May I ask the Prime Minister if He can make any statement as to the Whitsuntide Recess; and whether he can announce the business for Thursday, of this week, and also what business it is proposed to take on the resumption of our sittings?

I hope that it will be possible for the House to adjourn for the Whitsuntide Recess on Thursday next until Tuesday, 1st June.

To-morrow, Wednesday, we shall commence the Debate on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, and it has been arranged through the usual channels that this Debate shall be resumed on Thursday this week, and the Division taken not later than 3 o'clock. After that business has been disposed of, the Adjournment of the House will be moved, and, until 6 o'clock, Members will be able to raise questions in which they are interested.

The House will meet on Thursday at 11 o'clock, and Questions will be taken until 12 o'clock.

After 11 o'clock to-night we propose to take Orders No. 3—Merchandise Marks (Imported Goods) (Expenses), Report—and No. 4—Electricity (Supply) (Money), Report.

I will make a statement on Thursday as to the business which we propose to take during the first week we resume, but probably the first will be a Supply day.

Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to the fact that the 2nd June is Derby Day?

I have been considering that, and also the beginning of August.

LAW OF PROPERTY AMENDMENT BILL [Lords]

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee B.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed.

Bill, as amended ( in the Standing Committee ), to be taken into consideration upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 116.]

reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had added the following Member to Standing Committee B: Lieut.-Colonel Heneage.

further reported from the Committee; That they had added the following fifteen Members to Standing Committee B (in respect of the Secretaries of State Bill): Mr. William Adamson, the Lord Advocate, Sir Samuel Chapman, Mr. Couper, Mr. Cowan, Sir Henry Craik, Earl of Dalkeith, Sir Harry Hope, Major MacAndrew, Mr. Neil Maclean, Mr. McNeill, Mr. Robert Smith, Mr. Stephen, Colonel Thom, and Mr. Wright.

further reported from the Committee; That they had added the following Fifteen Members to Standing Committee B (in respect of the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Bill [ Lords ] and the Land Drainage Bill [ Lords ]: Mr. Blundell, Major Braithwaite Captain Briscoe, Mr. Buxton, Sir Henry Cautley, Mr. Dean, Mr. Duckworth, Mr. Guinness, Mr. Hurd, Mr. Hugh Morrison, Mr. Shepperson, Lord Colum Crichton-Stuart, Mr. Taylor, Mr. M'Lean Watson, and Mr. Windsor.

further reported from the Committee; That they had added the following Fifteen Members to Standing Committee B (in respect of the Unemployment Insurance Bill); Mr. Albery, Mr. John Baker, Mr. Batey, Mr. Betterton, Sir Warden Chilcott, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Robert Hudson, Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy, Colonel Perkins, Lieut.-Colonel Pownall, Mr. Thomas Shaw, Major Oliver Stanley, Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, Major Tasker, and Major Sir Granville Wheler.

further reported from the Committee; That they had added the following Fifteen Members to the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills (in respect of the Burgh Registers (Scotland) Bill, the Execution of Diligence (Scotland) Bill [ Lords ], and the Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Bill [ Lords ]): the Lord Advocate, Lord Balniel, Captain Bourne, Major Crawfurd, Major George Davies, Lord Fermoy, Mr. Groves, Captain D'Arcy Hall, Mr. Harmsworth, Lieut.-Colonel James, Mr. W. C. Robinson, Mr. Rennie Smith, Mr. Stamford, Major Steel, and Mr. Charles Williams.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

The discussions of last week on this matter were full of sympathy, but some of us went away just as unsatisfied as we have gone away from every previous Debate during the last three or four years. What was the position taken up by the predecessors of the right hon. Gentleman and the Minister before that? It is that each succeeding Minister of Health, and each succeeding Chancellor of the Exchequer, has apparently laid it down that these necessitous areas and the question of dealing with unemployed were a matter between the Ministry of Labour and the Unemployment Insurance Committees. Apparently now the policy, until this House orders otherwise, is the settled one that the Government are to cast the burden on to the local authority. It is true that most of us who raise this question do so in the interests of our own Divisions, but I suppose no one will suggest that that is anything against the principle, that we put forward. We would not be very worthy representatives of places like Poplar or Middlesbrough if we did not persistently force on the attention of the House the condition in which our people are placed by the burdens cast upon them. It is no answer to say—at least, I do not think it is, and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health would have considered it any answer when he was agitating this question himself—that because somebody else had not done something, therefore we ought not to grumble because the present Minister is doing nothing. He has been in his present office a pretty considerable time now, and I think he will agree that during that period the burden on the Poor Law authorities has certainly increased; and I think he will also agree that a very large amount of that increase is due to the policy of the Government of which he is a member. I need not restate the facts I have put before the Committee in regard to that policy, but I would like to make it clear that it is not so easy to get rid of this question by a mere statement, as the right hon. Gentleman appears to think it is. He seemed to me to treat the fact that the number of persons chargeable to the Poor Law had increased in quite a casual way. [ Interruption. ] I am dealing with the number of persons in receipt of domiciliary relief on certain dates, and I say that number has increased, and I will give the figures in a moment from the returns of the Government.

