May I ask the Leader of the House whether he has any statement to make on the industrial situation?

The House, I think, is well acquainted with the proceedings that took place yesterday. After the second meeting upstairs, some hon. Members who had been present proceeded to Downing Street about midnight, to inform the Prime Minister of what had passed, and to report to him that Mr. Hodges had made a new proposal. The Prime Minister has found very considerable difficulty in ascertaining what that proposal was, but this morning, in consequence of that report, he addressed the following letter to Mr. Hodges: Dear Mr. HODGES, Several Members who were present at your House of Commons meeting last night have conveyed to me the purport of your concluding offer. They have not taken down the actual words you used, but the general impression made on their minds was that you were now prepared to discuss with the owners the question of wages, without raising the controversial issue of the Pool, provided the arrangements to be made were of a temporary character, and without prejudice to a further discussion of proposals for a National Pool, when a permanent settlement comes to be dealt with. If this is a fair representation of your suggestion, I invite you and your fellow delegates to meet the owners at the Board of Trade at eleven this morning, to consider the best method of examining the question of wages. A similar letter was sent to the owners, and at 11 o'clock the Prime Minister and his colleagues proceeded to the Board of Trade, where they found the owners, but not the miners. We waited for some 40 or 45 minutes, and we still had received no communication from the miners. We therefore adjourned.

Since I have come to the House, I have had a message stating that an answer from the miners might be expected in about half-an-hour. Under these circumstances, I think my right hon. Friend and the House will feel that we ought not at this moment to enter upon the discussion we contemplated. What I would propose is that, as soon as the Government are in a position to make any statement, the Prime Minister should come into the House, and move the Adjournment; and subject to your permission, Mr. Speaker, and with the general consent of the House, whatever information the Government can give, should be at once imparted to the House, and, if necessary, a discussion should take place. If the Bills which are before the House do not last—and at a moment when the public mind, and the mind of the House, is preoccupied with other matters, discussion is apt to be very much shorter than usual—I suggest that attention should be called to the fact that 40 Members are not present—the House cannot be counted out before four o'clock—and it could, therefore, resume to hear any statement, instead of being dispersed into space. I believe, Sir, that that is the best arrangement in the public interest, and I submit it to the House.

In case events do not travel as calculated, would the right hon. Gentleman consider the wisdom of assembling the House to-morrow?

What about the time this afternoon? Could the Government not make such arrangements that, if necessary, the House should not rise at Five o'clock to-day?

I understand that could only be done in the same way in which, on Friday last, by general consent, and on the invitation of Mr. Speaker, we continued sitting, although the hour for closing, according to the Standing Order, had been reached. I have no doubt if there were any prospect of the House being needed, or the Government being in a position to give further information to the House, some such arrangements might be made to-day, again with your consent, Sir, and the general consent of the House. As regards a Saturday sitting, I should like to take a little time to consider that suggestion. It is very difficult to know what is best at a moment when circumstances change so rapidly.

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

It is rather difficult to expect the House to settle down to a humdrum subject such as that with which this Bill deals with, but, though the Bill be not of a very sensational character, it is certainly one likely to be very useful, and it is welcomed by all the various classes affected, which is not a feature of all Bills. This particular Bill is not really my own child. It was introduced last Session by the hon. and gallant Member for Montgomery (Major D. Davies), and to him deserves the real credit for the trouble which he has taken in bringing the subject before the House. The object of the Bill is to standardise conditions under which sales of corn are conducted in this country. There are very few people who realise the chaotic arrangements under which sales of corn and other agricultural produce are carried on. They are the result of local arrangements made long before railways, telephones, and other means of communication came into force, and they are utterly unsuited to the conditions of the present day. Within 30 miles of my own door a sack of wheat means three quite different measures. A quarter of wheat in different parts of the country may be 480 lbs., 496 lbs., 500 lbs., 504 lbs., or 588 lbs. A quarter of rye or oats has even a greater variation. Sometimes corn is sold by the load, sometimes by the coomb, sometimes by the boll, sometimes by the windle, and sometimes by the hobbet. I will not attempt to explain the various weights and measures, because I must confess that I am utterly unfamiliar with some of them, but those are the various measures by which corn can be sold, and it must be obvious that considerable confusion results. The Agricultural Policy Sub-Committee of the Reconstruction Committee, presided over by Lord Selborne, made a very strong Report on this subject, and on the need of some readjustment. I quote that Report with greater confidence, because I happen to know, from my experience in Committee on the Agricultural Bill, that it formed a sort of Bible for the Board of Agriculture. Whenever we wished to reinforce an argument, and whenever the Government wished to reply, an appeal was made to the Report of that Committee. If we could prove that the Department had departed from it, or if they could prove that our proposal differed from its recommendations, the whole thing was settled. We abandoned our position entirely to the judgment of that Committee. That Report, in this connection, says: There are something like 25 local measures or weights used in the sale of wheat alone: 12 different bushels, 3 different cwts., 7 different gallons, 13 different lbs., 10 different stones, and 9 different tons are known to exist. The result is confusion, misunderstanding, and ground for minor litigation, which are detrimental to the industry, and which place the producer at an obvious disadvantage in his dealings with those more experienced in market operations. In no other industry does such a chaos of different units, such a multiplication of divergent standards exist. In some oases their origin is lost in antiquity, in some they were introduced by settlers from abroad, while in others they were based on local custom, reasonable and convenient enough, perhaps, at a time when communication between districts was difficult and meagre, but entirely out of place since modern facilities of transit have opened every market to the producer. That is the Report of the Committee which is admitted to be the very last authority on agricultural matters. It is not only the producer who suffers from these chaotic conditions, but, obviously, the consumer suffers also if trade is hampered in this way. The Bill makes void any contract to sell corn and similar produce which is set out in the Schedule, except in terms of cwts. of 112 imperial standard lbs., which, as the House knows, equal eight stones. That will be an arrangement very easily adjusted to present conditions, because, for instance, in my own district a sack of wheat generally is about 18 stones. That is too heavy for the ordinary man to carry, and it is admitted that it is often a serious difficulty. The result of passing this measure will be that the ordinary sack of 18 stones of wheat will be undoubtedly reduced to 16 stones, which will form two cwts. A sack of barley is 16 stones already, and a sack of oats is 12 stones. Potatoes, I understand, are generally sold at eight stones to the sack, and the arrangement therefore will suit the potato trade very conveniently. It is not going to be difficult to adopt this arrangement, which has the general approval of all organisations connected with land and produce in the country. It has the approval of the National Farmers' Union both in England and Scotland, of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, of the Central Landowners' Association, of the Surveyors' Institution, of the Land Agents' Society, of the Agricultural Seed Trade Association, and of many other branches of these various organisations who have sent in separate resolutions.

The only objection which I have come across is one which can be easily disposed of. It is objected that when you are making this arrangement, you ought to adopt the decimal system. Everyone knows that agriculturalists do not like changes, and find some considerable difficulty with any alteration, but the adoption of the decimal system would cause far greater trouble than this change. This is the easier form. We may consider the decimal system later on, but for the moment I suggest that it is sufficient to improve the conditions under which corn is sold by an easier method. The whole of the railway arrangements of this country are worked by the ton, which is a distinct reason for selling corn on the basis of the cwt. All scales also are adapted to the cwt. In addition, feeding stuffs and all that form of agricultural produce are sold by the ton and the cwt. An Amendment to the Bill will be required to deal with sales by the acre as in the case of potatoes. I understand that under the Bill, as drafted, sales by the acre would be injuriously affected. It is not the object of the Bill to prevent the sale of anything, but to facilitate it. I particularly commend this point to my hon. Friend the Member for the Holland Division (Mr. Royce), because it affects the sale of potatoes in Lincolnshire as in Yorkshire. The question of sales by the acre will be met by an Amendment which I shall hope to have moved in Committee excluding that form of sale from the Bill and making it clear that it will in no way interfere with such sales. There is one other objection raised: there is no penalty for infringement. The penalty consists in the provision that any contract not carried out on the lines suggested shall be null and void, and I think that will be an amply sufficient penalty. With these few words I hope the House will accept this Bill. I know it will be welcomed by all sections of the trade affected, and I therefore commend it with every confidence to the House.

The promoter of the Bill has removed almost the necessity for me to do more than to support the measure. My object in rising was to announce that generally I am in support of the Bill—and in that I am supported by all the agriculturists in my part of the country. I wanted to notify the fact that it would be necessary to have an Amendment to permit the sale of potatoes and various other agricultural products by the acre. So long as that can be inserted in the Bill it will meet all the objections I have heard against it. The necessity for something like a standard weight in corn is so great, and it applies to many other products as well as agricultural products, that I have often wondered that this country has borne so long as it has the extraordinary mixture of weights and measures. An educationist friend of mine has often asserted that the children of this country lose three years of their educational life in attempting to master the intricacies of the weights and measures in this country. If that is true, or only partly true, it is quite time we had a change. Personally, I should like to see the decimal method introduced, but I am not wedded entirely to that method. It has, nevertheless, many advantages that I wonder it has not been more seriously considered than it has been. This Bill is a step in the right direction, and I hope it will have no difficulty in soon becoming law.

I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."

