asked the Minister of Labour what was the total number of unemployed ex-service men who were registered as out of employment on or about the 31st May, 1920, in the exchanges in the area covered by the Aldershot Command; in the area covered by the Eastern Command; and in the area covered by the Southern Command?

At 28th May, 1920, the number of unemployed ex-service men registered at the Employment Exchanges in the Aldershot Command was 877; in the area covered by the Eastern Command, 35,363; in the area covered by the Southern Command, 40,635.

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The Interpretation Act gives general powers of the kind, but this proposal is intended to apply to Orders on Special Orders, which are not covered by that Act.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause added to the Bill.

I beg to move, at end of Sub-section (1, c), to add a new paragraph "(d) has been an insured person under this Act for five years without having received unemployment benefit. The object of this Amendment is to add one more paragraph to the Clause which deals with the exemption of certain persons from paying contributions. I propose to add this paragraph (d) to paragraphs (a), (b) and (c). There is nothing in the Bill giving exemption from payment of contributions to people who have paid for a large number of years and have not received and are not likely to receive any benefit—with one exception, to which I shall allude in a moment. In the Health Insurance Bill there are many alternative benefits. Under this Bill there is not a single alternative benefit, except one in the case of unemployment. I do feel that a man who has contributed various sums over a long period of years ought to receive some kind of benefit for those sums. After all, the Health Insurance Act on the whole is a very popular Act on account of its alternative benefit. This Bill, I am afraid, will become gradually very unpopular unless some alternative benefits are given for the contributions that are paid. The Act compels contributions although the people are never likely to be unemployed. There is one exception, and that occurs in Clause 25, where there is a refund authorised to the relatives of a man who dies after the age of sixty, and who has regularly paid his contributions Such a contingency, however, is far too remote, for such a man may, starting at the age of sixteen, pay for forty-four years the full contributions, and never get a penny benefit.

Under the Health Insurance Act you get sick benefit, disablement benefit, maternity benefit, and two days hence you will get sanatorium benefit, and you can get a variety of other benefits. In the case of perfectly healthy people under the National Insurance Act they can get benefits. Take such a class as bank clerks. In all probability they will pay their contribution and never get any unemployment benefit, and the same applies to many artisans. I feel that a capable workman will very much resent having to pay for a lazy workman, whom his employer would be only too glad to get rid of. I think the care of these people ought to be met, and the way to do it is to give to these persons who have not received anything over a long period of time a certificate of exemption under which they need not pay any further contributions until a claim is made, and directly a claim is made the contributions would resume. I think a provision of this kind would tend to make the Act far more popular.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I am sorry not to be able to agree with my hon. Friend. Under his Amendment anyone who had not received unemployment benefit for five years would be entitled to a certificate of exemption, and he would be exempt from contributions. My hon. Friend has a further Amendment down which is intended to enable the Ministry to make special rules. This Amendment conflicts with the principle of the Bill, which is that the contribution shall be paid by all persons in the trades covered by the Bill. Certain exemptions of the kind mentioned by the hon. Member are allowed under the Bill, but to allow exemptions on the ground that the probability is that the employment is permanent, and still further on the ground that it has been permanent for five years, would be an evasion of the principle of insurance, and would undermine the financial basis of this scheme. This Clause deals with a different point entirely from the purposes which my hon. Friend has in mind. It deals with persons whose insurable employment is not their main employment, and they may depend on something else or earn their livelihood in an occupation which is not insured. This proposal is really going much beyond the scope of the Bill, and I cannot accept an Amendment of this character which is really a negation of the principle of insurance.

I think the right hon. Gentleman has taken the correct view of the effect of this Amendment, and perhaps after what he has said, it will not be pressed further on the attention of the House. The Amendment is to provide an individual exception in the case of a man who has been under this Act for five years, without having received unemployment benefit. Such a man if unemployed in the sixth or seventh year would be disabled under the terms of this Amendment from enjoy- ing the benefit to which he would have been otherwise entitled by virtue of his previous five years' contributions. The only other point is that we look at this whole question of insurance from the standpoint of a general pooling of reserves and all interests, and to make this individual exemption would create in a workshop and in occupations generally a good deal of conflict and perhaps disputes. In view of the very strong reasons against this Amendment, I hope it will not be forced upon the attention of the House.

Amendment negatived.

I beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the words "contributions by employed persons, partly from."

During the Committee stage this Amendment was down on the Paper, but owing to a misunderstanding as to the time of the meeting it was overlooked and that is my reason for bringing it forward now. My first reason is, that in a well-organised and well-ordered state there should be no necessity for a Bill of this character, because there should be no unemployed, and every man willing to con tribute to the wealth of the State either mentally or physically should have an opportunity of doing so. If our system denies a man that opportunity then he should not be penalised if he occasionally finds himself unemployed through no fault of his own. That is my first objection. The willing producer ought to be a help instead of a hindrance to the State; therefore I enter my protest against any Bill or Act of Parliament that penalises the man who is willing to work, and deprives him of the opportunity when he is willing to produce for the nation. My next objection is that where private enterprise fails to do this, then the State in its own interests should take the necessary steps to find that man work. While private enterprise does exist and while it fails to provide the man with work, then the industry should take upon itself the burden with the State of paying an unemployed benefit to the man out of employment through no fault of his own. My next point is that, for the first time in the history of industry, millions of men are brought into this scheme of unemployed benefit through their organised trade unions which never before, had attached to them a scheme for unemployment. Therefore the difficulty is in many cases, if I may put it figuratively, to acclimatise them perfectly to an Act of Parliament of this kind. The dockers industry in which I am interested contains men who are never permanently employed and yet under this Bill they will be compelled to pay a contribution and will receive no benefit from the payment of that contribution. I would respectfully submit to the hon. Member below the gangway (Mr. Locker-Lampson)that if he wants a remedy for that kind of thing, the only remedy is to bring the men under the Act.

The men in the particular industry to which I am referring number 500,000 and there are casual labourers in other trades. Under the provisions of this Bill they are to be permanently disqualified from receiving any benefit of any kind. I know consecutive periods are allowed, but they can never apply to the man who is idle on the first two days of the week but gets employment on the first or second half of the third day, which employment disqualifies them from receiving benefit. This goes on from week to week and month to month, and a man will never be qualified for benefits. That in itself necessitates some provision for men who are employed in industries like the one I have mentioned. There is another objection which I have to raise. The man in the organised trade union is to pay 100 per cent. addition to his contribution. Like everything else, the cost of working trade unions has gone up. Secondly, you are burdening that man with documents which he absolutely detests. He has to have, first, his trade union card, then his national health insurance card, and now you want to provide him with a separate document to carry about with him and to be separately stamped. In addition to that, he has his trade union contribution to pay, his insurance contribution, and every member of his family is insured, and now you are adding another amount to be deducted from his wages. It very nearly amounts to the last straw, and the result will be, if these things go on much longer, there will be a very vigorous opposition on behalf of labour. By placing these burdens on industry you are increasing, it may be said, the cost of production. That is always the case. If you take 3d., 4d. or 5d. from a man's wages every week in addition to what he is now paying, you are reducing the purchasing power of his wages, and if you go on piling up all these additional burdens, you will soon have the dockers and other workers going to their employment equipped with an attaché case in order to carry the documents they are expected to have upon them. Finally, you are producing a system which penalises a man who, through no fault of his own, is thrown out of employment.

I beg to second the Amendment. I would like to say that the whole scheme of unemployment insurance in this country is wrong, and cannot last very much longer. Many hon. Members believe with myself that we shall never get over the unemployment problem until each industry is made responsible for its own unemployed, and each casual industry is decasualised. Until that is done, you will never have industrial peace. This Amendment is a step in that direction and therefore I support it. I wish it had also been possible to leave out the words "provided by Parliament." I had thought of moving an Amendment to that effect, but, having come to the conclusion that there was little chance of getting it carried, I decided not to waste time upon it and to confine my remarks to this particular Amendment. I am particularly speaking now of cases where, in certain industries, output is deliberately stopped or decreased, and men are thrown out of work for market reasons, in order to create an artificial scarcity. That is done much more frequently, perhaps, than hon. Members opposite will admit. It is done in other countries besides our own. It is done, for example, in the United States, and undoubtedly we in our industrial organisation and methods, are following in the footsteps of the United States, which are more highly developed as a capitalist State than we are. We, however, are catching them up, and not slowly. There are many cases already, and there will be more, in which it pays to close factories in order to create an artificial scarcity, to prevent the market being glutted and prices being brought down. A relevant case, which was admitted by the Government, was mentioned yesterday with regard to wool. Wool was deliberately held up from the market. The stoppage of manufacture is the same process. Why, in that case, should the men employed in the industry suffer? The idea that I am trying to explain is that each industry shall be a self-contained whole, in which the unemployed and the sick shall be a first charge on the profits of the industry. I admit that at present their maintenance is partially a charge on the employers. It is also partially a charge on the workmen and on the State. The whole people, however, have to pay the employers' contribution in the shape of increased charges. Why not throw the whole of the unemployment benefit on to the industry, and make it payable, not by the separate units in the industry, but by the industry as a whole? In an industry which is closely organised, as all industries ought to be, the unemployed should be in the nature of an overhead charge.

I gather that my hon. and gallant Friend thinks that the whole thing is quite wrong. I am afraid I cannot take that view up at the moment, but must confine myself to what was said by the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton), who raised a simple and clear issue. His Amendment, together with the Amendments consequential upon it, would have the effect, as he put it quite frankly, of making Sub-section (1) of Clause 5 read that the funds are to be derived partly from contributions by the employers, and partly from contributions by the State; that is to say, that the employed person is not to pay any contribution to the scheme. That is the issue, and it is a perfectly clear one. The scheme is to be a non-contributory scheme so far as the insured persons are concerned. That would be a departure, as my hon. Friend, of course, knows, from the principle of the Health Insurance scheme, and of Part II. of the Insurance Act of 1911, which principle we have ventured to adopt in this Bill. In both those cases it was held that there should be three contributions, from the employer, the employed person, and the State, respectively. The only illustration which my hon. Friend might have quoted, but did not, where the insured person does not make a contribution, is the case of the Workmen's Compensation Act. He might have quoted that with some effect. In that case, however, the whole charge is placed on the employer, as my hon. Friend knows. The benefit conferred upon the insured person in this Bill, as amended in Committee by my hon. Friend, is a weekly benefit of 20s. a week, instead of 15s., and the wiping out of any waiting period. That means a cost of ls. 4d. a week under the Bill as it will stand as thus amended.' It would be out of Order to propose that the State contribution should be increased, and I am afraid I cannot give any undertaking to that effect. If, therefore, my hon. Friend's policy were adopted, the employer would pay 1s. 2d. a week. The State contribution is 2d., and that 2d. must stand, not only because of the rules of this House, but because of the fact that I cannot undertake to find any more money, for reasons which I shall presently show.

Is it reasonable that the employer should pay 1s. 2d. a week? Would not there be a good many people who would say, to use my hon. Friend's phrase, that that is piling up the agony? It may be asked why the State contribution should not be increased. Let us look at the Act of 1911. The State contribution under that Act is about £250,000 a year. Under this present Bill, the State contribution to be provided will amount to about £3,750,000, that is to say, about £2,500,000 a year more than the old contribution. I am bound to say, considering the terrific strain which the War has put upon our national finances, that that is a not unhandsome contribution. We cannot increase it. Take the Bill as we propose it, with a contribution of 15s. a week and a waiting period of three days—

I should like to make a correction of my previous statement. The actual figure for the employer is 1s. ld. and for the State 2d. My argument is that under a non-contributory scheme the employer would have to pay 1s. ld., and not 1s. 2d. That would happen if my hon. Friend had his way. Compared with the old Act of 1911 the State is contributing under this Act £3,750,000, an addition of £2,500,000. That is not an unhandsome contribution having regard to the state of the national Exchequer to-day. I cannot ask for any more. Look at the matter from the point of view of the Bill as we now propose it. Take a man who has 15s. a week, with a waiting period of three days. In that case the benefit would cost 10d. a week, the State paying 2d. and the employer 8d. Is that a reasonable proposition? What right in the co-operation and administration of this scheme would the workpeople have if they did not con tribute anything to it? It is very important that they should have some voice in the administration, but if you cut them out the administration would be left to the employers on the one hand and the State on the other. I do not think that would be entirely satisfactory.