An hon. Member opposite, representing, I think, one of the Yorkshire Divisions, says that in his opinion the policy of the present Government has not increased the number of able-bodied persons seeking relief; and, therefore, I would like the Minister to give us his explanation of the increase. Take the figures for London, which are the only ones I have available, for the dates, Saturday, 31st October, 1925, and Saturday, 1st November, 1924. They are the latest figures we have been able to get. Comparing those figures hon. Members will find that in the Western district of London the increase is about 2,000; in the North district the increase is again about 2,000; in the Central district it is about 11,000; in the Eastern district it is about 14,000; and in the Southern district it is about 16,000. Those figures are derived from a comparison of the numbers relieved by the Poor Law guardians in November, 1924, and October, 1925.

What are the numbers due to unemployment?

If the hon. Member will have patience I will come to that in a moment. It is perfectly true that these are not all able-bodied men, but a proportion of them most certainly are; I think I shall be able to prove that from the figures of one union. It is rather difficult to get the figures for the whole country analysed, but one can occasionally get them for one particular union, and we in Poplar, which is one of the unions concerned, are able to show that through the policy of the Ministry of Labour our figures have tended to go up during the whole of the last half-year ending 31st March—about that there cannot be any dispute whatever. Here are the numbers of persons disallowed benefit in particular weeks under the new legislation of the Minister of Labour; they are persons who, because of that legislation, have had to apply for relief. These are new cases: 5th September, 146 persons; 12th September, 93; 19th September, 84; 26th September, 102; 3rd October, 95; 10th October, 91; 17th October, 102; 24th October, 115; 31st October, 66; 7th November, 80; 14th November, 71; 21st November, 81. The average for the 12 weeks was 94. That is our experience in a London union, and I think we are entitled to say it would be the experience of all the industrial areas in the country.

May I ask whether those figures include men under 25, or whether they are married people?

Some of them are young people under 25—able-bodied men who have been disallowed benefit for one reason or the other by the Employment Exchanges.

Yes—for one reason or another.

We take a good deal of pains to find out why those people have been disallowed benefit, and I think if the Board are challenged they will be able to give the right hon. Gentleman the reasons in each individual case. Whatever our crimes at Poplar may be, we do try to find out all about each man who comes before us. The extraordinary thing is that these figures began to rise directly the Minister of Labour's new Act came into operation. The figures I have just read out relate to men—not men, women and children, as I was giving before; and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will deny that we spent in the half-year ending 31st March £50,000 more than we budgeted for, owing to the fact that we had this large increase of men as a consequence of the new Regulations. I do not want to repeat all the things I said last time, but I must repeat that men and women are now disallowed benefit because they are persons who are not likely to obtain insurable employment, or for whom insurable employment is not available.

No, I think—

The hon. Member must have a little patience. He will not deny that the Regulations which have been laid down must apply to a consider able number of people, and that those would be refused unemployment benefit. The Minister of Labour never denies that. He says, "This is an insurance scheme, ad if the people are not likely to be engaged in an insurable occupation then they must go to the Poor Law." We object to that; we say they ought not to be sent to the Poor Law—

That is the 1924 Act.

It is the 1925 Act which gives the Minister a great deal of discretion in these matters, and it has also lengthened the waiting period; and in our district that has made a very considerable difference. I know it may be argued that you can work figures how you please, but the cold, solid fact remains that, until this period, starting in September of last year, the figures were not rising, and they did rise afterwards. We say that that is due to the legislation of the Minister of Labour. In any case, however, supposing that I concede to the hon. Member and the Government that it is nothing to do with them, it is equally nothing to do with us. We have not produced the conditions that throw this large number of men upon our books. When the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) states, as he did the other day, that it is because of conditions in particular places, due to local maladministration, and so on, that there is unemployment in particular places, I am willing, although I know it is incorrect, to let him say that about us in the East End, but he cannot say that about Sheffield; he cannot say it about Middlesbrough.

That, therefore, is no answer to our case, and when the right hon. Gentleman says that the Committee which he set up was unable to accept any of the schemes that were put forward, I think he must answer the question which was raised that afternoon, just as we glanced at the end of the Report where the Committee say that, if it were thought that they were unduly hard on those who had put forward schemes, their conclusions were to some extent limited because of the limitations of the reference that was put to them; so that it is just possible that, with a wider reference, that Committee might have been able to give some better, or at least some more useful, lead and guidance on this subject than they were able to do with the reference upon which they made their inquiry. I want also to say to the right hon. Gentleman that I do not think he got rid altogether of my argument about land settlement. When I said that I felt very angry with him and others because of the position into which the Hollesley Bay Colony had got, it probably was not right that I should have put the blame on him for bringing about the change, but he has now been responsible for it for 20 months, and he could change it if he would. When he said that it is exactly the same as it was in the early days, I am sure he was speaking without accurate knowledge of the subject.

I said that it was the same as it was in the time of my predecessor.

I am never going to argue in defence of anything that any of my friends did with which I might happen to disagree, but you have to remember this about them, that they did not have the solid backing of a majority that meekly marches into the Lobby whenever they are told. The badge of sufferance was the badge of our tribe during those few months, and we could not expect even one with so agile a mind as my right hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) to be able to work miracles; he had enough to do standing up to the right hon. Gentleman's colleague, who did his best to obstruct and hinder every piece of decent work we were trying to do. [ Interruption. ] Nobody will deny that; I am sure the right hon. Gentleman himself will be the first to admit it. But the point is that this is a very serious matter, and although, as the right hon. Gentleman says, only about 300 men are at Hollesley Bay just now, his advisers should have told him that it would take 600 quite easily—we have had 650 there many a time. I know that, because for two or three years I was Chairman of the Committee, and I know how many men we could take.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I think he has misundersttod the point of my observation. I did not suggest that the number was insignificant; what I did suggest was that the proportion of men who were found permanent jobs on the land was insignificant compared with the number of men who passed through the institution.

