cent. Before the alteration it was 8s. 3d. per day at these collieries; since the alteration it is not more than 7s. 11d. The day-wage men seem to do as much work as previously, and no extra men are employed under this arrangement. No difficulty is experienced in getting the men to return to the bank in the same order as that in which they descended, so that each man is in the pit for exactly eight hours per day. I certainly favour the principle of an eight hours day for miners, but an exception, perhaps, ought to be made for officials. I think it necessary that officials should be excepted from the operation of the Bill, though I think care must be taken to pro-Tide against this exception being abused."

He (Mr. Roby) thought it might be necessary that the officials should be excepted from the general working of the Bill, though, of course, care must be taken to prevent the exception being abused. The firemen, also, would have to come in au hour earlier; but these were details which could be dealt with in Committee. This Bill was a reform put forward by the workers. The general progress of the country demanded it, while it was very necessary, where we could, to lessen the toil and oppressiveness of labour, particularly where there was great risk. He would, in conclusion, ask the House to remember that it was a Bill brought forward at the instance and in the interest of those who were working excluded from the light of day, and working, not only in a metaphorical but in a real and even terrible sense, in "the valley and shadow of death."

^* laissez faire died with Lord Palmerston, who was its chief advocate, and the cold-blooded theory which regarded human beings as mere commodities was killed by household suffrage. An entirely new departure had now been taken. It might very naturally be asked why they preferred legislative action? Well, they did so because it was more speedy, more economical, and more certain in its results. It was, he contended, practically impossible to accomplish their object by means of organisation. The struggles which had been going on for reducing the hours of labour showed that organisation had been practically a failure. The struggle, so far back as 1858, in the building trades and similar attempts among the operative bakers of the Metropolis, furnished strong evidence in support of that argument; and the endeavour made on the Scotch railways, only three and a-half years ago, also tended to prove that organisation had failed to accomplish the object which was ardently desired. In 1859 70,000 building operatives in London were locked out by the master builders because they tried to reduce their hours of labour to nine per day, and it cost their fellows upwards of £l00,000 to maintain them, besides the loss of about a quarter of a million in wages. The employers triumphed for a time, though some of them had to go into the Bankruptcy Court; but the struggle had been renewed from time to time during 30 years, and it was only recently, after another great lock-out, that the operatives succeeded in reducing their hours to eight per day; but what they had gained after 32 years of agitation they were in danger of losing, as so many unprincipled employers and selfish workmen were constantly trying to break through the arrangement. The operative bakers in London had for 48 years been vainly trying to abolish night work and to limit their hours to 10 per day. Yet at the present moment there were 10,000 bakers in London working 15 and 16 hours daily for five days, 21 and 22 hours on Saturday, and many of them work also on Sundays. The Scotch Railway employés only two years ago tried to limit their hours to 10 per day, a modest demand which failed after a desperate effort, during which trade and traffic in Scotland were paralysed. Scores of other cases might be cited in support of the argument that organisation had failed and that legislative action was required. Another of the arguments urged against the Bill was that there would be great danger from foreign competition if it were allowed to pass; but from figures furnished two or three years ago by the Secretary to the British Embassy at Rome, it appeared that in the year 1889 the total value of the product of mines in Italy, Belgium, France, and Great Britain was, per head of those employed in them, £43, £62 10s., £88, and £128 respectively. Those figures showed that the product of the British miner was £85 more than that of the Italian miner, who produced the least, and was £40 more than that of the French miner, who produced the next largest amount after the miner of Great Britain. He urgently commended these facts and figures to the serious consideration of every Member of the House, and especially to those who were inclined to oppose the principle embodied in the Bill upon the ground that it would cause danger from foreign competition. When the Estimates were under consideration some three years ago he elicited the fact that officials in Government Offices were employed something like six and a-half hours per day, and that where the hours were the shortest the salaries were the highest. It appeared to him at the time, and it still appeared to him, that if six and a-half hours were long enough for highly-paid officials to work under healthy conditions, eight hours a day were surely enough for miners toiling under conditions of danger and difficulty underground. He supported the Second Reading of the Bill in the belief, founded on the figures he had quoted to the House, that it would work no danger from foreign competition, so far as the mining industry was concerned, and because he believed that the object of the Bill could not be obtained by organised effort, which would, moreover, be costly, tedious, and uncertain in its results, and because he believed that legislation would secure the end desired, without the strife and bitterness which strikes engendered between employers and employed. As a set-off against the various failures of organised effort, two successes in Durham and Northumberland were referred to, but working men believed that their just claims would be more speedily realised by legislation. Sharing in that belief, he heartily supported the principle of the Bill, and concluded by seconding the Motion for its Second Reading.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Mr. Roby. )

^*

asked what was the hon. Member's authority for that statement?

^* said, his authority was his own personal observation and knowledge of his own men as a mine-owner himself in Staffordshire. He had taken the precaution to ascertain what proportion of the men belonged to the Miners' Federation, and what proportion were outside it. The bon. Member's statement that in the Durham district boys worked underground sometimes for 10 hours was incorrect. It had been shown that they only worked eight hours. If eight hours were too long for a boy to work, let there by all means be legislation on that subject; but that was no reason for not allowing grown men to work more than four or five hours if they desired to do so. One great objection to this proposal was that the dangers of working in a mine would be increased by the high pressure caused by a certain time being fixed for a man to leave the pit, for he would not have time to look round properly to see that everything was safe. If a man was restricted in his time he would naturally neglect the precautions necessary to be taken. They all rejoiced at the successful results of factory legislation for women and children, but that had nothing to do with preventing grown men from working more than about five hours a day. Another question was how were wages to be regulated? Were all the men to be paid according to the fixed standard, or according to the hours they worked? In some cases this proposal would constitute a grave injustice to the employer, and in other cases it would be a gross injustice to the workman. A man who had to go only 100 yards to the "face" of the coal could work half an hour longer than a man who had to go a mile. Were they to be paid the same wages? Was it intended that the capital sunk in deep pits should be confiscated? Again, how was a man with a large family to maintain himself and them if he were prohibited from working more than five hours a day, which would suffice for a single man? What became, then, of the "living wage"? How was a hard-and-fast line to be drawn? Those were all questions for the consideration of the House. Opportunity should not be denied to men to advance themselves. There were men who wished to raise themselves in the world, and in his own district some of the most prosperous and men of whom they were most proud had been, or whose fathers at any rate had been, working colliers. What became of the liberty of the individual which the great Liberal Party talked of? Looking that morning at the last pay-sheet from his Warwickshire colliery he found that the dead expenses for wages in pit and on bank, and for timber, and other things outside amounted to £353, against only £210 actually paid for getting the coal. That £353 remained an absolutely fixed sum, but the output would be reduced 18 per cent. The best calculation he had been able to make was that, supposing wages were reduced in proportion and the tonnage rate remained the same, if this Bill was passed the increased cost of getting coal would vary from 6d. to 1s. 6d. per ton—that was to say, the cost of coal in this country must necessarily be increased from £4,000,000 to £12,000,000 per annum. Were the Government prepared to put that extra burden on the industries and manufactures of the country to benefit nobody? Would they be able to bear it? It was said that if the men worked shorter hours they would be able to work harder and produce more coal. In 1883 the coal produced by each man was 293 tons, but in 1892 it had fallen to 254 tons, and that in spite of the extraordinary mechanical improvements that had been introduced. The reduction was still greater in 1893, but the figures for that year, owing to the great colliery strike, did not afford a fair comparison. Between 1882 and 1889 the decrease of coal produced per miner per annum in Great Britain was 41 tons, whereas in Germany the increase was 79 tons, in France 40 tons, and in Belgium 25 tons. The adoption of this proposal would have most disastrous effects in the Staffordshire district, in which the mines for many years past had been subjected to a great influx of water, and had consequently been worked under great difficulties. A Mines Drainage Commission was empowered by Act of Parliament to levy rates on mine-owners for the purpose of pumping water, and the expense of that was quite as much as they could bear; and if there ensued a large reduction of output—which would assuredly be the case if the proposals contained in the Bill were carried—the Mines Drainage Commission would be unable to goon, the whole district would be drowned out, and great populations like those of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, which depended for their prosperity on cheap coal, would suffer seriously. He shuddered, indeed, to think of the consequences that would ensue. With regard to the suggestion of local option, that would add greatly to the unfairness, for the advantage to the district which maintained its present position would be enormous. If it was intended or desired to restrict the working hours of miners, the restriction should be upon the hours of actual working, and not upon the hours spent in the pit; then they would all be upon the same footing. This was not a question between employer and employed. It was a question that affected the community. As a mine-owner, he believed the first effect would be to put a large sum of money into his pocket, for an artificial scarcity of coal would be created and coal-owners would be able to charge their own prices. That, however, would not last long. They would very soon discover the reality of foreign competition. Cheap coal had been the foundation of the manufacturing supremacy of this country, and upon it that supremacy depended. The proposal before the House was impracticable and unjust both to the employer and the workman, and he moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

