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

In asking the House to agree to au amendment of the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act, 1912, it is desirable to review, however briefly, the history of what led up to that Act, in order that the House may the better understand what it is that the Labour Party desires it to agree to to-day. For a long time prior to 1912 the miners were stated to be receiving very high wages. There was considerable controversy as to what those wages were, but almost the whole of the Press, and practically all the colliery owners, informed the country that the miners were in receipt of very high wages, and it passed into currency that among the best paid working people the most highly paid of all were the underground workers. No fiction was ever so ill-founded, and no statement was ever so far from the truth. In 1888 the wages of the workpeople at the mines underground and on the surface were so low that, looking back, one simply marvels how the people lived at all. What was known as the Miners' Federation of Great Britain was formed in that year for the purpose of gathering together the straggling remnants of the miners into one federation in order to raise their wages, and at that time what was known as the principle of a minimum wage was first developed. We met the owners at that time, but they would not agree to any such minimum. They repudiated the principle; they refused to pay wages in accordance with any such principle, but after pressure certain advances of wages were given, ranging over four years. Then came the heavy demand from the colliery owners of the Kingdom, at least those of the federated area, for a 25 per cent. reduction in the wages of their workpeople. This led to a prolonged struggle, lasting le weeks, which was ended by a conference over which Lord Rosebery presided, and as the result of that conference a Conciliation Board was established. That Conciliation Board in 1893 recognised for the first time the prin- ciple of a minimum wage, and from that date until now the principle has been admitted in the coal mining industry.

It is one thing, however, to admit a principle and it is another thing to convert that principle into a real fact. While the principle was admitted, no bottom was put to the figures, and as a matter of fact thousands of workpeople in the mines—when I say thousands I am speaking, of course, in relation to the hundreds of thousands that were working underground—would work a week, and sometimes even longer, for nothing at all. Young boys were taken on in the mines for a month, and even longer, on trial without any wages, and a case came to my notice, with which I had to deal, of a young lad killed in the mines in which no compensation could be paid because he was working on trial. This was at a time when the whole country was informed that the miners were in receipt of high wages, and that no body of men were so well paid. Things went on, and for years the Miners' Federation, in negotiation with the employers, endeavoured to secure definite minimum figures, but failed. The negotiations went on for two or three years. We came before this House and tried to point out to the House what a grave thing it was that large masses of people should work under economic conditions which meant for them constant impoverishment. The House of Commons turned an unheeding ear. The whole of the miners in the kingdom came out on strike and remained on strike for six weeks. During that struggle this House, at least the Cabinet of that time, appointed a Committee to go into the Whole question, and that Committee reported to this House that conditions existed in the mines which were completely beyond the control of the workman himself, making it impossible for him to earn a living wage. They therefore recommended this House to agree to the principle of a minimum wage, and it was embodied in the Act of 1912, and from that time to now that principle of a minimum wage has been accepted, with definite figures for the minimum below which no contract of service underground can be held to be legal.

In order to show how low were the wages of that time—not a very long time ago, only 13 years—I may remind the House that we appealed to the Govern- ment to put two definite figures in the Bill—to give to the adult workman, the able-bodied man of 21 years or over, a guaranteed minimum wage of 5s. per day, and to give to the boy of 14 years a minimum of 2s. The House refused, not on the ground that the figures were too high, because I think even the most pessimistic of men would hardly conceive those figures to be too high, but on the ground that it was not the duty of this House to fix a definite wage, which ought to be left to negotiation between the employers and the workmen represented upon the district boards set up by that Bill.

As a matter of fact I think almost for the whole of the mining kingdom the 2s. was agreed to, and something like 5s. for the men. The figures approximate to 2s. and 5s. for the men and they were agreed upon by the various boards set up under the Act. I only emphasise those two figures in order to call attention to the fact that the wages were really low, and to show how moderate were the demands of the men, and how difficult for long years had been the process of mutual negotiation. From the passing of the Act of 1912 it became the implied condition of the employment of a coal miner under ground that he should be paid a wage subject to certain exceptions not less than a figure fixed by the District Board for his labour.

There can be no doubt that the effect of that Act was to give a stability to the coal mining industry and a measure of satisfaction to the underground worker never known before. Unfortunately, our experience of the measure under normal conditions was very limited. No sooner had the Act come into practical operation than the most terrible conflict the world has known burst upon us, and of course, almost from the outbreak of the terrible war the coal mining industry came under Government control, first of all by a limitation of the prices at which coal was to be sold both for inland consumption and for export, and later by taking over first in South Wales and then for the whole mining kingdom the regulation of wages and profits, and also the prices at which coal had to be sold. In a sense the Government took over the control of the coal mining industry and thus we were prevented from ascertaining what would have been the effect of the Minimum Wage Act of 1912 under normal conditions.

When the peace came the miners put in a claim for an advance of wages. They had had their wages regulated by the Government, the selling price had been regulated and those conditions which were fundamental to the operation of the Conciliation Boards had passed into abeyance. Then the miners put in a claim for an advance in wages, and, as very serious trouble threatened the nation, the Government of that time set up a Commission which has passed into fame as the Sankey Commission. That Commission arrived at many conclusions, but one definite conclusion they reached unanimously, and that was that in the course of time the economic conditions of the mining industry had caused the coal miner to fall seriously behind the standard of living enjoyed by the rest of the community, and the Commission reported unanimously in favour of an increase of 2s. a day to the adult workers and a corresponding increase to other workers to represent the leeway necessary to make up in the coal mining industry as compared with the rest of the industrial community. Thus it will be seen why at that time, notwithstanding half a century of constant agitation, it was found by one of the most authoritative Commissions that has ever been established after prolonged inquiry and taking the evidence of scores of witnesses representing all sides of the industry, land owners and miners, that the mining community had fallen behind in their standard of living compared with the rest of the community.

The Government took control of the industry from 1919 to 1921 and they regulated the wages, profits and selling prices. In March, 1921, as we contend very wrongly, they suddenly ceased control of the industry. Repeated appeals were made from this side of the House that no such action should be taken because of the terrible confusion and complexity that was certain to result, but our appeals passed unheeded. The employers were informed of the intention of the Government to abandon control, the result being that they placed their workpeople on daily contracts, so that at the end of one day they could determine the employment of every man employed by them. That actually took place. The employers stated to the workmen, "Now the Government assistance is withdrawn, and the guarantees upon which we depended no longer exist, we are unable to pay you the wages which you have hitherto been receiving. We therefore give you notice of a reduction in wages." They did give notice of the most inconceivable reductions ever known in the history of the industry. Those reductions in some cases were as low as 15 per cent, and as high as 70 per cent. in some cases of the wages then being paid.

Hon. Members opposite and some on this side, when the men refused to accept such conditions, declared that it was a strike on the part of the workers and not a lock-out. Of course, political life is capable of many genuflections. The lockout which followed I need not describe in detail. Suffice it to say that at the end of three months an arrangement was entered into between the representatives of the owners and the workmen and the Government of that time. That arrangement stipulated, among many other things to which I need not refer now, that there should be a minimum wage guaranteed to the men and a standard rate of profit guaranteed to the employers. The standard of profits guaranteed to the employers was to be a certain percentage of the standard wages of the workers. I am not saying one single word in praise or condemnation of such an arrangement. What I want to say is that never before in the history of the world was such an arrangement known, and never in any industry could it be applied except in the mining industry.

The minimum wage thus fixed was so low that even the authors of the arrangement placed in one of the paragraphs a condition providing for the payment of a subsistence allowance—not a living allowance, not a living wage; nothing of the kind. When the question was submitted to the authors of the arrangement, "Does this subsistence allowance mean a living wage?" the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) said, "Oh, no, it means nothing of the kind. It means what it says, a subsistence allowance." And on that subsistence allowance hundreds of thousands of adult workers are living to-day in the mining industry. I have never known, in the whole history of England, such a condition denying the right of the worker to live a decent life as the result of labour honestly applied by a capable, willing workman prepared to work hard and to give of his best. I have never known such a condition as this before in the history of industry. Even the relationships of capitalism and labour, sordid and tragic as they have often been, have never shown anything such as that existing now in the mining industry. Certainly four-fifths of the adult workers who are paid by the day rate are to-day in receipt of wages either equal to or lower than that subsistence allowance. There are thousands and tens of thousands receiving less than a subsistence allowance.

It will be interesting to the House to see what are the real figures. Hon. Members, every one of whom here in this House has either knowledge of business with which they themselves are directly concerned, or knowledge of municipal administration, or knowledge of wages paid by themselves as employers, and they therefore do know, without any abstract definition of mind, what is meant by the term "a living wage." Let me read out to the House the figures actually paid to men working by the day, everyone of whom has to be a capable and efficient workman of 21 years of age or over. The best area in the kingdom at the moment, and probably it will be for many years to come, is South Yorkshire. There is not a man on that side of the House and there are very few on this but who knows what a promising coalfield that is, and how good relatively to those existing elsewhere are the conditions both for the employers and the workmen. This is the figure paid to adult workmen in South Yorkshire—8s. 8½d. per day.

That is the average.

No; it is the actual figure paid to the individual, and is not the average at all. It is the amount received by the individual from which certain deductions are made, leaving him substantially with less than 8s. 8½d. to take home.

I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman suggests that every individual gets the same. Will he tell us the class of worker to whom he refers?

The right hon. Gentleman himself is the author of this particular arrangement, and he knows perfectly well, or ought to know, that the subsistence allowance applies only to lowly-paid day workers.

Yes. I perfectly understand that, but I did not understand that the right hon. Gentleman was referring to the subsistence wage alone, when he was giving his figures.

Yes, the subsistence allowance is added to the basic wage. This is the subsistence allowance and all of it.

It was only for a clearer understanding that I interrupted the right hon. Gentleman, because it would be a mistake to give the House the impression that there are large numbers of colliers in South Yorkshire getting that pay.

It is not a mistake at all. It is an actual fact. Thousands and tens of thousands are getting this figure in South Yorkshire, and getting less than this figure. As a matter of fact, the surface workers are getting less. The underground workers, who are paid upon days of work, are getting this figure. I thought that the right hon. Gentleman, from his inner information and knowledge of the arrangement, would understand what I was referring to. In South Wales, which not very long ago was the finest coal mining and exporting area in the world, a similar workman is getting 8s. 0¾d.; in Scotland he is getting 7s. 10½d.; in Durham and Lancashire 7s. 6½d., and in Northumberland 7s. 7½d. Multiplying those amounts by the working time, which, putting it at the very highest, could not be more than 5½ days per week—I am giving you the very outside—[HON. MEMBERS: "Too high."]—I say that I am giving an outside figure. Everybody with any knowledge of the mines knows perfectly well that it is impossible for the workman to work 11 days per fortnight, having regard to the broken time inseparable to coal-mining undertakings, having regard to holidays, having regard to occasional illness, having regard to a breakdown of weather, having regard to a breakdown of transport, and having regard to a thousand and one difficulties inseparable even from human life, never mind the coal-mining industry itself. I am putting it at the very highest figure when I say, multiply this by 5½ per week, and I would ask anyone here, can they conceive the possibility of a decent human life being lived by a man and his family on wages such as these?

Now we will take the average wage of all, and here, perhaps, the House may see a little more clearly what the conditions are. These figures are the average wage of all, including the most highly paid men, including people who get in many cases twice the figures that I have read out. In South Wales the average of all employed is 10s. 8d. a day; in Scotland, 10s. 6d.; in Durham, 9s. 10d.; in Lancashire, 9s. 8d.; in North Wales, 9s. 4d.; in Northumberland, 9s. 2d. I ask hon. Members to compare the most unskilled occupations within their knowledge, and I ask them, from their knowledge of business administration, from their knowledge as employers of Labour, from their knowledge of the wages paid by them as administrators on public bodies, to think of the most unskilled occupations that they know—occupations requiring the least exercise of energy or thought—and I ask them to compare the wages paid under those conditions with the wages I have just read out to the House. And even these figures, low as they are, are subject to considerable deduction. There has grown up during the last 13 or 14 years a system entirely opposed to all the experience of the previous half-century. Now the workman is called upon to allow his wages to be mulct on every considerable pretext. It was first of all for health insurance, away back 14 years ago; then came unemployment insurance; and, of course, the figures, which started small, became large by degrees, until at the moment the underground workman has to pay for his lamp, for his tools, which he must buy to carry on his calling, his health insurance, his unemployment insurance; and I think it may be fairly said that, before the tale of these deductions is complete, the man has sustained anything from 10 to 15 per cent. reduction on the gross totals that I have submitted to the House.

As I was saying, this process that has grown up during these last 14 years is totally opposed to all that had gone before. From 1831, possibly because of the growth of the Young England party at that time, Parliament began to legislate against deductions from the workman's wage, and insisted gradually, by legislation, that, before any deductions could be made, the workman must be a consenting party—he must sign his hand to it. For picks, for coal, for powder, for whatever it was, he must be a consenting party, and no deductions were to be made from the workman against his will. The consent of the workman now is never even sought Legislation is thrust upon this House without the consent of the workman ever being asked, and to-day we are finding these huge percentages of deduction made from the workman's wages, so that the figures I have given to the House have to be very substantially lowered in order to find out what are the amounts that the men take home.

May I interrupt with a question, before the right hon. Gentleman leaves this subject? I gather that the 8s. 8d., which he quoted as the figure for the underground workers, is for some of the higher-paid men in the pit? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]

It is very difficult indeed if hon. Members will not pay attention. I stated in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) that these were subsistence allowances, paid in addition to the basic wage to those who were working by the day wage, and that they did not refer to the actual coal-getter at the face. They refer to the day wage man, who is paid by the day, and who, in the ordinary way, is engaged in the repair work of the mine. His wage, apart from subsistence allowance, would be at least is. 1½d. per day less than the figures. I have given; but, with the subsistence allowance, which is paid only to those paid by the day, it makes the figure I have given. That applies to day wage men only. The average for all the workmen I have also read out.

Which is substantially higher.

Perhaps I had better read the figures again, in order to let my hon. Friend see where the substantial difference comes in. In Northumberland it is 9s. 2d., which is 6d. higher than the 8s. 8d.; in North Wales it is 9s. 4d., which is 8d. higher than the 8s. 8d. In Lancashire it is 9s. 8d., and in Durham 9s. 10d. The two areas that can be said to be appreciably higher than the 8s. 8d. quoted for South Yorkshire day wage men are South Wales and Scotland; and, again, I would ask my hon. Friend to remember that this includes the salaries of many of the most highly paid people about the place, and does not refer at all to the underground workmen. The whole of the highly placed and the highly paid men, apart from the manageriel and directorial staff, are included in these figures, and when my hon. Friend thinks of that, he will see that there is not a very serious difference, after all, as against the 8s. 8d. that I mentioned at first.

I think the House will agree that the figures I have given, compared with prewar wages, will show that the miners have fallen far behind the standard of the cost of living, certainly by more than 20 per cent. I do not think it is necessary at the moment to trouble the House with a calculation. The figures I have given here are very much larger than they are in some areas. It really would be appalling if I were to read out what the figures are in certain areas. In Shropshire the minimum wage is 6s. 5d, a day; in Cumberland 7s. 7d.; in Bristol, above ground, it is 5s.9¾d., and in Bristol below, ground it is 6s. 1d. I am sure the House will forgive me if I do not read any further. Any person who has any knowledge at all must know that the highest figures I have read out fall far below the standard of living that every decent workman is entitled to secure. It is, of all things, desirable that the House shall know what it is we ask. Only a fortnight ago, the Prime Minister appealed to the House with one of the most fervent invocations that could pass the lips of man

"Give peace in our time, O Lord!"