That is perfectly true, but the right hon. Gentleman also knows that one of his predecessors did not allow the scheme to operate, but just shut it down. If he will inquire from the Central Unemployed Body, he will find in the offices of that body a complete scheme for dealing with these young men and married men, and, even though it is true that only a few went through and on to the land, it is equally true that there were large numbers of others who in the judgment of the Committee of the Central Unemployed Body were quite fit, if places could have been found for them or if settlements could have been created for them, to take their places on the land. I want to say in passing that I am bitterly opposed to spending public money on emigration until our own land is developed, but, on the other hand, I have no objection to assisting any man who wants to go abroad so long as he goes where there is a decent chance of his obtaining proper employment, and Hollesley Bay most certainly did a very great deal on those lines. I should like to hear from the Minister responsible—I suppose it is the Minister of Labour, and perhaps I may be out of order, but it would be a good thing if this Committee could hear what proposals the Government have for dealing with these young and middle-aged men, either here or abroad. As I said at the beginning, we go on talking about them and saying what a serious thing it is, but practically nothing is being done.

I want the right hon. Gentleman to get down to this question of the land. If he thinks it is so hopeless to try to put men on the land, I would ask him to inquire from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, who is sitting next to him. We know that the Ministry of Labour set up a smaller experiment on lines similar to but better than those which are followed at Hollesley Bay, and if it be true, as was reported in the Press the other day, that that has been very successful, why should it be said that it is wrong to ask that those settlements should be multiplied in order to deal with a larger number of men? I personally do not believe that it is impossible or impracticable to train men first in the sort of institution that the Government themselves set up somewhere in Suffolk, and from there to pass them out on to other settlements which another set of unemployed men may have prepared for their reception. In this business of training men you have first of all to get the men that you think will be suitable for training, and, while training them, to find an outlet for them. I think the outlet should be, for instance, parcels of land on which other unemployed men are doing the rough work, and other skilled men are putting up the houses and buildings that are necessary, and I would put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether that is not exactly what has to be done in a colony. If you send men to a colony, exactly that sort of procedure has to be gone through. No one, I think, will say that England or Wales is overcrowded outside the towns, and no one, I think, will deny that our land is as good land as any that there is in the world.

What I am pleading for is that this land, of which there is less under cultivation now than there was at the end of the War, and the men who are idle, should be brought into connection the one with the other. I am asking that a portion of the money at present spent by local authorities and others for this purpose should stop, and that the Government should give a definite grant towards land development in this country. To those who think that the men from London or any other town are no use for this purpose, I want to point out that not only London but Glasgow and Edinburgh demonstrated before the War that this was a perfectly practical proposition. That it will cost money I do not deny, but it costs money at present to keep men idle, and the last state of the man is very often worse than the first. I hope the Minister of Health will give more attention to this subject because, whether we like it or not, or whether industry is going to run on in a peaceful manner or not, it is certain that we have not got through the period of unemployment and we have a large number of unemployed with us permanently.

Where this was done before the War it was successful and in the little tiny experiment which the Minister of Labour has put forward, and which he has taken the Prince of Wales down to see, it has been demonstrated what can be done with these young men. I am asking that it should be done on a much more extensive scale. The Prime Minister said the other night that he must keep his word, and that he was looked upon as an honourable man in the country. There have been other Prime Ministers who have made pledges. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) made a great many pledges during the War as to what should be done for the men who fought when they came back. It is all very well for hon. Members to sneer and say that we are trying to make party capital out of this, but if you get rid of these grievances, then we shall not be able to make party capital out of them. I do not think many of us can be accused of making party capital out of this question, because at the end of the Boer War exactly the same thing happened as is happening now. I remember taking Mr. Gerald Balfour, when he was President of the Local Government Board, down to Laindon and Hollesley Bay, where we went through rows of men, one lot on a pauper colony and the other on the central unemployed colony, and the amazing thing was that 80 to 90 per cent. of them had served in the war, and all they had got at the end was that one lot were working under pauper conditions and the other on the central unemployed colony. None of them had been provided work as ordinary free citizens and the same thing is happening to-day.

The right hon. Gentleman has told us to-day that he cannot supply us with a Return showing the number of ex-service men who are at present in receipt of Poor Law relief. I think he really ought to get that Return, because this House and the country ought to know the number of men and women who were connected with the War who had been forced to go to the Poor Law for relief. In the St. Pancras Union there are 15 between 31 and 41 years of age, 19 between 41 and 50 years of age, 40 between 51 to 60 and 51 between 61 to 70. Some of them fought in wars before the Great War, but I want to ask whether we really think this is the proper way to treat men whom you acclaimed as heroes during the War and whom you assured, certain during the last war, again and again, that things should never be as they had been.

Has the hon. Member taken the trouble to ascertain how many of these cases are in St. Pancras Workhouse owing to disabilities arising out of the War?

If they are in the workhouse through disabilities arising out of the War, that is a still greater shame. Most of them are allowed to come out, so they are able to get about.