The introducer of the Bill has dwelt at great length on the multiplicity of weights that different sections of the community adopt in their sales of corn. He omitted to tell the House that the sale of homegrown corn only formed a fraction of the trade. The great bulk of the trade of this country is in foreign corn. The proportion of home-grown wheat, for instance, is considerably less than 25 per cent, of the total consumed in this country. Consequently the way this question has to be looked at is not so much what affects one quarter of the total wheat consumed but rather the other three-quarters. Those merchants who deal in foreign corn have always dealt in wheat in terms of the foreign quarter, namely, 504 lbs., and future markets have been based upon the cental. The cental is 100 lbs. and 10 centals are equal to a thousand kilos, and this is a convenient form which, after long usage, has been found practicable, and I consider it would be a retrograde step if any Bill were passed in this House which inflicted upon the community sales by the hundredweight, namely, 112 lbs. It may sound a little confusing to people who have no knowledge of the corn trade to have all the different weights for bushels and quarters, but it arises from the different kinds of grain. For instance, if you are measuring a bushel of oats it weighs differently from a bushel of wheat, because the one is heavier than the other, and the reason for the difference in weights is the old-fashioned way whereby grain was sold by measure rather than by weight. But if the corn trade generally is working towards a system of centals, and importing on the 100 lbs. basis, which is really the beginning of the decimal system, it behoves this House to walk very warily before taking the retrograde step of fastening an old English weight on the country by Act of Parliament. Whatever difficulties exist between one section of the community and the other with regard to weights can always be overcome by their various associations. It is not necessary for this House to come down between two bodies of traders and insist by law that such and such a thing shall be done in such and such a way. If the Liverpool Corn Trade Association can enter into agreements with the North American Exporting Corn Trade Association, surely to goodness the English farmers, or their various associations, can come to an arrangement with the importers and the millers and the various corn merchants in this country. I am always opposed to legislation unless there is very sound ground for promoting it. I believe there is more trouble and more difficulty and more expense caused by a plethora of legislation rather than by an insufficiency of it, and unless the whole trade has made up its mind to march in a certain direction, I think it is rather a one-sided affair for this House to impose a method of trading which seems to suit one side and one side only. Some inquiry ought to be made by this House, and a Committee ought to be set up if legislation is to be imposed. I think it would be a great mistake at the present time to give a Second Reading to this Bill.

I beg to second the Amendment.

The constituency which I represent is one of the greatest corn-importing, corn-dealing, and corn-milling centres in the country, and there is no sort of demand for the provisions of this Bill, as far as I can gather, from the corn dealers, merchants, and millers in that area. I am certain that if it were so badly needed, as the hon. Member (Mr. Lane-Fox) pointed out, we should have had a very strong demand from the Chamber of Commerce or the Chamber of Trade in the constituency. They are not slow, as my colleagues in the House know, to bring forward any demands in the interests of their legitimate trade, and I am certain that, if this measure were needed by them, they would have asked for something to be brought in long since. If this measure is required, why has not the Government, with its great schemes of reconstruction and turning the whole country upside down, suggested something of this sort? In all the wonderful things that we were told the Government was going to do, the unification of measures of grain has never figured. The Bill has the formidable backing of several able and distinguished Members of the House representing agricultural interests, and I should have thought that, if it were so unanimously demanded by the agricultural community, it would have been introduced by the Government. The greatest objection of all is one that was foreshadowed by the hon. Member who introduced the Bill. If we are going to cause the undoubted and admitted confusion that will ensue, at any rate, temporarily, to those who deal in corn under these different measures, why not go the whole way and introduce the metric system for measuring grain? Why introduce the uniform hundredweight of 112 imperial standard pounds, and not 100 imperial standard pounds? It is because I am a firm believer, as I hope are many other Members of this House, in the necessity and inevitability of introducing the metric system into this country, and because I believe that the passing of this Bill would make the introduction of the metric system more difficult in a trade in which it is very badly required, that I am prepared to support my hon. Friend (Mr. Hailwood) in resisting what we consider to be the retrograde step of stereotyping the 112-lb. hundredweight measure.

I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend who has moved the Second Reading of this Bill, which I am sure will receive ample encouragement in this House, and which I hope will find its way on to the Statute Book. This question is a very old one, and the reform is one which is very long overdue. If we look back over the proceedings of this House we shall find that in the year 1795 a Committee reported upon the buying and selling of corn, and recommended to Parliament that there should be a uniform system of weights, and that the system of measures should be regulated by weight in order to avoid deception on the part of buyers and sellers of corn. In 1834 a Committee was appointed by the Government of the day and reported on this matter. In 1891 a Committee reported to the then President of the Local Government Board, and made the definite recommendation that the hundredweight should be adopted as the standard measure for the sale of corn. In 1893 the Central Chamber of Agriculture sent a deputation to the President of the Board of Trade and asked him to introduce a measure very much on the lines of the Bill now before the House. In 1887 Mr. Rankin's Bill was introduced into the House, but was withdrawn. It was followed in 1891 by Mr. Jasper Moore's Bill, but unfortunately that measure did not go any "further at that time. In 1897 and 1898 Mr. Rankin again introduced Bills into this House, but after that the whole matter apparently fell into abeyance.

After the speech of my hon. Friend who moved the Second Reading, it is not necessary for me to argue the need that there is for this measure at the present time. My hon. Friend quoted some figures showing the extraordinary differentiation, confusion, and chaos that now exists all over the country. That is a legacy which has been left to the country from the pre-railway days, when every agricultural district was a law unto itself. Nowadays, with increased transport facilities, the confusion has become very greatly accentuated. As to the legisla- tion which has passed through this House in connection with the matter, the House will recollect that in August, 1919, a Cereals (Restriction) Order was issued and that in that Order the quarter of wheat was described as weighing 504 lbs. In 1917 the House passed a Corn Production Act, and the quarter was then defined, not as weighing 504 lbs., as in 1919, but as weighing 480 lbs.; and in the last Agriculture Act, passed last year, it was defined as weighing 504 lbs. Therefore, even in the recent legislation which has passed through this House, there is great confusion as to how many pounds there really are in an imperial quarter of wheat. My hon. Friend also referred to the report of the Agricultural Policies Sub-Committee of the Reconstruction Committee. The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) referred to the fact that practically nothing has been done by the Government to deal with this matter, but I would point out to him that the Government did go so far as to appoint this Agricultural Sub-Committee, which considered the whole question of weights and measures very carefully. Their recommendations are embodied in this Bill, and I understand that the Ministry of Agriculture are prepared to support them. These recommendations of the Sub-Committee for England and Scotland are as follow: We therefore confine our recommendations to the following general principles: (A) A uniform standard of weight should be laid down on which alone sales and purchases of agricultural produce, other than liquids and certain market garden produce, should be legal. (B) That a uniform standard of measures for liquids should be similarly laid down." I go on to (D) Official and other market quotations should be required to be in the terms of the standards laid down. (E) The several standards should be selected so as to cause as little interference as possible with existing methods. (F) A certain transition period should be fixed at the. end of which the new standards should be recognised. I think the Bill really incorporates all the recommendations of that Committee, which was specially appointed to consider what alterations there should be and how they could be adapted to agricultural methods in this country. No doubt some people would raise objections to some Clauses in the Bill, but I do not believe it will cost agriculturists of the country a penny-piece because the sacks which are now used for the loading of wheat are generally made in such sizes as to contain either 1 cwt., 1½ cwts., or 2 cwts. Also the rates for railway freights and all goods in transit are calculated on the basis of the cwt. and not the cental. Also the scales and weights which are used are all on the basis of the cwt. The hon. and gallant Gentleman (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) said there would be dislocation. I do not think there would be dislocation if the cwt. is adopted as the standard. If we take any other standard no doubt the amount of dislocation will be far greater.

Hon. Members have taken exception to the fact that the decimal system has not been adopted. Many of us would prefer to see it adopted, because I believe it would be a great advantage if the weights and measures and all industrial and commercial transactions were carried on in accordance with that system, but this matter has been under the consideration of a Committee over which Lord Balfour of Burleigh presided some few years ago, and after going into the whole question very carefully they reported against the adoption of the metric and decimal system, to weights and measures. In view of that fact I think it would be unwise to press that that system should be incorporated in this Bill. The Bill is really a step forward, because we have consolidated the existing weights and measures and set up a uniform standard. Therefore I appeal to all those who are supporters of the decimal and metric system to support this Bill. If this reform can be carried out, and if you adopt the cwt. first of all as the standard, it will be very much easier to go a step further and secure that the metric system shall be the one for all commercial transactions throughout the country. The hon. Member for East Manchester said the Bill was very unpopular with the corn trade in Liverpool. I did not quite follow his arguments, but I gathered that even now in Liverpool they make their calculations on the basis of the ton, and if that is so, it would not be very difficult to adapt this system.

The whole of the futures market of Liverpool, which is the only futures market in corn in this country, is based on the cental.