That is an invocation that everyone of us would most solemnly endorse, but peace can only be maintained on conditions of enabling people to live in something like decency. How hollow must that invocation become, when we know that at the very time the ejaculation was uttered, hundreds of thousands of people are living under a state of things which makes for their constant impoverishment and misery! I do not want to become in any sense emotional, and I do not desire to become oratorical, but I do ask the House to conceive, as well as they can, what is the condition of vast masses of cur people in the mining population. The actual workers of the mining population number about 1,250,000, and there are some 5,000,000 of people directly concerned in the miner and his family. That is one eighth if not more of the whole population of the Kingdom. It must, surely, be a matter of the highest social importance that this vast mass of people, whose interest is so essential to the very life of the nation, shall live under conditions that give them some hope of a decent life.

I listened to a most remarkable speech yesterday by the right hon. Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond). Two or three sentences struck me as containing the essence of wisdom. These were the words he used:

"Who can put down in L.S.D. the degeneration of a working population or the human misery which is taking place?…You cannot put such things into figures. All we know is that these things are taking place."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1925; col. 780, Vol. 182.]

I would ask any hon. Member to come with me into the mining areas, and see the exact conditions that exist. It is impossible for me, as it is impossible for any hon. Member, to put these things into figures. We do know that a vast extent of human misery exists, and that it is impossible under existing conditions for the working people to get out of these conditions. It may be asked, "Why do you trouble the House of Commons? Why do not you do it yourselves?" There is not a single Member, if he thinks of it, who does not know perfectly well that the day of the individual relationship between employer and workman has long passed. If there was one thing at which I was surprised in the speech of the Prime Minister, it was that he did not recognise the fact 30 years earlier. He himself has been honourably associated with one of the largest combinations of capital that exists in this Kingdom, not merely of coal mines, but such interests as iron, ships, wagon building, and other kinds of things. To-day, it is impossible for the workman, as a workman, just as it is impossible for the omployer, as an employer, to proceed on the principle of individual relations. The individual relations have passed into the limbo of forgotten things, and to-day the workman, being faced with vast combinations, trusts and huge aggregations, of which Sidney Smith said that they have

"neither a soul to save nor a body to kick",

and we are compelled under existing conditions to come to Parliament and ask Parliament to help this vast mass of virile, hard-working population: a population so essential and integral a part of the very existence of the country, and to help to do for the men what they are utterly incapable of performing for themselves, namely, to put them upon a basis that will give them a chance of a decent human life.

The Bill in its essentials is identical with the Act of 1912. The machinery of the District Boards will not be interfered with. The only essential change distinct from the Act of 1912, is that instead of giving a direction to the independent Chairman of the District Boards to base the minimum upon the average wage then existing for a particular class of labour, certain concrete figures are put into the Schedule of the Bill below which it would not be competent for any independent chairman to decide. That is the only change of material importance in the Bill as distinct from the Measure of 1912. The increases barely represent the increase in the cast of living that has taken place since 1912. The principle is exactly the same as that to which the House agreed 13 years ago.

The misery of our mining population is undoubted. The necessity that this vast mass of people shall be placed upon economic conditions which give to them and their wives and families some chance of a decent life will, I think, be admitted by every hon member who takes into consideration how necessary it is for the well-being of the State itself that such a vast mass of population shall not for ever remain in a state of semi-starvation and impoverishment. That is the reason why we are asking the House to give a Second Reading to the Bill to-day. We do not say that these figures are sacred. We do not say that Amendments may not be made in Committee, but we do ask the Prime Minister himself, with his genuine- ness and his sincere desire that there shall be that peace which he so fervently invoked, should show his good-will in this matter. If there is to be peace, it must be peace obtained upon honourable conditions to the workpeople, upon whose well-being the very social and economic existence of this country so largely depends.

I appeal to my right hon. Friend, as the head of one of the most powerful governments of modern times, to do to-day what he refused to do for us two years ago. This is by no means the first appeal. We appealed to his honoured and departed predecessor in 1922. We appealed to the right hon. Gentleman who now is enshrined in Westminster Abbey to give the miners a minimum wage, and he replied, "I cannot at present. You must wait. Things are improving, and in all probability things will so improve that the present necessities will pass away." I told him that he was too hopeful. I asked him if the existing conditions did not disappear would he hold out a little hope that we were to see him again. He is now only a memory. We saw the right hon. Gentleman himself in 1923 in his own room. He had then taken the leadership of the House in the absence of his revered friend. He said that he could not do then what we asked, that it was not possible. My right hon. Friend knows—no man better—that in the existing condition of things in the mining industry it is impossible for the coal miners to lift themselves out of the horrible slough in which they find themselves at present, and that only by Parliamentary action can real value be given to the Measure passed 14 years ago. I appeal, for the sake of that peace which he so fervently values and for the sake of the well-being of the nation—because no mass of people can remain in an impoverished and degraded state without injuring the whole—I appeal on those grounds that a second reading be given to this Bill, and such Amendments as may be necessary can take place in Committee.

I beg to move to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words

"this House, having regard to the advisability of settling the conditions and wages of an industry by agreement between those concerned in the industry, declines to consider a Bill which, whilst establishing a rigid minimum, withdraws from those directly concerned the power to settle their own affairs in consultation and conference on conditions prevailing at any given time."

It is with a feeling of grave responsibility that I move this Amendment, because I represent a constituency in which there is a large mining population, and I should not move the Amendment unless I. felt very profoundly that this Measure is not in the best interests of the mining community. I know that hon. Gentlemen opposite will credit me with as great a sincerity in this respect as they have themselves. Therefore I appeal to them to allow me to state my case against the Bill as shortly and as succinctly as I can. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Bill, if he will forgive me for using a military simile, brought forward an immense array of troops, artillery, infantry and cavalry, and laid the ground for what appeared to be a very big action; but it ended in a demonstration in strength, because it seems to me that he failed entirely to appreciate the one grave reason which makes it impossible at present to expect the House to accept this Bill.

12 N.

He never alluded, or if so only in the most vague way, to the present condition of the coal trade. That, it seems to me, is the difficulty which we have to face to-day. I personally should like to see the miners get a very much larger wage than they are now paid. I have the greatest respect for them. I have many friends among them, and they are not limited to those who believe in my particular political doctrines. I feel that it is a thousand pities that miners who have such dangerous and arduous work to do at present receive such comparatively low wages. But the right hon. Gentleman knows, as we all know, that the wages in an industry must depend upon the earning capacity of the industry. At the present time the coal industry of this country is faced with a competition which it has never encountered before. Everyone knows that the competition from German coal is now greater than it has ever been in the memory of man. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] If that be disputed, it can be easily established later on. The competition of German coal from the Ruhr, and the use of lignite in Germany for power purposes, is enabling Germany to send coal abroad far more cheaply than we can from this country.

The German miners work longer hours. [HON. MEMBERS: "You make them!"] They take lower wages, and live in worse conditions than we can expect our people to accept. As long as we are faced with this kind of competition, we cannot hope to increase the wages of miners in this country. During the last election, I was continually told that the object of the Miners' Federation in this country was to make German miners refuse to work the long hours which they do work, and refuse to accept the low wages which they do accept. I earnestly hope that the Federation in this country will be successful in its object. But it seems to me that it will not be successful until we have lost the whole of our export trade.

Again, hon. Gentlemen will remember that coal is faced with competition from other things beside foreign coal. There is the question of oil. We have to face the fact that ships are now being propelled by oil, and that oil will be used in substitution for coal more and more for locomotion purposes on land. If the state of the coal trade be such as I have described, how can it produce enough money to give higher wages to the miners? I did not quite gather what the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walsh) had in mind when he appealed to the Prime Minister to come to the assistance of the miners, and let this Bill pass. I could not understand exactly what the Government was expected to do. Was it to give a subsidy to the mining industry, or something different?

The hon. Gentleman will see that in the Bill there is no mention of any subsidy. The Bill is identical in principle with the Act of 1912, and we are simply asking this Parliament to reaffirm the attitude of the Parliament of 13 years ago.

I understand the right hon. Gentleman—

You are talking of a subsidy.

Yes, because I did not understand, if the state of the trade is such as I have described—

It always was such as it is.

No. The coal trade has never been in the same state as it is to-day. Never in the history of this country has the foreign competition all over the world been anything like what it is to-day, and personally, I fail to see how we can by legislation improve the economic condition of the industry. But I feel that what the right hon. Gentleman said at the close of his speech was rather too pessimistic. I believe that it is possible even now, when the old bonds which united employers and employed have passed away, for those who are connected with an industry to get together, and work out their own salvation for themselves. Perhaps I am more optimistic than hon. Gentlemen opposite, but it seems to me that if those who are working in an industry cannot help themselves, nothing really can be done for the industry. Those concerned must get together. In the coal industry they have so to reorganise the industry that it can be worked on better and more economic lines. [HON. MEMBERS: "Sankey lines!"] On what lines they find best, after working out all the problems that have to be considered. They can do this. It is perfectly clear that in the past there have been grave sins on the side of the employers. I have never for a moment denied it. I think that in the past employers in many industries, not excepting the coal industry, have taken far more than their share of the proceeds of the industry. I am perfectly prepared to admit it, and I think we all are. But I always regret the way in which hon. Gentlemen opposite live in the past. We have to live in the present and to work for the future. Unless we do that we shall never get this country going again, and shall never obtain for our children the position and the conditions of life which we think they ought to have. That is why it seems to me that hon. Members would be well advised not to pursue this Bill. I am pretty certain that had hon. Gentlemen opposite been in office to-day, and this Bill had been brought forward by a private Member, it would not have been taken up by the Government.

It is impossible for the Government to step in, and to do for a trade what the trade cannot do for itself. I am speaking in perfectly general terms, and no doubt hon. Members on both sides who follow will produce countless suggestions and statistics to prove their points. But I am appealing to something quite different My appeal is couched on the same note as that of the Prime Minister in his great speech the other day. From what I have seen in the county of Durham, I believe that the state of the coal trade is so bad now that, unless it can be got going, unless it can be re-organised on better lines, the outlook is very serious. The miners must be given an interest in their work; they must be made to feel a sense of responsibility, and must work together with the owners.

I am hopeful that a better feeling will yet prevail, that the honest men of Durham will be able to get more out of the industry than they are getting now, and that there is some future before them. But I would demur rather from what the right hon. Gentleman said about the principle of the Bill of 1912 being generally accepted. That Bill was passed to meet a great emergency, and at the time every party in this House regretted the necessity for it. The present Lord Oxford and Asquith, who was then Prime Minister, and brought in the Bill, assured the House that, in agreeing to the Bill and passing it, they were not affirming the principle of the minimum wage. He said:

"We resorted to legislation only when all hope of a settlement by agreement disappeared."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th March, 1912; col. 1723, Vol. 35.]

The right hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. R. MacDonald), who spoke for the Labour party on that occasion said:

"I regret the Bill. I suppose we all regret the Bill. Personally, in present circumstances I should have preferred that owners and men had come to an agreement, an agreement satisfactory to both sides, an agreement which both would have carried out for some reasonable period of time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th March, 1912; col. 1743, Vol. 35.]

The right hon. Gentleman who has now left us (Mr. Bonar Law), in speaking for the Conservative party, frankly said that he did not approve of the principle of the minimum wage. The Act was limited to a period of three years. It is true that it has been continued since then by successive Expiring Laws Continuance Acts, and consequently that in a sense for a par- titular section of a particular industry the doctrine of the minimum wage may possibly be deemed an accepted principle. But to argue from this that the whole principle is accepted seems to be rather far-reaching, I have discovered, since I have been in the county of Durham, that opinion with regard to the adoption of the minimum wage and the effect that it has had is very much divided.

Among miners?

Yes, amongst miners. I have spoken to many miners. I have got to know a great many miners, not only Conservative miners, but miners who do not agree with me politically—miners who are followers of hon. Gentlemen opposite. In the intimacy of private conversation, when no one is listening but the person addressed, one gets a good many intimate revelations of character and opinions and statements of fact which are not generally heard outside. I have found many miners who do not think that the minimum wage is altogether desirable in the interests of the mining community.

Where the hon. and gallant Member's division and mine meet, will he address with me a public meeting of miners?

If the hon. Gentleman and I meet on an occasion of that kind, I am certain that my friends and his friends would not agree, and I am equally certain that no opinions would be heard except those of his friends. That being the case, hon. Gentlemen opposite will forgive me if I still stick to my opinion, and say that even among the miners the idea that the minimum wage is wholly desirable is not universally accepted. We shall be well advised in this House if we decide that, for the time being, at any rate, it should be left to the employers and the employed to thrash out this question between them. There is really no alternative, because it is perfectly clear that if the trade cannot support itself, no good will come of our passing legislation imposing a higher and more widely extended minimum wage, which that trade cannot possibly pay. It would be establishing an increased charge on the undertaking when trade is rapidly decreasing. I urge that the House should consider the matter from a purely common-sense point of view. I agree profoundly with much that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Walsh) said, but I honestly believe that the passage of this Bill into law would not have the effect which the right hon. Gentleman anticipates, and that the one and only cure for our coal-mining industry is for all those who are concerned in the trade—all those who get their living out of mining—to sit down together, and see if they cannot do something to revive the industry in their own and the national interest.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I would much have preferred to have moved the direct rejection of the Bill, for I think that would have been the straighter course. But in deference to Mr. Speaker's ruling it is left to me to seicond the reasoned Amendment moved from the other side. I listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Second Beading of the Bill. We were treated to a very deightful statement of the present position of the coal trade. I agreed practically with every word of it. What it had to do with this Bill I hope somebody will explain later on. There was scarcely a reference to the Bill in the speech. It was a very interesting historical survey of the situation, but it contained nothing to recommend this Bill to the House. I agree that the present condition of the miners is deplorable. I sympathise with the position of the industry, for my own sake and for the sake of those who are interested on the other side for the miners, and I had hoped the right hon. Gentleman would have told us why its condition is deplorable and would have given us some facts from which the House might judge. My first point is that the time is very inopportune for the introduction of this Bill. We have been suffering in this country from agitations, from strikes, from lock-outs—it does not matter what the cause has been—for the last 20 years. Now, for the first time in the history of the trade, the two sides have agreed to sit round a table.[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I think I am merely stating a fact when I say that for the first time they have voluntarily agreed to do so. [HON. MRMBERS: "No!"] The fact remains that there is a Committee. I do not wish to quibble about words. [Interruption.]

I know that hon. Members wish to speak, and I know that they desire to get a decision on the Bill at 4 o'clock; but by this constant interruption they are by way of preventing both.

I think the time is inopportune for this Bill because discussion is going on, I think, with good will on both sides, and an attempt is being made to find the cause of the present position and the best way of solving the difficulty. Anything that may be said to-day which would have a tendency to make that task more difficult is surely to be deplored and therefore I regret that this discussion is taking place. I wish to refer to what I think is the root cause of the trouble in the mining industry. We have the finest coal in the world. In calorific value and in by-products, British coal is better than any in the world and, therefore, we are not dealing with an inferior article. I think it will be agreed that the British miners as a body of workmen are finer than any other body of workmen in the world as far as this industry is concerned. I think the men at the head of the mechanical department of the industry in this country are the equals of those in similar positions in the industry in any part of the world. Therefore I do not think the cause is to be sought there. I think the cause of the trouble is low output. We are not producing sufficient coal in this country per man shift to enable us to compete with other countries. In 1913 the output per man shift in this country was 20·3 cwts. In 1924 that had fallen to 17·6 cwts. per man shift, a decrease of over 13 per cent. How does that compare with the United States, our chief competitor. The latest figures I have been able to get in reference to the United States are those for 1920 which show that the output per man shift of bituminous coal was 4 tons per day per man, and in the anthracite districts 2¼ tons per day per man. The startling fact is that the American miner produces five times as much coal as the British miner.

Under entirely different conditions.

We are not discussing conditions; we are discussing output. We are dealing now with the fact against which we have to compete.

Are we to understand that is entirely the miner's fault?