I am sure, quite accidentally, the hon. Member has misunderstood my question. He has suggested that there is a large number of ex-service men in this workhouse. Has the hon. Member taken any trouble to ascertain the conditions which necessitated them going there, and whether they have anything to do with the War?

Certainly I have, and I am informed that all of them are there owing to the fact that they went to the War. Out of 148 of these men, 111 went out with passes, which means that they are able to get about. But whatever their state, the workhouse is not the proper place for men who were told when they went to fight for their King and country that they should be treated decently when they got back. I took the case of St. Pancras because I thought it might be said I was always quoting figures from my own district to the exclusion of others, but I will take my own parish. I am the Socialist and Pacifist Member for Bow and Bromley, and I believe that the overwhelming number of people who voted for me at the last Election are people whose sons, and even they themselves, went to the War or had something to do with it, and a good deal of the reason why they voted as they did and came over to my party is the abominable treatment they have received since they came back. We have 2,309 able-bodied men on relief in the Poplar Union who served in one way or another in the War. That is a disgrace to this House. I should like any hon. Member who thinks that can be defended to come to the constituency and defend it. Those men deserve something better of the community than to be sent to the tender mercies of the Poor Law, even to such a board of guardians as that in Poplar. But that is not the worst of it. Those men have 6,585 women and children dependent on them. That is a total of nearly 9,000 who ought, under any law of equity, to be outside the Poor Law, and when I ask the Minister of Labour what he is going to do about it he simply says there is an Unemployment Insurance Scheme and that is all the Government is able to do. I do not think that ought to be good enough for this House. I think something ought to be done to take these people outside the workhouse altogether.

I should like to say two or three words about another rather helpless set of men and women in our community. During the War the casual wards of our workhouses were practically emtpy except for the aged and sick. The prisons were very largely empty. That proves quite conclusively that men and women will go to useful occupations if given the chance, and these people really were improved out of existence, as it were. I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree that slowly but surely what is called the tramp population is coming back. I do not think the tramp, either man or woman, is necessarily a bad person, or one whom society should treat as an outcast. I look on them as the working class expression of that roving spirit which takes the well-to-do from one end of the earth to the other, sometimes tiger hunting, sometimes doing this, that and the other from one end of the globe right round. The regular tramp is very much the same sort of person. But everyone agrees that that population gets filled up in bad times by men and women who suffer from sheer misfortune. There was a saying in days gone by:

I will not repeat what I said about the right hon. Gentleman's ancestry the other day, but he is credited with having a progressive mind. I suppose the present system of dealing with tramps is about 100 years old. I have been told we have improved the conditions, that is, we have made them in some places cleaner, and left them dirtier in others, but we still maintain a sort of semi-criminal atmosphere around the tramp, and I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman first of all whether he does not think the time has come, when the tramp should without question be allowed to go away the first thing in the morning, especially in London, and secondly whether on Sundays it would not be possible to let them go out, even with the casual wards as they are at present, and allow them to come back at night. The bulk of them are not a criminal class. Here again the House will be surprised to hear that the bulk of these men served in the Army at one time or another, and I think they deserve better treatment than that of semi-criminals, and they should have some other sort of treatment than that of the present casual ward system. I mean that instead of taking it for granted that a man who comes to this town sleeps here to-night and of necessity must be sent on somewhere else, there should be in each county some settlement to which these men could voluntarily go, where the younger of them might get some kind of training which would fit them for occupation on the land or wherever it could be found. In is a disgrace to our common humanity to leave them. It they are at the present time. I am not putting this as a charge against the right hon. Gentleman. I am putting it against our whole conception of what should be done with the tramp. A fair proportion of the tramps might want to continue their tramping, but there are large numbers who, if they were taken in hand when first they are driven on to the roads could be put on their feet and given a decent chance. If we could have a report of the work done at the shelter on the Embankment I am certain that they do rescue a number of people from being obliged merely to tramp along the roads from place to place.

The fundamental thing to remember is that, however we penalise the men and however brutal the treatment may be, even if it is the breaking of stones and the picking of oakum, which breaks their hearts in doing it when they are new-men, it does not solve the matter. When people are hungry they will do almost anything. We do not get rid of this evil by repression. That is the reason why I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give the question of the tramp some attention. I specially ask him to give attention to the question of land settlement for the younger men with whom we have to deal through the Poor Law and Employment Exchanges. In the City of Birmingham when Sir Oliver Lodge was there, a scheme was put forward, which was well reported upon, by means of which the huge mountains of slag and slack in the Midlands could have been afforested and, instead of being ugly eyesores, as they are to-day, they could have been made places of beauty and utility. The Committee and the House generally ought to get down to the fact that after we have talked to-night and after we talked last week, the answer we always get is that nothing can be done; nothing is practicable. It is time somebody found something practicable. It is not sufficient answer to me this afternoon to prove that I am wrong. The Government have to prove that they are right. It is not right to leave masses of men in the condition in which they find themselves to-day.

