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

In asking the House to accord a Second Reading to this Bill I am not inviting it to adopt any new principle. Indeed, the principle of early closing was accepted not only in the Act of 1912, but so recently as the early part of this Session, when a Bill which sought to establish hours of closing considerably earlier than those contained in this Bill was passed without a Division. Therefore it is no new principle. The need for the introduction of this Bill has arisen from the fact that the application of the principle of early closing embodied in the first temporary war measure and in Orders in Council passed under the Defence of the Realm Regulations Act, 1915, has proved so efficacious and so widely required that the Government do not feel justified in allowing it to lapse, as it would, when the Defence of the Realm Regulations cease to become operative on the termination of the war. This measure is brought forward as a temporary measure to tide over the next eighteen months. It does not modify or vary in any manner the Orders which are at present in force, but it continues them until the end of December next year, and between now and then there will obviously be opportunities for the House to decide what attitude it intends to adopt.

Perhaps I may refer to the very remarkable growth of feeling in favour of early closing which has been manifested in the communications that have reached the Home Office. The original Order was issued with a view to preventing the consumption of coal, and it was only intended to extend over the winter of 1916–17, but so many representations were received from local authorities, trade organisations and individuals during the winter, that it would be desirable to continue this Order, not merely with the view of saving coal, but in order to save labour and secure improved health and increased leisure in the evening for the cultivation of allotments and a variety of other perfectly legitimate objects which shop assistants have been enabled to gratify under the Order—with a view to the continuance of that state of affairs, the Home Office was urged to continue these Orders. This, was accordingly done by their renewal in the spring of 1917, and since then, so far as we are able to judge, the feeling in favour of early closing has grown continuously, not merely among the people who have urged it for the past many years—during the whole life of the Early Closing Association—but also among those who at first opposed it bitterly. We have had communications in the last few weeks-from organisations representing such a widespread diffusion of feeling in favour of early closing that perhaps the House will allow me to refer to some only. They have come from the— for ordinary members of the community We received only last week this letter from the Secretary of the society I have named:—

I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words would have done a more courageous thing by bringing in a Bill of their own earlier in the Session, and would not have left it to be tried on the dog by a private Bill. Having found the feeling of the House to be so strong against the private Bill, they come down once more with their big battalions and their Whips and will, I suppose, force this Bill through the House of Commons.

The hon. Gentleman said that this is no new principle. It is. It is a new principle to perpetuate a bad principle, which is the refusal of liberty to the ordinary subject of the King. It is a Bill, which in my opinion, will be denounced from one end of the country to the other. Nothing has been more vexatious during the War than the regulations regarding the opening and closing of shops. They were put forward as a War measure, and as a War measure the country loyally acceded to any demand that the Government made. The hon. Gentleman put the whole case in a phrase. He said, "This Bill does not modify or vary in any manner the D.O.R.A. regulations of 1916." That is my case, and I think? shall be able to make out a good case against this Bill. I may remind the House, and also the hon. Gentleman and the Home Secretary, that, in the private Bill which, he says, was carried unanimously, we secured a 48-hour week without a division. There is nothing in this Bill securing a 48-hour week. In that Bill we exempted the one-man business without a division, and, not only that, but we exempted the man who wished to keep open after the regulation hours so long as he did not employ any assistants. Those are principles of liberty for which we fought on that Bill, and for which, I hope, some of my hon. Friends will stand with me to fight on this Bill. Liberty and local option were the spirit of the early closing Measures of the past. This Bill gives no option at all. It is a cruel attempt, under D.O.R.A., to use the mailed fist of the State to prevent the little shopkeeper from earning an honest living. I would repeat what was said last night, that at this moment, when we have thousands of ex-service men out of work, the Government are showing a wonderful poverty of imagination in not giving these fellows a little encouragement to earn their living. If the Gentlemen on the Government Bench went a little more about the country and depended a little less on resolutions passed by trade societies, they would know that the feeling of the little shopkeepers in the villages and small towns of this country is very bitter. They have no voice—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]. They have no trade union to cheer any piece of extortion or any piece of State action— [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish!"]. It may be rubbish, but if my hon. Friends will allow me to proceed, I will show them what I mean.

Why were these regulations made? They were not put forward from the point of view of early closing; they were put forward from the point of view of restricting labour. We wanted labour, and, and more particularly light—electricity and gas. Under this D.O.R.A. Regulation, a chemist may open his shop at any hour if he allows his customer to sneak in and turns on the gas just long enough to enable him to buy a packet of pills or a little medicine. If the light is not turned down, the policeman will come to the side door and want to know what it is, just as if it were in the old days when people were cowering under the menace of Zeppelins. Under the old arrangement any man could keep his shop open as long as he liked, provided that he gave his shop assistants half-a-day's holiday. All that goes under this pernicious Bill. A master could work as long as he chose, and why should he not? This idea of restricting everyone to a common denomination of both energy and enterprise is, in my opinion, the curse of the trade union movement. I do not want to see it imposed through the State on the little shopkeeper. The man who has come back from the War opens a little shop, say, a confectioner's or a tobacconist's shop, which requires no great ability to run, but which does make a man feel that, in addition to any donation or pension that he may have, he is bringing himself back again to the status of a worthy citizen doing his little bit for the State. Let me remind the House what happens. A confectioner may sell a bottle of ginger beer, but he must not sell a packet of sweets after this hour. The hon. Gentleman was very brief on the question of penalties. If he had told us what the penalties are under this Bill, I think we should have been a little better informed as to what it means. Why was it that a man was allowed to sell a bottle of ginger beer but not a packet of sweets? Some people said, "What has that to do with the War?" In all the great towns the irritation of these things was tremendous, and people have been looking forward to the lifting of D.O.R.A. and the regaining of their liberty. There was a reason in all these things when we were at war, but there is no reason for this tyranny now that we are at peace. The reason, quite obviously, was that sugar was short and had to be rationed. In the Debate the other night, although the Minister of Food maintained that he was right and that experts on the subject were wrong, we heard that there is more than enough sugar in this country to-day. Small children want it, but while a man can go into a shop and buy a bottle of ginger-beer, he cannot take home a packet of sweeties for the children at home.

Right hon. Gentlemen opposite may smile, because they do not realise the sentimental side of these things. They sit in their Treasury aloofness, and do not go out among the common people. They do not know what goes on outside Whitehall and Downing Street. Let us imagine that an hon. Member goes home from this House—not many of them, but possibly some of my Labour friends and myself— at 8 o'clock. We have had no food, and want to buy a little cooked meat. We go into a cook-shop—I hope I am not shocking anyone by saying that—and buy half a pound of boiled beef, and very good it is. But you must not buy a bottle of pickles with it; that is an offence against the law. You must eat your boiled beef and have nothing to savour it. That is what you are asking for — boiled beef without pickles. I was only giving an illustration. I was trying to be nice to my Labour friends when I say they want the boiled beef. It is the middle class that has to go for the boiled beef and pickles after 8 o'clock and is only allowed the boiled beef. After you have your boiled beef and eat it without the savour of pickles you are not allowed to buy a tin of canned fruit. These things are irritating and unnecessary, and the great class which really is loyal to constitutional government, and loyal even to this Government, says, "You are putting upon us restrictions and irritations which are not fair." I could have produced hundreds of letters from small shopkeepers quite as eloquent, but I admit less representative in a corporate capacity, than the letters read by the Under-Secretary. These D.O.R.A. Regulations in regard to lighting and labour were intended to conserve our energies at home in order that we might dissipate them in the great victory that we were seeking to secure abroad.

There were some people during the war who thought we should shut the theatres. Thank heaven that stupid idea went by the board. We carried on and we kept up the hearts of the people, in my opinion, by these entertainments. "Then," said the Government, "you may go to the theatre, you may have a whisky and soda, but you must not have a box of chocolates or a cigarette between the acts." It was an irritating regulation, but there was a fair reason for it. The Home Office said with some show of reason, "If we compulsorily shut up all the confectioners outside it is hardly fair that you should be able to go into a theatre and buy chocolates which the man who pays rates and taxes round the corner for his shop is not allowed to sell." That was a fairly reasonable suggestion. It irritated the theatres and the people who went to them and it was not a nice reflection for a man's wife that he could go to the bar and get a whisky The excuse for going to the bar used to be, I will bring you back a box of chocolates. That is a personal experience many times repeated. "Well," said your wife, "we are at war, I suppose, go and buy your whisky and try to bring back a box of chocolates." If he brought back a box of chocolates he was committing an offence against the law. Perhaps the Home Secretary will tell us what are the penalties for going and getting a whisky in the bar and secreting a box of chocolates in your pocket, and bringing it back to your wife or your best girl. All this sort of thing should be ended. We have had enough. Take fruit. Many a time late at night I have seen an array of fruit in a fruiterer's shop. I have looked at my money and said, "I will have half a pound of strawberries and some grapes." "Oh, no, Sir, you can have strawberries, because that is soft fruit and it may be bad to-morrow." "Then I will have an apple." "No, that is worse, that is hard fruit; it will last until Monday morning, and I can sell it." In this Bill you can have fresh fish, or tripe, or soft fruit, but you must not have hard fruit. Scot- land has a grievance. Actually you can buy white currants in London after 8 o-clock under the Bill, but Scotland is denied white currants. Possibly they do not grow them there, or they go in for bilberries, or some other weird things. The whole of this business is wrong, and I am sure when the public come to understand that refreshments shall not be deemed to include sweets, chocolates or other sugar confectionery, or ice cream—why should you not have an ice cream in a theatre after 8 o'clock if you want it? We are back to the days of peace, the days when we are asking the workmen to pull out to the best of their energies and to do a good day's work, and then let them go to the theatre or cinema and do not say, "You shall not have a chocolate or an ice cream."

The whole thing is reducing the Government of the country to a ridiculous absurdity. It is causing irritation and discontent throughout the land. There is nothing in this Bill which justifies, first of all, the brief and perfunctory speech of the hon. Gentleman, and there is nothing in it which would justify the House in carrying it into law. Under the Shop Hours Bill which we defeated by a process of exhaustion we actually exempted the bootmaker. We said, I think quite rightly "You are going to shut up the little shop in the village, and on a half holiday too when many people take their boots to be mended," and we put in a provision that while we would not let him work—I suppose if a policeman heard him tapping even in his back room, like Hans Sachs—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]. There it is. Get the grip of the law on everyone. Let no one call his soul his own or have the liberty to do as he chooses, and in the last resort we shall be one vast and impossible trade union in this country. The little boot-maker we exempted. We said to the little cobbler: "You may take orders and you may deliver boots, but you must not keep your shop open." When you go into these things it makes you feel that really we have come to the limit of patience with bureaucratic stupidity and State enforcement. The Government do not have to take their boots to the cobbler. They wear them out, I know, in the Division Lobbies, but still there are more to come on a good salary. They do not have to go and buy half a pound of cold beef and eat it without pickles. They can lay chocolates in store and take them to the theatre, and they can have strawberries and soft fruit. All the rich things are given unto them, but the rest of the world shall be ground down. I promised I would not keep the House long.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—I am glad I have the support of my hon. Friends for my speech. I was afraid they were going to be against me, but I see that even among the Labour Party reason will prevail, and when you shame them into a sense of liberty they will come into the Division Lobby and stand up for the little man as against the corporate bodies. I have the greatest pleasure in moving my Amendment, and I hope some hon. Member—I have not asked a soul— will stand by me for liberty and justice for the little man and the under-dog, and that we shall go to a Division on the Bill.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I was surprised to see that this Bill was coming on again. One does not want to repeat oneself by making the same remarks one made on a former occasion, but there is this difference. This is not a legitimate way of bringing the reform which is proposed in the Bill. These regulations were purely war regulations, and it is a very unfair way of dealing with the question that involves the fate, the well-being, and the daily bread of so many people by a side wind on a Friday. The thing ought to be done in order and in a fair and proper way. I listened to the speech of the Undersecretary and it seemed to me that the hon. Member's description of it as perfunctory was quite justified. It is all very well to say that he has letters from associations of small shopkeepers, but the whole theory of the small shopkeeper is that he does not associate with anybody. He is intensely an individual. He does not join any association. He is very often a man who has got into a state of ill-health, or in many cases he is a returned soldier, and I should very much like to have an investigation made with great particularity of the credentials of these associations which have sent in these resolutions. When the Bill came up the last time I listened with an open mind, and I spoke for small shopkeepers, because I know many of them. I was raised in a district where there were small shopkeepers and no large ones, and I know that the point of view of the small shopkeeper is totally different from that of the large store or warehouse which employs, other people. A small shopkeeper is an individual, and one of the things that we are in danger from in this country is the abolition of individual effort. The movements in recent years in connection with the land have arisen out of a desire to bring back to the community individual effort as much as possible. I want to see that multiplied, and to see in the community as many people as possible who are working for themselves, and not for any master. I remember that when a quarry failed in the North of Scotland the men, instead of leaving their homes, bought small boats and went out to fish, changing their occupation entirely, and they made a reasonable living. When I spoke to them and asked how they liked the change of life they said: "It is grand to think that you have no master, no whistle blowing, and that you can do what you feel inclined to do, and work when you like."

That is the position of the small shopkeeper. As the psalmist says, "he is diligent in his business." He is not working for somebody else. The regulation for the closing of shops was imposed for war reasons, questions of coal and light, and it is a gross irregularity to enforce it now. I have had numerous communications from distant parts of the country thanking me for my efforts on behalf of the small shopkeeper. I had one this morning. I cannot say whether it is from a lady or a gentleman. It came from Sheffield, and states: day long. They have certain rush hours Sometimes it is near the closing hour, sometimes it is in the morning. If you want to regulate shop hours properly, for so many hours a day, the shop should be allowed to be open where people are employed. It should be allowed to say that it is an evening shop or a morning shop or a midday shop, according to the class of trade, and it should be allowed to adapt its hours to that particular trade instead of having the employees for a good many hours of the day with nothing to do but to mark time. A system of that kind would lead to the conservation of time and labour, and many shops would need to be open only about four hours a day, which would be ample for their trade.

All these efforts for regulating the hours of labour arise from the fact that owing to combinations the human element is taken away in the great store where hundreds of people are employed. There is no human tie between the employer and the worker. In the old days, when mankind worked in small communities and the employer had two or three men, they were a goodly band of brothers; each had his personal history, and they worked together for years in an atmosphere of friendliness and congeniality. That has been totally eliminated by the large corporations. Therefore, you have the formation of associations or unions simply to protect the workers from the greed of corporate capital, where you have first of all the directors with a body of shareholders urging them to make dividends, and, secondly, you have the directors urging the managing director. In those circumstances there is a tendency to exploitation. There is no tendency to exploitation in the small shops. A man cannot exploit himself or oppress himself if he choses in his small shop to work longer hours. Very often he lives above his shop. The kitchen is at the back of the shop, and he sits there waiting for the bell to ring, and when someone comes in he hopes that he will manage to sell something. You are seeking to alter the whole regulation and tenour of his life. When we know that there are so many disabled men and so many men who have small pensions granted for military service we must realise that they can never compete with the large shop. They should be allowed to work longer hours in their own business. Their trade is not so constant and it is monstrous to continue a regulation which will make it difficult for these men to keep their heads above water. The large shopkeepers and the stores want the small shopkeeper to be shut down at the same time as they are, in spite of the fact that they have all the advantages of organisation and capital and all the advantages of big buying. They grudge the small shopkeeper his individualistic efforts in working a longer period, which is in his own time. It is not fair or right. It is inconsistent with the principle of liberty and is capable of being applied to all possible occupations. What chance would the smallholder or the small market gardener have if the large farmer or the large market gardener was able to come and say, "You will not be allowed to work one hour longer than my men work." The result would be the complete elimination of the smallholder. It is because it is his own business and he is engaged for his own personal benefit that that man succeeds. On the previous occasion I used a quotation which is very appropriate, and I make no apology for repeating it. The psalmist said:

That applies to the man who is diligent in his own business. It does not extend to the man who is diligent in somebody else's business. This is just at a time when, with a programme of reconstruction, we want everyone to work as hard as he can. It is an unfortunate position that this country got into when the popular theory seemed to be that we were to have a new world after the War. It was an old world badly damaged that we got, after the loss of a great deal of the best of our youth, and the loss of an immense amount of wealth that had accumulated during centuries. In Italy the railwaymen are to work longer than they did before the War. Belgium is recovering more quickly than any country in Europe, simply because the people recognise the facts of the situation and are putting their backs into their work. It is necessary for us to put our backs into our work harder than ever; we shall then be able to make a new world, but we shall never make that new world by a policy of ca'canny and taking it easy. We want to encourage the man who owns a little property or a little business. The more people there are in such a position, the better it will be for the social sanity and health of the whole community. What is wrong to-day is that there are far too many people who do not own anything, and who rely simply on a weekly wage. We want to develop, not so much the great masses of capital, the great Frankenstein's of wealth; we want to develop more and more the number of small people who have a stake in the country.

Admittedly this Bill does not deal with all the problems of early closing. It does not meet many of the wishes of the supporters of early closing. In spite of the fact that on the last occasion the Bill was effectively talked out, those of us who are interested in the subject felt that it was worthy of further consideration. The Government, I think, has taken the only wise step. We are now to have a better opportunity of considering the Bill, and at least we are sure of one thing—that the country will not return in August to the old and bad hours in force before the War. The hon. Member for Wrekin (Mr. Palmer) seems to imagine that we are all longing for a return to pre-War conditions. Nothing of the sort. If the War has not taught us anything at all it is an unredeemed tragedy. The War has taught us some good as well as bad things. One is that we can shop at earlier hours than those to which we have been accustomed. I want the House to consider how specious but how fallacious have been the arguments against the Bill. One would have thought that the shopkeeper was a producer. He is not; he is a distributor. There is no possible advantage to the State if a man works longer hours, when there is only a given quantity of goods to distribute in the course of a year. By doing so he would not produce a farthing more wealth for the country. An hon. Member mentioned the rather pathetic case of the woman who keeps a sweet-stuff shop next to a kinema Apparently he wishes that the theatre which is next door shall be allowed to sell sweets at any time, and so to rob the woman of a large portion of her profits. I cannot imagine that the woman would be grateful.