I understand that the freight on imported corn is paid on the ton and it is not a very difficult calculation to reduce tons to hundredweights. The Bill has nothing whatever to do with futures, because it only applies to corn after it is actually imported into the country and is bought and sold within the boundaries of the United Kingdom. Before the War we imported oil seeds which were all sold in varying weights. Calcutta linseed was sold per quarter of 416 lbs.; Russian linseed in quantities of 424 lbs.; sesame seed in quantities of 384 lbs.; and other seeds were sold in different weights. When the Government took over control the Ministry of Food insisted on the standard quantities being revised and all sales were made by the hundredweight or the ton. If it was possible for the Ministry of Food to insist that these imports which were marked up at these different weights should be standardised, surely the same thing is applicable in the case of corn. After many discussions in Holland and meetings of 15 of the principal associations in the grain, seed and other trades, it was decided that everyone in Holland should quote their produce in terms of 100 kilograms after 1st March, 1921. I do not think the Bill can be looked upon as a serious interference with the liberty of the various trades and associations which deal with cornstuffs and other agricultural products.

An hon. Member opposite referred to the support which the measure had received. I should like to quote a few of the recommendations which we have received from various agricultural and other bodies all over the country. The National Farmers' Union says: The draft of the Weights and Measures Bill came before our Trades Advisory and Transport Committee and Cereals, Livestock, and Wool Committee. In each case the provisions of the Bill were given unqualified support and that decision was endorsed when the reports of the Committees were considered by the Council of the Union. My Committee will be glad to co-operate with you in any way possible during the progress of the Measure through Parliament, for which it is hoped facilities will be granted. I do not think any stronger testimonial could be received from a most important body representing the farmers. The National Farmers' Union of Scotland say: The Central Executive Committee unanimously approved of the Corn Sales Bill and resolved to give the Measure every support. The Central Chamber of Agriculture: At the Council Meeting a resolution was passed approving of your "Weights and Measures Bill, and I am instructed to ask members to ballot for it at the opening of next Session. The Central Landowners' Association: The Executive Committee welcome the Bill as a contribution to a much-needed reform. The Surveyors' Institution: The Council approve the proposals contained in the Bill as in the interests of agriculture. The Agriculture Seed Trade Association of the United Kingdom: The Council are heartily in support of the Bill. In their opinion the Bill should be applied to all farm seed. The National Federation of Fish Friers, the British Empire. Producers' Organisation, the Burnley and District Chamber of Trade, the South Wales and Monmouthshire Hay Merchants' Association and many other bodies also approve of the Bill.

These quotations prove that the consensus of opinion in the agriculture industry of this country is strongly in support of this Bill. May I venture to appeal to all sections of the people to support it, because it appears to me to be a business proposition, and is a reform which is required? Seeing that the farmers and the agriculture community generally support it, and as my hon. Friend (Mr. Lane-Fox said he would be quite willing to consider any Amendment when the Committee stage is reached, I have every confidence in commending the Bill to the support of the House.

1.0 P. M.

My views on this Bill are very much divided. I cannot help feeling with those who have introduced the Bill and the agricultural community as a whole that the multiplicity of measures is a scandal and an unnecessary burden upon commercial transactions. On the other hand, the Liverpool Corn Trade Association are strongly opposed to the Bill, and I ought to tell the House why. They say that the whole of the future market in this country, that is to say, the market upon which all contracts to arrive are based, and which is used as the head by the whole of the imported trade in this country, is based upon the cental. I have a letter from the Corn Trade Association on the subject. They say that it would be a very grave inconvenience to all operating in the market in Liverpool if they had to translate their purchases in centals into a measure of 112 lbs. These questions of practical inconvenience are very difficult for those of us who are not in the trade to fully appreciate, but I will ask the House to take that as a statement written by the Corn Trade Association officially, and made as a statement of fact which ought to be taken as proof. Hon. Members representing ports where there are other corn trade associations, I think, take the same view. On the other hand, we have to recognise the fact that we have this ridiculous system of different weights and measures at present in this country. What ought the House to do under the circumstances? I agree with the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken who is really the father of this Bill, that the decimal system is the right system, and I submit that this House ought not to commit itself to a crystallisation or a perpetuation of a system which is not a decimal system. Therefore, as a compromise to the conflicting views in the matter, I suggest that the Bill should be given a Second Reading on the understanding that the unit of 100 lbs., which the hon. and gallant Member for Hull suggested, should be substituted for the unit of 112 lbs. proposed by the Bill. In Committee all instances of difficulty in the application of that unit in the inland trade to which the hon. Member who has just sat down referred, can be dealt with. I cannot think that they will be anything like as great on the balance, as the difficulties attaching to the preservation of the unit of 112 lbs. I suggest, therefore, that we should pass the Bill on Second Reading, on condition that the 100 lbs. is substituted for 112 lbs. On that footing the Liverpool Corn Trade Association, in their letter to me, say that from their point of view the great objection to the Bill would be removed, although they would like to have the Bill not applying at all to any imported grain. That I do not think is feasible. They do not think they could object to the Bill as applying to inland trade. If there is no opposition to the Bill qua inland grain, and if the futures market and its convenience could be consulted by substituting 100 lbs. for 112 lbs., that would be a very feasible compromise and a helpful solution to a very difficult problem.

After the speech of my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Leslie Scott), it would be as well if I said something as to the position of the Government. This is not a Government Bill, but so far as the Government are concerned they will certainly recommend the House to give it a Second Heading. Speaking from the agricultural point of view, we realise that there are great advantages in the Bill. When I say that we should give the Bill a Second Heading it must be clearly understood that there can be no such condition attaching to the Second Beading as that which my hon. and learned Friend suggested. Apart from other considerations, from the Parliamentary view the House of Commons cannot tie in any way what a Committee may do. The question as to whether the unit should be 112 lbs. as suggested in the Bill, the ordinary cwt., or what is called the cental, the 100 lbs., is a matter for the Committee to decide, and I am not prepared here and now to state an opinion. I can see very grave objections to the course suggested, from the practical point of view; in any case, no Bill can pass through this House subject to any such condition.

Of course, what I meant was, give it a Second Reading now and reserve the matter for later discussion.

That is a different proposition. If the Bill gets a Second Reading to-day as I hope it will, then any hon. Member on the Committee or on the Report stage can bring forward such Amendments as they desire, and if the Bill is not amended in the sense that they wish they can vote against it on the Third Reading. I wish to remove any misunderstanding in the minds of any hon. Members that this Bill can be passed under a condition which I do not suppose the promoters are prepared to agree to without very full consideration. On the merits of the Bill generally I certainly think that there is a strong case for legislation in the present position of weights and measures as regards corn and other produce. The position is absolutely chaotic. Corn is generally sold in terms of a measure, namely, a bushel or a quarter, but as a matter of fact it is sold by weight, so that the bushel or the quarter always has relation to some particular weight. Unfortunately, the weights differ. A bushel or a quarter have different weights when we are dealing with wheat or with oats. They do not always have the same weights in connection with those two particular cereals. In some parts of the country a quarter means one weight and in another a different weight, and great confusion arises. For example, a quarter of British wheat means 504 lbs., and a quarter of British oats 336 lbs. Those are the customary weights, but for the purposes of statistics under the Corn Returns Act the quarter of British wheat means 480 lbs., and for oats there is a different figure. Again, in most parts of the country a bushel of British oats is 42 lbs., and in some parts 39 lbs., while in others it is no less than 126 lbs. These differences are exceedingly confusing and hampering to trade, but they cannot be removed, so strong is local custom, without legislation whereby the State will set up a standard of weights and measures. Though I agree with the hon. Member for Manchester that very often we may have too much legislation, still if there is one elementary thing which the State can do, without any suspicion of Socialism, it is to set up a standard of weights and measures. This has not been done in the corn trade, and in reference to agricultural produce up to the present. As to the objections which have been raised by the hon. Member for Manchester and other hon. Members, which proceed, I understand, from the corn trade in Liverpool and elsewhere, there is much misunderstanding. First, I do not think that the trade in future is affected. The Bill lays down specifically that it only affects sales made in the United Kingdom.

After delivery in the United Kingdom.

Therefore I do not think that the question of futures arises at all. The corn, I understand, is usually imported in quarters, but for the purpose of resale in this country the quarter is translated into the cental.

No, all future contracts for the purchase of corn to arrive in this country are made in centals. Freight is paid on the ton at the port, and when the resales are made, the difficulty arises of translating the centals into some other measure.

That is not my information, I understand that the grain is actually landed and paid for in quarters, but on resale is translated into centals. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Whatever it may be there is the difficulty of translating one measure into the other, and I do not anticipate that any great additional difficulty will be caused by the provisions of this Bill. Apart from the corn trade, I cannot discover that anybody has opposed the Bill. On the other hand we have received a great many requests that it might go through. This change is recommended by Lord Selborne's Report. It is supported by the National Farmers' Union all over the country. It is supported by the clergy who have a great interest in this on account of the tithe rent charge. The "Church Times" has advocated the standardisation of weights of cereals to put an end to the confusion and waste resulting from the present system. The proposal is also supported by the National Federation of Fish Friers. I think therefore that it would be wise on the part of the House to give the Bill a Second Reading, and the anticipated difficulties can be considered fully by the Standing Committee, after which it will resume control of the measure, and can take any action it likes on the Third Reading.

