I want to raise the question of the form of this Motion. We have had this matter in this form now for some considerable time, and I want to make a suggestion in regard to it to-day. I remember distinctly what the form of this Motion used to be, and that was, "That this House do now adjourn," and any Debate in which Members desired to take part took place on that Motion. This form of Motion, which has obtained for some time past, fixes the date for reassembling, and my right hon. Friend knows that as it is worded the Motion is not entirely in his hands. On the last few Adjournment Motions, the House has been counted out by Members on the Government side of the House.

A number of hon. Members have given notice to raise points of substance which they do not usually have the opportunity of raising at other times, and if the House be counted out, these hon. Members do not get their opportunity. On the other Motion, "That the House do now adjourn," it is the duty of the Government obviously to keep a House, and if they thought the Debate was frivolous, and ought to come to an end, they could at any moment closure the Debate. To do that, however, the Government must keep 100 Members in order to secure the passing of the Closure. The point I am putting is whether it is not much more to the convenience of private Members, who desire, on the Adjournment, to raise a variety of topics, to have an opportunity of doing so under the old form of Motion which compels the Government to keep their own House, and does not permit of the House being counted out. I can imagine circumstances in which some hon. Member may be keeping the House against the wish of the entire House; it is only true and fair to say that. I remember on the last Adjournment Motion there were two subjects not discussed, although notice had been given to the Ministers who were in their places and prepared to make their replies, but both the private Members and the Ministers were prevented by somebody moving a count, and, as it was successful, the House rose until the date fixed by the Resolution. Would it not be for the greater convenience of hon. Members—I should say that there is no desire to abuse the opportunity—to take the Motion on the ordinary lines, "That the House do now adjourn," and not fix the date.

I think the hon. Member is speaking under some misapprehension. If we adopted the Motion" That this House do now adjourn," the House would be obliged to meet at the usual hour on Monday, therefore it is necessary to take the Motion in this form in order that the House—I will not say the Members of the House should not be called back on Monday because probably they would not come—in order that Mr. Speaker and the officials should not have to attend on that day. A mere Motion to adjourn, without any specification of the date to which the House adjourns, carries with it the presumption that the House will meet at the usual time, as it does under instructions given by you, Mr. Speaker, when you leave the Chair every night. Therefore this Motion is necessary, and there is no novelty about it.

I was here when this Motion was invented.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite thinks he is more inventive than he really is, because this Motion was known as the practice of the House before the hon. and gallant Member was born, and it is an old form. I do not know whether at any time it fell into disuse, and was revived by the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite and his Friends, but if that be the case it seems to me that they are the last people who should complain of our slavishly copying the examples they have set us. We are not often able to do that, but, at any rate, let us have credit for such action when it is possible.

As regards the obligation of the Government to keep a House on the Motion for the Adjournment, I do not think that obligation has ever been accepted by any Government. The Government have to put a very considerable strain upon its own supporters for the discharge of the necessary work of the Government, but I think it would be entirely novel to ask that the Government itself should maintain a House when the only Motion before the House is for the Adjournment, which Ministers will be happy to obtain as early as it suits them. It is not too much to ask the critics of the Government to make the House in which they wish to bring forward grievances. I think I have answered the questions put to me, and I hope the hon. and gallant Member (Captain W. Benn) is satisfied, as I am paying a tribute to the procedure adopted by himself and his Friends when they were on this side of the House.

As a back bencher who suffered not long ago by the Government not keeping a House, I may say that I entirely disagree with what the Leader of the House has said. It is most unfair when we are told by the Government, "We cannot give time for the discussion of a certain subject, because you will have an opportunity on the Motion for the holidays," that the Government should leave us without a House, or that the Government supporters should move a Count, more especially when the Government Whips may be staying outside asking hon. Members not to come into the House, which, to all intents and purposes, is a breach of faith with those who have been told that they can raise matters when the Motion for the Adjournment is made. An emphatic protest ought to be raised against a breach of faith of that kind.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn till Tuesday, 24th May.

The Motion now before the House gives an opportunity of submitting to the House our views at a moment when the industrial situation outside is entirely without precedent, and the action of the Government affords very little hope of a solution in the direction of promising any immediate improvement. The public are very much worried and disconcerted by the outside situation, and I am sure they will be simply bewildered if this House rises for the Whitsuntide holidays without some reference to the industrial position. I need, therefore, offer no excuse for putting forward our point of view, and seeking some information with regard to what may be the immediate future. I think the Government by this time must admit that its fears with regard to the chances of outside disturbance were unfounded, and that a great amount of public expense has needlessly been incurred in military preparations for no purpose whatever. I will not pursue that point beyond impressing upon the Government the advisability of saving money in one way in order that it may be spent more wisely in another. The peaceful conduct of the dispute on the whole is a matter for congratulation to us all, and it confirms the view that some of us expressed weeks ago that, extraordinary as this dispute is, there is every probability that it will be conducted in a traditional British manner. On a previous occasion, I expressed the opinion, which I hold now more firmly than ever, that the conduct of the Government in the earlier stages of this dispute caused it to forget its functions of impartial mediator and forced it to create in the minds of one side of the dispute, namely, the miners, the impression that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had acted to a great extent rather like the mineowner's advocate than one who should cautiously pursue a path that would secure the confidence of both sides and that would effect a settlement in such a grave national dispute. I do not know whether the Government can tell us to-day that it is now felt that that capa- city for functioning as mediator, so often successfully assumed by the Prime Minister himself in regard to disputes, is going to be resumed in respect of this coal stoppage. I have feared in the past few weeks that the absence of any action during the long period of the dispute implies that even the Prime Minister has no longer the resources at his call to bring together the parties and persuade them to accept terms reasonable and honourable to both sides.

We are therefore anxious to know, seeing that in this particular dispute the Government has a very special responsibility, what are the intentions of the Government with regard to the future. I say "a special responsibility," because the coal industry had been subjected both in form and degree to State control greater than any other industry in the country, and it was the sudden relaxing of that control which produced a complete stoppage in the industry. The special responsibility of the Government was due to the special relation which existed between the Government and the coal industry throughout the greater period of the War, and, of course, for a considerable time after the War. The last statement which I have seen made by the Prime Minister on this particular dispute has left me in doubt whether anything has been done or whether it is in the mind of the Government to attempt any step at all towards bringing the parties together. The language of the Prime Minister, in answer to a question a few days ago, was: ment, and the country—to settle it by the process of thinking it out, rather than fighting it out. That view, I am sure, has been sustained by the enormous losses suffered by everyone during the seven weeks of the dispute. In the course of that period privation has extended, industries have become more crippled, and stoppages have become so common as to alarm all of us. The degree of the trouble seems to have hardened, and we cannot escape the lasting or prolonged economic effects that all the country must feel after the dispute has been formally settled. I understand that in round figures, in State Unemployment Benefit alone, a weekly sum now something in the neighbourhood of £1,750,000 is being paid. That is a figure which has gone very far to justify the remark that if we had balanced the losses and gains or the advantages and disadvantages, it would have been better in the earlier stages of the dispute to have made such an offer as the miners could have seen their way to accept. An hon. Gentleman wants to know why. I ask him to face the facts of these losses. I am putting the view that on a balance of losses and gains, it would have paid us better to have afforded the miners an opportunity to accept the terms which would have been equitable and fair, rather than to have continued to fight the miners at the enormous losses which the State and our industries are suffering. I will put this view to the House. If the dispute lasts another seven weeks on the basis of fighting it out and either side winning, then the victory, whoever scores it, will be purchased at a loss that will make it not worth the satisfaction of the triumph.

After such a test of endurance of the two sides, I have reached the conclusion that the miners, as a body, are in a mood to receive the guidance of their leaders with regard to the terms of settlement if those leaders can be offered terms which they feel that the men will accept and which will be fair and equitable to them as miners throughout all the different coalfields of the country. Industries are being starved and the men are being starved. The cause for which men will starve week by week, and perhaps month by month, is one which they must have dearly at heart. They must feel that they are fighting a just battle when they will endure severe privations which are deepening day by day. It is known that a very considerable number of miners have no resources and no strike pay. They are living very barely upon their future, so to speak, borrowing and existing upon a very slender credit, and getting such bare fare as they possibly can. Men who will starve for a cause must feel that that cause is a just one, and that fact should weigh very heavily with the Government in its further consideration of this problem. Even if, by means of exhaustion and starvation, the miners were beaten, that would be a victory which it would not be worth the while of the Government to procure. Men who would have to go back to work starved and sulky, and in a condition of inefficiency after many more weeks of severe industrial warfare, would scarcely be inclined to put forth their best effort. They would be compelled to regard both the mineowners and the Government more or less as enemies, into whose service they could not enter with the will to do their best. Therefore, I suggest that it is upon no ground advisable that triumph should be sought upon any basis of force in which either side can continue to believe in this trouble.

The miners, even before this dispute—and this is a fact which the public should keep in mind—even before the dispute the miners had offered some substantial reduction; and when the dispute began they showed themselves ready to suffer even more substantial reduction. They have offered to accept a reduction of at least 2s. a day, or something between 10s. and 12s. per week. That, as I have said, was a reduction which the miners were willing to accept in addition to those to which they had already submitted. I daresay, if a settlement on that basis had been agreed to, the two parties might by this time have been considering the possibility of even further re-arrangements in the wage rate. But, if there is to be a further reduction, I believe that there is a great deal of justice in the mineowners' view that further reductions should bear a real and reasonable relation to the diminished cost of living that might follow from the initial acceptance of any wage reduction. It is by that plan of some descending scale, bearing a real relation to the lessened cost of living, that a settlement on peaceful lines of these different wage questions will have to be solved.

I observe that, not only in this House, but in the Press and elsewhere, the view is expressed that, if the miners could ballot on this question, probably a settlement would be reached. Those who entertain that view are, I believe, being deceived by impressions formed without any close acquaintance with the realities of this dispute. In the course of this Debate other hon. Members will take part, and they can express their views, but I say it will be difficult, if not impossible, for any hon. Member to point to a single industrial dispute which has been settled by the process of a ballot, and which would not otherwise have been settled without a ballot at all. I put the further point, as expressing my own knowledge and experience, that many disputes have been prolonged merely because a ballot of the men has been taken, and by that ballot the men have rejected settlements provisionally reached by those who represented them as trade union leaders. We ought not, therefore, to look merely to the instrument of a ballot for a settlement of this difficulty. If there were a real desire for a ballot, it would have manifested itself, and the miners' representatives in the various districts would by this time have had to recognise the desire for a ballot. It is because none exists, for the reason that the terms, so far as they have been submitted, are, in the minds of the men, not worth considering and not worth voting upon, that no demand whatever for a ballot has yet been made.

I want to refer to two other aspects of, the existing industrial conditions having a very close relation to this miners' stoppage, although it is true that, even had there been no miners' stoppage, there would still have been, unfortunately, a very serious industrial situation. Other causes of industrial trouble are evidently due to employers making demands on their workers for too large a reduction at one time. I do not mind saying that some years ago there were instances where, I think, the workers made a demand at one time for a larger advance in wages than it was possible for the industry to bear. The condition of industry is such that gradual movement, easy stages, are the lines upon which changes should be made. Just as it might have been wrong for the workers to ask too much at one time, in the circumstances, of the case, it seems to me now that the employers of labour in many of our principal industries are demanding more than it is reasonable for the workers at one time to accept. In the shipbuilding industry a settlement has been arranged because there was moderation on both, sides, and because a spirit of give-and-take entered into the conduct of the conferences and discussions, a settlement, being reached eventually for the reason, mainly, I believe, that no undue or extravagant demand was made by the employers when the conference was begun.

On the other hand, take what happened yesterday at a conference at York in regard to the engineering trade generally. In that trade the employers, as I understand, are demanding reductions which, in effect, would amount to anything between 15s. and £1 per week per man, according to the grade of workman and the rate of wages. I put it to the House that that is too great a reduction to claim at one time. Naturally the workmen's representatives reject that proposed reduction as too drastic even for consideration, and they put forward the view that the matter should be submitted to arbitration under the Industrial Courts Act—a course which, I regret to say, the employers altogether decline to accept. When that Act was before the House, I think the views of Ministers were that it would be the men who would refuse to work the machinery of the Act or to submit their case to its decision. Here is the great industry of engineering—I think the third largest industry in the country—where at the moment it is clear that the employers are demanding too much, and they are refusing to submit their case to the arbitration of the Court recently set up by an Act of this House. I hope, however, that they will think better of it, and that any stoppage in that industry will be avoided by remitting the points of difference to the impartial decision of a Court which both sides can trust.

In the building trade, in the cotton trade, in the chemical trade—in a score of other industries, too much is now being demanded by employers in the way of wage reductions. These are sure to lead to trouble—trouble of spirit, if not trouble of stoppage in these various trades. It is true that the state of unemployment and the general industrial outlook is on the employers' side as regards these claims for wage reductions; but it is a great mistake for employers to take advantage of an abnormal and distressing condition of industry to impose too heavy reductions at one time. That will tell in another way to the disadvantage of trade and to the harm of the employers if they pursue it too far. I do not know whether the Prime Minister thinks that much of this spirit of extravagance might have been avoided had our advice long ago in regard to a joint industrial conference been followed. We appealed to the Government to revive that conference, and I have, without response from any quarter in the House on the Government side, repeated my appeals to revive that conference. It is the only organisation which can speak for the welfare of industry. There is an enormous number of separate little bodies representing separate organisations of employers and employed in separate trades, but we cannot cut away one trade from another in such an industrial condition as we have got to. Just as the general interests and relations of trade are world relations, linked up on a world basis, so in our own country we cannot, under such conditions as we are faced with now, detach one industry or trade and say it has nothing whatever to do with another. The interplay of all trade relations and affairs is such that it would have been well for us had there been some representative national force which could have spoken in the name jointly of the employers and of the workers to give some guidance and to form some spirit of receptivity, the spirit of a desire to agree in facing and meeting the economic facts of the changed industrial situation. I think if that spirit had been created there would have been a readiness to adapt wages to the changed conditions in relation to prices, in relation to export dislocation, in relation to differences about exchange rates, and all the other fundamental troubles which are at the bottom of these surface difficulties.