^* said, he desired to second the Amendment. He had the honour to represent a large mining constituency. There was as much capital in the district which he represented—not only in the mines, but in the industries dependent on cheap coal —as almost anywhere in the country. He had also the honour to represent a large agricultural population whose well-being was almost determined by their proximity to the centres of population from which there was a large and continuous demand for their produce. All his constituents were strongly opposed to the Bill. The miners were especially opposed to it, because they were wide enough awake to know that if the Bill were passed it would mean either a decrease in wages and of the quantity of coal brought out of the pits. The Prime Minister, who received a deputation with respect to this Bill, had pointed out that there were now 50,000 more men employed in the coal trade in order to get no larger a quantity of coal than formerly, and he seemed to draw the deduction that this showed that the coal trade could afford to maintain the addition. But the employment of these extra men had in reality been due to a variety of causes not connected with a healthy or unhealthy state of the coal industry, amongst them being the necessity to work thinner seams than formerly and the greater distances underground from which the coal had to be got. As a matter of fact, the coal trade was in anything but a healthy condition, and certainly, so far as his part of the country was concerned, the miners themselves had no desire that it should be subject to worse injury from legislation of this kind. The hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Roby) had tried to make out that, so far as Northumberland and Durham were concerned, the opposition to the eight hours day was not so great as had been represented, but he could assure the hon. Member that he was misinformed. The ballot to which the hon. Member had referred was taken in October, 1892, almost immediately after a strike which had been a source of great irritation. It was taken at a time when the agents of the Miners' Federation had been about a great deal stirring up the men on this special point, and yet it showed that out of 72,000 men in the Union 15,800 voted in favour of this proposal and 36,000 against it, while there were 19,000 abstainers. But it should also be remembered that there were 51,000 men not in the Union. There was no doubt that in Wales there was also considerable opposition. In South Wales there had been no ballot on the question, but there had been various expressions of opinion, and from one quarter he had received a communication the writer of which declared that if the Bill were carried it would be the greatest calamity which had befallen the miners for the last 50 years. So far as the safety of the miners was concerned, under a statutory eight hours from surface to surface Act, the time of the miners would be so contracted that they would not be able to look properly after their own safety, and thus the accidents in the local mines would be considerably increased. When they proceeded further to consider the matter, they must also take into account that this Bill proposed to limit the powers of adult males in dealing with their own work. He would not ask whether the State ought to exercise a function of this kind. Reference had been made to the precedent of their railway legislation; but this Bill was not on the lines of that precedent. In the case of the railways, if men complained that they were overworked they had the power to appeal to the Board of Trade, and the Board of Trade could decide whether the hours were reasonable or unreasonable. But it was not a proposition of this kind that was now made to the House with regard to the miners. If it were, he would have looked at the matter differently. The limit fixed by the Bill was perfectly absolute; 683,000 men were told that the State required them to work no longer than eight hours. No loophole whatever was left for the exigencies of the trade. And in respect to that point he could assure the House that the difficulties which would present themselves if the Bill were carried would be very numerous. The principle of the Bill appeared to him to be wholly wrong. It was not really in the interests of the Trades Unions themselves that the functions of those bodies should be superseded by such acts of legislation. If he wanted to do damage to the Trades Unions — which he did not—he would say to them — Come to Parliament and let Parliament adjudicate on matters of this kind. But under this Bill no engineman or foreman would be allowed to be at work more than eight hours, yet how often had it occurred in cases of accident that men had taken their meals and even slept in mines! The provisions of the Bill were, in fact, too absolute, and could not be made to work. One man might go down the pit at a quarter to 6 and another at a quarter to 7. How were they to tell whether the men worked the eight hours? It was impossible unless they had all the men watched. This was an endeavour to bring men who were perfectly able to take care of themselves under the control of the Government. At least one-third of the men in the coal trade had made their regulations as to the hours of labour, and the very men who were demanding this Bill in 1893 showed their independence by being able to take a week's holiday utterly regardless of the inconvenience they caused to the manufacturers. He wanted to know why the State should interfere at all? There was no occasion for such interference. Neither in respect to the prevention of accidents nor the preservation of the health of the men was the Bill called for. The reasons for the Bill were what he should call false reasons of political economy. He was especially impressed with the false character of the arguments in a political economical point of view, for the effect of the Bill could not be to raise the price of coal, and keep up the wages of labour by that means. In this connection he did not like to touch on the Report of the Labour Commission, for they had not got that Report in a regular way before them as yet, nor the signatures of the members had not even been put to it. But from various indications it looked as if the Commission had not been able to come to the conclusion that an eight hours day was desirable. It was a remarkable fact that the Miners' Federation, owing to the weakness of their case, declined to give evidence before the Commission. Yet before the Report of the Commission was issued they came to that House and asked the House to go beyond what was believed to be the Commission's recommendations. His belief was that the Bill would be certain to reduce the wages of the miners. And as to the blow that would be dealt at the coal-owner, this would be difficult to over-estimate. The cost of coal being increased, the demand would, as a matter of course, be decreased. But to decrease the demand meant very probably bringing it below the point at which the mines could be profitably worked. It was a well-understood thing that it was the extra quantity of coal drawn from the mine above a certain point which constituted the profit to the mine-owner. If it were a question of the health of the men he would take a different view of the matter, but it was not so. But the average number of hours worked per day was much less than eight, since in most cases the men did not work every day in the week, and there was considerable time taken up in getting to and from workings. He admitted the difficulty presented as to the case of the boys in Durham and Northumberland, but he held that in respect to this there had been much exaggeration. It was a long time since the Durham boys had worked as much as eleven days in the fortnight. In 1892 the average was only 4·69 days per week or nine days a fortnight. If hon. Members thought the boys were overworked, let them accompany him to the pit. mouth, and they would find these lads none the worse for the work they did; they were as fine a race of boys as could be found, and would almost carry any two Members of the House on their back. The effect of this Bill, by reducing the hours of drawing coals from 10 to 8 hours, on the miners would be that they would lose two hours a day, and their wages would have to be reduced by one-fifth; and as the earnings in the Durham pits were only a little over 5s. a day the wages would be reduced by practically 1s. per day. Now, if a man's wages were reduced 1s. per day on the four or five days of the week that he worked it was certain that he would have to put up with the loss of a good many little comforts in his home. The pits were only working 4½ days a week in Durham, and yet it was asked that these days should be limited to eight hours from bank to bank. He would illustrate the effect of this Bill on miners. It was obvious that if the owner was answerable for every man being out of the pit in eight hours, at the end of each eight hours all men in the pit must have come out. If a coal hewer now worked in the face five and a-half to six hours when the pit draws 10 hours, in order that his coal should be brought to bank his time must be reduced one hour at least, and his wages by one-fifth he must earn less or be paid more per ton. If he got the same wages, the cost of his labour must be advanced 20 per cent. If the other men in the pit who were down 10 hours had to get the same quantity out in eight hours as they did in 10, either there must be more of them, which again meant more wages for the same quantity, or less wages and less quantity. If two sets of boys were allowable, then two sets would have to work for what one set used to earn, or costs must go up. In a Durham colliery he could name the hewers numbered 575 and other men and boys 731. These 731 men and boys who were down 10 hours must either have their wages reduced one-fifth, to let in others for two hours, or one-fifth more men be employed to get the same quantity. The loss on wages in Durham was estimated at £700,000, and to the owners at £825,000. The proposed change would involve a division into two shifts of five hours each for men and boys not hewers; and it would be practically impossible to find boys to make up the difference. It had been argued that if the cost of coal went up under the new arrangement the royalties must come down. The average royalties in the county of Durham were 5d. per ton, and he did not know how that was to be pulled down. Would the House consent to pull these royalties down? The difference in the cost of working could not be got out of horse keep, grease, oil, or other stores; and it must be obtained by raising the price to the consumer. Would the consumer pay the increase? This Bill applied to Cleveland, where the use of native ores had been reduced one-half by foreign ores; so, in order to employ our people at home, we should raise the cost artificially of producing the native ores, as the Cleveland mines came under this Bill. When the Yorkshire colliers were out on strike the cost of coal could not be raised at the Tees Ironworks without being followed by the blowing out of the Middlesbrough furnaces. With a year's production of 2,500,000 tons no ironmaster was receiving a single sixpence of profit; few obtained interest for capital; and certainly none anything for depreciation. The only effect of raising the price of coal would be to put a number of furnaces out of blast and to throw a large number of men out of employment. Six or seven years ago the iron of the district was made out of native ore; but today one-half of it was made out of Spanish ore. Were we to handicap Cleveland and native ores by bringing in more Spanish ore? There was not a single trade in the country that could bear the increased cost of coal. Yesterday a Member of the House, speaking of the cotton trade, told him that for two years he had not drawn a single sixpence from that business; and personally as an ironmaster he had not drawn sixpence for three years. Yet it was proposed by this Bill to add to the cost of coal. Hon. Members had discussed the point at some length whether the same quantity of work could be done in eight hours as was done now. Every practical man would tell them that as much work could not be done. In Durham the hours had been reduced in 1890 from 11 to 10, and the result was that the output per man working under ground had been reduced from 435 tons in 1890 to 401 tons in 1891. How did our hours of labour compare with those of other countries? In the United Kingdom the average was 7½ hours at the face; in France it was 8¼; in Germany, 8 to 12; in America, 9½ to 10; in Belgium the hours were for 1,650, 9 hours; for 62,000, 9 to 11; for 32,000, 11 to 12; and for 115 over 12 hours. Now, he wanted to take up a few minutes' time in speaking of the foreign competition with which they had to deal. Large contractors told him that all their iron came from Belgium, and they had not a single contract other than with Belgium. In one case his informant was himself a large coalowner and iron- master. An English company with English capital was sending out to South America a bridge built of Belgian iron. The Belgian ironmaster, being asked why he beat his English competitors said, "My wages are 2 f. 50 c. a day, and my men work 11 hours a day." How were we to diminish the hours of drawing? He was not disputing about the hours at the face. An engineer who told him that he had no iron from abroad added, "I screwed every English tender down by German or Belgian prices." Another told him of a company, working with English capital, obtaining steel sleepers for a railway in Bechuanaland from Germany. The freight down the , Rhine from Dusseldorf to Antwerp was 3s. a ton, put on board, and the freight to the Thames was about 3s. 6d., whilst the freight from Cardiff to the Thames was 7s. 6d. per ton. It was cases of this kind that made him believe that any addition to the cost would be an addition to the difficulties the English labourer had in his competition with the foreigner. The restriction was asked for as a benefit to the men, but he believed it would be detrimental to their best interests, and probably end in a large number of them being placed out of work. There was a party of hon. Gentlemen opposite who were very much opposed to foreign competition, and who used all their efforts against it. He might state for their in- formation that the roof now going up on the new United Service Institution was of Belgian iron; so was the roof of the Athenaeum at Liverpool. [ A cry of "Shame! "] Yes, and he did not want to increase the shame of these transactions by legislation. His hon. Friends opposite took the House rather by surprise the other day in respect to a question upon which they felt very acutely and in regard to which he entirely sympathised with them — he meant the depression of agriculture. Well, a stranger whom he met the other day told him that " Norfolk thrives best when the Lancashire, Durham, Northumberland, and West Riding miners are fully employed." The food that went into their houses made all the difference to agriculture. This Bill would send more of our trade abroad. The Poor Law Returns for last December were the worst we had had for four or five years. He pleaded the case against this Bill as strongly as he could, because he felt strongly upon it. It was heart-breaking, when one met men whom one had known all one's life, to think that by one legislative act they were to be deprived of the means of earning their daily bread. He looked upon this Bill as dealing almost a death-blow to English industry, particularly in the neighbourhood of Middlesbrough, now struggling with hard competition, and he believed it would be very detrimental to the working classes of this country.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—( Sir A. Hickman. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'now ' stand part of the Question."

