asked the President of the Board of Education, whether his attention has been drawn to the superannuation scheme for teachers in Scotland; whether he intends to provide a scheme for England on a like basis; and whether he can state what would be its cost.

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I need hardly remind my honourable Friend that the conditions of service and the bases of existing schemes differ considerably in England and Wales from those in Scotland. I hope shortly to introduce a scheme under which a substantial improvement will be made in the scale of pensions under the Elementary School Teachers (Superannuation) Act, 1898.

I beg to move in sub-Section (1) after the word "contract" ["It shall be an implied term of every contract"] to insert the words "in writing."

I do not propose to take up much time with this Amendment, but it seems to me that if we have State interference in regulating wages it is a very desirable thing that all contracts entered into between employers and the workmen should be in writing. It is quite a simple matter. It means that the men have to sign a book or document to make matters clear. We so often have disputes and suggestions made that the men have broken their contracts that I think we ought to have some established record so that when suggestions are made that the men or the masters have committed a breach of the contract we shall have a document to refer to. This amendment does not limit the operation of the Act to any large extent. To contracts not in writing this Act would not apply, and, I think, that would be desirable. The introduction of the I words "in writing" would tend to simplify matters and then we shall always know where we are.

I do not think it is necessary to take up time with this matter, because it is a point of no substance. The object of the provision is to apply to every contract whether written or verbal, and the statute I must apply to every document.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "workman" ["that the employer shall pay to that workman wages"], to insert the words "reasonable living."

This amendment raises an important distinction between a reasonable living wage and a minimum wage, because the former may mean one thing and the latter quite another thing. I fancy the distinction between the two goes deep down into the causes which have produced this Bill. The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh) demands a reasonable living wage in order that the men who work in abnormal places may have a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.

On a point of Order, I wish to point out that we are dealing with a Bill to provide a minimum wage. Is it in order to introduce words which have a different meaning.

The purpose here is to define exactly the mode in which the minimum wage is to be arrived at. A minimum wage by itself means practically nothing or anything, but a reasonable living wage defines the mode in which that minimum wage is to be governed.

I have gone into the point raised by the Attorney-General and I came to the conclusion that I could not rule this Amendment out on that ground.

On this point of a living wage I will quote from the speech of the hon. Member for Ince. Speaking on the First Reading of this Bill he based his whole support of this measure on the variation in the cost of living, and with regard to the schedule he argued that a reasonable living wage must be different in one place than another. This is what the hon. Member for Ince said:—

"The conditions of living have caused the variations in the Schedules. Would any person say that for the Forest of Dean or the Bristol district or Somerset, where the workman is half miner and half agriculturist, where the cost of living is very much less than in Lancashire and in Yorkshire, we ought to put forward the same claim for the miner in those districts that we should do for those working in Lancashire and Yorkshire? It is unthinkable. We had to take into consideration fair living conditions, the standard of living, working conditions, and the general economic conditions, and we have framed our Schedules accordingly."—[Official REPORT, 19th March, Cols. 1752–3.]

That is the position taken up by the hon. Member for Ince, and the hon. Member for Hanley, but that is not the position clearly taken up by a large body of supporters of this Bill. It is the position of the old-fashioned trade unionists, but it is clearly not the position of the syndicalists. It is the position of hon. Members below the Gangway, but not the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs who went very much further. In his speech the right hon. Gentleman took this question of a minimum wage very much further than it has been taken by any hon. Members below the Gangway, for he took it almost as far as it has been taken in some quarters outside this House. He said:

"Parliament may have to meet other attempts from other trades. … A door has been opened with regard to the minimum wage which cannot he closed again."

And the Secretary of State defined his idea of a minimum wage as one differing with the rates of profit—an entirely different proposition from that of hon. Members below the Gangway. I want to know which is right, that of the Members of the Labour Party or that of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who apparently represents the Government. The most important statement in his speech was:—

"The intention of the Bill, and, I believe, the result of the Bill, will not he to damage existing rates of wages, not to fix an unduly low minimum, but on the contrary to ascertain and to achieve the highest minimum which the coal trade can bear"—[Official Report, 21st March, 1912, Col. 2175.]

That is an entirely different position from that taken up by the representatives of the miners in this House.

On a point of Order. Are we to refer to the general debate on the Second Reading in discussing an Amendment of this kind?

It is impossible to rule that nobody can refer to the debate on the Second Beading, but of course I do not propose to allow a Second Beading debate over again. The object of the Amendment, I understand, is to give a closer or different definition of "minimum" wage.

I am not raising the question of whether or not there should be a minimum wage. I have my own opinion very strongly against any minimum wage imposed by law; but I am not arguing that. I am assuming that the House has decided to impose by law some form of a minimum wage, and what I want to ascertain is whether it is the minimum wage as put forward by the trade unionists, or the extraordinary definition given by the Foreign Secretary, namely, the highest minimum wage the coal trade can bear. That is exactly the claim of the syndicalists, neither more nor less. Their proposal in any of their documents is that you should gradually raise the minimum wage point by point until you get the highest price any particular trade can bear. I know the Foreign Secretary, if he were here, would take refuge under the word "unduly," with which he made so much play last night. But the word "unduly" cannot be put into a Bill. Either you must accept the position which the Labour Members hero have voluntarily accepted in all their speeches, or you must accept the position set up by the Foreign Secretary. Speaking on behalf of a large number of Conservative Members, I want to say that we are not opposed in any way whatever to a rise of wages. Many of us desire that wages should increase to the highest possible point so long as they increase in due accordance with the economic condition of the trade. I cannot help feeling that that is the position taken up, not merely by the two Members to whom I have referred, but also by the leader of the Labour party himself. There was a discussion here some three weeks ago as to what should or should not constitute a minimum wage, and the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) made it perfectly clear what the Labour Party wanted. He said:

"If you are going to carry on an industry you must carry it on with reference to one condition, that the men and women engaged ought to have a wage that will enable them to live by their labour."

That is a minimum living wage, not a wage calculated on profits, not a wage calculated at the highest rate a particular trade can bear, but a wage that will enable the worker to live in decency and comfort. Everyone knows that the minimum wage does and must vary in the Post Office and other places in accordance with the cost of living in each locality. I want to test the bona fides of this claim for a minimum wage by inserting these controlling words, providing that it shall be a reasonable living wage. The demand for a reasonable living wage is the cause of this strike. If it is the desire of the miners to have a wage which will enable them to live in decency and comfort, my Amendment will secure that to them. On the other hand, if the interpretation is that put forward by the Foreign Secretary, I say that the Bill is not in accordance with the honest straightforward demand of the trade union leaders, but is nothing more nor less than a surrender to the extreme views of the Syndicalist party outside the House, which are not really the views of the genuine trade unionists of the country.

The Government cannot accept this Amendment; it is quite unnecessary. The whole discussion, not only during the last few weeks, but during a considerable period, has proceeded upon the use of the term "minimum" rate, which is quite understood by both parties. You already have a minimum tonnage rate and a minimum time rate in connection with this industry, and there is no difficulty whatever in understanding the term. Moreover, in this particular case what we are dealing with is a minimum rate to be paid to a man in a particular trade in the circumstances applicable to his work. That is the real question that will have to be determined by the Joint District Boards. Those Boards will have to take into account the various circumstances, the class of work, and the kind of workman, and say what is to be the minimum rate. It is not quite right to say that it is to be a reasonable living wage. That is not a sufficient statement of the case. In dealing with this Bill, and with this class of work, you must always consider the risk of life attached to this particular labour, which must form a very important element in determining what is to be the minimum rate applicable to this trade. A man may work for a certain number of years; then comes one of those lamentable accidents, and he loses his life. These risks must be considered in fixing the wage. That is why the term "minimum" is a much better one to apply than that proposed by the Amendment.

I am not at all satisfied with the reply of the Attorney-General. He has stated that the term "minimum" is well understood by the people who will have to fix the wage under this Bill. My belief is that "minimum" means "lowest," and all that this Bill says is that the District Boards are to fix the lowest rate of wages that shall be paid to any workman. There is no definition of any sort or kind as to the line they shall take in deciding what is the lowest rate to be paid. My hon Friend says, "We will define the line upon which the District Boards are to go. The lowest wage that is to be paid is to be fixed upon what is a reasonable living wage." I myself am strongly opposed to State interference in the matter. I wish it to be perfectly understood that in supporting the Amendment of my hon. Friend I only do so because the House of Commons has foolishly committed itself to the principle of the Bill. But having done so, surely it is our duty to give some instructions to the District Boards so that they may know what was in the minds of those who passed the Bill. The only argument brought forward by the Attorney-General which had any shadow or semblance of substance was that this was a dangerous trade, as the men might lose their lives. That is true, but it is compensated for under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Of course, the Labour party do not want the wage to be calculated upon what is a reasonable living wage for the people engaged in the particular industry. It is not a reasonable living wage that they want: they desire to extort as much as they can from the coal owners, and until we get a definition of this sort it will be quite open to the trade unions to say that the lines on which you are to proceed are that the coal owners shall get only a certain share of the profits. In fact it has been stated in correspondenc in the Press that the owners are only to have 4 per cent, on their capital. We want to guard against that, and unless hon. Members are prepared to say that that is not the real point I cannot see how they can vote against the Amendment of my hon. Friend. We have heard a great deal about the necessity of enabling men to make proper provision to maintain their families. That is exactly what my hon. Friend wants to do, and unless the Amendment is accepted I venture to say the hollowness of the whole proposal will be exposed, and it will be seen that the real object of hon. Members is to put the mine owners in such a position that the Government will be forced to nationalise the mines. If that is not their object let them get up and say so here.

The question raised by the Amendment is a very large and important one, but this is not the moment at which it should be discussed. I am asked "Why not?" The answer is that we are discussing a definite proposal to meet the situation and crisis which has arisen, and if we debate more or less abstract propositions it will tend to defeat the object which the Bill is meant to serve. What the hon. Member who moved the Amendment was arguing for has already been accomplished. The minimum wage is not to be a stereotyped uniform fixed sum applicable to the whole country. The working of natural economic laws has produced variations in the rates of wages, in different districts. These will still continue to obtain when the Bill becomes law and under these circumstances in view of the amount of work we have to do I respectfully suggest that the Amendment should be withdrawn and that we should be allowed to deal with other points.

I quite feel the force of a great deal that has fallen from the hon. Member. I have no desire to enter on theoretical discussions as to what is the proper wage to be secured under this Bill. But there is a real difficulty here as there is no definition at all of what is meant by a minimum wage. The Attorney-General says everybody knows what it is exactly but we have had no fewer than four entirely separate definitions of it in the course of these Debates. In the first place there is the reasonable living wage which my hon. Friend wishes to put into the Bill. Then the hon. Member for Ince gave a quite different definition when he said that what was desired to be secured was what a man might get working under ordinary circumstances. Then there was the phrase used by the Foreign Secretary, that it was to be the highest possible wage the trade could bear; and finally we have the Attorney-General's definition that it is to be a reasonable living wage, and that you must also take into consideration the danger run by the men.

Among other circumstances.

When this matter comes before the District Committees there will be no indication whatever of the intentions of the Bill as to what is really meant by "minimum wage." Each Committee will go on entirely different principles, and that will not be conducive to peace in the industry, as in one district you may have the living wage standard and in the other the highest possible wage the industry can bear, and there will be such inequalities between districts that there will inevitably be further disputes. Though I do not want to press this Amendment on the Government, I do think some indication of the intentions of Parliament in using the phrase "minimum wage" ought to be included in the Bill.

I wish to point out very briefly that there is nothing in the objection at all. When the District Boards meet the men will press for a certain minimum wage and the employers will give their arguments against that. The question is not whether it is to be a living wage, an average wage, or anything else. It is to be a minimum that is to be fixed by the District Board. It may be fixed either with or without the casting vote of the chairman, but it will be the minimum for the district. It may be on a living wage basis or on an average basis, but it is a matter which must be settled in each district, and will not depend on any definition. Therefore I urge that there is no reality in the point raised by the hon. Member opposite.

I think the speech we have just listened to has emphasised the difficulties which we are trying to avoid by getting a reasonable definition of a minimum wage. The hon. Member pictured what would happen before a District Board. There would be the arguments of the men and of the masters, and then the chairman of the District Board would have to make up his mind as to what is a minimum wage. The District Board is given no guidance whatever by this Bill. If this Bill is intended to settle this strike, as we hope it will—that is its only justification—surely the House should give a little more guidance to the arbitrator or the chairman who is going to attempt to define what the House intended in putting this Bill forward. "We have to remember that the Prime Minister and all the able members of the Government who have been supporting him in the conference during the last two or three weeks, aided as they have been by the greatest experts representing the miners, and by the masters, have failed to come to any conclusion. The reason why I voted last night against the Bill was because the Government have thrown the difficulty which they have been unable to meet upon the District Boards, without the slightest definition in the Bill for the guidance of those District Boards. This is not to be dealt with here as an abstract question, but as a practical suggestion for the purpose of making the Bill effective. The Attorney-General said that the minimum was to be fixed on the kind of work done, and the class of workman, and that the risk to life was also to be taken into account. How can we say that those considerations will not apply if this Amendment is accepted. They will apply to any condition. There will be the protection that the minimum wage shall not be fixed at lower than a living wage. That is an advantage which ought not to be lost sight of. So far as I am personally concerned, and I believe the same is true of many Members on this side of the House, the Government would assist immensely our position in the matter if they would accept this Amendment, because, while we object to the interference of the State in the settling of wages, we are not hostile to a living wage. We do not want to see a fresh cause of endless dispute thrown into the various District Boards set up under the Bill.

I wish to say one word to explain why, if the Amendment is pressed, I shall vote against it. I agree that it is desirable to define the minimum, if possible, but to define it in this way would be equivalent to accepting it without having regard to the conditions of this particular trade. I think that would be absurd. It is altogether outside the general question. I merely say that in order to explain the reason why I should vote against, an Amendment of this kind.

I am inclined to think that I agree with the observations made by my hon. Friend (Sir A. Cripps). The point of view from which I regard it is that it is not all a question of making-the amount less by this Amendment. It might easily happen that if a rule is laid down that a reasonable living wage is to be given in all circumstances, it might be found to be, instead of an advantage, a hardship. I rise chiefly to express the hope, and I am sure it is the belief that we all share on this side, that there is no desire of any kind to delay the proceedings on this Bill. For that reason, and because the question is certainly one on which there is room for difference of opinion, I hope my hon. Friend will see his way to withdraw the Amendment.

Of course, I could not fail to accept the suggestion of my right hon. Friend and Leader. I am quite prepared to withdraw the Amendment at once. At the same time I want hon. Members above and below the Gangway to feel that this was a genuine Amendment, and was not in the slightest degree intended to delay the Bill. In the circumstances I am glad to accede to the request.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "than" ["wages at not less than the minimum rate"], to insert the words "5s. per day, if that workman is engaged for fixed wages, and not less than 2s. per day if the workman is a boy, and in all other cases at not less than"

This Amendment raises a very great and vital issue. I wish to say at the outset that it has nothing to do with either Socialism or Syndicalism. I am neither a Socialist nor a Syndicalist. I have not been got at by them nor held up by them. Undoubtedly if this Amendment were inserted in the Bill it would mean that the miners would be back to work at the very earliest opportunity. I regret very much that, in the circumstances, no assurance can be given that that will be the case. Those who have miner constituents, as I have, composing an important but by no means a predominant part of the constituency, or those who have not such constituents but who have gone fairly into this question, must be aware of this: that if we can only insert 5s. a day for the fixed day wages, and 2s. a day for the boys, that would bring the miners back to work at once. That would attain the object for which this Bill is introduced. That is my first and chief reason for moving this Amendment. But there are other reasons. I was struck, as I believe the whole House was yesterday, by the speeches from the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Enoch Edwards) and the hon. Member for South Glamorgan (Mr. Brace), speeches which I venture to say, in weight and dignity, in moderation and eloquence, are rarely equalled in this House. The direct appeal of both those speeches was that we should insert these two amounts as the fixed points of the minimum wage in the Bill. I think I may say that the attitude of the leaders of the coal strike, the men who are able to speak with most authority in this House, and indeed anywhere, for the miners, is that they are ready to accept this Bill and go back to work if they can have these fixed points in the minimum wage. I shall be met by the argument that the minimum wage is a dangerous doctrine, that the Bill itself is dangerous, but that to put fixed sums into the Bill makes it still more dangerous. In that connection, in many employments we have already a minimum wage. Our sailors, our soldiers, the whole of our Civil Service, the whole of our municipal service is based upon the principle of a minimum wage. The minimum wage is fixed in all these services, and if a man is not worth that he is not employed. On the other hand, if a post is open they do not go about to find the cheapest man they can for the job. They announce a minimum wage for that employment and only recently we have had a great demand put forward by another and generally conservative class of society in connection with this minimum wage. I refer to the doctors under the Insurance Act. We have seen a great and united movement of doctors arising to get a minimum wage for their work, and how has that demand been met by hon. Members opposite? The hon. Member (Mr. Hewins) yesterday stated that the introduction of this Bill was something far more revolutionary, dangerous and ominous than even the introduction of Tariff Reform, because it is the introduction of the minimum wage and the very men who are stating that are supporting the doctors in their proposal to get a minimum wage for their work under the Insurance Act. Let us, therefore, on both sides of the House rid ourselves of cant for one day at any rate. Let us realise that after all the minimum wage is only another way of saying that a man who works is worthy of his hire.