I should like to say a few words to endorse what has fallen from the hon. Member in respect of his plea that a greater effort should be made in the training of some of the unemployed, especially the younger men, for land settlement. Before I come to that point I must say a few words regarding what fell from him on the question of pledges to those who were recruited in the War. Pledges were undoubtedly given of a very specific and attractive character at the time when there was voluntary enlistment. He was good enough to say that when I was Prime Minister voluntary enlistment had passed and recruitment for the Services was compulsory. I was, however, a Minister during the time of voluntary enlistment, and I am not repudiating any responsibility. If there are hundreds of ex-service men in the workhouses, from whatever cause, it would be worth while having a special investigation into the matter, because of the prejudice which is involved in the fact that there are men who served their country in time of danger who have had this humilation inflicted upon them.

In saying this I would remind my hon. Friend—I know that his sense of justice would make him feel it—that there is another side to the question. There never has been a war in which we were engaged where such ample provision has been made for those who were disabled and for the widows and orphans of those who fell in battle. I do not like to say that the provision was on as generous or adequate scale, but it is the largest that has ever been made in the history of this country, and the largest made by any belligerent country in Europe.

I had to go through the pensions when we were considering the question of the compensation to be paid by the Germans, and I found that the scale of pensions paid by other countries, Germany, France, Belgium and Italy were not comparable to the scale of pensions which we made for the widows and dependants of the fallen and for those who were disabled. It made a very heavy charge upon the taxes of this country, but nobody has grudged it in my hearing. On the contrary, the pressure from the House of Commons has been towards giving more generous treatment, and all parties have vied with each other in urging Governments and Ministers of Pensions to do more to include within the benevolence of the State men who by some accident had been excluded. I have never heard a word of complaint from anybody. If there are hundreds of ex-service men who are in the workhouse, it should be known that provision has been made for hundreds of thousands, and I am not sure that it does not run into millions. It is fair that that should be stated, otherwise it might be felt that we had forgotten the great services and sacrifice made by these people and the readiness with which they faced death on behalf of their King and Country in the hour of danger. We have not done so. It is not a reproach that can be levelled against any Government or any party and certainly not against the taxpayers of this country. I thought it right as one who was a Member of one Government or another during the whole of that period that I should say that.

There is another pledge—I am not sure whether it was given by me or by my predecessor; but it does not matter, it was given on behalf of the country—that we would do our best to settle ex-service men on the land. I forget the actual figure that was voted, but it was the largest Vote ever given by this House for settling ex-service men on the land. I think it was £18,000,000. No such figure had ever before been voted by the House of Commons or by any other assembly for the purpose of settling ex-service men upon the land. There are difficulties and they are not new difficulties. They existed during the time of the old wars of Rome. Anyone who has read the very fascinating accounts of the conflicts of Sulla, Marius and Cæsar will remember that in the course of every war there was a promise given to settle the soldiers upon the land when the war was over; but there were always practical difficulties when the war was over. It was not that those who gave the pledge were breaking faith with their soldiers and were forgetting the great service they rendered, but they did not know where to get the land, and time after time failure was reported. Hon. Members may remember that the problem was only settled when that astute man, not a warrior but a statesman, Augustus, came to the throne and was able to settle all these claims. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) will be the Augustus who will discharge all these obligations. It is a very difficult thing to deal with, and the difficulty is that you have to deal with the whole system.

4.0 P.M.

Unless you deal with the whole of the land system, you will not be able to settle the problem, because, so long as the existing system lasts, you will not be able to find the land. The other difficulty, of course, was that immediately after the War the cost of building was three times what it was before the War. Therefore, in putting up the homesteads and farm buildings you had to pay something which was far beyond what could be converted into an economic rent, and the money in a very short time was liquidated, although it ran to a figure of £18,000,000. Things are better now. The cost of building is considerably less. I am not at all sure that it is not about half what it was in the days immediately after the War. Therefore, the problem is a very much easier one, and more within the compass of economic adjustment than it was then.

Having said so much, I would urge the appeal made by my hon. Friend to the Minister of Health—that some real effort should be made to train young people for the land. It may be said that it is too late to turn the man who is 40 or 50 on to cultivating the soil and that in his case it is a hopeless task, but one of the most distressing features of the present unemployment is the vast number of young people who are on the unemployment register. In the old days, when there was unemployment, employers of labour got rid of the least efficient. They put them off for the moment, and kept the most vigorous and the more energetic in order to preserve such business as they had. But now there is no choice. Another feature is this. Here you have from 150,000 to 200,000 young men coming every year on to the labour market straight from the schools, and there is no work for them. They can only find work by excluding people who are already in a job. Those are people whom you could at the present moment train for the purposes of the land.

It is a mistake to imagine that a man who has not been on the land is not able to cultivate. When I was on the prairie in Canada, I met a man from Birmingham who was a pure artisan. He had a most prosperous homestead. He had just got his harvest home. He had been there for years, and he was very happy. He was an artisan, and he and his family were putting the whole of their strength into it and they were extraordinarily happy and successful. Another man I met there was a policeman from Derby, who also had never been on the land before. He had a section of about 160 acres. He was unable at once to cultivate the whole of it, but the first year he cultivated 40 acres, the next year he went on to 60 acres, and gradually he hoped within a short time to be able to cultivate the whole 160 acres. I found a great many people who had never been on the land before. Another thing I discovered there was that there were a number of young fellows who had never been on the land, and who were acting as apprentices, learning how to do it.