The theatre would compete with the woman only while the theatre was open. The woman would have all day as well to sell her goods.

The theatre keeps open until 11 o'clock, and if the woman wanted to compete with it she would have to-work night and day. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Wrekin wants us to take him seriously or not. I do not think the House will do so, because many of his remarks are either illogical or not pertinent. We always hear lachrymose appeals for the liberty of the subject. What is the alternative-proposed? It is to take away the liberty of the subject. The hon. Member objects to taking away the liberty of the shopkeeper, but he means to take away the liberty of every man and woman who works for a shopkeeper.

Do you not believe in the 48-hours week?

Yes, and I believe also in the limitation of shop hours. A small tradesman very often is an employer of labour and has one or two persons working under him. What is to be the effect upon him? I am sure that hon. Members will get no gratitude from the small trader. Suppose that a man employs one or two assistants. Those assistants will leave work at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock in the evening. It would mean that the trader would have to employ another man or woman, but he would not be able to leave his work, and would have no liberty as long as his shop was open.

He can shut his shop if he wants to do so. It is his own shop.

Do you think that an employer of that kind would leave an assistant in charge? I know the small shopkeeper intimately; I have many of them in my own constituency. Hon. Members have not attempted to prove the important point. They have not tried to prove that any shopkeeper has lost business by early closing during the last few years. On the contrary, my own experience, to my surprise, is that a large number of small shopkeepers want us to go further than we have gone in this Bill. There are people who keep sweet-stuff shops open on Sundays, and I thought they really did depend on the Sunday trade for a living. They have begged me to introduce the Sunday closing of their shops into the provisions of this Bill. Who is losing trade? Does a man buy two pairs of boots instead of one because a shop is open three hours longer? Has any many man gone short of boots because he cannot get them after a certain hour in the day? As to the ex-service men, we are solemnly asked in the case of broken men, who in some case have lost a limb and are in seriously impaired health, to keep them working ten or twelve hours a day; and they certainly do not want to do that. If we increase the hours of opening, we are opening the door to the insane competition that existed in the past. The shopkeeper does not want to keep open for longer hours, but in the past one selfish shopkeeper would open though six others wanted to close, and gradually all were compelled to open, as the one man was robbing them of their trade. We are grateful to the Government for not allowing a return to the old hours; and we hope to have other opportunities of considering the whole question. We are protecting the shopkeeper from thoughtlesss, selfish people who would keep him open quite unnecessary hours. If hon. Member? who oppose are serious in their arguments as to liberating them, the Factory Acts and Insurance Act, and other Acts would have to be repealed to carry out their ideas; and in the streets every driver of a taxicab would be at liberty to go as he pleased without any restriction. That would be complete-freedom. That is an argument which cannot be seriously held, and I am sure the hon. Members who advanced it not really hold it. This measure affects 1,750,000 of people, and in their interest the best thing the friends of early closing can do is to accept this Bill as it stands and allow the Government during the next fifteen months to deal further with the question.

I think public attention should be mainly centred first on the general desire to obtain for shop assistants that protection with regard to their hours of labour which will secure for them ample leisure for rest and culture and enjoyment; and, secondly, that the small shopkeeper shall be at full and free liberty to conduct his legitimate business as he pleases without officious interference, so long as he does not prejudice the general interests. The Government could easily deal with the first point by at once passing a Bill to provide that no shop assistant shall be allowed to be employed more than, say, forty-eight hours a week; and, if desired, if could be provided also that those hours should be within certain stipulated times of the day. Instead of allowing a peace time Bill to regulate the business of the small shopkeeper the Government introduce a war-time measure to thrust upon him for another year-and-a-half. I know that some people prefer to go round the bush to achieve their object, and it seems to them to be high diplomacy. What can the Government hope to obtain by adopting this method? First of all, by doing so they are delaying the granting of that charter to the shop assistants which is so much desired by them, and which is already long overdue. Under this Bill a man may purchase intoxicating liquors at certain hours in which to indulge in debauchery, and yet if at the same hour in the same place he purchases a pennyworth of chocolate or a bottle of ginger beer it is a criminal offence. That, I submit, is a ridiculous position. If the Government adhere to this Bill then I wish them joy of the opinion of the country on the question. Why not ensure to the assistants proper hours, and in this period of reconstruction find out what is desired regarding the regulations in the light of experience. Since the last Debate, I have had, I should say, hundreds of letters expressing grateful thanks on the part of shopkeepers from all parts of the country for the way in which those who spoke in their favour on that occasion had helped them to maintain the position they so much desired. I had a formal resolution from a small shopkeepers' association in Weymouth where the feeling is very strong on this question, only a few days ago expressing grateful thanks for what has been done for them for their protection and also the hope that efforts would still be continued to keep them protected. I am simply out for one thing, and that is individual liberty. I am out for a man, if he is doing no harm to any other man or to the State, making the best of the abilities that God has given him, and I protest most strongly that while it may be in many ways a desirable thing for great bodies of men to have joint regulations when they are all working together—indeed, not only desirable, but necessary—yet when the individual comes into the market and desires to exercise his own abilities and to work in the hours that he desires, and even to join in that competition which seems to be so much derided yet in spite of all is to my mind one of the elements of human nature and human progress, then I say, hands off. Let that man carve out his own destiny without undue interference.

I desire to say a few words in opposition to the Amendment, and in support of the Second Reading of this Bill. I intervene with the less diffidence because I am more responsible than any other Member of this House for the shop hours which at present exist and which it is proposed to continue to the end of 1921 by this Bill. I have listened with a good deal of sympathy to the last speaker and some of those who preceded, but I cannot help thinking all the same that those speeches are made four years too late. It is a very attractive proposition that you should keep apart these two questions of compulsory closing of shops and of regulating the hours of shop assistants. I wish it had been possible to keep them apart, but I am afraid, now that we are pledged to this system of compulsory closing. The small shopkeepers themselves do not want to go back upon it. When, in October, 1916, Sir Herbert Samuel (then Mr. Herbert Samuel), who was Home Secretary at that time, brought in his draft Shop Hours Order, it was to close all shops at 7, and at 8 on Saturday. I think, with the exception of my hon. and gallant Friend in charge of this Bill (Sir J. Baird), none of the hon. Members who have so far spoken were Members of the House at the time. There was an enormous amount of feeling on the subject of the proposed closing of the shops, and I had the temerity as a very young Member—I had only been a Member for ten days—to move the adjournment of the House on that question. I had the good fortune, after a debate in which I was supported on all sides of the House to secure these hours—8 o'clock and 9 o'clock on Saturdays, as a compromise between the unrestricted closing pre- viously allowed and the 7 o'clock, and 8 o'clock on Saturday, then proposed. There is no question whatever that the opposition at that time came mainly from three kinds of small shopkeepers, confectioners, tobacconists, and newsagents. So far as my own constituency is concerned—and I have watched this question very carefully there—I have noticed a distinct trend of feeling in favour of reasonable regulation of the hours during which shops can be open.

This is a compromise to begin with, but my hon. Friends who talk about it as a war measure introduced on account of the saving of coal and gas had better look back at the debate on the 26th October, 1916, in this House, and they will find that although the Home Secretary rested his argument on that, his argument was blown to atoms by the criticism levelled against it, for it was so easy to show that these little shops in the back streets were not burning any more gas or coal when open than when shut, the only question being whether the gas was lighted in the front room or shop, or in the little room behind the shop. I think it was admitted that it was a mere attempt at that time to force what was regarded as a measure of social reform on the ground that it was benefiting the country in the war, but the compromise hours of 8 o'clock, and 9 o'clock on Saturday, were adopted, and although a certain number of small shopkeepers continued to protest and some, I believe, said they were ruined by the change, the great majority found that they were able to do very well under the new system. I had the curiosity two years ago to take a plebiscite in my own constituency on this question. I went to some little trouble and expense and sent canvassers out to every one of the back streets where these little shops are to put three questions to the shopkeepers: (1), Are you in favour of a continuance of the present hours, 8 o'clock and 9 o'clock on Saturday; (2), Are you in favour of closing at 7 o'clock, and 8 o'clock on Saturday; or (3), Are you in favour of having no restrictions whatever? About 10 per cent. were in favour of no restrictions whatever, but the overwhelming majority of the others were in favour of the compromise hours of October, 1916, which are in this Bill, and only 5 per cent. were in favour of 7 o'clock and 8 o'clock on Saturdays. I believe there has been a further movement of opinion since that time, but whether it has gone quite so far as my hon. Friend (Mr. Briant's) Bill I do not know; that is perhaps controversial. There is no doubt that the hours as they are now, namely, 8 o'clock, and 9 o'clock on Saturday, commend themselves in London at any rate—I can only speak for my own constituency—to the great bulk of the small shopkeepers. We have heard a good deal about the correspondence on this question. I may say that after that debate in October, 1916, I had personal letters from 600 small shopkeepers thanking me for the compromise I had secured, and from two societies in the North, one representing 5,000 small shopkeepers and the other 4,500, who were all unanimous in thinking that the hours in this Bill, namely, 8 o'clock, and 9 o'clock on Saturday, were the best, if not the ideal, hours. I have pleasure, therefore, in opposing the Amendment and supporting the Second Reading of the Bill.

The whole theory of the speech of the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down and of the hon. Baronet representing the Government was that this measure seeks to secure for those who work in shops that the shops shall shut at an early hour, and with that I find myself in absolute and complete accord. I welcome everything that has been said on those lines, but I find myself in an extraordinary position in this way, that part of this Bill seeks to go outside the four corners of the Bill and to interfere in an illegitimate way, as I propose to show with another occupation, namely, the theatres, in a way which will not by a quarter of a minute shorten the working day of those employed in the theatres, and in a way which I hope to submit to you, Mr. Speaker, is outside the scope of the Bill. This Bill does not prevent the sale of refreshments for consumption on the premises. That is specifically excluded, and the whole purpose of the Bill, as I have just said, is to benefit the shop assistants by closing the shops earlier. The theatre goes on until the performance is closed. If you say that something shall not take place in a theatre in the way of the sale of refreshments after eight o'clock, thus making for that purpose a theatre ino a shop, you are not helping one of the employees of the theatre; in fact, you are depriving them of part of their livelihood. Why does the Bill seek to exclude the sale of chocolates in theatres? It says to a theatre, "You can sell refreshments, but those refreshments are not to include chocolates." I submit, with absolute confidence, that it is not within the scope of the Bill to take one incident of a theatre's life, and to prevent that, when the title of the Bill, and the scope of the Bill, is to shut shops at an early hour.

Why, then, do we find this extraordinary provision, that the sale of refreshments shall not include the sale of chocolates? It is for this reason: In 1916, when the war measure under D.O.R.A. was first introduced, the House was told that it was introduced for the purpose of saving fuel, and I notice that the hon. Baronet, who introduced the measure, referred to saving coal and labour. The original Order did not prevent the sale of chocolates in theatres, and the retail traders went to the Home Office, I am informed, and they got the sale of chocolates prohibited, because they said it was unfair competition. Then the Home Secretary made an Order under D.O.R.A., and that is the Order which we are continuing to-day. Is this unfair competition? Ever since the days of Charles the Second, when Nell Gwynne sold oranges in the theatre, it has been, I submit, a legitimate byproduct of a theatre's performance to sell refreshments. Other times, other tastes. To-day we prefer chocolate; in the old days they preferred oranges. I want to lay stress on the fact that those who buy chocolates in the theatres only buy them for consumption on the premises. It is an almost invariable practice not to buy chocolates when first you go into a theatre, but to wait until there is a pause and the curtain drops, and then you buy chocolates. It is easy to turn this matter into ridicule. I might picture the Home Secretary with a party at a theatre, and I would ask him whether he likes the alternative of buying chocolates in the afternoon and carrying them about and taking them to the theatre? I might picture him there with a young party depriving himself of the pleasure of giving a surprise to them. It is easy, I say, to approach this subject from the point of ridicule. It is that sort of ridicule which is so successful in killing a perfectly legitimate grievance.

This is a war-time regulation, and the difficulty of my position, as I see it, is that on the one hand I welcome the good lesson that we learnt in the War, namely, that shops should shut earlier. I welcome that, but I do say that, when you are doing that, keep your hands off other perfectly legitimate occupations which go on whether this Bill is passed or not; that is to say, the theatre, with which you seek to interfere, goes on till eleven o'clock, or until the performance finishes. Surely you cannot compare the competition of the sale of chocolates on the premises to be consumed in a theatre, the performance at which starts at seven or eight in the evening, with a retail shop, which is open all day long, and which, too, if my information is correct, invariable chooses, if it possibly can, a position near a theatre, because so many people all through the day go to the theatres to book their seats. The hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. Briant), who spoke eloquently just now, when the Shops (Early Closing) Bill, which was a private Member's Bill, was in Committee, moved a Sub-clause in respect of the sale of chocolates in theatres, which prevented the Bill reaching the Statute Book. That Bill said that refreshments could be sold on the premises, but the hon. Member for North Lambeth, without a Division, so far as I can find in the OFFICIAL REPORT, got inserted in the Bill a provision that chocolates were not to be included as refreshments. It may be that the Home Secretary will say, in view of the fact that that was put into a private Member's Bill in Committee, he has thought fit to put it in to-day.

To sum up, the great objections to this Bill are, first and foremost, that this is the continuation of a war-time restriction, which throughout the theatrical profession, I am informed, is causing the gravest unrest. Secondly, I submit that a Shops (Early Closing) Bill is not a Bill to regulate what may be sold as refreshments. It may not say that this is a refreshment and that is not a refreshment, and a Shops Bill cannot alter or define what refreshments are. In the third place, the Early Closing Bill and the early closing of shops surely must have reference to the opening of shops, and if a theatre opens at seven, you cannot, under any Early Closing Bill, disregard the closing, and say it must stop at eight for the sale of chocolates. In the fourth place, everybody concerned in theatrical management welcomes the release from, this war-time restriction. Fifthly, it is a perfectly proper sideshow for theatres. Finally, may I submit a point of Order to you? The preamble of this Bill says:

May I submit that the words "the early closing; of shops for the purposes connected therewith" should be deemed to include the hours at which shops should be open, therefore the hours at which theatres-should be allowed to sell sweets in competition with the sweetshops?

It seems to me that the scope of the Bill is "to convert the existing order into a definite enactment." I gather that this order set out in the Schedule is actually in existence at the present time?

An existing order.

If this be an existing, order, it cannot be altered. If this Schedule be in effect an existing order as it stands, I do not see how the Home Secretary could leave out from the Schedule the words criticised.

On a point of Order. The Home Secretary could not put into this Bill any modification or Regulation which he chooses. Is the early closing of shops included in the other Regulations which do not affect early closing, and is not that, therefore, in a sense, out of Order?

It would be open, of course, in the Clauses of the Bill to make Amendments. It would not be open to make any Amendments to the Schedule itself when this Bill reaches the Committee stage.

I rise to support the Bill, but I have a great deal of sympathy with the arguments which were so ably advanced by the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. The fact of the matter is, the case for 48 hours has not been nearly so well organised as the other case. The present Measure gives them six months, because a Bill can be easily introduced in the next Session of Parliament dealing with this matter. I think the Government have taken far the wisest course, in view of the claims put forward on behalf of the small shopkeepers. In fact, such entirely different views as to their wishes have been put forward to-day, that it is quite evident that they have not organised and formulated their demands, and by this Bill they can take six months or more to prepare and submit their case. The arguments on both sides have been so ably-stated in regard to the question of the closing of shops, that I will simply deal with another subject, which has been raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, on behalf of the theatres. I have made certain inquiries. In the Committee stage we inserted by a large majority the provision that theatres should be treated on the same basis as shops, and should not be allowed to compete unfairly with the shops by having the specially privileged position of being open when the shops were closed to sell sweets. Before the Committee stage, I received a communication coming from those associated with the cinemas, in which it was stated that they might pillory on the screen, so to speak, any Members of Parliament who dared to support these restrictions. I took the trouble to communicate upon the matter with my constituents. The answer I got was more than gratifying. My agent saw all the proprietors of the cinemas, and they stated that they had not the remotest intention of competing in any way with the small shopkeepers, even in the hours that they could be open during the daytime: the small shopkeepers were good customers of theirs, and it was not their policy to drive them out of busi- ness The Entertainments Industrial Council, which has been organising by land, air and sea, has staged a piece which might be called "Much Ado About Chocolates." It has stage-man-aged the agitation throughout the country, at the watering places, and had even a stage army of girls in procession and on the Thames opposite the Terrace have carried out this campaign, even by balloons, and in all their various theatres. They claim to represent the whole of the theatre and cinema industry.

No, no!

Well, I gather that from their letter which I have received. The claim not only to represent all the industrial organisation such as the Electrical Trade Unions which are connected with them—I have a quotation from their letter—but they also claim to represent all the labour organisations. I ask the Labour Party if this is true? The letter sent to Members of Parliament is dated June 11th last, and says:

"Labour organisations throughout the-country have unanimously pledged themselves to support the Entertainments Industrial Council in any measure they decide to restore the public right in any direction that is right to sell sweets in the theatres after hours."

I very much want to know if it is true they represent labour?

It is not true.

I am glad to hear it, because I wish to point out to what the letter did commit them. In the same leter this very powerful organisation says:

"The action of the Government in continuing these restrictions has compelled the Entertainments Industrial Council to pass a Resolution to the effect that no hall whatever shall, under any circumstances, be let for the use of charity, propaganda, or such like purposes until the restriction be removed."

That letter has been sent to Members of Parliament and is not only a threat, but goes very dangerously near, in my opinion, to political blackmail. These people say that they will cut off all use of these theatres and cinemas for charity or propaganda. Surely that is a threat! All I can say is that they little understand the average Member of Parliament if they think he is going to be influenced by a threat of that kind. I acknowledge that the theatres and cinemas played a remarkably patriotic part during the war, but they are doing their best to spoil it, certainly by sending a threat like that I have quoted to Members of Parliament. My hon. Friend has simply and broadly stated the position taken up by the theatres and cinemas. The issue is this: whether the proprietors of theatres and cinemas, who are in the main rich monopolists, are entitled to claim the right outside the hours when the shops are compulsorily closed,—when it would become a criminal act on the part of the small shopkeeper to sell one single chocolate—to claim the right to go on with a side show—not their main business—and sell sweets and chocolates and thereby unfairly compete with the small shopkeepers.