said, the hon. Member who moved the rejection of the Bill had taken up a different attitude from that adopted by the Mineowners' Association, of which he was a distinguised member. The hon. Member had said he did not so much object to an Eight Hours Bill for miners providing that it applied to the working places and not to the hours worked from bank to bank. The Mineowners' Association said

"that the hours of adult labour ought not to be fixed by Parliament, but ought to be left to agreement between employers and employed."

He was very pleased that the hon. Member had come round so far as to express agreement with the supporters of the Bill in the great principle that Parliament had a right to limit the hours of labour. Hon. Members who had objected to the Bill so far had looked at it purely from a financial and business point of view. There were higher things for the House to consider, however, than business and financial arrangements, and the question that ought chiefly to weigh with the House in dealing with the Bill was that of the health and welfare of the general community. He believed hon. Members were unanimous in thinking that mining was a dangerous trade, but they were not united on the question whether it was an unhealthy trade. Some of the gentlemen who had spoken in the Debate had tried to prove that work down a pit was not unhealthy. If any of those gentlemen who were mine-owners would go into their own mines and to the place where the air coming from the pit entered—what was called the fan-drift— they would, he thought, form a very different opinion. The air was drawn from the colliery by a large fan to the surface. The air that passed through a mine was sometimes driven three, four, or five miles through the different workings. During its passage through the mine it took up the natural gases given out by the coal and the impurities of the coal face. It passed through limited spaces where perhaps 1,000 or more men and boys were working, and where there were perhaps 100 or more horses. He had himself several times been in a fan-drift, and he should certainly be very sorry to spend more than an hour, or a couple of hours at any rate, in such an atmosphere. Somebody, however, had to work in the air near the fan-drift, and hon. Members might judge whether work in such an atmosphere was healthy. He was glad to see that all the colliery proprietors were not opposing the Bill, but that several of them were supporting it. He held in his hand a letter he had received from the Secretary of the Durham County Colliery Engineers' Association which rather confirmed the views he held about the ventilation of pits. The Secretary wrote that the Association had passed a resolution in favour of the Bill, and he added that two-thirds of the members of the Association were working in underground engine-rooms from 10 to 11 hours a day, whilst three-fifths were working 12 hours a day seven days a week, or 84 hours in all. The engineering rooms in which these men worked were invariably at a temperature ranging from 90 to 100 degrees. Many views had been expressed as to how this Bill would effect the trade of the country. Similar views had been stated whenever a measure of the kind had been passed. He himself did not believe that the Bill would materially alter the price of coal to the public. In the two counties with which he was best acquainted, and he believed the same thing could be said of the North of England, the collieries were only working from four to four and a-half days a week. Surely it would be very much better to work eight hours a day regularly for five days a week than to work longer hours on a smaller number of days a week. The men would certainly lead healthier and happier lives, and they would know exactly what was coming in at the end of the week. It was said that a limitation of the hours of labour would not make the pits safer than they were at present. If, however, a man were tired out by long hours of labour, he could not be anything like as vigorous at the end of that time as he was at the beginning of it, or in the middle of it, and if his physical vigour were taken away he was less capable of guarding himself against the danger of accidents than he would otherwise be. Many accidents were caused by men overworking themselves or attempting to do too much. In his opinion, neither the colliery owners nor the public had anything to fear from the passage of this Bill, whilst, on the other hand, the result of its adoption would be that the miners would be able to live more vigorous, healthier, happier, and regular lives than they could at present, and would be better able to fulfil the duties of citizenship.

said, those who supported the Bill might congratulate themselves on the fact that they had at any rate succeeded in producing one case in which an employer had tried the experiment of an eight hours day with success, He had not, however, gathered that even that employer was in favour of a legal eight hours day. Everybody was in favour of reducing hours as much as possible. Those who opposed the Bill were, however, in favour of reducing them by voluntary arrangement and negotiation with the employers. He contended that no very serious effort had ever been made by the men's leaders to obtain an eight hours day by negotiation. It was said that the men were not strong enough to obtain a reduction of hours for themselves. Really he thought that the leaders of the Miners' Federation showed too much modesty on this point. He gave them credit for a great deal more power than they admitted possessing. There was no autocrat who exercised more influence than the leaders of the Miners' Federation. They had shown their power in numerous instances. Two years ago the men in the Lancashire and Cheshire Federation Districts were called out because it was supposed that coal was being got too quickly. The recollection of the way in which the men stood by their leaders in the last great strike was fresh in everybody's memory, and he believed it was only on Friday last at Wigan that the Federation made a decree that no man should work more than eight hours a day and more than four days a week, or earn more than 6s. a day. After this display of the power of the Union, it was surely preposterous to contend that the men were unable to secure a reduction of hours by their own individual efforts. Now, as to the unanimity of the men in desiring eight hours. It was asserted by hon. Gentlemen responsible for the measure—notably the hon. Member for Ince—that the men were practically unanimous—that was to say, that more than 90 per cent. of them were in favour of it. The hon. Member was fond of speaking in his collective capacity. He often spoke for several hundred thousand at once. Not long ago he undertook to speak for all the Trades Unionists, and no doubt later on this afternoon be would speak for hundreds of thousands more. It was curious, though, that while the hon. Member, whose constituency contained a great number of miners, was returned by only a small majority, he himself (Mr. Legh), who represented a neighbouring constituency containing almost as many miners, had three times the majority of the hon. Member. It was curious to note how some hon. Members regarded the ballot under different circumstances. When the servants of the London and North Western Railway Company by ballot expressed their views upon particular points, the House was told to attach very little value to that, expression of opinion; but when the miners expressed by the same means their preference for a legal eight hours day, the same people considered it an inspired utterance, and thought it was almost sacrilege to say anything which could cast doubt upon such an expression of opinion. He was not so absolutely convinced by this ballot as some hon. Members appeared to be. If he was not mistaken, that ballot was con- ducted by the officials of the Miners' Union, that those officials knew how the men voted, and in many instances themselves inscribed the men's votes. It was obvious, therefore, that anyone who was opposed to the eight hours day would hardly attain great popularity by showing his hostility to this measure. Therefore, with all due deference to those concerned, he did not think they should put too much implicit trust and reliance upon these ballots. They were told by those who supported this Bill that it would secure greater safety, of which he himself was doubtful, and that it would lead to increased exertions on the part of the men, which would tell to their advantage, and that it would have no effect whatever on the output of coal. But in 1888 he noticed that the hon. Member for Ince urged the acceptance of such a measure as this upon his hearers, because he said it would reduce the output of coal by 20,000,000 tons, which would be a most excellent thing; while the Member for Rhondda, during the Debate on the Bill of 1892, said he was prepared to support the Bill for that very reason. For his own part, he (Mr. Legh) felt no doubt whatever that that was the main object of this Bill. If it was a Bill which was brought in merely to reduce the hours, why were they not content to take it for 48 hours per week? He believed that 48 hours per week would be secured with practically little difficulty, but the object of this measure was to restrict the output, under the mistaken and erroneous impression that wages would rise, because it would be possible to raise the price of coal against the consumer. Nothing in this Bill was so extraordinary as the success which it had achieved. It seemed to exercise the most demoralising effect upon politicians on both sides of the House. He observed with surprise gentlemen whom he looked upon as sound in the political views they professed competing with one another for the honour of bringing in this Bill, and the honour of having their names put upon it. He should like to address a warning to gentlemen on his side of the House who had pledged themselves to support the measure. Many, or at least some, of them had arrived at a sort of compromise by saying that they would support the principle of the Bill, and reserve to themselves the liberty of moving Amendments in Committee. He should be very much surprised if any Amendments were accepted in Committee at all. It seemed to him that this was most emphatically a question upon which there was no room for compromise at all. They had got either to vote for an eight hours day from bank to bank, or they had got to vote against it. He would like to ask the hon. Member for Ince whether he would be prepared to accept an Amendment such as was foreshadowed by the Prime Minister yesterday? Whether, for instance, he was likely to accept the principle of local option—[ Cries of " No, no"!]—or whether he was likely to accept the proposal that the hours with regard to working at the " face " alone should be affected? [" No!"] Of course, he was not prepared to accept anything of the kind. If the Bill ever got into Committee, the supporters of it would refuse to accept any suggestions of this kind. He did not blame them, because they were perfectly logical and perfectly consistent in refusing to accept any such suggestion. The principle of the Bill was a hard-and-fast and rigid one, and the moment anyone began to introduce limitations and Amendments the Bill would be destroyed altogether. He was sure that was the opinion of the gentlemen responsible for the introduction of the measure. As the Representative of a large number of colliers, it would be his duty to vote against this Bill, because he believed it would be most prejudicial to the people for whose sake it was brought forward; it would not increase the safety or wages of the men, but would have an exactly opposite effect: it would add to the cost of production, and it would inflict an almost irreparable blow upon one of the most important industries of the country.