I am not discussing whose fault it is; I am trying to find out the cause of the trouble. I say the cause of the trouble is that the American coal producer can put his coal on the market cheaper than we can, and that is due to the act that the output per man employed is five times greater in America than it is in this country. Mr. Lee before the Buckmaster inquiry in 1924 said that the best Pocahontas steam coal was produced at an all-inclusive price of 9s. 6d. per ton at the pit head, whereas in this country wages only in 1924 represented 13s. 2¼d. per ton. To that we have to add overhead charges and other costs, and it works out at something like 20s. or 21s. There is the startling fact, which is of real interest to the miners, that the Americans are able to produce coal at 55 per cent. less than we can produce it in this country. There you have the root cause of the trouble. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is nothing new."] I am not suggesting it is new. I wish it were new, for then it would signify a condition which we might be able to get over quickly.

I think the interjection of the Noble Lord the Member for, South Nottingham (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck) was quite germane to the subject, and the hon. Member should make it perfectly clear, in order that no misunderstanding may arise, that this may be due to conditions, and not to the working of the miner themselves

I say again I am not trying to suggest that it is the miners' fault or the owners' fault or anybody's fault. These are the facts and I say at once that this position is not due entirely to the miners of this country, though I think it is partly due to them I think there are possibilities of increased output per man-shift in this country, but that is by the way. What I want to ask is Does this Bill provide a remedy? It is sugggested that the Bill is an Amendment of the 1912 Act. I suggest it is nothing of the sort. That Act was passed for a totally different purpose. Those connected with the industry know what an "abnormal place" is. The 1912 Act was not a minimum wage Act in the sense that this Bill is intended to be but was passed to overcome the special difficulty that you find in every mine. There are places in every mine where, however hard a man may work, he cannot produce sufficient coal to provide a wage equal to that of the man who is working in a better place and producing more coal. The object of the 1912 Act was to deal with that difficulty. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] That Act passed to meet an abnormal condition. Now it is sought to extend that principle so that every man in the mine will come on to the minimum. This is not an amendment of the previous Act, but a new Bill entirely. Our chief complaint of the Bill as it is drawn is that it takes no notice whatever of what service the man has rendered before he is to be paid the minimum wage. It ignores the law of supply and demand, and would set up an artificial condition, and I say that unless there is, on the other hand, a guaranteed service, you are going to make the coal mining industry the happy hunting ground of all the "Weary Willies" and "Tired Tims" in the country. This is not a Minimum Wage Bill, it is a Minimum Work Bill; it is a Money for Nothing Bill. There never was a Bill which was a greater incentive to "ca'canny" or to indolence. I say that this House should never agree to any Measure which, on the one hand, gives to a man a guaranteed wage, and does not insist, on the other hand, that the man should give a guaranteed service.

The machinery of the principal Act, which enables an inefficient workman to be so described and prevented from receiving the minimum wage, would operate in this Bill.

There is nothing in the original Act—[Interruption.]—If I may get on, my next objection to the Bill is that it supersedes an already existing agreement come to by the two sides, an agreement which does provide for a minimum wage. It may be low—I am not discussing that point for a moment—but there you have the machinery for a minimum wage, and, when the trade can stand it, that minimum will automatically increase. You have got the machinery for it, so that to-day we are not arguing against the principle of a minimum wage in the industry. What we say is that it is not for Parliament, but for the industry itself, to fix that minimum. The Bill, if passed, would cancel a lot of the jobs of my hon. Friends on the benches above the Gangway. It would supersede collective bargaining, and the trade unions would have very little work to do. In any case, this is such a new principle, and, to my mind, it is such a startling innovation in legislation, that I think the House is entitled to ask one or two questions, which I am sure hon. Members will be glad to answer.

How much will it cost? Can the trade stand it? I think they are two very pertinent questions. The present minimum, leaving out piece workers, is approximately 7s. 6d., and it has been increased, by various awards, to bring it up to the subsistence level, as it is called, hut, generally speaking, it is somewhere about 7s. 6d. Under the Bill, that minimum is to be brought up to an average of 11s., leaving out piece workers. It is very difficult to estimate what will be the exact cost of it. I estimate, myself, from the best sources I can get it, that it will mean an increase to the wages bill of about £25,000,000 a year, and that represents 2s. a ton on all the coal produced in this country. Can the industry stand it? If it cannot, I think our discussion is useless. Take 1924. Under the agreement of 1921, there was set up the machinery for a minimum wage, coupled with a new principle that there was to be a certain percentage of the proceeds for wages and a certain proportion of the profits for dividends. You had the total receipts divided up into known proportions, and the wages were to be a first charge on the proceeds of the industry. In the 1924 agreement there was a revision of the proportions, and the proportion to be paid in wages was increased.

Now let me see how that worked out in 1924. In that year the total proceeds of the industry amounted to £165,500,000, and the total amount paid in wages out of that was £152,200,000, the balance left for profit being £13,300,000. These are the figures issued by the Board of Trade, so that the owners received, for 1924, a. sum equal to less than 1 per cent. of what was paid in wages. For 1924 they received £13,300,000.

I was pointing out, when interrupted, that the total profits for the industry for 1924 were £165,500,000, and that the amount paid in wages was £152,200,000. The balance left for profits for the whole of 1924 was thus £13,300,000, a sum equal to less than 1 per cent. of the amount paid in wages I am quite prepared to say—

Where does the hon. Gentleman get that calculation? The figures that he gives show a profit of 8½ per cent., not 1 per cent.

I was going on to say that if we took the £13,000,000 as the total amount paid in profits that that would certainly be misleading unless one also went into a further calculation to discover what that represented on the total amount of capital in the industry. The amount of capital in the industry is difficult to calculate.

Surely not!

I think we had better leave it at that for the moment.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, it is of the greatest importance that a statement like that—that the profits only represent 1 per cent.—should not be made without some proof. The wages amounted to £152,000,000, and the profits to £13,000,000. £13,000,000 to £152,000,000 is 8½ per cent. and not 1 per cent.

Probably a following speaker will take up that point, and deal with it.

I want now to put the total amount that the owners had in 1924 which was not sufficient to anything like meet the charges which would fall under this Bill. Since the Agreement of 1924 came into operation the amount allowed in profits has been less. In the September quarter, the amount paid in profits represented 2·9d. per ton, and the amount in the December quarter was 7½d. per ton. The amount of wages paid in those two quarters averaged about £37,000,000 in each of the three months. The total profit, therefore, in the September quarter was 264,000, as against £37,000,000 paid in wages. In the December quarter the total profit was £1,800,000. So that the whole of the proceeds at present are paid in wages and since the coming into operation of the 1924 Agreement. There is nothing left to pay for other wages so far as the industry is concerned, and the owners at the moment are not receiving any return on their capital, taking the country as a whole. I agree that in isolated instances, in certain parts of the coalfield there are profits being made, but to compensate for that there are a large number of other districts where the pits are making no profits for the owners. Under the National Agreement when you take any of the figures you must take the whole country through, and I say that at the moment there is nothing in the industry out of which this minimum wage could be paid. Where, then, is it to come from? It must come from somewhere. You can get it by increasing the price of coal at the pit-head by 2s. per ton, or you can do it by a Government subsidy. Those are the only two methods possible. Is the country going to stand an increase of 2s. per ton on the total output of the coal of this country?

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will give us some indication as to the facts upon which he bases that calculation?

It is my own calculation with the help of my own accountant. I will supply the hon. Member with a copy of the figures if he desire.

Or anyone else?

I will to the best of my ability, supply anybody who wants these calculations. Let me add that the steel industry is also in a bad way just now. It takes four tons of coal to make one ton of steel, and 2s. per ton at the pit-head on coal would mean 2s. 6d. by the time it reached the consumer. You will raise the price of steel 10s. per ton. I wonder what the steel-workers will say about that, at a tame too, when the industry can barely compete with other countries? We have beard a lot lately about orders for ships going to Germany. The amount of coal used in the building of a ship is very considerable. On an 8,000-ton ship it takes something like 2,500 tons of steel in plates and girders, besides the steel used in the engines and the boilers. There will be an increase of price on an 8,000-ton ship by 10s. per ton for the steel and iron if this Bill is passed, and I think the steel workers and the shipyard workers ought to know it. It will effect also the gas and electricity works and workers, for they also will have to pay the increase. There is not a single person in the country who will not be affected. Certainly the coalowners will not be affected by the Bill; somebody will have to pay the money. It is not, I say, in the industry now, and you can only get it by passing the extra cost on to the consumer.

Suppose you can get the people of this country to pay the 2s. extra? Suppose you artificially force up the price of coal? We export one-third of the total output of coal each year. In 1913 we exported 98,000,000 tons out of a total of 287,000,000 tons, so that if you are going artificially to raise the price of coal you are going to kill your export trade. One-third of the mines to-day are employed in producing coal for competition in foreign markets. You will never get the foreigner to pay the increase of cost involved in the passing of this Minimum Wage Bill. I can tell hon. Members from experience that when it comes to the question of selling coals to the foreigner, the coalowners in this country extract the last penny. The output already has gone clown enormously. What is the alternative? A Government subsidy! It will be at the cost of the taxpayer. I do not, however, think there is going to be much chance with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in asking for a £25,000,000 subsidy for the coal trade just now.

There is no other way of doing what is required except by agreement between the two sides of the industry. This thing can only be done by getting the men and the owners together, and by some method of combination to increase the output and to reduce the cost to the consumer. There is no other way whereby an increase of wages can be obtained. You cannot get more out of an industry than is in it. The miners are getting it all now. When trade improves the present machinery will provide for an increase, for it provides that the workers shall have a. fair share of the profits for their labour. I have tried to show that the industry cannot bear the suggested increase, that the Government will certainly not provide a subsidy—and nobody knows that better than hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the front Opposition Bench. That being so, I think we are entitled to ask: "Why this Bill?" I submit that the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer supplies us with the reasons. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) wrote a -very interesting article a few weeks ago, and this is a paragraph from it:

"The present wages movements in the mining and engineering industries, in the railway and other transport services, are being exploited by the Communists for revolutionary purposes."

[An HON. MEMBER: "Who was that?"]

That was your own Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer. He continues:

"A determined effort is being made to induce all these bodies to join together in a general strife which will hold up the community. The revolutionary aim is being kept in the background, and the workers are being appealed to on behalf of the solidarity of labour."

That is a serious statement. He knows what is going on behind the scenes, and I think the country ought to be grateful to the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer for having the courage to tell us. The mining industry is fair game for every agitator who cares to come along. The miner is entitled to a square deal, and the owner is also entitled to a square deal. I think the object of the conferences going on now is to find agreement as to what that square deal is, and to arrange accordingly. I say no economist or politician worthy of the name will come here and tell the House that it has any right to guarantee to any body of men a wage which at the same time does not carry with it a guaranteed obligation that the services which a man will render will be at least worth the amount that he is paid as a minimum. I say the collieries cannot pay it, therefore the only thing left to the coalowners will be to close down, and you are going to add infinitely to the already swollen ranks of the unemployed. I remember that this Bill was deprecated by Lord Oxford and Asquith (Mr. Asquith as he then was), who was loud in his denunciation of the principle of it. Many men who represented the miners in those days were equally definite against the principle. The Bill is inopportune, and I sincerely hope the House will refuse to give it a Second Reading.

My last word is an appeal to hon. Gentlemen on the benches above the Gangway. There never was a time in this history of this country when the owners were so desirous of securing the basis of an agreement that will lift the trade out of these constant agitations. There has never been a time like it. The Prime Minister the other day endeavoured to infuse into the atmosphere of our industrial life a new point of view. What finer thing could there be than that the supporters of this Bill should say, "We agree with this new spirit we will withdraw the Bill: we will rely on that public opinion which says that the miners must have a square deal and, on the, other hand, that the owners must also have a square deal." I think that sentiment would be created, if you had the courage to say that this Bill should be withdrawn, for it has no chance of a Second Beading, and the men up and down the country would then see that the House of Commons is not opposed to them and is prepared to see fair play on both sides. Therefore, I do hope the Bill will be withdrawn, but if it is not, I shall support the Amendment.

I rise to support the original Motion that a Second Reading be given to this Bill. I have heard on all sides of this House that the men who come here from the mining constituencies have no concern with other than mining questions. I am not prepared to admit or deny any truth there may be in that statement, but almost one of the last inquiries of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down was, "Why this Bill?" There never was a time in the history of political institutions when the men in the mining constituencies were less concerned about general political questions than they are to-day. They are not concerned particularly whether we have a Pact or a Protocol. They are not enthusiastic as, to whether we retain a paper currency or go back to the gold standard. They are not concerned particularly whether Government money paid to the Church of Scotland shall be capitalised. The question that interests them and the questions they put are, "Why cannot I get a job?" and, "Why has not the wage I receive the same value it had in pre-War days?" That is the answer to the question, "Why this Bill?"

1.0 P.M.

I should like to refer to a few of the, other remarks with which the last speaker terminated his speech, namely, as to the revolutionary attitude of the people for whom he said the mining industry was fair game. If the House accepts the advice and turns down this Bill, I want to suggest that that would be the most direct incentive to revolutionary activity. The man who went out to fight from the mining districts or alternatively stayed in the mining districts must have this much remembered to his credit, that in the days of the War he improved the shining hour as little as anyone as far as wage demands and wage concessions were concerned. But he is not to be gulled nowadays by specious talk about coal being the life blood of the country and about his being a hero at work and at play and on the field of battle. The two hon. Gentlemen who have opposed this Bill have said what is frequently said everywhere in the train and in the street that there is the utmost sympathy for the miners. We can understand opposition; we can understand argument against our case, but we do not want this gratuitous sympathy given with sanctimonious unction. We do not mind opposition. If the Bill is not right, attack it on its merits, but for goodness' sake do not tell us that the men are the best in the world, that we have the best coal in the world, and so on, and then tell us there is no more money and we are not to have any. I have heard since I came into this House the oft-repeated phrase that it is the duty of a Government to govern. I suppose everybody more or less agrees with that. But there is a difference in the interpretation of the words "to govern."

Now we allege, and we re-state it as fact, that in 1912 this House had, as one of its functions, the duty of providing the underground workers, at any rate, with a minimum wage. The hon. Member for South Bristol (Sir B. Rees) may say it was not the intention. He may say that that Bill which became an Act was intended to deal with the abnormal place question. In the inception of the agitation which led up to that Act, possibly it is true, but the fact remains that the Act began by reciting the fact that

"It shall be an implied term of the employment of every workman underground, that he is to receive wages not less than the rate laid down in the Schedule of the Act."

That means that everyone except those excluded by the rules should have a minimum wage. It is intended by this Bill to perpetuate the principle which was conceded by this House 13 years ago. All that it does alter is this, it lays the onus on this House of saying what the starting wage shall be. In 1912 this House went halfway with its task, and then feared the job to which it had put its hand. It is true that it provided a minimum wage, but a minimum wage arrived at by Boards set up under the Act, and in every case that in practice meant on the arbitrament of the independent chairman of the said Board. Moreover, the Bill excluded surface workers from its provisions, presumably on the assumption that the surface worker had not to live and was of worth a minimum wage.

Again, it overlooked this important fact, that it costs a miner and his family as much to live on the days when he is not working as on the days when he is at work. It provided a daily wage, and a daily wage in mining areas is not necessarily an exact reflection of the weekly income. The hon. Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh), who moved the Bill, made his calculations on the basis of 5½ shifts per week. On Saturday last, I took a census of 47 pits in my county, and I was astonished to find things as good as they are. Some six had worked 5½ shifts, the great majority had worked 5 shifts, some had worked 4 and three had worked 2¼ shifts, the average being just under 5 shifts per week. Having regard to accidents, to illness, to absence through inadvertence and to a thousand and one things, the general working week of the miner cannot exceed 5 shifts per week. Therefore, the daily minimum wage provided by the 1912 Act must be multiplied by not more than five to give an indication of what the miner gets. There is today no relationship whatever between the legal minimum in any district and the circumstances which that Act was intended to meet. The hon. Member for South Bristol said the average minimum wage, by which I assume he meant the legal minimum, was 7s. 6d. As a matter of fact, that is the highest payable in Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire, the average is somewhat less than that. But assuming that it is the case that 7s. 6d. is the present minimum wage provided by the Act, in my county of Nottinghamshire we have by agreement secured for coal getters, to whom the 7s. 6d. applies, a minimum wage of 8s. 3d. plus 57·47 per cent. Therefore, the legal minimum wage as provided by the 1912 Act is in Nottinghamshire as 13s. is to about 7s. 6d., and the same comparison could be drawn between the legal minimum wage as provided by the 1912 Act and the actual wage payable in every district.