I quite understand the necessity for having some uniform measure adopted, and therefore I shall support the Second Reading of this Bill, but the provisions for enforcing compliance of the Act will require close scrutiny by the Committee. It seems to me that it does introduce a new principle into the law of contracts, whereby the parties to a contract have, so far as I know, always been enabled themselves to define and limit the subject-matter of the contract. That point was not raised by the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, and therefore I am a little diffident about submitting it. But another point was raised that, according to the custom, after importation of corn the measure was transferred into a different form from the measure under the original contract. Is that always so? Is it ever the custom to transfer, after the corn is imported, merely by the transfer of the documents of title, because, if that is so, I take it that such transfers would be null and void unless in the first instance the measure was transferred into the new measure provided by this Bill. Other points occur, so that this particular part of the Bill will have to be scrutinised in Committee.

I support this Bill. It is surprising to find at least two Bills on the Order Paper to-day coming from a part of the House where Friday legislation is always strongly objected to. The right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) is responsible for one of them, and I expected him to be here objecting to this bit of Friday legislation. But there is one objection to this Bill which I have, and which is of a sentimental character. I object to this craze for standardising everything. Too many things in our national and social life are being standardised. It is to that I object People connected with the land are especially a class of people from whom I would be the last to expect revolutionary proposals of this sort. There is a good deal to be said for the Bill, all the same, and I support the general principle, but I would ask, What harm has hay done? The confusion existing with regard to hay measures is a very considerable disability in transactions, particularly amongst small people in the trade. In Scotland hay is usually sold wholesale by the ton, but between man and man it is usually sold by the stone, and the stone varies from 22 lbs. to—

We are dealing with corn to-day. Hay would require a separate Bill.

With all respect, could I not refer to this in passing.

We could not have a definition Clause that corn means hay.

On a point of Order. Does not "other crops" include hay?

I think that "other crops" means rye, oats, and so forth. It would be going beyond the leave given to bring in the Bill if hay were included among cereals.

There are such things included as clover and linseed. Linseed is not corn.

Those are all grains or of the nature of grains.

If hay cannot be introduced into this Bill, the Bill to me is comparatively useless. Therefore, in sympathy with the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), who always objects to Friday legislation, I feel very much inclined to go into the Lobby against the Bill.

On a point of Order. Are potatoes "grain"?

With regard to that, I do not know what "pees" means.

We hear much about the cost of education. In this country, apparently, they spend so much time in learning the various weights and measures that they are not in a position to be able to spell the word "pea," and it has now become "pees."

Can I be held responsible for the errors of the printer?

I think that is worthy of Adam when he blamed Eve for the fall. The hon. Member ought to have read his own Bill before he brought it into this House, and have accepted responsibility for the Clauses and for the spelling and phrasing of them. How can the House discuss a Bill when we do not know from the spelling what the Bill means? I think the Bill should be postponed, and I am inclined to review my decision to support it. I do not know whether I shall or not.

With reference to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool (Mr. L. Scott), I am sure he represents the views of the Corn Trade Association of Liverpool, but I am equally certain that he does not represent the views of the shipping community of Liverpool, neither does the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) represent the views of the shipping community of that port. The shipping community is heartily in favour of this change, for the simple reason that every pound of grain imported into this country is imported on the basis of the hundredweight of 112 lbs. Every grain merchant who has handled a Bill of Lading—I can speak with some knowledge on the subject—has had to pay his freight on the basis of 112 lbs. to the hundredweight, or 2,240 lbs. to the ton. I fail to see how there can be any confusion among grain importers because of the proposed change. It is really farcical to suggest it. We should have more uniformity, not only for the convenience of the agriculturists, but of trade generally, and I support the Bill.

Representing as I do the division of Ludlow, I do not think I should be silent after the way in which my predecessor always advocated this reform. I thoroughly endorse everything he said in byegone years. We cannot do better than follow the many points that he made. Reference has been made to the question of weights. It must be remembered that every farmer must have a set of weights on his farm, and that they have to be passed by the weights and measures inspector of his county. We have every farmer with weights suitable for carrying out the purposes of this Bill. What is more, the corn itself works by its own measures to suitable parts of the measures that we are advocating. The weights that the farmers use are all in unison in the same direction. It is a very strong argument that the Seed Trade Association of this country has blessed this proposal from beginning to end. I have here a letter from the Secretary of the Association, dated 15th March. He says: My council have carefully considered the Bill since it was first mentioned to them by the Member for Montgomery, and they strongly support it. He adds that the Association is of opinion that if the Bill applies to certain agricultural seeds only, others should be added. That, however, is a Committee point. The hon. and learned Member for the Exchange Division (Mr. Scott) has tried to make out that the corn trade will be put to grave difficulties by the change proposed. The cental difficulty is as nothing compared with the difficulty that the farmers would have if they had to change the whole of their weights and scales. The farmers would have the difficulty in the same way as the railway companies and the dealers. If you make a change in any other way than by this Bill, you will have every railway company in the country up in arms. Every railway company has its scales and its weights, and consequently you would have them up in arms and grave difficulties would be created. The farmer also experiences the greatest difficulty because it is almost impossible to compare one market with another. There is another question, which you will perhaps consider a minor one, and that is the prevention of fraud. I am very glad to say it is very seldom that fraud is carried through in dealings in corn. This Bill will be a prevention of fraud and will also enable the farmer, the corn merchant and others associated with them to be able to compare the markets and see which is the best. It is for those reasons, amongst others, that I hope this Bill will very soon find its way to the Statute Book.

I rise to give my whole-hearted support to this Bill, which I think is most necessary. The list of those supporting it shows that it is in the interests of the agricultural community, and the fact that it is receiving the support of the Chamber of Trade of Burnley and district shows that there is a large amount of interest in the Bill on the part of the various trades. The agricultural community is put at a great disadvantage in having to explain what is the weight of each quarter of corn or oats which is being sold, and the interests of farming generally will, I think, benefit from this Bill. I do not see why it should be thrown out on account of the opposition which has been offered to it, and I hope the Minister of Agriculture will give it his whole-hearted support.

Question, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.

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

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

This Bill, I hope, is quite non-contentious. It merely provides certain machinery which was omitted when the Tithes Redemption Act was passed in 1918. Under that Act tithe could be redeemed by an annuity on the initiative of the tithe payer with the assent of the Minister of Agriculture. A great deal of tithe has been redeemed in that way, and in place of tithe an annuity terminable in 50 years has been charged on the land. That annuity is charged upon certain portions of land which, I believe, are known as tithe fields, and of which may be of very considerable extent. Whenever it happens that a tithe field requires to be divided up on account of the sale or transfer of any portion of it, there is no means of apportioning the annual charge upon the whole. The consequence is that the whole of that annuity is chargeable upon all or any part of the divided land, and therefore it remains a blot upon the title in every case. This should have been foreseen when the Act was passed, because it is a holding-up of, and an interference with, the sale of small quantities of land for building purposes and for all kinds of purposes. Nobody has offered any objection to the proposal contained in this Bill, and I therefore venture to commend it to the House, in the hope that it will receive a Second Reading. If there are any objections in detail, I think they can be settled in Committee. The procedure is really to amend the existing Act, and I think I need not go into particulars on it. There is a provision in the second part of Clause 1 that where an apportioned part of the tithe annuity is less than £2 it can be compulsorily redeemed in order that these very small charges which give a great deal of trouble may not remain upon the land. There is also in Clause 2 a small provision allowing trustees of settled land to expend capital money in the redemption of annuities of this character. I hope the House will be good enough to send this matter to Committee in the interests of facilitating the sale and transfer of land, in regard to which so many Bills have recently been passed.

As far as the Government is concerned, we shall not oppose the Second Reading of this Bill. We think there are certain advantages in it. As my right hon. Friend has said, the present law is defective. The tithe rentcharge can be redeemed by an annuity, but if that is so the annuity is chargeable upon the whole of the land, and if an estate is divided up and the land sold in separate blocks, then it can be recoverable from any one of those blocks, with the result that the purchaser is accepting a liability the extent of which he cannot possibly gauge. It would be a great advantage if there were some means whereby the tithe could be separately apportioned and that is the object of this Bill. It gives the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries power to apportion this annuity on the application of any person interested in the land. That is a perfectly proper proceeding. It may be that in Committee we shall have to consider one or two points. Under the old law where such apportionments take place on any specific part of the land, there must be a margin, that is to say the part of the estate charged must be not less than six times the annual value of the sum charged on it. By this Bill that particular provision of the existing law is repealed. Although I agree that six times is a large amount, still it might be necessary, and I shall have to have a free hand to consider whether some sort of margin should not be provided. There is the further point that after apportionment the cost of the collection of the annuity may be greater than it is now. Remember that in fixing the amount the annual cost of collection is deducted. I know that point is to some extent met by the provision to which my right hon. and gallant Friend has alluded, that where the apportioned part is less than £2 per year it shall be compulsorily redeemed. I should like, however, to have time to consider whether or not this is sufficient protection. The persons principally interested are Queen Anne's Bounty, who own most of the tithe redeemable by annuities, and I should like further to consult them, but on the general question of the Second Reading I shall certainly support that, while reserving a certain amount of freedom to reconsider detailed points in Committee.

As one whose name is on the back of the Bill, I quite recognise that what the right hon. Gentleman has said is perfectly reasonable, but I do not think there is anything in it really, because the method of apportionment followed in this Bill is just the same as that under the Enclosure Acts, under which power was given to the Commissioners, which is now being exercised by the Ministry of Agriculture, to apportion a rent charge.