If we pass this Bill we shall increase the number of employed persons covered by insurance from about 4,000,000 to about 12,000,000. That alone is a great and beneficent reform. The hon. Member for St. Helens did make a point of substance. He pleaded for the casual. As the Bill originally stood, with a waiting period of six days, the casual might have got no benefit at all, but my hon. Friend has overlooked the fact that we are proposing to make the waiting period three days which will certainly cover some of the people for whom he pleaded.

Even the three days will not cover the point, because they could not qualify.

Instead of the three days, could not the right hon. Gentleman make provision so that they would have an amount to live on during that time?

The hon. Member wants to have no waiting period at all. That I cannot concede. The three days is better from the point of view of the casual than the six days as it originally stood, but that is not all In Clause 18 when we were in Committee, we definitely put in this provision in Sub-section (2) Provision may be made by a special scheme for insuring the persons to whom the scheme applies, against partial unemployment as well as against employment. Those for whom my hon. Friend (Mr. Sexton) eloquently pleads can be met by a special scheme, if they be not already covered, by bringing the waiting period forward to three days. If this Bill pass, £14,000,000 a year will be dispensed in benefit, towards which the workpeople will pay £5,800,000. They ought to be prepared to bear that share. It is not an unfair proportion. I am bound to ask the House to reject this Amendment.

1.0 P.M.

I thought the right hon. Gentleman would have put to the House a much more formidable case than he has done in resisting the Amendment. I agree that if this Amendment be carried, the whole Bill would have to be recast. Viewed from the standpoint of those who submit this Measure, it would completely ruin the Bill. It is not such ruin that we seek. The substance of the Amendment is a rather old labour doctrine, and we ask the House seriously to consider it, not because altogether of the very strong plea put forward on the ground of finance, but on the ground of its being a right thing for the State to do. This Bill proposes to carry the doctrine of State responsibility a step further. Our Amendment asks the State to carry that doctrine still a step further, and take the opportunity which this Bill offers to us of getting a complete review of the whole question of insurance against employment. Our view is that when men are in work they maintain the industry and that when they are out of work through no fault of their own the industry should maintain them. Industry now bears very many heavy obligations and responsibilities. Industry must maintain men when they are suffering unemployment through accident and physical disability. The State does not require workmen to pay contributions for that state of unemployment. Men are out of work even for years from physical disability, loss of limb or sight and the State acknowledges its responsibility toward them by compelling that industry to provide compensation which workmen must receive for long spells of unemployment. When a workman is out of work through no fault of his own, through economic causes of unforeseen circumstances against which no man and no State can provide, that man should have a right to turn to the industry and expect some reasonable degree of maintenance from it because of his readiness in turn to maintain the industry when it is fit to employ him.

We put the view because it is competent for the industry to do it. The profits of industry, the general future possibilities as we believe of trade expansion, would enable the industry to bear the additional burden, as it is said, of some few million pounds annually instead of requiring the workman to pay it. Most of the money that will be paid as unemployment benefit will go, it is certain, to the lower paid workmen. In the nature of things they suffer the condition of unemployment more than the higher paid workmen. The higher paid the work, the greater the security of employment. The industries in which you have the greatest degree of unemployment are the industries in which the lower paid labourers and the less skilled and unskilled workers are found, so that the burden does fall in the main upon men who, because of their low wages and irregular employment, are not able to bear these exactions.

This is a doctrine which is not new. The history of all this legislation is the history of the gradual acceptance by the State of its obligation towards its industrial population. A manager or a highly-paid captain of industry usefully and necessarily employed in the higher branches of trade organisation and development is not asked to pay a weekly contribution for what he may receive when he is no longer able to follow his line of service. He has very often ample retirement and pension provisions. Large sums of money are in that way taken out of great industries to maintain in a condition of comfort and dignity those who serve the industry in its higher branches of service. Why not apply the same doctrine to the poor man, the less paid, the less skilled workman? The trade then is able to bear the charge. It is no new doctrine or novel principle. Already it has been accepted by the State with regard to unemployment due to accidents and injuries, and it is the practice in trades and businesses in respect to the higher paid services. I ask, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman should reconsider this position and submit to his Government that this is a great opportunity of making a complete job of the whole scheme of unemployment insurance.

There was one argument which he addressed to the House, and which, I rather thought from the terms in which he put it, he considered to be unanswerable, but I think that there is a very obvious reply. The right hon. Gentleman asks, what power will the workman have in the administration of this scheme of unemployment benefit if they pay nothing for it? The first part of my answer is that they would be paying. They pay in their labour. It is their labour which maintains the industry and provides the profits. I do not mean all the profits, I mean a very large part. It is the main contribution to the prosperity and profits derived from the trades and businesses. The other part of the answer is that they would have just as much participation in the administration, say under an unemployment benefit scheme, as they now have through the State and through this House in regard to the sums which are paid to them as compensation in connection with the laws of the land, and workmen would be well content to secure a share of the administration through exactly the same means. Let the State and the industry accept the financial obligation of meeting the needs of workmen when out of work, and workmen would be content to leave to the State and industry all the general questions of administration, subject to such rights of participation in it as they may now have in connection, say, with the ordinary compensation law. I think, therefore, on the grounds of justice and the ability of the trades to bear this burden that we are entitled to press this Amendment.

I would like to offer opposition to this contributory scheme, speaking largely from the point of view of an individual industry. The industry to which I belong on one or two occasions met the Minister who was in charge of this Bill when it was first introduced, who has gone now to another Department, and we have protested against this part of the scheme. If there is an industry which invalidates the argument which has been used by the right hon. Gentleman it is the industry to which I belong. The right hon. Gentleman is making out that if this Amendment is carried a contribution other than a contribution by the State will be borne entirely by the employers. Nothing of the kind will take place. I will remind the right hon. Gentleman that for four years now the mining community have been receiving a benefit of 18s. a week in cases of unemployment, starting the first day, and that the whole of that has been charged on the industry itself. Not a penny of that has ever been paid by the employer himself. If a man to-day is sent back again in a mining community because there is no work for him, he is paid the war wage of 3s. a day, and that is charged on the industry itself. Therefore the argument of the right hon. Gentleman that this would be a contribution by the employer has no foundation in fact. That has been pointed out clearly by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes). In those circumstances, if this goes to a division it will have the support at least of the section belonging to the mining community. We are going to be worse off under the provisions of this Bill than we are at present. We are making provision ourselves for unemployment. A man gets 15s. from our own funds, and other allowances may bring it up to 18s. If this Bill is passed as proposed, he will be called upon to make a contribution, and he will only get 15s. instead of 18s. I am speaking on behalf of my Executive, and I hope that this view of the Amendment will get full consideration.

I think there was a curious inconsistency in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes). He argued, as far as I could understand him, that the State should pay the whole of the contribution. At any rate, that would be the logical result of his argument. I understood him also to say that that was not his object but that a contribution should be paid by the industry. According to his view, the industry should pay practically the whole contribution. I admit as a general principle that that should be so, but I define industry as a partnership between labour and capital. They are both partners and therefore should both contribute to such a scheme if there is a levy upon the industry. But it does not make much difference, in fact, whether the employer or workman pays the contribution. In the present industrial conditions, if the workman has to pay it he gets a rise of wages, and if the employer pays it he increases his prices. It comes to the same thing in the end. For my own part, I accept the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman that the industry should be responsible for paying these contributions towards the insurance fund. Where I differ from him is that in defining the industry, I say it consists of both partners, whereas he defines it as consisting of only one.

I was rather sorry that the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton) did not make a more detailed reference to the position of the members of his trade union in Ireland. I do not see anything in the Bill which covers the workers in Ireland, except that it covers those who are insured against unemployment under the existing law. I do not see that any observations were made with regard to the position of Irish workers under the Bill.

I am not responsible for the drafting of the Bill. I was discussing its principle and its application.

That is just the point. What is to be its application to Ireland? I see great differences with regard to its application to the workers in Ireland, and I do not see why the hon. Member did not raise this question in the Committee.

I did raise it.

Then that difference in regard to members in Ireland should have been provided for. I have had resolutions from different trade unions, including the union for which he speaks. It would require a great deal of re-organisation of the Irish trade unions. They would have to have different contribution cards and have to make other changes. Why did he not raise the whole question of the inclusion of Ireland in the Bill?

I am not altogether out of sympathy with the views put forward by the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) upon this Amendment. I think there is a good deal more to be said in favour of a non-contributory scheme than most hon. Members on this side of the House imagine. I do not think that in these advanced days it is unreasonable to say that the industry should bear the whole of this burden. Certain burdens have already been placed on industries, but in the case of unemployment we have at present part of the contribution paid by the labour element. The higher class of those engaged in the industry, those who are placed in authority over the workers, are usually paid their salaries at a time when the workmen are thrown out of employment. The poorer-paid workman finds that his wages cease as soon as his employment ceases. The industry is not responsible for paying him wages while he is out of work, with the result that he must come upon a scheme of this kind. It seems to me reasonable to say that the burden of unemployment in an industry should be covered by insurance, and should be borne by that industry. I think we have come to that position that we have to recognise that those who very largely help towards the success of an industry are the workers engaged in that industry. A good deal is done as the result of skill and capital, plant and machinery, but the industry could not possibly earn what it does but for the assistance of labour. The labour which is engaged in the industry and adding to the prosperity of that industry and of the country maps out for itself a right to something more than the mere wages which it is paid. It is not unreasonable to claim that an industry which has been built up so largely by the workers engaged in it should not disown its responsibility to the workers in times of depressed trade. Therefore, I say there is a great deal more to be said in favour of a noncontributory scheme than is usually imagined. I think that if adopted it would promote a better relationship between employers and employed. If the worker engaged in the industry realised that it was to his interest that the industry should be successful, and, beyond that, that he had a claim upon it when out of work, he would be more eager to make it a success. That would destroy, I think, any tendency towards a "ca" canny" policy. He would be sure not only of the payment of his wages, but when out of work of a contribution from the industry itself. That would give him a greater interest in the progress and prospects of the industry.

One of the most lamentable features of the present situation is the attitude of hostility on the part of the workers to the employer, and of the employer towards the employed. The workmen are under certain obligations to the employers; the employer, no less, is under certain obligations to the workmen. No humane employer can look with complacency on the prospect, in a time of depression, of men who have been with him for many years, and have worked honestly and well, being turned on to the streets, with no possibility, except a meagre allowance, of providing suitably for themselves, their wives, and their families. If we could come to a situation where the employers and the State would recognise that the worker has a real claim, whether employed or not employed, it would promote better relationship between employer and employed, and would tend to a better upbuilding of industry. Even supposing the industry were saddled with the cost of suitable maintenance of the employés, I am sure that it would not mean the ruin of any industry in the country. As has been said by another hon. Member, the consumer in the long run has to bear the cost, and no business could be carried on unless it paid. The employer has to insure against many risks. I think, with proper adjustment, this burden could also be borne. I ask the House not to dismiss too summarily the proposition put forward by the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes). I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill will give way, for, as has been stated, it would destroy the Bill entirely; but I think the discussion may prove helpful, and that ultimately we shall have to come to the position of passing legislation for a noncontributory scheme for unemployment.

All of us on the Labour Benches were disappointed with the statement made by the Minister in charge of the Bill, in answer to the case submitted in favour of a non-contributory scheme. His main argument seemed to be centred round the cost that might fall either upon the employers or upon the State. I would submit to him that if the employers or the industry were saddled with the burden he suggested, he could not reasonably argue that it was a burden which the industry could not carry. Right hon. Gentlemen speaking from the Government Benches vary their tone when they are speaking on public expenditure. Sometimes a few millions are most important. At other times they do not seem to have the same significant importance. But they always have increased significance when what is proposed is something that will contribute to the solving of a social problem. I will make a comparison: These millions here are spoken of in very serious terms. The same tone was not adopted when the House was asked to sanction the expenditure of millions for scarlet uniforms. Compare the object in view in the two cases. One is a proposal to establish a scheme of social reform that is going to help those who suffer from the inequalities of our social and industrial system. The other had for its object the glorification of an idea which we thought was going to be destroyed by the sacrifices of the past few years. The serious tone adopted by Ministers in regard to a few millions to be applied to a scheme like this, loses any importance it might have had, when we realise that in regard to other matters the same seriousness is not displayed. Is the expenditure which has been mentioned the net expenditure? Are there no economies possible? Will it not mean some economy in administration? If we can effect some economy in that direction, surely it is a sound line of procedure, because if we can reduce the amount of labour of a non-productive character, we are really helping society. There is undoubtedly in this Bill an endeavour to make the problem of unemployment, and the method of dealing with it, a national responsibility. It is a national question. But the hon. Gentlemen who are promoting this legislation have recognised, by the limitations that they themselves have established in their Bill, that they cannot carry out this scheme in a complete national sense. Why? Why is it that you have excepted trades? Why is it that you are excluding from the operation of the Bill certain industries? It is not because those who are unemployed in those industries do not need assistance when they are unemployed. Those of us who have experienced unemployment, can speak very feelingly on the question. We know what it means in the home-life of the worker. The reason you have excluded them is the difficulty of applying this principle of a contributory scheme. Why is agriculture excepted?