If our plea stood on no higher ground, it could rest upon the fact that national agreements between coal owners and men have no legal sanction. As a matter of fact, following the dispute of 1924 there were whole districts, Bristol among them, which refused to pay the wages then agreed to, and we have no reason to suppose that the whole-hearted co-operation which coal owners now desire will be any more beneficent than it was this time last year; and if we got a repetition of what happened then there is no legal compulsion on any coal owner in this country to pay the wage arrived at by agreement, if he does not so desire. On that ground alone, therefore, we ask that the Bill should be brought up to date.

The hon. Member who has just resumed his seat (Sir B. Rees) left the impression that the coal industry is decadent, if it is not within measurable distance of being dead. I do not know where he gets his figures. He instanced profits for the last two quarters of last year only. To the best of my knowledge, the profits for the last quarter are not yet available, except to those directly inside the industry, but he knows, as every one in the industry knows, that the industry cannot live upon the results of any one quarter or any two quarters, or, indeed, of a year. From such figures as are available to me, and I have the audited accounts for the whole of 1924, agreed to by the joint accountants for both sides, with the exception of a few small districts—Cumberland, Preston and Somerset—and I find that last year, bad as it was, the average of profit throughout the whole kingdom was one shilling and·84 of a penny per ton. In the district from which I come, not a negligible district, embracing as it does Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Cannock Chase and Warwickshire, representing in terms of output one-third of the whole of the coal won in the kingdom, the average profit for the whole of the year was 1s. 11·29d. per ton. In pre-War days the goal aimed at by the coalowners was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1s.; they considered themselves extremely fortunate if they realised 1s.; so that even in 1924 there were considerable areas in this country which made a profit which by no stretch of the imagination can be said to be negligible.

The hon. Gentleman asked what the provisions of this Bill were going to cost the coal industry. I, too, have made a calculation, but I did not approach it in quite the same way as he did. I do not know whether he will agree with me that the average wage per person employed during 1924 was 10s. 6·79d. He said the average output was 17·6 cwts., and I make it 17·95 cwts., so the margin of difference between us is not very great. He has ignored this fact, that throughout the whole of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, with the exception of South Derbyshire, the provisions of this Bill would not cost one penny in their operation. He has ignored that entirely. The percentage of pieceworkers to the rest of the workers in the industry is, as nearly as possible, 40 per cent.; of day wage workers the percentage underground is 40 per cent., and the surface staff are, roughly, 20 per cent. If the average wage per person employed per shift worked is 10s. 6d., that must mean that if we are to raise the wage of the piecework coal getters to 12s., then 40 per cent of the total will require an increase of 1s. 6d. per shift. If the average of day wage workers is 10s. 6d., and their pay is increased to 11s., that will be an increase of 6d. If the average wage is 10s. 6d., the wages of the 20 per cent. of surface workers will not require to be increased at all. That is, when you are dealing with the law of averages, as the hon. Gentleman will understand.

These calculations bring me to the result that to meet this incubus on the industry will require 9d. per shift spread over the whole of the persons in the industry. We propose an increase for boys and youths that will cost another 3d., and so I put down the whole increase as being equal to 1s. per person employed per shift. If the output is 17·9 cwts. per person, that increase represents not 2s. per ton but, as nearly as I can arrive at it. 14d. per ton. The hon. Member asks can the country afford it?

The industry.

Well, can the industry afford it? I should imagine, perhaps, that the industry could afford it if he will agree with me, that the industry should embrace the by-product plants, the selling machinery, the agencies, the wagon ownership, the depôts in all the large towns and cities. Is the money there? Yes, the money is there. With every respect to the hon. Member for Sutherland (Mr. Luke Thompson) when, in putting his figures before us the other day, he told us that the clerical costs of getting rid of one ton of coal in London are 1s. 11d. per ton, we refuse to believe it, and when he tells us that each time a coal bag goes out of a London merchant's yard and the coal is shot out of it, there is fourpennyworth of wear and tear on the bag, we refuse to believe it. We would like to see the audited accounts to which the hon. Member called our attention the other night, but which we did not see. If we could eliminate the factor, who performs no useful service at all, if the ownership of wagons was not in the hands it now is in, and if the colliery companies would, as we have urged them to do, do their own merchanting, there would be at once sufficient money in the industry to meet the provisions of this Bill.

I can imagine the question being addressed to us as to where the money is to come from, but might I be allowed to say that the word "subsidy" was mentioned with a certain amount of horror by the hon. Member for South Bristol. Why, I do not know. He told us that the ailment from which the coal industry was suffering is clue to German competition. It may be due to the fact that quite recently £4,000,000 was sent into Germany by the Allies to enable them to resuscitate their coal industry, and, according to his statement., many of the ills from which the coal industry is now suffering are due to that resuscitation.

There are people in this House who think we are going to get reparations from Germany some time, of some amount from somewhere, but if ever we do would it be unjust to suggest that some of the money received as reparations should be used to rehabilitate the fallen fortunes of the coal industry in this country? Objection may be raised to the increased wages we suggest for boys. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite have any knowledge of the wages paid to boys engaged in British coalmining to-day. In the county from which I come, which, along with South Yorkshire, pays the highest wages of any district in the kingdom, a boy starts work in the mines at 2s. 4d. per shift, which, with the percentages added, works out at 3s. 6d. per shift. In other districts it is not so much. That is the result which has now been arrived at by those engaged in the coal industry.

The desire which used to exist in coal-mining districts for members of a miner's family to increase the family income by working in the pit does not now exist. Pits are being sunk miles away from any town. In my country, perhaps the largest coalfield in Britain, we are having extreme difficulty in getting young boys to work in the mines at all, and that is particularly the case in South Derbyshire, and the reason is that this is now largely a dead-end employment, and you have nothing to offer the boy when he arrives at a state of efficiency and full strength.

With the introduction of machinery in coal mining the men are losing their knowledge of the craft which they formerly had and they are becoming more and more like automatic machines. All these things are not sufficient to attract the boy to mining, more especially when they are coupled with the low wage now being paid. A fortnight ago we were discussing the Air Estimates, and the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.- Commander Kenworthy) called attention to the fact that there figured in the Estimates an item relating to writers' assistants, who received a wage of 17s. per week. The Secretary for State for Air, in replying to that criticism, pointed out that those writers' assistants were girls of 16 years of age, and that they were in receipt of a bonus which actually doubled that 17s. a week, and the House breathed freely.

If the House was shocked at the thought of employing a girl of 16 at 34s. a week. I would like to ask what have hon. Members to say about employing a boy 700 yards underground, in a temperature. of 84 degrees, for seven hours a day, doing an arduous, dangerous and dirty job for less than 3s. per shift. Thousands of these boys under the age of 16 years are working for about, £1 per week, with the exception of Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottingham. Therefore we make no apology for doing at long last what we consider is an act of justice to the boys in the coal industry. Something has been said with regard to the famous speech made by the Prime Minister and we have been asked to reciprocate the sentiment of that speech. I think, however, it would be folly to lead the Prime Minister or anybody else to believe that if there is an interregnum between now and the time the miners take action it is in response to his appeal for peace. The reason they are not engaged in industrial strife to-day is because they cannot afford it.

I never made an inflammatory speech in my life, and I hope I never shall, but I can assure hon. Members that it is not necessary to do so in the mining districts. The time, however, is coming, unless something is done in this matter, when action will have to be taken. If something is not done to relieve the situation those engaged in the mining industry will sit down, and then it will be up to this House and those interested in mining to relieve the position. What has been called a reasoned Amendment says that. the time is not opportune for the passage of this Bill when negotiations are proceeding. I have taken part in all the negotiations in this industry from 1921 onwards with the exception of this occasion, and what is now proceeding is simply a sub-committee from either side, and they are engaged collecting the facts relevant to the industry. They are not, however, negotiating. The terms of reference to the miners' representatives precludes those negotiations unless and until the facts surrounding the industry have been considered by the men engaged in it.

It does not require very great imagination to see what is going to happen. The alacrity with which the owners enter into these inquiries is an indication that they are going to prove that the miners are getting too much already out of the industry. I have not the least doubt, inasmuch as we are dependent upon them for all the facts we obtain, that they will be able to show that the industry cannot pay the wages now being asked for. Supposing these are the conclusions arrived at. The miners' representatives will meet and formulate their policy in accordance with their interpretation of the facts, and the employers will do the same. Therefore, this House must not console itself with the fact that it is likely that an agreement is going to be arrived at as a result of the negotiations now proceeding.

If the spirit referred to by the Prime Minister is to permeate the coal industry, there must be some surrender of some value attached to it, and that will be the measure of sacrifice which those who support the Prime Minister will place behind that adjustment. We hope the House will give this Bill a Second Reading, and in the spirit of the Prime Minister's speech, they will say to the masters, "negotiate with your workmen by all means, but when you go into those negotiations it must be on the understanding that the irreducible minimum to be paid to the miners shall be that which is provided for in this Bill."

Personally, I very much regret that this Bill has been introduced at the present moment. I know that hon. Members sitting opposite will say that they are always met with the same statement, that the time is inopportune, but there can be no question that the present time is inopportune, in view of the negotiations that are being carried on, and the fact that, as this discussion, I think, has proved conclusively, the mining industry cannot pay any such figure as this Bill would demand. You cannot get out of the industry the demands that this Bill would inflict upon it. I want, however, to approach the subject from an angle different from any from which, I think, it has been approached in this Debate. I represent a constituency where we have, an abnormal amount of unemployment, covering possibly some 10,300 men, and I want to say to Members opposite that that very fact gives me very many anxious thoughts, and it is scarcely ever out of my mind as to how we can overcome that great and severe distress and difficulty. I think we shall be compelled to face this fact, that in the future the question of wages will depend upon the question of production, whether it he in the mining industry or in the shipbuilding industry, and I hope at some other time to have an opportunity of stating my views on the shipbuilding industry.

I want to come to a point relative to production in the mining industry, and I want to get to the inwardness of the problem by reading a communication which I have in my hand and which has been received from one of the chief engineers of the biggest group of collieries in the Durham district. I want to say quite freely, that I have discussed the inwardness of this question time and time again from the standpoint of the owners and from the standpoint also of the men, and, if we can get a reply to what I am saying, it may at least cast some light on the difficulty of the problem. This letter was:

"The great need of the moment in the coal trade of Durham is to reduce the working costs, because we cannot get orders for shipment from our customers aboard except at prices far below the present cost of production. The question naturally arises as to how best to reduce the working costs … either by increasing the output per person employed at the pits or by reducing the wages of the persons employed. The, former method is by far the better one."

I Will discuss that, and it is his definite opinion that an output can be got commercially with a higher rate of wages—

"In my opinion, one of the chief drawbacks to improving the output per person is the reluctance of the Miners' Trade Unions in Durham to alter their methods of working so as to get the best results from the working of the seams by machine methods. Particularly, this applies to the working of the thin seams, and in Durham, where many of the pits have been worked for ever 100 years, the future of such pits depends upon the working of thin tennis by machinery. There have been various negotiations with the Miners' Unions with the object of getting altered methods introduced in connection with the working of coal-getting machinery, but so far such negotiations have been mostly futile. The requests of the owners for such altered methods do not involve increasing the hours of work nor the reduction of wages. They merely mean an alteration in the system or sequence of working so that coal-cutting machinery can be kept more fully employed than is possible with the present system, which was designed for a system of 'hand' labour. At the present time, I have in mind the case of a colliery which has been recently stopped, and on which large sums of money have been spent with the object of developing a thin seam because the thicker seams are rapidly approaching exhaustion. The result of working the thin seam by machinery has been disappointing, not because the machine has not done its work, but be-cause the arrangement of the labour for following out the various operations of mining the seam after the machine had cut the coal were not such as would produce the best results. The Miners' Union has been repeatedly asked to alter the system, … in fact, the Miners' Association, which represents the general body of miners in the county, refuse to agree to any altered methods, and after repeated attempts to work and warnings to the men at this pit that it must close if the working of the thin seam was not successful, the pit has been closed, and 909 men deprived of work."

There must be another side to the matter.

It is not fair to read that letter.

It is fair, and I think it should provoke a fair expression of opinion.

Who is the author? Is it an anonymous letter?

It is not an anonymous letter. I can give the name of the writer. As a matter of fact, I made it quite clear that I might use any information sent on to me.

Give us the name of the writer.

It is the chief engineer of the Lambton group.

On a point of Order. The hon. Member is reading a letter to which we have no chance of replying. We have been given no warning that this statement was going to be made, and we are not in a position to reply to it. It may be true, or it may not be true.

No point of Order can arise on this matter. If the hon. Member makes a statement of this kind, he makes it on his own responsibility. I have no doubt that an opportunity for a reply will arise before the end of the Debate

Would the hon. Gentleman tell us the name?

The hon. Member has made the statement on his responsibility. He is not out of order.

I think the time has come, not only in the mining industry, but in every industry, when we should get down to the facts. I sat here yesterday for as long a time as I could spare, but at the end of the Debate on unemployment I felt that we had been left at a loose end. We seem to be talking for ever about this subject. If it is a question of output, if it is a question of getting down to the facts, this House should face it, and that is the reason why I have read this letter. This pit, I am informed, is an old pit, 150 years old. Hon. Members on the Labour Benches know it quite well. The main seams are exhausted, but the thin seams can be worked by machinery At present this pit is losing 2s. ed. on every ton that is raised. I want, in fairness, to say that the owners have offered to produce their books and give every facility to the Minors' Association to see whether that figure is not correct. The output of the pit was 800 tons per day, and the owners always told the men that they did not ask that their wages should be reduced or their hours increased; they only asked that greater facilities might be given for the production of coal. They said that, if the output were raised from 800 tons to 900 tons daily, it would reduce the costs by 1s. 6d. per ton, and in that event they were prepared to keep the pit going for another year at a loss to themselves of 1s. per ton.

If it is a question of improved methods or new methods whereby that pit can be kept going, I think it is up to this House, and up to everyone who is interested in industry, to lay prejudice and party feeling on one side and see if a spirit of cooperation and real effort can be introduced into our machinery. What is the use of talking about competition? In America they have readapted themselves to new machinery in the mining industry, and also in the shipbuilding industry, and production has increased. I know that I am liable to be ruled out of order, but I want to say that I think we have to get down to the actual facts, and stop talking about simply bolstering up this industry by subsidies and all the rest of it. Let us get down to the real productive basis. To get on to that basis is the only salvation of the country. I felt that it was imperative and incumbent upon me to speak as I have done to-day, and that is the reason why I am supporting this Amendment.

I desire for a few moments to raise my voice in support of the principles of this Bill. I now represent a constituency in which there are no miners whatever, but in my old constituency of Kirkcaldy I had the great privilege of being in personal touch with a very large number of miners. I have lived all my life in a countryside where there have been miners, and I can speak, not from technical knowledge, although I am, naturally, interested in coal, but from personal knowledge of the lives of a great many of these men. I realise quite well that the production of coal is really a necessity for this country It is the life-blood of the country; it is the one means in export whereby we pay for a large amount of the food that comes into this country. But I am one of those who believe that a fair living wage for the lower sections of the coal industry will not in the least interfere with the production or the selling price of coal.