Why on earth cannot something be done to train people in the way suggested by my hon. Friend?] I do not know what arrangements are made for training men who are going over to Canada and Australia and elsewhere. I believe it is a condition of the grant which has been given that there should be an opportunity for preliminary training. Why should not that preliminary training be given here to assist people to cultivate the soil at home? It is a great mistake to assume that we are at the end of the possibilities of employment on our land. We are every year buying £400,000,000 worth of food of kinds which the soil of this country is capable of producing. I am not so absurd as to suggest that you could raise the whole of that £400,000,000 worth here. That would be a preposterous statement to make. But everybody will admit that you can at least raise £100,000,000 worth; that is within the limits of economic possibilities. Can anyone point to me any business—woollen, cotton, engineering, coal, boots and shoes, or any other product—in which you could raise an extra £100,000,000 worth and get a market at home. Here is something for which a market is waiting. You have a market for £400,000,000 worth, and, if you can raise an extra £100,000,000 worth within the country, the market is here at your own door.

May I point this out? There are to-day fewer men employed on the land than there were 20, 30 or 40 years ago. There is less cultivation, and, if hon. Gentlemen will take the trouble to inquire, they will find that cultivation has gone down since the War. For some reason or another the output of agricultural land in England since the War has gone down by several millions1 in value and by a considerable quantity. Whatever the reason, it is certainly worth looking into. I know perfectly well that it cannot be done unless the State comes in somehow to assist in the preliminary processes, and it is worth doing. There was an hon. Gentleman who interrupted my hon. Friend and said, "Will you protect"? There is no protection in Denmark. There is no protection for Holland. If you had the same number of men employed on the land here as in Denmark, then, in proportion to the acreage of the two countries, you would have very nearly one million more men employed on the land in England than you have at the present time; and, if you take Holland, you would have the equivalent of an addition of 2,000,000—not population, but 2,000,000 more engaged in work on the land. Those are two countries where you have no protection for agriculture, but where agriculture depends entirely upon its profits, upon the skill of the agriculturists, upon organisations which the Government assist, and, in addition, upon a certain amount of preliminary investment by the State. I would ask my right hon. Friend whether it is not worth while to look into this matter.

I agree with my hon. Friend with regard to the problem of unemployment. Trade will probably improve when these troubles have settled down and when we have recovered from the recent difficulties. All the world is producing, and therefore all the world will have a greater capacity to buy. Gradually, I have no doubt, trade will recover, but it will be a slow process, and meanwhile you have to absorb an extra 150,000 every year. May I point this out? It has been the result of a good deal of recent investigation and organs of the Press of all kinds have been calling attention to it. You cannot recover without creating more unemployment. I will point out at once what I mean. I mean that labour-saving appliances have become an essential part of the process of recovery in every country in the world. Many papers have been calling attention to that fact in America and in France, and our problem is this: Unemployment amongst us is creating and is breeding unemployment. In the United States of America the immigration laws restricting the immigration of fresh labour have driven employers and employed to increased labour-saving appliance. They have had to do it. Labour has just as great an interest in it there as employers, because there is a scarcity of labour. They are actually smuggling men across from Canada in defiance of the immigration laws, bringing people from Canada and infringing the immigration laws because there is a shortage of labour. There is there none of that feeling that if you have a machine that saves the work of 100 men it means throwing 99 people out of a job. Why? Because they know perfectly well that there is a shortage of labour. Therefore, I will not say the whole of the community join in a conspiracy because it is not the word, but it is the interest of the whole of the community there to have labour-saving appliances, because every workman knows that he will get an increased share in the profit which will inure from that process and that there is no danger of his being thrown out of work.

Take the case of France, who is rapidly becoming our great competitor in Europe and taking the place in that respect of Germany, largely because she has the ironworks and the potash works and all the enterprises which the Germans built up in Alsace-Lorraine. But, apart from that, there has been a great industrial development in France. France has had to re-equip the whole of her machinery in the industrial areas. She has created new industrial areas in the South, because during the War she had to start factories there. She has the most modern machinery. What is the other point? Because of the enormous casualties of the War, which destroyed labour, and because also of increased production and other reasons the French are using labour-saving appliances, and I have no doubt at all that in the process of competition we shall be compelled to do the same thing. I have no doubt at all that it is one of the things which will be the salvation of the mines. You are closing down bad pits, and the result inevitably will he increased unemployment. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I mean in the mines. You need fewer men to turn out a larger quantity of coal. That stands to reason, because, if you have an uneconomic pit, it is one where you have to employ more men to produce the same quantity of coal than in a first-class pit. Therefore, the moment you close down bad pits, and work the better class pits, you need fewer men.

I want to point this out. Even good trade does not really bring you face to face with the end of the problem of unemployment. On the contrary, good trade in itself may create for a short time unemployment. After all, these lessons are not new ones. The Napoleonic wars saw exactly the same process. There were new discoveries of labour-saving appliances of all kinds, and men were thrown out of jobs. Therefore, although you increase the wealth of the country, you are for a short time diminishing employment. I would beg that we should not treat the problem of unemployment as if it were something in the course of coming to an end, something which would come to an end in the course of the next 18 months, and eliminate from the minds of Ministers and from the Debates of this House and the country the old anxiety. On the contrary, I agree that it is an anxiety that will remain, until we do something better than merely pay young men from year to year a large subsistence allowance for remaining idle, and supplement it by a resource to the Poor Law merely in order to reduce what appears to be the aggregate figure of unemployment. There is only one industry in this country which affords a fair opening for the employment of the surplus population in a way which will enrich the country and at the same time add to the security of the country in the event of fresh trouble, and that is to develop the resources of the land.