Why is Ireland excepted?

Perhaps it is not in order for me to answer that question but I was under the impression that the Bill was extended to Ireland. The Government are prevented from making this a national scheme because of the fact that it rests upon a contributory basis and I should be interested to know why these limitations and exemptions. That was one of the reasons indicated by the Minister. The case for a non-contributory scheme in connection with this problem has not been met by the statement made by the Minister, and in my opinion that is the only sound basis upon which we can proceed. I urge, even though it might mean a recasting of the whole Bill, that the case for a noncontributory scheme is so strong that it would warrant such action.

We are now embarking on what is really a Second Reading Debate. It is obvious that if this Amendment were carried, the whole Bill would be killed. That is not a reason for ruling it out of order, but we are really wasting time on this Amendment. I think it is my duty to warn the House that if a great deal of time be spent on what is a purely academic discussion, when we reach the really serious and useful Amendments, it may be my unfortunate position to have to pass over some Amendments. The House will bear in mind that the power is placed in the Chair of not calling on Amendments. I have to judge in these matters according to the use which is made of the time at our disposal. If academic questions instead of practical questions be discussed at great length, my powers are likely to be called into operation.

This aspect of the question is of supreme importance to those who sit on this side, and we look on it as of something more than academic importance. It affects the whole structure of the Bill, and we are strongly of opinion that this particular point ought to be debated as effectively as possible. There could be no stronger indictment against the commercial and industrial system of this country than the fact that a measure of this sort is considered to be necessary. It is a sad reflection upon our pronouncements in favour of social reconstruction that, instead of moving in that direction, we are making provision for unemploy- ment. We cannot accept it as a virtue that £14,000,000 are likely to be dispensed in benefit through this Bill in the ensuing twelve months. We look on employment as having a social purpose, and whilst people who command confidence have to seek employment then our commercial system has broken down in its operation. We are quite aware that in our industrial conditions a margin of an employment is looked upon as being essential to its safety, as it can be called upon in times of stress and trade disputes to be used as a competitive weapon against those people who happen to be employed in other directions. The Minister told us yesterday, in reply to a question, that there were large numbers of unemployed in the boot trade owing to the fact that the demand was falling off. The demand for boots is as great to-day as ever it was. There may not be what economists call an effective demand, but the real demand as expressed in the requirements of the community is as great. When the people require boots, and when some engaged in the boot trade are unemployed, there is disorganisation which ought to be remedied. It is the duty of Parliament and of the industry not to provide unemployment benefits, but to get those unemployed people in the boot trade to work and provide boots.

Employment is looked upon as a penalty. Some Members of this House believe that it is a time of great rejoicing for the average worker when he is out of employment—going to a Labour Exchange and drawing what has been called his dole. That is a delusion. The average worker looks with a certain amount of terror on the prospect of unemployment, and he does not want unemployed benefit either in a contributory or non-contributory form. He requires employment, and it is the function of industry and of the State to provide him with employment. It is to the best interests of the State that the workman when he is sick should be restored to health and get back to work. If he is unwilling to work, penalties should be applied. Where a person is willing and able to work, and where that work is not provided, it is the function of Parliament not to seek a medium whereby it can keep him out of work by making a contribution which is to keep the wolf from the door. Unemployment is in itself a penalty, and we ought not to add to it by calling on the worker to make a contribution himself in order to relieve in a minor degree that penalty when it comes upon him.

I do not want to give a silent vote on this question. My reason for proposing to vote against this Amendment is that, speaking as a trade union official of 25 years' standing, I regard this idea as the most demoralising that can possibly be conceived, as far as the workers are concerned. The idea of constantly giving the workers something for nothing is not good for the worker. I want the workers to have backbone, and I desire to detain this provision so that they can feel that they are bearing a fair share of the responsibility like everybody else.

There was a statement made in the course of this Debate which I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to clear up. It was said that if this Bill be passed with the contribution from the workmen in it, the effect on the mining industry would be that the workmen would get a 15s. benefit in return for their contribution, whereas they now get an 18s. benefit to which they contribute nothing. If that be so, it is a very serious change, and one on which I think we ought to have some light thrown.

I would not have intervened were it not for the fact that a Labour Member, being interrogated from this quarter with regard to whether the Bill applies to Ireland or not, said he thought it did, and I noticed that the Minister in charge nodded assent. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to point out to us in what respect Ireland stands related to this Bill.

An Amendment was made in Standing Committee.

Are the textile industries included, because that is what the Bill represents to us? We are a textile community in Belfast, and over 100,000 workers will be included or excluded according as this Bill applies or does not apply to Ireland. If the Minister cannot give us an assurance on this matter, I would like to know why he cannot. I was a Member of the Standing Committee on the Bill, and I tried to raise the question, but was ruled out of order on the ground that I was premature, but we are still anxious to know how we stand related to the Bill.

As the Bill originally stood, the old Act of 1911 would have been continued, but, in so far as this Act covered new ground, it did not apply to Ireland. My predecessor on the Second reading, on the 25th February, said: With regard to Ireland, the trades which are already insured will come under the new provision, but the main trade of Ireland is agriculture, which is not being legislated for in Great Britain under this Bill….. There is also machinery to include other trades which may wish to be included." —[OFFTCIAL REPORT, 25th February, 1920; col. 1749; Vol. 125.] In Standing Committee the Bill was altered to apply to Ireland just as it applies to other parts of the United Kingdom, and as agriculture—

I am not particularly interested in agriculture, but in textile industries.

The Bill as amended in Committee will apply to Ireland just as it will apply to every other part of the United Kingdom. May I ask now that we may come to a Division. The Bill was passed on the Second Reading without a Division, on the basis of

a contributory scheme, and as we have many very practical Amendments to consider I think we might come now to a Division.

Can the right hon. Gentleman answer my point about the coal industry?

The question with regard to Ireland has arisen to-day because of the memorandum which is attached to the Bill, and I think the error is in having that attached after it has been amended.

That question cannot possibly arise till we get to Clause 46, when, if anybody wishes to exclude Ireland, as an Amendment to Clause 46, they can move that the Bill should not apply to Ireland. Until that be carried, the Bill does apply, but for goodness sake do not let us discuss Clause 46 when we are still on Clause 5.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 168; Noes, 46.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), after the word "in" ["in the Third Schedule"] to insert the words "Part I. of."

The Third Schedule at present contains the rates of contributions for employed persons and employers. We propose to put in another Part relating to the State contributions, and to make provision for that by the insertion of these words.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In Subsection (3) leave out the words "A contribution shall be made in each year," and insert instead thereof the words "There shall, subject to the provisions of this Section, be paid."

Leave out the words "equal to one-third of the total contributions received from employers and employed persons during that year," and insert instead thereof the words in respect of each weekly contribution paid by an employer in respect of a man, woman, or boy or girl, a contribution at the ordinary rate specified in Part I. of the Third Schedule to this Act as regards men, women, and boys and girls, respectively." — [Dr. Macnamara.]

I beg to move in Sub-section (3) to leave out the words so long as the Regulations under this Act provide for the payment of contribu- tion by means of stamps, the sums received in any year on account of insurance stamps, after deducting the sums, if any, refunded on account of insurance stamps or on account of contributions paid in respect of a person believed to be but not being an employed person, shall be deemed to be contributions received from employers and employed persons in that year.

and to insert instead thereof the words While and in so far as contributions are paid by means of insurance stamps the number of contributions paid in respect of men, women, and boys and girls, respectively, in any year shall be deemed to be represented by the number of stamps appropriate to contributions by men, women, and boys and girls, respectively, sold in that year, after deducting— (a) the number (calculated in the prescribed manner) of stamps of each class which have been used for the purpose of paying contributions otherwise than under the general provisions of this Act; and (b) the number of stamps of each class in respect of which a refund has been made; and (c) such contributions as have been returned in respect of persons believed to be but not being employed persons.

2.0. P.M.

This Amendment is consequential on the preceding Amendment specifying the rates of State contributions. Instead of providing a general rate of State contribution of one-third of the total contributions paid by employers and employed persons, in view of the fact that the State contributions will be a varying proportion of the contributions paid by employer and employée, it is provided that each kind of stamp sold shall be taken as the contribution paid during the year for the purpose of ascertaining the State contribution.

Amendment agreed to

Further Amendment made: In Subsection (7) leave out the word "employed" ["though employed within"], and insert instead thereof the words "an employed person."— [Dr. Macnamara.]

I beg to move, in Sub-section (7), to leave out the words "provide that in the event of that person subsequently becoming so insured every two contributions paid in respect of him under this Sub-section shall be treated as if they had been one full contribution paid in respect of him as as employed person under the other provisions of this Act " and to insert instead thereof the words "prescribe the benefit to which that person shall be entitled."

This Amendment has reference to the contributions paid by an employer of labour in respect to persons who are not insured persons. My proposal is to strike out certain words, and to replace them by certain other words, which will ensure that a man who is employed by an employer, who has to pay the contributions for him, although the man himself is not insured, shall have certain benefits in respect of his employer's contributions. Under the Bill as it stands, such a man does not get any benefits at all, unless he happens in the future to come under insurance and fall out of employment. It seems very wrong that an employer should have to pay these contributions week by week in respect of a man whom he employs, and that those contributions should not be used to benefit that man if he requires it. The right. hon. Gentleman who leads the Labour party said just now that this was an Insurance Bill. But this has absolutely nothing whatever to do with insurance. We are here dealing with contributions paid in respect to men who are not insured at all. These contributions should not be diverted to a pool, and used for the benefit of people who are insured; they should be used in respect of the men on whose behalf they are paid. The only possible contingency in which these men will ever be able to get benefits is, if they happen to come back into insurance, become insured persons, and then fall out of work. Such persons are a very small proportion indeed. The vast proportion of these people, who are not insured at all, and in respect of whom the employers have to pay contributions, will never come back into insurance. Therefore, they will never get any benefit from this weekly contribution of 3d. If a contribution of 6d. will provide 15s. per week benefit, 3d. per week ought to provide 7s. 6d. Where are these contributions going to? We have not heard a word about that; how are these threepences per week going to be used? My Amendment does not say that you have to pay a particular benefit in respect of these, or that the 3d. per week must yield 7s. 6d. benefit. It merely gives the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, and his successors, a discretion to provide the benefits which may be given to these people under this Section. If a man falls out of work, he is just as much in need as anybody else. He is then minus his weekly wage. If his employer has been paying for him, he is just as much entitled to benefit as anyone else. It is, to my mind, a reasonable thing to say that some benefit should be given.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I cannot accept this Amendment. My hon. Friend asks me to prescribe what benefits these people shall be paid. Unemployment benefit is the only one that comes under this Bill—not a variety of benefits. I cannot give some other benefit. As the Bill now stands, the only form of benefit is, presumably, an unemployment benefit.

I do not propose to put the House to the trouble of a Division, but the right hon. Gentleman talked about insurance. These people are not insured.

Amendment negatived.

Further Amendment made: At the end of Sub-section (7) add the words The contributions to be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament in respect of contributions paid under this Sub-section in respect of exempt persons shall be at the rates specified in Part II. of the Third Schedule to this Act in reference to such persons."— [Dr. Macnamara.]

I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), paragraph (b), to leave out the words, "one week" ["not less than one week"] and to insert instead thereof the words, "three days."

This Amendment affects the rule as to continuous unemployment. The effect of the present Amendment is that if the workman is not employed for three days continuously and then obtains work and remains employed for a period not exceeding six weeks and then again falls out of employment continuously for three days, the two periods of three days each may be linked together for the purposes of benefit. It will not require a second waiting period of unemployment. I will deal with the whole question of this three days instead of a week at a later stage.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 8.— (Disqualifications for unemployment benefit.)