It is only to the people in the audience.

Should not the hon. and gallant Gentleman remember that the shops have a start each day of about eleven hours during which the theatres are not open?

The whole object of the Shops Bill, as far as I make it out, and of shops' restrictions, is to put all on a level basis. Why should you fix shop hours, and allow the theatres to go selling the sweets beyond those hours?

It has always been so.

I will deal with that now. The hon and gallant Gentleman behind me (Captain Bowyer) says it has always been done since the days of Charles II. and Nell Gwynne. Is that an argument? There were certain privileges in connection with everything in the past. Adam and Eve never wore clothes.

But the restrictions were placed on them afterwards.

Why should the theatres and the cinemas be placed in a specially privileged position in this matter?

Why should not everybody be left to do as they like?

My hon. and gallant Friend spoke as if the privilege of selling chocolates had been taken away from the theatres and cinemas. But the point is this, that the theatres and cinemas to-day are selling chocolates and sweets during hours which are not prohibited hours. They are competing there with the shops on a lawful basis so the privilege continues, which, as the hon. Gentleman has stated, has existed since the days of Charles II. The theatre fulfilled a very useful office in the days when it criticised the conception of Parliament and Sir Robert Walpole instituted the censorship to prevent corruption being criticised, though in later years the censorship was used to prevent immorality on the stage. Now, in view of the letter I have read in part to the House, it seems to me the parts are reversed and the corruption is on the side of the stage. These people say that if the Government do not do this they will cut off the theatres and cinemas from all charities and all propaganda. I think it would be a very retrograde act if we passed a Bill to the effect that shops are to be closed at 8 o'clock on week-days for the sale of sweets and 9 o'clock on Saturdays and then allow the rich cinemas and theatre proprietors to go on as a mere side show selling chocolates at a time when it becomes a crime on the part of small shopkeepers to do the same thing. I think that would be an act of injustice. The sole test is not the pleasure of the people but justice, and if you are going to restrict the hours for the sale of sweets in the small shops in justice you are bound to restrict it in cinemas and theatres.

Although I am not going to vote for this Amendment I am very much in sympathy with its objects. As one who has been connected with the labour movement for many years, I have naturally every sympathy with the idea of restricting the hours of labour. I am in favour of limiting the hours of the shop workers to 8 per day or 48 per week. I go further and would limit the hours that shops should be permitted to open to 8 per day or 48 per week, and thus give the shopkeeper the same opportunity for leisure as the shop assistants. But this kind of legislation seems to me to be the most undemocratic. While we are considering shopworkers we are ignoring the millions of people who use those shops and our places of amusement. They are not being considered at all. In this country every evening millions of people go to places of amusement to enjoy themselves, and for years and years the proprietors of these places have catered for their patrons in certain directions.

The hon. and gallant Member (Captain Bowyer) spoke of Nell Gwynne selling oranges. That is an old institution. In these places the sale of alcoholic refreshments used to be very popular, but since restrictions have been placed upon them there has grown up a demand for such innocent things as lemonade, coffee, tea, ices, chocolates, cigarettes, and all those kinds of things, and they are supplied by the proprietors of places of amusement for the convenience of their patrons. It is true that this is a side line, but if you are going to stop proprietors from catering for their patrons in that way you are denying the right of large sections of the population to enjoy themselves in their own way. I think it is a monstrous interference with the liberties of the people. I hope when the Government introduce their Bill next year they will take notice of this. What I suggest is that we should limit the hours of shop opening to eight, nine, or ten per day, and let each shopkeeper choose whatever period suits his business best, providing that he does not exceed the eight, nine or ten hours, as the case may be. If you stipulate that each shopkeeper shall state the hours his shop is to be open, and this is placed in a prominent position in the shop, you can rely on all the other shopkeepers seeing that he does not open at a time when he ought to be closed. One shopkeeper would act as a detective on the other.

We had the same principle at work with regard to afternoon closing. When I was a member of the London County Council Public Control Committee, which had to deal with these matters, we allowed each section of shopkeepers to state on what day they would have their early closing. Surely we can agree as to the number of hours a shop should be allowed to open every day. Although we are agreed that an eight-hours day shall be the limit that a shop assistant shall work, I want that principle applied to everyone concerned. Take the case of the railway workers. You have given them an eight-hours day, but you have not said they shall not work after 8 o'clock at night, because the business of the country would be brought to a standstill if you had. The same applies to Post Office and other workers. The workers in certain industries have to work late in order to keep the country going. Otherwise, if everybody was to stop work at 8 o'clock the whole business of the country would automatically come to a standstill. Therefore, some have to work after 8 o'clock. If it is good that shopworkers should not be allowed to work after 8 o'clock, surely the people working in other industries should be protected in the same way. What is good for one industry is good for another. You should not give privileges to one section that you are not prepared to give to another. That is only fair. I think we might adopt a system under which you limit the number of shop hours to eight per day. If one prefers to make his hours from say 12 mid-day to 8 o'clock at night, he should be able to do so, because each shopkeeper knows when he does most of his business.

Again, take the case which has been mentioned with regard to the small shopkeeper. I have had hundreds of letters from small shopkeepers who tell me that the whole of their business is done after six o'clock at night and the rest of the day they practically do nothing at all. The idea of talking about these people being overworked is absurd, they do not want to open at a time when they can do no business. Why should you restrict their sales between 6 and 10 o'clock at night if they can do business in those hours. If you stipulate that they should not exceed a certain number of hours I think that would be fair, and it would give everybody a chance, and each particular trade would suit the hours to its-own business. It is in the hope that the Government will reconsider the whole of their early closing legislation that I have decided not to support this Amendment. I hope the Government are going to be more rational in their dealings with this matter and give everybody a chance of carrying on their business in their own way without these absurd restrictions.

I would not have risen but for the fact that I want to associate the Party to which I belong with the measure now before the House. The hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Macquisten) stated that he came from a working-class and small shop-keeping district. That is not a marvellous thing because all the members on these benches come from purely working-class and small shop-keeping areas, and we are not afraid to state our firm conviction that the extension of the provisions of the Shops (Early Closing) Act is a very wise proposal of the Government. Hon. Gentlemen have been advocating the selling of chocolates in the theatre. My idea of the theatre was that one went to be entertained and not to eat chocolates. We have had the view of the stall-holders and the ladies or gentlemen who book seats, but they do not belong to our crowd in the queue. They do not have to stand outside and wait sometimes for a couple of hours for a seat in the pit or the gallery. We think, if there be anything in this business of chocolate selling, that the discharged soldiers should sell the chocolate to the queues outside. All this talk about meeting the wants of customers is absolute piffle. Behind it all is the profit made by the people who sell the chocolates. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I have as much right to my opinion as other Members, and I say that they do not care twopence whether people eat chocolates or not. The whole question is one of profit, and we might as well face the fact. If there were no profit in it, they would not trouble about selling the chocolates at all. It is done to add to their income. We all know it, and we do not object to it; but let us face the fact.

May I ask the hon. Member whether he knows that a great deal of this agitation comes from those whose livelihood is directly affected in that they are no longer allowed to sell the chocolates?

I would like to know whose livelihood is directly affected. I am not a very frequent theatre-goer, but I have heard it said that the young ladies who go round selling the chocolates also sell programmes, and that whether chocolates are sold or not does not affect the labour market.

The attendants in places of amusement sell chocolates on commission. It is part of their salary.

2.0 P.M.

Then they ought not to do it. The chocolate Order has been in force for some three years. How much has the attendance at the theatres and music-halls fallen off in consequence of the restriction on the selling of chocolates? I see the same long queues standing outside, and I see the same crowds of carriages and motor cars. I am told that the theatres and music-halls during some of the time that these restrictions have been in force have done the biggest business in their history. This is the best answer, and proves that people do not go to or stay away from the theatre or music-hall simply because chocolates are or are not sold. I am rather sorry that this matter has been introduced, because I am really concerned about the shop-keeper. If it were not for the competition with the shopkeeper, there would be no objection to the selling of chocolates in the theatre. We have to put restrictions upon the selling of chocolates and sweets in the cinemas and theatres to prevent them unfairly competing with the person whose legitimate business is the selling of chocolates and sweets an his own shop. Our real purpose and desire is to see early closing continued, and I am sorry that this chocolate business has been introduced. It is just a red herring drawn across the track. We have heard a great deal to-day about the liberty of the subject, and yet we are living under all sorts of restrictions. The people who shout loudest for liberty of the subject very often in the next breath shout for restrictions in some shape or another. We are living in a world of contradictions, and it is no use trying to reason the thing out from that standpoint.

I represent a very large industrial constituency, where, I suppose, there are as many small shops as anywhere else, and I meet many shopkeepers and small merchants as I move about, and I can conscientiously say that I have never received a letter of protest against my support of this measure from a single shopkeeper. I have had some circulars from others who are trying to inspire the shopkeepers to revolt against this "injustice," but from the man concerned I have never received a single protest against early closing. Are we going back to the old condition of things? If there be an interval between the expiration of this Act and the bringing in of a new Bill, the difficulty of continuing early closing will be greater than ever. There must be no interval between the two. One was almost moved to tears by that pathetic recital of the hon. Member for the Wrekin Division (Mr. Palmer) of his search for boiled beef and pickles. The only consolation I can offer him is that the fried fish and chips shop is still open. He need not go round seeking for the shop that is open. There is plenty of refreshment near at hand for him. We are here to approve of the introduction of this measure, which is absolutely essential to tide over the period that must elapse between the expiration of the present Act and the time when the new Bill comes into operation. We consider that the Government have acted rightly, and we shall support it in carrying this Bill into law.

Our chief objection to this Bill is that it overrides decisions which have been reached by this House this year. In the early part of the year we enacted that the Defence of the Realm Act should come to an end on the 31st August, or as soon as peace was declared, whichever was the sooner. That was a Bill which the Government brought in, and it was passed by this House. Now the Government are overriding this by saying that, notwithstanding that they brought in this Bill which became an Act and which enacted that these Regulations should end on the 31st August or the day peace was declared, whichever was the soonest, they come forward now and continue one for a year and a half. That is contrary to the old Regulation of the House, which says that, if you enact one thing one Session, you cannot enact another. Not so long ago the House passed, by a reasonably large majority, an Amendment to the Shops Bill that it should not apply to small shopkeepers. The Government come forward and disregard the vote of the House and bring in a Bill for a year and a half which does apply to small shopkeepers. Two greater instances of disregard of the will of the House I do not think I have often seen. The hon. Gentleman who has now left the House says he did not receive any letters from small shopkeepers. I think they knew perfectly well it was useless applying to him, and therefore he did not get any letters. I have received letters from small shopkeepers. For 40 years I represented a constituency where there were many small shopkeepers. I can assure my Friend that the feeling of small shopkeepers has not altered in the least, and they feel themselves extremely aggrieved that the Government should override a decision come to by this House only a few weeks ago. The hon. Gentleman who sits for Tynemouth (Mr. Percy) pointed out that what we require was hard work and energy.

It is all very well to say you must not work more than so many hours. What we want to do is to work as many hours as we possibly can. I do not know how many hours the majority of the Members of this House work, but for the last few weeks I have left my house at 10.30 and got home at 1 or 2 in the morning, I have had to be in several places at one time and neglected my duty through only being able to be in one. Therefore all this talk about not working so many hours is absolutely absurd. If you ever hope to restore the country to its pristine prosperity, you must drop all these nonsensical socialistic Bills If a man chooses to work till 10 or 11 at night in his shop, and thinks he can sell something, why should not he? After all, if a man works hard and does not want to go to theatres, he is generally the most useful citizen, and the man who wants to shirk and leave as soon as he possibly can, and waste his money in cigarette smoking and cinemas is generally the most useless citizen. What I really wanted to say is that I regret very much the growing habit of the Government of disregarding the opinions of this House, and what they have done in this Bill is twice disregard for the considered decision of this House.

I am not very much enamoured with this legislation. I understand that the real object of those who support this Bill is that they support it because, under the present circumstances, it seems necessary to enable many shop workers to have a reasonable number of hours to themselves. For my part, I think it has been indicated in several parts of the House to-day, that the correct way to tackle this subject is not to shut shops, but to concern yourselves with the individual. I have been an engineer, and know that the engineering works for which I worked, started work on Monday morning, and continued without cessation until Saturday afternoon, and sometimes never stopped at all during the whole week. That did not concern me in the least, as long as those who were employed in the engineering shop had a limited number of hours which conformed to their health conditions. Therefore, I would like to say this question should be tackled from that point of view, and to tackle it from that point of view is very very necessary indeed, because, after all is said and done, I think that the fatigue of a long day in many of our shops is just as great as the fatigue of a long day in an engineering shop. Therefore, I trust be fore very long we will get away from this kind of legislation which impinges on the liberty of the subject without doing the real thing we want. I am not enamoured with the stopping of the sale of chocolates in theatres, and other places of that kind, because I think I am observant enough to notice that those who go to theatres, music halls, cinema shows and elsewhere enjoy the entertainment even more because they can enjoy an additional entertainment in the form of refreshment and increased satisfaction to them. In the present circumstances it is expedient to remember that if you are going to close shops at 8 o'clock you cannot get away from the position that the theatre if it sells chocolates is a shop for all practical purposes, and consequently under those circumstances, I think it would be unfair although it is going to deprive me personally of some satisfaction—when I take somebody to the theatre, not a young party but someone getting to middle age—unless I take the precaution of getting what I want beforehand. But as long as a theatre is allowed to sell chocolates for more than the hours laid down by shops you are creating an injustice to these; their proper business being to sell chocolates. I do not see why you should not stop the sale of newspapers after 8 o'clock, because there is just as much trouble in newspaper selling as in the sale of chocolates. My hon. Friend says they keep you awake. I go to entertainments where you do not go to sleep and I do not think it is necessary to have a newspaper to keep you awake. I think you might as well stop the sale of newspapers. I am sorry my hon. Friend across the way below the gangway did not give us some information as to where he gets his authority from, where the Entertainments Industrial Council get their authority from for saying that labour organisations have taken steps to support the council in any steps they take to restore their right to the public in this direc- tion. It is remarkable that nobody sitting on this side of the House belonging to large industrial organisations ever heard of any statements of the kind, yet it is put in this letter which will carry conviction to people that we have been consulted in this matter. I do not want to give my vote for this measure under any false pretences, but I do not like this kind of legislation. As I have said, I think the hours must be restricted in the interests of public health in these places, and I do not see why shops should not have two shifts if they like, just as well as any other business undertaking. But until we are in a position to do the right thing, there is a danger of people working hours far longer than they ought to work, and we are forced upon this kind of legislation not so much on moral principle as from expediency.

It is customary when an hon. Member rises to address the House on a Friday afternoon for him to preface his statement by saying that he is not going to detain the House for more than a few minutes. I do not propose to commence my observations with any such statement, but I hope when I sit down, after a very brief period, the House will accord me their appreciation. Although I yield to no one in the desire to secure shorter hours for shop assistants, I want to say a few words on behalf of the very smallest shopkeepers, of whom there are a large number in my constituency. We have heard a good deal about the selling of chocolates in theatres. I do not consider that a vitally important point, because the people employed in cinemas and theatres do not depend upon the sale of chocolates for their living, while the living of a great many of these very small shopkeepers is entirely dependent on their being able to keep their shops open when the stores and large multiple shops are closed. It is not a good thing, in my opinion, that the retail trade of this country should pass entirely into the hands of multiple shops and stores. It is very much better to have a large number of small shopkeepers who, because they have a stake in their businesses, have also a stake in the country at large, and this goes a long way towards stabilising public opinion in the country.

The hon. Baronet who introduced the Bill read a very eloquent letter from the National Federation of Shopkeepers. Does anyone seriously contend that that Federation is in any way representative of the small shopkeepers in this country? Speaking from experience in my own constituency, I say the people who belong to the Federation are not the small shopkeepers; they are rather the smaller shopkeepers as compared with the large multiple shops. They are the class of shopkeepers who employ from six to twelve assistants and who feel that they will be hit if the smaller shops are not compelled to close at the same time as they are. We shall be doing a great injustice if we do not consider the interests of the very smallest shopkeepers. They are a poor hard-working community, many of them are women who kept the shops going while their husbands or sons were at the War, and they experienced the greatest difficulty in keeping them going. Now the husbands or sons have returned, and they are to be compelled to close whether they wish to or not, and by so doing will be placed in a most unjust position. I cannot press too strongly on the Government the necessity of excluding people of this kind from this Regulation. It is necessary, and it is a good thing, that the large shops, which employ many assistants, should close at such a time as enables the assistants to get home at a reaonable hour. But do not apply legislation of that kind to the one-man business which depends entirely on the man or to the man who depends entirely on the business for his living. Many of these men are ex-service men. They have done their bit during the War, and now they are back they ought to be given a fair chance——

This is not a very wide subject, and during the discussion there has been a considerable amount of repetition. It appears to me that the hon. Member is repeating arguments which have already been addressed to the House.

I want to adduce one argument which, I think, has not hitherto been advanced. I hope the Government may see their way to exclude the one-man business from this measure. Although it is argued that it would be unfair that that business should be compelled to close, does anybody seriously contend that the large stores and shops, like Harrod's, the Army and Navy Stores and Whiteleys, are in any way affected by the competition of the small man in the back street? Of course they are not. They tap a totally different type of customer. So far as these small shopkeepers are concerned, it is essential that they should be allowed some latitude with regard to the hour of closing.