I should not have inflicted any speech upon the Committee to-day had it not been for the remarks of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) who referred to a speech I made last week when the House was in Committee. I, like him, want to be quite clear on the matter in question, and I will therefore try to clear up the point that has been raised relevant to the relationship of the Act of 1925 and the increase in the amount of guardian relief. I did not claim that the whole of the Act of 1925 should be excluded. What I said was this, that the percentages of disallowment for unemployment bore a relation of 70 per cent. to the Act of 1924 and 30 per cent. to the Act of 1925, and I asked what proportion of the 1925 disallowances came on to the guardians for relief. My point has been sustained and rather acknowledged by the hon. Member in his speech to-day. It is a fact that 70 per cent. of the disallowances were under the Act of 1924, and a large proportion of that would go to the guardians for relief. The hon. Member referred to the statutory conditions under which these disallowances took place. I, too, have gone rather carefully into these points, and also as regards disallowances in my own town.

The suggestion of hon. Members on the other side is that a large portion is due to the stringent measures of the Act of 1925 and to the instruction of Ministers that there is an increase in the applications for Poor Law relief. It is a curious fact, however, that, comparing the disallowances under the 1924 Act, I find in my own area that there is 1 per cent. less for the last six months than a year ago, so it is very clear that there has not been any undue stringency in administration, but that due regard has been taken of continual unemployment. It comes to this, having allowed for that, what proportion of the 1925 Act is responsible for the increase of applications for Poor Law relief? The figures the hon. Member gave were quite unconvincing. I have not the figures of my own constituency yet; I will get them, but I believe it is fair to say that a fair proportion is due to the 1925 Act, but that the major portion is due to the 1924 Act, and also to the fact that in many districts there has been a more generous administration of Poor Law relief which has tended to increase the number of recipients. I think that is the true explanation. Like the hon. Member, I am anxious to get at the facts.

May I say one other word on the general question of unemployment raised by the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley and by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), and their legitimate question as to whether we cannot get something practical out of these discussions. It is difficult to raise practical issues, because we may transgress the rules of the Committee, but I think we can make at least one or two practical suggestions. In the first place, I should say that on both sides of the House we should try to agree to a period of rest and peace, thereby giving stability to industry. That is one of the things which will help an increase of production. In the second place, we should leave the old-fashioned idea behind that the basis of real production is to be low wages; and we should accept as a new principle the real relation of wages to output as the basis of all true production in the future.

Let me illustrate what I mean from my own personal experience. As a young man I worked in the shipyard. In those days we used to take up the plates by hand labour from start to finish. In fact everything was done by hand to the hauling up and placing the plates on the shipside. This has been altered until to-day, I can take you to a shipyard on the Continent where you will find two plates clamped together, worked on revolving tables by one man operating a duplicate electric punch. No one can say that the same conditions obtain to day in the shipbuilding yards as they did 10 or 15 years ago, and what I contend is this. On the one side the masters will have to be prepared to relate wages to output, to accept an economic basis of wages, and allow men to earn as much as they can on that basis. On the other hand—

I do not think I can allow the hon. Member to develop his argument any further, because it will lead to a very wide debate.

The reason I pursued this line, Mr. Deputy-Chairman, was because other Members have suggested that unemployment may be dealt with by developments in other directions, but I will limit my argument to saying that on the other hand we shall have to relax a lot of our foolish restrictions. Given these two basic principles, there is no reason why unemployment might not be gradually and I think permanently reduced, and the industries of this country put on a permanent basis.

I only want to make just one or two observations in reply to the suggestions that have been made by the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury). I was glad, indeed, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) said what he did as to the efforts which have been made by all Governments since the War to redeem as far as possible the pledges made during the War. I feel acutely the allegation that pledges have not been kept by all Governments since the War, because all of us at that time were responsible for those pledges, and I lend what aid I can to the efforts of any Government to see that pledges of this kind are kept. But it is fair that a statement should have been made by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs to show that such pledges have been kept to a very large extent indeed, and that the country should not be misled by statements as to a small number of ex-service men who happen to be in poor circumstances into believing that the ex-service man has been in general neglected. This country has done more not only for the disabled ex-service men but for those cases of difficulty and unemployment arising out of the circumstances of the War than any other country, certainly more than any other European country.

This is true not only so far as the Government are concerned but also as concerns employers of labour, local authorities and the public generally as private citizens, who have done whatever they can to serve the ex-service men. We as a country can take credit for having done our best to meet the pledges we made and redeem them. As regards the particular statement made by the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley, there are a certain number of ex-service men in Poor Law institutions, that is undoubtedly the case, and may I ask how could it be otherwise? No pledge was given that all the difficulties which would arise from unemployment, and all the hardships of civilian life, would be entirely removed from nearly 5,000,000 of the population. There are not only ex-service men but all sorts of other people who are down on their luck, and the fact that there are ex-service men in this position does not involve the country in any blame or in any broken pledge. It cannot be interpreted as having meant that we would guard every man who served his country from all the incidences of civil life, of accident or disease. I believe the majority of the cases of ex-service men in difficulty and in Poor Law institutions are not cases in which it can be shown that active service directly or indirectly produced the distress, and the Committee may be misled, the country may be misled—I hope there is no intention deliberately to mislead either—if the argument is allowed to go entirely unchallenged, that we have neglected our ex-service men because there are a few in difficulties and in circumstances which do not, I believe, arise out of the War.