I do not know whether the Government has made up its mind that no such body can be called into being, or that if it is revived, if it is encouraged to assemble again it would only assemble as a kind of rival to the Government itself. If the Government does well in this matter, I do not suggest any rivalry, but if it does not do well, and things go in the future from bad to worse, as they have gone in the recent past, we are entitled to ask that some step or other should be taken which would arrest the downward course. It is not merely that working men are out of work. Employers are practically out of work in the sense that their orders are disappearing, and that conditions in the markets are getting worse and worse for them, indeed there are many employers who now could not do work at a profit if they took it. But surely these conditions are so extraordinary that a completely altered spirit in relation to the facts of industry must be produced, and it is about time that the two sides, which have been so long sulking, should face the realities of the situation, or both must endure even greater suffering than has been forced on the working classes so far. The suffering, of course, so far as it is physical suffering, real lack of the needs and comforts of life, is a form of suffering which falls only upon the workers' side. That is a fact that ought to be borne in mind. It is a fact that entitles the worker to say that if he is to be expected to sacrifice, indeed, if he shows himself ready to make sacrifices by submitting to reductions, others should make sacrifices which will be real as well, and therefore it is not alone the wages of the worker which must be lowered if we are to reach a new basis which will be the foundation of more prosperous industrial conditions. The standard of life of the worker, if it is to be lowered, must be lowered concurrently with the life standard of other people as well. That is a fact from which the more favoured classes of our country cannot escape.

There are two other points of the industrial situation in which, perhaps, the Prime Minister will not be as immediately interested as the points which already I have tried to address to him, but they will deeply interest my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, With this enormous increase in the number of men on the funds, in face of the probability that this miners' dispute will not be immediately settled, in face of this deepening dislocation of trade and unemployment, it is certain that the claims of men for unemployment pay must increase. Does my right hon. Friend feel assured that the existing financial resources at his disposal are adequate to the certainty of this increase? It will not do to face any financial break- down in the existing machinery of insurance, and he, perhaps, better than any Member of the Government, will be aware of what are the financial facts, and if it be necessary soon to make provision for continuance of pay, or it may be even for an increase of pay, I should like to ask what step "has the Government taken to apply its mind to the subject and prepare for a contingency which I think is certain to arise. There is also the position raised by an hon. Member earlier this week in the form of a question. It is the position of that unhappy man whose period of unemployment has exceeded his period of benefit. He has exhausted any right of claim according to the figure in the Act. What is to be the position of that ever-increasing number of men who have exhausted their claim and their right to benefit so far as the terms of the Act at present exist? I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman saw the report in the papers of the case of a man in a queue, expecting his pay, who got to the table and was told that his period of benefit was exhausted, and he fell dead. The state of privation is brought to our minds very vividly by even a single tragedy of that sort, and we must not risk any repetition or increase of such cases, and therefore the claim of men who have no means whatever, or any early opportunity of employment, must be pressed if tragedy and difficulty are to be avoided.

Lastly, I want to ask the attention of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour to the very serious situation created by the trade unions who are doing their best, in co-operation with the State, to pay this unemployment benefit. I put first the view that not only past experience but quite recent experience has proved that the natural bodies in this country to administer unemployment benefit are the trade unions. For a very short time last Session this House took the contrary view. It made a mistake, and time has proved it. The House took the view, contrary to the advice of the Minister of Labour, that the great friendly societies were proper bodies, as well as the trade unions, to take this work in hand. I only refer to the point to prove that experience has conclusively shown that the friendly societies should not become the channels through which benefit of this kind had to be paid, and the trade unions alone remain the organisations naturally adapted to cooperate with the State in this work. In order to illustrate the general position I will take the actual experience of the union of which I am president. It has a membership approaching 600,000, and had reserve funds towards the end of last year approaching £600,000. It has been paying out enormous sums week by week in benefit. It is paying from its own funds now to its own members as union pay for unemployment, more than £20,000 a week. We are not only providing that money, we could easily do that, but we are providing in advance the money for paying the State benefit, and at this moment we are providing every week about £50,000 wherewith to pay the State benefit. We have to get that back when we can. My right hon. Friend, the Minister of Labour, has been very fairly considering how he could meet this abnormal situation. When we had to pay out only small sums we did not mind. We waited for months, and never complained, before we got our pay returned to us; but we cannot wait now. It will interest the Prime Minister that at this moment, according to information from my office this morning, the State owes to our trade union, the National Union of General Workers, £145,000. That will not do. We cannot afford it. We do not complain because we are losing interest of money. That is not the motive that prompts us to stress this grievance. We complain for other reasons. A considerable sum of our money is locked up in War Stock, in Corporation Stock, and in various properties, and is not easily realisable. Trade unions do not keep their money locked up in safes. They have to put their money out at interest and in the interest of trade and business like every great company and organisation, and I tell the Prime Minister that we cannot afford to be three weeks behind in the payment of this money.

1.0 P.M.

The Minister of Labour has been endeavouring to arrange the matter on certain lines which, if they were adopted, would go far to solve the problem. His desire has been to arrange repayments to us in a manner that would never leave the State more than a week in arrear with its payments. I suggest that in view of the situation, and the greater sums that we must still find for payment of this benefit, that even that proposal does not go far enough. We cannot continue to find the money, and we ought not to be put in the position of having to discontinue to pay the State benefit and to discharge a function which the Statute has provided, pimply because we cannot find the money in advance to replace the State pay. What I ask the Prime Minister to provide for is some reasonable payment in advance from the State to the trade unions. The Prime Minister may be assured of the stability of the well-established and long-established trade unions, such as those for which we speak. They could afford the Government sufficient security to enable them to feel safe in advancing a week's pay. The trade union which has to pay out these enormous sums now, say on Saturday of this week, is entitled in these abnormal circumstances to get its money from the State at the beginning of the week of payment. There is not the slightest risk of any Government loss. If the Government wanted to arrange some condition of interest I do not think there would be any failure on the part of the two parties reasonably to come to terms in that way. The Treasury ought not to be allowed to stand in the way of a reasonable arrangement between the State and the trade unions in this matter. If the Prime Minister would address himself to this side of the question he must agree that we have a real grievance and that it is not right to ask us to provide the benefit in this way. Therefore my definite question to him is, Can some arrangement be made by which an advance of money can be given to the trade unions, something equal to what the trade union immediately has to pay out on behalf of the State?

I do not know whether the Minister of Labour thinks that sufficient has been done by his Department on what is called the purely personal aspect of this question, touching the individual discomfort and adding to the individual privation of the people who are in receipt of benefit. The newspapers this week have provided us with extraordinary evidence showing long queues stretching 300 or 400 yards and consisting of hungry men and women. Instances are given of people falling on the pavement from sheer hunger, owing to the length of time they have to wait for their money. These are not fallacies, but realities of every-day experience, and they are, unhappily, too common. Can- not something be done temporarily to requisition some public buildings or drill halls or barracks which would afford some shelter, and would not cause the degree of real personal suffering which has to be endured by people when they go for their pay at some particular office? During the week the Prime Minister has received a deputation from the Unionist Reconstruction Committee, who have brought before his attention the question of the spread of sedition in this country, and I understand from my report that he is going to consider what can be done in the matter. I can assure him, and I say this not merely to score a point, that the failure of Government Departments to cater for the human side, and to make use of its facilities and opportunities when great crowds of people have to go to particular places for their payment, and the failure to give the human touch to the State's administration, does more to spread sedition and discontent than all the talk of Hyde Park orators. By dealing with the real personal grievances, financial and domestic, much more can be done towards keeping down sedition and discontent than by talking about putting in prison those who address themselves in violent terms to the universe in general.

The lack of the humblest accommodation is not short of disgraceful. I do not blame my right hon. Friend. Whilst something has been done, nothing has been done in proportion to the increasing need. In regard to both the domestic and the financial grievances, something should be done to meet the increasing need. Whatever little satisfaction we may be able to get I trust that we shall hear from the Prime Minister that a move has been produced in the mind both of the Government and of the mineowners to make it possible to bring together the parties to the miners' dispute in the hope that a settlement of this serious quarrel which is placing the life of the nation in peril will be reached. That is not an exaggerated description of the facts of the case. Therefore we cannot afford to let things drift as they have been for the past few weeks. The Prime Minister then can return to his function of successful mediator. I do not believe that his resources are exhausted, and the resources of the State can be more widely used in giving even greater financial assistance to a settlement than in the wasteful expenditure of money which is helpful neither to the individual nor the organisation.

I have just completed a tour of the colliery districts in my constituency. I would have liked to give the House at some length my experience and impressions, but as I understand it is the desire to wind up this part of the Debate at an early hour, and as I am going to be rash enough before I sit down to suggest a means by which the present stoppage might come to an end, I will not unduly occupy the time of the House in regard to my recent visit to Derbyshire. But I would like to say that the solidarity, calmness, and determination of the men to see the thing through are remarkable. There is misunderstanding on several points and lack of knowledge on others, but when everything is explained the men say, "Well, we are earning good wages here, and we are prepared to give up part of those wages for the benefit of miners in other parts of the United Kingdom who cannot possibly expect to earn the wages which we do." I am talking of a district where the suggested cuts of wages are small. At every pit in the district a schedule of wages is posted up, stating what the coalowner is prepared to pay in those pits. In every case the Derbyshire miner is offered more than he would obtain if the national pool which he is claiming were adopted. The position of the Derbyshire miner therefore is, he has been out of work for six weeks and he is remaining unemployed, not in order to obtain higher wages, but in order to receive less wages than his own employer is prepared to give him. This applies equally to South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and, I believe, to 470,000 miners out of just over a million. The stoppage has lasted six weeks. Day by day it is strangling all the other industries, and, while we get rumours from time to time of new peace moves being started, there really does not appear to be anything done. The outlook, to my mind, is more gloomy than at any time since the 31st March. Therefore I make no apology for suggesting a means of settlement.

Before I do so, I want to refer to one or two misunderstandings which exist in the minds of individual miners. In the first place, they are of opinion that the Treasury has taken enormous sums out of the coal industry during the period of control. I am not surprised that they have that in mind. Apparently a week ago the same thing was in the mind of the Prime Minister. I will tell the Prime Minister in a moment what I am referring to. What happened during the 4¼ years of control, summarised roughly, was this. The whole of the profits of the collieries of the country were paid into a pool, and the profits so received were paid out to the collieries in the ratio of their pre-War standard plus interest on their increased capital. The Treasury, except for making temporary advances, have never put anything into the pool and never taken anything out of the pool. That was a matter that needed explaining. Last week the Prime Minister, when he spent a pleasant Saturday afternoon at Maidstone, said among other things:

I beg my hon. Friend's pardon. There was a period when there was a surplus. For example, take the period of July last. There was at that time a certain surplus in the hands of the Mines Department, and if the conditions had remained as they were then that surplus would have gone on growing. It was at that time, in consequence of there being a surplus, that the miners claimed another 2s. a week. [HON. MEMBERS: "Or a reduction in the price of coal."]

That may be, but the money never was in the Exchequer.

That is perfectly true, but it was to that time my right hon. Friend was referring.

indicated assent.

If after control had finished there had been a surplus, we should have needed legislation to decide what should be done with it.

That is perfectly accurate.

I do not want to stress that point too much, but when the Prime Minister uses these words, it is not surprising that individual miners in mining villages think that the Treasury has made enormous sums out of the coal industry during the War. Then there is the point on which I am not going to speak at any length, that this is said to be a political move. I can deny this with great emphasis. There are any number of miners who do not agree with the nationalisation of the industry at all, but those miners are equally firm behind their executive at present in asking for this settlement. So far as they are concerned, it is not the question of a political move to get nationalisation by a back door. Another matter on which I found wide divergence of opinion was as to the meaning of the phrase "national pool" Some think that it refers to the enormous sums which the Treasury have supposed to have made, to which I have just referred. Others imagine that it means taking the coalowners' surplus profits in one part of the country and paying it towards the miners' wages in another part. But when it was indicated to them that the national pool which was asked for meant a national pool of wages and inevitably meant one man giving up part of his weekly wages in order to increase the wages of men in another district, such a proposition was accepted in the spirit which I described a few minutes ago.

I have endeavoured very shortly to give some of my impressions. The point I want to emphasise is that the rank and file are firmly behind their leaders in this dispute, and there is no likelihood of the strike or lock-out being broken by the men trickling back to work in any district. Another thing which they said was, "Let us get it settled once for all. We do not want these strikes and stoppages occurring every few months." That is the fervent wish of the whole nation, but if there is one way in which future fighting will not be avoided, it is by sending the miners back starving, despairing and disgruntled after a fight of many months. That cannot possibly be a true way to a final settlement. Now I come to the proposal which I am going to make. The difficulty of finding a permanent settlement now is because of the uncertainty of the coal trade outlook for the next four months. Industry is at such a low ebb that the demand for coal all over the world is less now than it has ever been. If the factories in America were in full swing they would be able to absorb a good deal of the 75,000,000 tons which at present America is able to export. Directly there is a revival of trade, there will be an immense revival in the demand for coal, and one hopes that the settlement of the Reparation business will help to restore the flow of international trade. The next four months is the difficult period, and the suggestion which I propose to make is a temporary one to the end of September, but containing in it a provision for carrying on the colliery industry after that date if, when that time arrives, the coal trade and the miners have not concluded a permanent agreement.

The proposal I make is that until 30th September next every man in the coal industry shall receive his 1914 rate of wages, increased according to the index figure of the cost of living for the previous month. That means that if a man earned 10s. per day in 1914, and the index figure in July proves to be 125, he would receive in August 22s. 6d. per day. I suggest that in the event of a coalowner making a loss during this period he should be able to claim repayment from the Government, but the amount so repaid should neither exceed his total loss nor the difference between the amount which he has offered to pay to his workmen and the amount that he will actually pay under this cost of living scheme. In the event of a coalowner carrying on at a profit if the wages paid under the cost of living scheme are less than those he has offered to his workmen, he shall pay to the Government the difference, but such payment shall not exceed his total profit. It is impossible to estimate the amount that the Government would have to pay. Many pits would be unable to open before 30th September owing to flooding and the fall of roofs, and others will be unable to take on a full complement of men at once. Possibly the maximum liability can be worked out by the Secretary for Mines, but a large deduction would have to be made owing to the circumstances I have mentioned.