I think this is a speech which should have been made yesterday. I hope Members of the Committee will support me in not reverting to the Second Reading.

With absolute respect I return to the point. Seriously, we must all realise that this Amendment is one of the most serious in the Bill. We shall be met by its being stated that there will be a difficulty in carrying this simple Amendment into operation, for this reason, which anyone who knows anything about the coalfields is aware of, that in many places houses are given at less than the economic rent, and in many places coal is given to the families of miners either gratis or at a very reduced price, and it will be urged that the fixing of a minimum rate will cause dislocation, difficulties and doubt in connection with these arrangements. I fully realise that, and I shall be prepared, if the Amendment is carried, to propose arrangements later on by which that difficulty can be met. The greatest argument in favour of the Amendment is that it would satisfy the miners, and it would assure them that we are fair and do not wish to get any advantage for the mine owners or for the community out of this trouble, and above all, that it would bring the miners back to work at the earliest possible moment.

I listened with attention to my hon. Friend, but I confess with not so much illumination as I am in the habit of receiving from his speeches. I did not gather that he laid down any grounds either of fact or argument for the particular figure which he proposes to insert in the Bill. Quite apart from his observations, this is undoubtedly a point of considerable substance, though more importance is attached, particularly by those who represent the miners interests, to these figures, than they really deserve. Speaking for myself with such knowledge as I possess—I do not claim! to have more than other people—on a very technical matter, I should certainly be disposed to think that these figures of 2s. and 5s. were reasonable figures. In Scotland, where the matter has recently been the subject of an agreement entered into between masters and men, I think I am right in saying that the minimum for boys is 3s. and the minimum for men is 6s.

That is the average.

I think that is the hewers.

I am informed by the Scottish coal owners that that is not the case. The average rate in the mine is 6s. It is not the minimum but the average.

At any rate the boys get a minimum of 3s. As I say, to an outsider that does not look like an excessive wage when we remember the conditions under which the work is carried on and its exacting character, and the perils to which persons working underground are exposed. But these very considerations lead me to the conclusion that when a matter of this kind is brought, as it will be under the Bill, to the consideration of the District Board with a perfectly impartial Chairman, the probability is enormous, overwhelming, as far as one can forecast probabilities in this matter—of course one cannot give assurances or make promises, but the probabilities are enormous that the boys' wages will not be lower than 2s., and except where local conditions prevail in the case of the men, it is very unlikely to be fixed at less than 5s. That will be my forecast of the probabilities of the case under the Bill as it stands, but I must go a good deal further than that. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the Government, it is undesirable to name a figure in the Bill, and I say that in the interests of all parties concerned. In the first place, as we have become more and more conscious in the course of these recent discussions, the conditions of our coal mining industry are so complex and so various that it is quite-impossible for any central authority to name, even as regards any particular area, still less as regards the country in general, a particular rate of wages for a particular class of work. I do not believe Parliament is equipped with the information or the materials which would enable it to come to anything more than a highly conjectural speculative conclusion upon a point such as that. I myself, in the course of the last three or four weeks, have been immersed more or less in the details of this matter and very soon came to the conclusion that as regards wages in general the only possible way of dealing with them was by referring them to a local body armed with local knowledge and dealing specifically with the special conditions of the area. I say that on general grounds, but I say, further, that I am not disposed lo set the precedent of fixing a figure of wages in an Act of Parliament. That is not at all involved in any way in the purpose and scope of this Bill, the restricted objects of which I explained in introducing the measure, and which were emphasised by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary last night. I am not disposed to enter upon that experiment. I want to point out to my hon. Friends who represent the miners the peculiar dangers which the adoption of this proposal might lead to. If you once put in an Act of Parliament as expressing the considered judgment of Parliament a particular figure, say 5s., as a fair minimum wage for a particular class of workmen, you may depend upon it that would be treated as a maximum and as an indication that that Parliament thought it fair and right, and you would have enormous difficulty when the matter came before the other tribunal, and when comparisons were made between that wage and the wage of other classes of workmen, in persuading that tribunal that they should entertain any other figure than 5s. I think it would be very disastrous to the interest of the men themselves.

There is another point of view which affects the men, and which, I think, also affects the general community. It is this. If you once put a figure like this into an Act of Parliament, is it not perfectly clear to those of us who know about electioneering that it must become the subject of agitation—I do not want to use offensive phrases—and of bidding and counter-bidding in constituencies where a particular class of workers are affected? It is the most natural thing in the world to go to a constituency and say, "Well, 5s. is not enough, suppose we say 6s." I am afraid we would get the competition of rival bidders who conscientiously believed that they had not taken a figure in excess of what the trade would bear. That would have most demoralising results. These seem to me to be two very serious considerations, so serious that the Government is unable to accept this Amendment. We have from the first maintained, and we shall continue to maintain, a definite and perfectly intelligible position, namely, that we ought to get Parliament to give legislative recognition of the principle of a Statutory wage, subject to proper safeguards, and that the mode for the ascertainment of the amount, and the developing of proper safeguards, should be left to the only set of people who are really competent to perform such a task, namely, a local representative body under the guidance, if need be, of an impartial and independent Chairman. There you will get the flexibility which everybody thinks to be necessary, and in regard to most classes of wages you will get the local knowledge of which this House and the Government are necessarily deficient or only partially possessed. You will get impartiality in the final decision, and you will get, I believe, the most absolute security to the miners of this country of what they desire—the ensuring that no man will be employed at a minimum wage "which is not reasonable and adequate, having regard to the dangers of the occupation.

The right hon. Gentleman has opposed the Amendment on theoretical grounds, and I may say that as regards nearly everything he said I entirely agree with him. But there are practical grounds on which we can view the Amendment, and looking at it on these grounds, we cannot possibly agree with the hon. Member who says that a 5s. minimum wage for everyone who works underground should be established. One of the practical objections to that view is this. In a great many of the mines of this country it is impossible that that wage could be paid. It is therefore not desirable that the owner should be called upon to pay a wage of that description on economic grounds, because consequently he might be unable to open and work the mines which are at his disposal. This is the economic argument to which I wish to call the attention of the House-There are economic laws which this House cannot possibly get over. However much we might wish to lay down a minimum wage for men engaged in a particular kind of work, if that work cannot foe done at a profit, then the mines will go out of operation, and a great deal of unemployment will ensue. There are many hon. Gentlemen in this House who have not considered the question from that point of view. There, is, for example, the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division (Sir A. Markham), for whom I have great respect, and, if I may say so, great admiration, because he has taken time by the forelock and in all the mining operations in which he has been engaged he has introduced modern improvements and endeavoured to bring up his mines to a state of efficiency which must command our admiration. But that is not so in the case of mines all over the country.

It is impossible in some mines all over the country to bring them up to the standard we would like to see. The reason is this. With a minimum wage of too great a character and under the conditions by which coal owners are hampered, it would mean that many of these mines must go out of operation altogether. I wish the House to realise that when this is done the output of coal will be greatly reduced, and a great many will be able to pay the minimum wage by means of their reduced output and the increase in the price of coal, which must inevitably fall upon the consumer. That is a point I should like the House to consider. I do not think it was put forward in its entirety upon the Second Reading of the Bill yesterday. It is a matter of economics, which we must consider in all its aspects. When the hon. Member opposite (Mr. King) rises in his place and from philanthropic motives says that every individual who works underground should receive a minimum of 5s. per day, my answer is that I entirely agree. I should like everyone who works underground to get a minimum of 5s., but owing to economic conditions it is an absolute impossibility. We heard a great deal yesterday of the policy which, we understand, is being put forward in different parts of the country by different individuals who desire to see a system established which must destroy all profits. That is the system which is known as Syndicalism. I do not propose on this occasion to discuss that question, nor should I be in order in doing so, but as it touches the matter now before the Committee very closely I should like to say that I wish hon. Members in all parts of the House who are not acquainted with mining conditions to understand that this is a question of economics, and if you are going to establish a minimum wage of too high a degree, it means that you are going to drive out of operation a great many mines that are being worked at the present moment. The result will be that those owners who remain in the trade will be able to pay the minimum wage, to reduce output, and to put up the price of coal to the community, and that will bring about a great deal of hardship and misery that does not exist at the present moment.

I am sure that the House is delighted to find that the Noble Lord has discovered that if the burdens upon the colliers are too heavy, then, owing to the operation of natural economic causes, the collieries will require to be closed. The royalty owners of this country have not hitherto—

I may point out that these remarks would be more appropriate on a Second Reading.

May I put my argument in this way? We are told that it is impossible for the industry to stand a minimum wage of 5s. a day. We are informed that as the result of natural economic causes, if this House decides that that must be the minimum wage in future, the result will be that a large number of collieries will be closed, and a great deal of suffering will be the result. I hope that I am not out of order in pointing out that collieries have been conducted in this country without profit for a great number of years, the royalty owners insisting that their minimum should be paid whether there was a profit to the coal owner or not, and whether the wages paid to the workers were fair wages or sweated wages. I do suggest that it is for the House to consider that what is possible for a royalty owner, a minimum income, ought to be possible for the miner who is engaged in this arduous work. After all we can conduct the collieries of the country without the royalty owners. That is possible. But we cannot conduct the collieries of the country without the workmen. That is impossible. I do suggest that when you are approaching the question of minimum, you are entitled to contrast the minimum which has been demanded by the royalty owners with the modest minimum which is now required. On the broad general question, I am sure this House listened with the very greatest respect last night to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary, that it is difficult, if not impossible, for this House to take a schedule of prices varying from 4s. 11d. to 7s. 1d., and, without variation and examination, to accept it and include it in the Bill. There is great force in the argument that that is a matter which could not be decided by this House with its present information, and that it is naturally a matter for inquiry in the various districts. But I do submit that the question of the day workman is in an entirely different category. The question whether a reasonable living wage for a man is 5s. a day, or a smaller amount, is a question which this Committee can decide as well as any District Wages Board in this country or anywhere else. That particular question is not a question for local investigation. We have been told over and over again, and it has not been contradicted, that on an average the miners in this country work four and a half days the week. [HON. MEMBERS: "Five."] The difference is not much. In the one case a man would earn 22s. 6d. a week and in the other case he would earn 25s. I submit to this House that without further examination, without any inquiry by a wages board, it is not unreasonable to say that any man who undertakes this arduous and dangerous work is entitled to a wage of 7½d. an hour for every hour when he is engaged down in the mines, and amounting in the aggregate to 22s. 6d. or 25s. for the week, even if the man is in full employment all the year round. Therefore I submit that this question is on an entirely different basis from the question of schedule of rates with varying circumstances and conditions. This is a question which the House itself may fairly and reasonably determine. When it is suggested that it is dangerous to take a particular figure, I would suggest that this figure is not unduly high and that it is not more dangerous than to deal with the the question of minimum at all. Dealing with the question of minimum has been the subject of acute controversy. There is a great deal to be said on both sides. But the House has made up its mind with regard to that. Having done so, it does seem to me that the House would be well advised in taking a further step and saying that it is not unreasonable to grant the figures which my lion. Friend proposes.

Since I entered the House and have heard speeches by various Members I cannot consider that this House considers that 5s. is too high a figure or that 2s. is too high a figure. But whether this House believes it or not the rejection of this suggestion will carry that impression to the miners of the country. I repeat that, whether this House believes it or not, it will carry that impression to thousands of men who are struggling for this principle. I had hoped that we should find the Government agree to these two things. The Federation are charged with seeking to swallow all the profits of the industry. From my place I repudiate any such suggestion. It has never been discussed. What has been discussed is that a boy entering a pit at fourteen is entitled to 2s., and that a man working in a pit is entitled to 5s. I defy any man to stand up in this House and say that either figure is unjust, unfair, extravagant, or unreasonable. It must be borne in mind that we have a great industrial struggle between two parties. Our side have not asked that this should be settled by Act of Parliament, and to refuse to recognise the points where there is the least difference, the least ground for difference, the least room for difference, between anybody is a very serious matter indeed. I had great hopes last night that the Bill, including those two features, would commend itself to the good sense of both sides. I am seriously afraid that we are running a risk which may be costly in saying what, after all, it is so difficult to explain to anybody, that there is any ground of any sort for refusing to acknowledge that 5s. a day is at any rate a figure below which a grown man of experience working day after day in those particular classes should not be asked to work.

I was more than hopeful that this House would realise, in these days, that 2s. a day for boys of fourteen, engaged in this industry, is a very proper thing for that class of labour, with all its risks. I decline to draw any sort of picture before this House of the horrors of the miners' calling, of which we are accustomed to hear. I would prefer that the House should face the fact that in this industry, which is surrounded with these difficulties and dangers men are asked to toil, and are expected to perform this work for this minimum wage. Unless it be suggested that there may be general malingering, it may be said that the figures proposed would be realised. That may be the reply to me. If that is so, where is the objection If this House believes, honestly believes, that the committees under independent chairmen will give that figure, what is our position then? Surely no one will deny the fact that the great mass of men who look at this question do not now regard it, not as they did three months ago, nor as they did a month ago, after the great fight and severe struggle through which they have passed, and it should be very difficult to convince them that this House does not believe that men working below ground are deserving of 5s., and the lads of 2s., a day. But the great mass of men who cannot be brought; under direct influence at this moment, will form the conclusion, in their little cottages, in their smoke rooms, and in the groups formed at street corners—if this proposal be rejected—that the opinion of this House is dead against paying 5s. a day for men and 2s. for boys. I am trying to put to the House what will be the impression of these men. In the case of these crowds of workers, we cannot get near them to advise them, and we cannot accept responsibility for what may arise when, with the discussion of this House before them in the Press, they find it has been decided that 5s. a day cannot be paid to men and that 2s. a day cannot be paid to boys. I say it is a most regrettable incident, and closes the door which did appear yesterday to be open, for a settlement immediately.

This will not shake my particular desire for a settlement, but surely I am entitled to put to the House that by the rejection of the proposal the position is made a thousand times more difficult. I am entitled, I think, to ask the House to reflect and consider before this door is closed, with all that it means. I am not going to enter into economic reasons, not for a moment. You cannot enter into economic reasons with a million of men, and a few other millions, as to the amount of the day's wages—not at this hour of the day. It seems to me such a small thing, I say that with all due respect to everybody who hears me, to establish a two shilling rate for boys and a five shilling rate for men, and so enable us to give to these crowds of workers some sort of assurance that at any rate the principle for which they are fighting is not to be treated in an offhand manner by an actual refusal to recognise these two things on which there is so much agreement between thousands of men and of employers I do appeal to the House to reconsider what is going to be the effect, if the House refuses, on the lowest rung of the ladder lo endorse the 5s. and the 2s. I repeat that I sincerely trust that the House will reconsider the matter and give us, at any rate, some hope of getting this business through.