This Debate at least has shown one thing, and that is the strong advisability of continuing the present conditions and the present regulations until the whole matter of the closing of shops can be thrashed out. May I remind the House what it is that this Bill proposes to do. It does not propose to take any permanent stand with regard to hours or anything else. It simply says that, there being a great diversity of opinion and choice amongst those concerned we ought to have time to look round, and therefore we propose to continue the existing state of things for another eighteen months. May I also remind the House that no one in this Debate has for a moment suggested that we ought to go back to the state of things which existed before the War. I do not want to sit down without referring to some of the arguments which have been adduced, and which, while addressed to this Bill might, I think, be more properly addressed to any proposal brought in during the next eighteen months. Everything that has been said would be extremely pertinent if we were dealing with a Bill seeking to make permanent legislation, but it does not seem to me to be at all pertinent when dealing with a Bill which merely expends the present state of things in order to give an opportunity for discussion and investigation. We have been told that this Bill interferes with the liberty of the subject, because the small shopkeeper is not to be entitled to keep his shop open as long as he likes. We know perfectly well that if in a district one small shopkeeper was to keep open the others dare not close. It rather reminds me of the days when people talked about the freedom of the subject and said that a man need not take a job he did not like when the alternative to his taking it was starvation. What kind of freedom is that?

The right hon. Gentleman seems to forget that if the majority of the shopkeepers in a district now desire to close at a uniform hour, they have only to make application to the local authority, and all shops can be compelled to close.

What becomes of the liberty of the subject? You are saying to a man that, if he keeps open, his competitors will have to keep open. If two-thirds of the people want to close and one-third do not, you exercise the same deprivation of liberty as under this Bill. The point is that no one wants to go back to the old unrestricted system, and, unless a Bill of this kind is passed, we have to go back to the old system. The choice is between extending these regulations and letting them drop, and, before there is time to pass legislation, going back to the old unrestricted system. All that this Bill does is to allow us to go on as we were, which everyone wants to a certain extent. There are some things in the present regulations which some people want taken out, and there are other things which other people want taken out. But no one wants the whole of them done away with. Therefore, we say, let us go on as we were for another 12 months, and in the meantime, by investigation and discussion, we shall arrive at what, in the judgment of the House, is the best thing to be done, and we shall make that permanent. There is nothing to prevent anyone from getting up an agitation to show that the one-man business should be eliminated from the provisions. If they prove that to the satisfaction of the House, the House will do it. I know it is perfectly true that many small shopkeepers are not in associations. But, after all, the associations which do exist are the best spokesmen we have. There may be two or three dozen individual tradesmen who write letters, but they cannot express the general views so well as an association which represents some thousands of members. When these regulations were first introduced, in 1916, they were opposed most strongly by the National Federation of Shopkeepers, and Small Traders' Protection Associations, and the very same arguments were adduced then by that Federation which had been adduced this afternoon. The small shopkeeper was going to be ruined; why should not a man keep his shop open as long as he likes? Now that that Federation have had some years' experience, they see that all these terrible results did not follow. They see that men are not ruined, and that it has been possible to secure for the shopkeeper who runs his own shop a certain amount of leisure which he can enjoy; and that Federation from being the strongest opponent of these regulations, have now become their strong supporter. We are always asked. Has the War taught us nothing? At least it has taught us something about the closing of shops. We have had a long discussion, which has been very valuable, especially for the reason that it has given us an intimation as to what are the things that we ought to investigate before general and permanent legislation is brought in. The Home Office know pretty well, I think, now, where their investigations ought to be directed, and we shall act accordingly. We shall endeavour to find out what is the real result to those who are concerned, and what is the best thing, in the interests of all, that can be done. That is why we are asking for this period of time, and that is how we shall use it. In these circumstances, I ask the House now to give the Bill a Second reading, so that we really can go into the whole question, and next year bring in legislation which, I hope, will be both beneficial and permanent.

I promise not to detain the House more than a very few minutes. One feels bound, after listening to the Home Secretary, to express surprise that, if the Government were convinced, as they appear to be convinced, that it was absolutely necessary that legislation of this kind should be continued in the future, they have not thought it worth their while to consult the interests concerned in this matter and to bring in a Bill of their own, as they could have done at any time within the last 12 months. Instead of doing that, they propose to continue what is a most objectionable form of legislation, namely, the D.O.R.A. Regulations. What would happen if these Regulations were allowed to lapse? The country would then be called upon to use the powers which at present exist. Every local authority throughout the country possesses those powers within its own area. If two-thirds of the tradesmen in any district agree that it is desirable to close on any particular day, or at any particular hour, the local authority have full power to put that into operation at once. Surely that is better than the Govern- ment of Westminster or the people of Kensington coming down to the people of Whitechapel—for that is really the effect of the continuance of the present Regulations—and dictating to the people of Whitechapel what is essential for them. The thing is too absurd, and therefore, if this proposal is not carried to-day, in my judgment nothing serious would happen. The Home Secretary has laid stress upon the fact that the shopkeepers are so well organised and agreed that there would not be the slightest difficulty in their applying to their own local authority, and that would remove some of the stupid absurdities which ought to have been put an end to long ago. Suppose that you go to Euston Station at 9 o'clock, and desire to use the refreshment room while waiting for a train. If you want to purchase a cigar, you are refused; but if you will order a sandwich, accompanying the sandwich you can have 20 cigars if you want them. Let me carry it a little further. Suppose that you want to go by the midnight train, and to take something with you. If it is one minute to twelve, it is impossible; but if you will only lose your train, and go one minute after twelve, you can obtain what you want. I do not wish to go to the extreme length of voting against this Bill, but I hope that in Committee the Home Secretary will see that a reasonable time is given to enable Amendments to be drafted, so as to remove some of the absurdities which now exist. Then it may be a tolerable measure, but the sooner all kind of D.O.R.A. Regulations come to an end, the better it will be for all concerned.

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

Bill read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

I am surprised that we have not had one word from the Minister most concerned— the head of the Department of Overseas Trade. I made a rather long speech on the Second Reading, and do not intend to cover the points. There has been a slight improvement in Committee. At any rate we are assured of a small measure of publicity. We are to have a quarterly return showing the amount of money which has actually been granted. I regret that the reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman induced the Committee not to go a litte further and have the names of the firms mentioned. That would have been very important indeed. I daresay there are business objections to that and I do not want to labour the point. I hope the publicity we get will be adequate, because one of the objections was that the Bill opened the door to unlimited jobbery. However, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to see that nothing goes through that door. There are two main objections. I regret that hon. Members who tried to rectify them in Committee were not successful. The first is that the Bill only applies to manufactured goods. £26,000,000 can be expended in subsidising the export of manufactured goods, but not a penny for raw material, and one of the great needs to-day is to import raw material into the countries of Europe which have suffered which the Bill proposes to benefit and whose factories they propose to set going, but apparently this highly Protectionist Government, which is afraid of its own faith and which always tries to introduce some sort of Protection by a side wind, still thinks we can export manufactured goods and never import them. They still seem to think, in the politics of the mad tea party, that we can sell abroad without ever buying. I profoundly disagree from that point of view and I regret very much indeed that a little more imagination was not shown in extending the Bill to raw materials. The Bill is only a sticking plaster, and because other countries will not co-operate with us, as is absolutely necessary to do anything effective, is a very inadequate sticking plaster. It could have been made a little better by extending it to raw materials. I hope when experience shows that that is necessary the right hon. Gentleman will not hesitate to bring in some amendment to the Bill in the autumn.

The greatest objection beyond that is in the Schedule. The list of countries to which the Bill applies is unnecessarily restricted, and in particular the great country of Russia is left out. This matter was discussed fairly fully in Committee, and the right hon. Gentleman objected to putting Russia into the Bill for, I think, most inadequate reasons. He said there was no obstacle in the way of the Committee that decides on the working of the Bill adding Russia to the Schedule, but he said, "If we do that now the British case is going to be hampered in the negotiations that are now going on." Could anything be more futile? I regret to use such words, and, of. course, I recognise that the right hon. Gentleman is probably caught in the meshes of a net. These words are put into his mouth. The Prime Minister has given unanswerable reasons for these negotiations which no one has been able to refute. The great necessity is that there should be mutual confidence, and the putting of Russia into the Schedule would have been a gesture of very great value indeed. What are our enemies saying abroad and what are the enemies of Russia saying? We are not sincere. We are simply trying to waste time till the Baltic is frozen. They hope they will drag on negotiations on one excuse after another until the Baltic is frozen in November or December, and then, of course, there will be another winter of misery and suffering for the unfortunate millions in Russia, who are going to hate the name of England because of our treatment of her. All the time we want her products and we could get them. We are presently going to discuss the Food Control Bill, to try to regulate the rise in the price of food, and one of the greatest sources of food is cut off from us. The right hon. Gentleman refuses to make even that gesture that I speak of and to put Russia into the Schedule. I am afraid the Government is not sincere. I suppose the Prime Minister for the, moment believes what he says, but their real mind is betrayed by the newspaper articles of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Churchill). He will not recognise any peace with a Bolshevik Government. He says it is only a veiled war. Now we see that policy translated by the, I hope, unwilling action of the right hon. Gentleman in refusing this Amendment. No wonder these charges of breach of faith are made. I suppose it is hopeless to press the case too far with this House and this Government, but I make that protest with the greatest sincerity, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reinforce the more, suitable words that he used in Committee, and reassure us that there will be no artificial restriction put on the inclusion of Russia into this Bill, which I hope will have some effect in subsidising trade with the shattered countries of Europe.

I rise to utter a word of protest also. I am not going to follow the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), in the way he has dealt with the Bill, because under Clause 3 he can obtain what he wants without any difficulty. I think such an important Bill as this, although a very small one, should have had more time given to it from the Committee Stage until the Report. It was before the Committee last Tuesday. I did not receive it until this morning and although I saw it was in the Order Paper yesterday, I was not aware that it was coming forward as soon as it has. One does not like as a rule to blame the Government for expedition. One is rather inclined to commend it some ways, but there is such a thing as making haste too much, and the Government are doing it, and I think the Bill will become an unworkable instrument because it has not had sufficient consideration. When the second reading was before the House I made some criticisms on it, and I want to reiterate several of those criticisms. With regard to the Advisory Committee that it is proposed to set up, I welcome that as being an improvement, but we remember those extraordinary regulations which tied the Bill up into such a knot that it was unworkable. I do not know whether the same regulations are going to be kept in force and I hope the Minister in charge will give us some idea with regard to them. They made it an utterly impracticable piece of legislation and an utter impossibility with regard to the advantages which could be reaped from the Bill. Many of us want to see our overseas trade established on a very firm footing, and we want to feel that the people who are engaged in it will have some guarantee that the Government is at the back of them to see that those credits that they give are ultimately paid. That, I think, is all we want. I am sorry that paragraph ( a ) in Clause I has been retained. The granting of credits is a matter for bankers entirely, and I am very much afraid that the fears which were mentioned on Second Reading are likely to come into force and that we shall have a huge banking department set up by this Overseas Department. They have not the men or the knowledge and they are quite incompetent to carry on a proper banking business. I feel strongly that we are embarking upon a system of Government trading which is extremely dangerous. I would like to see the advances cut out of the Bill and the Bill left as an Insurance Bill. It is suggested that about £8,000,000 will be advanced. That is such a small sum considering our Overseas trade that it is hardly worth consideration, and if it is intended for making advances then the Bill might as well be thrown upon the scrap heap. If the £8,000,000 was intended only for insurance it would be very valuable, because it would enable you to do probably £500,000,000 worth of trade and guarantee it, so that the people who give the credit would know that the money would be paid.

If this scheme is to be properly worked, the regulations that are to be made must be elastic, because you will not get two cases on all fours Nearly every case will have its peculiar features, and will have to be dealt with in separate and considered ways. Therefore, I welcome very strongly the Advisory Committee. That is the only way in which the Bill has been improved. Otherwise the Bill is practically as it went through on Second Reading. I do not think there is anything else of any value to the community in the Bill. This Bill is an instrument of very great good if applied properly, but it is an instrument which contains an enormous amount of danger if it becomes a Government trading concern. If it is a Government trading concern, it is doomed to failure, because you will have everybody who deals with these matters against you All that is wanted is that the Government should ensure the credits. They know more about the political situation in the countries concerned than a private trader or even the banks can know. If the Government would guarantee that the credits will be ultimately paid, although held up for some years, it would be of advantage to the country that the Bill should be administered in that way. I hope the Minister in charge will give us an assurance that the Bill is intended to be an instrument of good and not an instrument of damage to the country.

I have no hesitation in giving my hon. Friend the assurance for which he has asked in his closing sentence, that the Bill is not intended to be an instrument for mischief, but rather an instrument for good. A great deal will obviously depend upon the spirit in which the Bill is worked and the elasticity of the regulations. In anticipation of the Bill receiving the approval of Parliament, we are considering what improvements can be made in the regulations in the direction of elasticity. It was not due to any want of respect to the House or to the hon. and gallant Members opposite, that I did not rise earlier, but there have really been three Second Reading discussions. The Bill has been unaltered in essence in Committee. It is for that reason only that I said nothing on the Motion for the Third Reading. The hon and gallant Member opposite generated a great deal of heat in reagrd to this comparatively innocent measure. I do not think I ever met a politician with my hon. Friend's ready aptitude for generating heat on political subjects. I assure the House that we desire to use this Bill purely in two interests, one the improvement of the export trade of this country, and the other to help the devastated countries to get on to their legs again. We cannot do one without the other. In regard to Russia, the hon. Member (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) criticised our attitude, but I am quite certain that we have taken the right line. To have added Russia to the countries in the Schedule at this time would have hampered us in the trade negotiations. When they are completed satisfactorily, Russia will be one of the most hopeful markets for British trade, and there will be no hesitation on the part of the Department in adding that country to the Schedule. In regard to raw materials, I would ask hon. Members not to interpret the term "raw materials" too strictly. There is very little virgin raw material that this country can export, but if the regulations are interpreted generously, it will be possible to export a good deal of material which is a finished article here but may be raw material for work in other countries. I hope, under the circumstances, we may be allowed to get the Third Reading now.

We have had the statement from the hon. Member that we could expect. The point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) in regard to Russia does deserve attention, because this Bill illustrates to us the great contending policies which are striving for mastery in the Cabinet at the present time in relation to Russia. We have one policy with which we on this side entirely agree, namely, the desire to re-establish peacful and trading relations with that great country, but on the other hand, there is a policy strongly put forward by Members of the Government in opposition to what is supposed to be the policy of the Cabinet, and by that policy Russia is to be barriered out of the community of civilised countries by some new military alliance. If the Government's policy is that advocated by the Prime Minister surely it would have been wise in the Schedule of this Bill to make it possible to extend these facilities, trifling as they are, to Russian traders. What a strange position it will be for Mr. Krassin and the other delegates who are to arrive in London in a few days to find that we have been considering how to extend our foreign trade and have purposely omitted from the Schedule of this Bill those with whom we profess to be entering into negotiations in good faith, thereby excluding them from the facilities which the Overseas Credit Department has to offer. That seems to us a very strange position and it leads one to ask seriously which of the two policies of the Government is going to prevail. Is this a bonâ fide negotiation or not, or are we going to say that the policy which will prevail is not the policy put forward in this House, but the policy advocated in the Press by a Member of the Cabinet who maintains his position in the Government while he still thinks fit to advocate a policy in total opposition to what is supposed to be the official policy of the Prime Minister.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

I do not think there is any Member who objects to this Bill in principle, but I want mildly to twit the Government for its hypocrisy. We are told here that the Bill is to regulate the import, export and manufacture, the sale and use of opium and other dangerous drugs—opium, morphine, heroine, and the allied drugs. The Bill refers to regulations for licences in chemists' shops, to penalties which are to be imposed, and all the rest of it. It is applied to Ireland with certain modifications. I am glad to say that there have been no cases of poisoning yet in that unhappy country, but obviously we cannot restrict the sale of and traffic in drugs in this country without applying it to Ireland as well. While we are doing this, in accordance with the Hague Convention of 1912, what is happening in our possessions overseas? We are doing a tremendous trade in opium, in the poppy and in the raw materials in connection with opium. I will read some figures given by the Secretary of State for India recently, in answer to a question. He was asked what was the area of land under poppy cultivation in India in the years from 1913–1920. He could not give the two last years, 1917–1918 and 1918–1919 as they were not available. It is very extraordinary that they were not available, but these were the figures which the Secretary of State gave. In the year 1913–1914 there were 144,000 acres under poppy cultivation. In the next year there were 164,000 acres; in the year following that, there were 167,000 acres; and in the last year for which we are favoured with the figures, there were 204,000 acres under cultivation. That is a rise in cultivated poppyland by 100,000 acres, and at a time when the whole world is short of food, and when the people of India in too many cases are suffering from a lack of cereals. Of course the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) thinks this is a matter of no importance.

I did not say so.

I daresay I put my case very badly. I wish the hon. Baronet would put it for me. What is happening? Only a comparatively small amount of opium is going into China directly from India. The bulk of it is going to Japan. Japan is one of the signatories with us to the Dangerous Drugs Convention, but in spite of the laudable and heroic effort of the Chinese Government to prevent the import of this terrible drug, which is ruining the bodies and debauching the souls of the Chinese, the Japanese are sending into China 18 tons of morphia annually. It is smuggled into China under all sorts of pretences. At many of the ports in China the Customs are in the hands of Japanese sub-officials, and they wink at or are privy to this terrible traffic. In many cases the opium is smuggled in as military stores, and is therefore exempt from examination by the Chinese Customs officials, who have at their head a very distinguished Englishman. While that is the case, while India exports to Siam, to Indo-China, Japan, and to all countries where Chinamen live simply for the enrichment of a few unscrupulous opium merchants, it is the height of hyprocisy for the Government to come here with this Bill. I welcome the Bill as a piece of domestic legislation, but I think the hon. Gentleman in charge of it should give us some assurance that the matter is being brought home most strongly by His Majesty's Government to the Government of India. We still have great control over the Government of India in these matters, and possibly a word from us would stop the traffic. This opium trade is a long and painful story in our history. We fought a war over it. It is one of the most tragic chapters in our rough island history.

I am not certain that I followed quite clearly the point of the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken, but it seemed to me that he was complaining more of the state of affairs in China and Japan than of what was taking place in this country. Clearly this Bill is designed to deal only with the state of affairs here. Both China and Japan are signatories to the Hague Convention, and they are fully alive to the dangers and troubles that arise from the misuse of opium.

The opium that they get comes from India, which is under our control, and the supply could be stopped at the source. That was my whole point.