said, he represented a Scotch constituency, which was composed of one of the oldest coalfields in Great Britain, and which still had an annual output of some 4,000,000 tons, and he was therefore naturally anxious to support the Second Reading of a measure which he could honestly say from experience lay nearer to the hearts of his constituents than any measure now engaging, or likely to engage, the attention of the House for a considerable time to come. They had been told by some speakers that an eight hours day was an experiment—a leap in the dark, and a step that could not be taken without great danger; but he was happy to say the constituency of West Fife had enjoyed what was commonly called an eight hours day from bank to bank for 23 years. [An hon. MEMBER: How got?] Never mind how got. He made bold to say there was no man in the County of Fife, whatever his connection with the coal trade might be, who would ever dream of going back to the abandoned system. If that were so, whether it were right or wrong, wise or foolish, to come to this House for these things, it was idle to say that any danger would accrue to the conduct of this industry, when experience had shown that eight hours could be worked. He quite agreed that it would be absurd to pretend that the coal industry of this country was in a weak position. On the contrary, it occupied in most parts a strong and well-organised position, and he said the admission of that made by the miners was not a proof of their weakness, but of their strength. They did not come to Parliament, as 50 or 100 years ago they might well have done, as grimy serfs, beseeching some relaxation from a horrible toil imposed upon them by cruel masters. They came with the experience of a quarter of a century behind them, proving the economic and moral advantages of shortened hours of labour; that their trade could be carried on under these conditions economically and safely, and that they were only anxious to make them general and universal. Every time this question was discussed some absurd argument was by common consent dropped. They used to hear that such a Bill as this would sap the independence and individuality of miners; that it was an odious and horrible thing that a man should have his hours of labour restricted by the general law of the land. There was a time when men opposed Unions altogether, but these views were no longer expressed. On the contrary, miners were now told that if they wanted to get their hours of labour shortened, they should support with all their strength their Unions. It must be obvious that it was as much a tyranny to obey the private law of a Union as it was to obey a law of this House. They really had had no genuine, whole-hearted opposition to the Bill. Opposition to the Bill was impossible, because nobody had been found to say that eight hours a day was not enough for a man to work underground. The only question was whether that restriction should be left to be fought by private negotiation, which usually meant private warfare, or whether the time was not ripe for a general settlement upon the lines of this Bill? The report of the North of England United Coal Trade Association, which was issued in objection to this proposal, spoke, amongst other things, of the exceedingly healthy and happy nature of the miner's life. He did not dispute that, taking one trade, that of the miner was as good; but that was irrelevant to the question. He observed from the report, which was as full of figures as a Budget speech, that miners were free from the gout. There were a good many colliery proprietors, both in this House and in another place, who, unless their grimaces belied them, suffered very much from this most painful disease. They knew now how to secure a cure. Let them abandon for a time their sylvan retreats, which decorated the North Country, and go clown the shaft of a coal mine, lie on their stomachs with pick-axes in their hands— and if at the end of the week their claim for piecework might not be a large sum, they would feel the satisfaction of sharing the immunity of the miner from this complaint. Experience in Scotland went to show that the eight hours' limit was a wise and proper limit, which, having been once introduced, was never likely to be retired from.

said, that one of the great difficulties which eight-hours men like himself had on this occasion was the fact that, whereas during the last 50 years some 40 Bills had passed the House for the relief of the working classes and various trades with the unanimous voice of the persons concerned, this Bill came before the House stoutly opposed by a very large portion of the members of the great National Union of Miners, for whom it was desired that this legislation should be enacted. The hon. Member for Eccles had presented the case of the miners, so far as the physical conditions of labour were concerned, with force and eloquence; and he quite understood what were the motives which had induced his hon. Friend to suspend his logical faculty and give full scope to that feeling which all shared, but which their reason sometimes forced them to restrain for the sake of the large issues involved. He had for long years been desirous of curtailing the hours of labour in all the industries of the country, especially in the case of miners, and he had consoled himself with the hope that so powerful had become Trades Organisations, and notably that connected with mining, that it would be possible, when they made a practically unanimous demand for reduced hours of labour, and conveyed that opinion to their masters and to the public, for that reduction to be made without coming to Parliament to relieve the Trades Unions of the responsibility which they ought to bear. Last year he introduced a Bill which would have given Trades Unions power to make effective such unanimous demands, and he was still prepared to support legislation of that kind; but when he considered the history of industries in this country during the last 25 or 30 years, his reason and conscience revolted against supporting a Bill which would make Parliament responsible for matters which belonged solely to employers and employed. He lived in the hope and expectation that their dream of conciliation, peace, and arbitrament in trade disputes would become a realised fact. They had an instance of that in the appointment of the Board of Arbitration under Lord Shand, to deal with the question of wages. He could imagine no difficulties with the hours of labour so great as those connected with the rate of wages, and if one could be settled by arbitration, so might the other be. He would urge the House not to enter upon a path the end of which they could not foretell. No one could accuse him of being a friend of Masters' Organisations. He had never belonged to one, and never would. On the contrary, he had promoted by every means in his power the combination of workmen to secure their end. He had tried recently to give an object-lesson in reducing hours of labour in order to maintain the engineering industry, by promoting goodwill between employer and employed; and he could not for the life of him understand why it was not possible to accomplish the same thing in the mining industry if the men were practically unanimous. A few years ago he gave evidence before a Miners' Congress at Boston, United States. He had stated then that it was the boast of the British workmen that they were partners with the masters in all the great industries of this country, and that whenever the combined members of a particular trade throughout the country were unanimously in favour of a certain measure being adopted, they were able to gain their end sooner or later, and that Parliament was bound to admit that the men were right. If any hon. Gentleman thought he was taking up a position with regard to this Bill because he had no knowledge of industrial questions, he knew very little about the matter. He had given hostages enough for the opinions he held. He had spent his life among workmen, and had given those questions the attention of a lifetime. It was said that if the hours of labour were shortened the price of coal would be increased. That might or might not be the case. There were, however, in his opinion, greater evils to be feared for this country than any which were likely to arise owing to an increase in the price of coal. In no other country in the world was coal so wastefully used as in England. He made that statement after a practical experience on the question, at some time or other, in his capacity as an engineer in almost every country of Europe. With the exception of the large iron and steel works in England—in which economy in every way was compulsory owing to the competition in the trade—the waste of coal that went on in the large manufacturing centres was enormous. Before the year 1832, when there was a coal famine, no means were thought of by which the waste of coal in factories could be diminished. He was inclined to believe that if this Bill became law the output of coal would be increased and not decreased. That was an opinion contrary to the view that was generally taken on the subject, and one of his reasons for it was the fact that up to the present time in no existing industry was machinery so little employed as in the coal trade in England. For example, there was no machinery for hewing coal by steam or for economising the number of men employed underground. There was nothing in the Bill to prevent masters introducing machinery to do the work in their collieries now done entirely by hand labour, and that work could be done in four or five hours with a less number of men than at present in eight hours. If pressure under such circumstances was placed on the employer, and the employers in seeking to relieve themselves increased their output by machinery, and thus reduced the number of men employed, would Parliament be prepared to protect the employers against any unreasonable opposition on the part of the miners? He believed that Parliament would find, in consequence of passing this Bill, demands made upon it which at present it did not foresee, all of which might be removed from the floor of this House if only Parliament would encourage the coalowners and miners of the country to meet and consult each other, as men and masters had met on other occasions, and see if they could not arrange terms on which a reduction of hours might be made without imperiling an important and great industry. These were the conditions under which alone this great mining industry could prosper, or in fact under which any industry in the country could prosper. He was so strongly in favour of a reduction of the hours of labour that he desired to see it done in the most expeditious way, so that there would not be fresh source of trouble, difficulty, and strikes in the future; but how would it be possible, when Parliament had once taken the responsibility of passing an Act to relieve Trades Unions of their responsibilities—how was it possible for Parliament to prevent itself going further and further in relation to other industries as well as that of coal mining? For his own part, he was perfectly convinced, from the beneficial results that had already sprung from the shortening of hours, that by a peaceful and conciliatory process the reduction of hours would become universal, and therefore on these grounds he asked Parliament to hesitate before it puts its hand to a new order of things, and before committing itself to what might interfere not only with the coal industry, but with other great and important industries of the country.