(1) An insured contributor who has lost employment by reason of a stoppage of work which was due to a trade dispute at the factory, workshop, or other premises at which he was employed shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit so long as the stoppage of work continues, except in a case where he has, during the stoppage of work, become bonâ fide employed elsewhere in the occupation which he usually follows or has become regularly engaged in some other occupation. Where separate branches of work which are commonly carried on as separate businesses in separate premises are in any case carried on in separate departments on the same premises, each of those departments shall, for the purposes of this provision, be deemed to be a separate factory or workshop or separate premises, as the case may be. (2) An insured contributor who loses his employment through his unsatisfactory conduct, or who voluntarily leaves his employment without just cause, shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit for a period of six weeks from the date when he so lost or left his employment. (3) An insured contributor shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit while he is an inmate of any prison or any workhouse or other institution supported wholly or partly out of public funds, or, subject to the provisions of this Act, while he is resident, whether temporarily or permanently, outside the United Kingdom. (4) Where an insured contributor ceases to be employed within the meaning of this Act and continues for a period of twelve months to be a person who is not so employed, he shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit until twelve contributions, exclusive of any contributions paid in respect of him before he so ceased, have been paid in respect of him under this Act. (5) An insured contributor shall be disqualified for receiving unemployment benefit while he is in receipt of any sickness or disablement benefit or disablement allowance under the National Insurance (Health) Acts, 1911 to 1919.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "reason of a stoppage of work which was due to," and to insert instead thereof the words "the withdrawal of his labour in order to participate in."

The first two lines of the Clause, if my Amendment be carried, will read— An insured contributor who has lost employment by the withdrawal of his labour in order to participate in a trade dispute, and so on. This matter raises the whole question of who are to be debarred from insurance benefit. That question was referred to on the Second reading and in Committee, and was very sympathetically dealt with on both occasions by the Minister in charge of the Bill. I hope that sympathy will now extend to a practical acceptance of the principle. We all agree that those who are directly concerned in a trade dispute cannot possibly share in a State system of unemployment benefit. On the other hand, there must be a large measure of agreement that innocent victims of a dispute who are out through no fault of their own and who have contributed their weekly payments to the insurance fund are entitled to come within the provisions of this measure. They contribute to the fund not so much as employers or employed but as members of the State, and as members of the State it is immaterial to them whether the cause of their being out of work arises from the action of the employer or is due to the action of the employed. They, as con- tributory members of a State scheme, are entitled to the benefit as such, apart altogether from the question where they are employed. The Minister suggested that this Clause merely carries out the principle embodied in the old Act. But since the original Act was passed the public conscience and the social conscience of the people has advanced very considerably. We realise now our responsibilities in these matters to a greater degree than we did in 1911, and, particularly during the last five or six years, our outlook has broadened in regard to these matters. The sense of responsibility of the whole community in this matter has undoubtedly grown during these years, and, therefore, merely to say that in the original Act these people were excluded is no argument for excluding them to-day.

It has also been suggested that it would create an illogical position to carry this Amendment. I submit that nothing could be more illogical than the present position. Let me illustrate if I may what happened quite recently during the moulders' strike. There you had some labourers engaged in the same works debarred from the unemployment benefit while others were receiving the benefit. The labourers in the iron foundry, although they were quite innocent of the dispute and were no parties to it, were refused the unemployment benefit. On the other hand the labourers in the engineering department and steel works in the same establishment, working on the moulds that the other labourers had made, drew unemployment benefit during that dispute. Further than that members of the same labourers' union were treated on a different footing. One section, because they happened to be working in the iron foundry, got no benefit. The others who were in the engineering shops drew the benefit. One cannot conceive anything more illogical than that, and yet it is proposed to continue that system in this Bill. I submit if you want to be logical you must extend the benefit so that all the labourers who are thrown out through no fault of their own shall be treated in exactly the same way and on the same footing because they have contributed equally to the fund. In these days we want to establish a better feeling throughout the whole community, and no better way could be found to achieve that than by extending the provisions of this Bill in the way indicated in my Amendment. I trust, therefore, that the sympathy which the Government have shown to the proposal will have a practical application by their acceptance of the spirit if not of the actual words of the Amendment. Difficulties were raised in Committee to the effect that key men might be used in order to throw out a large number of other men, who under this extended Amendment would receive benefit. But surely by means of some machinery, say courts of arbitration, it is not beyond the wit of man to devise a scheme whereby abuses of that kind could be obviated and at the same time insure that innocent victims of a dispute should not be debarred from participating in a fund to which they have contributed. The House must remember that those who are thrown out in a case of this sort are those least able to stand the strain and stress of unemployment. It is the weaker members of the community, the general and casual labourers, who most need this benefit and I do appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, in a sense of justice, to extend the benefit to innocent victims—to those who through no fault of their own are thrown out of employment and are at present refused the assistance which they so much need, and which ought to be their right, from a fund to which they have directly contributed.

I beg to Second the Amendment.

This is confessedly a very difficult problem. When the Insurance Bill of 1911 was first introduced it contained a form of words which was very strongly objected to, and as a result an endeavour was made to secure that only those workmen who were directly interested in a dispute should be disqualified. There has always been objection taken to the disqualification of workmen who were not actually concerned in a trade dispute, but it has hitherto been impossible to arrive at any satisfactory form of words. The Act as it stands substantially disqualifies workpeople employed in an establishment in which a dispute occurs, and no satisfactory alternative has, so far, been suggested to that existing provision. It would be difficult to determine in practice whether an individual had withdrawn his labour or not. Then, again, a man who is not a trade unionist would presumably not be disqualified. I do not know whether that is the intention of my hon. Friend. I do not know any better form of words than those which are proposed, and which have been taken in substance from the old amended Insurance Bill. However, if I can have submitted to me a proposal which is acceptable to the two main parties, the employers on the one hand and the employed persons on the other, if I can have placed before me an agreed proposition acceptable to both those parties, and it is workable, I shall not put any undue obstacle in the way. It must, however, be workable from the point of view of those who have to administer the Statute. In the absence of any such proposition, the best thing I think is what is contained in the terms of the Bill.

I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman has not gone far to recognise the substance of the claims pressed upon him in Committee, and argued to some small extent in this House. I welcome his statement of a desire to receive from those who have a right to submit language to him on this matter a suggestion to cover a point which is a growing grievance. I recognise the employer's right as well as the workmen's right to submit language to cover a paint of this sort. If they could agree upon a statement we would only be too happy to submit it to the right hon. Gentleman, but if we have finally to trust to the decision of another place, without a considerable degree of pressure and advice from the Government, I feel it would not be carried through. In the event of an agreement being reached, I hope the good offices of the Government will be used to amend the Bill in its last stage in another place.

My hon. Friend spoke more of the spirit of this Amendment than of the words. I do not know what view may be taken from the Chair as to the fate of the Amendment in my name at the bottom of the page, but I want to say a few words in support of the general principle. The whole question is whether we admit the principle of the right of a man who is not a combatant in a dispute, who is not on strike, and whose interests cannot be affected by the issues, to unemployment benefit, when thrown out through the dispute of other people. If we admit that, surely it is not beyond us to provide the necessary language to provide that the benefit shall be paid to those persons. It is very often the case that the only time they are stopped is through somebody else's quarrel. If you take a large number of the lesser skilled and unskilled workers, they find themselves thrown out of employment, perhaps through some action which the employer may take on the one hand in relation to some other body, or perhaps through action which a certain section will take against the employer.

A large mass of people often find themselves helpless between these two forces, and I have known frequently cases where our own trade union has paid out a very much larger sum to men indirectly or directly stopped in their own workshop through somebody else's quarrel. This Bill compels workmen to pay unemployed contributions and it guarantees unemployed benefit in cases where they are stopped through no fault of their own, and are the victims of somebody else's action. Not only are they non-combatants, but in point of fact they are the victims of quarrels which they can neither begin or take any part in. This Measure should cover claims of men of that kind. There is a very serious sense of injustice in the mind of large bodies of workmen who in recent disputes have suffered very severe financial losses because of stoppages to which they were no parties at all.

This discrimination between the work men in one part of a shop and the workmen in another part has given rise to great irritation as well as to much injustice. There were many scenes in bit towns during the progress of that long and bitter trouble which we know as the moulders' dispute, owing to the irritation caused by the discrimination shown to workmen in different parts of the workshops. I am not blaming the officials of the Employment Exchange, nor those who are responsible for the conduct of the Ministry of Labour. They carried out the law, and they were entitled to do so. We have now an opportunity of repairing the defects of the law, and of preventing any injustice under this head in the future. We agree that men who are parties to a dispute, men whose interests are involved in the dispute, men who are part of the issue in respect of wage claims or conditions of employment, have no claim on the State for unemployment pay They must provide their own benefity—as it were, their own ammunition—during the struggle in which they may be engaged. We say, however, that in the case of other men who are not parties to the dispute, who have had no voice in it one way or the other, and whose conditions of service or rates of wages are not involved, the Statute should provide that they should be entitled to benefit if they are thrown out of employment through a quarrel of their fellows. My hon. Friend is quite right in what he said as to disputes caused by the action of employers. We are thinking of what is a state of dispute, and we apply the expression "trade dispute" to a stoppage, whether in relation to strikes caused by the workmen or a lock-out on the initiative of the employer. I think we might make a considerable effort towards urging an agreement on this point if we could have an assurance from my right hon. Friend that a form of words covering the needs of the case would be favourably considered by him, and that he would use his good offices to get it accepted in another place.

I repeat what I have said, namely, that if a form of words can be found which we, as the Ministry of Labour, are agreed is workable—and I would not unnecessarily or gratuitously put difficulties in the way—I would do what I could to secure, as far as we can secure it, that such words should be em bodied in the Bill. In default of that, I am afraid I know nothing better than the phraseology of the Bill.

I well remember that, in 1911, we kept the House a whole night on this matter, and we were then promised by those in charge of that Bill that our views would be more or less accepted. The real principle is this: It is all the same to a workman whether he is thrown out of work through want of employment owing to fluctuations of trade or whether he is thrown out of employment through a strike of others. It has been pointed out that, no matter whether we contribute directly or indirectly, labour has got to pay. My right hon. Friend the Member for Platting pointed out that, no matter what the benefit is, it is paid out of the industry. If all these directors can get their thousands out of the industry, there is no reason why the lesser workmen, and even the women who keep the managing director's office clean, should not share in the fruits of that industry in the future. I hope that the Government will this time succeed in finding means of doing away with the gross injustice which has prevailed in the past. We do not ask the employers to pay men who are on strike, nor to assist them in any way at all. We do say, however, that men have been victims in the past, and have been thrown out of work through no fault of their own, and yet they have been refused the unemployment benefit for which they had paid. I would ask the House to mark that: it is we who are paying for it, not the Government. In our organisation we get as much for 3d. in unemployment benefit as the Government is giving for double that amount, but we are not raising that at the moment. We do say, however, that each industry ought to keep its own unemployed, and that the employers and the workmen should be co-partners. To maintain an industry at the highest efficiency the workers in that industry, as well as those in the higher positions, ought to be copartners, and we ought to do away with that terrible nightmare of the workers, that they never know when they will be thrown out of employment. This unemployment benefit is really the trade union benefit which was started long before the Government thought of it. In Mr. Campbell-Bannerman's time we had to urge it very strongly on the Government of that day. We held, and still hold, that the employers in industry cannot get on without the workmen, and that there is no reason why the workmen should always be paid off and left to starve every time there is a depression in trade. They cannot get on unless they can get the men later to do the work. I hope that words will be found to cover this point. We do not want benefits for trade disputes; we are ready to stand on our own feet in that respect. But we do say that, where other workmen are thrown out of work through no fault of their own, in consequence of a dispute over which they have no control, they are justly entitled to the benefit.

I think the right hon. Gentleman stated that if we could come to some agreement in reference to the latter Amendment, standing in the names of my two right hon. Friends and myself, relating to the case of a workman not participating in a dispute occurring in his own factory or workshop, he would accept it.

I drew attention to that Amendment, but I did not say that if an agreement could be arrived at upon it I would accept it. I did not bind myself; I left it open. If, however, an agreement can be arrived at which we think is workable, I will do my best to get it accepted.