We have heard a great deal about the causes of the present situation in the mining industry. We have been told that it is due to lack of output. All I can say is that there is undoubtedly a section of the mining community that is underfed, and possibly that is a reason why we have a smaller output. It is undoubtedly the case in agriculture, certainly on the poorer lands in the South of England, that the workers there have for generations been underfed, and, therefore, are not able to undertake the hard manual work which can be undertaken by better-fed workers. If we can give that section of the mining community a living wage, they will in return give a bigger output and a bigger return for their labour. Only the other day, in the Debate on the Army Estimates, reference was made to the deplorable state of the recruiting figures, where five out of every eight have been rejected as unfit for military service. I cannot help thinking that underfeeding has a good deal to do with that state of affairs. I, for one, can testify to the splendid work which the mining recruits did in the late War. We had them in our Highland regiments and in our Durham regiments, which I know from personal contact with them, and certainly they faced the enemy in a way that was second to none. Therefore, I do think that we should do everything that is possible to prevent such a splendid body of our population from falling into decay and not being able to support themselves.

Further, we have to consider the coming generation, because, undoubtedly, many of these people are not able, on the money that they are earning in the pits, to give their children the nourishment and general care that they ought to have. Again and again I have been struck by the disparity between what is laid down as the average amount of money which these men are said to get per shift and what their wives tell you when you go to their homes. Many women to whom I have spoken in the mining villages have told me that they get very small sums from their husbands at the end of the week, and when I say to them that that is quite different from the sums that are said to be earned by the various men, they point out that there are many reductions, owing to faults which they have to drive through, and unproductive work which they have to do down below, so that their wages are curtailed to the extent that they say. Surely, the minimum wage for which this Bill asks is, after all, only a token, and I hope that, if the Bill goes to a Committee, this token, which represents real value at the present moment, will vary from year to year as the real value of money varies. It is quite conceivable that, if our industry goes on on the downward path, our money may go the same way, and, therefore, any actual figure which is at present laid down in the Schedule to this Bill is, after all, only a token in relation to the conditions of to-day, and it will vary according to the cost of living and the real value of the wage.

There is another point to which I should like to refer, and that is that this Bill only carries out the real principle of the Liberal Bill of 1912. It goes a little further, and, in the case of a dispute, takes it out of the hands of the Chairman of the Board that settles the wage, saying that he shall not go below a certain minimum. I think that this is almost necessary nowadays, because, in the mining industry, you are getting very much larger groups than you ever had in earlier days. The tendency of modern industry is to get together into larger groups, and it is undoubtedly true, as was pointed out by the late Secretary of State for War, that the personal touch between the real employer and his men is being lost. Therefore, it is necessary for the House of Commons to step in and see that the men who, formerly, could always negotiate with the man whom they knew and with whom they had lived all their lives, shall, when they have to negotiate with large groups, have at least some protection by means of some minimum. In Belgium and in Germany, where I lived for three and a-half years, I took a great interest in the mining industry, and I found that conditions were, in some cases, preferable to the conditions in this country. I found there that they had a type of minimum wage and that that wage varied according to the cost of living. I think they had that in Belgium, certainly they had it in Germany when I was there. Further than that, there were conditions in many of the pits, especially of Upper Silesia, which were in front of anything I have seen in this country.

I am not at all satisfied that my friend and colleague the hon. Member for South Bristol (Sir B. Rees) was right when he said that our mechanical arrangements in the mining industry are second to none in the world. I am satisfied that if he goes in some of the mines I have seen in the districts to which I am referring he would wonder where the mine is. The whole thing is done by electricity. You have electrical haulage and various other mechanical means underground, and you have a type of production of coal which is an advance on that in many pits in this country. I believe that by reconstruction and by the application of engineering brains to the coal industry that we can undoubtedly produce coal at a less price than we are producing it to-day.

It is not altogether fair to say that the wage of the miner is the chief cause for the rise or the decrease in the price of coal. If any industry is to exist in this country it ought, as a fight charge, to pay a decent wage to the people working in it. If this Minimum Wage Bill produces the effect of closing down some of the less efficient pits, that may be deplorable from the fact that it will turn out of employment a certain number of men, but I believe that the time has come when the inefficient must go, and when we must concentrate upon efficient pits and upon opening up new pits and arrange for the mobility of the miners, so that they can move into districts' where they can work under efficient arrangements, and be paid a living wage. A great many of us who have any knowledge of the coal trade know perfectly well that a great many pits in this country ought to be closed, simply because they are not working under efficient conditions and cannot produce coal to pay a living wage. The position demands the closest investigation from the Government as to how far fresh areas can be opened up and how far you can get the population now working in these poor areas transferred into areas where their labour can be better remunerated.

I am not at all sure that the time has not come when we shall have to tackle the coal industry from the point of view of reorganisation, and whether we do not want an investigation now by the Government into the efficiency of the industry as a whole. In our own district in Fife—the right hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. W. Adamson) will confirm me—we have efficient management. They are going ahead there and spending money on improving their ways of production. I do not say that the pits are up to the standard of some of the mines that I have seen abroad, but they are working in that direction, but a great many other mines owing to lack of capital or lack of energy or enterprise are not moving in that direction. I believe that that type of mine must ultimately disappear and fresh mines take their place. In this country we have large fields of coal still undeveloped and untouched, and it is those fields that we shall have to approach in future if we are to hold our pre-eminent position in the coal trade.

Our coal is second to none in the world. During the Ruhr troubles anyone who was over in Germany at that time must have been told by industrialists that they get 15 per cent. better steam out of our coal, taken from the east coast of Scotland or from England when it is used in the very area where they have been using Ruhr coal. Therefore I have no great fear of the ultimate effect of German competition with our own coal. What we want to do, more than anything else, is to increase output and at the same time to reduce the expense of the overhead charges. It is undoubtedly true that in many colliery enterprises large charges for development work are put against revenue. In the old days those charges used to be put against capital. This new practice may be perfectly sound finance—I am not saying that it is not—but it is not fair to compare profits from past years with those of the present period, when possibly you have not taken into consideration the fact that the charges now put against revenue did not exist in pre-War years. Whichever account it is put up against, it ought to be considered from the point of view of the industry as a whole.

A statement has been made that if this Rill is carried through it will cut right across the 1921 agreement. I cannot see that, and I do not see why an agreement which has a basis of profit-sharing should not be continued and improved. The coal-mining industry was the first to adopt the very splendid arrangement under which you got a definite charge, first of all for labour, secondly for capital, and then the proceeds are divided between the two on a fair ratio. I do not see why this Bill should interfere with the working of the 1921 arrangement. I hope it will not. I know that there are many other hon. Members who know much more about the technical working of the trade who wish to speak and I will say little more. I stand for the principle raid down in the 1912 Act, that every man and boy who, as a miner, is unable to earn a living wage, because of conditions for which they are not responsible, should be guaranteed a living wage. That means the guaranteeing of the efficient worker and not the inefficient, and the guaranteeing of the time-keeper as against the man who is an absentee. I am sure that the men in the trade will see to it that the inefficient worker is thrown out and that the absentee is dealt with. Nobody realises the serious position of the trade more than the miner, and he is prepared to see that his fellow-workers do their share of the work. The miners do want to have as a basis a living wage. It is in the best interest of the community and in the best interest of the mining industry for the future that we should give the principles of this Bill a hacking, which I am very glad to do.

I am sure the House will agree that, after the very exhaustive review which was given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh) of the incidents which have taken place in the mining industry during the days of control and since, it will be unnecessary for me to traverse that ground except to a very trifling extent. The present position in the mining industry was entirely due to what took place in 1921. The present position is naturally and inevitably the outcome of what took place at that time. In 1921 the coalowners and the Government decided that wage agreements were to be entered into on the capacity of each district to pay wages, and the capacity was ascertained by reference to the three months ending in March, 1921. The capacity of the different districts was different in each case. In some cases the capacity of the industry to pay wages was equal to only 20 per cent. above pre-War rates, and from the moment that that agreement was entered into some of the coalowners had no responsibility for wages in excess of 20 per cent. above pre-War wages. Other coalfields whose capacity for paying wages was higher had a much bigger responsibility.

Now see what happened. The South Wales coalowners had only to provide wages on the basis of 20 per cent. above pre-War wages. They made their contracts on a price which would enable them to pay that wage. They went into Europe. In France they actually under cut the Frenchman in his own market at his own door. That agreement had not been put into operation for three months before America was driven completely out of Europe, and the coalowners of South Wales, long after driving out American competition, brought the prices down shilling after shilling per ton, due entirely to competition among themselves in this country, until we had complaints from France and Belgium. French coal-owners were telling us that the price at which we were selling coal was creating consternation in the French mining industry. French and Belgian miners were appealing against this cut-throat competition which was forcing down their wages. The result has been to bring down the wages not merely in South Wales but in every other coalfield in Britain, a rid in every other coalfield throughout Europe.

2.0 P.M.

The result has been to demoralise the standard of living of the whole mining community throughout the whole of Britain. In South Wales from 1921 to 1924 we had a minimum of 20 per cent. wages above pre-War wages. For a very long part of that period we have had tens of thousands of men in the Welsh coalfields, many of them married men with families, whose daily income has been 6s. 5d. a clay, without one cent allowance in any shape to augment that amount. It is true, as my right hon. Friend explained this morning, that as a result of negotiation and the application of the subsistence wage provision in the agreement we succeeded ultimately in getting established the minimum of 8s. ¾d. There are to-day in the South Wales coalfields scores of thousands of men, married men with families whose daily income does not exceed 8s. ¾d., and whose average week is not in excess of five days. It is impossible for families to-day to maintain themselves in anything like efficiency, or have anything like a decent existence, on such wages as are paid. I have heard a lot in this discussion about the necessity for a greater output. Not only can we not have a bigger output on the present wages but the men employed in the mining industry to-day are not obtaining a sufficient amount of nourishment to enable them to resist the forces of nature with which they have to contend, and the mines to-day are rapidly ceasing to be commercial undertakings and are degenerating rapidly into slaughter houses.

Never in the whole history of industry has there been such slaughter going on in the mines as there is to-day, and chat is in the main because the workers have not the necessary nourishment to enable them to be alert and to resist the dangers to which they are exposed. The mining industry are supplied by official returns which are accepted by both sides, and any figures which I give are taken from the accepted authorities. In 1920 the average wage enjoyed by the mining areas of Great Britain was £4 a week. That is a rough figure, leaving out the decimals. In 1922–23 the average was £2 10s. per week. Of course, there is a very large mass of men in both periods below that average and a lot of others above it, but I would like the House to take note of the accidents in those periods.

In 1919–20 the number of non-fatal accidents was 117,000, everyone of which incapacitated the person injured for not less than seven days. That was when they were getting a. week. When they got down to £2 10s. a week it is not 117,000 injured but 200,000. Such a slaughter has never been known in the mines of this country before. Out of 1,200,000 workpeople in the industry they have 200,000, one out of every six of the men, women and boys employed in the industry, underground and on the surface, incapacitated for at least seven days by accident in the course of the year. I have no hesitation in saying that very large numbers of those accidents, which are peculiar to and associated with the period of low wages, are due to the unnourished condition of the workers employed in that industry. To talk about increasing the output until you give them a decent livelihood is simply to mock men who, during the last four years have been living in that way.

Analysing the provisions of the Bill I may say a few words. There need be no question as to the figures, as they are very complete and contained in Government returns. The average working week of the miners works out at a five-days' week. Take any number of years or quarters or any period, for all practical purposes they work out at a five-days' week. In this Bill we are asking for certain workers that there shall be a minimum established of 10s. per day; for day wage workers underground 11s., and for piece workers 12s. Look at what those figures mean from the standpoint of a weekly wage. They mean 50s., 55s. and 60s. Let us see what we can do with 50s. a week. As has been already explained to the House a wage of 50s. does not mean that that is the amount to be taken home, because substantial deductions are made from that wage on account of unemployment insurance, health insurance, doctor, hospital and a number of other things. [HON. MEMBERS: "The levy!"] In my own district the weekly deduction apart altogether from the levy or anything like it is 2s. 9d.

We are asking that the surface workers shall have 10s. per day on what is known to be an average week of five days a week. That is 50s. There is 2s. 9d. to come out for stoppages. That reduces the total to 47s. 3d. I would like to take a typical case of a man with a wife and three children, a family of five persons, which is a very moderate family. What can they do on that sum? The woman has 47s. 3d. to begin with. It is no exaggeration to say that she will have to find 10s. a week for rent. That reduces the sum to 37s. 3d. If she provides four meals a day at 2d. per meal per head—you cannot get much nourishment for that—she spends 23s. 4d. per week, and would have left about 13s. per week for all the other purposes of life. That is 2s. per day, with which to provide light and coal, all household necessaries, clothing, beer, tobacco, holidays and everything that is required. That is what we are asking for. We have heard a lot of talk lately about "Cook, that extremist, that irresponsible agitator." What has he been asking for? What are we asking for? That a standard living should be provided for the mine workers on a basis of 2d. meals and 2s. a day for all the other purposes of life of a family. That is the extremism for which our people have been denounced all over the country. I can only say that if the industry cannot give to us something better than that which we are now getting, for my part, I have no further interest in maintaining the mining industry.

But cannot industries do better for us? We have been told that we must know something about the economics of the situation. On 18th February a question was put to the Secretary for Mines as to what profits had been made by the coal-owners in the last three years. The reply was £52,750,000. I challenge the Secretary for Mines, or any other Member of this House, to mention another three years in the history of mining, apart from the short period of control, when there have been 52¾ millions of profit made by the coalowners. I am about "fed up" with hearing and reading of the poverty of the mineowners as an excuse for refusing to pay anything like a decent wage to the miners. It is true that we have in the industry, as is inevitable under existing agreements, collieries which are not paying. That is nothing new. That is exactly what we said in 1921 was bound to happen unless we had a pool, unless we had some form of community of interest established between the different undertakings. We said then that one of two things must happen—either the wages of the men must be based on the ability of the poorest concerns to pay wages, or, if it is based on the average, then those concerns which have less than the average capacity to pay wages must go out of production. That is what is taking place. But surely it is not for the miners of this country to be content, or to be asked, to continue to work for a wage commensurate only with what the poorest concerns of the undertaking can afford to pay. If that is so, if the industrial magnates of the country say, "We are not going to import into the capitalist system such suggestions as are made for meeting the difficulties," if they are going to insist upon the survival of the fittest, and "the devil take the hindmost," there is no help for it but that those concerns in the mining industry which cannot pay a proper wage must go out of production.

There is not a more moderate body of men and women in this country than those associated with the mining community. We are not asking for anything unreasonable. We are asking only for what we are fairly entitled to, and that is a fair and square deal as between ourselves and other sections of the community. There is not a more arduous or more hazardous occupation under heaven than that of mining. Every time the hands go round the clock, or every working day, four British miners are hurled into eternity, and, as I have said, since we have had the present low wages we have had as many as 200,000 accidents in one year. Talk about warfare! It is not in it with the price that miners are paying for the paltry and measly standard of existence that has been possible for them during the past four years. I sincerely hope that the Government will not prevent the Second Reading of this Bill, and that an opportunity will be given for the discussion of its details upstairs. No bigger mistake can be made than to assume that we are asking for something for nothing. The Act passed in 1912 made provision for the setting up of boards which were to establish rules and regulations. Those regulations provided for regularity of work, for efficiency, and for preventing those who did not comply with the regulations getting the minimum wage. I am satisfied that such a standard of living as we are asking for is only the miners' just due. It is the minimum to which they are entitled, and I trust, therefore, that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

I listened with very great interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Second Reading of the Bill. It was a very interesting survey of the coalfield during the past 35 years. But I was amazed to find how he refused to face the facts as we find them now. I spent a considerable time during the last Recess in seeing miners and coalfields and in going down the collieries, and I did not find in personal contact with a large number of men that great eagerness of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke. Certainly there are hardships, and exceptional hardships, not only in the coal industry, but in any industry that could be named—for instance, in shipbuilding and in engineer- ing, where there are greater hardships. There are also the hardships being borne by people who depend on cheap coal. My sympathies are very greatly with the miners in the hardships that exist. But we must face the facts as we find them to-day. I have a great deal of sympathy for the miners, inasmuch as in the past some of them have been a ready prey to unofficial local agitators in the coalfields, who are continually agitating for their own particular ends. I am also very sympathetic towards the people in my own constituency and in other towns of South Wales who depend so largely on cheap coal for export and manufacturing purposes. I listened very patiently to the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Second Reading to learn his idea of the effect of this Bill on the price of coal. My information, and it is confirmed by such calculations as I have been able to make, is that the Bill would have the effect of increasing the price of coal about 3s. per ton.