This is a Bill that deals with a very serious aspect of the land question, and I do not think it should be passed in such a thin House as we have now. It is a doctrine that we have been taught over and over again by the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), that it is a big mistake in the interests of the public that legislation of this character, interfering wih very ancient rights and privileges and practices in the relations of the Church to the land, should be passed with so little consideration as can be given to it on a Friday afternoon, and especially on this Friday afternoon, when the mind of almost every Member of the House is absorbed in a grave national question. It may be my own stupidity, but I listened with the greatest care to the explanation given by the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill, and I cannot say yet that I understand it. It may be due to the fact that I devoted most of my educational life to mastering the weights and measures in school, and therefore one's intelligence is a bit cribbed and cramped, but I must say that I have been unable, from the explanation given by the right hon. Gentleman, even with the extended commentary of the Minister of Agriculture, to understand the real meaning of the Bill. Some ten years ago the present Prime Minister, to whose words I listened even then—some people think that the Prime Minister only got wise two or three years ago, but he was the same man ten years ago as he is to-day—warned the country over and over again that the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this Bill was entirely wrong on any question connected with the land, and although I was not in this House, I read the Debates, the titanic fights between the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman on this land question. The right hon. Gentleman opposite failed then, but he has won the battle since. The Prime Minister has succumbed to him since then, and it seems to me that the reason for this Bill being introduced to-day is the fact that the right hon. Gentleman, after his success in defeating the Prime Minister's legislation after ten years, has politically a swollen head and thinks he can introduce and pass any land legislation now with the subservient acquiescence of the Prime Minister. It would be a very grave mistake on the part of the House to agree to the principle of this Bill without further consideration. There are references here to enclosures, and even the word "enclosure" suggests a tremendous amount of difficulty. Legislation in connection with it has been passed from time to time, and it is a matter in which the rights of the community have been invaded on many occasions, both with and without legislation. For these and other reasons, I think the House should divide against this Bill unless we have some further explanation as to its real meaning so as to make it understanded of the common people.

I wish to reinforce the speech of my hon. Friend who has just sat down. In the past few days we have been in the throes of a national crisis, and all sorts of legislation has been coming up that the House has not been able to focus its attention upon. It seems, when there are three or four Bills on the Order Paper to-day, and at this moment there is an emergency such as we have not previously been faced with in this country, a little harsh to expect that these things should be taken one after the other without any real explanation of their principles. The Leader of the House himself said he thought it would be better if the House could be counted out and adjourned until 4 o'clock, when it would be possible for a statement by the Prime Minister to be made on the present crisis, and on that ground I beg to ask at least that this should not be allowed to pass without a little explanation of the principles involved.

It is a little strange that the two hon. Members who have made their protests should have pro- tested, being Scottish Members, against a Bill which does not apply to Scotland.

It is quite true that this Bill does not apply to Scotland, but we have found time and again that the only possible way of discussing Scottish matters is by indirect fire in relation to English measures. I do not think we can claim that Scottish" matters take up too much time on the floor of this House. It is only by discussing the principles of an English Bill—

The hon. and gallant Gentleman had resumed his seat, and completed his speech.

I listened with great interest to the speech of my hon. Friend (Dr. Murray), and while I am in general agreement with him on questions of land legislation, I do not wholly subscribe to the thesis that necessarily any measure dealing with any feature of land legislation emanating from the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this Bill is necessarily to be opposed. With regard to the matters referred to, I should be as strongly in conflict with him as any Member of this House, but I have always felt that, so far as knowledge of the present state of the law is concerned, he is probably unequalled in this House, and, so far as I have been able to seize myself of the objects of this Bill, it does not appear at all to deal with those questions on which we have been at controversy in the past, but it is rather an attempt to disentangle some grievances which are felt, and which can be remedied without raising principles of that kind. But I do join with my two hon. Friends who have last spoken in suggesting that it is desirable there should be a little further explanation to the House of the principles of the Bill. The Bill does seem to me a bad example of legislation by reference. As a matter of fact, I am sure even those who are promoting the Bill will agree that it is impossible for anyone to understand its provisions without examination and study of many Acts of Parliament. The Bill commences by referring to the Tithe Act of l918. It then goes on to refer to Sections 10 to 14 of the Inclosure Act, 1854. Then it proceeds to make reference to the provision of the Inclosure Acts, 1854 to 1882. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture may have felt it part of his duty to study the whole of those Acts from 1854 to 1882, but I should doubt if, with the exception of himself, and probably the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill, there is any other Member of the House familiar with that long series of Acts. In Clause 2 we come to further references to Acts. It is evident the Bill is, if I may say so with respect, a somewhat bad example of legislation by reference. It is not possible for Members of this House, by reading the Bill, to seize themselves clearly of its provisions, and all that it purports to effect. I should not, however, for a moment go into the Lobby against the Bill merely because the right hon. Gentleman has introduced it. I think that would be going to a very undue length indeed, but I do think Members of the House are entitled to a somewhat fuller explanation of the provisions than has been given. It was hardly expected that the Bill would be reached so early, and I do not think Members could be expected to go through this long series of Acts to which reference is made. I am quite sure there would be no desire to divide against the iBll if we had some clear explanation of its provisions, and what useful purpose it is designed to serve.

I think the hon. Member (Dr. Murray) was not here when the Mover of this Bill gave a very full explanation of it, and his remarks must be regarded in the nature of obstruction.

Is it in order for an hon. Member to allege obstruction against another hon. Member?

I withdraw that, but I may say the hon. Member does not appear to be very accurate, because when he addressed the House on the first Bill, in the absence of the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), he made a charge against him which is entirely inaccurate. He said it was the rôle of the right hon. Gentleman to obstruct private legislation on Friday afternoons.

I did not use the word "obstruct."

That he blocked the Bills. There have been only two Fridays so far this Session on which Private Members' Bills have been taken. On the first Friday the right hon. Gentleman's name was on the back of the Bill, and on the second he is introducing a Bill himself, so that it is a very inaccurate statement. This Bill is almost a drafting Amendment of the Tithe Act of last year, and it is simply to make a little easier the sale of land, especially for small holdings and allotments, in which, I know, the hon. Gentleman is interested. The Bill, therefore, is really to carry out objects which, I am sure, both hon. Members who spoke against the Bill have very much at heart. Therefore, I hope they will not persist in their opposition to this Bill.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

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

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

This Bill seeks a very small Amendment of the Act which was passed in 1919, by which the disqualification of women from the exercise of public functions as lawyers and in a variety of other capacities was removed, and it also provided that a woman should not be exempt from liability to serve on juries. There was a qualification by which a woman could get exemption from service on a jury by making application to the judge, and, in fact, the judge or chairman of the Quarter Sessions has power, at his own instance, to order that the jury shall be composed of men only or women only. There is a good deal of dissatisfaction in the public mind as to what has happened lately. Women have been terror-struck at the thought of having to serve in some particularly disgusting cases, and I am certain that every man desires, as far as he can, to treat women as a privileged class—

They do not want it.

—and not to expose them to duties of that character. It must be singularly oppressive to a woman to have to serve in some of those very terrible cases which come before the Courts in which sexual questions are involved.

Filthy photographs and filthy literature is handed round as part of the evidence for jurors to see, and my only desire is that women who wish to escape work of that character should have the opportunity of doing so. It should not be left entirely to the judge to say "yes" or "no." I do not, of course, wish to deprive any woman who is interested in services of this character, or who may be pleased with the prospect of having to serve on a jury, of the opportunity to serve. I do not wish to deprive her at all of the privileges which she is gaining under this Bill. My Amendment perhaps goes to the extreme length of giving women the fullest discretion. The Committee may think that this goes a little too far, and that the Amendment should be within reasonable limits. It, then, would be a very small matter to whittle my Bill down. It is a very short Bill, only two and a half lines in length. I hope it will meet the general approval of the House, and that it will be given a Second Reading.

Notice taken at Two of the Clock that 40 Members were not present; House counted by Mr. SPEAKER and, 19 Members only being present —

I will now leave the Chair. If there should be more than 40 Members present at any time, I shall be prepared to resume. In any event, I shall resume the Chair at 4 o'clock.

At a Quarter after Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER again counted the House and, 40 Members being present, resumed the Chair.

I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."

I would ask the permission of the House to make a short statement on a most important communication which I have just received. Before I read the communication, it would be better that I should make a short statement, which will explain exactly the full meaning and import of the letter that has just come to my hand.

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir R. Horne) and I have repeatedly, both in this House and at the Conferences, made it quite clear that the Government were not committed to support any scale of wages put forward by the mine owners—that our minds upon that subject were perfectly open. That does not mean that there were not certain items upon which we had not very grave doubts, but it does mean that we wanted to preserve a clear and an open mind when any Conference took place upon wages between the miners and the mine-owners, in order to preside over the proceedings. We have constantly invited discussions upon wages. We made suggestions as to the best methods of arriving at a decision on wages. We invited both the miners and the mine owners to discuss the actual figures with a view to attempting to arrive at a decision.