^* said, it would be impossible for any speaker on a Wednesday afternoon, when so many Members were desirous of addressing the House, to attempt to cover the whole field of controversy opened by this Bill, and he should therefore confine himself to one aspect of it, and to that alone; but he trusted, as a member of 'the Labour Commission, which had given a great deal of attention to the question, he might be permitted to offer a few observations. His hon. Friend the Member for the Newton Division of Lancashire (Mr. Legh) referred to the fact, which he believed was notorious, that a considerable number of Members proposed to vote for the Second Reading of the Bill, reserving to themselves the right to vote in the Committee stage for an Amendment introducing the principle of local option. He desired to offer a few reasons to the House for regarding that as an unwise and undesirable course to pursue. Unless hon. Members were really prepared to support the Bill, whether the principle of local option was introduced in Committee or not, such a course seemed to him either illogical or not quite straightforward. It was not quite straightforward, if they thought this was a convenient way of defeating the Bill, to vote for the Second Reading and afterwards vote for an Amendment that would kill it. He might be allowed to observe that the leaders of the miners on many occasions had expressed the opinion they would rather have no Bill at all than a Bill that did not provide a uniform eight hours day in every district.

From bank to bank.

said, he therefore did not think it would be straightforward to vote for the Second Reading with the intention of afterwards adopting a course which it was known would cause the Bill to be dropped. He entirely agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for the Newton Division of Lancashire (Mr. Legh) that the miners, if they were right in asking for this measure at all, were right in asking that its application should be uniform and universal. Uniformity in the hours of labour worked in mines in every district of the country was, in fact, an essential part of the Bill. His hon. Friend the Member for one of the Divisions of Fife (Mr. Birrell) used an argument that had been commonly used in this House and elsewhere. The hon. Member said it was generally acknowledged that an eight hours day was a good thing; that if it was a good thing when procured by the action of Trades Unions, how could it be bad when it was secured by legislative enactment? His hon. Friend always amused the House by his speeches, but he ventured to think on this occasion his logic was at fault. The argument was misleading. The principle of the Bill was a uniform eight hours day, and the reason why the miners asked for legislation on the subject was because they believed that by legislative enactment alone could a uniform eight hours day and a permanent eight hours day be secured. In these circumstances, it was idle to argue that if an eight hours day secured by Trades Unionism was a good thing, it must also be a good thing when secured by legislation. Most Members of the House would agree that eight hours was a sufficient time for a man to work underground, and that it was desirable that where longer hours were worked they should, if possible, be shortened. But when they said that an eight hours day was desirable they did not mean to say that it was desirable apart from the consequences that it might involve. What was meant was that it would be desirable if it could be secured without producing evil consequences which would more than outweigh the benefits. That was all that he meant at any rate, and they might honestly say and feel that an eight hours day for underground workers was desirable without meaning that it was desirable here and now, in existing circumstances, in reference to every district and to every mine in the Kingdom, and perfectly irrespective of the means by which it was to be secured. The argument which had been used on this subject might be equally applied to wages. He believed that most Members of the House would agree that it would be desirable that the wages not only of miners, but of all workers in this country, should be higher than they now are. But did it follow that because a rise of wages would be desirable when secured through Trade Unions or arrangement between employer and employed, that it would be equally desirable that Parliament should intervene and fix a higher scale of wages in order to increase the remuneration of the working classes of the country? It appeared to him to be obvious that a rise of wages, even when procured by the pressure of Trades Unions, would be a bad thing if that rise was such as the trade could not properly bear, and if it would end in a limitation of the field of employment for all except the best class of workmen. If this was true in regard to a rise of wages secured in that way, what were they to say of a rise of wages secured by an Act of Parliament? Was it not abundantly evident that in such circumstances the evils which he had indicated might possibly follow even from a rise of wages obtained by a Trade Union would follow in a tenfold degree from the interference of Parliament?

Who asks for the interference of Parliament with regard to wages?

^* said, he was merely using the reference to wages as an illustration, and he would say that if the argument was good with regard to wages it was also good with regard to hours. He could not disguise from himself that the body of men who were promoting this Bill were not a weak or oppressed or disorganised body. On the contrary, they were one of the most powerful and highly organised bodies of workmen in the Kingdom. Had they used their strength to obtain a reduction of the hours of labour? The demand for an eight hours day was hardly seven years old. It began, he thought, in 1887, in a district in Scotland, and did not obtain the support of the miners as a whole till 1889.

Might I inform the hon. Member that we began this agitation in 1864?

^* said, there might have been an agitation on the part of a comparatively small number of men in the year mentioned by the hon. Member, but the agitation had not become important until 1887. In the years that had since elapsed how many strikes had there been in favour of short hours in mines as compared with the number of strikes which had taken place in order to secure a rise of wages? But the miners said they wanted a uniform eight hours day; that uniformity and universality were essential, and could never be procured by Trade Union efforts. At all events, it would require a universal strike of the whole body of miners all over the Kingdom, and this would involve such terrible consequences, such vast and widespread suffering, that the miners recoiled from so extreme a course. He thought there was probably another reason why they were desirous of substituting legislative for Trade Union action. The miners knew perfectly well that by Trade Union action they would not be able to secure an eight hours day in the important districts of Northumberland and Durham so long as those districts were opposed to an eight hours day. The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Woods) openly proclaimed that this Bill would not be worth having unless it applied to every district in the country. He would like to know why it was that the leaders of the miners were so anxious to appeal to the Legislature on the question of hours when they were perfectly ready to strike for a rise of wages? There was no demand for uniformity when it was a question of a rise of wages. Why was uniformity insisted on in the question of the limitation of the hours of labour? He must express his conviction that if the miners were to attack this problem district by district, as they habitually did when it was a question of raising wages; if they were to appeal to employers to establish an eight hours day in particular districts where the economical conditions were such as to admit of it, there would be no more impossibility in obtaining an eight hours day in such districts than there was at the present time in obtaining a rise of wages. It might be said that it would not be permanent. It was possible that it might not. It was possible, when circumstances were less favourable, that there might be a return to longer hours, but he would observe that experience showed that a return to longer hours was much more infrequent where shorter hours had once been obtained than a return to lower wages. And further, if the miners were right in their contention that an eight hours day would not lead to an increase in the cost of production, there would be no possible reason for returning to longer hours. Again, the question of regular working ought not to be lost sight of. Even when the pits were in full working, miners seldom worked every day in the week. If the leaders of the miners would use their influence with the men to induce them to work more regularly throughout the week, say five or six days instead of four or five, then this difficulty would be of comparatively easy solution. Had the leaders ever approached the masters with an offer to encourage the men to work as regularly as possible, and not to omit a day or two in the week in consideration that the working hours should be eight hours a day? He doubted whether they had ever done so. It was an eight hours day that they asked for, not 48 hours a week. He thought it would be reasonable to ask the miners to exhaust the means at their disposal for procuring a limitation of the hours of labour before asking Parliament to obtain it for them. Why was it that the miners insisted upon treating the question of hours differently from the question of wages? If their statements were sincere that the economical conditions of coal mining would not be affected, that the cost of production would not be increased nor the output be lessened, he must confess that he saw no answer to his question. But looking to all the circumstances of the case, to what some of the leaders of the miners said, and what others of them did, he was driven to the conclusion that this was not so much a question of hours as a question of output. It was impossible for him to doubt that the idea in the minds of those who supported this Bill was that by means of it they would be enabled to limit the output, and that that limitation would cause a rise in the price of coal, and thus maintain wages and perhaps profits at an artificial level at the expense of the consumer. He was not going to argue the economic questions involved. The miners might be right or wrong, though personally he was convinced that the policy they advocated would end by injuring themselves even more than the community at large. He would simply put this alternative: If the miners were wrong in their belief as to the economical effects of the limitation of the output of coal, then was Parliament to be asked to depart from the principle it had hitherto observed in connection with adult labour; was Parliament to be asked to coerce employers in almost every part of the country, and both employers and employed in the two important districts of Durham and Northumberland; was Parliament to be asked to enter upon legislation the effect of which would be to raise the price of coal, simply and solely in order to convince the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. Pickard) and his friends by bitter experience that their economics were unsound? If, on the other hand, the miners were right, then he would say was Parliament to be asked to do all this in order to help one of the strongest and best organised bodies of workmen in the country to levy a tax for their own benefit upon the rest of the community and upon those industries which were dependent upon coal for their motive power? Much was possible in these days when the wisdom and justice of measures were apt to be gauged by the number of constituencies which their supporters in the country could command. But he did trust that the House of Commons would pluck up sufficient courage to throw out this Bill, which on its own merits, and apart from electoral considerations, would not be so much as entertained and in regard to which the best hope was that it would in practice prove so unworkable that by common consent it would be allowed to remain a dead letter.

The two last Members who have spoken have taken up a good deal of time in developing their respective hobbies. My hon. Friend who has just resumed his seat has undoubtedly made an interesting speech, but it was a speech far beyond my comprehension. I cannot argue in that philosophical way and I cannot chop logic on various economic problems that my hon. Friend raises; I do not regard this question from that point of view. My hon. Friend who sits behind me seems to think T was animated by electoral considerations; that I, who am one supporter of the eight hours, am animated by electoral con- siderations; that that is my chief care, and that I have no care for the objects of the Bill itself.

I was speaking of the supporters generally, and did not signalise any particular Member.

The expression was not limited to one particular person, but still it rather led one to believe that I was meant; but I pass away from my hon. Friend's speech, because we look at the question from a totally different point of view. I turn for a moment to the speech of the hon. Baronet the Member for Barnard Castle (Sir J. Pease). I know his speech so well that it is really not much use to answer it; it is the same thing always; it is an annual speech. He always talks of his model constituency; of his agricultural labourers who are so preeminently prosperous above all other agricultural labourers; of his miners, who are opposed to an eight hours law, but who, I believe, work for seven and a-quarter hours, or some period of that kind, every day, and then he talks of his splendid race of boys who have to work for, I believe, about 10 hours a day, or something very near it.

Eight hours at the bank; I have said so before.