3.0 P.M.

I cannot speak with authority for India. If the hon. and gallant Member will refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will see an answer given a few days ago to a question as to legislation in India regarding opium. Speaking from recollection, the answer was that the Government of India was under the impression that its legislation did deal with the situation, but that it was inquiring into the matter further.

Is there anything in this Bill which applies to India or to the export of opium from India?

No.

Then I am afraid I was wrong in allowing the hon. Member for Hull to proceed with his speech on that subject.

If there be any blame, I am the culprit. The Bill deals with the import and export of, and the general trade in, drugs, and this traffic abroad is to some extent financed from this country. I respectfully put it to you that we are in order in touching on the international aspect of the question.

My duty is to see that no discussion takes place on any matter which is not included in the Bill. If it be in the Bill, it would be in order.

I was merely replying, quite unofficially, to the remarks of the hon. and gallant member. This Bill gives effect to the Convention of 1912. Nobody pretends that it deals finally and completely with the case, but it brings us into line with the other countries which were signatories to the Convention.

The question of opium comes, I understand, by Clauses 4, 5 and 6, under the control of the Home Office. I wish to draw attention to the quantity of morphia which is exported from this country to the Far East. When we stopped, and rightly stopped, the export of opium for India it seems to me to be entirely wrong that we should proceed to saturate the whole East with morphia. In saying that I do not join in the strong anti-opium cry, because it has its uses. In the old days there was no secrecy about the opium smoker. I am given to understand that an immense amount of morphia is manufactured in this country, and most of it in Edinburgh. It goes out to Japan in large quantities. I am told also that when Customs officers manage to lay hands on parcels going into China they send a small sample to the local hospital. The hospitals get more than they want from this gratuitous source; and it is quite clear numbers of parcels escape detection, and get into China. I would ask the hon. Gentleman to go into this matter, and find out what is the amount of morphia made in this country, because it is pure hypocrisy to prevent the Indian opium trade, and then allow our chemists and others to make morphia in large quantities and derive great profits therefrom. Formerly, the opium smoker did not take the opium into his house, but now that is done, and it is used for sub-cutaneous injections. It is more obtainable by women than it used to be. I trust that strong control will be exercised over the manufacture and export of morphia from this country.

The matter to which the hon. Gentleman has just drawn attention is one of very great importance. I am sorry to hear the suggestion that the capital of my native country, Edinburgh, is engaged in this traffic, but I am afraid it is true that they have had a hand in this nefarious traffic. I hope that the Home Office in the regulations will see to it that there will be nothing of this sort allowed under any camouflage for either England or Scotland or any part over which the Home Office exercises jurisdiction. We have purposed to have done our best to suppress the opium traffic in the East, but it is getting through the port of Leith——

No, no!

Or otherwise.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

The new Clause ( Food produced in the British Dominions ) of which the hon. and gallant Member (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) has given notice should come as an Amendment to Clause 1.

CLAUSE 1.—(Continuation of office of Food Controller.)

1.—(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the provisions of the New Ministries and Secretaries Act, 1916, so far as they relate to the Food Controller or the Ministry of Food, shall, notwithstanding anything in that or any other Act, continue in force until the first day of September, nineteen hundred and twenty-two:

Provided that—

( a ) the purposes of the Ministry of Food shall in lieu of the purposes specified in Section three of the New Ministries and Secretaries Act, 1916, or in any other provisions relating to the purposes for or in relation to which any of the powers of the Food Controller may be exercised, be the maintenance and augmentation of the food supply of the country, and the regulation in the public interest of the treatment, distribution, and prices of food; and

( b ) nothing in this section shall be deemed to continue any power of making regulations under the Defence of the Realm (Consolidation) Act, 1914.

(2) The Food Controller shall after the passing of this Act during the continuance of his office have and exercise all the powers possessed by him, at the time of the passing of this Act, under the regulations referred to in the Schedule to this Act, which regulations, so far as they relate to the powers of the Food Controller, shall, subject to the limitations set out in that Schedule, have effect as though set out in this Act, and shall cease to have effect as regulations made under any enactment relating to the Defence of the Realm.

Any orders made by the Food Controller under any of the said Regulations and in force at the date of the passing of this Act shall, unless or until varied or revoked, continue in force and have effect as if made under the powers conferred by this Act.

(3) His Majesty may by Order in Council provide—

( a ) for the transfer of all or any of the powers of the Food Controller under this Act to some other Government Department or Departments if it appears to him that those powers

( b ) for the discontinuance of all or any of the powers of the Food Controller before the date fixed by this Act if it appears to him that the exercise of those powers is no longer necessary; and

( c ) on the cessation of the office of Food Controller and the Ministry of Food, for the vesting and transfer in and to any Government Department or Departments of any property, rights, and liabilities held, enjoyed, or incurred by the Food Controller.

(4) The Food Controller may sue and be sued by that name.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "first day of September, nineteen hundred and twenty-two," and to insert instead thereof the words "last day of March, nineteen hundred and twenty-one."

This would limit the operation of the Bill to the end of this financial year. I have frequently expressed the belief that some form of control is necessary for many years, but I object to the wide powers of this Bill, and particularly to the power to transfer powers of the Ministry of Food, which is a comparatively innocuous Ministry, to the Board of Trade, of whose policy some of us are highly suspicious.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I do not think the hon. and gallant Member will be surprised when I tell him that the Government could not possibly accept this Amendment. An attempt to move a similar Amendment in Committee was defeated on the stricter grounds of Order which apply to proceedings in Committee. The Amendment traverses completely the whole purpose of the Bill which is to provide for any possible hiatus between twelve months after the termination of the War and 1st September, 1922. The Government told the House on Second Reading that on their responsibility and with that full knowledge of the facts which they alone could have, they were not prepared to guarantee complete security until the beginning of the harvest of 1922. Under these circumstances, it is obvious that the Government could not possibly accept the Amendment, which would have the effect, so far from continuing the existence of the Ministry further, of actually reducing it considerably below the period at which it is now fixed.

I regret that the Government cannot accept this Amendment, because, although I am very seldom in agreement with the hon. and gallant Member who moved it (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), I think it is a genuine attempt not merely to wind up this Ministry a little quicker, but it actually sets an effective date when we can do away with the Ministry entirely. I quite realise what the hon. Baronet representing the Government said on the subject of the next harvest and the absolute necessity of carrying on over the harvest and until we know approximately where we are, but that does not answer the Amendment at all. The whole object of the Amendment is to endeavour to wind up this Ministry, and if there is any danger of the sort indicated the work could be passed on to some other Department, such as the Board of Trade, and I hope there will be, on this occasion, when we are trying to lay it down quite clearly when the Ministry is to be wound up, a division, so that we can make it quite clear to the country that there are people in this House who would like to see what we consider redundant Ministries wound up.

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

The House divided: Ayes, 127; Noes, 13.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (I, a ), to leave out the words "food supply of the country," and to insert instead thereof the words "supply of food produced in this country."

Perhaps I may be allowed here to make a brief protest against the short notice in regard to this Bill. I could not get the printed Amendments last night or the Bill. I myself was on the Committee which considered the Bill. I only got notice on the morning of the Committee meeting, when I was unable to attend, and I really think it is an unfortunate thing to take this Bill on a Friday as the fourth Order, seeing that it affects every trader in food, and, of course, everyone in the country. The Amendment is designed to limit the power of the Ministry to the supply of food produced in this country. I am afraid we have not been very successful in controlling food supplies in other countries. Of course, that is to be expected. We have no sort of co-ordination abroad for controlling supplies of food at the source, and without that you cannot, have effec- tive control. The effect of our trying to, control the food supplies of other countries has been that the people who produce food in Denmark or Holland, for instance, cannot be bothered with us, and they send their food to the countries which do not harass and hamper them, and the Danish butter is going to the United States of America. We have already, I believe, had a certain amount of friction with our Dominions. I might mention the New Zealand meat producers, to whom we ought to be beholden, as they came to our rescue during the War. I think, therefore, it would be much better, things being what they are, if the activities of the Ministry were confined to supplies of food produced in this country.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I am sorry I cannot share the hon. Member's view that this is not an unreasonable Amendment. On the contrary, it strikes me as being the most unreasonable Amendment I have heard in the House of Commons for a long time. Let the House consider what would be the effect if this Amendment were adopted. Take three of the great staple commodities in which we have had difficulties—sugar, butter, and wheat. The effect of this Amendment would be at once to remove from the control of the Food Controller, from the ambit of his operations altogether, the overwhelming proportion of the wheat supply of the country, a very large proportion of the butter supply of the country, and the whole of the sugar supplies of the country. I think, therefore, the hon. and gallant Gentleman will see, on reflection, that his Amendment is one which could not possibly commend itself to the Government, and I hope will not commend itself to the House. But even if that be the hon. and gallant Gentleman's intention, his words are wholly inadequate to secure the purpose which he wishes to achieve, because, supposing we were to accept these words, we should be involved at once in an endless series of questions as to what is meant by "food produced in this country." The hon. and gallant Gentleman must see that we might be landed in this ridiculous situation, that whereas my right hon. Friend would have jurisdiction over a baker who produces a cake in this country, he would have no jurisdiction over the Danish eggs which are part of his ingredients, or over the Argentine wheat, or, let us say, the Mauritius sugar. Similarly, let me take pork imported from Canada, and the casings imported from the Argentine. Both these would be outside my right hon. Friend's control, but the result, in the shape of sausages, would fall within the ambit of his operations. I suggest it is really trifling with the time of the House, and this Amendment should be rejected.

Amendment negatived.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (I, a ), to leave out the words "and the regulation in the public interest of the treatment, distribution and prices of food." The intention of this Amendment is to leave freedom inside the country in regard to these matters. As I have pointed out, my solution of the problem of food control is control at the source, but I think the time has come to allow freedom within the country. The Minister of Agriculture decided that control as to price and distribution was destroying the home production of pork and bacon. In the "Times" of last March, the finding of the Cabinet on this subject was as follows:

"In regard to pigs, they arrived at the decision that the great decline in the pig population of the United Kingdom, which has been one of the unfortunate results of the control of both market and prices, was a matter of national concern. It has not only injured the agricultural industry, but has made the consumer increasingly dependent upon imported bacon. With the view, therefore, of stimulating the breeding of pigs and the supply of fresh pork and bacon to the British consumer, the Cabinet decided that home-grown pigs and pig products should be decontrolled from March 31st."

So much for pigs. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and what has happened with pigs is bound to happen with other home products, such as butter and eggs.

Amendment not seconded.

I beg to move, in Sub-section (3), to leave out paragraph ( a ).

We desire to prevent the Ministry of Food transferring its powers to other Departments. We fear that these powers, may be useful, if so transferred, for protectionist purposes. They might be transferred, for example, to the Board of Trade. In our experience, since this Government was formed, the Board of Trade has, whenever it could, and when the Courts have not prevented it, or it otherwise has not been prevented, has, as far as possible, pursued a protectionist policy. The Department did not like to avow it in legislation, but it has carried it out just the same as much as possible through the machinery which the War brought into existence. We feel this a dangerous Sub-section, and we are afraid of what may happen. What I said before applies. I think we are agreed that the Ministry of Food has done extremely well. That has been said in all parts of the House. On the whole it has been beneficial, and we are prepared to continue its life. The House has decided that, but we have great objection to these undefined powers being transferred to other Departments. That is one of the principal objections to the Bill at this present, time, and I hope what I say will commend itself to the House.

This is a point of substance. The Government certainly have the idea that it is a good thing to prohibit imports. We know that they in several insidious ways are endeavouring to carry out that policy without coming to the House of Commons and getting its approval. We know that the Courts have prevented them going on with that policy, but it is possible—and perhaps if I am wrong the Food Controller will tell me—under this Sub-section for the Food Ministry to transfer to the Board of Trade general powers to prohibit imports. That is a wide power. There may be some perfectly sound justification for it. I do not know, but if that be so I should like to hear it. Sub-section (3) says:

"(3) His Majesty may by Order in Council provide

( a ) for the transfer of all or any of the powers of the Food Controller under this Act to some other Government Department."

Then, if hon. Members will look at Clause 3, they will find it there stated:

"(1) The Food Controller may by Order—

( a ) prohibit or regulate the export of an article of food."

I do not see any definition in the Bill as to what is meant by the regulation of food. It is possible, I suggest, that this power might be abused. If my right hon. Friend has a satisfactory explanation, of course, we shall not press the Amendment to a Division. But I think we are quite right in drawing the attention of the House to this matter, and asking for some explanation.

Hon. Members with whom I am associated on this side of the House are not only willing, but anxious, that the powers of the Food Control Department should continue. But we look upon this Sub-section as a very dangerous one, and we moved the deletion at the Committee stage of the Bill, but were unsuccessful. If the powers that the Food Controller exercises, or any particular Department that this Bill deals with, were successful and equitable in their operation, we would not urge any criticism in the direction we do. If those powers are not exercised as efficiently or as effectively as they ought to be it is very desirable that we should know to whom to go to make enquiries. It cannot be claimed that the orders of the Food Control Department have operated equitably up to the present. I think it is safe to say that while I have been a Member of this House that in none of the different refreshment departments of this House have I been served with margarine. Perhaps there is none to be found on the premises. But in many public institutions in the country it would be very difficult to find anything else. Between these two extremes these inequities have generally prevailed. No order or power that the local controller has exercised up to the present has pre vented the best butter and the best English beef going in the direction of one section of the community. Frozen meat and margarine have gravitated in the opposite direction. No power or order which he has issued has yet been effective in preventing that inequity taking place. We are familiarising a section of the population not with frozen meat and margarine as a necessity of exceptional times, but as what is normal, and a thing they must expect in the future to continue.

There is another matter to which we have heard very strong objection. So far as the ineffectiveness of many of these powers or orders goes—not only has it been impossible to effect equitable distribution of the food supplies available, but they have always failed to get the bulk of the food supply into the hands of the community. It is the common knowledge of this House that stocks of tea and bacon and other commodities have accumulated, and many times deterioration and waste has been the result. An artificial market has been created with an artificial price. The function of the Food Controller should be to secure food supplies in fair quantities at a reasonable price. That has not been done. We hope that all the powers will be retained in the hands of the Food Controller, so that we may be able to fix the responsibility for failure.

I desire to support this Amendment. I think we should have an explanation from the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but I imagine that the object of this Clause is that when the Government comes to the conclusion that the time has arrived that this Ministry shall be done away with, that it shall be done to death slowly. There is, however, a certain danger about this transference of powers. A few days ago the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. McCurdy) told us that the present Government was the first really Liberal Government that had existed in the country. I always imagined that there were some Conservatives in the present Government. I know that the Food Minister is a Free Trader, and we need have no fears why he is in that position, but we might not have the same amount of confidence if these duties were handed over to some other Department.

The point raised by this Amendment is one of real substance, and I want to invite the Food Minister to explain why the House, which has just decided as to how long the Food Ministry shall endure, should not have the right to decide before September, 1922, the existence of the Ministry. This Clause would enable the Food Minister to settle the fate of his own Ministry and scatter his powers amongst other Departments. Circumstances may arise that might cause a Minister's disappearance, but a Ministry of this kind should not have its fate sealed by any such private decree, and the House should retain the power to determine its fate according to the state of the food supplies of the country.

There is not much in this Bill of which I approve, but if there is anything in it which can possibly be of any use I think it is this particular Clause which enables the Food Minister, if he is tired of his job during the next eighteen months, to relieve the country of the burden of his Ministry, and for that reason alone I would like to see the whole of this Bill swept away and this part left in with drastic Amendments. I hope that the one little bit of the Bill which is of some small value will be retained.

I should like to express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), and the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Mr. Myers), for what they have said about the Ministry of Food. It is not often that we have the opportunity of returning thanks on behalf of a Government Department, I should like to remove the anxiety which I can see is preying on the minds of some hon. Members in regard to this measure. They appear to be afraid that under this Clause the powers which will be exercised with the most rigid regard for the principles of political economy might be transferred to some other department that might exer- cise those powers for the purpose of introducing a system of protection into this country. I do not think that the hon. Members who entertain that fear have sufficiently considered the safeguards which were inserted in the Bill in Clause 3 when we denned the limits within which it shall be at the discretion of the Food Minister to prohibit or regulate either exports or imports. In the first place those powers are restricted to articles of food. This is a problem which we can easily solve for ourselves because we know what things we can eat and what we cannot eat, and. the courts would not be assisted by any elaborate definition of food. This refers to articles of food for mankind, and I really doubt whether any definition could be added which would make the point clearer.

When this Bill was drafted it was present to my mind that it might be suggested by those who might consider themselves more orthodox supporters of the doctrines of Free Trade than myself or some of the occupants of the Treasury Bench that it might possibly occur to their suspicious minds that behind this innocent Clause there might be some insidious attack upon the sacred principles of Free Trade. Consequently I took pains to see that this Clause should be drafted to remove those suspicions. The power to regulate or prohibit the import or export of articles of food is limited in Clause 3 by a reference to the sole purpose for which those powers may be exercised. The purpose is the maintaining of sufficient supplies of food for the United Kingdom and giving effect to any international agreement to which His Majesty's Government may be a party. That is a ground which will appeal to my hon. Friend opposite.

On the other hand, my right hon. Friend who has occupied the position of Minister of Food, appears to be under a difficulty of a different kind. He appears to have a fear that the Food Minister may seize the opportunity afforded by this measure of committing suicide, and thereby bringing the whole operation of the Ministry of Food to an untimely end, contrary to the interests of the people of this country. I welcome that criticism, because I am so accustomed to being told that I am connected with a Ministry of limpets, and to be accused of an undue and unseemly desire to terminate our existence is, at any rate, something novel and refreshing in the way of criticism. I think those two criticisms answer one another, and I can assure my right hon. Friend that I have no intention of committing suicide so long as I can do useful work, and on this matter the decision rests with the Government. There is no substance in the fears which have been expressed, and I think anyone reading the Clause must be satisfied that these are not powers which could be used for the purpose which has been indicated. These are powers which enable the Ministry of Food, when there is no substantial work left to justify the existence of a separate Ministry, to hand over to any other Department of State the residue of contracts or other things which remain to be liquidated, in order that the existence of a separate Ministry may be dispensed with at the earliest possible date, for the benefit of the taxpayers of this country.