I am bound to say that, in common, I am sure, with every other Member of the House, I have listened to what the hon. Member has said with the utmost sympathy, and I will go further and say that if the men for whom he has spoken will lead the reports of the Debate in this House, they will not be able to say that there is one Member of this House, wherever he sits, who would not be glad to see at least 5s. paid to every miner who goes down I he mines. I am sure, also, that the House thoroughly understands the difficult position in which the hon. Member himself is placed. He has told us that he is not one of those who desire to destroy private property by taking away all the profits of the mines. I am sure that is true. Without going into the big general question which has made this whole business so difficult, I am inclined to say to the hon. Gentleman that in reality we who are fighting against the very demand which he is compelled to make are now fighting his battle as well as our own. That brings us to the whole ground on which I, for one at least, under the conditions in which the industry is carried on in this country, think it is impossible to fix any minimum rate of wages to give the miners a living wage without running the risk that by so doing you will give a living to some men who are employed and take away all the wages from other men in the same employ. That is the reason, under the present conditions, why it seems impossible to put such a scale. I would point out to the hon. Member what seems to me to knock the bottom out of his whole argument. They themselves in their Schedule have fixed 4s. 11d. as a limit in some of the districts. They have done that after consideration. They realised there are a number of cases where the mines will not stand even as high a wage as 5s. That is the whole case, but there is something different in the claim in this case from the point of view of a minimum wage from almost every other industry in the country. That trade can stand such a wage better than most others. When hon. and right hon. Gentleman speak of this question as if there was a contest between masters and men they are entirely mistaken. I heard the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mansfield (Sir A. Markham) last night point out that he was not influenced in any way by personal considerations in being in favour of a living wage. I am sure that is true, but I never suspect any Member of this House of being influenced by money considerations so much as by other considerations which affect all of us. But the fact remains that if I were the owner of a mine with all modern appliances and with the best seam of coal, instead of losing by fixing the minimum which would close other mines I should actually gain by the process, and if I were thinking only of my own interests I would welcome such a settlement, because I would have the perfect certainty that the price of coal would be based not on the cost price of the best pit, but on the average cost price of only the pits supplying the demand.

I am perfectly certain if as the result of this Bill, and I am afraid it will be the result, in spite of the settlement, you do raise the cost of coal, you are injuring all the men who are now working in mines which will be closed. But it is more serious than that, because coal is, to a certain extent, a monopoly and must be had for every industry, and because there is no possibility of competition outside. The effect of this is that every addition to the price of coal means an addition to the cost of production of every article in this country, and the giving of a reasonable wage to miners, which we should all like to see, may be the taking away of any wage from vast masses of the people of the country who depend on the reasonable price of coal. This is not at all a question, and I am sure everyone realises it, of want of sympathy with the men who ate working at those rates. My own feeling in all these subjects is really that we should always have in our minds the deplorable condition of vast masses of our fellow countrymen in this country, and that we should always keep that in our minds, but that we should never bring it to the surface unless we see some really tangible method of improving their condition, and that we should never use it as a means of gaining cheap sympathy or support for our own views. There is no one who has taken the trouble, which I have taken for the last few days and weeks, to try to find out what are the conditions of this trade who does not know that there are some mines today which in competition with others cannot be kept open even if a very low minimum wage were given. I am quite prepared to agree with what was said by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs last night, that there are circumstances where the conditions of the people are so bad and where they are such a disgrace to our civilisation that, in spite of the effects, it is worth our while to run the risk of taking away the employment rather than allow such a condition of things to continue. I really think that is true, though it is a very debatable point. For that reason I supported the minimum wage in regard to sweated industries. I do not think there is the slightest doubt that there are some mines which could not stand even a low minimum wage and continue. For those reasons, which I am sure the House will realise are not from any lack of sympathy with the views of the hon. Member who has just spoken, and also because the Government could not possibly have taken any other line, though I have no special wish, I need not say, to make it easy for them, it is perfectly evident they could not agree to this, for every one of the Ministers who has dealt with the subject has pointed out, the basis of it is that there must be an examination to see whether or not the trade will stand the compulsion which the House is going to impose on it. To depart from that now would have been utterly impossible to any self-respecting Government. They could not have done so. For this reason, as well as the others to which I have referred, I shall vote with the Government on the Amendment.

This is not a question of whether 5s. or 2s. is enough. The hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. E. Edwards) refrained from referring to the horrors and the difficulties of the trade, but I am sure that those horrors and those difficulties will be in the minds of the men and of the masters and of the Boards, and especially in the minds of the chairmen of the Boards when they are locally dealing with these matters. My impression is that in the enormous majority of cases the minimum fixed will be above the 5s. and above the 2s. "Then," the hon. Member says, "why not put it in the Bill?" I think the reasons for not putting it in the Bill are overwhelming. What is the principle of the Bill. The principle of the Bill is not to fix the minimum wage, but to set up a tribunal which will fix the minimum wage and then to support the decision of that tribunal. That is as different as chalk from cheese for this House fixing the definite figures which should be paid in any industry. We are quite capable here of deciding what would be a suitable tribunal to decide the wage, but we are not a capable body to decide what that particular figure should be in each locality. I agree that 5s. and 2s. are eminently reasonable, far too reasonable; but there are special cases, and in some of those special cases, it may be necessary, as the miners themselves in their own Schedule indicated, to depart from that minimum, and those cases are precisely the ones that ought to be settled locally and by the men, who have local knowledge.

The Leader of the Opposition was perfectly right when he suggested that there is a substantial risk in some localities of closing some pits. If that has to be done, it must be done, but let it be decided locally by the men and the masters closely interested in the matter. Do not let Parliament do it over their heads. It is a very serious thing, and a serious thing for the men in particular in those localities where the seams are thin and the quality of the coal poor. I do not say they cannot pay 5s., but I do say let the men and the masters there settle whether they can or not. What does it mean to those miners? They cannot move away very easily; their families are employed in other industries in the locality. They are tied there, and it is a serious thing to involve them in the risk of unemployment. Therefore I say let them settle it locally.

That is the principle of the Bill. There is one other point, and it has not been mentioned before. I do not agree with those who say that this is a temporary expedient for this trade only. We are taking a new departure. This principle is bound to be extended, and personally I have no objection to it whatever. It was my fortune to be chairman of the Committee which investigated the conditions of labour in the Sweated Industries and to draft the Report of that Committee which was the first recommendation in this country for the adoption of the minimum wage. I felt, when drafting a paragraph in that Report recommending a minimum wage, that it meant a departure which would be followed, and I did it with a full sense of my own personal responsibility in the matter. It is inevitable that this principle of fixing a minimum wage should be extended to other industries. If you do it in oils trade, you will have to do it in another. The principle of the Bill is that the men and the masters, with an independent chairman, should in their respective localities fix the minimum wage, and that should be the policy in the future with all these other trades. To depart from that principle now would, in my judgment, be fatal. We did not recommend it in our Report on the sweated industries, and this House, when it passed the Sweated Industries Bill, did not fix a minimum wage for these industries. I am the last to underrate the hardships and the dangers of the coal miners' lot, but I do say there was in the sweated industries of this country even a stronger case for fixing a minimum wage by putting an amount in the Bill, if you fix it at all. We did not fix it for the sweated industries where some of them were earning 2d. and 1½d. per hour, and less, though the case was stronger there than here.

Is it stronger than where boys in the mines earn nothing today?

I was not aware of that.

You know nothing about that then.

I was not aware there were boys in mines earning nothing, but I cannot believe that in any industry where the men and the masters meet together with an independent chairman they will ever decide that the boys should work for nothing. I cannot believe it for one moment. I admit I was not aware they earned nothing, tout, however hard and difficult and dangerous the lot of the coal miners, there were conditions in the sweated industries which were even worse, and, in dealing with those sweated industries, we did not fix the actual figure. It is not that we do not want them to have a minimum wage and a good wage. The difference is merely as to the method of fixing that wage, and I think it is very essential indeed the figure should be fixed in the locality by the masters and men, who are the persons who have the knowledge of the conditions in that locality.

I should not have risen if the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Enoch Edwards) had not said he did not think any Member would rise in this House and say these rates were not reasonable. I could not help thinking of his own Amendment staring him in the face on the last page of the Paper:—

"Minimum Rates of Wages per Day for Workmen not paid by the piece in all districts with the exception of Bristol, Somerset, and the Forest of Dean:

For men	…	…	…	5s.
For boys	…	…	…	2s.

The Joint District Boards shall have power to define the age when a boy becomes a man."

By the way, it is remarkable this Amendment should be moved by a Member for Somersetshire, which is excluded from the operation of this particular rate by the wish of the miners themselves. All the masters can say in answer is that if the miners after due consideration think those three districts ought to be eliminated from this general practice, then surely it is possible these Boards, when they discuss the rate fully and impartially, may discover there are other instances in England, Scotland, and Wales which come under the same category as those the miners themselves have put forward. I think I may speak for the coal owners and say that on this point they take up entirely the attitude taken up by the Prime Minister this afternoon. They say, "We are perfectly ready to place the figures before these Boards for them to decide. It is not for us to say whether 2s. or 5s. is a fair rate. What we do is to place our figures before the Board and let them judge, and, if they judge such rates are proper rates, then we shall accept them." That is the attitude we have taken throughout on all these points, whether for the hewers, the day wagers, or the boys, and it is because we are glad the Government have so consistently adhered to that attitude that we are grateful to the Prime Minister for his speech this afternoon.

I must say I am extremely sorry the Government have taken up the attitude they have on this matter. I can perfectly well understand people opposing a minimum wage, but it seems to me, when once you grant the principle of a minimum wage, it is something like mockery to say to the men you are going to give no sort of definition as to how the minimum wage is to be ascertained. The Amendment asks the House to lay down what is the lowest amount on which a man can reasonably be expected to engage in this class of work, and I want to show why I think the figures suggested might be accepted by the House as suitable for the purpose. My hon. Friend has already shown that for a miner 5s. a day practically means a wage of from 22s. 6d. to 25s. a week. I have here the result of an inquiry made by a man whose authority everyone accepts, Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, published in the "Contemporary Review" of last September, as to what constitutes a reasonable wage to secure physical efficiency for a man in work. He goes very carefully into the figures as to what would be the absolute minimum on which a family of five, paying 5s. per week for rent, could be maintained in a state of physical efficiency. He works it out that if you take a dietary more stringently economical than any workhouse in England and Wales, containing no butcher's meat, and bacon only three times in a week, where margarine is substituted for butter, and where porridge and skimmed milk figures largely in place of the usual tea and bread and butter, you cannot provide a family of five with the nutriment necessary for physical efficiency for less than 13s. 9d. a week. He goes on to take up the other figures, and he finally arrives at 23s. 8d. as the absolute minimum on which a family of five can maintain a state of physical efficiency.

Perhaps the hon. Member will not pursue that point. We are not now discussing what is a reasonable living wage. That would be quite outside the scope of the present Amendment. The question is whether it is desirable or practicable to insert a figure in the Bill.

With great respect, I am arguing what figure it is desirable to fix, and as to whether the House is in a position to arrive at a figure. I should have thought that this House was in a position to state whether or not 5s. a day was a reasonable figure for each man working at this class of work to maintain physical efficiency. If the House cannot do that the House is not able to arrive at a resolution of any sort in a matter of this kind. It seems to me it is well within the competence of this House to consider what is a reasonable figure to lay down, and that the figure suggested by this Amendment is the very least that we can reasonably decide upon. It is a matter as to whether we should put, in any figure at all. I do not think this Bill is of any practical use to miners unless we decide how this figure shall be arrived at. For that reason if my hon. Friend goes to a Division I shall certainly support him.

I want to appeal to those Members who have; been influenced perhaps too much by the sympathetic, eloquent, and very fair speeches of the miners' representatives on this question of the 5s. There are at the present time—and I am very proud as a Somerset Member to say so—actually three mines working in Somerset. One cannot say too much for the courage, independence, and consideration of the miners working there. They are working mines which might be called uneconomic mines, containing thin seams of poor coal. Theme men are probably the only ones working in the country to supply the country's needs. If this 5s. is passed these mines will be closed; they must be closed. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not necessarily."] Those mines to-day could only keep going on at the low wage—[An HON. MEMBER: "Starving the workman!"]—that the worker is content to receive.

What are the royalties?

Hon. Members opposite, some of them, know as much of trade unions as I do, and they know quite well that if an unfair wage is being paid in any district, Somerset or elsewhere, that skilled workmen will go and get employment elsewhere. If these men are content in Somerset to go on working then they have no right to be penalised, and it is not right that employers should be forced to close the mines. If the fixing of a minimum wage—I want to impress this upon hon. Members on both sides—would mean closing these pits and the loss of livelihood to these loyal and unselfish workers, what would be the general effect of a minimum of 5s.? Every employer of labour, or trade union leader, knows, or should know, that where at the present time a man who is in a bad pit with difficulty can only earn 5s., on piece-work, if this minimum wage of 5s. is fixed, whether he works hard or not, there will not be sufficient inducement to that miner to keep up the high pressure nor would there be to men in any other occupation. Without inducement, the worker will go slow.

Does the hon. Member know that our proposal will exempt the very places he is speaking of in Somerset, Bristol, and the Forest of Dean?

It is evident that the hon. Member has not read his own Amendment.

Yes, it is here.

If the hon. Member will be good enough to read it he "will see that the minimum wage fixed there is 4s. 11d. That is lower than the subject of this Amendment. But my point is this. It is a point that some Members of the House do not realise. Whatever you fix, if you fix the minimum high enough, you will reduce the output in all those cases by, it may be, 23 or it may be 50 per cent. That will be the effect of the 5s.

It is not a piece rate.

My point is this—may I repeat it? If this House passes the 5s. rate it will result in an enormous increase in the cost of coal. It will mean the throwing out of employment of many men and the closing of many mines. It will mean a serious tax upon the rest of the community, and simply for the benefit of one well-organised class, who have the power, I am sorry to say, of forcing their will upon a reluctant Government.

I would like to remove from the mind of the hon. Member who has just sat down, before I proceed to my main point, a misapprehension as to the attitude of the representatives of the Labour party. This is not our Amendment which is being discussed. The Amendment that we intend to move upon this subject will be found upon the last page of the Order Paper. We propose to ask the Government to include the whole of the proposed Schedule of the particular districts in the Bill, but especially to exempt those particular provisions that we are dealing with at the present time; so that we are not responsible for the present Amendment. Other hon. Gentlemen, who, perhaps, know more about it, have stepped in and moved this Amendment. Hence the general Debate. I would like to make as strongly as I can an appeal to-the right hon. Gentleman who represents the Government at the present moment for a reconsideration of this matter. I listened to the Prime Minister with profound regret. I remember reading some years ago a speech by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in which he said, that "the House of Commons never did anything obviously heroic or conspicuously wise." In dealing with this great question at the present moment I have been prepared, and have given, the Prime Minister and his colleagues all the commendation that was possible for one man to give for the splendid manner in which they have tried to bring to an end the awful state of this country.

Having, however, decided to bring it to an end by laying down the principle of the minimum wage to be paid at the collieries, they surely ought to take the heroic step of giving some guidance to the people who will have all the difficulties to contend against when this Bill has passed through the House. Personally, I shall be in the position of bottle-holder to the hon. Member for South Glamorgan (Mr. Brace) and the hon. Baronet who sits behind me (Sir A. Markham) when these matters are being discussed in South Wales, and I shall be without any guiding principle at all, simply having the pious opinion of the House of Commons that some minimum shall be paid. Yesterday afternoon, and for some days past, representatives of the colliers, men doing the actual work too, have been in the precincts of the House. I was with them part of the time when one Noble Lord after another got up to speak. When these names were seen on the indicator the colliers, quite innocently, asked, "What does he know about the matter?" My only reply was that "that Noble Lord" or "that hon. Member" were "great on economics." But this is not an economic question at all. This is a humanitarian question, and a question of services rendered. I would say to those hon. Gentlemen who do not know anything about it, and to Noble Lords opposite who do not know quite sufficient about it, that I do not ask them to go down the colliery and see these men At work; but I do ask of any hon. Member who is going to cast a vote upon this occasion that he should have some knowledge of what we are asking for, and it would be sufficient for them if they would see these men going to work at three, four, five, or six o'clock in the morning, going through snow and storms of various kinds, to the pits and spending eight hours down there. I think that would be sufficient knowledge to lead them to believe, or at any rate to enlighten hon. Members to see, that 5s. per day is not too much to pay to a man who renders such services to the nation.