That is not so stated in official documents. Until T see it in official documents I shall believe the boys' labour is longer than the men's in the Counties of Northumberland and Durham. While on this question, I turn to my hon. Friend behind me. He says, "You want a unanimous Eight Hours Bill all over the country, and to force it on a body of miners who do not desire it." So far as I am concerned, he is entirely in the wrong. I think the enormous bulk and mass of miners desire an eight hours law to be observed in mines—almost the whole of England, with the exception of Durham and Northumberland, the exception of a couple of Welsh towns, and another exception, the small district of Staffordshire which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Sir A. Hickman) represents— with those exceptions the great mass, the great preponderance and overwhelming majority of miners all over England, largely in Scotland, and largely in Wales, are in favour of an Eight Hours Bill. We carried it last Session in this House by a majority of 71, and I look upon a majority of the House of Commons very much as these gentlemen look upon a majority of the House of Commons—namely, as the opinion of Parliament representing the people of the United Kingdom, and on a crucial question like this I find a majority of 71. I think a great change has come over the opinion of the country on this question. A charge was made by the hon. Baronet who represents the Barnard Castle Division of Durham that the miners did not go before the Royal Commission on Labour, and he thinks that to be a great defect on their part. Why should they? The principle of this legislation has already been settled by Parliament itself, and by a considerable majority, and why should those who directly represent the miners waste their time in going before the Royal Commission on Labour, which, I believe, has come to no certain conclusion on any problem of labour that has been raised during that long inquiry? Why should these miners' representatives waste their time in convincing the Commission of the rights of a Bill of which this House of Commons is already convinced? I go to the invariable argument of the opponents of this Bill—that strikes are preferable to law. I do not agree with that. Together with Lord Dunraven, who entirely agrees with me on this eight hours question, I had the honour some years ago of receiving a large deputation representing the mining interest on this eight hours movement. Those who formed that deputation told me that they preferred resorting to the Legislature to obtain the demands of labour rather than to methods which often led to violence and great mischief. Curiously enough, I was so lost to all sense of political economy that I could not understand why the miners of the United Kingdom should be made the victims of paragraphs in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Where you have a large, overwhelming, and predominant mass of the workmen in one of the greatest industries of the country agreed upon one point—the limitation of the hours of labour—I think it is much better that they should come to this House rather than resort to other means for obtaining their object. What happened? This deputation went to see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, and he took a different view from that of myself and my noble Friend. He was much more old-fashioned in his views; at that time he did not understand Parliament legislating for the regulation of hours of labour, and he did not give an encouraging answer to the deputation. But the movement has gone on in spite of old-fashioned political economists, and in spite of all the efforts of the great colliery owners and the leaders of the miners in Durham and Northumberland. It has gone on in spite of such arguments as we have heard behind us to-day, arguments that I suppose are of great strength, but which I do not think are calculated to convince people interested in the industry as miners are. The movement has gone on until the Government are face to face this afternoon with a question on which they will, for the first time, have to take a line which shall guide the House. That is great progress considering that in 1883, when I ventured to recommend au eight hours day at a meeting at Walsall, I was subjected to denunciation for doing so by Liberal and Tory friends. What has the eight hours movement got behind it? It has some 400,000 miners, in the first place; and it has a great sanction from the action of the Government in the War Office Department. Why should not the miners claim the great advantages which have already been given to the Government artizans? These are arguments which never appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are mortal enemies to any concession to the miners on this subject. I know them well, and I know that their race is nearly run. I cannot, for want of time, go over the wonderful results of the eight hours day in Messrs. Mather & Platt's works, which were alluded to by the hon. Member for the Gorton Division. But undoubtedly those who are acquainted with the report, and have read the results of this experiment, will be convinced of the merits of short hours of labour. I know the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Mather) will say that his was a voluntary arrangement. I answer that no voluntary arrangement can carry out a reduction of hours for 400,000 men. Only the Legislature or the force of a strike can do that. The hon. Member for Leeds could not suggest any alternative to the passing of this Bill; but he asked why did not the miners go to the masters with their demands, and use the arguments of persuasiveness on this point? Have we had much encouragement from the colliery owners in this Debate to do so? And is there anything in the coal strike of last year to encourage any miner for any object to resort to the means that were resorted to last year? I calculate that the strike of last year cost the country about £25,000,000 in one way or another, with the result of the suspension of all kinds of business and industry. And are we to be told, as we are told practically, that we are to advise the miners who want this Bill to resort to the proceedings which those engaged in the coal industry resorted to last year? If we have got to get reforms of the laws of labour I hope to Heaven we shall never have to resort to the remedies which some of the owners indirectly suggest! What would be the result to the miner if this Bill passed into law? Would not the results be the same as those which have followed the arrangement of the hon. Member for the Gorton Division? I do not say that in every point there is unanimity between miners' work and the work of the artizans employed by the hon. Member for the Gorton Division; but it is certain that if we give an eight hours day to miners, it is certain that they will have much more time for looking after their families and for other occupations than that of mining; and in many parts of the country it would be an enormous addition to the miner's life. It is said that "eight hours" will raise wages. I know that it will have au excellent effect on the production and price of coal. The reserves of coal accumulated in the times when prices are low will enable an eight hours day to be kept up when the pressure is greater, and will prevent the fearful amount of overtime which is often worked in the collieries. I have always, held that an eight hours day will be as self-acting as a pendulum. It resembles the governor of an engine, which, by peculiar revolutions, governs and regulates the speed of the engine and conduces to the safety of those who are working the engine. So with this eight hours day. It is the regular labour which will obtain over England with little exception if it is carried, and you will have a regularity of work which will keep prices steady and the workmen generally in good humour and good confidence, knowing that their lives are more elevated, and that they have more time, not only for recreation, but for thinking about other things than coal-mining. Our miners, after all, are a noble part of the population of England and Scotland, and the effect of such a Bill on their lives would be such as to surprise those who oppose it. As to short hours, that is what we are coming to, oppose it as you will. What is the use of listening to these long speeches from owners of collieries, great capitalists and philosophers? What is the use of listening to all these speeches when the progress of events is represented in this House in such a way by the mining constituencies that the force of numbers are on our side? Who is for us and who is against us? There are a number of Whig Baronets against us, and there are the owners of large mines in Durham and Northumberland, the large capitalists, and the political economists with their prejudices; and we have one or two Ministers against us. The opinions of these Ministers we respect, because we know they are founded not on motives of self-interest, but on real conviction. When you have to do with immaterial matters in commerce or finance, I do not object to some observance of the laws of political economy; but when you have to do with the lives of our workmen who in great masses are being treated as if they were subject to the rigid laws of political economy, then I must part company with political economists. When the life, health, and happiness of the miners or of any other artizans or labourers are in dispute, I say that the labour policy of the capitalists and of the Whig Baronets must go down; and as Parliament affirmed the principle of shorter hours of labour last year, it will affirm that principle again to-day and will surely carry it to-morrow.

said that, in enumerating the persons who opposed this Bill, the noble Lord spoke about Baronets and capitalists, but he did not condescend to say that there were two or three Labour Representatives in the House who opposed this Bill.

said, he admitted fully the opposition from the Counties of Durham and Northumberland.

said, the noble Lord confessed his inability to follow the hon. Member for Leeds into the logical and philosophical argument he had advanced, and he hoped the noble Lord would excuse him if he said he was not quite able to follow the noble Lord in the argument he had attempted to put before the House. He quite agreed with the noble Lord that no effort should be spared to make the lives of the miners and of all workmen in the country brighter and better. But the difference between him and the noble Lord was that he believed it would be better for the men, and would increase the rapidity of their future progress if they depended upon their own efforts. No one would deny that he had made the most strenuous and persistent exertions in season and out of season to improve the life of the miners. But a Bill like the one before the House, which took the power out of the men's own hands and placed it in the hands of the House of Commons, would not encourage that feeling of independence among the working men which was so necessary. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion for the Second Reading charged the men of Durham and Northumberland with getting and keeping their short hours at the risk of the welfare of their boys. He would remind the House that in 1890 the boys in 132 collieries in Durham were working 11 hours a day. By an arrangement with the employers, arrived at by those methods of conciliation and compromise which he would substitute for legislation, an hour a day was deducted from the boys' work in the 132 collieries and half-an-hour from the men's work. Was there any man who would say that the men of Durham had not due and fitting regard for the welfare of the boys when they took off an hour a day from their work at the same time that they took half-an-hour off themselves? This Bill did not meet the cases which its Proposer seemed to think. The hon. Member talked about the exhaustion and about the cramped condition of the miner. He (Mr. Wilson) from his early boyhood worked at this exhausting labour in the most cramped condition that a miner could be put in. He had seen the danger and the darkness of the mine, and had found it was not a place of pleasant resort. It was a place to cure men of gout, because hard work would not allow men to have it. But he ventured to say that the Bill did not meet this case. If the Bill had taken cognisance of the exhausting nature of some part' of the labour in mines, such as reducing the number of hours of working in cramped positions, it would have been well. It was unfair to Labour itself to say that a man who worked in the highest part of a pit, in comparatively fresh air, should have the same hours as the man who worked in a cramped position in the lower part of the mine. The hon. Gentleman said it was necessary for men to have leisure, and he said—for which he (Mr. Wilson) thanked the hon. Member —that he did not believe the men would misuse their leisure. He thought the records which the miners all over the country had shown, without regard to county or district, would prove that they had made as good use of the leisure afforded to them as any other class which could be quoted; but leisure in some cases was a relative term. If men were to have leisure they wanted energy to utilise that leisure. In order that the poor coal-getter might use his leisure properly it was necessary to arrange his hours so that his energy should not be thoroughly exhausted at the conclusion of his day's work. There were two modes of procedure before the House and the country. He said nothing about the number of miners for or against this proposal, and he did not intend to extenuate or to lessen the minority in the County of Durham in favour of eight hours, nor was he going to say that even in the district covered by the Miners' Federation there might not be a minority against the Bill; but that was kept in the background. The Federation ballot had not been taken so recently as that of the Organisation which he represented. There was, therefore, an uncertain element in the problem, but he thought it was fair to assume that if ideas differed in one district they would differ in others. They ought to cultivate, as far as they could, adherence to the Unions. It was best to implant into the minds of the workmen the idea of self-dependence. The best mode of procedure was on every question to bring employer and workmen together, and to allow them to settle not only wage questions, but everything that appertained to labour. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member for the Gorton Division (Mr. Mather), whose experience on the eight hours question every hon. Member might defer to, that the Conciliation Board had perfect trust in the chairman appointed by Mr. Speaker, and there was nothing to which the Board could fix its attention with so much advantage as this question of hours. There were a good many misapprehensions in regard to this Bill. There were a number of hon. Gentlemen who, though now. voting for the Second Reading of this Bill, would not vote for its principle in Committee. He was very glad to hear the hon. Member for the Ince Division give that loud and emphatic "No, no" when the hon. Member for Leeds asked whether he would accept any modification in Committee.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member. I did not say "No, no," that the Miners' Federation would accept no modification: I said they would not accept the principle of local option.