Unfortunately, the Miners' Federation have taken the line, and taken it very firmly, that they cannot discuss any question of the amount of wages until first of all two fundamental issues are settled, and settled in their favour. One is a National settlement of wages, and the other is the National Pool. Upon the question of the national settlement of wages we have already pressed a favourable opinion. To the proposal for a national pool we have declined to assent, because it involves a re-establishment of control, which we regarded as deleterious to the industry, and as injurious to the whole country. In order to show that that is the line we have taken, I hope the House will bear with me while I read a short extract from the proceedings at the last Conference which took place between miners and mine owners at the Board of Trade—a Conference over which I presided. This is what I said in winding up the proceedings, after the parties had failed to come to an agreement on the question of a national pool. Mr. Herbert Smith had said that our proposals were purely the owners' proposals.

I said 'practically.'"

I think I must correct that, Mr. Herbert Smith, because it is much too important a matter, when there are so many millions of people involved, to run the risk of misunderstanding. The figures which the owners have put forward we have neither accepted nor rejected. The question of whether it is going to be 10 per cent, or 17 per cent.—the question of the actual amount of the wages which they have set forth in their scale—these are all subjects for consideration. They are questions which we are prepared to examine and to investigate, and if the industry can bear more, then the industry ought to pay more. That we will examine. We are prepared to examine it with the miners' leaders and with the mine-owners and with such information as we have at our disposal, but I would not like the struggle to continue upon the assumption that the Government have simply accepted the owners' figures in respect either of wages or of profits. Those are still subjects of investigation. They are subject to examination; they are subject to conference between us. I made that clear on the face of the document, and I shall be very sorry if this very unhappy struggle were to continue without a full knowledge of that very essential fact in the minds of the people of this country. We are prepared to see that the industry pays all it can bear for people who risk their lives in order to produce coal.'

It is of vital importance, therefore, if the struggle is to continue, that it should be thoroughly realised by everyone that it is not a struggle in order to support any list or scale or schedule of figures put forward by the mine owners.

Last night there was a very remarkable gathering upstairs, in the course of which the miners' secretary, a man of singular ability, placed the case of the miners with his well-known skill and lucidity before a very large body of the Members of this House. After the meeting had proceeded for about two hours, I hear that he submitted a proposal which on the face of it—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]—I am only saying what I heard, and just giving a narrative as I heard it. I am not in the least seeking to commit Mr. Frank Hodges. I know his difficulties, and I should be the last man in the world 10 add to them. I heard very late last night that he had submitted a proposal which looked on the face of it as if the Miners' Federation were now prepared to examine the scale of wages for a temporary settlement, whilst suspending without prejudice the question of a National Pool.

A number of Members of Parliament who were present at the meeting, including the Chairman of the meeting, were good enough to come over to Downing Street about midnight, and explain to me what was said. Unfortunately there was no shorthand note taken of the proceedings, and they had to rely upon their memory. I could not get a very exact account of the precise words used—and in a matter of this magnitude the precise words count a good deal. However I thought it sufficiently important, having regard to the impression left on the minds of so many Members of Parliament, to clear it up. If the Miners' Federation were prepared to proceed to an examination of the actual figures, I thought it exceedingly desirable that, without any loss of time, a meeting should be sum- moned for that purpose this morning. I know the letter has been read already; but if the House will bear with me, I think it is rather important that I should read it again, because it is essential to the narrative. I sent this letter about 9.30 this morning:

"DEAR ME. HODGES, Several Members who were present at your House of Commons meeting last night have conveyed to me the purport of your concluding offer. They have not taken down the actual words you used, but the general impression made on their minds was that you were now prepared to discuss with the owners the question of wages, without raising the controversial issue of the pool, provided the arrangements to be made were of a temporary character, and without prejudice to a further discussion of proposals for a National Pool, when a permanent settlement comes to be dealt with— That was the impression left on my mind by what Members told me. [HON. MEMBERS: "Quite right!"] If this is a fair representation of your suggestion, I invite you and your fellow-delegates to meet the owners at the Board of Trade at eleven o'clock this morning, to consider the best method of examining the question of wages. I went to the Board of Trade at eleven o'clock. I had sent the owners a copy of the letter, and they were present. We waited for about three-quarters of an hour, but there was no communication from the Miners' Federation. I am not complaining of that; I am not putting it that there was any act of discourtesy. They were discussing the matter at the time, and were not in a position to give an answer. Later on they did communicate, and said that an answer would be forthcoming in about an hour's time. As a matter of fact it has only just arrived, and I will now read it to the House— DEAR PRIME MINISTER, My Executive Committee have fully considered your letter, and ask me to state that the only condition upon which a temporary settlement can be arrived at is one that must follow the concession of the two principles already make known to you, namely, a National Wages Board and a National Pool. In these circumstances, my Committee feel that no good purpose would be served in meeting the owners to-day on the basis suggested in your letter. [An HON. MEMBER: "They went back on it."] I trust that if there be a discussion, the House will permit me to take part in it, later on, should it be necessary to do so. I only want to state at this moment that I do not wish to say a single word that will cause any bitterness or exasperation.

Who signed the letter?

It is signed, "Yours faithfully, Frank Hodges." All I have to say at the present moment is that there was no doubt in the mind of the Government, after what passed at various conferences, that the Miners' Federation regarded this as an essential preliminary to any discussion of wages. There was a good deal of doubt in the minds of Members of the House after what passed yesterday, and I think a good deal of justifiable doubt. Whether they misunderstood what Mr. Frank Hodges said, it is not for me to say, but there is no doubt that there was a good deal of honest misunderstanding last night upon the subject. There can be no doubt now at all as to what is the issue, and upon that issue we are firmly of opinion that a surrender on the question of Control would be disastrous to the interests of the State.

I am sure the House has listened in every quarter with profound regret to the announcement which has been made by the Prime Minister. Many of us—indeed, I think all of us—this morning had entertained hopeful, if not sanguine, anticipation that, at any rate, a temporary way of escape might be provided which might ultimately lead to the road of permanent peace. There is a good deal, of course, naturally and necessarily which, in the present state of our information, must be left to conjecture and doubt. Knowing, as we do, that Mr. Hodges is not only a man of great ability and extremely skilled in expression, as well as of unimpeachable integrity, one would certainly gather from the consentient reports of what he said last night that, speaking as he did with an authority which nobody else could question or rival on behalf of the Executive of the Miners' Federation, that they were prepared to enter, without prejudice to their main contention—that, of course, ought not to be prejudiced—into a provisional and transitional arrangement, if such could be arrived at, on the question of wages.

My own gratification, when I read that in the newspapers, was increased, when in another column I read a statement purporting to come from the mine owners, that they were prepared to discuss, also without prejudice, provisionally, at any rate, the question of wages. The suggestion, which I should certainly have been disposed to make, under more favourable conditions, to the House is that, if both parties were in that frame of mind—neither of them abandoning in any way, or compromising in any way, their view as to the lines on which an ultimate settlement might be arrived at—it would be a very desirable thing that the mine owners should present some concrete and intelligent alternative to the scale of reduction of wages which is the only one of which we now know as proceeding from them. If that could have been put upon the Table, to form the subject of debate and conference, possibly some conclusion might have been arrived at, and, at any rate, the time would not have been fruitlessly spent. I do not know—none of us know—what has happened to darken the sky, and to becloud what seemed a few hours ago a most favourable prospect.

The letter which the Prime Minister has just read, coming from the Executive of the Miners' Federation, seems to render for the moment the possibility of such an unprejudiced and provisional discussion of a temporary arrangement impossible, for they make it a condition of entering upon any such discussion that the two main contentious points of dispute shall, in advance, be conceded in their favour. I speak, as we all must, with a sense of responsibility, and with great constraint and restraint, in the use of anything that might appear to be provocative language. I confess for myself that I have very great sympathy, and have had from the beginning of this dispute, with some—I will not say all—of the main contentions which have been put forward on behalf of the miners. I have thought it, from the first, a great mistake in policy to attempt in a very delicate and difficult matter of this kind—I will not go into the question of figures, because I do not know enough to express any opinion about that—but I think it was a mistake in tactics and in policy. I should have been very glad myself, as I said addressing the House more than a week ago, if one could have eased over the time in which what I have always believed to be a not unbridgeable gap between the two positions, might have been surveyed, and possibly circumvented, by some provisional arrangement—to which the Government, of course, would have had to be parties—and in which the sudden descent from one scale of wages to another might have been eased off, protracted in duration, and lessened in degree.

I do not know, of course, but I think the Government would have been well advised, having adopted the policy of decontrol—and I myself am strongly against control in any shape or form in this or any other industry—a policy involving, as it did, the abandonment of a continuing subsidy—I think it might have been a useful expedient, and it would not have been in the long run an expensive thing to the State, to expend, at any rate, some part of what would otherwise have been paid in subsidies in easing down this necessary process of temporary adjustment in wages. I am not saying that in a controversial spirit at all. Indeed, I believe the Government were prepared to do it.

I think this is rather important. We have actually proposed that. We have gone to the extent of saying that we would recommend the House of Commons to come to the aid of an arrangement of that sort, and that was part of the written proposals which we submitted to the miners. [HON. MEMBERS: "How long?"] As long as we knew it was part of the settlement, and we came to an end of our liability at a definite period.