I wanted to know whether the right hon. Gentleman was referring to the general body of employers in the different trades of the country, or to a particular case. So far as the steel trade is concerned, we have an advisory committee under the right hon. Gentleman's own Department, and the matter has been discussed there between the employers and the representatives of the men. We have practically come to an agreement, and this Amendment has been drawn up by our solicitor. It will do away with the objection that, if a section of the men in the trade went out of employment, all the other men would be benefited as the result of the dispute. If you have a section of the men who will throw another body of men out of work in the same Department, this covers it. The men will be coming out on strike to improve either rates or conditions. The Amendment covers that by saying, "unless the men who are affected by the dispute are going to improve the rates or the conditions." That ought to meet the point, and the objection the right hon. Gentleman has expressed, because we have a very serious grievance in so far as some of these men are concerned. I will give one illustration of a case that happened in a steel works. I cut this out of the "South Wales Daily News" yesterday. Inferior coals were sent into the steel works. The firemen had to work three or four boilers in order to keep several departments going, and on the ground that the coal was inferior they stopped work. There may have been eight men. They stopped six mills, as the result of refusing to make steel. The firemen, who brought about the dispute, will receive no unemployment benefit, but the hundreds of men employed in the other departments, who are not parties to the dispute, will have to suffer as the result of the foolishness of these men in stopping the works.

These men have a grievance and you have your remedy, because when they make application for unemployed benefit at the Labour Exchange they are told either that they are entitled to it or that they are not and then they can appeal to the Referee. If you accept this Amendment the referee will have something to guide him because he will be able to judge for himself and come to the conclusion that the men were not really parties to the dispute, but were thrown out of employment on account of the action of these firemen. Perhaps this affects the steel trade more than any other, because we have so many sections of other unions working in the industry. We have bricklayers, engineers and electricians who are connected with other societies. I remember a dispute in Scotland about two months ago where a dozen bricklayers in a particular works threw 2,000 of my members out of employment. These men were not entitled to a single penny of unemployment benefit because the dispute took place in that particular Department. In South Wales I can give another illustration where they made steel bars and tin plates under the same firm. They made the tin plates in another works on the other side of the road. A dispute took place in the steel works, and because the tin platers connected with the firm are employed in the same department they receive no unemployment benefit at all, but the men on the other side of the road, who cannot get bars owing to the dispute, are paid the unemployment benefit. There is no sense in a thing like that. We simply want to use a little common sense and judgment and accept the Amendment and surely that ought to settle the matter. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment was speaking on behalf of the employing classes, I believe. Am I right?

No.

I want to know from the right hon. Gentleman if we can come to an agreement in regard to the iron and steel trades, which is a very important and complicated trade. Would you require us to get into touch say with the employers in the cotton trade, the transport trade and all other trades and come to an agreement, or would you accept it on behalf of one particular industry?

I should like to make one more appeal to the Government to do justice to this class of man. On the original Bill we fought this very point. On the amending Bill we made a very vigorous attack on the Board of Trade to induce them to recognise the claims of men who were thrown out of work by reason of a dispute with which they had nothing to do. They had not the power to say, "This dispute shall not occur." They had not a vote or anything else, and I remember quite well the arguments used on that occasion. I happen to have been an employer for many years—I offer no apology for it—and we have always been on very good terms with our workmen; but whenever a dispute has occurred we have had an ally of which we have been ashamed. We have had some disputes in the Organisation with which I am concerned, and we have always had an ally we have hated having, and that was starvation. We never wanted to starve the women and children of our workmen whatever dispute we had with them. We beg the Government to give these people a subsistence allowance, and I will suggest how it could be done. Whenever a dispute arises let the insurance books of the men go into the office, and give the employer the right to mark "dispute" on the book. You may be certain you will catch every man connected with the strike, because the employers will take care that any man who is directly connected with it will be stopped from drawing unemployment benefit. Then any man whose book is not so marked will be able to go to the Post Office or the Labour Exchange and draw his unemployment benefit. The men whose books are marked "dispute" will have a right to appeal to the Board of Trade to have their case heard, and if they are not connected with the dispute let them draw their unemployment benefit; but I beg the Government not to continue this injustice to a body of men that no one wants to penalise and whom the employers would be very glad to see brought under unemployment benefit.

I think this Amendment is a very reasonable one, and one which experience of the working of the unemployment scheme in the past two or three years shows to be very much desired and very necessary. If it be pressed to a division, I shall be very glad to support it.

The right hon. Gentleman has given an assurance that if a workable form of words can be found to satisfy both employers and workers, he will accept that form of words. When will he get those words into the Bill?

In another place.

The right hon. Gentleman was not here last night. Had he been, he would have realised that the House found itself in a very unfortunate position in connection with another matter. An Amendment had been proposed from this side and the Minister in charge, who was just as amiable as the right hon. Gentleman, promised that the matter should be dealt with in another place. The House found itself in entire agreement on that matter, and the undertaking was given that certain words would be put forward in another place. When the words were brought forward in another place, they were rejected, and the House last night found itself in this position, that the conclusion at which they had arrived had been upset in another place. We do not want to get into that position again. Would it not be better to re-commit this Bill on this point, in order that an arrangement may be come to upon this extremely important matter and the words inserted? After our experience last night we realise that the undertaking to insert things in another place is more shadowy than we had hoped. There is no certainty that, even after we had gone to the trouble to arrive at an agreement, there would be a chance of the thing being carried out in another place.

I hope I shall not be pressed further on this matter. We will make every effort to carry out any undertaking, if all parties be agreed that it is desirable. I cannot go beyond that.

3.0 P.M.

I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider this matter. I understand that the Bill is to be recommitted on a later Clause, therefore there would be no great objection to including this particular point when the Bill is recommitted If he cannot see his way to do that, there is another way in which we may be delivered from the tender mercies of another place, and that is if the right hon. Gentleman will agree to put words in here provisionally, subject to his right to alter them afterwards. He might insert either the words we are now discussing or the words which stand lower down on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes). If these words were put in we should be quite certain that the matter must be dealt with in another place, and if another place declined to deal with it the Government always has a sufficient majority in this House when the Bill comes back here to modify the words in its own way. After our painful experience with the other place recently we do not want to be put into the same position again.

Amendment negatived.

The Amendment which stands in my name, covers the same point that has been raised, and as I understand the right hon. Gentleman is going to do his best to come to an agreement with the trade unions and the employers of labour and to deal with the matter in another place, I do not propose to move my Amendment unless he is prepared to accept it.

I beg to move, in Subsection (2) to leave out the words "unsatisfactory conduct," and to insert instead thereof the word "misconduct."

This raises an important question which is not uninteresting. The National Insurance Act, 1911, provides that in the case of misconduct there shall be a disqualification for the receipt of unemployment benefit. The present Bill proposes that instead of the word "misconduct," the words "unsatisfactory conduct" shall be used. The introduction of this phrase may be traced from the instructions which were issued when the provisions of the National Insurance Act, 1911, were made applicable to out-of-work donations. These instructions embody the same disqualifications as appeared in the 1911 Act with regard to out-of-work donations, and the instruction also provided for a form of claim to be sent in to the local office objecting to the right of the person who claimed out-of-work donation to receive it. The form provided that particulars should be given of the reason for not admitting the claim of the person to the out-of-work donation. It gave this instruction: "It should be carefully noted that the words 'unsatisfactory conduct' should always be used in- stead of the word 'misconduct,' as the latter word has proved to be liable to misinterpretation when applied to women's trades." A very curious result has followed. When a woman's claim for out-of-work donation was refused on the ground of being out-of-work in consequence of misconduct, the misconduct probably being due to bad timekeeping or some actual misconduct in the execution of their work, the women thought that the misconduct meant that they had been guilty of some moral mis-behaviour, and I understand that either my right hon. Friend or his predecessor has been actually subject to threats of libel actions by young women who thought that the misconduct meant that they had been guilty of the sort of misconduct which we hear of in the Divorce Court.

The paragraph instructing the officers is given as a reason for disqualification by saying that a person is guilty of unsatisfactory conduct instead of misconduct. I think I am right in saying that there was no intention of substituting the test of unsatisfactory conduct. It was intended merely that unsatisfactory conduct should be used as an equivalent or simile for misconduct. The two words are quite different. In my experience insurance officers have always held or tried to hold that anything which is not good conduct is misconduct. That is quite a misconception, and the umpire has consistently refused to accept that meaning. The umpire has always held that there must be positive wrong-doing to constitute misconduct to disqualify a person from unemployment benefit, unsatisfactory conduct, work done badly, want of skill or minor offences. Misconduct connotes something wilful. In substituting unsatisfactory conduct for misconduct, I cannot help thinking that the Government do not intend to alter the practice, but unfortunately they are using a different word, the effect of which will be contrary to what my right hon. Friend intends. It is certain that chairmen of Boards of Referees and officials will in the course of time interpret unsatisfactory conduct in a sense which enlarges the grounds on which a man might be deprived of the out-of-work donation. It is only fair to the workmen that it should be understood, and the proper course is to show that they have the right to the unemployment donation except in cases where they have been dismissed actually for misconduct. and not merely for trivial matters which might he considered unsatisfactory conduct.

A plain and simple way out of it is to inform the claimant of the particulars of any misconduct. Instead of, as in the past, merely filling in a form "disqualified or rejected on the ground of misconduct," they could put in "on the ground of misconduct, bad time-keeping" or "refusal to observe some provision of the Factory Act," or "idling," and so specify the misconduct. The most susceptible young woman will not be afraid of any imputation being made on her moral character, and it will prevent my right hon. Friend from being threatened with actions for libel and preserve the rights of unemployment donation, and it will have the advantage of informing the person whose claim has to go to the Court of Referees of the facts with which he must deal when he comes before the Court; further, it will be a notice to the chairman of the Court of Referees of the point which arises and the matter which has to be determined, and it will also help to focus the point at issue between the officials or insurance officers and the person making the claim. But apart from that, it would be a most unfortunate thing if different words were used which will certainly lead in the course of time to different constructions either by officers or in the appropriate Courts under this Bill when there is no intention to alter the practice at all. It is giving way to the wholly ridiculous susceptibilities of a very unimportant class of persons, who are a very small minority, to use the wrong word in a Bill, because the right word is misinterpreted by what, with all respect, I may call ignorant people.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I do so purely from a business, and in no sense from a legal point of view. Some of us unfortunately have had some knowledge of legal procedure in respect to workmen, and when one considers the tremendous uncertainty which obtains in reference to a single word, I suggest that workmen should be protected as far as possible by this House. I have been endeavouring to ascertain what is the meaning of "unsatisfactory" in a legal sense. I applied to seven lawyers, and got six different kinds of opinion as to the meaning and application of the word "unsatisfactory." As a business man, I would prefer the word that is substituted by my hon. and learned Friend.

The words "unsatisfactory conduct" were substituted in connection with this Bill, because it was found rather embarrassing, as my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, in the case of women, and the misunderstanding was so serious, as he says, that on more than one occasion there was talk of a libel action. My hon. and learned Friend referred to the ridiculous susceptibilities of ignorant people, but if, as the Mover and Seconder suggest, doubts arise through the use of the word "unsatisfactory," I am willing to substitute another word if it will not trench upon the susceptibilities of ignorant people. I do not want to do that, but it has been made sufficiently clear to-day what is meant by the word "misconduct" in this connection, and I do not suppose that the susceptibilities of anyone will be in any way hurt by the use of the word. Therefore, I accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move in Sub-section (2), after the word "weeks," to insert the words "or such shorter period, not being less than one week, as may be determined under the provisions of this Act."

The hon. Member for Bristol (Mr. Inskip) has an Amendment on the same subject; but I think that this will meet his object.

I am prepared to allow the right hon. Gentleman to move his Amendment. It meets my point.

It is an Amendment which, I think, is more suitable than the proposal of the learned Gentleman. As the Bill stands, there is a penalty of six weeks' disqualification for losing employment owing to unsatisfactory conduct or without just cause, the Amendment would impose a smaller penalty. The Amendment of the hon. Member for Bristol is not quite satisfactory in its form. But the main point is that my Amendment enables the period to be reduced to one week from six weeks, and then is an appeal to the Umpire.

Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (4), to leave out the words an insured contributor ceases to be employed within the meaning of this Act and continues for a period of twelve months to be a person who is not so employed, he shall be, and to insert instead thereof the words any person ceases to be an insured contributor and continues throughout an insurance year to be a person who is not an insured contributor, he shall, unless he ceased to be an insured contributor by reason of sickness. The existing provision sets out a period of 12 months. It is essential that we should substitute "an insurance year." Other Amendments would make it clear that an insured person cannot come under a general scheme from a particular scheme, until he has paid a number of contributions.

Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (4), to insert the words "and an insured contributor in respect of whom no contributions have been paid during a period of five insurance years shall, if he subsequently becomes an insured contributor, be treated as if he had not previously been an insured contributor."

I should like to ask a question. After the 12 months has expired, and re-qualification has taken place, will the insured person have his added accumulation credited to him?

I should like to see that question on the Paper, so that I may look into it.

Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (5), to leave out "1919" ["1911 to 1919"], and to insert instead thereof the words "1920, or while he is in receipt of an old age pension."

Will the right hon. Gentleman explain this Amendment.

It is a consequential Amendment, but it is one of considerable substance in connection with other Amendments. In Committee upstairs a change was made, and it was agreed that a person over 70 years of age, other than an old-age pensioner, should be eligible. I am carrying that out in this Amendment, and extending the benefits above the age of 70 years, except in the case of old-age pensioners.

Amendment agreed to.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "benefit" ["to receive such benefit"], to insert the words "or whether the period for which an insured contributor who has lost his employment through his unsatisfactory conduct or who has voluntarily left his employment without just cause, is to be disqualified, should be some period less than six weeks."

This is necessary to carry out an Amendment which has been made in Clause 8.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In Subsection (1), to leave out the words "within fourteen days."

At the end of Sub-section (1) add the words Every insurance officer shall forthwith take into consideration any claim or question submitted for his determination under the provisions of this Sub-section, and shall so far as practicable give his decision thereon within fourteen days from the date on which the claim or question was so submitted.

In Sub-section (2) leave out the words "within seven days."

At the end of Sub-section (2) add the words Where an insurance officer is required to report any matter to the Court of Referees under this Sub-section he shall so report the matter within seven days after the date on which he is required so to do, or so soon thereafter as is practicable."— [Dr. Macnamara.]

I beg to move, in Subsection (6), to leave out the words "final and conclusive," and to insert instead thereof the words subject to appeal by means of the statement of a special case for the opinion of a judge of the High Court, on any ground involving a question of law or a question of mixed law and fact, and the decision of the judge on any such appeal shall be final and binding on all courts of referees and on the umpire. The Amendment will have the effect of giving a right of appeal from the decision of the umpire. It is desirable that there should be an appeal in very much the same way as there was an appeal under the Munitions of War Amendment Act of 1916. The practice adopted under that Act has been a very useful one, I think, and is one which the workers would be glad to take advantage of here, because they would be able to obtain a decision from a judge of the High Court on many points on which an umpire has given no decision. Of course, it cuts both ways. I could give one illustration of its desirability. There is the question of the definition of a trade dispute. The definition under Clause 46 corresponds exactly to the definition in the Act of 1911, or at least with very slight alterations—and to the definition given in the Trade Disputes Act. Courts of Law have given decisions as to what "trade dispute" means, according to the definition in the Trade Disputes Act, and they have been concerned, I think, to narrow the meaning of "trade dispute," partly because it prevents actions being brought against persons under certain circumstances arising out of the disputes. On the other hand, the umpire has been concerned to give an interpretation of "trade dispute" which is possibly slightly different from that given by the Courts of Law. Both decisions have been given on practically the same definition in the statutes. It would be most undesirable if you found a conflict of opinion between a High Court of Justice and the umpire. The Amendment would preserve the right of the worker to appeal to the High Court on a case stated, so that the decision of the umpire should not be regarded as final. If that right is given I do not suppose it will be exercised in many cases, but the Amendment gives what the workers are entitled to have.

I beg to second the Amendment. I do not intend to make any remarks from the legal standpoint, but as a business man I know the necessity of the freedom and liberty for the worker which is provided by this Amendment.

I do not think there is any necessity for this Amendment. In its present form the Clause follows the Act of 1911, and that provides for the determination of claims to benefit, by the insurance officers in the first instance, with a right of appeal to a court of referees, and in the last instance to the umpire. That procedure affords to the insured person all the protection that is necessary. The Amendment would undoubtedly mean delay and extra expense. I do not know whether the seconder had that in mind.

Under the Munitions of War (Amendment) Act there is a cheaper type of appeal.

Do not let us overdo this procedure. This system has worked very well.

Amendment negatived.

I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (5) to add the words "and shall so provide where application is made jointly by central committees representing employers and employed persons."

This Amendment is put down on behalf of a class of persons who have only recently formed themselves into associations or unions and who, in the nature of things, can never be very powerful. They are a little afraid that they may be overlooked in the administration of this Bill. I am referring to associations of technical workers such as assistants to surveyors and architects, chemists, and people of that kind. They are only at the beginning of organisation and they are never likely to reach a stage when they will have strong local committees; their chief strength is likely to lie in central committees. While the large and powerful unions are never likely to be overlooked in questions of administration, those for whom I am speaking feel that it is possible that the small semi-professional bodies might not be consulted. As their members would be comparatively few, perhaps only two or three in a district, they fear that some of the rules and administrative regulations put into operation may not be suitable. They much desire the opportunity of being consulted on the question of administration, and they suggest that this Clause which is permissive should be made compulsory where a joint application is made. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman may be able to give us a satisfactory assurance on the question.

I beg to Second the Amendment.

The effect of this might very well be to delay action. What I propose to do, though it is not in the statute, would be to consult and make the fullest use of the discretionary power which we have.

Would that apply to these semi-professional unions?

I think we ought not to exclude anybody. I hope my hon. Friend will be satisfied with that assurance, because nothing would be gained by trying to graft upon the statute a right for some nebulous body which is only here defined as a central committee.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move to leave out the Clause.

My object is to compel the Government to come to the House with a new Financial Resolution and an amending Bill in case the Act should become insolvent. A bargain is a bargain, and if it is agreed that contributions shall carry with them certain benefits, then the Treasury ought to be prepared to make up any deficit, and if not, the Government should come to this House with new proposals. It is, I think, going too far to give power to the Minister and the Treasury to alter this Bill. I am afraid there may be considerable unemployment in the near future in this country, and under those circumstances the Act might become insolvent. A slump has set in in the textile trade, as Lancashire and Yorkshire members know. and unless the Government open up fresh markets, which they are apparently in no hurry to do, unemployment will be rife in the coming winter. At the same time there may be rising prices, and I suggest under those circumstances it is not right to give power to put down the unemployment benefit.

The next Clause provides for a septennial revision, and the proposal of this Clause is substantially a reproduction of the Section in the Insurance Act. It is not at all revolutionary, and is simply following the usual practice. There is the further safeguard— On an order being made under this Section, the Minister shall cause the order together with a special report as to the reasons for making the order, to be laid before Parliament.

Parliament might not be sitting.

I am simply introducing the form used in the old Insurance Act.

Amendment negatived.

Amendment made: In Sub-section (1, b) leave out the word "twelve", and insert instead thereof the word "thirteen".— [Mr. W. Smith.]

I beg to move, in Subsection (1) to leave out the words, "society approved under the National Insurance Act, 1911, or any other."

The effect of this would be to limit the administration of the benefits under the scheme and to disable the friendly societies from taking part in this scheme. By a decision of the Committee, and not in the terms of the original Bill, the friendly societies were brought into the provisions of the Measure. I would remind the House that this Bill proposes only to extend something which is already in operation. It proposes to extend unemployment benefit to a very large number, which would mean, I think, somewhere between 11,000,000 and 12,000,000 workers in the country.

Nearer 12,000,000.

It is, therefore, not a Bill raising for the first time any new question, but one extending what is already in practice. This practice has existed for some years, and the trade unions and the State alone have been the channels through which these benefits have been given, and I doubt whether any hon. Member could get up and prove that any injury of any kind has been done, or any wrong inflicted either on the employed or on the employing class, or that anyone's interests have in the slightest degree been impaired by that administration. Is there any fault within the trade unions which would justify the bringing in of the great friendly societies to this new and, to them altogether alien, piece of work? I hope I do not, even by implication, not to say by intention, say the slightest word against the friendly societies. There are no two more capable bodies in the country than the trade unions and the friendly societies. They are twin brothers for a great purpose, but the work of both of them has been very well defined within very different limits. The personnel of the membership of these two great organisations may be said to be the same. The millions of men who are in the trade unions are the millions of men who are in the friendly societies, and the friendly society members are the same men who week by week attend the great trade union meetings in their branches, and so on, throughout the country. So that here is, as it were, one of those dramatic quarrels among friends, but I hope it will be conducted as friends ought to conduct quarrels, that is to say, with the sole object of reaching the best conclusion that can be reached in the largest interest of both, by the application of reason and common-sense to the situation.

We are not, therefore, in any sense opposing the claim of the friendly societies because of any feeling against them or because we do not recognise the immense work which they have done or are continuing to do for the good of the working classes of this country. We have the great co-operative societies doing one kind of work, helping the worker to spend money to the best advantage, we have the trade unions helping the worker to get the utmost amount of money to spend, and we have the friendly societies providing facilities whereby the mass of the workers may invest their small margin of reserve or savings in order that the conditions of sickness, disability, and all those things covered by the term "rainy day" should be provided for by the modest means of investment of the ordinary working man. The friendly societies have done this work so well within the sphere of that form of friendly and philanthropic service that there is no ground for encouraging them to enter a totally new sphere of service in relation to a totally different matter. The only organisations, long before the State thought to do anything at all in the matter, which provided for the workman in relation to his employment or unemployment were the trade unions. A very large number of them, indeed, nearly all those unions which can be described as covering the skilled workers of the country, had some apparatus, some provision by which they not merely paid a benefit to a man whilst he was out of work, but by which they did more, and indeed did better, and helped a man to get in work as speedily as possible. The trade unions were therefore the only bodies which did the best thing that anyone can do in connection with unemployment, namely, to find the man a job as soon as possible. The trade unions, as such, have now in the workshops and factories of the country a stronger position than ever before. Indeed, we have the idea of bodies of workmen being so well organised now that before men are started, when vacancies occur, the decision as to whether they shall be employed or not is one referred to the workshop committee, or to the delegates, or to the man who is acting on behalf of the trade union in respect of what are its functions within the workshop.

The friendly societies stand in a different case altogether, and they have no position within the workshop. They have no direct contact with employers as employers, they have no touch with the State in its functions in respect of this great problem of industry. Their service is in another department altogether, important as that department may be. The friendly societies, it may be said, could under this measure set up the necessary apparatus and make all the provisions required to administer this benefit and even to help to find men employment, but I suggest that there is no need to do it. I suggest that the State and the trade unions can do all that is absolutely necessary, and that it would only tend to conflict and disagreement and unnecessary expenditure of time and money to bring in these bodies, designed, as I have said, altogether for a different purpose of public service. I can assure the House that if this Bill is passed in its present form it will not be easy for the friendly societies to administer unemployment benefit. I do not say that a measure of this kind should deliberately make it difficult for a body to do work which avowedly, it may be said in some quarters, they ought to do. If the House believes that the friendly societies should be permitted to administer these benefits, then the House should further agree greatly to amend certain provisions of this Bill which will certainly have the effect of making it difficult and costly for the friendly societies to do what nominally the law would permit them to do. I put this to the House in order that the House should look at the matter as one of broad principle and necessity, and not accept the view that, although nominally we are permitting the friendly societies to administer benefits, actually and in practice we are putting every obstacle in their way to make it almost impossible for them to do so. I ask that in this, as in other matters, the House should honestly face the issue as one of principle.

Finally, I would say I am sure that if the Clause is not amended in the direction in which I move, it will be a cause of very unhappy quarrel between these two great organisations, and that quarrel must greatly imperil the functions of the State as the second party for the moment in respect of the administration of unemployment benefit. It will not be a nice thing for the representatives of the Ministry of Labour to have to come in and settle quarrels between these two parties, or between individuals who may be divided in their sense of duty towards two organisations of which they are members. Millions of workmen are members of the two organisations. It would be a great mistake for the Members of this House to present a condition which would offer a divided sense of duty in relation to these two organisations. So briefly, I say that, in the experience of the working of this Act, no case has been made out for handing over the administration of this extended Act to a third party—a party which has no provision whatever within its machinery for industrial affairs or for providing employment for the men out of work. I repeat, the greater part of this problem is not that of paying money week by week during a state of idleness. The greater part of it is to reduce the period of unemployment by getting a man back to employment. The trade union organisations are the natural body to that end, and it would be doing the friendly societies a better turn to ask them to stick to the task for which they were created.