The speech of the right hon. Gentleman appears to me so amusing, that I am quite certain he has not realised the real meaning of this Clause as it is drafted. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to protest his innocent intentions, but, after all, we have to read the Clause as it stands in relation to what is in the Bill. I really think the right hon. Gentleman will come to see that his draughtsmen have written the Clause with a very big pen, and I do seriously ask the House to consider what it is going to do if it allows the Government to have this extraordinary Clause this afternoon. We have all been hampered very much by the fact that notice of the Committee arrived yesterday morning an hour before the Committee met, and here we are to-day with the Bill in the House conferring powers much more extraordinary than were ever taken by any Department during the crisis of the War. No Department, not even the Ministry of Munitions, was during the War able to take in a complete form such an extra ordinary handful of powers as those conferred by this Bill, powers taken without consideration, and without an opportunity for hon. Members really to understand what is being done. This particular Clause is intended, no doubt genuinely, by the right hon. Gentleman, to do that which I agree is necessary, and is very desirable in order to achieve the early winding up of his Ministry. It is conceivable that the Ministry, when it is wound up, will have certain things outstanding, which somebody else will have to wind out. That is all very well, if it were drafted in that form, but the Clause as it stands is not so limited.

4.0 P.M.

Under this Bill, the Minister is taking most extraordinary powers. The other evening when we discussed the matter on the Financial Resolution the Minister said that it was quite true that the Ministry could last until 12 months next September, but that their powers would not last. That was his excuse for the Bill. The powers, as I have already said, are more wide and more extensive than anything taken by any department at any time during the crisis of the War. On top of that the Minister in this Cause asks us to say that by a simple Order-in-Council the whole of those powers may be transferred permanently to some other Government department. The transfer is without limit of time. The Ministry itself and the powers of the Ministry are limited to 1922, but they can hand the whole of these extraordinary powers over to some other department simply by an Order-in-Council without any limitation as to time. I see no limitation as to time at all. Under this Bill the Minister, or the sucessive department to whom he may transfer his powers, can by a stroke of the pen suddenly commandeer—to take wheat as an illustration—every warehouse holding food, every flour mill, and every shop, and then say: "We have taken your property for our own particular purposes; now go and ask somebody nominated by the Lord Chief Justice or some other authority set out in the Schedule for compensation?" These extraordinary powers are to be enshrined permanently by a mere Order-in-Council in some department or other. It is asking too much, and I suggest that the Minister should try to find some limiting words so that some limit of time shall be put to this extraordinary usurpation of power Talk about autocracy! There never was any autocracy compared with the position of the Minister or the Government under this Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman can assure us that he will somewhere or other put in a limiting date or modify the extent of these powers, then probably he will meet with more consideration, but if we fail this afternoon at this late period of the Session to expunge this provision from the Bill, I do hope that hon. Members will be on the alert when these Orders-in-Council come up to see that these very great powers are not extended and handed down to any further representative of the Ministry of Food.

The point that has just been raised by my hon. Friend is one on which I think the Law Officers of the Crown or my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland, who is as good a lawyer as he was a year ago, should give us some assurance. The point ought to be made clear in the Bill. If we were dealing with an ordinary Minister in ordinary times, I should be prepared to run some risk, but I am not prepared to run any risk with these new departments in these days. I suggest that such words as these should be inserted:

"The transfer of all or any of the powers of the Food Controller during the continuance of this Act."

That would to some extent, at any rate, mitigate the very natural fears and alarms of my hon. Friend, which I certainly share.

I am really surprised at this last question which has been raised, because it does not appear to me that there is any serious doubt at all. This Act provides that the Office of Food Controller, subject to the power hereinafter contained to bring it to a termination at any time, shall remain in force until the 1st September, 1922, and by Section 2 of that first Section provides that the Food Controller shall, after the passing of this Act during the continuance of this Act, that is, up to the 1st September, 1922, at the latest, have and exercise certain powers possessed by him. Then Sub-section (3) says that His Majesty by Order in Council may provide for the transfer of all or any of those powers of the Food Controller. Those are powers which all come to an end at the latest on the 1st September, 1922, and no transfer of those powers to any other person can—I venture to assure my right hon. Friend—in the process of transfer extend them or enlarge their duration. The utmost that is to be transferred are the powers which have already been created, which are then vested in the Food Controller, and therefore I should be perfectly willing if I thought there were any serious doubt to assent to the insertion of any words that would remove the doubt. But I venture to suggest that this time my hon. Friend has struck—what shall I describe it as—a somewhat false issue. I think no Amendment is really necessary to remove this doubt.

Question put, "That paragraph ( a ) stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 129; Noes, 21.

CLAUSE 3.—(Power to regulate importation and exportation of food.)

(1) The Food Controller may by Order—

( c ) prohibit or regulate the import of any article of food into the United Kingdom, where it appears to him necessary for the efficient and economical distribution of the article, or for the purpose of facilitating purchases on behalf of His Majesty's Government at reasonable prices or of giving effect to any international arrangement for buying to which His Majesty's Government is a party:

Provided that an Order under this Section shall as soon as may be after it is made be laid before both Houses of Parliament, and if an address is presented to His Majesty by either House within the next twenty days on which that House has sat after the Order is laid before it praying that the Order or any part thereof may be annulled, His Majesty in Council may annul the Order or that part thereof, and it shall thenceforth be void, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder.

(2) This Section and any Order made thereunder shall be construed as one with the Customs (Consolidation) Act, 1876, and the enactments amending the same, and all the provisions of that Act and those enactments so far as they are applicable to the exportation or importation of prohibited goods shall apply accordingly.

(3) An Order under this Section may be revoked, varied or added to by a subsequent Order.

I beg to move in Sub-section (1) to leave out paragraph ( c ).

The paragraph gives power to the Minister of Food to regulate the import of any article of food. We consider this an extremely dangerous power, which would enable full-blooded Protection to be brought in in favour of British landlords. In fact, it would enable the Corn Laws to be re-introduced into this country under another guise. To give the right hon. Gentleman his due, I think that his principal object in wishing this paragraph to pass is that he may be given the power to prevent decent bacon or prime mutton, for example, from coming into this country until he can get rid of his over-stocks of bacon and mutton, because he thinks that, at all costs, he must show a profit through his Ministry. We say that it would be better to allow the people to have good and cheap food, even if there were a loss. In this paragraph a bait is thrown out—I suppose for myself and other hon. Members on this side of the House—in that it provides for rationing at the source, and it is not necessary to prohibit imports into the country. There is another great objection to this paragraph, which is that we are going to lose, by prohibiting these imports, the good will of certain of the great food-producing Dominions. We are hampering their trade with this country, and they are already turning to other markets. I cannot, therefore, see that any case is made out for the retention of this paragraph, and I hope I shall receive the support of hon. Members, especially any who are not bound hand and foot to the landlord and agricultural interests of this country. This paragraph may be used to the great benefit of those interests, but I cannot see how it is to be used to the general benefit of the people. The import of food lies at the whole basis of our fiscal policy, and, although these far-reaching powers would be safe in the personal hands of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food, nevertheless, power is given to transfer them to the President of the Board of Trade or to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, and it would be possible to use them for the most naked and harmful form of protection. The House, unfortunately, has decided that these powers can be so transferred, and we ought to omit this power of regulating imports unless a very good case is made out.

I beg to second the Amendment.

We have just decided that the Minister has power to transfer any authority given under this Bill, and, therefore, necessarily, under this Section, to any other Government Department; and it would be perfectly feasible that this power might be transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture. In that event, there is nothing to prevent a Minister of Agriculture who holds it to be in the interests of British agriculture that the import of food from abroad should be prohibited, from taking advantage of this Section and introducing what my hon. and gallant Friend has called a full-blooded system of protection. The right hon. Gentleman has suggested that there are safeguards which are amply sufficient, but I am sure the House will agree that a complete change in the fiscal system of this country, particularly as it affects food, ought not to be brought about by mere Orders in Council, but only by the considered decision of this House upon the whole matter when legislation is introduced for the purpose. The right hon. Gentleman, or any other right hon. Gentleman to whom he transfers it, is given power to prohibit or regulate the import of any article of food where it appears to him necessary for the efficient and economic distribution of the article. Under that, out of mere whim or caprice, it is perfectly possible to prohibit the importation of any article of food which may be selected. It is always open to say it appears to him to be necessary for efficient and economical distribution. That is a plea which carries with it no safeguard of any kind. The powers are altogether too wide, and even if the right hon. Gentleman attaches importance to this for the detailed work of his office he might realise that in this matter there are legitimate apprehensions to be overcome and I think he ought to be prepared to meet us by a modification of the Clause which would narrow the powers which are given him for the purposes which he indicates are desired. If that were done I should be quite willing to give him strictly limited power in that direction, but these powers are far too wide and he might very reasonably meet what are after all very real apprehensions.

In drafting this Clause I was well aware that the susceptibilities of hon. Members who live in fear that out of the existing economic disturbances there may ultimately result some change in the fiscal system of the country in the direction of Protection or Tariff Reform had to be considered, and I did my very best to draft the Clause in such a way as to make it impossible for hon. Members to put forward the doubts and the criticisms which have been so fairly and temperately put forward by the mover and seconder of the Amendment. I am quite sure that on reflection the hon. Member (Mr. Raffan) must admit that there-really is no ground for the suggestion that under this Clause it would be possible for any Minister of Agriculture, acting honestly or legally, to attempt to prohibit the import of foreign foodstuffs for the purpose of protecting British agriculture. It would be quite impossible to bring any action of that kind within the four corners of the Clause as drafted. As a matter of fact, the Clause is inserted because without such a Clause it would be absolutely impossible for the Ministry of Food to perform what I think is one of the most important functions it has had to perform since the early days of the war, and that is the rationing, the equitable distribution among all classes of consumers, poor and rich alike, of such foodstuffs as may temporarily be in really short supply. Take the case of sugar, which is the most simple illustration. At present the world supplies of sugar are 3,500,000 tons below the pre-war rate of production. On the other hand, the consumption in America, since prohibition, has greatly Increased. There is less for this country and the rest of the world of supplies of sugar which are not adequate for the reasonable demands of the peoples in the different countries. In these circumstances only one of two courses is possible. One is perfect freedom of trade and perfect freedom of competition. I have always been a Free Trader and I am a Free Trader to-day.

Did you support the Anti-Dumping Bill?

Yes.

Hear, hear!

I stand by my old friend Mr. Runciman in that matter. We were at college together, and I hope we shall never part company on a matter of that kind. When you come to a position in which there is not enough foodstuffs of an essential kind you have one of two courses open to you. One is control, and the other is perfect freedom of trade and freedom of competition. When the economists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, from the time of Adam Smith down to the outbreak of the great War, discussed economic problems they were always discussing them in view of a world in which supplies were at all times equal, or practically equal, to the demand, and where, if there was a temporary shortage in some commodity, there were substitutes to be obtained. They never had to deal with a problem such as we have had to face for the first time in the history of the world, in which there is a general shortage of commodities, and where you can get a whole range of important foodstuffs, like the different kinds of sugar, where there is a shortage—beet sugar short and cane sugar not being able to make up the deficiency. In these circumstances the more freedom of trade, the more freedom of competition and the more freedom of imports you have, the fiercer becomes the competition between the purchasers of the world for the foodstuffs available and the higher is driven the monopoly price of the commodities in the hands of the producer. Neither Adam Smith nor any of the political economists of any reputation would ever have recommended as a practical policy that free trade or freedom of competition was a desirable policy in the event of any essential foodstuffs being in reality in short supply, because in these circumstances the freedom of competition is no longer the freedom of competition among the sellers for the purpose of cheapening, but freedom of competition amongst the purchasers for the purpose of forcing up prices. Even on the most rigid principles of Free Trade I regard the restriction of imports as a measure not only essential from the business point of view, but as not in the least incompatible with any of the orthodox principles of Free Trade when we come to such a situation as faces us at the present moment in regard to sugar. That does not mean that because I regard these measures as necessary that I am, therefore, anxious that they should be continued a moment longer than the necessity itself continues. In the case of sugar, if I may convey a hint, I have today been very carefully considering when it will be possible, and to what extent, to mitigate the restrictions which at present hamper what would otherwise be the legitimate transactions of private traders. That is the purpose for which this Clause is introduced. It is the Clause which gives the Minister of Food power to see that the writ shall not, in a world of free competition and free trade, be able to absorb all available supplies at whatever figure that competition will force prices to, at the expense of the poor. That is the only object of the Clause. Hon. Members who imagine that behind this Clause there lies any real menace, any sinister purpose, any nefarious design to tamper with the fiscal system upon which British industry has grown to its greatness and prosperity, have no ground for that fear.

The passionate defence of free trade to which we have listened is worthy of the most zealous advo- cate of tariff reform. We had just the same point of view when the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain tried to accommodate his new views with his old principles. That is a fascinating and attractive subject, but I can imagine that if I pursued it I should shortly be dragged back within the more arid limits of order. My right hon. Friend asks us to trust him and his Department. I want to remind him of what that has amounted to in the past. We know what happened under the powers which were taken for the prohibition of arms and ammunition "and other articles." They took the words "and other articles" in a literal sense and prohibited all sorts of articles, until they were checked by the decision of one of His Majesty's most learned judges. This Ministry has shown what it will do if it is only given the chance. Nothing but action in the courts of law would restrict their efforts under this Section and Subsection. Why? The reason was given us the other night by the right hon. Gentleman. He has no less than £132,000,000 worth of goods to dispose of. What is he out for? He wants to make a profit for his Department, and to show what a splendid business undertaking it is. I can quite see what is to happen. If there is any sort of offer coming in from a foreign market which is likely to stir his market for any part of the £132,000,000 worth of goods he holds, that stuff is not to come into the market. We fear that because of the records of the Ministry in the past. How many hundreds of tons of food have been lying rotting in the ports of this country? The latest example comes from Newcastle, as to which a question was asked the other day. I have very good authority for saying that New Zealand has quite recently offered 20,000 tons of New Zealand butter to this country to be sold in the open market, and the Ministry of Food has said, "Very well, that may be good, but you have to deal with us and put it through our Department. We will then distribute it to the country." That is blocking business from all parts of the world. It is an example of what this Ministry will do in the further two years it wishes to operate. It is interfering the whole time with the free flow of food which ought to come into this country. The right hon. Gentleman knows that there is more freightage at the disposal of the trade of this country. There is to-day more British tonnage afloat than there was before the War, and ships are pouring out of the shipyards These ships will want business, and the only way to get it is to go where the business is. If the food supplies of this country are going to be checked by this autocratic bureaucracy, you will find that the food will not come here, but will go to where there is an open market. By this paragraph the House will be giving the Ministry a dangerous power. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that part of the increase in the food prices which is going to fall on this country within the next few months will be largely due to the powers of the Ministry under this particular paragraph. Members of the House with practical experience know that what I say is likely to be true. I do not expect hon. Gentlemen who have not heard the arguments to vote otherwise than with the Government. I have done similarly myself, but I ask Members who have listened to the Debate whether they think this is a power which the Ministry ought to possess, and if they think not it is their duty to follow us into the Division Lobby.

I do not understand why the Minister wants this power. There must be something behind it not yet revealed. So far as sugar, which is used to sweeten the passages of this Bill at all stages is concerned, you have the power now, and in the Schedule the Minister takes powers possessed by the War Office and Admiralty which are quite ample for what he has to control. Why can he not rest satisfied with the existing powers. What is the article as to which they contemplate they will have to use these powers and what are the new operations. This Clause refers to an international arrangement for buying.

I do not know whether it has been working for the last six months, but there was a sort of arrangement for buying sugar, and it was that officers of the different countries would meet, and they would not enter into any convention or sign anything, but a supposed arrangement was made which was then immediately repudiated in practice by all the other countries, and we were the patient ass that carried the burden alone. I think the Minister ought to let us know what are the new international arrangements that he contemplates, and what it is that he is going to buy. He does not want new powers for butter, or for wheat, or sugar, so what does he want them for? I must say one word about this extraordinary proviso. In Clause 1 the Minister provides that new powers shall be obtained by an ordinary Order in Council, which means that his powers cannot be effective until the Order has been on the table of the House and the House has had an opportunity to express an opinion, but in regard to these vague, unrevealed new powers and operations, he is not even going to trust to an Order in Council, and he is not even going to give the House twenty days' notice that he wants to exercise these drastic new powers, but he has gone to the trouble of concocting a new arrangement whereby he can, say, in the Vacation issue a very drastic new order that may upset the whole trade in any particular commodity in this country and bind us perhaps for a period of years, morally if not legally, in some mixed-up arrangement with other countries. Then, when Parliament comes back, he will be pleased to put this thing on the Table, and we shall have twenty days in which to say we do not like it, but if we do not like it and we reject it, the Bill says it shall not affect or prejudice the validity of anything he has done in the meantime. This is really the most extraordinary ukase ever asked for by an autocrat or a Czar, and I submit to the right hon. Gentleman that he is trying our patience too far.