Nonsense !

We will take it as 2s. 6d.

It will be down to 1s. directly.

Do hon. Members believe that the country is prepared to pay another 2s. 6d. per ton for coal? The coalowners could not stand that additional 25. 6d. I give an instance from South Wales. A statement was made quite recently that during the seven months' working from May to December the owners there lost a sum of £897,000. This increase in price cannot come from the coalowners, and, therefore, the public must bear it, and I think the public ought to know that this Bill is asking them to pay another 2s. 6d. per ton for coal. The effect of that, in turn, would be a reduced consumption of coal. There is already a very big reduction in consumption both for export and industrial purposes, and a further reduction would throw men out of work and ultimately would not be in the interests of the miners themselves quite apart from the interests of the country as a whole. Another important omission in the Bill is that there is no quid pro quo for this increased minimum. Is there any suggestion that the output will be increased? After all, output and the cost of production lie at the heart of the coal industry, and with an increased output and a lower cost of production, increased wages would come naturally, but there is no use in trying to flog a dead horse. The total production of the country between 1913 and 1924 shows a reduction of 20,000,000 tons from 287,000,000 tons in 1913 to 267,000,000 tons in 1924, and that in spite of the fact that there are 100,000 more men employed in the coal industry. At the same time, there are 120,000 men in the coal industry receiving unemployment benefit, and, in addition, 400 pits are being rendered idle all because the price of coal to-day is already too dear, not only for consumers in this country, but for consumers abroad.

I referred just now to the sympathy which I have with the miners in that they have been a ready prey to local agitators. I do not in any way refer to the estimable gentlemen opposite. I wish these agitators were all like them, but, unfortunately, hon. Gentlemen opposite do not appear to exercise control in the coal field. There is not that control which should exist, and there is constant agitation. We have only to look back to history to find that in the great strike of 1st April, 1921—[HON. MEMBERS: "Lock-out!"] Whatever you may call it, it paralysed British industry in every direction and lost us markets abroad which we shall probably never recover That strike—[HON. MEMBERS: "Lock-out!"]—was not desired by the representative leaders of the miners, but was brought about by local agitation.

Notices were given to the men by the employers and the men were shut out of the pits by the employers. What is the use of talking about agitation?

We will call it a labour dispute. The point is this, and I am bringing it forward in the interests of the country, that Mr. Frank Hodges, who was Civil Lord of the Admiralty in the last Government, said, at the conclusion of that dispute, that there could have been a good settlement on the following day—2nd April—had it not been for men of the Ablett type.

When did he say that?

In an article in the "Western Mail" of 5th July, 1921, he writes as follows:

"Who stood in the way? The Ablett type. We could have had a splendid wage settlement the next claw but we lost the tide. Why Because of the Ablett type of mind already charged with stories of the great betrayal. Speaking for myself, I would visit Chequers or York House or Buckingham Palace if by doing so I thought I could help our people out of the terrible straits into which the Ablett mentality has plunged them."

That does not refer to 2nd April.

I mention that as an encouragement to hon. Gentlemen opposite to try to control the local agitators who are poisoning the minds of the miners. My impression of the miner is that he is a jolly good chap and if he can only have the full facts placed before him he will be able to judge of the true position. I wish to draw attention to the position which has arisen in North Wales. The Ruabon pit was about to close down because it could not be carried on. The men and the masters came together, small concessions were made, and I see in to-day's paper a report of the manager that the arrangement come to is going to prove entirely successful and it is hoped to continue it. I mention this because I think the key to the situation is co-operation. In that respect politics often play a larger part than we or the people of the country know. There is a certain leader, not in this House, who is evidently more concerned with politics than with the industry or the miners. He deprecates co-operation because he says it will put the capitalist system back on its feet in the coal industry, and he is more concerned about that than he is to see the industry restored and a great step forward taken for the prosperity of the country. I maintain that if this Bill is passed into law it will be a help to those agitators who, by means of the irritation strike and every other method, are endeavouring to bring the mines to oa standstill and to prevent them paying, in the hope that the owners may be glad to get rid of them. I therefore take the opportunity of opposing this Bill because it is an unreal Bill, and is brought forward as dope to the miners. It is propaganda for the next General Election in 1931. [HON. MEMBERS: "Sooner than that!"] We shall get in unopposed next time. Further, I contend that the present is not an opportune time for bringing forward a Minimum Wages Bill. Negotiations are in progress. [HON. MEMBERS: "No "] I presume hon. Members do not know of the fact officially. I will put it this way. Something is happening, and if this Bill became law it would prejudice efforts which are being made in a proper and reasonable frame of mind to set the industry on its feet, and that will be of advantage both to the miners and to the country. For these reasons I oppose the Bill.

I do not intend to take up a great deal of the time of the House in dealing with the Bill now before us, as the Mover and Seconder of the Bill have put fairly fully the facts before the House. Members on this side are sometimes blamed for their conduct during Debates in troubling the House with interruptions, but is it not very difficult for mining Members, for those who have spent their lives in mining districts, for those who still live in mining homes, for those who know that there is practically starvation in the miners' homes to-day and that there are families where the breadwinner is working who cannot get sufficient food for the children or boots for the children, is it not very provocative to be told that those people are engaged in a conspiracy of dope for the miners? Is that not a hint that we are not in earnest in bringing forward this Bill? I want to assure the House that we are in earnest in this matter.

There are two points of principle in this Bill. The first is, whether the workers in the mines, and, indeed, in any other industry, are not entitled, having given an honest day's work or an honest week's work to the industry, in their turn to receive sufficient income to enable them and their families to live. That is a question which should be easily answered. I understood that the very name "Conservative" meant the conserving of all good things in the State and, if possible, the wiping out of all bad things in the State, but while I do not agree with the Conservative principles or programme, I feel sure that Conservatives, merely because they are Conservatives, do not enjoy privation if they see it amongst the children of the workers anywhere, that they do not desire that honest workmen and their wives and children should suffer and not be able to get sufficient food. All that we claim is that the return for an honest day's work, not for shirking, should provide for the homes of the workers. If I put that question on a public platform to any hon. Member sitting on the Front Bench or on the Back Benches opposite, their answer would be perfectly clear, and it would be: "We do believe that there ought to be sufficient wages given to a workman who gives an honest day's service to enable that workman's family to live." I have not the slightest doubt of it. There is no good man or woman in the country, whatever his or her politics or views may be, who would not give a similar answer.

I want to call in support of that two witnesses. The first is a gentleman who has since passed away, but who was an honoured, an able, and a respected Member of this House, the late Lord Rhondda, when he was Mr. D. A. Thomas. I do not think anyone in the country knew more about the coal trade than did D. A. Thomas. I do not think anyone in the country knew more about the miners than did D. A. Thomas. He knew the mining industry from beginning to end. Some years ago, during a dispute in South Wales, which affected his own colliery, he wrote to the London "Times," to such a respectable organ as the London "Times," and said that the miners were right in their claim for a living wage in return for their labour. He went further. and said:

"I do not think any industry, the mining industry or any other industry, should continue to exist if it cannot provide a living wage for the workmen employed in it."

I think the late Lord Rhondda should be taken as an authority on a matter of this kind. He fought the miners from time to time, and as a good employer fought them fairly, and he never desired to see the children or the womenfolk in the industry afflicted. I will quote another example:

"It is intolerable that any part of our industry should be organised upon the foundation of the misery and want of the labourers in it. The fundamental principle of the remuneration of labour is that the first charge upon any industry must be the proper maintenance of the labourer, and that idea has been sought to be expressed in the phrase 'the living wage'. This must not be interpreted as a bare subsistence wage There must be sufficient to live a de- cent, a complete, a cleanly, and a noble life."

I suppose that if you felt that that was a Socialist leaflet for propaganda purposes, you would say it was all Bolshevism and that it was not worth listening to, but it is not a Socialist leaflet, it is not Socialist propaganda, it is the finding of a Conference of the Bishops and Archbishops of the Anglican Church of this country. That is their Resolution, and I want to ask whether this House is prepared to take them as an authority on Christianity, because the vast majority of the Members of this House profess to be Christians, and a large number of them are followers of the delegates who passed that Resolution. I agree absolutely with that Resolution. Any professed Christian country in which this is not carried out has not reached civilisation or Christianity yet, and I take this as an authority for claiming that there ought to be a minimum wage provided by the industry for the persons employed in that industry.

The question then comes up: Supposing you admit, the principle that it is right that there should be a guaranteed minimum wage for persons who do a full day's work, should it be by legislation? That, I think, is the second point. We are asking this House to legislate in order to provide that there should be a minimum wage for the workers in the mining industry. I prefer the authority of the miners' representatives who have spoken here, who live in the mining districts, and who have spent their lives there, to that of the gentlemen opposite who have spoken, as to the need for a minimum wage being given. This is not a new idea. We fought it out in 1912. It was said, prior to the 1912 Minimum Wage Act, that this Parliament never had and never would bring in legislation to fix the wages of the employés in an industry. Those who moved the Amendment and spoke to it to-day say they want to get these questions settled by joint arrangement between the employers and the workers, but they tell us in the same speech that it is quite impossible that the industry can provide a minimum wage for the workers. Do they really hope that it can or will be settled between the employers and workers if they believe that there is not sufficient in the industry to provide a living wage for the workers? Some 35 years ago a prominent leader in the mining movement at that time, when the employers said "It is not in the industry; we would like to give you a decent wage, but it is not in the industry," replied: "Well, you must put it into the industry," and that is how it must be here.

This House has legislated on minimum wages for other persons besides the miners. You have passed other Measures, and you have laid it down by law that minimum rates of wages should be provided in the sweated industries of this country. Mining it at present a sweated industry. You have legislated for a minimum wage for another trade and industry. This House passed into law a Measure providing a minimum wage for Members of Parliament of £400 a year, and there is no talk as to whether they are efficient Members of Parliament; nor has it been laid down that they must attend regularly seven hours a day. They get their salary whether they are here or not. I want to assure the House that I have spent as much physical energy and mental energy M a mine in one week as I have spent in 18 months in this House, and I get £400 a year here. We do not propose that there should be £400 a year provided for men who are engaged in a far more useful employment to the nation, but we do propose that there should be, at least, sufficient paid to the miner for a day's work to enable him and his family to live.

During my 40 years' experience of the mining industry, I have known the mining industry absolutely ruined at least eight times. An appeal has been made by the hon. and gallant Member for Barnard Castle (Lieut.-Colonel Head-lam) that this Bill should not be accepted by this House. That comes from Durham. It carries my mind back in the history or the mining industry to some 80 years ago, when from the same county a Member rose and protested against legislation which proposed to put the children and the women out of the coal mines of Great Britain. His voice was raised from Durham to protest against this interference by law. He said it was not the duty of the House of Commons to interfere in private industry. He protested against the children and women being put out of the mines, and history records that he said: "If you put the children out of the mines, it will ruin the coal trade of this country; it will be impossible to carry on the coal trade unless the children are in the mines." I am glad to say, that in a Parliament in which Labour was not directly represented, they did not listen to talk of that kind. They thought more of the protection of child life and women-hood than they did even of the profits of the mineowners, and they passed legislation that children should be taken out of the mines, and that it should be made illegal for women to work in the mines. But the mining industry was not ruined because of that. It went on by leaps and bounds, and provision was made by the mineowners to do what they ought to have done long before, and that was to make the roadways large enough for grown men and ponies to do the work in which children were previously engaged.

I am not afraid that the mining industry is going to be ruined because of an increase of 1s. a ton in the price of coal in the event of this Measure becoming law. One hon. Member put the question, "Do you want a subsidy?" It is not our business to say how this is to be secured. I want to remind this House that we have no voice in the mining industry. I want to remind this House also that Lord Gain-ford, on behalf of the mineowners of Great Britain, said before the Royal Commission that if any part of the management of their mines was to be taken out of their hands, they would rather that the industry should be nationalised. We lay down the principle that the industry should give, at any rate, wages to enable the mine workers and their families to live a decent life—not what is provided for in the agreement between the mine-owners and the miners at the present time. It is a shameful thing to put in an agreement a rate of wage down to the lowest point. Lord Gainford was instructed to say, on behalf of the Mining Association of Great Britain, that if there were to be any interference with the management of their mines in Great Britain, he would rather the mines were taken over. Lord Gainford at another period made another statement. Some three years ago, before the railway managers of Great Britain, as a deputation for the purpose of endeavouring to get lower freights for coal and other commodities on the railway, he said, "We have reduced our wages down to the lowest possible point." He did not mean Lord Gainford's wages, by the by, but the wages of Lord Gainford's "hands," as they are pleased to call the miners. "We cannot," he said, "reduce wages further, or our people will not be able to live." There have been reductions in wages more than once since then, which has brought our people down to the starvation point. But my point is, that it is not the business of the promoters of this Bill to tell you how it is to be carried out.

Some persons hold up their hands with almost holy horror at the idea of a subsidy. Might I remind this House of something that took place in 1916—the right hon. Member for Ince will remember it very well—when 200,000 miners had joined the Army, and the output of coal was going down very rapidly, when the nation urgently required it for the Navy. At that time it dawned on the Miners' Federation that the price of coal would soar to an enormous height. The wages of miners were fixed according to the selling price and the profits. The Miners' Federation told their representatives on the Joint Committee to ask the Government to fix the price of coal in order that it might not soar too high. The right hon. Member for Ince, myself and another colleague on these benches were on that Committee We put before the mine-owners the suggestion of the Miners' Federation that the price of coal should be fixed. The mineowners—to their credit be it said—agreed that we should approach Parliament, and ask Parliament to fix the price of coal. It was proposed that 4s. per ton above pre-War prices should be the limit. Coal would undoubtedly have gone up £3 per ton, the miners' wages would have increased with it, and the nation would have suffered. The price of coal was fixed. We asked that it should be made a condition, in fixing the price, that the coal for the production of commodities into which coal entered, into which coal was the raw material, should also be fixed. Efforts were made in the direction of fixing prices for the shipyards and other industries, and with a similar aim in view to that of Parlament in fixing the price of coal. But this was not proceeded with.

The miners of Great Britain lost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds in wages which they otherwise would have had. The nation benefited by the arrangement. The nation got cheap coal for the Navy during the whole period of the War, and for the munition works, and our Allies, Italy and France got cheap coal during the whole of that time. Subsequently coal was bought at a cheaper rate here, and sold for two or three pounds per ton higher to the French people than it ought to have been. What the miners ask for now is that an industry which in war time could act in the manner in which it did should have some of its own back again. They are only asking now in this minimum wage for some of their own back, for that which they gave to the nation when the nation was in need.

While we are not bound to tell the House how this minimum wage is to be secured, we might tell hon. Members something about the coal industry, and how, perhaps, the coal might -be of more value than it is at the present time—coal which in many cases, when brought to the surface, represents the blood of the wounded and the killed miner. That coal ought to be treasured. We have treated it very lightly up to the present. It is well known to scientists and to mining engineers that we only secure from 7 to 14 per cent. of the real value of the coal, the coal produced at the risk of the miner's life, and by his toil. On one ton of domestic coal we get from 7 per cent. to 9 per cent. of its real efficiency in the grate, and we pollute the atmosphere of our large cities with the smoke from the rest of it. In other cases we only get from 14 per cent. to 15 per cent. of the real efficiency from the coal at present.