said, that what he wanted to point out was that a number of hon. Gentlemen would vote for this Bill, as they did last year, under the impression that it meant eight hours' work; but the Bill did not mean eight hours' work. It meant eight hours from bank to bank; but it was necessary to understand whether hon. Gentlemen who supported the Bill meant that the man's eight hours should be reckoned from the time he got into the cage until he came to bank again, or from the time he commenced to work in the face of the pit, because after getting down the shaft in many large mines in the North of England the men had to traverse a distance of three miles underground before they came to their working places, and by an arrangement with their employers an hour and a quarter was allowed for the men to travel the three miles each way. So that, instead of eight hours, that would mean five and a-half hours' work, reckoning eight hours from bank to bank. The noble Lord opposite had said that the matter was one of detail. But it was the principle of the Bill. He would ask the hon. Member for Ince if he would get up in his place and say he would accept a Bill which would give eight and a-half hours from bank to bank, and allow the men to work five and a-half hours on the face of the pit? Would the Miners' Federation accept a Bill with that modification? Hon. Members who were going to vote for the Bill must therefore make up their minds, because, if the promoters were true to their professions, they would wreck the Bill rather than accept any modification whatever. In support of his view that this matter should be left to a committee of employers and employed, he would read a quotation from a speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham in 1892. The right hon. Gentleman was regarded as a powerful acquisition to the supporters of the Bill. He (Mr. Wilson) had, however, always looked upon that speech as being much more on the side of those who opposed the Bill than on that of its supporters. The right hon. Gentleman said—

"I think it would not be fair to say that without adding that if the Bill gets in Committee now or at any time I hold myself at liberty to criticise the details, and in Committee perhaps to alter the Bill materially in the way of giving greater elasticity to its provisions. I believe there are differences in this trade, local differences, which deserve consideration. There are deep mines and shallow mines, mines of thick seams of coal and mines of thin seams. Mines in which the men have to go a long way to the face, and mines in which the working is close to the shaft; all these are differences which deserve consideration. Then, again, there is the question as to the different classes of labour in mines. I am told that in order that the hewers may work eight hours a day it is necessary that the drawers should work nine a day; and in order that the hewers and drawers may not be employed in working more than eight hours it will be necessary that the overseers and the winders and the people in charge of the machinery must work more than the maximum time. These are difficulties, but, at the same time, I do not for a moment believe that there are any difficulties which might not easily be got over by a practical committee of experts who are acquainted with the necessities of the trade."

That was the whole burden and point of the position—that the practice was so diversified in different counties and on different estates and in different mines, and the views of miners were so divergent, that it was impossible to secure uniformity. It had been said that engineering was more complicated than mining. Gentlemen who said that did not understand the complications of mines. Mines differed, but the engineering trade was the same all over the country. He agreed, however, that the matter would be best settled if referred to an expert committee of workmen and employers. There was no greater sign of the times than the tendency to shorten hours. The Labour Gazette showed that in every trade the hours of labour were being shortened, and the feeling of the time was such that if this Bill were withdrawn workmen and employers all over the country would set themselves to work to shorten the hours of those employed in mines, and to make arrangements to meet the diversity in the conditions of the various mines throughout the country. He was sorry that on this occasion the Government had sent out a five-line Whip. If there was one county which had been solid in its approval of the Government it was Durham, where 15 out of 16 Members were staunch and true to their Liberalism. So long as this was a contentious measure between North and South, it ought not to be made a Government measure. The opponents of the Bill had as much right to a five-line Whip as its supporters; but they had never asked for such support, and he hoped that no other Whip would be issued by the Government on this question. He asked his Trade Union friends whether this method of appealing to the House of Commons was not a confession of their own weakness? They possessed a strength which their fathers never had. They had power in their own hands, and to come to Parliament begging and beseeching was derogatory to their character as men. He wished to ask the Home Secretary how he would apply this Bill in a mine which employed 1,500 or 1,600 men? He spoke from the point of view of the men and not from the capitalist point of view. What they wanted was practice. Everyone speaking there on behalf of the miners of Durham deserved to be listened to with sympathy. The miners deserved sympathy. They had a right to it. He (Mr. Wilson) wished to ask the Home Secretary a question. If he was prepared to interfere with the hours of labour of miners, was he prepared to go further? In 1886, when this question was brought forward at the Miners' Conference, it was strongly opposed—just as strongly as the proposal to regulate miners' wages would be opposed if it were brought forward now. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean had said that, if there was before the House a question of fixing wages and hours, so much more was the wages question paramount to his mind that the question of hours might take second place.

^* : The hon. Member quotes me as though I am in favour of fixing wages by Act of Parliament. He will, perhaps, allow me to repudiate that view.

said, he would quote from an article by the right hon. Baronet in The New Review. The right hon. Baronet wrote this—

"If, indeed, there were any suggestion that the State should deal directly with the question of wages or of subsistence, then this which would be a matter of life and death would take precedence even over hours, which are but secondary, however considerable in their importance."

^* : The context of those words will show that they do not imply that I am in favour of wages being-fixed by the State. The hon. Member's interpretation of my words is contrary to everything I have ever written on the subject. I am not favourable to that principle.

said, that if the right hon. Baronet denied that he meant what he had said, of course he (Mr. Wilson) accepted his denial. He would ask the Home Secretary whether the Government had given their general sanction to the Bill, whether a Whip had been sent out in favour of the measure, and whether he would be good enough to go a little further and say how he would apply the Bill to a large colliery?

said, he would not deal with the principle of the Bill, but only with the objections in detail that had been taken to it. The hon. Member for Mid Durham had just asked how the Bill could be applied to a large colliery. The hon. Member must know that in nearly every mining district in England there was a fixed and recognised number of hours which constituted a day's work, and if the number was fixed by law at eight per day the internal arrangements of the mine could be quite easily adapted to that number. It would be just as easy to arrange for a day of eight hours as for a day of nine or 10 hours. In districts in which less than eight hours a day were worked of course the Bill would not apply, and therefore would not apply to the district of the hon. Member who moved the rejection, in which it was said the men only worked four and a-half hours a day. With regard to foreign competition, the hon. Baronet declared that the present average time worked by the miners of this country—not because they were not willing to work, as was implied by the hon. Member for Leeds, but because there was no more work for them to do—was under four days per week. Therefore, with the number of mines open at present and the number of men employed, five days of eight hours would be enough to meet the demand for coal. There was capital and labour enough in the country to supply any demand for coal that might arise in the future, and if it was said that we should have a supply of foreign coal he had a right to ask where it would come from? At the present moment this country was supplying every continental nation with coal because they could not raise enough, so it was ridiculous to talk of our being flooded with foreign coal. He advocated the Bill because it was better for Parliament as representing the people to wisely and judiciously do that which would otherwise require to be done by force. It was all very well to talk about Boards of Conciliation, but the last resort of the workmen in every case was a strike which such legislation as this would obviate. He hoped that the House would set the stamp and seal of its approval on the principle that legislation for the regulation of the hours of labour and, if necessary, for fixing a minimum wage, was a wiser and juster method of conducting industrial business than that which had hitherto prevailed.