What is the class of men to whom the particular principle of our proposals applies? I am not going to deal with the question of 2s. for boys at all. If we are going to put a figure in this Bill at all, I think 2s. for boys will be accepted by all hon. Members, but this 5s. minimum as applied to men is for a class of men who are least able to take care of themselves. They are generally strong, robust men whom the colliery owners get hold of from the agricultural districts, and they do not perform the least arduous work in the mines, although it is not skilled work, but it is not the skilled man who always works the hardest; he generally gets the lightest end of it in all occupations. These men, who often do the hardest and most arduous toil in the mines, do it in the most difficult places; and it is one of the most difficult parts of our mining industry. They are sent into these places chiefly at night, where there is often a want of ventilation, because it is not able to reach those further parts, and there is a very high temperature. We do say that it is not too much to ask the House of Commons to provide that men who do work like this should be given a wage of 5s. a day. They are not a very large percentage of the total number of men employed. Speaking for South Wales, I think the number of those who are at present in receipt of less than a day would be possibly from ten to twelve thousand. I want the House to remember that it is not dealing with an economic question. These men are chiefly employed in the poorer collieries of South Wales. I made that statement outside in the presence of the gentlemen who own the collieries, and I repeat it here. It is not an economic question at all in South Wales. The men who pay the highest wages in South Wales are the men who are most susceptible to pressure from the workmen's organisation. The man who owns a small colliery, though it is inferior coal, when he finds the miners' organisation pressing him for a decent wage, is compelled to pay it because he cannot afford to fight them, but those great combines and trusts, which we are hearing so much about, these are the people who are paying those small rates m South Wales. I ask the Government to give to the Boards who will have this matter to deal with some guide, at least as far as South Wales is concerned, and to say that no man shall be expected to go down those mines and work at less than 5s. a day.

As I understand this problem, the whole of it is an attempt to bring to an end the peculiar and, I hope, unique state of things in this country, where all the industries of the country are being more or less paralysed and killed by the cessation of work by the miners. Surely in this House it is not too much, if we say this, and I say it with a conscientious belief on my own part, that this is one of the most important factors which will operate as to whether this thing is to end or not. I am not going to commit myself by saying it is the only one, but I do say, and knowing the miners as I do, and having been in their deliberations from beginning to end that this is one of the most important factors that will operate in determining whether the attempt of the Government to end this matter is going to be successful—I suppose some time or other it must be successful, but I say relatively—whether at the present time it is going to bring this state of affairs to a speedy termination. An hon. Gentleman on this side said, and it is one of the things chiefly used against this proposition, that if you do it in this industry you must do it in other industries. I say at once, why not? If it is successful, why not? If it is not successful it will have damned itself, and there will be no further peddling about it. If it is successful, why not apply it to the whole of the industries in this country? What is the principle which you are asked to apply? Not that the men should get a reasonable living wage, as an hon. Member tried to put into the Bill, not that they are going to live luxuriously, but simply laying down the principle that men are entitled to live as a result of their labour, and that is all you are doing in this Bill. I say, notwithstand- ing the danger there may be that other people will want to follow in the footsteps of the miners, there is no real reason why the House should not do it in this case. I think I made it perfectly clear that we are prepared to accept the limitation with respect to some of the districts which are already proposed in our Amendment. This will stand if the Government are going to reconsider this matter and put the 5s. and 2s. in the Bill.

I do not know whether I would be in order, but I would like to point out as the Member for East Somerset (Mr. Jardine) has already indicated that 4s. 11d is already in the Schedule or Somerset and Bristol. I do not know whether there is much difference between that and the 5s. which is proposed in the Amendment. Whether you like it or not 4s. 11d. or 5s. will be too much for the district I represent. Take the case of Bristol. In Bristol last autumn the existing schedule of wages was settled. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor for the Duchy of Lancaster exercised considerable influence in that settlement, and the Board of Trade agreed that the wages should not be increased beyond the existing schedule if these collieries were to continue to work. The proposals of the Member for North Somerset, who represents a mining district, and the proposals which the miners' representatives made on 21st February, would have the same effect for the Bristol district and North Somerset. They would mean that the mines would have to be closed down. Considering the wages have been revised so recently in Bristol and Somerset it would be a great mistake for the Government now to accept this Amendment, and I am glad the Prime Minister does not intend to agree to any figures being inserted in the Bill.

An hon. Member has just said, quoting the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that Parliament was neither heroic nor wise. I think in this case it will be wise if not heroic. I do not see how we can pass the proposals which are embodied in this Amendment. We are told by the hon. Member that this proposal was based on humanitarian grounds. If that is so, then it ought to apply to all the districts laid down in the Schedule which it is proposed to add to the Bill. You cannot have it both ways, and either the 5s. minimum must be applied all round or it must not. This House has no right to lay down any particular figure. Surely hon. Members must have faith in the Boards to be set up and the impartiality of the chairmen who are going to preside over them. As far as the coal owners are concerned, they are prepared to accept that machinery for settling these disputes, and it is not fair that this House should be asked to go any further than this Bill goes in initiating the principle of the minimum wage. If this rate of 5s. is carried it upsets and infringes the agreement which has been entered into between the men and the owners in South Wales. We heard a good deal yesterday about that agreement, and the hon. Member for South Glamorgan, in his very eloquent speech, defended the action which had been taken in regard to the breaking of that agreement. I do not want to go back on the discussion of yesterday, but the facts of that agreement are plain and obvious to everyone. It took three months to prepare that agreement, and it was ballotted for by all the miners in the federated area of South Wales. It was also approved of by the Miners' Federation of Great Britain and signed by their representatives in South Wales. They now tell us that this question of abnormal places should have been dealt with in the agreement.

On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member in order in discussing that agreement, because we are now dealing with another question?

I think the hon. Member is going rather wide of this particular Amendment.

If this Amendment is agreed to it is a direct breach of the agreement in South Wales. The hon. Baronet the Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) pointed out yesterday that there is nothing in the Bill which encroaches on that agreement, but if this figure is put in it will raise the standard of 35 per cent, to 50 per cent., and that would be a direct infringement of the agreement. I do not think that is a course which hon. Members really wish to adopt. From the beginning hon. Members have been in favour of retaining that agreement, and they fought for it during the earlier part of the negotiations. I agree with all that has fallen from the Prime Minister in regard to this matter. If the House is going to adopt this particular figure, I fail to see how it can possibly reject similar applications in the future from railway workers, or even from agricultural labourers, for the fixing of a minimum wage. I very strongly urge the Government to adhere to their decision.

As an hon. Member who is exceedingly interested in the principle of this Bill, and most earnestly desirous of seeing it carried into law at the earliest possible moment, I rise to express the hope that the Government will not give way by inserting any figures into the Bill which they have brought before the House. My reason for objecting to the insertion of these figures is not one based upon any consequences which may follow when we have to discuss, on some subsequent date, other situations which may arise between employers and employed. My objection to these figures being inserted in this Bill at the present time is that the House has not got before it, and cannot possibly have before it, the materials upon which the figures ought to be arrived at; and, in the second place, to fix the figures will not be beneficial to those whom this Bill is proposing to benefit. Reference has been made to a series of figures which have been mentioned by those who represent the miners in this House. I think it is utterly impossible for this Committee to deal at this time with the question of the figures. I find here a number of districts to which varying considerations apply, and for which varying prices are suggested, and those prices differ from 4s. 11d. up to 7s. 6d.

I have not the slightest doubt that the Gentlemen who put forward those figures honestly believe that they are the right figures to be adopted in those particular districts. I am convinced, from what I know of them personally, that they are satisfied that those are the right figures. On the other hand, there are people who say they are not the right figures, and, therefore, you cannot decide without hearing both sides. It may be that some of those figures are too high and some are too low, but how can this Committee determine which is right and which is wrong. As the Prime Minister said, if you once fix the figure by Act of Parliament you will have the greatest difficulty in the world in ever getting that figure altered by anybody. If I may respectfully say so, the Bill seems to me to provide the fairest possible method for arriving at what the correct figure in each particular district ought to be. Instead of fixing it without a full knowledge of the whole of the circumstances, as we are asked to do by this Amendment and by other Amendments on the Paper, those Gentlemen who advocate these figures will be able to go to their District Boards and persuade the other members and the independent chairmen that their figures are right. I am prepared, for the purposes of my argument, to accept those figures, and I will assume that they are right. Even then we have no business to put them in the Bill without having more information about them. We have by this Bill provided the best means by which those figures, if correct, can be enforced in the various districts, and if not correct they can be amended so as to be just to all parties. I am sincerely anxious for the success of this Bill, and I do not think our hopes are likely to be realised if you introduce into the Bill the defect of having a Schedule which must be a subject of dispute and discussion between the parties, and upon which this House certainly is not in a position to give a final word.

Most hon. Members who have spoken have expressed agreement with the hon. Member for Hanley that 5s. per day is not too much for the men who work underground. This is the opinion practically unanimously held by hon. Members on both sides of the House, and yet we are told that it is not possible for us to give expression to the general view that 5s. is a standard wage for a day's work underground. If that is our view, it ought not to be difficult to put it into an Act of Parliament without carrying all those dangers foreseen by our opponents. I do not quite understand what the 5s. in the Amendment means. Unfortunately, in the colliery trade, the custom varies. Does the 5s. referred to in the Amendment include any rent? In many places coals are supplied free, and I want to know whether the 5s. suggested is to be the minimum wage for the man who has a house free, or is it for a man who has not a house free? [An HON. MEMBER: "They have free coals."] I shall come to that point later. I know that in some cases coal is supplied free, but in other cases the houses are free, and there are cases in which only nominal rents are charged. It is idle to pretend that giving a minimum wage of 5s. to a daily worker is the same as giving the same wage to a man with a free house, a cheap house, or a house at a nominal rent. I am aware that in some cases coal is given free, but in other places they have to buy their own coal, Sometimes at a cheaper rate and sometimes at the ordinary market price.

You have a variety of circumstances which must be dealt with by people who possess local knowledge. Having said that I do not think what I have stated relieves this House of the responsibility for fixing a standard wage. The hon. and learned Member opposite suggested that the Districts Boards should be left free to consider the local circumstances, but he wants them to start with nothing to guide thorn, while I want them to start with a standard wage fixed at the starting point. I think it is better to have something to guide them. In Bristol and some other districts which have been mentioned you can depend upon those acting with local knowledge to make such departures from the scale as may be necessary, but I do not think they ought to start without any guidance at all as the Bill stands at present, in the hope that they will arrive at some reasonable minimum. In any case the work of these District Boards will be very difficult, but it will be all the more difficult if this House does not lay down a general rule to guide them; therefore I appeal to the Government, after listening to the Prime Minister's speech and carefully weighing the arguments which he advanced, to consider whether it is not possible in a Schedule to this Bill to lay down some general rule in regard to the rates of wages, so that the arbitrator may have a standard laid down instead of entering into the arbitration with no guidance from Parliament that this House has declared that 5s. a day is a reasonable wage for men working underground. I think it is a confession of failure on the part of the House not to give some indication of that kind in the Bill itself.

I think the hon. Gentleman opposite has missed the principal point of our objection to this Amendment. If you are going to have a Wages Board set up to fix what the minimum wage is to be, you must leave to those Boards the whole question. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe is connected with business, and I think he will agree with me when I say that in any business settlement it is only right and fair that the Wages Board should have the fullest opportunity of deciding the actual minimum wage.

The narrower you can make the area the easier it is to arrive at such a division, because you can say it varies a little more or a little less than 5s.

If this Minimum Wage Board which is going to be set up in this Bill is going to be one which will arrive at a fair settlement, if you are going to embody a minimum amount of 5s. for men and 2s. for boys, you certainly ought to embody a proposal that the maximum should not be higher than a certain sum, otherwise it will be a one-sided settlement. If you are going to lay down that it shall not be less than a certain sum, you must also provide that it shall not be greater than a certain sum. Hon. Members below the Gangway have supported the Second Heading of this Bill, and if they support and accept the principle of setting up the Wages Board, then they must accept the principle that the Wages Board should be the people to decide what the minimum wage should be, otherwise it will not be a settlement at all. You will enormously increase the difficulties beforehand if you prejudice the case by saying that it shall not be less than a certain sum. I think this was pointed out with unanswerable force by the Prime Minister. There is a serious principle involved, and because the House accepts in a crisis the theory of a minimum wage that is no reason why we should go to the greater length of arbitrarily fixing the amount when we cannot judge what it should be under varying circumstances. The only result would be that if this principle is carried out you will eventually have to fix an arbitrary rule in the case of other trades. That must be a most serious thing, much more serious even than the acceptance by the House of the principle of the minimum wage. I would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite who are connected with great business enterprises if they do not think it is a most dangerous principle for the House arbitrarily to fix a rate in any trade. What have hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway to be afraid of in the case of the Wage Board? They have practically admitted in their speeches that these Wages Boards would be fair to them. They have not suggested that they will fix a wage which is not a living wage. We cannot escape the feeling, after listening to the speeches of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, that they are sticking to the principle not so much because they believe in it as because the representatives of the miners outside the House, I believe perfectly wrongly, have taken up this attitude. I do not think they themselves think there is such an important principle involved. It would be very interesting to know what has happened. As far as I can judge the Bill is wrecked by the refusal of the Government to accept this Amendment, a refusal which, I believe, will be endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the House. I think it would be very important, before we go to a Division, that we should hear from some hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway if that is the case. It will be more in the interests of business if Progress is reported. What is the use of further discussion?

I think I am expressing the opinion of a great many of my Liberal Friends that it is very like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel if, having established the principle of a minimum wage, you refuse to deal with this comparatively minor problem. The reasons which have been advanced by the Prime Minister, with all due respect, have been almost purely academic. He stated, and I do not presume to question the force of his observation from a purely economic point of view, that the tendency of fixing a minimum wage would be to make that minimum a maximum. He further stated, another purely academic objection, that if this minimum wage were fixed by Parliament there would be very grave danger that the miners, through their representatives, men like myself and my hon. Friends around me, would come back to the House and would endeavour to get that scale of wages altered to a higher level. I entirely decline to consider arguments of that kind as serious in face of the great contingency which confronts us. I have had communications from my Constituency, nearly the largest mining constituency in the country, to the effect that if the Government will meet us by making this concession it will be regarded as an assurance that the treatment by this House of the miners' proposals is sympathetic, and would facilitate the conclusion of a settlement involving the return of the workmen next week. I said straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. What do I mean by that? Undoubtedly in my own county the proportion is somewhat higher, but I believe I am absolutely correct in stating that not more than 12 per cent., perhaps less, of the men employed in the mines would be affected by this proposal. I go a step further. What, is the ordinary wage of a boy now? In Yorkshire at present it is about 1s. 10½d., and in many cases it is larger. In Durham, where, of course, boy labour is very largely employed, although not boys as young as fourteen years of age, the figure is approximately identical with that which is suggested, and if you take the daily wage of a man in Durham, and I suppose about 50 per cent, of the workmen are daily men, the proportion affected would certainly not be 20 per cent. The conditions there are somewhat different. I think the average daily wage is about 3s. 6d., and to that in many cases you have to add houses and coal, which brings it up to 4s. 6d. Therefore in asking for this minimum wage of 5s. we are not materially affecting the wages.

Even if the economic position were worse than it is, or can be, so far as the owners, are concerned, what does the Government understand by the warnings they have received throughout this Debate? Has it not been demonstrated to them by the earnest and thoughtful speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Enoch Edwards) that they regard the concession of this demand as opening the door to a settlement next week, and yet, in face of that statement, and in face of the economic facts which are presented to them, the Government persist in insisting that they will not make this concession. I speak with comparatively little knowledge compared with that which my friends possess, but I feel confident that so far as the county of Durham is concerned, unless this concession is made, and it must be a real concession, events that I hardly dare contemplate will happen in Durham and probably in other parts of the country within a very brief space of time, although the miners of Durham have observed, as they have throughout the country generally, a perfectly peaceful and orderly demeanour which must win the admiration of all people whether they sympathise with them or not. I do urge the Government to think well before they lake up the position of actual non possumus. They take a tremendous responsibility, a responsibility which, in view of the microscopic character of what is demanded, is a responsibility that, in my judgment no Government should take. I feel constrained, if the matter is pressed to a Division, to support my hon. Friend?