This would take us till 30th September. I shall be asked, "Why should not the whole dispute start over again then?" I would make the following further suggestions to obviate that. First, that the coalowners and miners should immediately resume the conferences which were abandoned in March last with a view to agreeing to a permanent scheme by 30th September; secondly, that they do so on the understanding that a Government subsidy will not be continued after that date; and thirdly, that if no arrangement has been arrived at by 30th September next the minimum wage for every worker in the mining industry shall continue to be the 1914 rate increased in the ratio of the index number, for the previous month. The fixing of this minimum wage would mean that certain collieries would either be carried on at a loss after 30th September or would close down. Neither the Mining Association nor the Miners' Federation desires that the latter should happen, and both sides will have a direct incentive to come to terms and to agree upon a scheme before 30th September arrives. To put forward this proposal is doubtless an exhibition of rashness. If it should happen to meet with the disapproval of the coalowners and the miners and the Government alike, that will be the strongest argument that could be advanced in its favour. If things drift on as at present, whoever may appear to win, in the end we all lose, and I beg the House, as representative of the people, to use all its powers of persuasion and commonsense to bring the present dispute to an end at the earliest possible moment.

I do not propose to follow my hon. Friend in being rash. I do not think I can make any proposal for a settlement. As a matter of fact I do not think it is the business of this House to settle. Indeed, I hardly know whether it is advisable to take part in this discussion or to sit silent. It is so easy at this critical stage to say the wrong thing, and it so difficult to say the right thing. I am sure that at this juncture no Member of the House will either intentionally or inadvertently add to the very considerable difficulties with which this problem is at present associated. If anything can be said or done that will assist in removing those difficulties, it is the duty as well as the pleasure of anyone to help in that task. What we have to bear in mind is that the Government having decontrolled the mines, it becomes a matter now for the miners and the mineowners. Only in so far as the Government are called upon to render financial assistance can they be said to have any direct interest in the negotiations, except as custodians of the nation's interests and as responsible for good government and the maintenance of the well-being of the nation. We have now, for the last week or so, been in point of agreement. It is the only time during the last month or so that the Government, the miners and the mineowners have found anything upon which to agree. After the recent negotiations the miners' Executive decided that the proper thing to do was to go home and take no further part in negotiations. The coalowners decided that that was the proper thing for them to do, and the Government said, "We shall follow suit" They have been in agreement since.

The question is, whether this moment is the proper time to disturb that peaceful state of mind. That is why I say it is difficult to know whether this is a proper time to speak or to remain silent. I feel certain that everybody, in every part of the House and in every part of the country, whether interested directly in the mining industry on one side or the other, whether it is the Government or business people or workers in other trades, must be extremely anxious to see a settlement that will be satisfactory to all parties. I merely rise to suggest to the Government that they should make another move to get the parties together. In response to that appeal I hope the Prime Minister will not tell us, "Well, I am quite prepared, if anyone has anything to propose, to meet them. I have said so all along, and I am prepared to listen to any suggestion for the solution of this problem" That is exactly the position that all parties are in now. The miners say, "Well, if anyone can propose a better solution than ours we are prepared to consider and adopt it" The coalowners are prepared to consider anything, and so are the Government. But as long as we go on laying down that as a condition of meeting for renewed negotiations, it will be a long time before a settlement is effected. The State certainly is not yet at the end of its resources; the State is not beaten to its knees.

Until now the economic effect of the strike has not been felt with anything like its full weight, but it is equally certain that if the dispute goes on its effect will be increased rapidly in the weeks that lie ahead. That there is a creeping paralysis coming over the country everybody is bound to admit, but the State can resist any attempt on the part of the miners to paralyse its life for a considerable time to come. The State may be able to bring in coal from outside and it may be able to maintain the industries of this country. But that is going to bring about no settlement. That can bring nothing that will be of any use to the nation. The owners do not appear to be in any serious trouble about the matter. I have not seen that any of them have yet appealed to the board of guardians for assistance and I do not suppose that that will be likely for some time to come. Thousands of women and children, to say nothing of the miners themselves, must already be suffering considerable hardship and much anxiety. Their troubles will be intensified very considerably in the weeks that lie ahead.

Notwithstanding that, I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, that pressure is not going to bring this to an end for some considerable time—certainly not for several weeks, nor, I think, for at least as long again as it has been going on already. I do not think the miners are going to be starved into submission within the next six weeks; but even if they were, that carries us nowhere. It settles nothing, it accomplishes no end and ultimately we should only have to begin the whole thing over again, and we should have nothing that would help to rebuild our industries or help in the resuscitation and well-being of this nation. It seems to me that what we have to face is the fact that up to now from no quarter has any proposal emanated that affords any hope of a settlement. What the miners have proposed is evidently not going to settle this thing for some weeks at any rate. What the Government has proposed will certainly not settle it for an equally long period, and what I suggest is that the Prime Minister should undertake at once to call the parties together, and not tell them when he meets them, "I am here to listen to anything you have to say," but tell them, "It is your business, our business and the business of all parties concerned to hammer out a solution of this problem." If we have not yet found that solution then let us assist each other in finding it. I know there are a number of people who say, "Have not the Government made a most generous offer of £10,000,000, and should the miners not accept that?" But the thing is not quite so simple as that. We have been offered no £10,000,000, nothing at all—except upon very difficult conditions.

A question was asked the other day in the House as to the wages of the miners and the wages the miner would receive under the Government's latest proposal. The Minister for Mines gave a list of figures showing the earnings of the workers in every coalfield in Great Britain and what they would be under the Government's proposal. We were told what the daily average would be; we were told that the surface men might possibly have six days' work and the underground man 5½ days, but what I want to point out in relation to these figures is that, apart from the question of the number of days a week to be worked, these average earnings would apply only to this month, the month of May. We are only offered that £10,000,000 to enable wages to be paid 3s. a day below pre-stoppage rates for the month of May. In June, wages are to be reduced 3s. 6d. a day; in July, nobody knows what the wages will be. The wages may be reduced by 4s., 5s., or 6s. a day, but nobody knows, and any Member of the Government who would tell us his opinion as to the amount of the reduction for that month, would be simply making a guess. If he said what it is to be, it would be mere speculation. In August no one knows what wages the miners will be receiving. In September we know this, that if there is no improvement in the financial position of the industry from what it was in March last, wages will be reduced in the Welsh coalfields by 11s, 7¼d. a day. We know that, and nobody can tell us there is going to be any improvement between now and September. Hon. Members opposite seem to dissent, but I am prepared to show that this is so.

They are shaking their heads, but they do not know anything about it.

I know my hon. Friend is very careful about the figures he uses, but I did not recognise the figure he is using at the moment, and I was merely asking a question about it.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer will know that the Prime Minister himself asked the coalowners for the September figures, and what they considered to be the wages that should be paid on the basis of the statistics of March. The coalowners submitted their figures and said what they had to pay on that basis, as long as the finance of the industry did not improve, involved a reduction to the Welsh miner of 11s. 7¼d. a day. That was the owners' proposal; it is contained in their own figures as submitted to the Government and these are the proposals which would be put to the miners in Wales on the 1st September if we accepted that £10,000,000 on the conditions on which it is offered. It is not only the proposal that would be put to the miners then. We are asked at this moment, as a condition of getting that £10,000,000, to agree that if that is the financial position on the 1st September, we will accept that 11s. 7¼d. a day reduction without demur, and if that position continues for at least 15 months after that we will raise no wage difficulty. That is the sort of condition associated with this offer of £10,000,000, and in addition we are told, "You can only have it if you give up the national wage and the national pool and accept the District Wages Board and everything the owners have proposed." It is these conditions which make full discussion of that proposal an impossibility. We know this thing is not quite so simple as it appears on the surface. The offer does appear to be a generous one, and after all, I can quite understand the argument that is put forward that when in other industries there is no work, and men are walking the streets, it is not a proper thing to give preferential treatment in such a time of crisis to one industry. I understand the force of all that kind of argument, but I do want the House to realise that there is another side to the story. However much we discuss it in this House, ultimately the settlement rests with the Miners' National Executive and the Negotiating Committee of the Mining Association of Great Britain. They and they alone are the only persons who are authorised to enter into a settlement, and I would strongly urge the Prime Minister to get them together. As I said before, if we bring them together merely to ask what new proposals they have to make, as soon as the Prime Minister puts that either to the owners or the miners the answer will be: "We have no new proposals to make." I am perfectly certain that if the Prime Minister, instead of that, will say: "We have made proposals and they have not been accepted. You have made proposals which are not capable of acceptance. Let us all put our proposals on one side and get down to the task of bringing about a settlement on some other basis" That in my opinion is the only possible line to follow.

I hope the Prime Minister will adopt this course, because no bigger mistake can be made than to imagine that the miners of this country are a lot of irresponsible pocket revolutionaries. It is not true that we are out for some political ulterior object which does not appear on the surface. [An HON. MEMBER: "Associated with Russian gold."] Yes, of course, that is the spirit which has brought this country to the verge of the precipice. If that is the sort of spirit that is going to animate this House, then a settlement is impossible until we do get to a very serious state in this country. I have known the miners when this nation was going through its crisis, and they were as loyal and as British as any other people in this country. I remember on one occasion during the War, before the Coal Controller had advanced the wages. The Controller asked them to accept a lesser amount than they had asked. They said, "No, we have asked for what we consider to be the lowest figure we can accept," and the Coal Controller said, "I cannot agree to that; I shall have to consult the Cabinet again." The next time he met us he said, "The Government do not think there is anything very extravagant in your demands, which harmonise very largely with the increase in the cost of living. The Government realise that the miners have the power to enforce their demands, and they know that the miners know that, but the miners are also running with their fellows very great responsibilities, and we want the miners to help to carry responsibilities, and we do not want the impression to go abroad that the Government in this time of crisis have had to surrender to the pressure of any section of the community. But," he said, "we cannot allow this strike to go on; this thing must be settled, and we ask you to accept a figure which is less than you have asked, but I will tell you that if you do not accept that, you can have the other figure."

The Miners' Executive went to the Conference and said, "We are asked to accept this, but we are told that if we do not we shall get something more," and the Miners' Executive, in response to the appeal that was made to them to recognise that it would be a good thing in the interests of the nation that the matter should be settled by negotiation rather than by the appearance of force, that it would have a good influence in other countries, agreed to recommend the Miners' Conference to accept less than they were told they could get, and the Miners' Conference accepted that recommendation. That was put to every lodge in every district in Great Britain, and the miners said, "Yes, since that appeal is made, as Britons we will accept less than we are told we can get." That is the spirit that ought to come back, and that ought to exist between the people negotiating, and it is the only spirit that as going to save the situation. I want the Prime Minister to re-import that spirit into the situation. I do not know that it would be advisable for me to make any suggestions as to the basis on which negotiations should proceed. That is purely a matter for the negotiating parties when they meet, but I do hope we shall not allow this tiling to go on during the Whitsun week and until we return to this House without any sort of effort being made to arrive at a settlement, and I join with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the party, and with the hon. Member who spoke last, in making this appeal to the Prime Minister, which I hope will meet with a ready response.

There have been three very important speeches made by hon. Members opposite, and they will not accuse me of any discourtesy or any want of appreciation of the value of what they said if I pass at once to another subject; but let me say this, as I am the first private Member on this side of the House to speak, that I should very much like to see the Prime Minister follow the suggestion that has just been made by the hon. Member opposite that he should take the first opportunity to bring together again the parties in the controversy. Having said that, let me pass at once to the question of Upper Silesia. Fortunately, I need not detain the House for any length of time, as I imagine that by this time they are in general possession of the principal factors of the controversy. Hon. Members will remember that Upper Silesia is the principal coal and industrial district of Central Europe. It is a district of mixed population, and on that account, and I believe mainly due to the Prime Minister's efforts at the Peace Conference, it was settled that the future of the country should be determined after a plébiscite of the population. The population was to vote, and subsequently an Inter-Allied Commission were to delimit the frontiers on the basis of the voting. Voting took place at the end of February, and since then the Inter-Allied Commission have been sitting at Oppeln to delimit the frontier on the basis of the voting. I understand that during the recent conference at Lympne a request was made to the Inter-Allied Commission to announce their decision without delay. Obviously, if they could have announced their decision during those discussions, it would have facilitated the solution of the whole Reparations problem, but the decision was not ready, and on that account it could not then be adopted.

In the meanwhile, in the early days of May, Korfanty, the well-known Polish Nationalist, carried out a coup d'etat under which he has occupied practically the whole of Upper Silesia. That is a very significant and a very serious state of affairs, for I think that if anyone will look with care into the details they will come to the conclusion that that coup d'etat was not the spontaneous result of a sudden impulse, but that for some months past it had been carefully prepared. If it had not been carefully prepared, we should not have seen the very significant features that have been brought into prominence during the last week. For instance, there was the significant feature of obviously inspired paragraphs in the extreme Nationalist Polish Press stating, what was quite inaccurate, that the Inter-Allied Commission had already decided against the Polish claim and were going to hand over to Poland only two small districts, whilst retaining the rest of Upper Silesia to Germany. It is particularly significant that that report was given great prominence in Korfanty's own papers. Secondly, the insurgents seized, obviously after careful preparation, all the principal industrial districts and at once declared a general strike. Thirdly, they occupied what is now known as the Korfanty line, namely, the line of the Oder—in other words, practically the whole of Upper Silesia—and proceeded to fortify their position. Fourthly, they destroyed, obviously with a strategic purpose, the bridges over the Oder and a number of the railway bridges connecting Silesia with Germany. Lastly, they have shown during the last few days that they are in possession of very large quantities of ammunition of every kind. In view of these facts, I say that this coup d'état must have been prepared for some considerable period of time, and I should therefore like to ask the Prime Minister whether the Allied delegates on the spot at Oppeln were aware of these preparations; if so, whether they reported them to their respective Governments; and, if so, why precautionary action was not taken to stop the coup d'état being carried out. The result is that to-day the Allied representatives are undergoing a state of siege in the plebiscite area. They have, I understand, a force of some 10,000 Allied troops, but even with these troops, tanks, and machine guns, they are quite incapable of coping with Korfanty and his insurgents. Moreover, during the last two days, the report has been published in the Press that the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces, the French General Lerond, has made an armistice with Korfanty, and upon the basis of a status quo ; in other words, he has left Korfanty in occupation of the district in dispute, practically the whole of Upper Silesia. I would venture to ask the Prime Minister whether that report is correct, for it seems to me to entail a very serious situation if the French General really has recognised this de facto occupation by the insurgents of the plébiscite area, and a great blow is struck at the whole basis of the Peace Treaty. I hope, if he is in a position to make a reply to my question, he will state quite clearly that, whatever may be the present position of affairs in the plébiscite area, the Allies will on no account allow a repetition of what D'Annunzio did in Fiume, and what Zeligowski did in Vilna, and will insist on the Treaty being carried out in letter and in spirit.