Perhaps it might have been better to have been a little more specific on the duration of that term, and possibly as to the amount of the subsidy. In those ways, I think, with time and with good will, a provisional arrangement might have been arrived at. I agree there are enormous difficulties, not in the constitution of a National Board, or in the national minimum—those, I think, are comparatively simple—nor again in the adjustment under the auspices and control of such a National Board of the necessary adaptations of the National minimum to the special conditions and requirements of a particular district. That, I do not think, would have proved an insuperable obstacle.

The National Pool, I agree, gives rise to far more difficult considerations. I do not think this is quite sufficiently recognised, or, at least, not openly avowed, by either of the actual parties to the dispute. But there are two dangers. One danger is that of keeping artificially alive coalfields and mines which economically ought not to be worked. There is no good in having a kind of parasitic output, artificially fostered by State aid in a great industry of this kind. The other danger, which was universally recognised on all sides, is the danger of diminishing or curtailing the incentive to enterprise and adventure, and the commercially productive extension of the coalfields, upon whose productivity the real interests and industry of the country depend, if they were to be compelled to subsidise out of their pockets to an undue extent their less fortunate competitors. Those are just the sort of difficulties which I believe, in a Conference round a table with good temper, and with a desire to accommodate things, might have been ultimately settled. And it is for that reason—because I do not believe the problem, difficult as it is, would be insoluble—that I deplore more than any words can describe, that we should be deprived now of the opportunity of a brief interval in which, wages for the moment being provisionally adjusted—and, among other things, these enormous reductions prevented from coming into effect—there might then have been calm, dispassionate and detailed discussion of the larger question.

The situation is one of immense gravity. I cannot offer for the moment any practical suggestion. But I should like to say to those who are engaged in other industries—the members of the Triple Alliance and the other organisations of labour who have actually announced, countenanced, or approved, the general stoppage of work—that it will inflict immeasureable injury upon themselves primarily, and still more, in the long run, upon their fellow citizens.

I should like to appeal to them even at this fiftieth minute of the eleventh hour, to discharge a duty which history will certainly lay upon them, quite as much in the interests of organised labour as in the general interests of the community, for the miners know they are bound together with them in the intimate solidarity which we all recognise in these days is a natural and a necessary bond between labour all the world over. Let them even at this moment go into council together, take a large view, see the situation in its real perspective, think not of particular interests or of a momentary victory, but of the larger, longer and permanent interests of the community and the country as a whole. We do not want to go to war—which of us does? We have seen enough of war; we long to be at peace. I believe there to be no irreconcilable differences which will not yield to reflection, conference, deliberation and common sense, and I appeal to them whether, even now, they cannot meet round a table in a conference for common deliberation. Our history shows that in the past—without undue, self-complacency, we can say it—that this nation has been distinguished above all other nations of the world by the sense of a common interest over-riding, superseding, dominating our people, whatever be their task or their calling, of bringing all to the common stock, and presenting a really united front to the world.

I can assure my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) that most, if not all, of the great considerations which he has just described have been ever present before the minds of all those who have had the great responsibility of reaching, or influencing, or governing the decisions relating to the conduct of the organised workers in connection with this unhappy dispute. They have not been lost sight of. The House of Commons, by common consent, on several occasions this week has deliberately refrained from discussing aspects of this question, in the hope thereby of assisting in the continuance and in the success of negotiations. I feel very doubtful whether now resumption of discussion at this moment can be of any great service in restoring the condition of things or assisting to a settlement. I cannot avoid making a few comments on two points in order, if for no other reason, that hon. Gentlemen should not entirely lose sight of one matter which has never yet been mentioned.

First, let me say that I do not feel qualified to enter into any defence of the decision covered in the letter which the Prime Minister has read. My hon. Friend the Member for the Hamilton Divi- sion (Mr. D. Graham) is a member of the Executive of the Miners' Federation, and is not, I believe, present in the House of Commons, in order to give, as no doubt he would, some explanation and defence of the decision which has just been reached, but, in his absence, I cannot refrain from offering a few comments on two points. First, there is the assumption—I think an entirely wrong assumption, and in no way warranted by events and recent industrial history—that if the Miners' Executive or if Mr. Hodges chooses to decide a certain course, that is an end. I know a very large number of the members of the Miners' Federation Executive, and with very, very few exceptions I know them to be men who take a moderate, sane view of these questions, uninfluenced by political or broad social or economic considerations, but influenced solely by the desire to secure the best wages they can for the men whom they represent, and, of course, the best general life conditions, and I am satisfied that such men must have had before them considerations of the greatest weight and influence in reaching the decision which, for the moment, has terminated negotiations.

The point I want to put to Members of the House is this: that they ought not to expect the leaders of the Miners' Federation to reach a decision which those leaders know very well will not be accepted or respected by the men whom they represent. Let me recall to the minds of hon. Members the fact that on previous occasions decisions have been rejected after having been approved, and even recommended, by the leaders of the organisations. I can recall a case quite recently in industrial disputes where, on three occasions, the accredited leaders of the men—I refer now to the long and lamentable dispute in the moulding industry—reached decisions and recommended terms of settlement to their men which, on a ballot of the men, were rejected by a large majority. That is the position of many trade union leaders. The political party leader, placed in the possession and exercise of personal power, usually amounting to a form of individual autocracy, can decide anything, confident in the assurance that his decision will be respected and obeyed. Not so the trade union leader! There is no leader in any activity or walk of life compelled more to follow than is the leader of a trade union.—[An HON. MEMBER: "Do not try to be funny."]—This is really not a funny matter.

You have all condemned the old system, have you not?

I am putting the facts of the case.

Hear, hear!

I am trying to point out the realities with which we have been faced on more than one occasion. The seriousness and the kernel of this fact is this: that at this moment, it may be, that the leaders of the Miners' Federation might be willing to confirm what is understood to be the provisional suggestion of Mr. Hodges last night for a temporary settlement if those leaders could feel confident that the million men whose interests are in their keeping could be brought up to the position to follow their recommendation. Let us then not too severely censure, in the absence of evidence, knowledge, and reasons at this moment what the leaders may have done, for it may well be that they have been influenced by the honest conviction that to seek a temporary settlement on this basis would be seeking in vain something which the rank and file of their following would not approve. In the absence of a statement on the part of any member of the miners' executive I do not feel empowered further to discuss that aspect of the case. The Prime Minister began his statement by again, at some length, explaining to the House that the Government have not taken sides on the question of wages, and that these were matters of debate—

Or conference.

4.0 P. M.

—Or conference. With all respect I express the view that it would have been a greater act of statesmanship on the part of the Government if they had kept their eye upon the action of the mineowners in regard to wages in the two or three weeks before the date of the stoppage. The posting up of the notices announcing amongst so many men that they were to be subjected to reductions amounting in some cases to 50 per cent., in a large number of cases to 30 per cent., in a very large number of cases 25 per cent.—

We have already had 3s. 6d. off.

That announcement created an atmosphere which made negotiations towards a peaceful settlement and compromise almost impossible. As a matter of fact, I do not accept the statement of the Prime Minister that the Government has not taken sides on the question of wages—for the reason that the Pool is part of the wage question. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Let us by a little examination see how this stands. The Prime Minister's case is that he has not taken sides on the wages question. He confesses he has taken sides on the question of the Pool. My point is that the Pool is inseparable from the general question of wages. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes!" and "No!" and "It never was before!"] As I understand the Pool, it is a plan for enabling wages and profits of such standards as may be agreed upon to be paid in the poorer pits. What is the good, then, of the Prime Minister saying that he has not taken sides on the wages question when, as a fact, he has rejected the plan of a Pool, and when as a fact the miners firmly believe that the payment of fair rates of wages in the less profitable pits is impossible without a Pool? Indeed, I understand the Prime Minister to go a long way in meeting that argument. He has already explained to the House that the Government would be prepared, at least for some period, and to a financial extent that he has not revealed, to assist in providing public money, in order that certain rates of wages and certain levels of profits to repay. In principle, how does that differ from a Pool? Only to the extent to which it goes. The Prime Minister himself stated the position in one of his recent speeches during the course of these conferences. He said: I want to make it clear that on no vital question have we accepted the owners' position except on pooling. Seeing that the only real difficulty in the settlement of this great question is the question of pooling, it is clear that the Prime Minister has gone a long way to take sides in the substance of the dispute. I can assure the Prime Minister and also my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is present, that for one reason or another they both have been suspected of having put themselves in the position of mineowners' advocates in connection with this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I do not wish to press that point too far. The plan of a pool is a plan to assist uneconomic pits to pay their way in respect of wages and profits. It is a plan at the same time capable of being carried out under conditions which would prevent what I understand is greatly feared, malingering on the part of mine managers. It is said that if they are assisted from some extra public source they will be indifferent as to the working of their mines. I refuse to believe that there is a single mine-manager in connection with the least profitable pit who, because of his difficulties and because of receiving temporary assistance, would degenerate into a malingerer or not do his best to get the best out of his pit.

Mr. Hodges has, in the case of these other uneconomical pits, never claimed a sort of perpetual subsidy or State aid for them, and he has made it clear that the Board ought to be empowered in disbursing whatever was in the pool at any time to withhold support, or cause the closing up of any pit where there was the slightest evidence that malingering was going on. I have only one other remark to make. It has been hinted during the course of this week that other organised workers have been influenced in the action they have taken, by political considerations, by a desire to force the nationalisation of the mines, and to get by action in the street what they might not be able to get in the House of Commons. In connection with these deliberations, I have had the advantage of being on a number of occasions a close spectator, and I have been able to reach safely the conclusion that there is not an atom of political influence determining the action of the responsible men who have had to reach these decisions. This is no method of getting the mines nationalised by direct action. It is solely a wage issue.