Is that, I should like to ask, all that we can expect from coal which is got at the risk of the miners' lives? We are being threatened that oil is likely to take the place of fuel, that that oil will be produced abroad, and that we shall have to purchase it. There is no necessity for us to buy oil that is produced abroad. Our miners are producing it every day. They are producing 20, 25 and 30 gallons of oil per ton of coal that might well be used and ought to be used at the present time. Are we going to wait until the Germans come over and do this thing for us? If the miners had any real control of the industry in which they pass their lives, they would endeavour to get more out of the coal by low temperature distillation, by getting hold of the byproducts, and so on. That, at present, is not our business, but we do want to make sure that we get a minimum living wage, and, if possible, we want by-products to be got at for the benefit of other industries. For these various reasons I should have thought that hon. Members on the Government side would have supported this Measure. It may require amendment, but that can be done in Committee. Hon. Members will have to vote solely on the principle as to whether or not there should be a minimum living wage provided for the miners. I am convinced of this, that the mining community are going to arrive at it. Many of us who are supposed to be very moderate will be prepared to go out and advocate that, under all circumstances, our people must have a living minimum wage. If this cannot be secured by negotiation, if it cannot be secured by legislation, then it must be secured by the power of organised labour in this country. I would prefer taking the more reasonable course if the Members of this House agree that there should be a living minimum wage not only for this, but other industries: if they agree that legislation may, perhaps, be the best method to arrive at that result. I sincerely hope that they will give this Bill a Second Reading.

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has made, as he always does on this topic, a very interesting speech. He has for a very long period been deservedly a great figure in the mining world of this country, and particularly in the country to which he and I belong. I am sure the mining community will never forget the debt which they owe to him for the great endeavours he has made on their behalf. I entirely agree with him in the concluding passages of his speech when he spoke about the waste of coal. This is a matter about which, I know, he took a vital interest in connection with the Commission which sat for a long time. One can only hope that in our time there will be discovered some method by which coal can be used to its highest advantage in this country.

It can be.

As far as my investigations go, there is a large amount of oil in coal, if only you can extract it—

It can be extracted!

There are also many other by-products, and at the present time some of the best scientific brains of this country are considering every method by which they may be extracted. Many people have lost fortunes in the low temperature distillation to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, and still people are giving consideration to a solution of the question, which I think they must reach. When it is reached it may well prove to be one of the greatest benefits that this country has ever obtained. I also entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman as to what he says in regard to the problem of child labour and women labour in the mines. I am sure that hon. Members on this side of the House have shown that they are as anxious as anyone in that respect. Everyone will remember the great efforts in order to get rid of that blot and scandal upon our mining practice which were made by great Conservative statesmen years ago. For my part I unite wholeheartedly with him in desiring to see the conditions of life made as good as they possibly can be, and as little embarrassing and uncomfortable as possible to those who work in the mines, as human ingenuity can devise.

We have also had a very eloquent and fervid speech from the Mover of the Bill, and I recognise the great part which he has played in the advancement of the conditions in which the mining community live to-day. For my part, I am all for as good a wage as can be paid in this industry. I believe that one of the secrets of success in this country would be such high wages as, upon a proper basis, would bring about greater contentment, increased production and greater regularity and continuity in industry, and I know of no enlightened employer who really would not subscribe to that sentiment. I recognise also that, at a time of extreme depression, the mining community, of all the great industries, has suffered the worst. There has been a greater reduction in the mining wage, Ishould say, than there has been in any other large industry in the course of the last few years. Accordingly, what all speakers have said awakens a very ready response in my heart so far as concerns the desire which we all have to see their present wages improved. I am not going back on the old tale with regard to the agreement of which I was a sponsor. It came at an unhappy time. If that agreement had started its career in good times rather than in bad, I believe the merits of the scheme would have been seen. But, unfortunately, they have been obscured by the appalling conditions of depression in which this industry has been ever since that agreement came into force.

3.0 P.M.

With regard to this particular Bill, I am forced to take objection to it for two reasons; in the first place, because I think it is wrong in principle that Parliament should fix a particular schedule of wages for any trade; and, in the second place, because I think there could be no more unfortunate time at which such a proposal should have been made in the coal trade as now. It may be said, "You have already recognised this principle." It was, indeed, so put by the Mover of the Bill. But I should like the House to consider for a moment the difference between what has been done in the past and what it is proposed to do now. In 1912 the Minimum Wage Act was passed. It set up a series of district boards to decide in each district what should be the minimum wage. That matter really arose out of a controversy with regard to the difficulties of men, first of all, in abnormal places, and, secondly, of men who were not supplied with sufficient equipment and facilities to earn what was called a living wage. Accordingly, it was arranged that there should be set up throughout the country these district boards, who should deal with the matter of what- a living, wage should be in each particular district. It was never suggested that they should apply the same wage over the whole country. Indeed, to-day, as the right hon. Gentleman himself showed, these minimum wages differ by shillings throughout the length and breadth of this country. As everyone knows, the cost of living in different districts is very dissimilar and local conditions are taken into account, and the chairman of the local tribunal, if his aid is called in, has to decide according to local conditions what would be the appropriate minimum wage.

But the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Bill will remember that Mr. Asquith, as he then was, resisted most rigidly the idea that Parliament should make a schedule of wages. He was willing to set up these district committees to decide what the proper minimum wage should be in each district, but although it was pressed on him with great urgency by the mining community at that time that he should make a schedule, he replied that Parliament was incapable of deciding what the wage should be throughout any industry, and accordingly the principle that is invoked by the right hon. Gentleman is one which does not apply at all to the particular proposals now made.

I now come to the subsequent development of this matter, in the agreement of 1921. It is true that that agreement provided for a subsistence wage being paid, but again, as my right hon. Friend very well knows, that subsistence wage differs from district to district and is decided upon by district boards specially set up for the purpose, and no countenance is given under that agreement to the suggestion that you can fix a wage for the various classes of miners which shall apply throughout the country.

Having dealt with the previous precedents, if they can be so called, for indeed there are none for this Bill, may I suggest a line of argument against the possibility of fixing such a minimum wage at all Wages depend to a certain extent—I do not say entirely, for there is a point below which you cannot go—upon the price which you can get for your commodity, and here you have to deal with a problem over which Parliament has -practically no control at all. You cannot fix a wage, because you never know what the position of your competitors is going to be. Take your coal trade to-day. You have got to find markets in different parts of the world. You can only get those markets and keep them if you can sell at such prices as will compete with the German, American and Belgian producers of coal. How can you possibly say, in advance, what wage you shall insist upon when the price is something upon which your trade depends, and which on the other hand, is interfered with through the whole world by the particular conditions under which your opponents work? If you had a complete monopoly of all the coal in the world and could fix your own prices, that would be a feasible scheme. But you know what is happening to-day. You are being undercut in all the markets in the world because you cannot afford to sell at the prices at which they offer their coal. This reacts in another way. You may say: "We have still got our home markets." But your home market is equally dependent on world conditions with regard to the prices at which you can sell your coal, for this reason, that if you cannot offer to the factories of this country coal at prices comparable to those, at which it is offered to manufacturers in other countries, then our manufacturers are going to lose their business and the coal trade is going to suffer. In both ways you are dependent upon contingencies which you have no means of controlling.

What is happening to-day—and this opens up the second ground of my objection. At the present time the export of coal in this country has very grievously gone down. The coal trade is in a more depressed condition, certainly, than I have ever known it; older Members may recollect periods when the conditions were equally depressing, but I certainly cannot go back to any period when there was anxiety, apprehension and trouble equal to that which faces us to-day. Compare our exports of 1924 with our exports of 1923, and, in comparing them, recollect that the export of coal from this country is one of the greatest factors in our prosperity; indeed, I will put it higher than prosperity, it is one of the factors vital to our existence. Imagine the number of things that hang on it. If our ships go out without coal they go out in ballast, and shipping is affected, and the cost of living to every consumer in this country is affected, because the freight home of the goods which they require is increased by so much on account of the ships having had to go out in ballast, and every article brought from overseas to this country is raised in pries. If we lose our export trade in coal it is going to be a disastrous thing for this country. What is happening to-day? If you compare 1924 with 1923, you will find that the export of coal has gone down by 17,000,000 tons.

I know the right hon. Gentleman wishes to be fair, and surely he ought not to make that comparison having regard to the fact that 1923 was an abnormal year. Will he please compare 1924 with 1913?

Even if you make that comparison you will find there is a considerable reduction; I do not know that it is quite the same amount, but the export in 1924 was not as high as it was in 1913, as I am sure the hon. Member will agree. But let us look at the position that arises. I would like to point. out, in the first place, that our exports to Germany, and no doubt that will come under the ban of my hon. Friend's interruption, went down by over 7,000,000 tons; our exports to France went down by over 4,000,000 tons; and our exports to Belgium by over 3,000,000 tons; and one of the most significant things of all is that the export to South America, compared with that before the War is down by 2,000,000 tons. I ask you to consider the effect upon our trade of losing the South American coal market. One of the reasons for it is that our price does not compete with the German price. I was talking the other day to a Dutch shipowner, who said to me, "I always used to buy British coal, but I cannot buy it to-day." I said, "Why?' He said, "Because the German price is 6s. a. ton cheaper than the British price.' I said, "flow does that occur?" and he gave me an answer which is entirely borne out by the figures that I have since seen. The German output of coal has gone up by 41,000,000 tons in the course of the year, and the significant thing is—

Are you counting the Saar pits?

It does not include the Saar. The significant thing is that their brown coal, for which previously they did not seem to be able to find so many uses, has now been turned to account by new devices and new processes, so that they are able to use that at home and to export their ordinary coal in competition with ours. Accordingly, you are faced to-day, as the Mover of the Amendment said, with conditions such as we have never known before.

What would the change be which would be created if this Bill were put into operation? I have gone into the question of wages, and I do not at all cavil at what the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Bill gave in the way of statistics. But may I give my own statistics, in order to show a little more clearly what is the situation? I find that in the coalfield of this country the average wage of those who are working at the face was at the end of the last year 12s. 11¾d.—just a farthing less than 13s. per shift, and of those who work underground, but not at the coal face, 9s. 11½d. on the average. The wage of the surface worker was 8s. 3d. per shift, and the average wage for the whole coalfield of everybody employed is 10s. 8d. per shift. I admit at once that these wages are egregiously less than have been paid in more prosperous times, and I should like to see them raised to a much higher point, but in face of the depressed condition of the coal trade I ask the House to consider the result of applying the schedule which has been moved to-day by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ince.

Take a coalfield which I know very well, the South Wales coalfield. During the last six months of last year there was a loss of £896,000 in that district. May I point out that if you had paid the wage which is scheduled in this Bill it would have increased the loss by over £1,250,000 in those six months. If you take the country as a whole the coal trade does not at the present time do better than meet its costs. Under the Schedule which is proposed you would add £20,000,000 a year to the cost of working the coal trade.

When I put these figures before the House I think I am justified in saying that whatever merits there may be in this Bill, and however much we may desire to see wages in the coal trade increase, this is not the time to adopt such a proposal. I myself believe that this country at the present time is confronted with a condition of greater anxiety in its industry and commerce than we have ever been faced with before, and it will require the utmost patience and endurance to come through these troubles. For these reasons I hope that all sections of society and all classes of industry will unite in a serious attempt to meet the difficulties of the situation.

In discussing a subject like the coal industry there must necessarily be some divergence of opinion, but it is always well to dwell on one aspect upon which we can all agree. At the risk of incurring suspicion on the part of the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Varley) that I have no sympathy with the objects of this Bill and that those who oppose it are in a similar position, I wish to say on behalf of the whole House that there is a real and genuine desire that if it were possible now, without doing a greater injury to the industry, we on this side of the House would be only too glad to seize any chance of adopting any proposals which would increase the present low rate of wages paid to miners which everybody desires to see increased. You have, however, to connect the provisions of this Bill with the actual facts of the industry. We have been told in a very interesting and eloquent speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ince (Mr. Walsh) that a very good case has been made out, but he did not connect the case with the Bill. The whole gist of his case was that this was an urgent matter. If the matter be so urgent, was it not equally urgent last year when the right hon. Gentleman and his party were in office? Last year, I looked forward with some interest to see what would happen when this Bill, which was put down, was brought before the House of Commons. Very shortly before the Bill was to be debated, the Government took the whole of the time of the House. It was understood that a pledge had been given that they were going to bring in a Bill, but they did nothing of the kind. If therefore, because we say that this Bill is not good for the industry at the present time, we are accused of being unsympathetic towards the industry, did not that also apply to the Labour Government last year?

You have the power to put into practice your constant professions; we had not.

The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that that is no answer at all. If the Government had brought forward a Bill last Session, it is extremely likely that under the then conditions they would have been able to carry it. At any rate, if the paramount reason why they did not introduce a Bill was that they did not think they could pass it, why did they give a pledge to their followers that they were going to bring forward the Bill, and, having given that pledge, why did they not carry it out? Both the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) and the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Potts), who unfortunately are not here, were very persistent in asking the Government when they were going to carry out their pledge. It would be much more amusing to the House if those two hon. Members were here. Perhaps I ought to have warned them that I was going to say this, but I must confess that I did not think about it, because I thought they were certain to be here. Both these hon. Members were very anxious to find out when the Government were going to carry out their word. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, therefore, cannot charge us with being unsympathetic because, faced with exactly the same difficulties which made it impossible for the Labour Government to carry out their pledge, we advise the House not to pass the Bill. I do not know what the answer to that argument may be, but it seems to me to be absolutely conclusive. A good deal has been said about this being the corollary of the 1912 Act. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) made the point very well that there is a considerable difference between this Bill and the Act of 1912. I do not think any hon. Member when he really considers it will say, as was said in the previous Debate, that this is merely a sequel and contains the same principle as the Act of 1912. Let me remind the House that this Bill introduces a principle which has never yet been accepted by the House of Commons. In no single industry or trade is a minimum wage fixed by this House. Last Session, when we were dealing with the Agricultural Wages Bill the Labour Government themselves distinctly declined to put into the Bill a definite figure—

Why?

I do not quite know what the hon. Member means by asking why.

Was it not made clear then to the Government, which was in a minority in this House, that, if a figure were put in, they would not be able to get the Bill?

I thought the hon. Member was going to say that, but it is quite wrong. The Bill as drafted did not include a figure. Later on, the hon. Gentleman, I think, and some of his Friends, tried to get a figure put in, but the Government adhered to their original proposal.

May I correct the hon. and gallant Gentleman by saying that the first draft of the Bill did contain a figure for a minimum wage, and that it was only after consultation with him and his Friends that the figure had to be taken out, for fear of losing the Bill altogether.

All I can say is that this House of Commons has never sanctioned the principle before, and the Labour Government, whatever may have been the internal negotiations—as to which the hon. Gentleman, apparently, knows more than I do—the Government did not bring in the Bill in that form, and this principle has never been admitted by the House of Commons.

What about the Agriculture Bill?

I must not allow myself to be drawn aside. The hon Member for Morpeth (Mr. Smillie) has alluded to sweated industries. I should like him to point out a single sweated industry where a minimum wage is laid down without the operation of a district board. in every case there is machinery set up to settle the minimum wage, but in no ease has Parliament laid down a definite figure. In this connection I should like to quote what was said by the present Lord Oxford, who was then Mr. Asquith, and who was Prime Minister at the time when the 1912 Bill was being brought in. He expressed it in very much better language than I can, and I would recommend it to the consideration of the House. At that moment this very same proposal was being urged, that a certain figure should be put into the Bill, and Mr. Asquith said:

"In my opinion, and in the opinion of the Government, it is undesirable to name a figure in the Bill, and I say that in the interests of all parties concerned. In the first place, as we have become more and more conscious in the course of these recent discussions, the conditions of our coal-mining industry are so complex and so various that it is quite impossible for any central authority to name, even as regards any particular area, still less as regards the country in general, a particular rate of wages for a particular class of work. I do not believe Parliament is equipped with the information or the materials which would enable it to come to anything more than a highly conjectural speculative conclusion upon a point such as that. I myself, in the course of the last three or four weeks, have been immersed more or less in the details of this matter, and very soon came to the conclusion that as regards wages in general the only possible way of dealing with them was by referring them to a local body armed with local knowledge and dealing specifically with the special conditions of the area. I say that on general grounds; but I say, further, that I am not disposed to set the precedent of fixing a figure of wages in an Act of Parliament … I want to point out to my hon. Friends who represent the miners the peculiar dangers which the adoption of this proposal might lead to."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd March, 1912; col. 2242, Vol. 35.]