I come to the attitude of the Polish Government. Here let me on no account be misunderstood. I have always sympathised with the national claims of Poland, and I regarded the liberation of Poland as one of the fine achievements of the War. I am also conscious of the fact that the Polish Government, through its Prime Minister and its Foreign Minister, has disowned any connection with Korfanty and the insurgents. I admit also that the Polish Government, like most of the Governments of Central Europe, is in a very weak position in imposing its will upon the people of its country. None the less, I should feel happier if the Polish Government, not only made this disclaimer by word, but also showed by action that it entirely disapproved what Korfanty has done, and that it is prepared to give every assistance in its power to the great Allies in carrying out the Treaty. I therefore make a suggestion to the Prime Minister. I understand Korfanty's headquarters is between Kattowitz and the Polish frontier, quite a short distance from the Polish frontier, and at the present moment the frontier is free, and recruits to the insurgent forces, and supplies, are passing without hindrance from Poland to the insurgent forces. I should like to see the Allies ask the Polish Government to take steps at once to close the frontier; in other words, to assist the great Allies in blockading Korfanty and his force. If the Polish Government did that, then I think there would be no question of their sincerity, and there could be no doubt in this House, or anywhere else, that they genuinely disclaimed Korfanty's coup d'état, and that they were determined that the Treaty of Versailles should be carried into effect.

Lastly, it is quite obvious that, upon this question, a certain body of French opinion is very excited. If report is correct, it seems clear that, at any rate, some of the French officials have looked without displeasure at Korfanty's occupation of this territory. If that be so, let me suggest to those of our French friends who hold these extreme views that it is a very dangerous policy for any Frenchman to adopt. Of all countries in the world, France will gain most by the carrying out, in word and in principle, of every detail of the Treaty of Versailles. I would suggest, holding the strong views I do about the need of an Anglo-French Alliance, that any Frenchman who, while demanding the carrying out of the Treaty of Versailles in the matter of Reparations, allows it to be ignored in the matter of Upper Silesia, is doing a great harm to his own country, and is making it more and more difficult for my ideal to be carried into effect, namely, a defensive alliance between the two countries.

The very valuable contribution of the hon. Baronet requires no justification for intervening as it did in the discussion of the industrial situation, because, after all, this Upper Silesian question is intimately connected with the whole coal situation in Europe, and, furthermore, the dislocation caused to the whole economic system in Europe is reacting on the whole coal situation throughout the world, and therefore on the miners' question in this country. Consequently, the two problems cannot be separated. This matter calls for delicacy in approaching it; nevertheless, I think it is necessary to use a little plain language. Hon. Members will be aware that in Article 88 of the Treaty of Versailles the matter is very plainly laid down. It says: newspapers in this country, which cannot be accused of being pro-German. I will quote from the "Times." Their special correspondent, writing from Oppeln, on May 11th, used these words: the pro-German point of view, but solely from the pro-British point of view, and I respectfully suggest it is high time the real interests of this country were considered. The plébiscite has taken place, and I do not think anyone will hold there was any interference with the Polish voters. In fact, the accusations are all in the other direction, and the result has been that only the Kreise of Pless and the Kreise of Rybnik and some of the districts round Kattowitz have voted to remain with Poland. I am going to suggest some solution of this problem, because this is one of the few opportunities one will have of referring to this vital matter. There seem to be three possibilities. One is for Upper Silesia to be handed over entirely to Poland. That would be unjust and I do not think should be considered. The second would be to partition it and, as I believe is suggested, to hand over the Kreise of Pless and the Kreises of Rybnik and the district round Kattowitz to Poland. That would be in accordance with the principle of self-determination, but it would partition the economic structure of Silesia hopelessly. It would mean you would have an underground frontier as well as an above-ground frontier. In some of the mines the men would come up one shaft on the German territory, while others would come up another shaft on the Polish territory, while others would come up another shaft on the Polish territory. The German experts declare they will not work with the Poles I do not know if that is propaganda, bluff, or not, but at any rate there is bound to be dislocation. The French experts working one half a mine and German experts the other. The position as far as the German workmen and the Polish workmen are concerned, from the economic point of view would be a failure. I know perfectly well, under Article 90 of the Peace Treaty, that for 15 years there shall be ready export of coal from any areas handed over from Poland to Germany, but with such a state of affairs there is bound to be tremendous confusion.

This district produced 13,000,000 tons of coal before the War. It is not yet fully developed, and if we are going to get anything like an indemnity, or even the interest on these bounds that are to be issued the supply of coal to the Germans must be ensured. Therefore I suggest that there is a third way out of the difficulty. This may be rather a rash suggestion, and will give openings to people who wish to criticise me, but I suggest that the whole of Upper Silesia should be retained by Germany. If the majority had gone to Poland as it has gone to Germany, undoubtedly the whole of Upper Silesia would have been handed over to Poland. That is well within the terms of the Treaty, and after all, Poland has not been in possession of Silesia for 600 years, and has no more claim to it than we have to Calais. I am quite aware that strong nationalist sentiments have been stirred up in Poland, but from the pro-British point of view it would be very much better if the whole of Upper Silesia went to Germany, because if these coalfields go to Poland it really means that French capitalists and French experts will have to work them. That will give the French control of yet one more great coalfield in Europe. It will probably mean default by Germany in the payment of interest on the bonds, and that will mean the French will occupy the Ruhr Valley. They already have the Saar, they are controlling the Czech coalfields, and it is going to give them a tremendous control over the production of coal, produced, let it be noted, by sweated labour and with a collapsed exchange.

2.0 P.M.

It is going to be most serious for our export trade in coal, and it is really time, in my opinion, that this pro-British commercial point of view was stressed, and I make no apology for possibly giving offence to our friends on the other side of the Channel. The Prime Minister will say: "What do you suggest? Do you suggest sending troops?" No, but we should make it quite clear we are not going to stand any nonsense. We showed plenty of vigour towards the Moscow Government when they were in power in Poland. It is high time the Polish Government was brought up with a round turn, if I may use the expression. I make that practical suggestion, and if the Poles will not listen to reason I am quite satisfied we can come to an agreement with the Allies. After all, it is German territory. It is more than human nature can stand to see this rule of force applied to them, by which they are kept strictly to the other terms of the Treaty, and not to Poland, and I think a mandate should be given to the Germans to clear the Poles out if the Poles do not listen to reason. I hope we will say we are absolutely firm on this matter to the Poles and the French, otherwise you will complete the economic ruin of Germany, you will have another great Austria, and that will mean the bankruptcy of France and the bankruptcy of this country, and the situation prophesied by my right hon. Friend the Member for Miles Platting (Mr. Clynes) may be brought about just as much by a weak policy in Central Europe as by a continuance of the mining stoppage in this country.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down will forgive me if I do not follow him on the question of Silesia, and will not, I am sure, necessarily, therefore, think that I agree with everything he has said. I make no apology for raising a question of very vital importance which was discussed very recently upstairs by what I think I may correctly describe as one of the most representative and influential meetings ever held by the combined Members of both Houses of Parliament. It is the whole question of what lies behind the industrial unrest in our country. At the time of the last great strike, I humbly offered a warning in this House that unless the authority of Parliament was restored, unless it was made quite plain that war upon the community would not be tolerated, the country was doomed to distress and to misery such as had never yet been contemplated. I was rebuked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), who thought it was unfortunate to discuss this question about the authority of Parliament, but alas! my warning has come true. I do not want to stand for long between members of the Labour party here who desire to speak, but hon. Members, I think, will not deny that there is a state of distress and misery in this country which has never yet been seen.

I deny it is a war upon the community.

I hope in the course of the next ten minutes or so to convince the hon. Gentleman on this subject. If the community allows a second Government to set itself up, and to defy the existing Government, then sooner or later the country will perish; and I think the time has come when there should be some plain speaking on this constitutional question. Our Constitution is the greatest and the freest in the world. It has been built up through centuries by the combined wisdom and united genius of our race. We have through the influence of time and experience won for our people a system by which the will of the masses can be expressed, and under which no real demand which is possible to accede to can be denied them. The democracy of this country is all-powerful, and is the finest instrument of liberty that has ever been fashioned by mankind, and that is the system for which the British House of Commons speaks. If this constitution is set at defiance and the Government of the Realm is opposed by direct action, by whatever section, then that section of the community is making war upon the State, and its leaders, it seems to me, come into conflict with the law if they realise what are the consequences of their action. It is not necessary to go into the reasons which led up to this industrial calamity—which everybody in this House, of whatever party, deplores—and any remarks I am going to make are not directed against those who have been elected here by the people of this country to represent Labour—as we all are in the House. It is sufficient to say that the two other great partners of the Triple Alliance refused their support precisely because the issue had passed away from a discussion of wages, and that the Miners' Federation had insisted that a pool was the only policy which they could accept; and a pool was a question of legislation to which Parliament was not prepared to give effect. Therefore the issue is plain. The strike is for the coercion of the Government, I can absolutely prove that.

Let us consider the plan of campaign. The miners, as the House well knows, wanted to have the nationalisation of the industry. They could not get it. In consequence Mr. Smillie, who then was president of the Miners' Federation, and who is a declared and avowed revolutionary, invented the policy of the pool, which he knew meant nationalisation by the back door. If you completely ruin the coal industry of this country, then, since coal is a vital necessity, the Government must nationalise the industry! That is the plan of those against whom my remarks are directed this afternoon. They do not, however, base their demand upon the sanction of democracy. They base that demand on the doctrine of force. If we can drive all the rest of the brotherhood of labour starving into the streets, if we can bring hunger to every woman and child in the land, if we can exasperate all those suffering distress from our action, then the Government will be compelled to yield to our demands! That was openly stated, and it was stated again this afternoon—in very polite language—from the Labour benches. That is the doctrine of might carried to extremes. It appears to me to be the enthronement of force, not the force of the brave man in arms who may be risking his life on behalf of his country, but the force of the starver of women and children, which is the result of this policy.

Only three days ago, I think it was, one of the great figures of this movement of unrest in this country declared that the blockade must be tightened. Hon. Members who sit in the House must have been convinced, as I was at the time, that the Labour party were sincere when day after day they implored the Government to cease to use what they described as an inhuman weapon against the people of Russia, whose Government at that time, it must be remembered, had publicly declared their desire to overthrow the Constitution of this country. We were told that that weapon was an inhuman weapon. When, however, it is used against our own people, and not against those conspiring against you, then it becomes the humanist of instruments and a lovely affair! I ask whence come these doctrines? Is it the demand of men suffering from the tyrant capitalist exploiter? I think it is agreed "no." I think that all the miners' leaders have admitted that the employers have no alternative but to cut wages. It is only the degree of the cut about which there is a real difference, so that, although that degree may be a very wide one, it is no real reason for the stoppage. I ask, Does any man here pretend that three months ago there was any great demand amongst the miners for a national pool? They certainly did not vote on the question. Do they know anything about it?

Yes, for 20 years.

I am very much interested to hear that. They certainly had not voted, or mentioned this matter of a national pool. I do not think the hon. Member really knows, for the matter was only recently raised. When it was first mentioned in this dispute members of the Labour party began discussing it. I myself heard them. I heard them asking: "What on earth is a pool?" We have to go further for the reasons of this extraordinary situation. I have come here this afternoon to state that in my belief there is a deliberate attempt to destroy British industry and on the ruins to establish a communal state. May I remind the House that Lenin and Trotsky in their published instructions have stated that the capitalist States of the world must be overthrown? They have openly stated that democracy must be defeated, that the British Empire must be their first objective because they regard it as a bulwark to democracy. Further, their policy is based upon revolution through chaos. I ask the House to consider what was their plan to bring about revolution through chaos in this country? They deliberately supported the disaffected elements of the British Empire in Ireland. There is in existence an arrangement in the form of a treaty which we would like the Government to produce between de Valera and the Bolshevists in Moscow. In India, Afghanistan and Egypt it is the same, and this is done in order to occupy the Imperial Government and to disperse the forces of the British Empire away from the heart of the Empire. Their instructions are that every effort should be made to bring about strikes and threats of strikes in Great Britain until utter chaos ensued. During the last two years the markets of the world lay at the feet of the British Empire, and a great and wonderful future was held out for British industry and British capital and insurance against unemployment for at least a generation if there had been industrial peace.

During the last two years there was no real effort made to make any considerable cut in wages in any industry in the country, and yet during those two years there, have been more strikes and threats of strikes than ever were known in the history of our race. It is only eighteen months ago since we had a lower number of unemployed in this country than we have ever known in our modern history, and yet in so short a span there is a larger number of unemployed in this country now than we have ever had before. It seems to me that the plan of the Bolsheviks has been carried out to the letter and the exact situation is being brought about which they consider is the only way to produce a revolution in this country. It only remains to be proved that the inspirers of this latest upheaval are hand and glove with Moscow to disclose the whole plot. Who are the principal leaders in the great organisation which is known as the Triple Alliance? They are Mr. Hodges, Mr. Cramp, and Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams on the 11th of July, 1920, at the Albert Hall said:

By the year 1919 Workmen Soviet Committees were established in large numbers and were linked up with the Sinn Fein movement. Mr. Smillie, on 19th November, 1918, urged the workers to refuse to recognise the Government and to at once form a Soviet Government. In 1919 Mr. Williams visited Lenin and so satisfied him as to his intentions that he was decorated by him, and Lenin afterwards declared that the Triple Alliance was

I happened to know very intimately a considerable number of miners in the Great War. I had the honour of commanding a brigade, consisting solely of miners and numbering over 4,000, through some of the most bloody battles in the Great War, and they were perfectly magnificent to lead splendid in their loyalty to their country, and wonderful in their endurance and discipline. It sometimes occurs to me that their loyalty to their leaders is so great that they will follow those who are leading them to-day to disaster. These men, I am sure, of their own free will would never set out to bring misery and despair to the women and children of England. They are doing this because they are ordered to do it by the Miners' Executive. I think I have now proved that the controlling influences of the Miners' Executive are backed up by those who desire the complete ruin of this country.