I am not at all impressed by the picture of the good free traders struggling with adversity, and preaching the awful gospel of protection. Personally, if protection under this Bill or under any Bill be good for this country, I shall always be ready to vote for it, but this is not Protection. This is giving the right hon. Gentleman powers to rig the market of this country. We have had a good deal of evidence of it already, and with regard to sugar, we know that if it were not for the huge stocks of sugar which he is afraid to unload on the British market, the poor people of this country to-day would be getting their sugar at very much less than they are paying now. In America, where sugar has been de-controlled, it is 1s. a lb., but in this country it is 1s. 2d. a lb., and it is a tall order to come here and ask for new powers to rig the market against the consumer. I had an instance brought to my own notice a few weeks ago, and I was begged to put a question about it in the House, but I said that it was no good. There was a case where two shiploads of white sugar anxious to come into this country were refused by the Ministry of Food, because they knew that every shipload of sugar coming in would, if allowed a free market, depress their prices and ultimately mean a loss to this tremendously speculative trading concern controlled by the right hon. Gentleman. I think the right hon. Gentleman is asking for powers which are far too wide, particularly in view of the fact that we have just passed a Clause under which he can delegate these powers to any other Department he chooses. If he delegated these powers to the Board of Agriculture, and it was necessary, in the interests of the country, to protect and stimulate agriculture in any form, I should be the first to say they were doing the right thing. In the last few months we find that the right hon. Gentleman has engaged in a large speculative business, and is keeping up unfair prices at the expense of the British people. Under paragraph ( c ) he wishes to prohibit or regulate the import of any article of food where it appears to be necessary for the efficient and economical distribution of the article. I say the whole experience of the Ministry of Food, where it has stimulated artificial prices, has been against the consumer. We quite agree that the Government ought to have certain powers, but" let them not come down and ask too much, and try the patience of the House. If they ask for reasonable powers they will get them without a word of trouble. This is not a factious opposition, and I am certainly speaking most sincerely when I ask the right hon. Gentleman to do something to mitigate the powers for which he has asked. Paragraph ( c ) also says:

"for the purpose of facilitating purchases on behalf of His Majesty's Government at reasonable prices or of giving effect to any international arrangement for buying to which His Majesty's Government is a party."

We believe these international arrangements, now that the War is over, are not good. We want a free flow of food into this country. If there is any necessity at any moment to stimulate production here, the right hon. Gentleman knows he can get powers from this House. But let us have as broad and free an import of food as is possible, and I do hope he will accommodate himself a little to weaken rather than strengthen the power for which he asks.

I think the position is one of danger to the trader and consumer. The Food Controller sends his buyer to buy a commodity. He buys what he considers sufficient for his purpose, it may be in Australia. If a supply came in from Canada, as it would come in under ordinary circumstances, it would create competition. It might even compel a loss. He therefore would have to protect his purchasers from making a loss by prohibiting Canada from sending any of the commodities into this country. In war time one would run all manner of risks and dangers, but we are no longer at war. Why should not Canada be allowed to send its commodities to this country, even although they may be in excess of what the Food Controller considers is desirable should be imported? The Dominions are protesting at this moment to the Colonial Office and the Government most vigorously against any powers such as are embodied in this Bill being put in the hands of any single Minister. I am sure if the matter were to come under the individual attention of the Minister himself he would investigate all these cases that might arise. But his officials have to make good. They have got to close down and to remove any competition that is likely to affect the supply; but I think there is no longer any necessity for that. If the world has any surplus of commodities we ought to be open to receive them; it would have the effect of cheapening the cost to the consumer. That is an object we desire to achieve. The present principle is a dangerous one preventing the importation of articles likely to compete with the Governmental supply. I, therefore, ask the Minister to reconsider and to give us the assurance for which we ask. There might be some justification for it if the proposal was to enable him to dispose of the stocks he may have in hand. If the Minister desires this principle to be continued for a couple of years and then hand it over to some of the other Departments, we object.

Question put, "That paragraph ( c ) stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 106; Noes, 32.

CLAUSE 4.—(Powers in relation to hops.)

(1) With a view to assisting the industry of hop-growing in the United Kingdom to recover from the injury which it suffered during the War, the Food Controller shall during the continuance of his office have and exercise any powers in relation to hops which at the time of the passing of this Act were exercisable by him, and may by order prohibit or regulate foreign hops in such manner as may appear to him necessary, and the provisions of the last preceding Section shall apply to any such Order.

(2) An Order under this Act providing for the transfer of the powers of the Food Controller under this Section to any other Government Department or Departments may, notwithstanding anything in this Act, provide for the continuance of the power so transferred until the expiration of a period of five years from the passing of this Act, and in such case the provisions of this Act, so far as necessary, shall continue to have effect accordingly.

I beg to move to leave out the Clause.

It is protection pure and simple without any adulteration. It will prevent importation and this is likely to affect the price of the commodity which is dealt with. Here we find a Government providing a subsidy for the farmers of the country to cultivate wheat, and at the same time we are saying to the farmers, "If you will only grow hops we will protect you from any competition." Now they have the choice of growing wheat with a subsidy or of growing hops, in which case they will be protected from any competition. What is the use of carrying on a policy of that kind? It is so absurd to serious, practical people, when we want to get foodstuffs or to save our money in the interests of economy, to play off one interest against the other that I have no hesitation in asking the House to reject the proposal.

5.0 P.M.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Certain people say that hops are food, and we have been promised again and again that there are not going to be any taxes on food. Here we have practically the prohibition of the import of a staple food. I suppose that hon. Members will tell us that it is necessary to protect the hop industry in order to ensure the supply of beer. I would point out to anybody who is in favour of cheap beer for the working-classes that you are going to put up the price of beer because you are going to establish for four years a monopoly for the hops of Kent and Surrey and the other hop growing counties. The following reason is given in the Bill:— if once we accept this principle, it should not be applied to every producer of food in the country, in which case we shall have the good old food taxes once again for the benefit of the landlord class.

The discussion on the last Amendment moved has been largely influenced by the fear of some sinister purpose, but this Clause bears on its face the statement that its purpose is with a view to assisting the industry of hop growing in the United Kingdom to recover from the injury which it suffered during the war. This is a Clause of limited application for a special purpose, and that purpose is not protection, it is reconstruction. What was the position during the war? Hop growing in this country, an old industry, an important industry, an industry providing employment for many people during the growth of the hop vines and providing employment and the opportunity for holidays for even more people during the picking of the hops.

My own constituents.

That industry was cut in two. At least half the acreage of hops of the United Kingdom was grubbed up during the war. It was grubbed up by order. The grower of hops had no option in the matter. He was told he had to grub up his hops and he had to do it. He had to sacrifice his plant and he had to sacrifice his equipment, and having done that he received no compensation. The Government are most anxious that this old industry should be re-established. We are anxious that the hop growers should replant, but I put it to my hon. and gallant Friend, the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment, that after all replanting is a costly operation. At to-day's prices I am told it will cost something like £150 to £200 per acre to replant, and not only that, but it is only in the third year after replanting that you really begin to get your hop vines in full bearing. Under these circumstances it is perfectly plain as a business proposition that the hop growers of this country cannot afford in large numbers to replant unless they have some reasonable measure of security. This Clause was framed after very careful consultation with the Board of Agriculture in order, as I say, to try to achieve this purpose. About the neces- sity, I do not think there will be any disagreement in any section of the House. It is limited strictly in a period of time and limited to this special purpose, and let me say this further with regard to this particular proposal, there is an extraordinary measure of agreement. The immediate consumers of hops, the beer drinkers, are in agreement. The merchants of hops and the growers are in agreement, and may I add further, with regard to what the mover said with regard to the cost, that the expenses of this control of hops up to the present has been an expense which has fallen entirely on the trade and not on the taxpayer at all. I do submit that this is one of those cases in which, as the Bill proposes to do, special treatment is urgently necessary, and I hope the House will adhere to the Bill as it is framed.

My first objection to the proposal the hon. Gentleman has outlined is that this Bill and this Clause do not define precisely the policy to be carried through. All that the Clause does is to give the Ministry power to act, and the Ministry, after all, may act in the direction of complete prohibition of imports. It may act by restriction of imports or it may decide to take no action whatever. There is no obligation on the Minister to take any one of these courses. I suggest, if the matter is as important as he says, it is one in which the House of Commons should lay down the policy and direct what is to be done. If it is essential that this class of reconstruction should be carried through, and if it can only be carried through by the prohibition of the import of hops into the country, let the Government have the courage of its convictions and say so. We know very well that in this matter of complete prohibition there is not unanimity in the Ministry itself. Judging by fiscal history, the Minister and the Deputy-Minister are likely to take different courses. If the former should have the good fortune to be promoted to some higher office, and the Parliamentary Secretary should take his place most likely we should have another policy before us. This is not the manner in which the House of Commons should deal with great questions of this kind. Whatever our views may be about fiscal policy, we are at any rate, as a nation, deeply divided, and the decision of the House of Commons with regard to the matter ought to be a decision deliberately taken. The hon. Gentleman has not really told us what is the promise which has been given with regard to this matter. I am glad to see that the Minister of Food is back in his place. I make no complaint of his absence. He has had a trying afternoon. May I put this question to him? We have been told that this policy is essential for the purpose of carrying out promises that were made to hop growers when they grubbed up their hopfields and decided to grow wheat instead. What was that promise? What is to be done under this Clause if it becomes law? Is the promise that there is to be during these five years a complete prohibition of the import of hops into this country?

No.

I think we are entitled to an answer from the Minister. The right hon. Member for Ayr Burghs apparently knows more than the Food Minister.

No, but I know more than the hon. Member.

The hon. Gentleman is the master of the Government whom we all have to obey. He has made up his mind about the policy, and as he apparently knows better, perhaps it would be wiser for me to address any further questions to him instead of to the Minister of Food. So far as I understand, there is not to be complete prohibition. Why should complete prohibition be put into the Clause, if there is to be restriction merely? If it is not intended that there should be prohibition during the whole of the five years, will the right hon. Gentleman withdraw the Clause? If it is not intended to be used, what is it there for?

It may or may not be used.

The hon. Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs) ought not to put himself in contradiction to the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger), who knows and who says it is not intended. Then why is it there? If it be true that it is not desirable that there should be complete prohibition, the power of prohibition should be withdrawn. The Parliamentary Secretary told us that what the hop-growers require is to be assured that, if they spend £150 an acre for re-planting, they may, at the end of the period, look forward to some form of security.

During the period?

Naturally, and at the end of the period.

It is for five years.

Very well; I am glad to learn from the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs exactly what is the policy. As I understand it now, it is intended that, at the end of five years, all restrictions shall pass away, and that there shall again be free importation of hops.

That is the Bill.

In my innocence, I should have assumed that the main object of giving security to the hop-grower is that he gets absolute and certain security for the five years under this Bill, and that he may, therefore, at the end, look forward to the probability that, foreign competition having been shut out for that period, the Government then in power will continue the prohibition.

I should oppose it.

I am very glad to hear that a proposal of that kind would meet with such powerful opposition, which, no doubt, would have a great bearing on the trend of events. During the intervening period of five years, as I understand it, there is not to be prohibition, but some sort of restriction. What is that to be? Is it to be a tariff? How is the right hon. Gentleman going to discriminate between one person who desires to send hops into this country and another? Is he going to discriminate, say, between ex-enemy countries, Allies, and neutrals, or is he going to impose a tariff? These are questions to which we are entitled to have an answer. During the five years, without any special provision of this kind, the hop grower will be in a better position than before the War, because during that time foreign competition is bound to be less than it was before the War. It is at the end of the five years that the foreign competition is likely to re-assert itself, and, therefore, the security which would be of real value to the grower is not the security which is likely to be given to him. During the five years there will probably not be anything like the normal importation of the years prior to the War, but after that period it is likely to re-assert itself. For all these reasons I hope that the House will reject this Clause.

Clause 4 gives to the Minister of Food the power, which was exercised through the Hop Control during the War, in relation to sales and importation of hops, specially with a view of resuscitating an industry which suffered very great injury during the War. I do think that this is a case which should be judged entirely upon its merits, and not upon any old prejudices against Tariff Reform. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) said that during the War farmers were encouraged to grub their hops. As a matter of fact, it was not a case of encouraging the farmers; it was a case of compulsion. All the farmers in all the hop-growing counties of England were compelled to grub 50 per cent. of the acreage they had under hops. Naturally that involved them in a very serious loss because the amount of capital that is invested in hops was even very great before the War. It seems to me we have to look at this question from two points of view. You have to look at it from the point of view of the individual, and you have to see that he is treated fairly and justly, and then again you have to look at it from the national point of view. It seems to me that in view of the enormous expense involved in establishing hops, and in view of the enormous wage Bill at present and the great cost of spraying and manuring, no farmer is likely to re-establish his crop unless he has some guarantee that the market which he supplies is not going to be flooded with foreign import until it is re-established. Hops are quite different from all other crops, with the one possible exception of the fruit crop, because all other crops can be harvested in the same year, or at all events within a year of the time when they are sold. But in the case of hops it is a question of waiting three years, and during those three years the farmer has got his capital locked up and gets no return, and unless you are going to insure that he is likely to get a return at the end of those years he is not likely to put his capital into hops.

The national point of view is well worthy of consideration, because hop growing employs such an enormous number of people on the laud as compared with any other crops. I am told that in growing hops you employ permanently some five or six times the number you employ in ordinary mixed farming, and then you employ for harvesting, during hop picking, hundreds of people who flock down from the East End of our City. In this great industrial country, where such a very large number of the people are employed in industries, factories and workshops, it is essential that as large a proportion as possible should be employed on the land, not only to get the food that we require, but also to maintain the physique of the nation, and it seems to me that it is to the nation's advantage to encourage and help to re-establish this industry, which employs so many people on the land permanently and gives healthy occupation to such hundreds of people for a few weeks in the autumn who during the rest of the year are employed in one or other of the great cities. There are two other reasons which must commend themselves to the House and which are absolutely unique with regard to Government control. We all naturally want to get rid of Government control as quickly as ever we can, but this I think is the only Government control about which there is unanimity. As far as I know, there is absolute unanimity between all employed in the industry that this control should be continued for five years. The other great advantage of the hop control—perhaps I should rather say it is not a disadvantage—is the fact that it costs nothing. It does not cost the State a single penny, because the whole of the expenses for carrying on the hop control are found by a levy on the trade. For these reasons I hope the Government will stand firm and will resist the Amendment.

We admit that this trade, like others, has suffered during the War, but the right procedure in that case is for the Government to come forward and say that this industry has suffered and to re-establish it we will make a vote. If that were done, they would be following the example that has been set in many other instances. For some reason or other the Government has not seen fit to adopt that course. With respect to the arrangement that has been come to between the parties interested, I should like to know further particulars. On the benches opposite there are representatives of the growers, of the merchants, and of the purchasers of this commodity, and I am speaking as one of the unfortunate consumers of the substance which is derived from hops. If the combine of the three interests is for the purpose of increasing prices to the unfortunate consumer, it is to be deplored, and there should be some precaution or some action taken by the Government to deal with the matter. In the absence of any such precaution I cannot remain satisfied. It has been pointed out that half of the acreage under hops had to be used during the War for the growing of wheat, and in order to induce the farmers to recultivate that acreage this step is being taken. I should like some assurance that the figures given are accurate, because if one travels through Kent or Sussex there seems very little, if any, alteration in the quantity of hops being grown now compared with the pre-War period.

Nonsense.

If I could have some assurance from the Government, or from representatives of the interests concerned, it might affect one's views on the matter. Failing that, I am not satisfied.

I cannot give a silent vote. I understand from the Clause that the object is to help hop growers who like many others were compelled to grow wheat. I cannot see why if that industry has gone practically out of existence there should be any public cost incurred in resuscitating it. The ground might be utilised in future for growing wheat and oats. The Clause uses these words, "With a view to assisting the industry." How can we assist it? By some Government grant. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] Although I have not so far gone into the Lobby with the mover of this Amendment, I feel I must support him now.

Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 102; Noes, 18.

Schedule

2. Where any articles are requisitioned or acquired after the passing of this Act under the powers of the Food Controller the compensation to be paid in default of agreement shall in each case be such compensation as may be determined to be reasonable by the arbitration of a single arbitrator appointed for the purpose by the Lord Chief Justice of England in England, by the Lord President of the Court of Session in Scotland, and by the Lord Chancellor in Ireland.

I beg to move at the end of paragraph 2, to insert the words "who shall take into consideration the cost of such articles and allow to the producer in respect thereof a reasonable profit."

In this country merchants buy and shopkeepers work in the hope of gain and to make a profit. When the Government find it necessary to requisition their stocks and with which I do not quarrel, I suggest that the compensation given should include an allowance for a reasonable profit. That is only fair. It is not the merchant's fault that the goods are requisitioned and it seems most unfair to give a single arbitrator the power to determine the compensation without giving such an allowance. It may be said that in the ordinary course of events this arbitrator would give compensation allowing for profit, but we want to make that quite sure. We have been extraordinarily unfortunate in our Amendments so far, but I believe the right hon. Gentleman's sense of British fair play and justice will turn him in our favour in this Amendment.

I beg to second the Amendment.

It seems to me that if the Food Controller can take away anybody's commodity he ought to pay that person the ordinary trade profit which that person is entitled to make, whether he be a broker or a shopkeeper. If the carrying of this proposal would have the effect of reducing the activities of the Ministry, I think it would be welcome to a considerable section of the House. The right hon. Gentleman may tell us that he has very little prospect of putting this into operation, and if that is so no one will rejoice more than myself.

I think this Amenment is not feasible. I am not in favour of most of this Bill, but the Amendment would allow the producer reasonable profit. May I point out that things might be requisitioned from a producer in Russia or Germany, and it would be quite impossible to allow him reasonable profit; but putting that aside, I should like an expression from the Minister that as little as possible will be done. In the Committee he gave us to understand that he was only going to carry on these powers with the object of bringing to a conclusion the work that had been necessary in the War, but he has not stated that in the House, and I hope he will do so before the Bill is read a Third time. There was one other assurance which he gave us in Committee, about which I am afraid there was a little mistake. I asked, in regard to the powers of requisitioning, whether the Ministry of Agriculture would be consulted on any question of requisitioning agricultural produce in this country, and the right hon. Gentleman said "Yes." I think that was a mistake, because there is nothing in the Bill to compel him to do so, but I hope the Ministry of Agriculture, and also the Advisory Committees in the country, will be consulted, so that such accidents as happened in the requisitioning of hay and potatoes, where there was an enormous waste and considerable loss, shall not occur again in the future.

I can assure my hon. Friends opposite that nothing would give me greater pleasure than to accept their Amendment, if I thought I could do so without injuring the effects of this paragraph in the Schedule, but I really fear it is impossible for me to do so, first of all, for the reasons put by the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. The last occasion on which we had to requisition was a matter of a purely technical character—the requisition one day and" the restoration the next, in order that proper adjustment might be made in the price of flour. It was a requisition, not concerned with producers in the Argentine, but merchants and distributors in this country, and a paragraph in the Schedule which told an arbitrator to fix what would be a fair profit to the producer, and at the same time be entirely silent with regard to what he was to do as regards the distributor, would be a very one-sided provision to insert. I suggest it is much safer to leave it on the general ground that the arbitrator must do what is right and reasonable in the matter.