It may be because I am a young Member of this House, having been in it only two years, but I must say the speeches made to-day have produced a feeling of depression in me which I should hardly have expected. We had in the speech of the Prime Minister very cogent and strong reasons why the Committee should not accede to this suggestion. That was followed by a speech from the hon. Gentleman who represented the miners during the conferences with the Prime Minister, a speech which undoubtedly was in the nature of a threat to this House—[HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no."]—if they failed to accede to the Labour party's demand. The very fact of that speech was a threat, and no man can deny it. We were told that, unless their demands were granted, the door which is, perhaps, now ajar would be closed next week. Those words have been repeated by the hon. Gentleman who last spoke. Whatever the merits of the case, I as a citizen shall register my vote against being threatened and blackmailed in this way. Perhaps I am speaking too strongly, but I can assure hon. Gentlemen that I am speaking from my heart, as I have no doubt they spoke from theirs. What is the position? The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken says that if the Government will accept their terms, well and good. But the terms offered must be accepted. What would the hon. Gentleman have said if the terms proposed had been 6s. and 3s., or 7s. and 3s.? We should have been in identically the same position and liable to the same compulsion. This Committee is not called upon to consider the merits of these figures. When the case is put to us, as it has been put today, with a brutal frankness which has never been exceeded in this House, I say, whatever the merits of the case may be, speaking as a man who refuses to be dictated to and bullied, we cannot accede to these requests. The manner in which a case is presented has a great deal to do with the reception that that case receives, and I deeply regret that it should have been put before this Committee in this extraordinary and regrettable manner, however just the claim may be.

The hon. Member who has just sat down stated that the demand which has been put forward for a 5s. and 2s. minimum wage is blackmail.

I did not say that. I made no statement of that kind. My whole complaint was that we were told that unless we accepted this demand the door would be closed on us. [HON. MEMBERS: "And you refused to be blackmailed."]

The hon. Member will perhaps allow me to complete my sentence. I was going to say that he definitely stated that the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Enoch Edwards) made a statement in putting forward the case of the miners which was in the form of blackmail.

It had a very different, context.

If I understood the argument, it was that the miners would not go back to work. If the hon. Member reads a report of his speech tomorrow, he will see that that is what he stated. I want to deal with the two questions of principle raised by the Prime Minister. The weight of his argument was this: He said, "Here we are asked, as a legislative body, to put into an Act of Parliament a specific rate of wage," and he seemed to take the view that it was a most undesirable proceeding. Railways and mines are two industries which can inflict peculiar hardship upon the nation as a whole, and this House will have to recognise at an early date State control in regard to these two industries. Therefore, not only shall we see the principle of arbitration in some form or another incorporated in the Statutes, but I am perfectly convinced that we shall see before very long wages regulated by this. House in respect to these two great trades. I am the last person to suggest, and I am sure every Member of this Committee does not desire, that this House should go back to the policy of years gone by with regard to the regulation of the wages of adult labourers; but in consequence of the fact that these are two industries which, owing to their character, can inflict such grievous harm on the interests of the nation as a whole, Parliament, in the interests of the nation as a whole must regulate the wages. I think it is an incontrovertible fact that this House will have-to get a grip upon these two industries. What is the real position now before the Committee? The men have come out on strike to get what I believe to be a reasonable demand. It is not denied, and it is not questioned, that the men who have done a fair day's work are not getting a fair day's wages. The Noble Lord opposite (Viscount Helmsley) admitted that last night.

I did not go so far as that. I said it might be so.

There is no doubt that that statement is correct. The question is whether or not the men are entitled to strike for fair wages. The Government came on the scene, and rightly so, in the interests of the nation. But the Labour Members have made it perfectly clear that if this Amendment is rejected, although we are meeting here today under special circumstances, we shall see a continuation of this deplorable condition in which the nation finds itself at the present moment. The hon. Member says that is a condition which the House of Commons must not have forced upon it, and that you ought to put the position of this House above all questions of blackmail. Is that really the position? What is this 5s.? In many mines it will not apply at all. It will apply in a very limited number of mines. What is going to be the cost to the industries of the country? The men are willing to drop their Schedules, and therefore they have met the House more than halfway. They have placed themselves largely in the hands of this House to do justice to them. The demand of 5s. for men and 2s. for boys no one can say is an unreasonable demand. Only a week before the strike started boys of the ages of fourteen and fifteen were constantly employed in the mines. Surely, having regard to the danger they run, a claim for 2s. cannot be held to be a black-mailing demand. The Prime Minister's objection seems to be that he does not wish to put into an Act of Parliament these specific rates of wages. But I would remind him—I am glad to see him in his place—that the railways and the mines are industries of a national character which sooner or later the Government of the country will have to deal with, because they are interests by means of which grievous injury may be inflicted on the community. It may be said that this measure is only a temporary one and intended to meet an emergency. The Government ask us to pass the measure for a period of three years, but it cannot be imagined for one minute that at the end of that time we are to return to exactly the same conditions as before.

3.0 P.M.

The number of mines likely to be closed by the operation of this Amendment is very limited, and that fact is not going to inflict on the community at large any grievance in regard to the increase in price. The Prime Minister, time after time, in defending Free Trade in this House, has told the manufacturers of this country that they mast use modern machinery. But it seems to me that when a man sinks a hole in the ground he claims to have a prescriptive right to pay lower rates of wages than are compatible with a proper standard of living. I may point out that the output of these small mines in the aggregate will not, probably, equal the output of one modern mine in the Midland counties, and therefore, if you do, by the operation of this Clause, close a number of small mines, there can be no hardship inflicted on the community. The House should consider what it will do by rejecting this Amendment. I am quite certain of this, that the miners, having dropped their Schedule, and having shown that they are willing to meet the Government half way, the Government might meet them on this comparatively infinitesimal point. Why cannnot the Government, in the crisis in which we find ourselves, accept an Amendment like this? If they will say that the rate of wages paid in any mine shall be equal to the average rate paid in the majority of mines in the district that will have the same effect practically as this Amendment. If the Government later on accept an Amendment to provide that the average daily wage to be paid to the men shall be the average rate paid by the majority of mine owners in the district, that would accomplish all that this Amendment aims at. But for the Government to put forward, as they are now doing, an absolute stone wall resistance to this Amendment, is only to lead to the regrettable possibility of the refusal of the men to accept this Bill. I am not putting that forward as a threat. But I believe that if this Amendment is rejected the miners as a body will say, "We have been fighting for a principle—for the Schedules which have been practically agreed to in the federated area," and when they find that this demand for the insertion of the 2s. and 5s. is opposed by the House, they will come to the conclusion that the House of Commons is not anxious to meet them. Working men do not study the economics of politics, and they will simply come to the conclusion that what they believe to be an admittedly fair claim is being unfairly resisted by the Government. I believe the average number of days worked in mines throughout the country is. 5.14 per week. But in the districts where I come from many mines are not working in summer time for more than three days a fortnight, and in some districts men do not work more than one day a week. There are mines in one district I can speak of where the output of coal is 3,000 or 4,000 tons daily in the winter time, but in summer time they are not worked more than one and a-half days per week. All the men ask for under this Amendment is that for a clear day's work they shall be allowed a sum of 5s. per day, and if the House should refuse to accept so reasonable a proposition as that it does not seem to me that such action will be likely to conduce to a permanent settlement of the existing difficulties. Will the Prime Minister not give favourable consideration to the suggestion that the average rate paid to the men in any county or district shall be the minimum rate? The right hon. Gentleman tells us that the House has no knowledge of the facts, and that we are not in a position to decide definitely what the rate should be in the different districts. But I repeat that it would be well to take the average rate, and that would accomplish, in very large measure, what this Amendment seeks to do. At all events, I shall have no other option but to support this Amendment. I do not think the view of the Prime Minister is well founded that this minimum wage would be treated as a maximum. This is a Minimum Wages Bill, and I cannot conceive it is possible that an arbitrator, knowing that the Bill is entitled a Bill for the purpose of providing a minimum wage, would treat the 5s. as a maximum. Therefore I do earnestly ask the House to pause and consider before they reject this Amendment.

I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Member (Sir A. Markham), and I find the effect of it on my mind is to strengthen the case against the Amendment. The hon. Member, no doubt, has great knowledge of coal mines, and he was not disposed to deny that there were a certain number of mines which it would be difficult to carry on profitably if this minimum wage had to be paid to the men. He said also that it would not do great harm to the community supposing there was a slight rise in the price of coal. I confess it does surprise me very much that hon. Members opposite seem to keep their minds in what may be called water-tight compartments. How is it possible for hon. Members who argue in favour of a policy of Free Trade to say that a small rise in the price of coal would do no great harm to the community? What is the principle they associate with that line of reasoning? When the dispute took place in Lancashire in the cotton trade it was contended that a small rise in the price of food, any article of consumption, might overstep the bounds within which profits could be made in that trade. It appears to me therefore that precisely the same argument may be used with regard to a slight rise in the price of coal. If the occasion had been less serious than the present, it would have seemed absurd to hear the Foreign Secretary stating, as he did last night, almost in terms the same argument which we have heard already on this side of the House in regard to Tariff Reform. It is perfectly amazing the present Government, apparently without realising the application of the argument, saying that if you raise the price of an article of general consumption you are not doing the very thing which is charged against Tariff Reformers, and which is by far the most considerable objection to Tariff Reform, if the objection be well founded.

The miners ask a minimum wage supposing it did increase the cost of production.

We must take the Bill as the basis of our argument. The Government are setting up Boards of Arbitration which will, presumably, come to just and reasonable decisions in respect to the wages of each particular man in each particular district. No miner in the country will be worse off, supposing that the demand made be within the meaning of the Bill just and reasonable, because where the demand is just and reasonable the Board will give 5s. On the other hand, in the small minority of mines where the payment of that minimum would not be within the meaning of the Bill just and reasonable, it would not be given. It would be better for the employers, the miners, and the community not to have this minimum in the Bill. It is better that a mine should be kept open with a slightly lower minimum wage than that it should be closed altogether. It is better to have some wages than none at all.

I do not think there is the slightest shadow of a doubt that all these miners will readily find employment.

This is not so trivial a matter to the man who earns his wages if he is to be suddenly put in a position, of unemployment. What good does it do? Nobody would be better off, and some people would be worse off. What is the good of passing an Amendment that cannot possibly do good to anyone, and which may possibly do harm to some? The only reason put forward in support of the 5s. minimum is that it seems to be a reasonable sum. Some weeks ago I went into the question of what determined wages. We hear constantly in these discussions of what are fair and reasonable wages, and of what men deserve. If I were go to and fix wages on the principle of what was deserved, I would fix them a great deal higher than 5s. The hon. Member gave a very tragic reason for this minimum when he pointed to the fact that boys are frequently killed in the mines. Is it reasonable that a boy should be killed for 2s. a day and not killed for 1s. 6d. a day? Surely that is an absurdity. If you once come to consider the matter from that point of view, it is impossible to say how high wages ought not to be.

If a man invests his money in risky securities he expects a high rate of interest, and if a man gives his labour in a mine he expects a high rate of wages.

What determines the rate of interest on Consols and the wages of labour are the laws of competition. As a matter of fact whether for capital or labour people get the price determined by the demand for capital or labour, and you cannot get away from the law of competition. I do not admire the law of competition at all. It is a law dependent upon the supply which is available at the time the commodity is wanted, and you cannot escape from it. Though we speak of wages being fair or unfair, reasonable or unreasonable, such expressions have no exact meaning. You see what an extraordinarily difficult thing it will be for these unhappy Boards to fix wages upon hypothetical reasonableness, which is a rough and ready estimate of what the market is giving. Appeals have been made from the Labour benches to the Government to accept this Amendment. We cannot always give the amount that is deserved. The matter must in the end be determined by the laws of supply and demand and competition. The Boards are the mere machinery for putting these laws into force.

May I ask if the Noble Lord is entitled to make a Second Reading speech raising the whole question of the reasonableness of a minimum wage which we have already decided.

Of course, it is difficult to draw the line between the proposed 5s. and the general question. I should rather trust to hon. Members confining themselves as much as they can to the minimum of 5s. for miners.

I quite recognise the justice of what you say, and I have no intention of enlarging on the matter. My point as to the precise Amendment is that you are going to set up as a sort of Judicial Arbitrator to determine wages. If you say 5s. in this particular case there is no reason why you should not have a Schedule in the Bill, and no reason for appointing the Boards of Arbitrators at all. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is a bare subsistence."] There are a great number of people in this country subsisting on a great deal less than 25s. a week. The Amendment is asking the House to do what it is not fit to do, what we are setting up an elaborate organisation to do, bodies whose decision will be given by perfectly impartial and highly skilled persons. We are asked to undertake judicial duties. It has never been anything but disastrous when you make legislative assemblies do judicial work. Let us leave that to the trained bodies we are appointing, they will decide upon it. If in a small minority of cases and in peculiar conditions the miners make an unreasonable demand they will decide. Both in one case and the other they will decide in the interests of the miners at large and in the interests of all the miners in all the mines.

I hope, in view of the many important outstanding questions to be decided, that we may come now to a decision on this particular Amendment. In making that appeal I should like to respond to two applications which have been made within the course of the day. The first was by my hon. Friend the Member for Hanley (Mr. Enoch Edwards) whose speech we all listened to with so much sympathy. In reference to that I wish to make clear what I thought I had already clearly expressed when I previously addressed the Committee, and what was stated with the utmost emphasis by the Leader of the Opposition, that if the House is constrained to reject this Amend- merit it ought not to be taken. It would be a gross travesty of any intention which we have if it were taken, as an opinion on the part of the House of Commons that the rates suggested, 2s. and 5s., were not, and might not, be proved to be most reasonable rates. I have always said the same to those who were present at our negotiations. There is a Schedule put forward by the miners. I have never said for a moment that there was any information in my possession or in that of the Government convincing us that the rates put forward in that Schedule were otherwise than reasonable rates. But what we do say is the more reasonable they are the more certain they are to be justified when made the subject of local inquiry and impartial investigation. So I say it would be completely to misinterpret the intention of the House of Commons to let it go forth lo the country that they had passed a vote which was adverse to the demand of the miners for this minimum for men and boys respectively. Next, in regard to what was said by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir A. Markham) I should not in the least object to a provision being inserted in the Bill in appropriate terms that in settling the minimum of the wage regard should be had by the Joint District Boards to the average daily rate paid for work of that class in the district. I do not think that any Joint District Board which understood its functions would fail to take this into account. I think that that would be the very first thing which they would take into account, and I think that everybody would agree on this. How they could proceed to decide without taking that into account passes my comprehension. But naturally if there is any apprehension on that point, and if such apprehension as there is would be allayed by the insertion of specific words to that effect, I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government would be very happy to accept an Amendment of that kind. I hope that with those few explanations the Committee may feel themselves able now to come to a decision on this point

I regret very much that the Government has come to the decision which was announced earlier by the Prime Minister, and that it has not seen its way to modify that decision. We did not ask for legislation. We came out on strike for certain purposes. This Bill, although nominally a Minimum Wage Bill, is not actually a Minimum Wage Bill. This House has specifically declined to discuss all the problems that centre round the minimum wage. This House has stated by the overwhelming vote of last night, and previously in giving the right hon. Gentleman leave to introduce the Bill, that this Bill was to set no precedent, that it was not to be set in the general legislation of the country, and that it should be withdrawn at the very earliest possible moment. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] The right hon. Gentleman himself has given three years, it is an ad hoc Bill.

It is a three years' Bill with the provision that if Parliament is satisfied with the working of it it can continue it.