I hope that the working classes of the country as a whole will realise how this extraordinary policy has been initiated which is bringing such distress to the workers of this country, because it is the workers who are suffering far more than those who are possessed of means. I believe when the workers realise this they will refuse to reduce their country to a state of desolation at the suggestion of foreign persons who have openly declared that they desire to ruin this country, and who have captured the leaders of the workers. I am not going to deal with the question of the foreign money which is coming into this country. I have invited the Leader of the House to give us the facts, and I have asked the Government why they do not take steps to stop this un-British policy of introducing foreign money to bring about distress and ruin. I do not know whether it is true that a vast number of aliens came here in the year 1920. I am told that 440,000 aliens landed here in 1920, and that they contained the absolute riff-raff of the world. They included 12,000 Poles, 11,000 Russians, 3,600 Czecho-Slovakians, 2,000 Finns, and 84,000 Americans.

Will the hon. and gallant Member tell us how many went out again? Most of them were transmigrants.

Supposing 50 per cent. of them went out again?

More went out than came in.

Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that there remained in this country 100,000 who had never lived here before?

Oh, yes, I do.

You deny the 100,000?

I deny that 100,000 who had never lived here before came last, year.

Then I shall be interested to hear the official figures. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that large numbers of Poles, Czecho-Slovakians, Finns, and Russians, people coming from countries where Bolshevism is rife, remain in this country, and does, he deny that while such vast numbers come it is impossible to see that Bolsheviks are kept out of this country? I hope that the Leader of the House will really consider whether this folly ought to be continued, or whether we should not have drastic legislation to keep out of this country these undesirable people. Surely this is not the time, when there is no work to go round and when our own people are starving for work, to allow the creatures whom I saw in such hordes to come into this country. So long as we allow these hordes of Bolsheviks to come into this country, we are bound to have trouble in our midst. At the present time the country is in a fog. People cannot understand how this calamity has come about. If there be any truth at all in what I have been saying, I do hope that the Government will let the country know. I believe the Leader of the House will realise that in saying this I am not attacking the Government. Although I have been a free and an independent critic of the Government, I believe they will acquit me of any desire at this time to weaken their hand.

Hear, hear!

This is a time when we ought to subordinate every other question and issue, in order to restore the authority of Parliament. If we are going to allow our Constitution to be broken, and our people to be deprived of their liberties, then all I can say is that we are not worthy trustees of the great traditions of the past. If the Government cannot deal with this conspiracy, if owing to circumstances which have arisen they are unable to take action against the leaders of those who are deliberately attacking the State, then there is only one alternative, and that is to appeal to Caesar for a mandate to make the Triple Alliance, direct action, and all these other illegal instruments like the Council of Action, because it is an illegal instrument, for all time impossible in this country. If you went to the country on such an issue, you would get a mandate that would stagger you. You would have an avalanche of opinion in your favour, for people are sick and tired of this ruin being brought upon them on every hand, and are imploring you only once more to restore the Government. I believe that you would be surprised by the result. My right hon. Friends need have no fear that they would not remain on that Bench. The only change that we should see in this House would be the disappearance of everyone who opposed them on that great issue.

My hon. and gallant Friend, I think, has proved conclusively that there is a conspiracy going on in this country at the present time, and that the Government are not dealing with it with a firm hand as the House of Commons would like to see them deal with it, and as we believe the country demands. I would like to deal, more particularly, with the question of foreign money coming into this country, and I would like to ask the special attention of the Home Secretary, who has been displaying some amusement, instead, as I should like to have seen, some concern during the remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend. The right hon. Gentleman questions the number of aliens who come into this country. I would like to ask whether he questions my assertion that the revolutionary agitators during the last year have been dependent almost entirely for their funds upon foreign sources? Was it not a fact that at the beginning of last year all the organisations and societies advocating Communist doctrines were practically bankrupt or on the verge of bankruptcy, and that, if it had not been for foreign money, we should not have had this propaganda, and these perpetual strikes would not have taken place to the degree that they have? Does he dispute that the Bolshevik Trade Delegation subsidises many of these institutions? Does he dispute that grants in money, in diamonds, in platinum, and, in the case of the Press, in paper, have come from foreign sources?

Let us take the case of the "Daily Herald" which is really the Soviet organ in this country. Is it not a fact that £2,000 per week is lost in carrying on that paper? Does he suggest that that is paid for by the genuine workers of this country? Not a bit of it. It is paid for by foreign money subscribed to keep the agitation going in this country. He knows perfectly well that the Socialist and Research Bureau is subsidised from abroad. He knows perfectly well that the communist officials, who are receiving from £5 to £10 a week to go throughout the country trying to organise strikes, are being paid for from abroad. He knows the case of Sylvia Pankhurst perfectly well. He knows how she had to go abroad because she could not get enough money here. He knows that the Scottish shop stewards appealed for money to the Third International to carry on with. What happened to the money which Mr. Meynell got? What happened to those £2,000,000 worth of diamonds that were brought into this country from abroad last October? It has been admitted by Lord Curzon in the other House and by the Home Secretary in this House, that foreign money is coming into this country for propaganda, and it was admitted two years ago by the late Leader of the House to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth (Lieut.-Colonel Croft) that large sums of Russian money had come into this country from Scandinavia. What has the Government been doing to stop it? Do they not know that money is the root of all evil? Money is what the communists want. If the right hon. Gentleman would only stop this flow of foreign gold and money into this country, he would save half the trouble that we are getting at the present time. What is he doing? He knows perfectly well that we are passing through an unexampled amount of unemployment, and he knows that that is a condition on which agitation thrives.

Why not solve it?

Yes, we want the Home Secretary to take his part in solving it instead of sitting there smiling. What did the Home Secretary say only six weeks ago? He said, "We are considering the matter." A week ago he said, "I do not think the law is sufficiently strong at the present time." Why does he not do something? If he cannot persuade the Government to do something, let him resign. Let him give up his office as he did that of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. To stay there and see the country going from bad to worse is really a criminal act. I do not want to make an attack upon the right hon. Gentleman, but we feel strongly that something ought to be done. I believe that he recognises that legislation is wanted on the matter. I believe he realises, as his advisers do, that something must be done. For Heaven's sake let him do it, or go. Let him put pressure on the Government to make them do it. We are the only country of the Allies who are doing nothing to fight this Bolshevism. France, we know, is taking it actively in hand. America has not only started, but started right away after the War to deal with the matter. America issued, among other things, this book which I have here, "An Official Inquiry by the Government into the German-Bolshevist Conspiracy." It is a very illuminating document, and I wish we could have it reprinted and distributed broadcast in this country. It gives chapter and verse relating to the conspiracy between Germany and the Bolshevists. It has discredited Bolshevism in America. We have done nothing here to discredit it. Our contribution has been to set up a trade agreement with those brigands who took possession of Russia. Our contribution has been to help Trotsky to return from Canada at the beginning of the War and to go to Russia, and to let out Tchitcherin, who was in Brixton Gaol here. We let him out under pressure from one who is now a Member of the Government. He went back there, and within a fortnight of his release signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which handed over Russia to Germany.

These things make one distrustful, un-restful, because, instead of trying to stop this evil, which we must see is getting worse and worse, the strong steps are not being taken that we have a right to expect. I hope the Leader of the House will give us some assurance, and that the Home Secretary will tell us what he is really doing. It may be said that the Trade Agreement with the Soviet Government precludes them from carrying on propaganda in this country. Let me point out to the House the danger we are in if we take that view. The Soviet Government, assuming that they carry out their undertaking, may not carry on propaganda in this country, but does that bind the Third International? The Soviet Government is practically a branch of the Third International, which has its headquarters at Moscow, and they include in their executive Zinovieff, Tchitcherin, Litvinoff, Krassin, and others who are members of the Soviet Government. As members of the Soviet Government they cannot carry on propagand here, but as members of the Third International they can. They can play the part of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with the greatest ease. What is to prevent them from acting in that way as members of the Third International? Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that legislation for dealing with that is necessary? Why has he not taken action, as he could have done, to have the books of the bankers of this country examined, and see where those sums of money, which he knows are coming into this country, come from and go to? I understand that he has the power to do that, and I ask him now to see that it is done forthwith. This matter of the supply of money and funds to these organisations is one of the most pressing matters with which we have to deal, and I do ask that it be dealt with drastically forthwith.

One has listened to the various statements by responsible Members of this House with a real desire to bring hon. Members to some relationship with the actual realities of the situation. It is not at all conducive to helping to improve the atmosphere when the advocates of "Smithsonitis" come here, and try to make our flesh creep. Various papers have been accused of adding fuel to the fire during this industrial crisis. I would suggest to the Home Secretary—who is a much maligned person to-day—that, in addition to inquiring into the files of the "Daily Herald," he might incidentally inquire into the files of the paper from which these apostles of Smithsonitis derive their information. Nothing is more conducive to implanting bitterness in the minds of the miners who are on strike—the same men to whom the hon. and gallant Member (Lieut.-Colonel Croft) paid a tribute during the War, and who are still as level-headed as ever they were—

Will the hon. Member kindly tell us what is "Smithsonitis?"

It is the state of hysterics to which the Duke of Northumberland has been reduced. As these things are not helping to get us into a state in which we are likely to have some settlement of this controversy, it may be as well, perhaps, to call attention to the source of the information upon which these attacks are based. We on these Benches love our country quite as much as do our friends on the other Benches, although our share in it may not be quite so pronounced. The coalminers are accused in the columns of the "Morning Post," through the mouth of this Noble Duke, and later by the utterances of the last two speakers, of being in the pay of Moscow, and of deliberately fomenting a state of affairs whereby the whole constitution of this country might be submerged in revolution.

I am very sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I said that I did not believe the miners of this country as a whole had any connection with it. It is the extremists who control the machine.

That is the whole point. The members of the Miners' Federation Executive are elected annually by the mine workers themselves, and there is nothing they resent more bitterly than this constant imputation that these men are running their machine in order to bring the country into chaos. In order to prove his argument, the hon. and gallant Member actually stated that his idea of a pool was born in the brain of Mr. Smillie. The merest tyro in trade union affairs knows that for over 20 years the subject of a National Wage Board, and the ideal of equity of reward in a given industry, has been before the Miners' Federation annually. It is quite true to say that by the process of wage agreements—not confined to the mining industry, but existing in every industry—the members of the same industry in every trade union, before the War, were accepting varying wages and varying wage agreements, which all ended at varying times, making it impossible for them to meet the employers on any given occasion in order to get a national settlement. That ideal, which had been pursued and worked for by the whole of the mineworkers of this country for a period of 20 years, reached its fruition during the War, and, if any impartial investi- gation is made into the causes of the control of coal, it will be found that it was not to defeat a conspiracy by miners against the State, but to defeat the aims and objects of men who were putting profit before the national cause. Be that as it may, the Miners' Federation did attempt to secure the right to work for the community instead of for individuals. A Trade Union Congress turned that down, and from then onward the Miners' Federation at their congresses repudiated any idea of attempting, otherwise than by influencing public opinion at the ballot box, to secure the public ownership of mines.

Many reasons might be adduced for the Government decontrolling the coal mines. The Noble Duke actually referred to it as an alleged decontrol, although some of us who take things literally assumed that it was a fact. But that decontrol, whatever the reasons for it, precipitated this industrial dispute which the hon. Member characterised as a wanton war upon the community. I was on the Committee that thrashed out this question of decontrol, and more than one employer of labour and more than one colliery owner deprecated the idea of forcing decontrol by 31st March. They suggested that the period of decontrol should at least be delayed for a month, or even two months, in order to attempt to get a settlement. Further, whatever you may say against a pool, I was present at the meeting when Mr. Frank Hodges addressed the Members of the House of Commons, and his statement, his readiness to answer questions, and the honesty of his answers, left a far better impression in the mind of those who heard him than on those who heard the owners and the case they put up.

But the dispute was precipitated by the coalowners' month's notice. That month's notice ceased on 1st April and work was to be resumed on that date at a reduced scale of wages, varying in different districts, to which the miners absolutely refused to consent. You may not agree with it, but their idea is this. They give a week's work and their product to the community varies according to geological differences and they are therefore entitled, from their point of view, if possible, to some equity in the reward for the labour they put in. With that idea in mind they suggested a pool. Probably when a settlement is arrived at the pool will be abandoned. One does not know, but certainly before the miners are brought to that state there will be far greater distress forced upon the community, and therefore I hope the Prime Minister may at least explore the suggestion of the hon. Member (Mr. Holmes) and my hon. Friend (Mr. Hartshorn) in trying to bring forward some proposal which will bring these people together. After all, I am a paying member of a union and am paying 3s. a week in order to attempt to alleviate the problem of unemployment in the engineering industry, and it affects every trade union. We pay during the time we are at work in order to help each other when we are out of work. In the case of the trade union movement the pool operates as soon as a man joins a trade union, and those who do not participate in the pool are reckoned to be the most fortunate members of that organisation. Be that as it may, I understand that these hon. Gentlemen who are attributing every dishonest motive to the miners—[ Interruption. ] The miners' executive is a reflex of the outlook of the miners because they elect them.

Why do they not ballot?

If that be the hon. and gallant Gentleman's opinion, he should go far from the protected atmosphere of the House, and attempt to put that point of view before the most conservative body in the country, that is the Yorkshire miners, and find out what sort of reception he would get from them.

Invite him to Wales.