4.0 P.M.

I am in entire agreement with the sentiment expressed by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clynes) when he referred to the fact that there is a strong kinship between the trade union movement and the friendly society movement of this country, insofar as many of their ideals are concerned. The friendly societies of the country, as hon. Members know full well, came into being that they might improve the condition of those who were associated with them, and teach them the very highest principles of citizenship, their relations to one another, their obligations to their families and to others, and, generally, to improve their status. The trade union movement, too, if I understand it aright, came into being that it might improve the lot of the workers in relation to their employment, in matters of wages and hours, and other matters that had to do with their general welfare. Therefore, there is a strong relationship between those two movements, and I hope that in this House to-day, in connection with this matter, the question of quarrel will not come in at all, because I want to assure this honourable House that there is no quarrel on the part of the friendly societies, nor have they in their heart or mind anything antagonistic to the great trade union movement. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the operation of unemployment insurance as we know it up to this moment, and he alluded to the provisions of the 1911 Act. May I remind the House that, in the compilation of that Act, it was the intention of the Government of that day that the approved societies of the country should administer unemployment insurance benefit so far as it was then anticipated, because in the main structure of the 1911 Act the provisions for unemployment insurance were contained; but in the passage of that measure through this House, it was thought well to separate that portion of unemployment insurance, and it was relegated to Part II of the 1911 Act. I do not think I am putting it too high when I say that at that time it was contemplated that the societies who should administer national health insurance were also to take a hand in the unemployment insurance as then provided. But it became a separate part. Why did not approved societies in 1911 ask that they might administer unemployment insurance? Because at that time unemployment insurance was confined to three main industries in this country—shipbuilding, general building and engineering—and the approved societies of the time knew full well that all the persons employed in those three industries were within the four walls of various trade unions. Therefore, at that time no application was made by the approved societies to have any part in administering unemployment insurance.

To-day we have before us a far different measure from that suggested in 1911. The Measure before the House today extends unemployment insurance to the whole of the employed population of this country, and, whereas the 1911 Act only dealt with some 3,000,000 to 3,500,000 people, to-day you are contemplating a measure that will cover some 14,000,000 persons, a large portion of whom are not members of trade unions. Now all we have asked on behalf of the approved friendly societies is that there might be the open door, that there might be the means found whereby they could come in. What is the position under the 1911 Act? Out of a contemplated insured population of 14,000,000 persons, there are some 3,500,000 provided for. Under a section of this Act there may be possibly some 3,000,000 go out under the provisions of special schemes; in other words, they may contract out. It leaves still some 8,000,000 persons to be dealt with only in one of two ways as provided for in the original Bill. Either they had to form themselves into an association of employed persons or they had to take their benefit through the employment exchange. Of the 8,000,000 we who represent the great friendly societies do not think we are putting it too high when we say that 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 are not members of trade unions; in other words, we are prepared to go beyond the figures that the Ministry of Labour possess, and say that you may take 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 persons in the trade union movement in this country. We are not asking that we shall take any hand in administering the benefits in their respect, but we are asking that we may have a hand in administering the benefit to the remaining 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 who are not at present members of trade unions, who have an innate dislike to labour exchanges, and who would desire to be associated with the approved society to which they belong. I regret that in my opinion the position of the approved societies has been prejudged. It has been said at first that it was the business of the trade unions. If I am not putting it incorrectly, that is the attitude of my hon. Friend the Member for Miles Platting. He says really: "this is our job."

So it is.

Did they say that in 1911, when it was contemplated that the National Health Insurance should be administered by the friendly societies of this country? I would have the House remember that, because we are quoting the 1911 Act in many of its aspects. The original intention of that Act was that National Health Insurance should be administered through the friendly societies of this country, those friendly societies which were approved by the Commissioners—hence the origin of the name. My friends of the trade union movement at that particular time, did not say, "It is the particular province and work of the great friendly societies of the country," who have given 100 years gathering experience in operating sickness insurance. They claimed it was also part of their job. This House listened to their claim, and permitted them to come in. I have no fault to find with that. If, however, that argument was good in 1911 in respect of National Health Insurance, I submit it is equally good to-day in regard to Unemployment Insurance benefit.

Apart from that, this case has been prejudged when it is said that the friendly societies of the country are unable to perform this work. Who has a right to say that until the friendly societies have been tested and failed? The friendly societies have built up, at great expense and labour, a very considerable organisation. The ramifications of this organisation are in all parts of the country. I remember full well, on the Second Reading of this Bill, following shortly as it did upon the Estimates submitted to this House by the Minister of Labour in relation to the extension of Labour Exchanges throughout the country, the House was very adverse to that Estimate, because, in its judgment, it was a very ambitious scheme, and it called for a large outlay of money. I then presumed to say in this House, on behalf of the friendly societies, that seeing their ramifications were in every village, hamlet, township, and part of this great country, they were in the position to place at the disposal of the Ministry of Labour considerable facilities, and much machinery, that would eventuate in great saving, and in enabling this work to be carried out with a great measure of success. In 1911 it was not known what success would attend the efforts of the friendly societies in relation to National Health Tnsurance. I ask hon. Members whether, with their experience and knowledge, it is not a fact that the great friendly societies have operated National Health Insurance as successfully, and perhaps more successfully, than any other organisations that were called in to administer the Act?

No!

I am confronted with an answer behind me "no." I speak from a very long experience of the work of the approved societies of this country, and have yet to learn from any source that they have failed in that direction. I think they would have been a conspicuous success for the humane, satisfactory, and efficient manner in which the Act has been administered. The point I wish to make is that up to the moment the great friendly societies of this country have not failed in any promise they have made. I suggest that it should embolden this House to listen with a sympathetic ear to the request being made that they may come in and take a hand in administering unemployment insurance, because I suggest that they would make an equal success of it. May I tell this House that the great friendly societies are busily engaged in formulating and perfecting a scheme which they believe will meet with the entire approval of the Ministry of Labour. It is said that they have not the machinery and they have had no experience. May I answer that the same thing may be said of a large number of trade unions who have never yet administered unemployment insurance benefit, and who will have to set up the machinery, and who will have to justify themselves to the Minister of Labour before they are permitted to take any part.

I only returned late on Tuesday from the North where I have been consulting with the leaders of some of the friendly societies who are busily preparing what they hope to submit, provided the House listens to their request, and provided this Amendment is retained in the Bill, and they will submit a scheme to carry out the Act, and whatever regulations are imposed. By that scheme they are prepared to stand or fall. They do not ask for any preferential terms, and they ask for no other terms except the full requirements of the Act. Having made that application and formulated their scheme and submitted it to the Minister of Labour, it will be for the Minister, if he thinks it does not meet all the requirements, to turn it down. We have tried very hard during the last two months or more to meet all the objections that could be reasonably raised by our friends of the Labour party. They were strongly opposed to any idea of Industrial Assurance Companies having anything to do with this measure and words have been inserted in the Bill that utterly ruled them out. I have copies of letters written as far back as the 4th of May addressed to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Deptford (Mr. Bowerman), the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas), the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of the Labour party (Mr. Adamson), and to others in which we have ventured to say this on behalf of the approved friendly societies of the country: We are intensely anxious that there shall be no misunderstanding and that there shall be no quarrel, and there is nothing antagonistic in that which we are asking for, and we will enter into a compact as far as we reasonably can to say to any member of a trade union who should be a member of an approved society 'Your place to take your unemployment benefit is with your trade union.' We have gone even beyond that, and we have said to the trade unions, "If by chance a man who is a member of an approved friendly society afterwards joins a trade union, and desires to take his unemployment benefit through that trade union we will render every reasonable facility for his transfer." What more could we do to try and meet the objections which have been raised? I want to say on behalf of hon. Members who represent the friendly societies that they would deplore beyond all words that there should be any misunderstanding between this movement and the friendly societies. The hon. Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) spoke of us as being twin brothers. I agree. These two movements should walk through this land hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, working for the interests of the great industrial community. We have no desire to trench on the ground occupied by the trade unions or to interfere with their work, but we ask, if the House permits us, to have an opportunity of administering this Act in respect of large numbers of persons who are not members of trade unions, and who do not desire to be associated with the employment exchanges in relation to this Measure. That is all we are aiming at.

There has been considerable discussion and some little feeling on this subject. It is part of the scheme of this Bill, as provided in Clause 17, to avail ourselves of the help of certain outside agencies and associations. We have laid it down that any association of employed persons, the rules of which provide for the payment of unemployed benefit, if such association is prepared out of its own funds to add one-third to the benefit, and further, if the association is able to satisfy us that their machinery provides a satisfactory system of notifying unemployed members of suitable vacancies, then it shall be eligible to act as our agents for the administration of the unemployed benefit. Undoubtedly when this Bill was drafted with this particular Clause we had mainly in mind the trade unions, because of their special qualifications for bringing employer and employed into prompt and effective touch one with the other, and because of their expert knowledge of the precise sort of craftsman who would meet the employer's requirements. That is vital. The first purpose of this Bill is not merely the dispensing of the unemployment benefit; the first consideration is that it shall, as far as possible, provide for keeping people in continuous employment. If I understand this Bill aright, its first work when it becomes law will be to take steps to keep men in want of a job in close touch with jobs wanting men. The Bill specialises to the extent of fitting the right man to the right job, a task which really requires much skill, practical knowledge and even apprenticeship. To send the wrong type of artificer to a particular job merely leads to irritation all round. A considerable amount of complaint has been made even against the Labour Exchanges, after their long years of acquaintanceship with the job—they were formed, it will be remembered, ten years ago—that they only help to make confusion worse confounded by putting the square peg into the round hole. As Minister of Labour, I emphasise this point, because it is really vital to our purpose, namely, the prompt and effective filling of a vacancy by the right man. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Sir A. Warren) succeeded. against the advice of the Government and against the advice given by my predecessor, in amending Clause 17, the earlier part of which ran— ….the Minister may, on the application of an association of employed persons…. Frankly, the intention there was that such associations should be mainly trade unions. My hon. Friend's Amendment made the Clause read— ….the Minister may, on the application of any society approved under the National Insurance Bill or any association of employed persons…. That is why all this discussion has arisen. The controversy, after all, is a very old one, going back to the National Insurance Act of 1911. The first part of that Act dealt with health insurance, and the second part with insurance against unemployment. It then seemed a natural and common sense procedure that the friendly societies should do the health business and the trade unions the unemployment business. In the course of the discussion, however, a Clause was introduced, which ultimately became Section 23, as a result of the fact that the trade unions—I do not say improperly—said that, being allowed to do the business of Part II, they ought also to have the opportunity of being allowed to do the business of Part I.

The industrial societies had agreed first.

Certainly. I am stating the historical fact. What emerged was that, under Clause 23, the trade unions were entitled, on behalf of their members, to take up Part I. as well as Part II. In the present case, more or less, we have the same problem the other way up. The benefit societies say that, inasmuch as they do the business of Part I., they ought to have the opportunity of doing the other part as well.

That was discussed in Committee, and it was proved that the trade unions had every qualification for it.

There is no doubt that they had every qualification; I do not dispute that. As I said earlier, the main purpose of this Bill would be entirely missed if the friendly societies, in seeking this work, did not make themselves thoroughly efficient to carry it out. This Amendment came before the Committee before I came to it. Seeing that it might be assumed that the friendly societies, having been put in, might conceivably be in at the end of the journey, it became my duty so to amend it as to ensure that, if they were going to be in at the end, they should be an effective instrument for the purpose. Therefore an Amendment was put in to which I would call particular attention. The object was to lay it down that if a friendly society sought this work it would not be entitled to undertake it— unless the society or association has such a system of obtaining from employers notification of vacancies for employment and giving notice thereof to its members when unemployed as is in the opinion of the Minister reasonably effective for that purpose. I am proposing now to make a further Amendment.

Do trade unions get notice from the employers?