I think I am bound to state in a few sentences what is the position of the Government and what are my own views in reference to this Bill. So far as Her Majesty's Government are concerned, their position to-day was exactly what it was a year ago, when it was defined in the Debate on the Second Reading of this Bill by my right hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian. A very considerable majority of the Members of the Government are in favour of this Bill, and will, I believe, support the Motion for the Second Reading, but there are some of our colleagues, for whose opinion and authority we entertain the highest respect, who take a different view. They will, I doubt not, give effect to that view, if not in Debate, at any rate in the Division. The Government, as a Government, has not introduced the Bill, or taken charge of it, or made itself responsible for its fortunes. So far as I am personally concerned, I heartily support its principle, and trust the House will adopt it. The question is one in which, as the course of the Debate has shown, the divisions of opinion do not follow the ordinary lines of Party controversy. A considerable number of hon. Gentlemen opposite share the views of the noble Lord the Member for Paddington, while some hon. Members who sit immediately behind the Treasury Bench are strong and formidable opponents of this legislation. I cannot help regretting that a certain amount of heat has been imported into this discussion by the imputation of motives. No one who has listened to the speech of the hon. Baronet behind me (Sir J. Pease), or to the very remarkable and most powerful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Durham (Mr. J. Wilson), can have any doubt as to the genuineness and reality of the feeling which exists in their parts of the country, or can suppose that that feeling springs from interested motives, and is not the outcome of honest convictions. I think that in their turn hon. Members opposite might give credit to those who support this Bill, and to those who are going to vote for the Second Reading, that they are not actuated by any desire to catch votes or any paltry electoral consideration. On the other hand, I think equal credit might be given to the supporters of the Bill, and that we need not have our conduct interpreted as a design to catch votes and to make political capital. As far as I am concerned, I can briefly explain the grounds on which I support this Bill. I look upon it as an attempt to establish by law for all persons engaged in this industry the maximum of time they shall be employed underground. There has not been a dissentient voice raised in the course of the Debate to the proposition that eight hours underground, whether spent in actual hewing, getting of coal or not, is as long a period as is consistent with a healthy existence. To that proposition I have not heard a demurring voice. Nor is it disputed— and this, to my mind, is a most important element in the consideration of the question—that the vast majority of the 680,000 odd persons—I do not go into precise figures—engaged in this trade are in favour of the statutory limitation of the hours of labour. Further, Sir, it cannot be disputed, after the admissions which have been frankly made by those who have opposed the Bill from the County of Durham, that voluntary effort has proved ineffectual to carry out that which is admittedly the wish of the great part of the mining population, and believed by them to be in their own interest and in the interests of the community. The hon. Member who recently addressed the House has practically acknowledged that that is the case. It is true that in Northumberland and Durham the hewers are not engaged for anything like eight hours. I believe a very considerable number of them do not average more than six or six and a half hours at the outside. But there is the case of the boys, and when I say boys I do not mean necessarily those who are under 16 years of age. I mean those who are not actually engaged in hewing, but who work underground. As we have been told, only three and a-half years ago in the great majority of the collieries in Durham these boys were engaged for 11 hours a day. The hon. Member takes great credit for the power of voluntary organisation. He boasts that they have succeeded in that county in reducing the 11 hours to 10 hours, while they have at the same time reduced the hours of men I say that is a most conclusive proof that voluntary organisation, excellent a thing as it is within the limits of its powers, is insufficient for the purpose aimed at in this Bill. This great and powerful voluntary organisation, led by men like my hon. Friend, whose interest in producing a humaner life among the colliery workers we all admit, although it has been in existence all these years, has not succeeded in reducing the hours of the labour of the boys more than from 11 to 10 hours underground. That is to say, by their own account they have not succeeded in doing that which ought to have been done and which they would have done if they had had the power—a power which it is the object of this Bill to give them. It is said, and it always will be said, that it is a novel principle for the State to interfere with the labour of grown men. I will not at present go into that question, but the whole history of factory and mining legislation shows that this principle has been over and over again adopted. In point of principle, the whole position was given away when the factory legislation was first adopted. It was first adopted in an experimental manner, but since then it has received at the hands of both Parties great development in recent years. The Member for Durham asked me the question how I should apply— how I should enforce this Bill, if it was passed into law.

said, he did not mean to ask as to enforcing it. He meant applying it to the working of a mine.

That appears to be one of the details, but I will point out to my hon. Friend that eight hours a day already exists in the majority of the mines of this country, and all these details in the working of these mines have already been solved.

No.

Well, I say there is a vast number—I believe I might say a majority—of these mines in which no man is at work underground—no hewer of coal, at least—for more than eight hours. In point of fact, some of those whose work is in long distance mines in proximity to the shaft are not underground for that length of time. So that I say the matter to which my hon. Friend refers has been practically solved. It has been said in the course of the Debate that the effect of this legislation will be to raise the price of coal, because a statutory reduction in the hours of labour increases the cost of production. I was present yesterday with the Prime Minister when a deputation of coal-owners appeared in opposition to this Bill. They used that argument, and I asked this question—whether 20 years ago the men in the Yorkshire collieries did not work longer than they do to-day, and the colliery-owner to whom I put the question admitted that that was so. I asked him whether the output was not greater then than it was now, and he replied that it was not. So that the reduction of the hours of labour has been found consistent with even an increase of the output. No one acquainted with the industry will dispute that that increase and that reduction have gone on side by side. I will give the House one single figure which I noticed in the statistics forwarded by the Inspectors of Mines. The average for the 10 years of 1883–92 showed an increase in coal production of 30 millions of tons over the 10 years 1873–82. I do not deny, of course, that there has been an increase of men and boys; it is only right to say that; but this increase is side by side with the decrease in the number of hours which the men work. Therefore, if we are to judge of the future by the past, I do not fear that the introduction of this principle will lead to a decline in the production. The Bill will, in fact, merely give legislative sanction to what already exists. I do not believe that the Bill will diminish the quantity of coal or increase the price. As I have said, I do not attempt to discuss the details of the Bill. It is of the simplest possible character. I think the details are matters which may be left to the Committee. I do not understand that the promoters take up the attitude of "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill." They do not decline to listen to reasonable proposals. On the contrary, I understand that they are perfectly ready to listen to any reasonable suggestions. I will only mention one point of detail of some importance, in which I certainly could not concur in its present form. I cannot think that it would be right that the penalty for con travening the Bill should fall on the employer alone. I think that, if by Statute you intervene in this matter, those who violate the law should be made equally liable for the consequences. This Debate has been conducted on the general principle, and for the reasons I have stated I, for one, and for a large majority of my colleagues, give my support most heartily to the Second Reading of the Bill.

^* said, the Debate had been conducted on both sides in the interests of limited classes. Speeches had been delivered by Representatives of employers and workmen. But there was another class to be considered. Very little had been said in the interest of the consumers. He could hardly think that sufficient justification had been shown by the right hon. Gentleman for the momentous decision he had given. The House ought to be well persuaded of a good ground for what was neither more nor less than the protection of one class. They ought to consider the effect of that protection on all the other classes and industries of the country, and the question ought to be argued on broad grounds, free from selfish considerations. It was not sufficient to give as a reason for this far-reaching proposal that it was supported by a majority of the industry concerned. There were other occupations as unhealthy and laborious as that of the coal miners, and it would surely require very strong grounds to induce the House to specially protect one class. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington argued that there were 400,000 men who supported the Bill; but there was no proof of that. At a recent Conference those who voted for the Bill did not represent more than 200,000 miners; and only two years ago at Liverpool there was au absolute majority against the eight hours principle. A large majority of the men had expressed no opinion, and a considerable minority had expressed strong opinions against the Bill. What the right hon. Gentleman was supporting was an altogether novel principle applying to adult labour, without any attempt being made to establish adequate grounds for accepting the views of a so-called majority of the trade. The provisions were to be enforced in the ordinary way, so that it was to be made a criminal offence for a man to use his labour to the best advantage; and for a man to avail himself of his greater strength or ability was to become punishable by law. A greater invasion of private liberty and right had never been attempted. If it was thought that 10 hours was too long for boys to work in mines, it would be perfectly easy to extend the Factories Acts to cover their case, but it was no ground for limiting the labour of all adult miners, and forbidding them, whether they liked it or not, to work more than eight hours a day. The real danger of this proposal, no one could doubt, would be that it would increase the cost of production and so diminish wages. The Lancashire miners the other day passed a resolution urging that the output of coal should be limited, that the men should only work four days per week and eight hours a day, and that no miner should be allowed to earn more than 6s. a day. That was to say, that the best workman was to be kept down to the position of the worst. He was much surprised to find that the Secretary to the Board of Trade was reported to have told the Miners' National Union that they should do as much as possible to keep up prices. If that was the great object of the colliers, how could the House consent to this legislation? During the great stagnation of trade many industries had been earning very small profits, and works had been kept on with great difficulty. An industry representing a capital of £100,000,000 sterling had made, on an average, for years past 3 per cent. profit. To increase the cost of production would undoubtedly lead to their being closed, and to a diminution of the wages of their workpeople. Was it tolerable— was it reasonable for Her Majesty's Government to propose that this powerful coal organisation, which could do so much to limit its own hours of labour, should be encouraged to take the further step of artificially enhancing the prime cost of production? The movement was in restraint of trade and inimical to the best interests of the country. Foreign competition made it necessary that our manufactories should produce at the cheapest possible rates, and this was not the time when the House ought to give legislative support to a proposal of so momentous and extraordinary a character. It was no vision but the actual fact, that foreign nations, especially France and Germany, had made enormous advances in competition. We had now less than half the total export of coal abroad, though it still amounted to 38,000,000 tons. We were being met in the markets of the world, especially in the East, by new sources of production, and when we were being undersold by foreign competitors, this was not the time to bring forward a measure of this description.

I move, Sir, that the Question be now put.

It is not the half-hour yet.

said, he had no wish to talk out the Bill or to take any mean advantage of the hon. Member, and concluded his remarks by urging the House, in the interest of the great industries of the country, not to assent to a proposal of this abnormal and extraordinary character.

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

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

Question put accordingly, "That the word ' now" stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 281; Noes 194.—(Division List, No. 34.)

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Mr. Dalziel. )

said, last year it was found necessary at the Irish Office to recast an Irish Bill for the same purpose.

said, the Bill in no way invalidated the proceedings which at present would be taken under the Public Libraries Act. Its object was simply to assimilate the law of Scotland to that of England, and it imposed no additional rate.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

asked what would be the course of Business, and whether any statement would be made to-morrow?

said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would to-morrow make a statement with regard to the Business for next week. The Motion for the appointment of a Scotch Grand Committee would be further considered at the Morning Sitting on Friday.

House adjourned at two minutes before Six o'clock.