Wales is associated with Limehouse and other places, and because of past associations it would not be wise to invite them to go to a Gaelic atmosphere. But go into whatever corner of the mining industry you like—go into Kent, where Polish miners, French miners, Yorkshire and Welsh miners are all working, and are being asked to go to work, for a wage equivalent in pre-War value to 16s. 2d. If that is done, hon. Members might come back to the House with a far greater sense of the reality of the situation, and with a far greater idea of the outlook of the men who are primarily concerned.

There is another point of view that I want to put, because as a member of a local authority it is one that comes home to one. Whoever may be responsible for this present dispute, this fact has at least emerged from it, that every local authority is rapidly sliding into bankruptcy every day the dispute goes on. Boards of guardians are spending money which means an intolerable burden on those who will be compelled to pay it, and for that reason, if for no other, I suggest that the Government make a big effort to see if it is not possible to settle this dispute on the lines suggested by the hon. Member (Mr. Holmes). After all, the miners work in an occupation which has a certain amount of danger. The average number of killed per year is 1,200, and the average number who receive compensation for injuries—not those who claim, but those who receive it—is 15,000. Under these circumstances, I do not think anyone is likely to get down to the realities of the situation if he thinks that at some time or other he will pursuade the mining industry to resume work, unless they are treated on terms of equality with the other wage-earners, and that is, a pre-War wage with an increase based upon the index figure of the cost of living, and this, I believe, the miners will be prepared to discuss—something which, after all, is only equitable.

The hon. Member seems to be annoyed because certain charges, as he thinks, were made against the miners themselves—charges of disloyalty and of want of patriotism. Although my hon. and gallant Friend (Lieut.-Colonel Croft) made it very clear that his charges were directed, not against the miners, but against the Miners' Executive and certain extremists—

Are not they miners?

I am not talking of the miners as a whole. Also I make no charge against certain members of the Miners' Executive. But I make charges against the extremists. The hon. Member went further. He wanted to know where my hon. and gallant Friend got his so-called extraordinary information, and where my hon. Friend (Mr. Gwynne) obtained his information from. [An HON. MEMBER: "From the clouds!"] That is your moonshine. Do they deny that Mr. Cramp said he was a revolutionary?

I am one.

Now we are getting it. That is what we want to hear.

Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman be good enough to address the Chair?

I, of course, obey your ruling, Sir, but I wish to point out that the moment bristles with danger and difficulty. Only three years ago we overcame an appalling catastrophe by British pluck and endurance and, last but not least, by unity. I sincerely hope that those qualities which served us in such good stead then may help us to overcome this appalling catastrophe from within to-day, because I consider that it is every bit as dangerous as the catastrophe from without of eight years ago. From the speeches which have been made two things have evidently been proved. First it has been proved that the enemy is still endeavouring to win the War which they could not win by force of arms by insiduous doctrines and preachings in this country, that is why the attitude of the Government, and still more of the Press, is little short of amazing. The Government and the Press recognise that there is a conspiracy. Right hon. Gentlemen have said so in answer to questions. They recognise that the enemy is in our midst. What are they doing? They are doing nothing. They are waiting for the miracle to come to save England, the old miracle which always seems to save the old country. I suppose we shall be told by the Prime Minister—I hope he is going to answer the last three speeches, although he was not here to listen to them—that he has faith in the sound sense of the British people, and that while he recognises the danger, and while he is aware of the conspiracy, he would sooner see the spectre of Bolshevism strangled by the British worker than by the mailed hand of a determined Government. I agree that would be the more pleasant and the easier manner of settling the question, but things have proceeded too far. The risk is now too great. It has been proved that the extremists in England have already joined hands with the enemies of our country. Lenin has always looked upon the Triple Alliance as the means of accomplishing his object. Mr. Robert Williams, of the Transport Workers, has paid at least one visit to Lenin, and has returned bemedalled, rewarded, and charged with congratulatory messages to that other patriot, Mr. Smillie, and probably with money in his pocket for revolutionary purposes. It is to such patriots as Messrs. Smillie and Williams that Lenin looks in order to consummate his ambition of bringing red ruin upon this country, just as he has brought about red ruin in his own country. It is evident to the rabid revolutionists, and by that term I mean the men who have joined the red internationals of Moscow, that the surest way for them to bring about revolution in England is by creating unprecedented discontent, misery and want.

Who are the red revolutionaries?

3.0 P.M.

I think the Noble Lord will be better able to answer that question himself if he has paid any attention to the subject. These extremists know that no agitator can goad into revolution a contented and happy British people, and it is to their advantage to feel assured that there are millions unemployed. It is to their advantage to know that there are perhaps four million men, women and children starving, hungering. Hungry men do not stop to argue. All that they know is that they are hungry, and that their women and children are in want and have not the means of subsistence. It is well known that the rabid agitators fatten and batten on discontent and misery. That is why they want the strike to continue. They want as many people as possible, millions of people, to be unemployed and on the brink of starvation. I have only one word more to say. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am sorry that I have hit some hon. Members on the raw. I ask the Government to take drastic measures. I ask them to act, and act at once. They have already acknowledged that the Red Internationals, the friends of Lenin, are busy in our midst. They have acknowledged that the British extremists, to their shame, have joined hands with members of the Red Internationals, and they have acknowledged that hoards of money have passed through into this country and are in the hands of the revolutionaries, and that that money has come, no doubt, from Germany, Russia, and from other enemies of England. What are the Govern- ment doing? Are they going to allow this to go on with impunity? Are they going to allow this money to come in daily, weekly, monthly? Are they going to rest satisfied that all is well in this best of all possible worlds? Are they going to fiddle while Rome burns?

I call upon them to stop the influx of these revolutionary foreign agents into this country, and to intercept immediately, where they can, and to confiscate where they can any monies which come into England for revolutionary purposes. I also ask that they should take the British working man into their confidence. I want them to educate the British working man as to the origin of the strike. I want it to be known from John o' Groats to Land's End, by all the gallant fellows who did not hesitate to fight for their country when it was needed and who sent their sons to fight, that the basis of this strike is a foreign conspiracy, and that people who have the audacity to set up as their leaders have actually joined hands with the enemies of the British Empire. I, therefore, urge upon the Government to deal with this matter and to arrest those foreign revolutionaries who are at the bottom of the evil.

Although I have not had the privilege of listening to the earlier speeches delivered on this subject, I had the advantage of hearing the case put by two or three very able spokesmen at a deputation which came to see me a day of two ago, and, therefore, I am generally acquainted with the character of the case that has been presented here to-day. I readily give them the assurance which I give to the House now—that the Government are watching very carefully these developments. There is no doubt that there are movements of this kind in the country, and to what extent they are subsidised by foreign money is a matter which we are very closely watching. Whatever action may be necessary we shall take. We have already instituted some prosecutions. Should it be necessary to introduce legislation, and to ask the House to legislate upon the subject, we are quite prepared to invite the House to do so.

What about stopping the money coming in?

That is one of the subjects which we have in mind. First of all, we must trace the whole of these transactions. The only general observation I have to make is this, that I think it is a mistake to rush too soon into action. I frankly confess that I have an unlimited confidence in the good sense of the British people, and certainly of the British working classes. I do not believe in the least that they are going to be misled by these people. Once it be known that there is foreign instigation, even a good object would be discredited if it were patent that it comes from foreign sources. People who are always rushing for medicine because they feel certain ailments are never really well. I am not a believer in patent medicines, either in politics, or in the general physical state of a man's health. I think it much better to keep up the general condition, to see that the nation is fed, and if the nation be fed, we need not fear Communism or Bolshevism, or any disease of that kind. I am much more concerned myself to remove the conditions which interfere with the general health of the community, which are depressing its vitality and weakening its resistance, and generally making it much more ready to receive any germs, foreign or otherwise, that may be floating about in the atmosphere. That is all I shall say for the moment on that very important topic.

Are we to wait and see?

No; watch and pray.

And retired pensions.

Yes, and retired pensions. There are multitudes of these people throughout the country who are suffering first of all by the cost of living, which has more than doubled, and by increased taxation, and they are suffering with heroism, and silent heroism, and therefore I cannot accept my right hon. Friend's suggestion that it is merely an appeal to the working classes to reduce their wages in face of the common distress. The fact of the matter is that it is an exhaustion of the available store, and undoubtedly the whole of the people suffer in consequence.

I thought it was necessary to make that statement before I came down to the problem which my right hon. Friend more particularly presented. He gave the case of the miners. The struggle has been going on for nearly seven weeks, and that is very deplorable. We have done our best to secure some sort of agreement. Up to the present we have not succeeded, and my right hon. Friend and those who supported him said, "Bring them together once more." It is quite obvious that they must be brought together, but you must choose the right moment. They parted, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn) said, one of them in one direction, the other in another direction, as if they never meant to meet again, and they said, "We will never accept this, and we will never agree to that." Well, "never" is the most unreliable adverb in the English language, and I think that is fortunate, because in this case, if you find that they would never consider any of these old suggestions in any shape or form, it would be idle to get them together again. But before you get them together the "Never, never" mood must evaporate, and I think it is evaporating.

It is possible that there may be other suggestions. I think there are. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire (Mr. S. Holmes) made a very lucid speech. He had a suggestion, and, whatever my opinion upon it may be, I do not want to rule out any suggestion from the discussion. I have seen several suggestions made in the Press. They all contain some element which is worth exploration, and they must be examined; but you must choose the time when it would be desirable to invite the parties to meet. A premature meeting would end in a rejection of something which might be found quite acceptable a few days later, but which would not be accepted a few days later because it had been rejected in this conference. Every time you have a conference, and there is a failure, something is discredited which might be very useful later on. Take the £10,000,000. It was a very generous offer. I can understand it being criticised from the taxpayers' point of view. I really cannot understand it being rejected from the miners' point of view. But to go there, and renew the same offer exactly—well, there you have got all the points of honour, the amour - propre, and all sorts of sentiments and pledges that they would never accept. People do not like to say they were wrong.

All that is in the way, and therefore the Government want to be assured, not that their late proposal is going to be accepted, but that there is a fair chance that the parties are in a better mood for negotiation, and that there are not those entanglements which interfered with discussion before—things which they regarded as eternal principles, with which they would never part, and that they are going to sit down with the real desire to effect a settlement of the difficulties which are presented to them. The moment we are convinced of that—and I am not going to express an opinion at the present moment, and I hope the House will not press the Government to express an opinion, but we are in daily consultation, my right hon. Friend (Sir R. Horne) and I, upon this subject—the moment, I say, we think that there is a fair chance, by summoning the parties together, of arriving at a conclusion, we shall certainly do so, and we shall not necessarily await the re-appearance of the House to jog our memories upon that subject. We shall be in daily consultation, those Ministers who, with myself, are more especially charged with the consideration of this subject, and anything that may be communicated to us, and which will help us to come to a decision upon that subject, will be of the greatest value, from whatever quarter it come. I do not mean, necessarily, to say it must be from either the Miners' Federation or the mine-owners. Any suggestion which comes from any authoritative quarter, or any well-informed quarter, we shall be very glad to welcome. Let me say only one word further upon this topic, and that is in answer to something which fell from the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn). He talked about starving the miners. Now that is the last thing we want to see done.

Make a grant to their funds, then.

I am afraid, in the present state of the Exchequer, we have not much money left to promote strikes.

It is not a strike. It is a lock-out.

Do not let us go back upon that. I was not prejudging that question in the least. I was using the shortest of words I could use in order to save time. I also agree with my hon. Friend that there is no more patriotic body of men in the kingdom than the miners. They deserved well of the community during the War. I happen to know that. I know how readily the miners in my own country responded to the appeal for troops. [An HON. MEMBER: "They had to be sent back!"] As my hon. Friend says, they responded in such numbers that we actually had to comb them out, and get them back from France. I will give the House another experience. It was with some difficulty that we got many of them back. No one knows that better than my hon. Friend. They wanted to stick to their comrades in France, and, so far from there being competition to come back, some of them required persuasion to leave their friends in France. We must not forget that.

I have also in my memory another incident. I remember the very anxious days after the 21st March, when we wanted 50,000 young miners to come out of the mines, and go to the front. When the Miners' Federation was summoned I said: "I want you to agree at once to pick out 50,000 of your young men to join the Army to save the country." Just one or two expressed some doubt. There was a map in the room showing the position of the German lines, and the great concentration of positions behind the British front—40 or 50 German Divisions crowding for a fresh attack—and I said: "I will not argue with you. Just get up, and look at that map." They said: "All right," and I never appealed to them. They voted it without further argument.

I cannot take part in starving miners when I remember that incident, and I am sure that is the feeling of everybody in the House. We do not want to starve them into submission. They are as patriotic a body of men as you can find when the country is in danger. I know that in a strike they are a stubborn lot. They can fight. They were some of our very best troops—some of our most gallant troops, some of our readiest men to fight—and nobody wants to starve them into acceptance of something which is unfair. What we really want as a Govern- ment—and in this we represent, not merely this House of Commons, as we showed a fortnight or three weeks ago, but we represent the sentiment of the community—we want to find some means fair to the miners, but which will not be destructive of the industries of the country, which are just as vital to the miners as to any other branch of the community. That is all we want.

My right hon. Friend (Mr. Clynes), who introduced this discussion, made a general appeal for a consideration of the whole situation between employers and workmen. I should like to support that. There is no doubt that, unless they come together, and confer and co-operate, the consequences may be disastrous to this country. It is a country which depends so much upon its industrial position, and if that position be destroyed, it is difficult to see what will happen. What will workmen gain by that? To what land are they going? Who wants workmen at the present time, anywhere? Look at America. They are limiting their immigration to 3 per cent. of the pre-War figure. I said something here about emigration from this country. I instantly heard that Canada does not want them, that the Dominions do not want them. Where are the workmen to go if the industries of this country fail? It is as vital to them as it is to every class of the community. I would, therefore, ask them to respond to the appeal made by the Leader of the Labour party, to confer and consider. He said, "Why do you not have that industrial council?" The engineers will not join it, the miners will not join it, the railwaymen will not join it. Why? It is as vital to them as it is to everybody else. There is one thing Russia has proved, and it is coming home—you cannot dodge realities by formulas. If wealth be not created, there is nothing to distribute. Wealth can only be created by the co-operation of all, and you cannot have the co-operation of all, unless there be incentives for all.