I do not under stand what the hon. Member means. I shall ask the Committee to amend that still further by leaving out the words "that purpose," and inserting securing that unemployed persons competent to undertake the particular class of work required shall with all practicable speed be brought into communication with employers having vacancies to fill. In view of the possibility of friendly societies and other bodies remaining as our agents for unemployment work, I am bound to see teat they shall be thoroughly effective. I lay great stress on that Amendment, which is now in the Bill as a proviso, and I call attention to the amplification of the words "for that purpose" because that is vital to the purpose of the Bill and its successful working. Of course, the friendly societies could undoubtedly administer the benefit. That is very simple, though it is not going to be quite so simple as some of them think. In relation to the question what is and what is not a disqualification arising out of trade dispute, I can foresee, unless the agent is pretty skilful and well-informed, a number of questions going to the referee and the umpire arising out of whether or not a person has been disqualified for this benefit because of a dispute in the establishment in which he is working. At any rate, the payment of the benefit is comparatively simple, but from the point of view of the industrial community itself, from the point of view of the greater national issues involved, let me labour the point. The really important question is not the administration of the benefit but whether those who seek to act as our agents under Clause 17 promptly and effectively put a man in want of a job in touch with employers. That is the acid test, to use the jargon of the day. That is why I was bound to add Amendments designed to make an effective instrument and further, on the Motion of the hon. Member for Portsmouth in Committee, the industrial insurance companies and collecting societies were barred. They did not ask for the work. Their exclusion was designed to narrow the field of trade union anxiety. The approved societies at this stage of the Bill must realise what they are undertaking. They have not only to get and pay unemployment benefit, but they have to establish and maintain a really effective liaison between employers and employed. That involves the daily attendance of the agent at the office. It means effective methods for obtaining lists of vacancies from employers and bringing the vacancies before the notice of their insured persons and the circulation of lists of vacancies as between one district and another. That is very important if this Bill is to be effective. It should be remembered that the members of approved societies belong to all sorts and conditions of occupations. They are aggregations of all kinds of craftsmen—not segrations of a particular class of craftsmen which are to be found in trade unions. All this will involve very considerable expense and the friendly societies cannot use their health funds for it.

They know that.

That would be illegal, and the Government will take care that they do not use the health insurance funds for this purpose. The conditions are imposed without fear or favour all round.

It never entered into the heads of the approved societies that they could use National Health Insurance Funds for this purpose. I beg the House not to be misled by any suggestion of that kind. Surely after all the years we have administered National Health Insurance we know where we are and where we should stand with the Government Auditor.

I do not say they would use those funds, but I am stating what is the position, and it is well in a very vital matter of this sort that we should know exactly where we are. Whether the friendly societies when they come to look into the matter will consider that it is worth their while is a matter for them; but I have to say, and I say it to any other organisation, that I am concerned with the proper working of Clause 17 and keeping the men who are out of a job in close touch with a job, and my business will be to see that whoever volunteers under Clause 17 to be our agents they will have to go through a rather narrow sieve in order to qualify for this important function. Primarily that function is to see that a man gets a job. A great many requests have been made to us that we should leave this matter to the House, and I am instructed to say that it is the decision of the Government to accede to that re- quest. My own personal view is that in practice when the friendly societies come to look into the matter and see what is involved they will not find it worth their while. I may be wrong. It will be very onerous and difficult work. My hon. Friend (Sir A. Warren) ended on a note deprecating any enmity between those two great bodies, the friendly societies and the trade unions, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) made the same point. I have received a resolution from the annual Conference of the Federation of Trade Unions, the last sentence of which reads: The Council regards the proposal to hand the administration and payment of unemployment benefits over to other organisations as a definite attempt to undermine the Trade Union movement. I know that that view is widely held. So far as it is applied to those who have sought to include friendly societies under this Bill I believe it to be entirely unfounded. Does anyone who knows the hon. Member for Edmonton (Sir A. Warren) suppose that he harbours any such intention? He is the mildest mannered man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat. No one supposes that he has any evil intent against the trade unions. I should be very sorry if, arising out of this discussion, the view were held that the friendly societies were endeavouring to undermine the trade unions. All I am concerned with is to make everybody understand that whoever wants to be the agent has got to do the job thoroughly. Personally I think that six months hence however the matter stands most of us will in all probability look back in surprise at the storm that arose over this particular matter.

I regret that this matter should be made the occasion of differences between the friendly societies and the trade unions. All my life I have been in close association with both these movements and therefore I may claim to speak dispassionately on the subject. If I were serving my own personal or political interests I ought to associate myself with my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, because I am assured that in the next election I shall not receive much support from the organised Labour forces in Norwich. Therefore I ought now to be currying favour with the great trade union movement. Nevertheless I have reached the conclusion, after due consideration, that my hon. Friends who represent the great trade union movement are not serving the interests of that movement as I understand them by forcing this question to an acute issue. I recognise that there is much to be said that when the Bill of 1911 was before the House the trade unions forced an issue and entered a sphere which was perhaps the prerogative of the great friendly society movement, but that affords no justification for continuing that error on this occasion. What we have to recognise, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out and as I had to recognise when I occupied the position which he now fills in such a distinguished fashion, is that we have to have regard not merely to the disbursing of benefit, because any machine can be provided for that purpose. The Labour Exchanges, whatever their defects from the point of view of providing employment, are certainly efficient for the purpose of paying out benefits, but that is a mere mechanical operation. The problem with which we have to deal and with which every trade union secretary becomes acquainted is not one of paying out benefit at the weekend, but facilitating the time when a person ceases to draw benefit and we are able to place him in employment.

I have been an official of a friendly society and a trade union movement. Friendly societies are based on a much broader basis than trade unions. Friendly societies may surely be described as a great national or citizens' organisation, and I am aware of the fact that in many instances the Secretary of a friendly society, the person who will be charged with the administration of this out-of-work benefit, is not associated with the industrial classes, but may be an independent person. While I have not the wide experience of my hon. Friend I have some practical acquaintance, and he knows it, with the friendly societies' movement. But here in the trade union movement men are selected because of their identification with the trade and its conditions. I was for many years the secretary of a printing trade union in Norwich. I knew every printing trade firm in the city. They were in close contact with me. As soon as an out-of-work book was signed my first business was to maintain daily contact with the firms engaged in that industry. I believe I was more useful because of my technical and trade associations in limiting the time of unemployment and the payment of benefit than I would have been if I had been simply the secretary of a friendly society. I know there is a good deal to be said for the view of the friendly societies in the matter. It was represented to me that this was a scheme of a national character, and that it was difficult to justify any class or sectional treatment of it. I had some conversation with the hon. Member for Edmonton (Sir A. Warren) and others in regard to the matter, and when we came to thrash out the question, we found that it was not merely a question of devising machinery for disbursing the benefits, but that it concerned the whole organisation of industry, and that a trade union secretary was the best one to do the work, because he could help to minimise unemployment by his daily contact with the affairs of the industry. I submit that the friendly societies would be well-advised to withdraw their claim in this respect.

It has been said that the whole scheme is on a wrong basis. This is not the time to discuss that. It would seem to be desirable that each trade should carry its own burden of unemployment itself. It is urged that workmen and employers should be in a closer organisation, and that the liability for unemployment should be a charge upon the industry and ought to be so carried. There is a section of people who urge that there should be a more intelligent organisation of the workers and the employers, that they should be brought closer together in order to organise the affairs of the industry and to minimise or prevent unemployment. The organisation of industry should be more human. Employers and workmen should co-operate in their industry, on such things as dealing with unemployment, so as to administer such schemes with less interference by the State. But objection is taken that such close co-operation is impossible, and we have therefore to justify State intervention. We have that State intervention. That being so, I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that he will have to put aside sentimentality and look for the most efficient means of administration. My friends of the friendly societies have admittedly machinery at their disposal. It would involve a complete reorganisation of the friendly society movement. They would have to set up an entirely new department; they would have to set up means of maintaining daily contact with the firms in any vicinity. That must involve additional expense, and from that point of view alone it would be an uneconomic department. The trade unions, by generations of practice, especially having regard to modern developments, have this machinery in existence, and, therefore, they have much greater facilities for administering this benefit After all, we are not concerned, and my friends of the Labour party and the great trade union movement are not concerned, simply with paying out benefit. We would prefer that society could be so perfectly organised as to ensure to every willing worker fifty weeks' work in a year. I recognise that the industrial machine is so complex that that may not be possible. Nevertheless, we maintain that the human necessity still persists, and we have so to organise things as to ensure that 52 weeks' income is provided for every family in the land. That is the justification for this particular scheme After due consideration, and without having regard to any political possibilities,—my own position would be best secured if I were to throw myself into close association with the friendly society movement in this matter—I say that I am concerned with the practical possibilities in this matter. I am one of those who seek to establish and maintain harmony in the State. I have risked a good deal and have done much in recent years to create better understanding between employers and employed. There is much behind this proposal of the class antagonism to which I object. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, No!"] I have always expressed myself fearlessly here, but with due regard to the feelings of others. At least I may put it this way: I have the apprehension that there is much class antagonism in support of this proposal. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That is at least a suspicion which is borne into the mind of organised workers. They see in it a desire and an attempt to undermine their organisations. I believe there is something in their view.

I regret that the goodwill and moderation which have characterised this Debate should have been disturbed by my right hon. Friend who has just spoken. There is no class prejudice. There is a feeling, I believe, that the trade unions desire to obtain a monopoly of this administration, and that if they succeed in carrying the Amendment, the trade unions would so increase their membership as to have practically a monopoly of the administration under the Act. Speaking for myself, I have no prejudice. I had the opportunity upstairs of closely studying this question. I approached it from a point of view not dissimilar from that of my right hon. Friend, because I also am a member of a trade union—a member almost all my life. Therefore I have no prejudice against the trade unions, and certainly no prejudice in favour of friendly societies as distinct from them. But I believe that the main question underlying this question, and the point upon which hon. Members will have to decide by their vote now—I am glad to say a free vote, to be given by the House without any prejudice—is not, " Are the friendly societies to have a share merely of the administration of this Act"; but, "Are the friendly societies to continue in existence?" I put that point as strongly as I possibly can, because I hold in my hand what has, no doubt, been circulated, and has, I hope, received the attention of hon. Members who had the circular through the post, as I had this morning. It is a reprint of a letter from a misguided secretary of a trade union—the Amalgamated Society of Watermen, Lightermen and Bargemen. What has that misguided secretary written to various members of friendly societies? Let me read only the first paragraph. It is dated, April, 1920, about the same time as the Committee upstairs inserted the words which my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) desires to strike out: Dear Sir and Brother,—I find upon going through our books that you are not a member or our approved society, and as we are desirous that all members of the trade society should be insured through us, I am sending you the necessary forms of application and transfer, which I hope you will fill up and return to me with the necessary transfer fee of 2s., which is payable to your own society. That is to say, "Will you come out of the friendly society, will you join this Amalgamated Society of Watermen and Lightermen," because they believe that they, and they alone, should have the right of administering this benefit under the new Unemployment Bill which is now before Parliament. That is the suggestion, and that is the suggestion I am going to say will be repeated, not by all, I am glad to believe, but by many officials of trade unions, if, as the result of the Division which is now pending, the proposal to delete these words, which were inserted by the Committee upstairs, should be accepted. The Government, as shown by the speech of the Minister of Labour, have held the balance evenly and fairly. They have said, in the Act of 1911, that the trade unions got an advantage, an opportunity, which was not provided for them in the first instance. They say cow, per contra, in this Act of 1920, which is pending, "Let the friendly societies have their share of the bargain, and let them have something which was not originally provided for in the Bill. And so we should hold the balance evenly and should not have a monopoly. We should have the two bodies working together for the benefit of the workers throughout the country, competing—and competition leads to efficiency—and making themselves more efficient in the administration of this beneficial Act, which we all hope to see placed quickly on the Statute Book." Therefore, I pronounce, as far as my humble vote is concerned, that I should vote in favour, not of monopoly, but of common efficiency and common administration by both these great bodies, the trade unions and the friendly societies.

I should like to say a word in connection with the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Norwich (Mr. Roberts). I resent the fact that he was interrupted, and that exception was taken to his remarks, for his speech appeared to me to be absolutely candid and frank and, as his speeches always are, full of courage. I entirely agree with him that, wherever a large number of men in an industry are trade unionists, then the trade union is the best machinery for administration in this matter, but I would point out that there are an enormous number of small towns and large villages, throughout the whole of the South of England, at any rate, where there are no trade unions, and, as many of us believe that the employment exchanges cannot exist very much longer, because we believe they will fall by their expense and incompetence, where are these men going to go if they are not going to have their unemployment insurance administered through their friendly societies? For that reason I shall support the Bill as it now stands.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put"; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Unconsciously this does a decided injury to trade unions, and I really do not see how the Minister of Labour's Amendments will help.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put"; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that. Question.

You have two organisations, and I see trouble—

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put"; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

The friendly societies will be catering for unemployment benefit, and when the employers—

It being Five of the Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.