We have, of course, drafted this Clause loosely and badly, but we were very much rushed for time. Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us if it is the intention to deal fairly with those people when these stocks are requisitioned?

Certainly. I am delighted to give the hon. and gallant Member the assurance for which he asks. It is not only the intention of the Government, but it becomes the duty of the independent arbitrator appointed by the Lord Chief Justice to see that fairness and justice are meted out. But let me also say, in answer to the question put by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, that there is no intention, of course, on the part of the Government or the Ministry of Food to launch into any new policy of requisitioning food supplies, whether imported or grown here. This is a power which, so far as I can reasonably judge, will only be exercised for one or two purposes—either in the event of some unforeseen contingency threatening the food supplies of this country at some vital point, of which at present there is no prospect, or, on the other hand, for the purpose, of which I gave an illustration in connection with a recent change in the price of flour, when certain flours were requisitioned in what was really a somewhat technical manner. If there should ever be any occasion to exercise these powers substantially, in the popular sense of the word, with regard to British produce, I can assure the hon. Gentleman who asked the question, I should not exercise such powers without taking first into fullest consultation the representatives of British agriculture and the Department of State whose primary duty it is to represent agriculture in this country. Apart from my duty, I should be wanting in the element of courtesy if I were not to do so. I hope, on reflection, the hon. Members will feel that the interest of any person whose stocks may be requisitioned will be quite adequately safeguarded by the general words contained in the schedule.

I beg to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

I desire to say just a few sentences directed mainly to what is the only aspect of this question of food control in which there is a real public interest, and that is the aspect of prices. The right hon. Gentleman, I think, himself will admit that we have not from this side of the House embarrassed him to any great extent or put difficulties in the way of the continuance of the Ministry of Food. He has possibly observed, too, that from the other side of the House no very great degree of encouragement has been manifested; though, of course, in the Lobbies he has had the necessary degree of support. I think that is due to the feeling which for some time past has been exhibited—that the Ministry of Food exists rather in the nature of a trading company than in the nature of an agency to control and maintain supplies and regulate the prices of the food of the people. I do not know whether that is correct or not; but that, at any rate, is the feeling exhibited in the Press, and forms to a great extent the substance of conversation in the country in regard to the functions of the Ministry of Food. It is a bad thing for any Minister that that view should be in existence. It is, indeed, the duty of the Minister of Food to show that it is not a fact, and that he still exercises a most useful and necessary function in the public interest. I would, therefore, like to ask how far the Ministry is at present doing anything to check and to regulate the prices of certain articles of food? Let me take the case of fish. No one would suppose that there is any trust existing in the supply and prices of fish. But you may have a trust in actual operation with no formal organisation in existence. The effect is really the thing that interests the public, the practical part of it, not the formality of organisation, or the name. What happens, I think, in regard to the fish supplies is this: There are great catches, and those who in the first instance sell their fish from the trawlers may get no more than a reasonable price. The fish then falls into the hands of certain buyers who may call themselves dealers, fish traders or merchants, and finally the fish finds its way to the retail shop where it is still extremely dear, in spite of the abundance and in spite of the fact that it is sold cheaply to the first buyer. There is something to be explained as to what happens between the first and the last buyers and the ordinary consumer. The public has not received reassuring information as to what is the cause of this enormous increase as between the first buyer or seller of fish and the last buyer or seller of fish. Therefore these gaps must be filled up with reassuring information. In short, in regard to fish, you have all the devices of trusts operating and reflecting themselves in the important element of price, in which alone there is now any public interest. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman also as to how the Profiteering Act, which he laboured to get through the House some time ago, is affecting the general question of prices since he disbanded a large number of Local Food Committees who acted, I believe, very much like policemen being on the look-out for wrongdoers. So far we can see little or nothing, as expressed in the public Press, as to whether this Profiteering Act is being fully used, or not.

I notice that yesterday my right hon. Friend made a very important statement on the question of vegetable supplies and prices, and he dealt with the extraordinary operation of certain influences relating to food prices which had the effect of keeping up those prices in spite of the abundance of supplies. What is the explanation of those influences which have come straight across the ordinary law of supply and demand? We know that commonly when there is an abundance of a certain article there is generally a certainty or probability of cheapness, and yet here you have influences still operating to maintain high prices in regard to the cost to the retailer. Here are articles which are quite plentiful and abundant, and yet it is alleged that there is a great deal of meddlesome interference with the ordinary play of trade as between the producer and the consumer, without any gain to the consumer.

During the War, and for a considerable time after, both people and traders had to be rationed, but if the Ministry could now limit its operations to the great and important factor of the price, and relieve trades from all the elements of restraint and control which may have been necessary during the War, then the Ministry of Food would be more popular. I know it is said that one thing hinges upon the other. Take bacon. It is supplied from Denmark, Ireland, and very largely from America. Can it be proved that the supplies of bacon are still so scarce and still fall so short of pre-War supplies that regulation and restraint is necessary to compel certain bacon buyers to buy only from certain quarters. Is bacon not abundant enough to liberate those who deal with supplies and distribution without the public interest being endangered? Could not the public be safeguarded by fixing a price which would be fair to the consumer and yet be consistent with absolute freedom to the whole of those engaged in the very important branches of bacon production, supply, and distribution. I put those points to the right hon. Gentleman without any intention of unduly criticising his administration, and I am only too anxious that his efforts should be directed to the public service, and that he should enlist the sympathy of the public in the difficult work he has to do. I would like to see public protection expressed in the form of prices reasonably fixed for the consumer, and for those who trade in food supplies, I would also like to see the fullest measure of freedom. Indeed, I would look forward to an immediate form of absolute freedom of trade for those who have to engage in the important branches of producing and supplying food.

6.0 P.M.

I rise to express a good deal of sympathy with the views put forward by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. It is common belief in the City of London that one of the causes of high prices is the action of the Ministry of Food in embarking on trade and making enormous purchases. He thus prevents anything in the nature of competition, and in order to avoid loss he has to put a price on the commodities that he buys. We all know that huge losses are made by his Department on certain purchases. Cases have been referred to time and time again. I have here a photograph showing the arrival of a consignment of Egyptian eggs. These eggs, owing to an excessively long journey, were found to be unfit for food. Waste is caused in this way by that lack of flexibility which must exist in a Government Department trying to sell commodi- ties, especially of a perishable nature. As far as I understand it, that waste cannot be avoided under what is known as Civil Service methods. Under normal circumstances, a merchant, finding a consignment likely to deteriorate, disposes of the goods at any place where he can, but there is considerable difficulty in carrying out a policy of that kind under the Ministry of Food. If the belief which exists in the City has any foundation, it is not a grievance against the right hon. Gentleman himself, but is confined to the fact that the particular method under which he must carry on his work has the effect not of cheapening prices but of increasing them to the consumer. I very much regret that the right hon. Gentleman has thought it necessary to ask for so long an extension for his Department, and has not accepted the proposal to confine his operations to the end of the next financial year. If he had done so, and it became necessary for him to come back and ask for a further extension, I am sure that the House would willingly assent to it if he showed justification. He has not seen his way to do that, and we have to accept the proposal before us. I do so, coupled with the regret that he has not seen his way to shorten his life, and the hope that he will confine his operations to the fixing of prices. If he will do that, I am sure that he will perform the greatest service that he can possibly render to the people of this country.

I want to make a protest against the taking of the Third Reading of this Bill today. The Second Reading was taken in the small hours of the morning, and most of us only got notice yesterday morning that the Committee was to sit that day We had made other arrangements and could not be present. Personally, I did not get notice at all, and I am told that was the case with other Members. I hold in my hand the Amendments that were down for consideration in Committee. About half of them are Government Amendments, and, of course, they were passed through. There were a number of Amendments in which I myself was interested and also the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer). Unfortunately, he did not get notice, and he was not there. About 1.30 the Bill passed through Committee. We proposed to put down Amendments, but we could not get the Bill naturally until to-day. Now we are taking the Third Reading as the fourth Order on Friday, a Bill affecting every man, woman and child in the country. I do not think it is fair to the House. I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman, but I blame the Government for muddling up their programme in this way and reducing the Committee system to a farce.

I want to say a word about the question of fish. I agree with the Member for Platting that there is a mystery somewhere. A number of the trawlers are being laid up because it does not pay to send them to sea. Coal and wages cost so much and they are getting so little. The latest prices at Hull for May show that in the first week the fish landed was 770 tons and the price was 2·85 pence. In the second week 819 tons at 2·9d., and the third week 837 tons at 1·86d. I have a letter from the Fishing Vessels Owners' Association in which they say a number of trawlers are being laid up already, because it does not pay to send them to sea. Profiteering is not to be attributed to the fishermen, neither, if the finding of the Committee of the Board of Trade is correct, can it be alleged to be due to the wholesale fish merchants, because there is the keenest competition amongst them. All fish is auctioned in the open market and there is no possibility of a ring. One of the principal causes is bad transport, but I will not deal with that, as I believe the Minister of Transport is doing his best. I protest against the lack of action on the part of the Ministry on the findings of the Committee on Trusts. Mostly they have been on other articles than food, but there have been startling results, and I hope that more energetic action will be taken. There is undoubtedly some action by combines keeping up the prices in this country. I am told the right hon. Gentleman himself has formed an artificial monopoly. The whole matter is "wropt in mystery." It is very difficult and I do not propose to say much, but undoubtedly the Government ought to get extraordinarily busy. I think you will find the matter will not be tackled except internationally. We have that brought out in the Committee on Petrol. I think it was one of the Samuel brothers who said while the price is controlled by foreigners he could do nothing in this country to keep down the price, though he was one of the controlling interests. That points the way. There has got to be, international action, and the machinery exists, or did exist, if it is not wound up. It lies in the Economic Council of the League of Nations. It is of course regrettable that America has withdrawn, but we will hope for better times, and I hope that the Supreme Economic Council will sit again and will include all countries and will watch the interest of the consumers in all countries, because it is a world problem. I protest against taking this Bill now. The Second Reading was taken at one o'clock in the morning. We could not discuss it then because everybody wanted to get home to bed, and now they want to catch their trains.

There is one last remark I wish to make. The right hon. Gentleman has told us of the world-shortage of food. That shortage will continue so long as one of the great food-producing areas of the world is closed—I refer to Russia and Siberia. We come down to hard facts here. This is one of the main causes of the high prices of food. It is also one of the excuses for keeping up this Ministry with its enormous staff. Hon. Members are always complaining of the redundant Ministries, but the world-shortage of food is responsible for it, as well as for the unnecessary state of war which is still being fostered in Central Europe. Eight or nine months ago the Prime Minister warned us about the world-shortage, and insisted on the necessity of getting the Russian markets open. What has been done? We have had crises after crises, we have had propaganda and physical action by our satellites, and we are still not trading with Russia. The next thing will be that the Baltic will be frozen over, and then we shall have to wait another year. Mr. Krassin and his colleagues are on their way here on board a British destroyer. I hope we shall follow the example of America and Canada, and remove all restrictions on trade, and look ahead and realise the necessity of bringing the Russian and Siberian markets once more into play for the benefit of the peoples of all countries.

South Russia was a great sugar-producing district. It is a fact, as the Parliamentary Secretary stated, that not much of that sugar came to this country, but a great deal of it went to Central Europe, and while the supply is cut off Central Europe will become a competitor on the markets from which we obtain our sugar, and will force prices up. The problem is world wide. The markets dovetail into each other. A great deal of our dairy produce—butter and eggs—formerly came from Siberia, and we shall not get prices down until once more we are able to secure supplies from that quarter. That fact should be recognised by every hon. Member who does not support the Government in trying to get peace with Russia. It is most disastrous that, while the Prime Minister, and I believe the right hon. Gentleman and his officials, and the Overseas Trade Department are whole-heartedly following out the declared policy of the Prime Minister in opening up the Russian markets for trade, a certain element in the Government should openly write in popular organs preaching an exactly opposite policy. It is most mischievous. Surely the statements made by the right hon. Gentleman about the world shortage should convince the people of this country and make them exclaim, "Away with words, let us have deeds," in regard to Russia. We have to get the Russian food supplies, and in order to do that we must help that country to re-constitute her transport. Twelve thousand locomotives are required there, and it will take all the locomotive shops in the world to supply them in a reasonable time. Until that is done— until the locomotives and the rolling stock and the river steamers and the barges necessary for transport——

Those matters do not come within the province of the Food Controller. They are all matters for the Foreign Office. The hon. and gallant Member is not entitled to take this opportunity of surveying all mankind from China to Peru.

I thought that the supply of food was rather bound up with peace and war, but I will not pursue the matter any further. I only hope that the right hon. Gentleman will use his influence in the direction I have suggested.

In thanking the House for the way in which they have facilitated the passage of this Bill, I shall not occupy more than a minute or two, which I feel to be due to my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), for whose speech and wise counsel I must express my gratitude. He has asked me one or two questions with regard to the present policy of the Ministry of Food. First of all he referred, and the hon. Member who spoke after him also referred, to the popular impression that the Ministry of Food is in essence a trading Ministry, engaged at the present time in making purchases of various kinds of foodstuffs, and having, therefore, a direct interest in maintaining the prices of foodstuffs of which it holds stocks. I should like to say that there is no foundation for that impression. The trading side of the functions of the Ministry of Food is, for all practical purposes, restricted to those great commodities of wheat, imported meat and sugar, in regard to which the House well knows the difficulties by which the Food Ministry and the people of all countries are still faced. I disclaim entirely the description of the Ministry of Food at the present time as a trading concern. The stocks which we hold are the stocks of the taxpayer. We hold them, not as traders anxious to make a profit, but as trustees for the taxpayer, whose sole desire is that, while safeguarding the interests of the consumer with regard to prices, we should not do so at the expense of the taxpayer by making any loss. Our business policy, summed up in a nutshell, is that of endeavouring, by the exercise of every economy, to reduce the cost of administration to the consumer, and to ensure, by a wise business policy, that we do not incur a loss to the taxpayer when the final liquidation accounts are made up.

My right hon. Friend asked me what the Ministry of Food is now doing with regard to trusts. I must answer him in a sentence. We are still engaged in the difficult task which was left for the first Food Controller to take in hand, namely, that of laying a foundation of statistical information with regard to world supplies and prices, which is the sole foundation upon which anyone can commence either to understand or to endeavour to deal with the problem of the trusts. That side of the work is one to which I have given special attention since I assumed office as Food Controller. With regard to the question of the fish trade, I was responsible for the appointment of the Sub-Committee appointed under the Profiteering Act to inquire into the alleged existence of combines or rings affecting the price of fish to the consumer; and I must refer hon. Members who desire further information on that subject to the published Report of that Committee. In a word, it showed that there was very little ground for the allegation that there were actual combines or rings in the fish trade. Since then, a Committee has been set up which has been conducting exhaustive inquiries into the wholesale food markets of London, and attacking the problem of fish distribution, and the price of fish to the consumer, from that fresh angle. The Reports of that Committee are not yet completed, but I hope they will not be without utility. I am sure that at this-time hon. Members will forgive me if I, do not reply to every point that has been raised in the Debate, but merely express my thanks for the courtesy and assistance which have been extended to me in conducting this Bill through the House.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to add a new Sub-section:

(2) Notwithstanding anything in Section thirty of The Public Libraries Consolidation (Scotland) Act, 1887, a library committee may, before such date in the current financial year as may be fixed by the town council or the parish council (as the case may be), make a supplementary estimate of the sums required for the purposes mentioned in the said section, and, on such estimate being reported to the town or parish council, the council shall act upon such estimate as if it were an estimate reported in terms of the said section.

I can explain in a few sentences the meaning and effect of this Amendment. I put it upon the paper in consequence of a point which was raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Murray) in Committee yesterday. The intention of the Bill was that it should be possible for public authorities to raise the library rate from 1d. to 3d. in the current year. My hon. and gallant Friend raised a doubt whether that would be possible under the Bill as it was, and accordingly, in order to put the matter beyond all doubt and question, I put this Amendment on the paper.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

I want to make this remark in passing the Bill. It is really reducing legislation to a farce. We have just had a meeting in very grave circumstances. Many hon. Members met the Prime Minister yesterday, and he outlined an entirely new scheme of adminis- tration in Ireland owing to the tragic circumstances there. It really is ridiculous that we should be passing a Bill to put up by some small sum the salaries of these very brave officers whose duties will cease completely when the new scheme which the Prime Minister outlined comes into force. These and other measures of the same kind are reducing the proceedings of the House to the level of a farce.

May I support that, and also point out that it has been announced in the House. I will not refer to the irregular and unconstitutional meeting of Unionist Members, headed by that great democrat, the Duke of Northumberland, but the statement was made at that box that the new Bill was going to be introduced and passed through all its stages next Thursday and Friday to supersede the ordinary processes of law in Ireland. I do not see why this Bill should not have stood over until then. I suppose in the rush of legislation it has been overlooked. I am sure the Patronage Secretary, if we could read his thoughts, agrees with me that it is rather unnecessary. We had far better wait until the new Coercion Bill is introduced before asking the House to pass this Bill. It is wanting in respect to the House to bring on a Measure of this kind when it might just as well have stood over till we see what this new Coercion Bill is going to be. The resident magistrates in Ireland are having less and less to do. I want to quote a few words from a Member of another place, Lord Mounteagle. On the 5th July he wrote to the Irish papers. He was referring to the wrong use of the King's courts, in which the resident magistrates practice, and where they get these salaries, which I do not grudge. I have nothing to say against these gallant men. The Noble Lord said:

"Sinn Fein courts are steadily extending their jurisdiction and dispensing justice even-handed between man and man, catholic and protestant, farmer and shopkeeper, grazier and cattle-driver, landlord and tenant."

He then went on to deal with the Sinn Fein police, and ended with a reference to the recent desertion of the King's court. That is a poor commentary on our 700 years rule in that country. In view of these facts, which I am sure the Attorney-General for Ireland, if he is honest to the House, as he always is, cannot deny, why should we now propose to increase the salaries, and to re-regulate the position of the Irish resident magistrates?

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.