I desire to direct the attention of the House to another question, the administration of justice in Ireland. The time at the disposal of the House is short, and I will be as short as I can, and confine myself to stating a few of the facts of the case which I desire to make. The judicial system of this country has always been the pride of the country, and we have always thought that we took every precaution against the innocent suffering in any way. When, therefore, the civil Courts of Ireland were suspended some time ago, and a new system of law was set up, a feeling of great misgiving went through the country. The civil Courts were abolished, and a system of trial by court-martial under the Restoration of Ireland Act was set up. When misgiving was expressed at that time, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and many of his colleagues, got up at that Box and assured us that there was no need for alarm, that the court-martial system provided all the safeguards that could possibly be imagined against miscarriage of justice, and that if we would wait everything would go straight. He assured us, in particular, that no man would be punished or sentenced to death, and have the death sentence carried out, until the proceedings had been sent over to London and confirmed by the Judge-Advocate-General. He also inserted a provision in the Act that in future these courts-martial, unlike courts-martial set up under the Army Act, would always include a legal member, and therefore there would be the Judge-Advocate and the legal member too to prevent anything going wrong. After that martial law was proclaimed throughout a large part of Ireland. Nothing was said at the time about that involving any change in the administration of justices, and the whole country believed that courts-martial would go on as before and that anyone who was tried and condemned to death would, as before, be tried by a court-martial, and that all the formalities of court-martial procedure would be observed. No one dreamed that this setting up of martial law in a part of Ireland meant the suspension of courts-martial and the substitution of another form of court, a military court, which really has no sanction at all. It is set up at the caprice, I think I am right in saying, of the General Officer Commanding, acting, of course, under the orders of the Executive, and he relies upon getting an Act of Indemnity passed to relieve him, and those who act under him, from the consequences of their own act.

Even at this time nobody would have believed that courts-martial were not being carried on in exactly the same way as they were before, if it had not been for a strange case last week which came to light very suddenly as the result of an official announcement made from the General Headquarters in Ireland. That is the case of Patrick Casey. Let me say at once that I do not suggest for a moment that Patrick Casey was not guilty of the crime for which he was condemned. So far as I know it was a flagrant case and I have nothing to say, either, against the court-martial which sat in that case. So far as I know, they carried out their painful duty in a manner which was unexceptionable. I do not make any complaint against the consequences on Casey, or the court-martial which inflicted the sentence. That is not my point at all. My point is that if the procedure which was adopted in his case is going to be adopted in all other cases, we are certain to be landed in some grave miscarriages of justice, and now is the time to put a stop to it. What happened in Casey's case? He was arrested one evening immediately after he was alleged to have committed a certain crime, he was tried, I think, the following morning, and he was executed that night. It is laid down by court-martial procedure that when a man is tried he shall get a copy of the summary of evidence 24 hours before he is put upon his trial. It is also laid down that the proceedings shall be sent to London or to the Judge-Advocate General, who will confirm them. It is also laid down for courts-martial under the Restoration of Order (Ireland) Act that there should be a legal member of the Court and the Judge-Advocate General. I do not know whether there were any of these gentlemen at the Court, for apparently the Irish Government takes, the view that there need not be.

On the very day upon which the notice about Casey's death appeared in the papers, there also appeared an article from an American journalist giving an account of an interview which he had had with General Macready shortly before in Ireland. General Macready made an extraordinary statement in view of what had happened to Patrick Casey. He said this: He also said—what we believed was really the case:

The point I want to press upon the right hon. Gentleman is this: Is there any reason at all why the ordinary procedure of courts-martial should not be followed in every case in Ireland? Can it really be said that a man gets a fair trial if he is arrested one night and tried the following morning? I should like to know, for instance, in this particular case whether the man was able to communicate with his friends, and whether he did not ask for an adjournment of the case and was refused? I should like to know also whether the court which condemned him included any legal representative and whether there was a Judge Advocate in attendance. If it is the policy of the Irish Government that everyone who is condemned to death should get "weeks" in General Macready's words "to make his peace with God," surely I should have thought that it was equally necessary that a man who is condemned to death and executed under martial law should also have that time. I imagine the right hon. Gentleman would not say that when a man is executed under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act he requires weeks to make his peace with God, and that that is not necessary if he is executed under martial law. If that is really what the right hon. Gentleman means, and it seems to be the only logical conclusion from what he said last week, why does he draw that particular distinction? There is a great deal that one could say about these courts, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would say explicitly what there is to prevent the ordinary procedure of courts-martial being followed in every case. Will it do any harm? Will it not give every man who is accused what he is entitled to, that is, a fair chance to make his defence in the best way that he can?

In this country, and I have always thought it was so in Ireland, we have always tried to give the meanest criminal a fair chance of defending himself and having a fair trial. Nobody can suggest that anyone arrested on one night and sentenced and executed within 25 hours of his arrest can be said to have had a fair trial. I am told that this man asked for an adjournment of the trial, and that this was refused, but, at any rate, it does suggest that he wanted some further time in which to prepare his case. Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that these courts are going to continue as they have been doing since martial law was set up? Is he really going to say that in future the general officer commanding will have the approval of the Government if he arrests and executes a man within 25 hours of his arrest?

If the Irish Government pursue a policy of that kind, you will shock the whole conscience, not only of this country, but of the world, and it will be an unprecedented step in Irish government, where so many unprecedented things have happened. That is the sort of thing we might have looked for in Turkey and places of that kind, but it is new to have such things happening at our own doors, with the approval of our own Government. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will assure us that such a thing will not happen again in the future, and that he will do his best at all times to give the men who are being tried for their lives and other offences adequate time in which to place their case before any tribunal by which they are tried.

The question raised by my hon. and gallant Friend is part of a larger issue which we have tried to bring home to the Government by means of questions and answers in this House. We want to find out whether the statement is correct that anything like a proper system of impartial inquiry into offences in Ireland exists any longer. There is a growing feeling that it is impossible in Ireland to secure an impartial inquiry into these offences. There is also growing a well-founded belief that the Government is not desirous that certain criminals should be brought to justice or that the facts should be brought to light. The House will remember that not very long ago the Coroner's Courts were operating in Ireland. I think that outside the martial law area they are operating to-day. These Courts had to investigate violent deaths of various people, and they very often brought in verdicts of murder. I do not say that they were all justified by the evidence, but I know that the Government refused to take any notice of them, and no action whatever was taken in regard to those verdicts. They will say that it is impossible to secure an impartial judgment from a jury in certain cases in parts of Ireland, but there is no reason why under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act the Government should not permit coroners to continue their duties without juries. The Government abolished them and substituted another class of Court. There is, however, still left in Ireland another Court, namely, the County Court. The Government itself brought in a Bill laying upon the county charges for malicious injuries which a judge may decide to be due to a political motive, and the County Courts were the tribunals to which these cases were to be brought. It is obvious, if a judge has to investigate whether the injury was done from a political motive, that he has to go into the question as to who did it. He has to be satisfied that the injury was committed from a political motive by some definite class of criminal, and to that extent he may be said to conduct a judicial inquiry into an offence by persons or classes of persons, although his primary duty is to assess the damage which the victim has suffered.

This Malicious Injuries (Compensation) Act turned on to the Government's own head in a very curious way. Owing to a new policy instituted by the Government, and, as we believe, by the direct decision of the Cabinet, the Crown forces them selves began to commit political injuries, and persons were forced to go into the courts and sue members of the Crown forces for lawless acts committed by them, resulting in damages to property and sometimes even in the loss of life. The House is quite familiar with the reports made by County Court Judges in this matter. I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman is going to suggest that Judge Bodkin, Judge Cusack, Judge Moore, or other eminent judicial servants in Ireland are guilty of partisanship or a desire to carry on some propaganda against the Government. If he does not suggest that—and such an allegation made against judicial officers would be amazing—then how can he explain the judgments that they have given declaring in many cases that agents of the Crown have committed injuries and sometimes murders? How does he brush all that aside and say it is not a proper subject for further pursuit by the proper Court in Ireland? In other times, that which the Government actually did would appear almost incredible. They went to the General Officer Commanding and said: "You must issue a Proclamation that these cases must not be brought in any court. We cannot suffer our reputation to be assailed by facts of this kind." Instead of sifting the charge against the offending person, they said, "We will not have the charge brought." It might be said that that was due to the fact that it was unsafe for these Courts to sit. That is an argument which is often used, and it has some weight, but the Government did not say that it was unsafe for the County Court to function. They said that they could continue to function, but that cases and allegations of a certain character—cases against the Crown forces surely require sifting more than any others—must not be brought unless the superior officer had given specific permission. I do not know that any such cases have occurred; perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be able to say whether any of these victims of Crown persecution have been able to obtain permission to bring their cases forward. In any case, in the report of Judge Bodkin alone—and there are many others—the Judge stated that, after sifting the matter, he had found 139 cases in which criminal injuries had been committed by forces of the Crown, and in no case was there anything to show that the person who had suffered was guilty of any offence. The Government's reply to that is to say, "We cannot permit charges of this kind to be brought. We inhibit the County Court Judges from listening to any case of this description."

What did they substitute, having done away with these two classes of inquiry which were producing results embarrass- ing to their reputation? They substituted military inquiries and courts-martial. I am not going to say anything about courts-martial, because the procedure is familiar, and there are many safeguards for the accused in their case. Moreover, my hon. and gallant Friend has had special experience, and is much better qualified to speak in reference to them than I am. But, both as regards military courts and courts-martial, it must be remembered that the persons sitting on these courts have their minds week by week inflamed by an incendiary and, as I think, criminal publication of the Government, called the "Weekly Summary." That has been issued week by week to the police and military in Ireland, inciting them to undertake reprisals upon the rebels and insurgents, and, if the members of these courts did maintain a judicial calm and evenly balanced impartiality in their decisions, it was rather in spite of than on account of any assistance that they got from the Government in that regard.

As regards the military inquiries, we find that the whole machinery is intensely unsatisfactory. In the first place, there is no cross-examination. I have very little experience of legal procedure, but I suppose the right hon. Gentleman, who has had very great experience in that regard, will admit that the cross-examination of witnesses is a very important and valuable weapon for the purposes of eliciting the truth. But in these courts, involving cases of arson and murder, no cross-examination is permitted. In the second place, counsel are not allowed to address the Court. I think that is lamentable, because the special duty of counsel is to assemble the case for his client and put it before the Court in a way which enables it to be seen in its right proportions, and from the standpoint of the man who is accused. Surely a court of amateurs, which the military court is, is much more in need of the assistance of learned counsel in putting the case in that way than a High Court judge, or someone the whole of whose experience has been gained in eliciting the truth and sifting the evidence.

The third point is that the Press reports are censored. In the Mallow inquiry, particularly, the Press were informed that they were not to publish the reports until they had been submitted to the Court. It may be asked, what does that matter? I am informed by those who have practised in criminal courts that publication of the full story is often a very valuable aid in securing witnesses to the truth. When the whole case is set out and people read it in the papers, individuals who may have been in the neighbourhood or who may have some interest in the case which would enable a just decision to be come to are thereby apprised that their evidence is required, and they come forward. The annals of criminal trials prove that over and over again.

The only Courts that exist are these military courts, hampered in the way that I have described, and consisting of people who are trying the case, in a preliminary way, of Crown forces, and whose minds are constantly being inflamed by a very vulgar and very scurrilous publication which, despite the promises given from the Government Bench, has never been submitted to the judgment of Members of this House. It was issued week by week. The Chief Secretary said he published it. The right hon. Gentleman said he would do his best to get me a copy, but so far they have declined to provide a copy. Although there are copies in Dublin Castle, it is thought wiser not to submit it to Members of this House, who would find out the sort of criminal scurrility—I do not think that that is in any way too strong a term to use—which the Government has used for the purpose of inciting its agents.

When these cases have been tried and when the decisions have been come to, the Government does not leave them there but has the practice of going either to the newspapers or coming to this House and retailing tittle tattle about the cases— ex parte statements—with a view to prejudicing public opinion against the accused or the condemned or one of the parties concerned. They have not only a very impudent method of investigating and deciding, but even after the instrument has been used they come here or go to the Press and make statements for which they produce no evidence, which go broadcast over the world and prejudice one of the parties in the case. There was one case in which the Court decided that it was impossible to say who had committed the murder. That was not sufficient for the Prime Minister. He tells the House he has information that it was done by the extremists. Surely if he has information of that kind it ought to have been laid before the Court and investigated. When Mr. McSwiney—a most heroic man, as I think—died, a voluntary martyr, who gave his life for his view, at that moment it must be necessary for Members of the Government to say, although it was true he had a short sentence for a technical offence—being in possession of a police cypher—yet really, if the facts were known, it would appear he was very deeply engaged in the rebellion. If they were facts they should have been brought out and Mr. McSwiney should have been given an opportunity to meet them, but to retail tittle tattle of this kind is neither worthy of the Government nor dignified nor decent. Another case was that of Mr. MacCurtain, who was murdered in very mysterious circumstances. When the inquiry was concluded Lord French gave an interview to a newspaper, in which he explained that the crime had been committed by extremists. If that was the case it should have been put before the Court of Inquiry and not used as a means of prejudicing public opinion after the inquiry was closed. One would expect to find, if my description is correct, a very unsatisfactory state of affairs as regards the result of these inquiries, and we do indeed. Nothing is discovered at all. There was the case, now passing into oblivion, of the Drumcondra murders. Two men were taken out of Dublin Castle after curfew hour, most horribly maltreated and done to death, and the last persons in whose company they were seen were servants of the Crown. Dublin Castle, the headquarters of law and order, is not able to lay its hands upon the murderers. Then there is Balbriggan. Two men were murdered, on the admission of the Chief Secretary, by the forces of the Crown, and to this day if an inquiry has been held we have never had any copy of the report. Why? I think people are so sated with the horrors of the War that the horrors in Ireland fail to appeal to their imaginations. Cork is of course the locus classicus of the suppressed report and the unsatisfactory trial, and the last is this case of Castleconnell. The Government pretend that they desire to sift the truth. Two parties, both in civilian clothes, though it has frequently been said by the Government that their forces operate only in uniform against an enemy in mufti—that was one claim made by the Prime Minister in his famous letter—met and after a most murderous affray several people were killed, including a most unoffending innkeeper. There is a very great conflict of evidence as to how he met his end. One woman swore that he was taken out and shot by the police in the yard. Some of the police swore that he came out in a crouching position at the back door and that he was shot as he was emerging. Another policeman swore that he came out holding up his hands and that he was shot so. There is another witness in this case, Mr. Cripps, who happens to be a strong supporter of the Union, and in no way sympathetic towards the Sinn Fein movement. In fact, he is very much the reverse. He is a man of great eminence and well known in London. He happened to be in the inn at the time, with his wife, and he was horrified by the event. He came over to this country and communicated with his brother, who is a Member of the House of Lords, and also made a communication to the Press.