I should like to know when Parliament ever introduced a Bill without having that power. It is a very common practice in this House to pass a Bill called the "Expiring Laws Continuance Bill," and there is nothing new in that. But that is the point. The right hon. Gentleman stated in this House that this was a Bill specific, sui generis. I decline, and I think rightly decline, to consider the circumstances which would be created by this Bill if it was a permanent piece of our legislation, as, for instance, compulsory arbitration, which would be absolutely necessary if this Bill was going to be the beginning of a new code of industrial legislation. My point is this: In consequence of all that has taken place this Bill is in simple, plain English an attempt to settle this strike. This Bill is an attempt to get the men to declare their readiness to go down the pits on Monday morning. What is the use, if I may say so, of splitting hairs upon a minimum wage as opposed to 5s. expressed as the minimum? I may put it to the right hon. Gentleman himself: if he were one of those men out on strike now, with his experience as a miner, his membership of his union, and all the problems in front of him and behind him, and we being in the position of his leader, came to him and said: "We have got a minimum wage for you. That is all right." And then he said to us, "How much is it?" And we said, "My friend, you must take it that if you are a reasonable man you will assume that certain things will happen. You will assume that no District Board will give you a wage less than the average current rate that you have been enjoying before the strike and all that sort of thing." I venture to say that the right hon. Gentleman would have some suspicions about that. I think he would, simply because the men are out in order to get some specific thing. They have asked for a schedule and they have asked for 5s. and 2s., and they are perfectly ready to waive the Scheduled They are perfectly willing to refer that, for the purpose of peace, without prejudice at all, to the local bodies.

Why do not the men trust their leaders?

The men trust their leaders in precisely the same way as the hon. Gentleman trusts his own leader.

If they have full trust in their leaders, as I most certainly have in mine, surely it becomes the duty of the leaders to advise them.

We—

Why not own it?

The hon. Member might try quietly to listen to the argument. The leaders are perfectly prepared to advise; they are prepared to express a very definite and a very unmistakable opinion as to what ought to be done. But does the hon. Member, or any Member of this House, mean to suggest that the leaders ought to tell the men to do things that the leaders themselves do not believe in? The question is—and it is a question that must be asked at every stage of this Bill—is this measure, or is it not, a tolerable and bearable suggestion for stopping the strike? I candidly and I honestly say that I felt last night that we might have got some sort of agreement this morning on the 5s. and 2s. basis that would have enabled the strike to have been settled right away. I am sorry that the Government have banged the door in our face. I shall be very sorry if this House bangs the door in our face. Does this House clearly understand what it is doing? It can put in the 5s. and the 2s. subject to the safeguards under Sub-section (4) of Clause 2. These men really must have something that is tangible and something that is substantial. A minimum wage: what does it mean? How very difficult it is for responsible men to go to a great mass of men and talk about the minimum wage. Even if we had some more specific proposal, such as the proposal of the living wage made by an hon. Member opposite, there is still that very vagueness which settles nothing at all. Supposing it were referred to a committee which came to a decision in pounds, shillings and pence that was not satisfactory to the men. You have got to consider both sides of the matter. After great bodies of men with long experience have made up their minds that they must have an advance in wages, they offer to negotiate with the employers, as my hon. Friends about me did time after time. In fact, they got a large section of the employers practically to agree, and the margin of disagreement was so small hat, with a little encouragement, it would have been shown that all the employers agreed on this point. Of that I am perfectly certain.

Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Ince informs me that on this very point they were absolutely agreed altogether. The men, rightly or wrongly, took up the position that they must have an increase of pay—that with the expansion of their horizon and the increase of their requirements they must have more money, more personal possessions, in order to express their individualities. If this had been an engineering strike we would not have heard so much about it; but it happens to be in the coal industry which affects so many other industries. These men have asked for 5s. and 2s., and they cannot get that settled with the employers. We have created no other machinery for settling it, and we cannot create accurate working machinery for the settlement of disputes in the middle of a tremendous industrial war. In days of peace we did do it. But now suddenly in the midst of war, because it is the coal trade which, through the strike, paralyses every industry in the country, this House is suddenly asked to pass legislation. Let me repeat that we never asked for the legislation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh."] I think I am right. The employers asked for it. The South Wales owners informed my hon. Friends from the very beginning that they would accept nothing at all until it was forced upon them by legislation.

It is a very different thing for the South Wales owners to say that they would not agree to the minimum wage voluntarily, and that they would only submit to it if it were forced upon them by legislation, from saying that they asked for legislation.

I do not think this is strictly relevant to the Amendment.

The point I am turning round about is the one point that I do desire to impress upon the House before it goes into the Lobby to vote one way or the other, that when this House started legislation it started it for the purpose of settling the strike, or trying to settle the strike. For the purpose of trying to settle the strike it has got to meet the demands of the men, to a certain reasonable extent at any rate. The demands of the men are so and so and so and so, and the House knows them as well as I do. What I may call the remnants of the demands of the men are 5s. for the men and 2s. for the boys. It has been said that we are willing that variations may come in, because, even with the variations, we have got something that we can take grip of, we have got some declaration on the part of this House which is not merely sentimental, which may mean 5s. or 10s., just as anything can sway the amount one way or the other. If there is going to be any assurance in the matter I think there must be some figure put in the Bill. I appeal with all the earnestness I can command to the House not to defeat this Amendment, badly drafted as it is, but nevertheless expressing the idea of the men. Certain hon. Members may vote against the Amendment because it is badly drafted, and does not accurately express what is required. Nevertheless, if the House vote against the Amendment because it is badly drafted, they will vote against its spirit as well as its wording. I quite agree that it would be the greatest injustice to this House to say outside, whatever the vote may be, that it meant something less than 5s. would be sufficient, and I hope nobody will ever say that. Nevertheless the House must remember that people do not read speeches delivered in this House, and they do not all come into contact with Members of Parliament; and to-morrow morning, when the result of the Division is placed before them, I am certainly afraid that the people—for rich and poor alike are not all sufficiently well educated or informed to understand exactly the point that may arise in Debate here—will not be able to gather exactly the reason why the House decided one way or the other. I appeal to the Committee to support the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend.

I should like to associate myself with the eloquent and powerful appeal made by my hon. Friend. The House is face to face with one of those determining positions which will make for an early settlement or delay the settlement. May I just make the point, that if we can have the 5s. and the 2s. in the Bill it will give us the opportunity to go to our people and ask them to commence work and leave the other matters to be settled by the Board of Arbitration. If we do not have the 2s. and the 5s. in the Bill our people must remain idle, or will remain idle, until we have settled the whole of the Schedules, and, this is important, not in one coalfield, but in all the coalfields of the United Kingdom. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] Sir, I am simply trying, in plain language, to put before the House the exact position. We therefore ask the Government to put this 2s. and 5s. in the Bill to give us the opportunity for our men to go to work and relieve the burden from off the nation.

If a Division be taken now that settles the matter, but if this Amendment were to be now withdrawn the same point could be raised on Clause 2. We would like to give the Government time to consider. [Laughter.] I can assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that there is more of tragedy than comedy in this. That would give the Government time to consider the valuable suggestion which has just been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald). If that suggestion were to be adopted, it would leave the Board to be set up free to exempt either collieries and classes of workmen, or even districts, from the operation of the 5s. and the 2s. I put it to the Committee that there you have a basis upon which you can obtain a settlement, an honourable settlement on both sides. This Bill, as has been said over and over again, was brought in to settle the strike. If the Bill is not going to settle the strike it ought to be withdrawn. Unless something goes in which the miner can understand, which he can see and feel and handle, he will throw your Bill back again with something like scorn. I suggest this matter may be held over until Clause 2, and if there is no change in the situation then there need be no further talk, but leave the door open to the last possible moment before closing it.

I have nothing to add to what the Prime Minister said with regard to the actual introduction of the figures into the Bill, but the speech of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. Ramsay Macdonald) was very important and may have a very important bearing, if we understand it aright, on future events. I should like to be quite clear as to how much that speech exactly means. It would be very unfortunate if expressions were given in this House as to what the attitude of the Miners' Federation is unless they are absolutely authoritative. I understood the hon. Member for Leicester to say that the Miners' Federation was prepared to waive the Schedule of prices which had been originally put forward, waive it temporarily, in order that the point might be dealt with in this Bill. In other words, this Bill would be accepted as a means to deciding the Schedule of prices of minimum rates. That is what I understood the hon. Member for Leicester to say. I understood him to say that the Schedule of prices for hewers was waived, or would be waived, if the Bill is going to effect that object. If it is going to be accepted as effecting that object there remains the demand for the 5s. and the 2s. That demand is urged and insisted on with undiminished strength by the hon. Member for Leicester, but if the first question, the Schedule of prices for hewers, if this Bill is going to be accepted as dealing with that, though the demand for the 5s. and the 2s. remains undiminished in strength, the issue is narrowed as between the owners and the miners. But we ought to be quite clear as to whether the issue has really been narrowed by our proceedings to that point of 5s. and 2s. If the issue has been narrowed to that point of the 5s. and the 2s., if it is also, as the hon. Member for Leicester said, agreed that there must be some elasticity, the Federation themselves have said that certain districts would be excepted from the 5s. and the 2s., and we are not in a position to say those are the only districts, but if that issue is narrowed then it must have a direct bearing on our proceedings this afternoon. It is important it should be known, because, after all, there are two parties to this dispute, the owners and the miners, who are still on friendly terms with each other, still able to resume conferences in a perfectly friendly spirit if there is a chance of agreement. And if the issue has been narrowed I think it is worth while the hon. Member and his Friends considering whether they should not make the matter so clear that there may be the prospect of accepting this Bill as it stands for what, in their opinion, it is worth in regard to the Schedule and prices for hewers, and then that our attention should be devoted to see whether, not by putting figures in this Bill, but by further conference between, owners and miners on this point of the 5s. and the 2s., some agreement might not be arrived at which would achieve a settlement.

I intervened in the interests of peace to see if it was not possible to have the Amendment withdrawn, so that further conversations might be conducted and enable us to come to this point in the other place. We do not want to discuss it again. I will give the Committee that pledge, that if it does come up again, if it is hopeless, we can have it over right away, as far as we are concerned, with the Chairman putting the words. But surely the Committee is undertaking a very grave responsibility if it is going lo proceed, but I am making this suggestion on the assumption it may be possible to put the 5s. and 2s. in the Bill, with the limitations and on the understandings that I gave in my speech. I frankly state I am not in the position at the moment to pledge the Miners' Federation. I am not, and I never said so; but I am in a position to inform the Committee that before the Committee rises this afternoon that the Miners' Federation will pledge itself. We are in that position. But before the Committee adjourns we can give it the necessary information, so that, so far as it is concerned, it can give a decisive vote upon the question.

I was hoping that something might really come of the speech of the Foreign Secretary, and if anyone on those benches had been in a position to say that the demand for the Schedule was waived, and that the issue was reduced simply to the question of 5s. and 2s., I should certainly have been delighted to have recommended my hon. Friends behind me to agree to postpone this Amendment, in order that, there might be conferences between the masters and men to see whether it could be settled or not. Since that is not possible, I do not see that the House of Commons can do otherwise than give its decision now on what, after all, is a vital question of principle, and has been so declared by the Prime Minister.

I am as anxious as the right hon. Gentleman opposite to come to some satisfactory conclusion in this matter. I recognise to the full the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester in the intervention he has made. The hon. Member tells us quite frankly that he is not authorised to speak on behalf of the Miners' Federation.

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me? I think there is a misunderstanding in regard to what my hon. Friend said. He said he was not prepared to pledge the Miners' Federation. But I think I am justified at this stage in saying that there was a joint consultation this morning between the two bodies, the Labour party and the executive of the Miners' Federation. There was no definite arrangement come to, but there was a sort of agreement and understanding that the scheduled rates could be left to the Boards if the 5s. and 2s. went into the Bill. If there is an understanding now that that is to be done the Federation and ourselves will get together and give a definite answer before the afternoon is over.

It is quite obvious we can give no such pledge. If the Miners' Federation, or those who speak on their behalf and with their authority, would tell us definitely that they withdraw the Schedule, and if we are to understand that in regard to all outstanding matters the elasticity of the Subsection is accepted—for without the elasticity of the Subsection the Bill cannot be brought into practice—and that with regard to these two figures of 5s. and 2s. the elasticity of the Sub-section is to be applied in practice, I see no reason why the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary should not meet the circumstances of the case. But in the present state of our information, I am totally unable to come to any understanding or agreement on the matter. It can be discussed again on Report, and in the interval the conferences referred to can take place, but for the moment I do not feel that the Government can say anything more.

The right hon. Gentleman says that he understood that the Schedule might be withdrawn. Do I apprehend him aright when I assume he meant it might be withdrawn from this Bill, or does he mean withdrawn from the District Boards that are to be set up?

No, no. Let me make that plain. I have always said—and nobody knows it better than the representatives of the miners who are here, such as the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Enoch Edwards); it was common ground between us during all the negotiations—that the Schedule put forward by the miners on 2nd February last, containing various suggested minimum rates for the several areas, was put forward by them, as they said, in the interests of peace, but that in their view, in their honest judgment, they had reduced the rates suggested by them to the lowest possible minimum, and they did not feel that they could go below them. We have consistently accepted that view. I have always said to them and to the coal owners, and I think I said to the House last night, that when we introduced the machinery proposed by this Bill, it had in it nothing whatever to estop or prevent the representatives of the miners from putting forward higher Schedules or higher rates in regard to every one of those districts. That is left at large. They may reasonably think they are entitled to higher figures, and they may be able to prove it in argument and evidence before the District Boards. They are perfectly at large in regard to that matter. But I have always thought that they would be much better off in the presentation of their case under the elastic provisions of the Government Bill than by stereotyping by the force of law the Schedule which they themselves put forward as not representing the full measure of their due.

The whole of this discussion has taken place with reference to one party, and not to two parties, in the matter. In view of the statement of the Prime Minister that the question can be raised again on Report, I think it is desirable that the coal owners should understand exactly what is the point at issue at this moment. They have not developed their argument this afternoon in connection with these two points, on account of the firm attitude taken by the Prime Minister in his opening speech. We are now told that something may happen between now and to-morrow, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has given some idea that they are going to put a new provision in the Bill. [Several Hon. MEMBEKS: "No."] If we are to confer let us understand exactly what we are to confer about. I understand that figures are not to be named in any way in the Bill, and there is to be elasticity in the districts. If that is so, I am quite ready to accept that; but I ask the Prime Minister to make it quite clear, if we are to confer, what it is we are to confer about.

I thought I had stated it quite explicitly. Although we are ready to put in words, in response to the appeal of my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Sir A. Markham)—I believe there would be a general disposition in all quarters of the House to agree to that—so far as we are concerned, and as at present advised, we have the Bill as it stands. The point the Foreign Secretary suggested for further conference is simply the question of 5s. and 2s., subject to the elasticity of the provisions with regard to the various districts. If the issue is narrowed down to that—

They are not to be put into the Bill?

No. I have said that several times. If there is this disposition between now and Report, I hope we may make some arrangement to settle the whole matter.

In view of the very delicate situation and of the very near approach of the two sides to one another I beg leave to ask to withdraw my Motion. If necessary the matter can be raised on Report, but for the moment may I withdraw?

I beg to move in Sub-section (1), after the word "rate" ["at not less than the minimum rate"], to insert the words "provided in the Second Schedule (A) to this Act, or in the absence of such provision otherwise."