Then he went on to deal with the danger that if a figure were put into the Bill it might become the subject of bidding at elections and lead to political corruption. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Those are the words of the Prime Minister of the day, and I think everyone must realise that there is a real difficulty in that connection. We are just as anxious to avoid political corruption as he was. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh!"] I do not know what the methods of the hon. Gentleman may be.

Have there not been proposals to reduce the price of penny stamps at election times?

That is a question that ought, perhaps, to be put to the Postmaster-General. The principle proposed to be introduced in this Bill is an entirely new one. It is a particularly unfortunate moment to be introducing a Bill of this kind because, as the House knows, this industry is working under an agreement. I am not going to defend or to discuss the details of that agreement or the various forms that the agreement has taken in connection with the industry, but I assert without hesitation that, whatever may be the details of the agreement or whatever revision may be desirable in the agreement, generally the principle of the agreement is one that is thoroughly sound. The principle of the agreement is that both parties can come together and discuss things among themselves and decide the definite form under which the surplus proceeds can be paid to the two parties in the industry. That is an absolutely sound principle. As to the details, that is a matter for the parties to arrange among themselves.

The principle is sound, and, in view of the fact that the whole country is hoping, and nobody more than hon. Members opposite, that the two parties will at some time or other be sitting down to consider those details and trying to see whether they cannot come to some agreement, it does seem to me to be a fatal procedure for this House to butt in and to impose an over-riding figure of the kind laid down in this Bill, which may prejudice the whole matter. I am certain that if there is a chance of any agreement being arrived at between the two parties, hon. Members opposite are the last to wish to interfere with it. I am sure that they would not want to make a peaceful path towards settlement impossible. The passing of this Bill would have a very bad effect upon any chance of peaceful settlement by agreement.

The time for bringing in this Bill is also particularly unfortunate, having regard to the critical position of the coal-mining industry at the present time. It is not a question of taking any party or sectional view, because everybody who reads and thinks and goes about knows the position in which the mining industry stands to-day. On other occasions when Bills of this sort have been brought forward there have been certain representatives of the owners who have said that if such a thing was introduced pits would close, because the industry could not afford it. That has been said on previous occasions and it is said now. I remember a speech which was made in 1923 by the President of the Board of Trade in the last Government, who made a great point that on previous occasions these gloomy prophecies had been made and had proved unreliable. But there never was an occasion when those prophecies were being more fulfilled than now. There never was a time when pits were closing up and down the country more than is the case to-day. I am constantly receiving reports saying that pit after pit is closing, and I would ask hon. Members opposite this definite question, "What are you going to do if you get this Bill passed and pits begin to close in a still greater proportion all over the country?"

This Bill must mean a considerable addition to the burdens of industry. If it does not, then it is no use from the point of view of hon. Gentlemen opposite. If it is to have no such effect on the industry then what is the use of bringing it in? Hon. Members honestly think that they are going to produce a very large increase for those who are employed in the industry, but in doing so they are going to put on the industry a considerable burden. I am not going into the details. It is mainly the principle to which I object, but I do want, to point cut how undesirable it is to increase the burdens in view of the peculiarly difficult position of the industry, and of the country generally, at the present moment. I am neither a coalowner nor a miner; I am merely one whose job at present is to try to hold an impartial view in this extraordinarily difficult, position. Reference has hen made to what this Bill is going to add to the cost of the industry. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion for the rejection of the Bill put the figure at about 2s. a ton. That was challenged by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Varley), who said 13d. I am sorry that the figures worked out by my Department come to considerable more than 13d. They give the increase in the cost of production per ton at from 2s. to 3s., taking an average of all over the country.

The hon. Member for South Bristol (Sir B. Rees) put the cost of production at 21s. per ton; the right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) said 20s.; mine was somewhat lower than 12s., so that there is room for difference of opinion.

I am perfectly certain that the hon. Member is not deliberately giving inaccurate information. He would be the last person to do so, but I aril merely giving to the House the opinion to which my Department has come. It is reckoned that in the particular district of Lancashire, where wage rates are low, the increased cost of production per ton will be more like 4s. or 4s. 6d. Consider the effect on the constituents of the right hon. Gentleman—

Such a result should be based on some definite ideas. The mere fact that the Department of the right hon. Gentleman has thrown certain figures at him has no weight. Has he the slightest idea of how they have reached a total of 4s. or 5s. or anything like that?

I have no idea of the figures myself. That is the figure which they give me. If the right hon. Gentleman will come round to discuss the matter at my office, I shall be very glad to go into the matter. These are the figures which have been calculated and have been checked as far as it is possible to do so. The constituents of the righthon. Gentleman in Lancashire suffer already very much from the competition of Yorkshire coal owing to the fact that we can produce coal under different conditions and at a cheaper rate per ton in Yorkshire. It is admitted that these figures will mean that the cost of production in Lancashire, which is already considerably higher than that of Yorkshire, may be considerably increased. As regards the general question of increased production of coal we know already the figures for the United States. The figures for the other countries of Europe show how enormously and steadily the production of coal in the world is increasing.

That increased production means that more coal is to be sold in the markets of the world and is to compete with us. Holland, which in 1913 produced 1,872,000 tons, in 1923 produced 5,281,000, and in 1924 5,882,000 tons. Belgium in 1923 produced 22,922,000 tons, and in 1924 23,360,000 tons. She has also succeeded in finding a new coking coal, which will make a great difference to our exports to that country. France in 1923 produced 40,875,000 tons, and in 1924 58,043,000 tons. Germany, we know, has had low production in recent years, but in 1923 she produced 62,225,000 tons, and that total has been already increased to 118,829,000 tons. This year she will increase production on a much larger scale. In adidtion she has lignite, of which she produced 118,249,000 tons in 1923 and 124,360,000 tons in 1924. She is using it on a large scale now for the development of electricity schemes, thereby releasing black coal for export. In addition to that, I am informed on very good authority that there are something like 9,000,000 tons awaiting export from the Ruhr, and that that will come on the markets of the world. That is made up of 5,000,000 tons of coal and 4,000,000 tons of coke. These figures demonstrate the problem that we have to face. All these countries, or practically all of them, are working much longer hours than ourselves, with lower wages and with less cost. I do not say that in order to make an attack against anyone, but it is high time that the House and the country realised what terribly severe competition is coming and the parlous condition of danger of the industry.

rose—

I am sorry I cannot give way, as I want to leave time for another speaker. Every day fresh information is coming that the pits are closing. It is not suggested by anyone that pits are being closed merely to amuse the owners. It would be an expensive amusement. The House will agree that the vast majority of owners have suffered terrible financial losses before pits are closed, and they must be deeply affected by the hateful closing of a colliery, because they know that it means that there are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people thrown out of work, that women and children suffer privation, that the rates of a district are burdened and people in that district impoverished. The present situation of the industry is a new situation, and I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite how they are going to meet it? It is no use talking about nationalisation. They will not get that to meet this immediate emergency. It is no use talking about other ways of reorganising the industry. That would take time. I hope very much for great possibilities in one thug. I hope that from the low temperature carbonisation process which is being developed very rapidly now we shall get better results than in previous years and that something may before very long emerge. I have authority to say that the Government intend to spare no money, no energy and no effort to develop that process and make it a commercial success.

That is one ray of hope, but beyond that I see very little indeed. There is no use suggesting various other remedies. There is no use talking about rasing the price of coal or about subsidies. How are you going to deal with the situation if pits are closing all over the country? [HON. MEMBERS: Give them to us!] I am not going to allow the pits to close if it can be avoided, and the result of this Bill would be the closing of pits all over the country. In North Wales and South Wales, in Scotland, in Durham, and elsewhere, you would find this tendency going on and increasing and thousands of men and women being thrown out of work, and I say that is the responsibility which we should have to face if we passed this Bill. I appeal to the House to refuse to run that risk, and not to do this injury to an industry the interests of which we have all at heart. I appeal to hon. Members to think very deeply before they support a scheme which obviously has not been thought out by the hon. Gentlemen who bring it forward. It merely represents a demonstration which they feel bound to make to their supporters. When they were in power themselves they would not do it, but now they are in Opposition they think they can safely bring forward this proposal. It is not for the House to support a scheme put forward on those lines, and I ask the House to reject it.

It is not my intention to travel over the ground already covered by the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Second Reading and the subsequent speakers. I wish to confine my attention to some of the criticisms made against the Bill by hon. Members opposite. The Secretary for Mines has twitted us with the suggestion that when the Labour Government were in office they refused to allow a Bill of this kind to be debated. Last year the Government was a minority Government, and it had to give up the Friday which had been set apart for the discussion of a Minimum Wage Bill. I think there was also another Friday which should have been allotted to a Private Member's Bill on the subject, but it was absolutely necessary that the Government should get through Supplementary Estimates, and they were compelled to take these two Fridays for essential financial business. I think that course was taken by arrangement with hon. Members on the Front Bench opposite, and, therefore, it is unfair to say that the Labour Government turned down the discussion of a Minimum Wage Bill in this House. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman asked what we were going to do about the pits that are dosing down. Pits have been closing down ever since I started to be a miner 25 years ago, and the pits which the right hon. And gallant Gentleman mentions have not been closed owing to this Bill. If we take his own figures as correct, and adopt the pessimistic view which he has expressed, it is evident that, whether there is a Bill or not, more pits are going to close down. I cannot see that the passing of the Bill will make any difference in that respect. One of the chief objections to the Bill is that the time is inopportune. That expression has been used from time immemorial against every proposal for social reform. As one who attended conferences in London during the passing of the 1912 Act, I remember sitting in the Strangers' Gallery of this House and listening to Members on both sides speaking for and against that. Bill, and there was frequently the cry then that it was an inopportune time. Therefore, the argument of inopportunity is one to which one need not pay much attention.

The second point is that the industry cannot afford to meet any liabilities that might be imposed upon it by the passing of this Bill. The same argument has been used over and over again in this place on every Bill that has come up with any view to social reform for the people. In the 1912 Debate, if my hon. Friend had read that Debate extensively, which I hope he has, he would have found that the opponents of that Bill said exactly the same as every opponent of this Bill has said to-day. What was the fact then? From 1909 to 1911 the profits of the owners were 9·9d. per ton on every ton raised, and I want to draw the attention of the House to this fact, that the worst year they have had from 1913 to 1924 was 1924, when they had a profit of 1s. 1d. for every ton raised. Nevertheless, they said at 'hat particular time that the industry was going to be down and out. As a matter of fact, right down all the years since the passing of that Act up to the present moment, the profit per ton raised which has gone to the coalowners has been vastly in excess of that which was going to, them prior to the passing of the Act of 1912. Therefore I want hon. Members to realise that in every social reform that has been made it was said that the particular industry to which that reform was to apply was going to be down and out in the course of a few months' time.

The Secretary for Mines took another argument and said that the principle laid down in this Bill in regard to the schedule of prices was an absolutely and entirely new principle, but I think I am right in saying that in the Corn Production Act, 1917, there was laid down a definite minimum wage for the agricultural labourer. Every innovation has been a new principle determined by this House. I re-member, when I first came here as a Member, there was no Secretary for Mines, and the first time that question was brought forward everybody said, You cannot have a Secretary for Mines, because you have never had one. I remember, when I first came to this House, there was no Minister of Health, and when the question came up, everybody said: You do not want one, because you have never had one. Yet these two posts have become an institution since then and I venture to say that no Member, in whatever quarter of the House he may sit, is prepared to remove them. Therefore, I suggest to the Secretary for Mines that, so far as his arguments are concerned, they have not been much addition to the Debate.

I will now deal with the arguments of other right hon. Members. I cannot deal with them all, but there was one rather Peculiar argument used by the hon. and gallant Member for Barnard Castle (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam) and the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Clarry). The latter hon. Member emphasised the fact that the millers were the prey of agitators. It. seems to me that the hon. Member for Newport and several of his friends think you can persuade the miners to do anything, and I suggest that the best way to prevent these agitators preying on the miners is to give the miners a living wage, so that they will be content. If you can make the miner content, he will not be a prey to agitators.

One of the two hon. Gentlemen who spoke against this Bill was, I understand, a coalowner. If I had not known it before, I should have known it after his first few sentences. He used the same arguments that were used 50 years ago. The other hon. Gentleman who supported the Amendment was an eminent member of a coal distributors' association. When I listened to those two hon. Gentlemen, I was a bit confused, because I found out from what the hon. Member for South Bristol (Sir B. Rees) said, that the coalowners were not getting any money out of the coal trade, and, as a matter of fact, were losing money. The hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. L. Thompson), in the debate the other night, made it pretty plain that with the coal distributors it was a labour of love. As for the royalty owners, they are paying all they get in royalties to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in taxation. Indeed, one would like to know whether the coal industry is a trade or a charity organisation. If it is thought that the miners will believe anything that is said, let me tell the House that you cannot kid them by things like that. The miner is educated now, and understands thoroughly the economics of his own industry. It is, therefore, no use trying to tell him that all these people are so benevolent in their desire to benefit the miners.

The hon. and gallant Member for Barnard Castle said that the 1912 Act was passed because of an emergency. What was the emergency? It was a strike. Surely my hon. and gallant Friend does not want us to have another emergency like that? We do not want it. We are trying to find a pathway of peace. The Prime Minister, three weeks ago, gave expression to an appeal, to which I listened with attention and appreciation. We are trying to find a way to peace in the coal trade. Let this House state definitely what wages the miners ought to have. What does the Bill state? There has been a lot said about it, and a lot by people who understand little about it. The Bill asks this House to say to what they think the minimum value of the miner is. If the House thinks the value in the Bill is too high for the miners, they will vote against it; but I would point out that the wage asked for is not a living wage.

In conclusion, I can assure my hon. Friends on the opposite side of the House that this Bill is not put forward for political propaganda. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I mean to say I have been in it, and hon. Members opposite have not. I was one of the sub-committee that had to formulate some proposals. I have gone through the Executive Committee of the Miners' Federation with this Bill. I have gone through a conference, and I have gone before the miners themselves. We have got the view of the miners. They have said that this Bill falls far short of meeting their demands. If we were out for real political purposes, there was no reason why we might not have put forward a higher minimum than is in this Bill. But we have set what we have in the Bill, believing there was a reasonable chance of this House realising the importance of the miners so far as our national wealth is concerned, and of being prepared to give the miners a fairly reasonable standard of life.

Talk about the miners being discontented! Can it be wondered at? Hon. Members in this Debate have been talking about five and five-and-a-half days per week. There are a large number of miners in this country to-day who are not averaging four days per week. When these men take home their four days' wages at 7s. 6d. or 7s. 7d. per shift, one can well understand how it is that they and their wives should be discontented. They are discontented, and they will remain discontented until this House does something to remove that discontent. When we take industrial action we are told that we are trying to strangle the nation. When we take Parliamentary action we are told that Parliament has no right to interfere with the wages of the miners. Will hon. Members tell us what action we ought to take '? No, Mr. Speaker, this House has got to face its responsibility. If hon. Members vote down this Bill to-day we shall, inside and outside this House, agitate—if you like to call it so—all the time until we have made it possible for our people to have a full chance to live a fair standard of life. I want to suggest that every Member to-day who votes against this Bill is expressing by his vote that he thinks that the miners are of much less value than the figures we have given. [HON. MEMBERS: "No" and "Yes"] Therefore, the miners will be justified in saying: "We came to the House of Commons and asked for bread. Instead of bread they gave us a stone."