If the Government is honest in its statement that it wants to get to the truth in these cases and that it will apprehend those who commit murder, surely it would be desirous of bringing forward all the witnesses that are available. In the case of Mr. Cripps, they are aware that if he gives his evidence it will be impossible to gloss it over and to say: "This is a witness who cannot be relied upon." They are aware that his evidence would carry great weight. They are aware that it has been proffered, but they are afraid to permit him to go into court. They cannot say that this gentleman does not want to go back to Ireland to give his evidence. I know that there are some witnesses who are afraid to go back to Ireland to give evidence. There is Mr. Brady, the magistrate, who dare not go back to give evidence. Mr. Cripps says he is willing to go back to Ireland. In the other House the First Commissioner of Works said it was indecent to bring forward this case, when it was sub judice, and that the proper thing to do was to submit the evidence to the tribunal. When the tribunal met they decided that they did not want to hear the evidence of Mr. Cripps. When I asked the right hon. Gentleman if he would permit Mr. Cripps to give evidence, he said, "No." The Lord Chancellor has delivered himself of what I think is an offensive and flippant speech in regard to this witness. He said that it was quite clear that Mr. Cripps was an elderly gentleman who was excited, and that it was very evident that he could not contribute anything that would be of value on behalf of justice in this case. I do not know how long it will take to convince the people of this country, but I am certain that in the end these cases, heaped one on the top of the other, will convince the public that something is going on in Ireland which is criminal, for which the Government is responsible, in which they are deeply implicated, and something which they are straining every effort in their power to keep from coming to the light of day.

My hon. and gallant Friends have put the case so well that it requires very little from me. In regard to the case brought forward by my hon. and gallant Friend (Major M Wood), that of Patrick Casey, I believe that the hurried, indecent trial and execution of the man has shocked public opinion in this country, and, so far as it is known, it has shocked the public opinion of the world. I am not a judge or student of military law, of which my hon. and gallant Friend has had experience, but could any military law in its literal interpretation be held technically to justify the execution of a man within 25 hours of his arrest? Even if it had been proved, the indecency and horror of the transaction would remain the same. My hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Benn) has alluded to several cases.

I remember that one day I interpolated a supplementary question regarding the death of Lord Mayor MacCurtain of Cork. I do not think that my language was capable of the interpretation whch was put upon it by the House, but what I said was interpreted as a suggestion that the Lord Mayor had been murdered by the forces of the Crown. I did not mean my question to have any such implication, because at that time I could not admit into my mind, however distrustful I was of the Government, the horrible and incredible idea that the British Government could be capable of allowing the forces under its control to commit a murder of that character. I regret to say that subsequent events convinced me that Lord Mayor MacCurtain was murdered by forces of the Crown. Take the case which I raised yesterday from the town which I once had the honour of representing for five years, and where three other men have already been murdered, while no one has yet been made amenable. I have read the accounts both in English and Irish papers of these two murders within the last few days, and the details are almost too shocking to read. A crippled boy is sleeping in the same bed with his brother, who is aged 18, and in presence of the unfortunate cripple the brother is seized and shot until he is dead. In another part of the town, every inch of which I know well, another young man was murdered in the same manner. I was rebuked by some hon. Gentlemen here because I repeated what some English papers had said as to the suspicion that these murders were committed by forces of the Crown. In face of the Drumcondra case, the case of the Mayor of Limerick, the case of Lord Mayor MacCurtain and dozens of other cases which have been given to the House over and over again of murders by forces of the Crown, how can anybody wonder that the people of the town of Galway should suspect that the forces of the Crown, the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries have been guilty of these latest murders?

The only way to get rid of that suspicion is an inquiry that will command the confidence of the Irish and the English public. I tell my right hon. Friend that no military tribunal trying a charge against the forces of the Crown will be treated as an impartial tribunal in whose decision the public can have confidence, and after the exposure in the Castleconnell case of the determination of the military authorities not to have any evidence that might tell against the forces of the Crown, and the same determination in dozens of other cases, this want of confidence can only be removed by a public independent judicial inquiry in place of the military inquiries that now take place. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Henry) has received the results of the Irish elections, but I should say that by this time the elections are pretty well over in what is called Southern Ireland, and that it will be found that every Member outside Trinity College returned for the so-called Southern Parliament is from the ranks of the Sinn Feiners. Could there be a more terrible or eloquent indictment of the policy of the Government than the fact that they have turned all Ireland into Sinn Feiners, with the exception of the small Unionist stronghold of Trinity College? I commend that verdict which will be known to the world this evening or to-morrow as the best answer to the policy of the Government.

There are many other points that I might raise, but I will refer only to one as I want to be merciful to Mr. Speaker and to the officials of the House and not to detain them at this late hour. That is a confirmation, I regret to say, of the charge I have often made before, namely, brutal treatment, amounting to torture, of men in gaol and under arrest. Here is the last case which I find in an English newspaper. It is the statement of John Kavanagh, a district councillor, who has instanced frequent unprovoked beatings and has told how an n.c.o. joined with others in beating a man who had several bayonet wounds in his ribs. He says: do. I believe the time has come when, as Cardinal Bourne says, we—the Irish and English—should cease killing each other, but how is it to be done? I do not know that it is the gospel of the right hon. and learned Attorney-General—I rather think it is not, because he has been brought up in the great tradition of the supremacy of the civil power—but there are people in Ireland, and some gentlemen acting behind the scenes in England, as well, who are of the opinion that the only way to deal with Ireland is by cruelty, again cruelty, and yet again cruelty. That is what lies behind the execution of Patrick Casey, and behind the screening of the criminals in the Castleconnell and Drumcondra cases. The theory is a false one, and it has been proved to be false. Every single act of extreme savage cruelty by the forces of the Crown, or those responsible for the forces of the Crown, has brought its immediate response in the increase of disorder and crime in Ireland. That is not the way—by murder and reprisal, counter-murder and counter-reprisal, greater severity and more executions for smaller offences—that is not the road to the restoration of peace in Ireland, but is the road to chaos.

I am sure my hon. Friend will not accuse me of any want of respect for the very carefully thought out speech he has delivered, if I do not deal seriatim with the various points which he has raised. He will realise that it would occupy a long time to do so. I would like to say, however, in reply to him, that he is quite right in assuming that no man deplores the necessity for martial law more than I do. Not merely have I been brought up in the belief that free Courts and a free jurisprudence represent the greatest asset a nation can have, but as an Irishman it is a source of shame to me that our civil Courts cannot function in the ordinary way, as, I am happy to think, they did for so many years when I lived in the centre of Dublin, a happy existence. But whose fault is it? For years we went on trying to get the civil Courts to function. We continued to hold Assizes for years and I believe that for six years we did not get a conviction in a capital case in Ireland. In the end, when we sent His Majesty's judges through the country to hold Courts of Assize and summoned grand jurors and petty jurors to discharge the duties devolving upon them as citizens of a free nation, they were intimidated so that in many instances not merely were criminal cases left untried, but civil cases and poor men who were looking for justice in the King's Courts, had to depart after having incurred enormous expense which was absolutely thrown away. I do not think any body of men in this House will deny that the Government went on striving and hoping—alas, in vain—for a better condition of affairs, and it was only when the forces of Sinn Fein had proclaimed that they would not allow the existence of the ordinary Courts of justice that we were forced to bring in the Act for the Restoration of Order in Ireland and take exceptional powers for the purpose of trying to bring about peace. What new step was then taken? A state of rebellion, which has been judicially found on two or three occasions by the Courts to amount to warfare, exists. What is the result of that? Any constitutional lawyer will tell you that it is not merely the prerogative, but the duty of the Government to proclaim a state of martial law and to repel force by force. Men who take up arms in Ireland are in a state of rebellion. They are rebels and they are traitors and the Government of the country is entitled to deal with them on that basis. When my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen (Major M. Wood) complains of men not getting three weeks for the purpose of making their peace—

I did not say three weeks.

Well, a length of time, I do not tie my hon. Friend down to any period. No man is tried summarily by a military Court unless he is caught red-handed. What time do the constables and the soldiers who are shot get? Do they get 25 hours? Do they get the assistance of a clergyman of their religion, or do they get any form of trial? No.

Who decides whether or not they are caught red-handed?

A body of English and Scottish officers, and I think that, in the case of a state of actual warfare, in every civilised country such a tribunal would be accepted. It is beyond doubt the right, in a state of war, when martial law has been proclaimed, for prisoners who are taken with arms to be tried by military courts. That has been tested several times in the Irish courts quite recently, and the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, in delivering judgment in one of these cases, said:

"Whatever may be the legal position of prisoners when a rebellion is quelled, it is quite clear that during the continuance of hostilities and while martial law exists the necessities of the situation are for the decision of the military authorities, and they may either try a prisoner by a military court or they may postpone trial for a future date, which would usually be in the interest of the prisoner."

Does any hon. Gentleman who has experience of the effect of a rapid punishment doubt that a summary punishment is of great effect and perhaps the most merciful in the end? The man is caught in this case shooting at an officer. He is seen by 10, 15, or 20 men and arrested on the spot. It is not even suggested that he was innocent or that if he had been given a month he could have brought forward proof of his innocence.

Did he not ask for an adjournment in order to bring further evidence?

Not so far as I know, and it is obvious that when a man is found with arms in his hand and seen shooting at an officer and taken in the act, if there was an application for adjournment in such a case, it would obviously be merely for delay and no other purpose. Twenty-five hours were allowed. It is alleged that a pledge was given by the Chief Secretary that these cases would always be sent to the Judge Advocate-General. I have asked for, but I have never been referred to, that pledge. The Chief Secretary might have said in introducing the Restoration of Order Bill that that would be governed, as it is governed, by the military code, but he was not dealing with martial law. The Restoration of Order Act applies to all Ireland. Martial law only deals with a portion which is in a state of rebellion, and my right hon. Friend never gave a pledge about that, because at that time martial law had not been proclaimed. He was not dealing with the condition of affairs that exists now, and therefore my hon. and gallant Friend, I think, is straining the statement the Chief Secretary made and making it apply to a state of affairs which was not then in the contemplation of anyone. I communicated with the Commander-in-Chief, because no one is more anxious to be fair than General Macready, and he assures me that he never applied his remarks to martial law, but was dealing with cases that had passed.

He never said so.

That is his assurance to me, and at that time cases of this description had not arisen.

I want to ask the Comptroller of the Household, who is representing the Minister of Agriculture, who is, I know, unavoidably absent on a public duty which he could not forsake, a question or two with regard to the condition of horses which have been and are being exported to Belgium and Holland. I have not sufficient time to develop the argument, and I can only put it in a very concise form. The fact is that this question of the horse traffic has been dealt with under two Acts of Parliament, which provide for inspection. A very able and philanthropic lady named Miss Cole communicated with the Minister of Agriculture, who replied by the Permanent Secretary that the law was being rigorously enforced. Owing to the vigilance of humanitarian societies, it was brought about that the present Minister of Agriculture sent his own inspector, and found that this system of inspection had hopelessly broken down, as was proved by the White Paper of last March. With very great courage the present Minister of Agriculture published that paper. I am perfectly certain that he is as humane a man as anyone in this House or country. My only indictment against the system is that the system of inspection has broken down, and that the only way in which this terrible and barbaric traffic can be prevented is by the imposition of an export tax, which is perhaps an exceptional thing.

My questions are these: Whether those inspectors who contravened the Act have been punished? I shall certainly ask for their names—I know they have been dismissed; but I want to know whether they have been prosecuted. I want to know what are the state of the negotiations with the Dutch and the Belgian Governments? I want to know what the view of the Ministry and the Government is in regard to this proposed tax, and I also want to know whether the hon. and gallant Gentleman can add anything to the information he gave the House the other day—which was incomplete—about the vivisection of pit ponies?

My right hon. Friend has asked me to express his regret that he is unable to be here. Perhaps I may at once recognise the very courteous and fair way in which the hon. and learned Gentleman has spoken. I have only a couple of minutes to answer the few questions asked me. As to the first question, I am not aware that these inspectors have been punished, but their services were immediately dispensed with, and whole-time officers have been put in their place. It has been impressed upon these new officers that there must be closer inspection.

Then my hon. and learned Friend asked me about the Dutch and Belgian negotiations. I understand that a meeting has been already arranged, and that a representative of the Ministry will meet representatives of those Governments on the Continent towards the end of the present month. Thirdly, my hon. and learned Friend asked me about the suggested tax. My right hon. Friend thinks that, before the country embarks on fresh legislation opportunity should be given to see how these new arrangements are working. My right hon. Friend also desires to point out that there are grave objections to an export tax. In the first place, my right hon. Friend has no power to impose it. That is obviously a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, in the second place, it must be borne in mind that there is a valuable export in pit horses which are sent abroad for use on the farms and other purposes. An export tax would seriously interfere with that trade, and, having regard to the present financial condition of the country, my right hon. Friend thinks it is hardly the moment to interfere with a small but valuable export trade, and, further, to discourage the breeding of horses in this country. My right hon. Friend also asks me to state that he is fully determined, if the present arrangements are not effectual, to try and seek some further remedy, and he wishes me also to say that he and his Ministry are quite aware of the seriousness of the position and are thoroughly in earnest in their desire to get rid of every vestige of cruelty of any sort or any kind.

It being Five of the Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.