4.0 P.M.

The rates in the Schedule fairly approximate to the rates now being paid. I have heard the observations of the Prime Minister, and I understood from him that they should be submitted to arbitration. The Miners' Federation, as at present advised, would prefer rather that these rates should form part of this Bill. The whole struggle has been for these rates. There is nothing in them but has been again and again discussed; it is quite true that had they been accepted there would have appeared to have been no necessity for this Bill at all. The Miners' Federation believe that the course they have taken all through has been fairly consistent. I observe in the discus- sion that some hon. Members ridicule our position because we have not put the same rate in the Schedule for each district. I venture to suggest that if we had put in the same rate for Yorkshire as we have put in for the Forest of Dean that this House would have had less faith in us now and in the Federation. Those are the rates that are obtaining largely at the collieries in the districts. We do not think that these rates will at all bring about that disaster that has been predicted. Miners, like many other people, have heard these predictions of failure often. It is not the first time in the history of this great trade that we have been reminded that if we interfere with rates we shall destroy the trade. Let me venture a prediction. I do not often pretend to prophesy; it is generally a mistake; but I dare to predict thus far: that many years will roll over our heads before anything we are able to do will drive the trade away, and many years will roll over the heads of the Federation before there is even the remotest desire to do any damage to trade. I am satisfied that in their desire to promote these rates, which are fair and honest, there is no notion at the back of the Miners' Federation that they are at all going to damage anyone. It is not on the ground of destroying trade that these rates are put forward, but because we believe that the districts are capable of paying them. They are a reasoned-out attempt to settle this very vexed question of a minimum wage.

The main point and operation of this Act as regards this particular business is the adoption of the principle of a minimum wage for hewers and other underground workers. I can quite understand that my hon. Friend who moved this Amendment, and those for whom he speaks, should desire that the minimum rate should be put into the Bill in the form of a Schedule. They desire to know what will be the upshot of this Bill, and they desire to see it introduced. I recognise fully, and I am sure my colleagues who went through the conference, recognise that those rates which are put forward by the Miners' Federation represent figures to which they have given careful consideration, and I recognise also that they have cut the figures down to the lowest possible point consistent, in their belief, with the carrying on of the trade under proper conditions. But whilst I am sure that these figures were carefully considered by the Miners' Federation, I cannot quite accept what the hon. Member said, that they were submitted again and again to the employers and discussed by them. That may be true with regard to some of the rates in the federated areas, but it is not so with regard to many of the other rates. They have not been discussed again and again in all the districts. In some cases they have been discussed only once by the employers. That is really one of the reasons why this Rill is introduced. My hon. Friend knows that this Schedule is divided into seventeen districts, whereas there are twenty-one in the Bill. The question whether there should be seventeen or twenty-one districts may come up again, and that is a proper subject for discussion.

What has been said from the beginning by the Prime Minister and other Members of the Government is that it is quite impossible for the Government in the first instance, or for the House of Commons in the second place, to decide without having all the facts and the information before them, whether the scheduled rate should or should not be the minimum rate for a particular district, and therefore this Bill proposes what I think is only a commonsense plan. You cannot have a scale or schedule of rates, as put forward by either side, accepted by the House of Commons, but there must be proper discussion and consideration with regard to them. If my hon. Friend believes, as I have no doubt he does, that this Schedule is fair and just, then he will bring it before the District Board and it will be thrashed out, and if he is able to prove his case he will get the Schedule rate, and if he is unable to prove his case he will not be able to obtain it. Let me point out what happened in the conference when he made an endeavour to go into this matter. At the conference, as my hon. Friend knows, there was an attempt made actually across the table to go into those matters, and I am sure that everybody at the conference came to the conclusion that if we had gone on endeavouring to deal with these matters it would have taken us many months before we could have come to a decision. In the special circumstances, of the continuance of the strike and the urgent necessity for action, the only possible way open to us was that these Schedules should be referred to these Joint Committees, equally representative of the two sides, with an independent chairman, in order that we might arrive at a decision. I am afraid, therefore, that I must say, on the part of the Government, on the grounds of common sense, and on other grounds, that in this matter of dispute between two parties the question of wages must be referred to a Joint Representative Committee, with an independent chairman, before a decision can be come to as to whether all these rates are fair and reasonable.

I have always regretted that we were not able to persuade all those who met at the Foreign Office to accept the Government proposal. We did succeed with regard to federated owners, and I am glad that we succeeded in getting them to agree unanimously, but it was a matter of very deep regret to me that these proposals were not accepted by the Miners' Federation. If they had been so accepted the pits would be working now, and the miners would to-day be working and enjoying what they hope to get now out of the Bill, but, unfortunately, they did not see their way to accept the Government proposals for fixing the rates of wages in the various districts by a District Board. They arranged a set of prices which was, in their opinion, fair; they may have been fair—I do not say they were not—but I do say that the fixing of a fixed charge over large areas, without any variety, of a minimum to be paid by good pits and bad pits alike was an impossible position for practical men to adopt. May I give an illustration from the large county which I represent, the county of Yorkshire? That coalfield varies very much. In some parts where new pits are sunk the pits are prosperous and the men are getting a minimum of 7s. 6d. a day. These will probably not be affected very much. If they were affected it would be on the good side, because prices of coal would be raised and the cost of production would hot be raised to the same extent, and practically they would benefit as well as the miners, but when I come to the old and poor pits, they are struggling along at the present moment in great difficulties, I may tell the Committee that in a district which I know pretty well the average wage of a large number of men runs to about 7s. 6d., the figure which they propose. What will be the only result of fixing it at 7s. 6d.? It would be impossible by any safeguard to guarantee the present output. There would be an inducement not to do quite as much if the man was sure of his 7s. 6d. whatever the output was. These poor pits I am speaking about are not putting out less tonnage than the good new pits; they are practically turning out about the same tonnage. What is the reason then why the men do not get such good wages? Because the individual miners cannot produce so much output, because the seam is not such a good and thick one. If you are to say that in these poor pits the wage would be the same, whether they have earned it or not, the result would be that a large portion of the workmen who are now working would be thrown out of employment; they would be thrown on the community, and the community would suffer. Many of those old pits T aim speaking of I know would have to close down.

I view with feelings of satisfaction the position the Government have taken up, and their decision in this matter. I have not spoken before in this Debate, and I should like to speak of the manner in which the Prime Minister stuck to his business. I must say it has won the admiration of myself, and I believe I am able to speak for all the coal owners, for the patience and tact with which he endeavoured to bring both parties to a settlement. He is not to blame that no settlement has been come to. I do not wish to lay the blame on anyone. It is a misfortune to the country that this calamity has happened. What I, for one, wish from the bottom of my heart is that as soon as possible this crisis may be brought to a termination, and that the pits may be working again, and we may be saved weeks of suffering, both to trade and human beings, which will come to pass unless a settlement is arrived at speedily. I believe that if the miners will give way on this Schedule we can come to a settlement. I do not say anything about the 5s. and the 2s., because that would not affect the pit with which, at all events, I have the honour to be connected. The wages we pay are very high wages indeed, and I do not believe we should feel this Bill at all. I am speaking for my poorer neighbours, who are not able at the present time to make ends meet. The hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Enoch Edwards) is a man whom I respect from the bottom of my heart, because I know he is an honest man, and he has conducted these negotiations with very great ability. I hope I may appeal to him not to press the Amendment, because the result will only be that the Government and ourselves will have to oppose it.

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down said he was not appealing for himself, because this Amendment would not adversely affect his interests.

Not very much.

He was appealing for his poorer neighbours. That is a most charitable and Christian-like attitude which I fully appreciate. The same fact is true in regard to the miners. The men also the hon. Gentleman employs would not be affected by this Schedule, but they are out on strike none the less for the benefit of their poorer neighbours. There never was a more unselfish dispute in the whole history of the working-class movement. The men who have forced this on are not the Syndicalists, who seem to have got on the brains of some hon. Members, nor are they even the underpaid workmen. They are for the most part men who themselves are fairly well paid, and who do not stand to gain individually from the contest when successful. They are fighting the battle of their poorer neighbours. It is said that to apply this Schedule uniformly would close certain pits, and that men would be thrown on to the streets and would become a burden on the community. I do not admit, first of all, that pits would be closed. It is astonishing the elasticity with which a mine or any other form of industry can be expanded when the necessity arises, and, while it may be true that under existing conditions there are collieries in some parts of the country that could not pay the rates in the Schedules, yet if they were compelled to do so they would find ways and means of paying them and making the mines pay, as they had done in the past. Even if mines were closed the men would not be thrown out. If a colliery is closed in one district that does not lessen the demand for coal, and the men who are dismissed from that mine tramp to the nearest district where there are other collieries, and find employment to maintain the supply according to the demand. Therefore you may eliminate both these arguments from serious consideration.

The President of the Board of Trade said this matter could not be expected to be settled by Parliament if the owners and workmen meeting under the Prime Minister's guidance were unable to decide it, and one reason he gave was that we have not the necessary information. He said many months would be required to elapse before that information could be got together. If that is true, it is a sad reflection upon the Board of Trade. It has been said in the course of this Debate that the Government has seriously prejudiced the situation by its delay in introducing this measure, and a like statement is true in regard to the Amendment before the Committee. The Board of Trade has a Labour Department, and it would have been the easiest matter in the world when it was known this conflict was going to take place for the Board of Trade to have instructed its Labour Department to get together all the facts and figures available. The Government would then have been in a position to come to some decision which it is difficult for them to come to in the absence of information. The Schedule does not set up any new and fresh standards. That is one point the Committee must bear in mind. It is not for me to say whether the figures in the Schedule are absolutely correct or not, but there can be no dispute about the intention of the Schedule. It is that where a rate of wages has been agreed upon between the miners and the mine owners every workman who performs a day's work shall be guaranteed that wage. This dispute had its origin in connection with a strike in my own Constituency. In November, 1910, a strike took place there on this very question. It was then proved by actual figures which were not challenged that whilst the rate of pay should have been about 6s. 9d. at that time more than half the men were receiving less than 4s. through causes over which they themselves had no control. There were numbers of them receiving from 2s. to 3s. a day, and there were one or two cases where after a collier had worked for a full fortnight he was actually 1s. 8d. in debt to his employer.

What colliery was that?

The Aberavon Colliery, in the Aberdare Valley. It was an authorised strike, and the men were defeated. The agitation has been growing from then to now all over the country. Similar cases have been found in every district, until now it has culminated into the strike which is paralysing the trade of the country. The miners ask the House of Commons to put this Schedule into the Bill, which has been brought before the House without them asking for it, in order that this question of the minimum wage shall be taken out of the region of possible dispute in the future. The one way to do that is to insert the Schedule which has been moved. The same outcry in regard to profits and the closing of collieries was raised in 1893, when the Miners' Federation succeeded in fixing what was then thought to be a minimum wage. Since then the wages of colliers have been steadier than before, and the profits of the mine owners have been greater during those seventeen years than they have ever been in any corresponding period of the history of the coal trade. I hope therefore the House of Commons will not be frightened by the statement that the Schedule would mean the closing of mines, the throwing of men out of employment, or even appreciably reducing the profits of the owners. The one thing we seek is to guarantee that every workman who performs a day's work underground shall be paid for that work. A late Member of this House, in a letter to the "Times" the other day—it has since been reproduced in pamphlet form—has made a statement which neither does credit to his ability nor enhances his reputation for honour and fair play. He wants to make it clear this is a Syndicalist strike with a political motive. The cause of the strike is the absence of the Schedule rates which this House is now discussing. It has nothing whatever to do with politics. Syndicalists are anti-Parliamentarians. They are Anarchists, and opposed to political action. Therefore, if the Syndicalists have forced the strike upon the miners of the country, it is because of their anti-political opinions, and not because of their political opinions.

Anti-Parliamentarian?

I am not going to be drawn into a discussion. They are anti-political in the sense that they are anti-Parliamentarians, and therefore the statement is not correct. Since the House and the Government have refused to accept the minimised demands contained in the last Amendment, there is all the more reason why the Amendment now before the House should be considered seriously and forced, as I hope it will be, to a Division.

I should like to support the Amendment. The Committee will remember that one hon. Member on the opposite side referred to the blackmailing methods of the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Enoch Edwards). It is very encouraging to note that the last speaker on the other side of the House went out of his way to pay a tribute to the honesty of the hon. Member for Hanley. The mere fact that this Amendment has been moved by that hon. Member is in itself a guarantee of its moderation and of the fact that it is acceptable among the miners of the country. I should like to associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) that this is not in any way a political movement. I fully support the miners in their desire to secure this Schedule. They are based upon a twofold principle. First of all, there is the discrimination between one district and another and between one colliery and another. They take cognisance of the differences between one district and another, and I think it is exceedingly fair in that way. Then they are also based upon a recognition of the different rates that exist in different parts of the country. If they had brought in one minimum wage, one could have understood how hard and harshly it would have acted upon certain districts and certain collieries; but the rates vary as much as from 4s. 11d. to 7s. 6d. We have been told again and again that this Bill does not secure finality in this great struggle. I venture to say the one way to secure finality is to give legislative enactment to these Schedules. If we were to adopt these Schedules it would be many a long year before this country were plunged into another strike. They are based upon the principles of moderation and justice. They take cognisance of the various conditions prevailing in different parts of the country, and for that reason, representing as I do men of moderate opinions who are anxious to see the struggle brought to an end, I very heartily support the Amendment.

The last speaker commended the Schedule to the favour of the House on the ground that it differentiates between district and district. That is not sufficient, inasmuch as, to take South Wales for example, there are different rates not only in different districts but in different collieries in each district, and even in different seams in each colliery. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) and the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division (Sir A. Markham) spoke very lightly of closing old or small collieries on the ground that if they were closed it would not make much difference to the community at large, because the men, employed in them would find their way to newer collieries in other districts. That may be all very well for the proprietors and workmen in good collieries, but it would not at all commend itself to the workmen in these old collieries anymore than to the proprietors of them. The hon. Member for the Mansfield Division said the output of the collieries in the Forest of Dean was not more than one large colliery in the Midlands.

I excluded the Forest of Dean and the Bristol coalfields as not worth consideration.

The hon. Member said: "What does it matter if the collieries in the Forest of Dean are closed? Their output is not greater than a big colliery in another district, and it would not therefore make much difference if they were closed." It would make a great deal of difference to the people in the Forest of Dean. It would make a great deal of difference to the miners there. The hon. Member talks lightly about miners moving from one district to another. I have had experience of that, and I know how difficult it is to get them to settle in a new district. I know of one instance where they were moved to another district where the wages were higher, but in a few years the families found their way back to the place from which they came because, although the wages were lower, they were attached to that district and all their friends were there. Is it not very hard on these men, if they desire to live in a particular district, and are even willing, in order to do so, to take less wages, that they should be forced to go to some other district, although the wages may be higher, simply because the collieries are closed in their own districts? Of course, we know that now-a-days owners are deemed to be the last people to be considered, but I would suggest that it is equally hard on the proprietors of small collieries. They are not the only people to be considered; there are the interests of the general community to be borne in mind; the interests of the small tradesman, the mason and the carpenter, and others who obtain their living, and who, undoubtedly, by the closing of these small collieries, would suffer. Seven shillings and sixpence, of course, is not a very high minimum. There are mines where the wages range from 6s. 1d. to 16s., and if the minimum were put at 7s. 6d. it is not likely that the man who is now content to earn 6s. 1d. would bother himself to earn any more; he would not be inclined to make bigger efforts like the man who is getting 16s.

The hon. Baronet the Member for Mansfield contended that mines and railways ought to be brought under State control. But why should not steamers be treated in the same way? Shipping is quite as important to this country as either the colliery or the railway. If your steamers are stopped or hung up, what about the food supply of this country? Shipping is just as important an industry as either mines or railways. The hon. Member for Hanley said that very often, at the end of the week, a man found he had only 25s., 18s., or even 15s. to draw. But he did not tell us how many days such a man had worked, and it makes all the difference whether he works one day a week or five or six days. It is easy to say he only gets 15s., but even that would not be a bad wage if he only worked one day for it. I remember a case in South Glamorganshire where a man took the owners into Court. He was dissatisfied with the allowance made to him on account of his fortnight's pay. But it turned out that he had only worked four days in the fortnight. In the next place, it had been agreed by the Joint Conciliation Board that the holidays should extend three days over the holiday period. Instead of that the man took eight days' holiday and when he came back he found that his working place had practically fallen in, and the injury had to be repaired before he could earn any wages. He was, consequently, discontented, but the cause of his discontent was brought about entirely by his own conduct. Of course he lost his case in the Court. But that is only a sample of the way in which misrepresentations are placed before this House. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil spoke of a case in a Welsh colliery where, at the end of a fortnight, a man, instead of receiving wages, had to pay his boy 1s. 6d.