Let hon. Members who have not heard the facts before allow me in a sentence to repeat the fact with regard to wages again. I have said what the reductions are to be. There is not a man in this House who dares to get up and defend the scale of reductions proposed by the mine-owners. If there is a single hon. Member out of the hundreds present who feels that the mineowners were in the right, or that these reductions ought to be imposed, let him have the courage of his opinion. Let me give what the miners said on the question of amounts. They did not meet the mineowners' demand for reductions by saying that they would submit to none. They have handsomely recognised the difficulties of the industry. If the Government had as handsomely and wisely recognised the financial position of the mines a month ago as the miners' leaders recognised those difficulties now, this trouble might well have been averted. The miners' leaders are prepared to recommend the men to submit to a daily reduction of 2s. per man, amounting to a possible reduction of between 10s. and 12s. per week.

Let any hon. Member look at the list of wages as now paid for a full week's labour and let him knock off 10s., and he will see how enormous is the sacrifice which the miners' leaders are prepared to ask the men to make. This reduction of 2s. per man per day would be equal to a wage forfeiture of at least £30,000,000 a year. How can it be said that the workmen are not ready to make a substantial sacrifice, even before they have the assurance of the promised reductions in the cost of living? Furthermore, other re-arrangements or variations in the wages might well be made in degree with the decreased cost of living, as that decrease occurred.

I say, therefore, on the point of wages that the miners have the strongest possible case. It is the Government which, by its legislative action, hastened and hurried the industry to the impossible and ruinous point which it has now reached, and I say it is for the Government, even in face of this refusal, to accept or negotiate a temporary settlement without the condition of the pool, further to pursue the case by resuming discussions and seeing how far even at this late hour it is possible before the dispute has extended to satisfy the working class even outside the mining world that the demand of the miners is an extravagant or unfair one. I can assure the House, as a spectator of the decisions reached by the other organised workers, that the feeling of the leaders is a feeling of loyalty amounting to a sense of compulsion to assist great bodies of their wage-earning fellows who have been so unjustly treated. I have never known a strike decision reached with greater reluctance or with a fuller consequence of how much the national interests would be affected. It was a decision reached by men who felt that any other act than that of assisting the miners actively, even to the extent of a strike, would have been an act of desertion of which they could not as organised workers be guilty. That is the fact as to the extension of the dispute, and, as the Government is the responsible party for having provoked this dispute in not having provided means for this industry gradually to escape from the difficulties which grew around it during the War, it is the responsibility and immediate duty of the Government to provide a way of escape even at this late hour.

I had not intended to intervene in this Debate, and I shall do so very briefly now. The whole House heard, I believe, with profound disappointment the words which have fallen from my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes). I believe that all parties in the House ardently desire to find an avenue of peace. I desire, as chairman of the meetings which were held yesterday, and to which allusion has been made by the Prime Minister, to say only one or two words. For this reason the object of those meetings has been in some quarters very gravely misunderstood, and I think I shall best clear away misunderstandings if I give to the House a very brief narrative of what actually occurred. Those meetings were not called by Members of the House. Late yesterday afternoon, I and two or three other Members of the House were approached by the representatives of the Coalowners' Association, who desired an opportunity of laying before hon. Members the conclusions at which they had arrived, and of giving any explanation which might be demanded from them. That meeting occupied some hours. At the close of it, it was suggested that, having heard the case of the coal-owners, it was only fair and reasonable that the House or the Members of the House should hear the case of the miners put by the miners for themselves. With that object a meeting was held in the evening, addressed, as the Prime Minister has told us, by Mr. Hodges, who was subjected to a very severe cross-examination. I desire to say—and here I am in the recollection of all Members who were present—and there was a very large number at those meetings—that the account given by the Prime Minister represents precisely what occurred. I want further to make it clear that those meetings were not held with any sort of idea of weakening the hand of the Government in the very difficult and delicate negotiations in which they were engaged—not at all. But members of the House having been asked to listen to the case on the one side and the case on the other, felt that it would be a criminal act to refuse to listen to those representations. When I was deputed very late last night to carry to the Prime Minister a brief account of what had taken place, I was profoundly hopeful that some way of escape might possibly have been opened, and I, with all the other Members of the House, have heard with the deepest regret that by the action of the Miners' Federation that avenue has been definitely closed this afternoon. I am not going into the merits of the dispute. I have no right to do so, but I do desire to say very briefly this, speaking, I believe, for the vast majority of those who were present at those large meetings last night, that having heard the explanation of the Government, we are wholeheartedly behind them in their resolve to see this thing through, if necessary, to a finish.

Might I ask the Leader of the House whether he has seen an announcement on the tape that to-night's strike has been officially declared off—[An HON. MEMBER: "By whom?"]—it simply says, "Officially declared off"; whether he is in possession of that information; and whether, in these circumstances, he proposes to ask the House to sit to-morrow?

I have only just heard exactly the same information as my hon. and gallant Friend—that something has appeared on the tape to that effect. We have had no official communication, but we are making inquiry on the subject, and if we have any further information we will give it to the House. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Chamberlain) will inform the House as to the course of business.

When I announced the business for next week, I said the Government must reserve the right, if occasion arose, to take Supplementary Estimates, and I desire to inform the House, in consequence of what has taken place, that we shall put the Army, Navy, and Air Force Supplementary Estimates down as the first Order on Monday. That will, of course, give an opportunity for the resumption of this discussion, if such discussion be desired.

—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"]—I do sot know if the interruption on my catch- ing Mr. Speaker's eye means that this discussion is supposed to be entirely over.

We do not want to hear you.

Perhaps the hon. and gallant Member does not want to hear me, but it is possible that I may have a suggestion to make, which may be hopeful and useful, and I assure the House that it is only for that purpose that I have risen. We have been burked of any discussion—willingly burked, perhaps—of this subject during the whole week. Endless discussions have been going on everywhere but inside this House. We have had these big meetings upstairs, which have been addressed by experts; we have had the long discussions in Downing Street between the Prime Minister, the owners, and the men's leaders—everywhere but in this House has there been discussion. At the meeting last night an appeal was made by Mr. Frank Hodges to those hon. Members who were present, and it was received sympathetically, to endeavour to find some way out; and I do not think that the reply sent by the Miners' Executive in any way relieves us of that responsibility. We heard the case for the men put last night, as has been declared on both sides, with great ability, and we know the position from the miners' point of view in a way in which we have not known it previously. I think it will be agreed that to have had the privilege of hearing Mr. Hodges state the miners' case for well over an hour puts us in a position to discuss this matter in which we have not been until to-day, and I think there is a responsibility on any hon. Member, who feels that he has a suggestion to offer, to offer it at this moment.

I am going to repeat, with a small modification, a suggestion that I made last week. Last week we did have an abortive discussion of this question, and since then a great deal has happened. The Government are as anxious as ever to prevent the catastrophe with which the country is threatened at the present, moment, and I take it that every hon. Member of this House is anxious to find any way out. Has the last word really been spoken? It seems to me that there is one step that the Government might still take. Would it not be possible for the Government, in the exercise of their powers, and as a last resource in the few hours that are left, to propose to both parties to this dispute that, for 30 days, the same conditions of work which prevailed last month should be continued? Has that idea been explored in any way by the Government? If this suggestion could be accepted and carried out, and if it were well received by the men, it would be possible even now to—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is off!"]—Hon. Members say it is "off," and it is possible that the intimation on the tape about the transport workers is—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is off!"]—A paper has just been handed to me stating that the strike of the transport workers is off, but I am now trying to find a way out. [ Interruption. ] I have only another word to say on this. We do not know yet that there will not be dislocation and disorder in the country. I want to avoid that if possible. While the miners are on strike, the situation is dangerous. The mining strike might be settled in a way I have not yet heard put forward in other quarters, namely, by offering 30 days on the old basis, during which the work of the mines may be resumed, and negotiations continued under much more favourable conditions. Any hon. Member is entitled to make any suggestion that appears to him of any value at all. I thank the House for permitting me to make these observations.

I understand there is no doubt at all that the strike has been postponed as far as the railway and transport men are concerned.

It is off for to-night.

I would ask the Government whether they do not think, under these circumstances, that the House ought to meet to-morrow. If the Government are quite clear that it ought not to take place I do not want to press it, but I want to present it because it seems to me the situation changes so rapidly from hour to hour that a situation may well arise when it would be desirable to have a discussion in this House. I do not think discussion in the House have been other than helpful during the crisis. They have caused a certain amount of anxiety to the Government before they have taken place, but I do not think anyone on the Treasury Bench will doubt that on the whole they have been useful and helpful during the crisis. I should have thought even if there were nothing to be said, it would be worth the House meeting, and then possibly adjourning directly afterwards. I think it would be desirable, both because it might be useful, and because of its calming effect on the public mind. For those reasons I suggest a meeting at 12 o'clock to-morrow.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-seven minutes after Four o'clock till Monday next (18th April).