The hon. Member is now going back to the Second Reading stage, whereas we are discussing the applicability on the Second Schedule.

I was replying to a speech made on this very Second Schedule. If statements are made it is surely only fair that an opportunity should be given to reply to them.

I thought the hon. Baronet was replying to a speech delivered yesterday.

Oh, no.

May I mention that the case referred to was one in which a miner had to employ a boy, and, at the end of the day, he had to borrow 1s. 6d. with which to pay him, having earned nothing himself.

My experience is this: It has been laid down that if any man is dissatisfied with the allowance made by the manager, he shall be at liberty to apply to the general manager or agent. But during the large number of years in which I have had experience, there has never been one appeal against the allowance made by the owner or general manager. In South Wales the scarcity of men is such that managers are not likely to drive hard bargains. They know a good workman when they have him, and they are also perfectly well aware that if he gives notice he will probably be received by a neighbouring colliery with open arms. In certain quarters of this House it apparently is considered right to tear up agreements entered into deliberately and after long negotiations, and these Schedules will involve the absolute tearing up of agreements in South Wales. Practically 50 per cent, of the men underground are paid a fixed day's wage, with a varying percentage according to the price list; some of them get 16¼ per cent, over and above the 35 per cent, in addition to the fixed day wage. Men working on piece-work have a standard minimum rate plus the standard of 35 per cent., with a varying percentage over and above that. Therefore it is desirable, from my point of view, that these Schedules should be put into the Bill.

I am not at all sure what the effect of putting these Schedules into this Bill will be. It is impossible to say if they will involve an increase in prices, and, until we know that, one cannot say whether certain collieries would be obliged to shut down. With reference to remarks of the hon. Member for Merthyr, I was surprised to hear that any colliery in the land pays wages such as those to which he has referred. Whoever is responsible for that state of things should be condemned. I am not one of those who attribute evil motives to others. I consider that many of those who are trying to put these Schedules into the Bill are actuated by the same motives as those by which I am myself actuated. As far as collieries in the county of Durham are concerned, I am perfectly certain that no wages of the kind which have been suggested are paid. If a miner works five days in the week he certainly is able to earn a living wage, a wage which compares favourably with that paid to men working in other industries requiring an equal amount of skill and involving the same amount of danger. What I would point out to the Committee is that this Bill refers not only to coal mines but to ironstone mines as well. That is a very important fact. We ought to take into consideration the fact that the iron and steel trades are dependent in every case on the price of coal. I do not know what hon Members think as to what will be the increase in the price in coal if these Schedules are placed in the Bill. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the increase would be very considerable, that the diminution of the output in many districts would be considerable, and that therefore the increase in the price to the consumer would be considerable. Supposing that the increase in the price is 1s. a ton. That would be 2s. per ton on iron, because it takes twenty-two hundredweight of coke to make a ton of iron, and thirty-two hundredweight of coal to make a ton of coke, so that an increase in the price of coal of 1s. per ton would actually be 3s. in the case of steel. In the iron and steel trade competition is very keen, and we ought to consider what effect a rate like this would have upon the steel trade. I should like to see all miners receiving not less than 10s. a day, but it cannot be done at the present moment. We must consider what the general effect of our action may be when we are trying to arrange the wages of any particular class. When we consider the whole interests of the country I am convinced that, although mining work in many respects is dangerous, yet, if we are going to place on our Statute Book a Bill for a minimum wage, with a Schedule such as this, we ought to consider the trades that require a minimum wage much more than this particular trade.

The question we are discussing now is one that has been before the districts for a long time, and the Schedule rates that are before us are practically what are in existence at the present time. I am surprised to hear from any quarter of the Committee that these rates are going to ruin collieries. If you take my own county, the scheduled rates for that are 7s. 1½d. for one part of the district, and 7s. 6d. for the other part of the district. Those rates have been paid for years. I have been asked to explain to the Committee the exact operation of the working of those rates. I have worked in a pit for twenty years, and I know something of the working of the mines. Supposing I am a contractor, and am getting coal at so much per ton, and that so much per ton brings me in a certain wage, but I am called out to do different work for the company. They may select me as a man to do some work on the roads. There may be a difficult question of timbering, and they ask me to go out to see to this timbering. The company pay me 7s. 6d. for day work, or if I am on the other side of the district they pay me 7s. 1½d. a day, because I am recognised as an efficient workman. But the man who attends on me, who carries my timber, or who supplies me with the material necessary for repairing, gets not 7s. 6d., but, in some cases, 6s., and in others 6s. 6d. Now we are asking for the most skilled workman in the mine, the man who is proficient in everything he touches in the mine, exactly what he has been given before.

I am going to make a revelation to the Committee. There is a considerable number of employers in this country who come into conversation with their workmen, and I am glad to give my praise to those employers. The largest company we have in Derbyshire, which employs 7,000 men is paying the minimum wage to-day, which was agreed to and signed by my association and by the manager of that company. What is it? If any man on Friday night—they pay on Friday night—if any contractor has not his 7s. 6d. per day for that week he is not allowed to leave the colliery till he takes the money out of the office. The same thing is in operation in the collieries in Derbyshire belonging to the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir Arthur Markham). The question of malingering has boon raised. I have asked the general manager of the largest firm we have if he has any complaint to make about malingering, and, although this Schedule has been in operation for a considerable time, he has not a single case to give of a man who has been guilty of malingering. It is an insult upon our miners to say that they will malinger, or shirk their duty, or refuse to perform a fair day's work for a fair day's wage.

Let us get to the truth of the matter. I charge the unrest, and I charge this strike, upon the bad management of mines, and I am going to give a case for which I will give chapter and verse. We have had so much theorising about the question that it is time we came down to the practical thing, and that somebody should speak who understands the question from the workmen's standpoint. The hon. Member behind me (Sir Clifford Cory) spoke from the employers' standpoint and the capitalists' standpoint, but that is not a practical standpoint, and it does not deal with the workman's position in the matter. Let me give a case. At one colliery, employing 600 men, for two years there was a dispute, verging on a stoppage. It was in a fine part of the country, with a fine class of men, well-built and of good physique, and I could not understand it. I was called to that colliery to go into the matter. I found that there were plenty of tubs coming out of the pit, and that the value of these tubs was sufficient to give every contractor in that pit 9s. a day, and to give every loader in that pit 7s. a day, and yet there were some men going home with 12s., and others with 4s. or 5s. The manager's attention was called to it, and he asked for a report as to how many tubs a day it would take to give these men their wages, and he was told it would take so many. He then said he would see that it was put in the price list, that the tubs were fairly distributed, and, in order that there should not be a complaint, that every facility should be given. From that day to this, although it is two and a half years ago, there has not been a single complaint in this colliery. The fact is the management was at fault. They rushed the tubs to the stall nearest the shaft, and some men did not get a day's wage, while there were others getting more than a day's wage. We want the minimum wage to stop bad management, and I believe when the managers realise that they have a minimum wage to pay, whether the men get the tubs or not, whether they have bad roads or bad roofs, they will take care that the tubs are more equally distributed, or they will shift the managers, because they will say, "Here is a man who has 12s. a day whose stall is no better than a man who is getting 4s. a day. Tell me how it is that the pit is managed like that?" If they have the minimum to pay, they will see that they have a management and that facilities are properly given to the men to earn their living. If the management will look to these things, while 75 per cent. of the men to-day get more than the minimum by piece-work that figure will go up to 90 per cent., and we should have very little cause of complaint. Then there is the overcrowding of mines. Sometimes five or six men are sent to a stall where there ought only to be four, and at the same time they have to supply them with tubs to make up the day's wage. I am glad to say there are managers and managers, and there are collieries and collieries, but the good collieries and the good managers are tabooed by the miners because of the bad managers. These are not the maximum wages. The men who work by piecework get much more than this. When men are asked to be in the pit the whole of the time and are willing to perform a day's work, given the facilities, and are willing, to earn a day's wage, if these facilities are not given through bad management or from causes over which they have no control, whoever employs these men has the right to see that they have an honest day's wage.

I should be very loth to say anything which would bring me into collision with the hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Markham) as an authority. At the same time, I hope he will forgive me if I say there are some parts of the coalfields with which he is not so well acquainted as I am. He has not favoured the House with any reason why there is an item of 4s. 11d. in one part of the Schedule and 7s. 6d. in another. Members who have supported the Schedule have almost entirely taken the humanitarian standpoint. They want a man when he goes into the mine to be assured of a very definite wage. I want to ask them, if they take that standpoint, how they can justify asking for 4s. 11d. in Somerset and in Bristol? What is the explanation of that figure?

They are the existing rates.

There are some things that the hon. Gentleman has to be instructed upon. I admit it requires a great amount of courage to differ from him, but I hope I possess it. If the answer is that these are the existing rates, I feel it my duty to give it a flat denial. I have been asked to put forward the case of the West Yorkshire mines, and I am very sorry that there are no miners' representatives from the Yorkshire district present. I express that regret the more fervently, because I do not think there is any good owner or good coal manager in Yorkshire who is not deeply indebted to the Miners' Association of Barnsley. If this Bill and this Schedule have any chance whatever of being a success in our district we must look forward to friendship from Barnsley, the Miners' Association, rather than from owners like the hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Markham). If he takes that view he would be liable to do great injustice to the men I am now speaking for. The rate paid is not 7s. 6d., the rate at the head of this Schedule. I was interviewed yesterday by the managers of a colliery, some of whose workmen live in my Constituency and many of whose colliers live in the village where I reside, in the Osgoldcross Division, on the banks of a very famous river. I have taken the opportunity of verifying as well as I could the views of the workmen and the views of that manager. The manager assures me that the only minimum rate at which he could keep his pit open, is 5s. 6d. I am not here to vouch for these figures. I know they are given by a public man who supplies figures to the board of guardians in my Constituency regularly with regard to the wages of his workpeople in answer to inquiries, and I should not at all wish to challenge his statement. What I know is that in many collieries in West Yorkshire the average is between 6s. and 6s. 6d. It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Markham) to say that the colliers should quit that district and go to Doncaster, where he is sinking some new pits. Many of these thrifty miners are purchasing their houses through building societies and co-operative societies, and occasionally their womenfolk are working at the textile mills in the immediate neighbourhood, and a man does not wish to go and work at these collieries in Doncaster where there is no employment for his girls. There are considerations of that kind, and I know it is a big question how far female labour is keeping down the wages of men. I know all the evils which result but I am here to tell the House the facts of the situation, because it is quite evident that some of the speakers who claim to speak for the mining industry are entirely ignorant of them.

I am not putting my claim on behalf of these owners. They tell me there is a matter of about forty coal mines, and from 13,000 to 15,000 workpeople who would be actually affected if this Schedule were adopted. I am not here to condemn the Schedule, but I ask those who advocate it how they can justify a Schedule of 7s. 6d. for West Yorkshire, where I he average rate is 5s. or 6s., without imposing it upon the Forest of Dean and Somerset. I do not admit that the cost of living can account for the difference between 4s. 11d. and 7s. 6d. I am not here to plead for a victory for one side over the other, but rather to plead that these questions can only be determined in consultation on the spot. I have never been one to take the interests of the masters against the trade unions in my life, and I have not joined any masters' federation, and I think I am perfectly clear upon all these points. I am here to say that if these matters are left to be settled between our colliery and the Miners' Association at Barnsley—I am not anxious whether an independent chairman is there, at all—an arrangement would be come to, but I say it would not be proper to impose blindly a rate on the district which is not quite applicable. A rate which would be applicable to Doncaster would not be quite applicable to the thin seams which are being worked in West Yorkshire of one foot ten inches. It is not on account of any sentimental ground or the desirability of paying a wage to provide bread and butter that I take this view. Their own officials admit that the thickness of the seam and the depth of the mine affects the question of the rate to be paid. I am not afraid of having all the considerations put on the table at a joint meeting, provided that there are not too many owners present who have the disposition of the hon. Member for Mansfield. I have the highest respect for the hon. Member's ability and politics, but when I hear another owner openly advocate that the old mines should be closed because he wants labour in Doncaster. I hope, friend as he is, he will excuse rue if I am obliged to tell the House the truth. I am quite aware that the Yorkshire Federation and others have agreed to the rates in the Schedule. I also know that the miners' agents at Barnsley think that 7s. to 7s. 6d., which would be a proper rate in some districts, would be inapplicable if certain mines in Yorkshire are to exist at all. What I am advocating is that the men themselves at these collieries shall have the choice of saying whether they will continue, and what they think a fair minimum rate at a colliery. I am not at all afraid to meet our own men. I think a scheme could be devised. Mines with thin seams, a great deal of dirty coal, and a great many faults, are entitled to have their position investigated on the spot. The men are entitled to know the difficulties of the masters, so that in joint conference they may decide what the rate should be.

As the hon. Member made an attack upon me I wish to reply to him. He said that I wanted to close mines in West Yorkshire in order to get labour at Doncaster. I have not the slightest intention of taking any miners from Yorkshire to Doncaster. The men are coming out of my own Constituency. I told the House last night that I have advocated a minimum wage for the last ten years. I have carried out that principle in the mines with which I am connected, and it is not true to say that I am advocating certain principles which are contrary to those which I have carried out for years past. The hon. Member who made the statement knew it to be without any foundation.

I do not think I made any charge. I was referring to the statement the hon. Member made earlier in the Debate, that naturally a number of old mines would close because the labour of the miners would be wanted in the new ones.

If the hon. Member had confined his remarks to the statement he now makes I should not have risen, but he said I wanted to bring labour from Yorkshire to Doncaster. That statement is untrue, and he knows it is untrue.

Is it in order for one hon. Member to accuse another of making a statement which he knows to be untrue?

Is it in order for one hon. Member to make a charge against another of dishonesty?

I understood that the hon. Baronet was simply replying to some suggestion made by the hon. Member for Pontefract to the effect that his business arrangements were matters of interest to him. I heard no words which called for my intervention.

On the point of Order. No doubt we have some sympathy with the hon. Baronet, if I may be permitted to say so, in the language he used. No doubt an hon. Member is entitled to repudiate any charge brought against him, but what your ruling is desired upon is whether in repudiating a charge he is entitled to charge another hon. Member with knowingly making an untrue statement. The words which the hon. Member for Mansfield used were that the hon. Member for Pontefract had made a statement which was untrue, and which he knew to be untrue. I submit to you that while he has a perfect right to say that the statement was unfounded, he had no right to say the hon. Member knew it was untrue.

I am quite willing to withdraw it. I did not intend myself to say that the hon. Member knew that the statement is quite untrue. As to the other points raised, let me say that this is no new charge. I do not think it is fair of the Labour party to press the Schedule to a Division. If they were the party in power to-day and had to deal with a trade dispute, they could not come here and ask the House of Commons to accept without investigation certain schedules of rates when the Government had no knowledge whether the figures were correct or incorrect. I think the schedule rates are as low as they ought to be. My opinion is that no man should work in a mine unless he is paid 8s. a day. That is not the question before the House, and I think the Labour party are ill-advised in pressing the Amendment to a Division. I think that any self-respecting man in the House realises the absolute impracticability of the suggestion.

As one of the representatives of the workmen in Yorkshire, I cannot sit by and allow the statement which the hon. Member for Pontefract made to go by default, knowing something of the other side of the question. I am not going to dispute that my hon. Friend knows something of his side, but I claim to know something of the other side, and I cannot accept the statement that in the thin seams in the western portion of Yorkshire the miners are only getting the wages he has quoted. I have in my hands a document which probably I shall use later on on another Amendment, and which would clearly prove to the House that the great bulk of the owners of thin seams in the western portion of the county pay a minimum now of 7s. 6d. per day. The great majority of the thin seams pay 7s. 6d. per day, and a greater number of the collieries in that particular county pay 7s. 6d. than pay any other figure. I challenge the hon. Gentleman to give the names of collieries that pay as low as 5s. 6d., which he has quoted as a figure to the Committee this afternoon. There it not a single price list in existence, agreed to between the two parties in the western portion of our county which has a less rate, plus 50 per cent. than 4s. 4d. per ton.

What I said was that they could not work at a greater minimum than 5s. 6d.

They are actually paid more at this moment, and