I am glad the Debate has taken the turn it has, and also for the speech made by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). I am certain of one thing in regard to this difficult problem, that is, that it cannot be solved by revolving round the problem of the necessitous areas. One must go outside. The Government's policy cannot be regarded as satisfactory in any way, because it does not really deal with the fundamental problems, which have been well known not for five years but for 20 years and more. It is a question which has been fully explored by various Commissions and Committees, and the situation with regard to the poorer parts of the country has been dealt with in some way since the time when Booth's book on "Poverty" was written. The unemployed continue, pauperism continues, and the schemes continue.

I want to approach the subject from a slightly different point of view, to suggest, in fact, that this problem of necessitous areas is not really a problem at all, that it is a disease of society and a characteristic disease of society—the division between the "haves" and the "have nots." There are two things that can be done. One thing is immediate amelioration, and the ordinary proposal with regard to immediate amelioration in these areas is, of course, the proposal of a subsidy in some form. But a subsidy is already being given in one form or another; very large subsidies are being given by means of loans or otherwise. My point is that these subsidies do not help the fundamental difficulty at all; they do not help us to solve the problem of these areas, the problem being to make them healthy, to prevent the processes of degeneration which are going on and increasing, and to set at work the processes of health. The return to processes of health, the return to a method of healthy growth in the community, is the urgent problem which all Governments ought to set themselves, and I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), in suggesting the very much greater use of colonies for the training of men, is on the right lines. I do not believe that that covers the whole of the field of difficulty, but it does cover a large part of it.

I wonder whether hon. Members opposite are fully seized of what the actual problem is? So many men seem to think that the whole problem is one of a large number of men who are parasitic either on the Poor Law or on the dole. As a matter of fact the real trouble is not that. It is precisely the other way about. The real trouble of the necessitous areas is that they are inhabited by people who are employed by industries which are parasitic on those people and on the community; that is to say, industries which pay very low wages and which do not adequately provide for the employment of the people. Let hon. Members take their minds to any poor district that they know. I have in my own mind a particular street in a very poor part of London. Let hon. Members examine the economics of the people living in that street. They will find, if they take a street of about 50 houses, that a number of the people are weekly wage-earners, a number of them are near the docks and are casual wage-earners, a good many of them are boy and girl workers who are underpaid, that is to say, they are paid a wage which is not sufficient economically to support them apart from living partly on the earnings of their parents; and there will be a good many women who are also underpaid. In my own district of Southwark and in other districts of a similar character throughout London there is a large number of industries which employ large numbers of boys and girls and women at very low wages, which are not by any possibility sufficient to support them in health and strength. What is the result of that?

Will the hon. Gentleman mention one or two, so that we might argue the matter? He said that some industries are parasitic on the people. Will he give a few of the industries, so that we might trace the causes and possibly remedy them?

I do not wish to give the names of actual industries across the Floor of the House, or the places, but if the hon. Member wishes to have any names I shall be glad to give them to him privately. I do not wish to advertise the names here, for the sake of the firms concerned, because it is not entirely the fault of those firms; some of them are firms of very good repute indeed. If the hon. Member looks into the matter even super- ficially, he will be able to find out without any trouble that a large number of firms do pay very low wages indeed. This-question of parasitism is an enormously important one and is really the cause to a large extent of the very bad conditions and the financially bad conditions in particular necessitous areas. What happens? These people are to a large extent paid wages on which they cannot support life. They, therefore, apply for Poor Law relief. There are also the casual workers who do not get a wage sufficient to support them. They, therefore, apply for unemployment relief. By applying for this relief they inflict a charge on the public Exchequer, and they consequently depress the condition of that particular district still further by raising its rates. But in addition to that, in my experience, over 20 years in a very poor part of London, in a street of character—I am thinking of a particular poor street that I know well—there is an enormous bill to be paid every year by the community for hospital relief in the voluntary hospitals, because the people living in that street are unhealthy. There is also a considerable bill to be paid for police, because people living under these conditions are very much more likely to infringe the law than are those living under better conditions.

This is actually the situation—that you have in these poorer districts of England industries paying very little and paying so little that the people cannot live on it properly, so that they are getting Poor Law relief and unemployment relief, and you have those industries making profits and paying dividends while they are really being subsidised out of public funds. That is a very unhealthy state of affaire. I will give the hon. Member who interrupted the concrete example for which he asked. It came up in the House the other day. Let the hon. Member look into the wages paid in the gas mantle industry, which is one of the "safeguarded" industries. He will find that the wages are very low and are not adequate to support life. They are round about £1 a week. I had a little altercation with the President of the Board of Trade in connection with that matter. It is common knowledge that the facts are as I have stated. But industries of that character in those districts are really subsidised out of public funds, partly by rates and partly by charity. The people who subscribe to Guy's Hospital, which is largely employed in relieving conditions caused by the poverty of a large part of London, are subsidising the industries of that particular part of London.

I did not bring this subject up for the purpose of making a point in Debate. I did so because I believe it is really at the root of the matter—this question of parasitic industries living on the community and paying low wages. They produce in various parts of the country conditions of degeneration of the population, which conditions are actually infectious like other illnesses, and spread and spread and spread. If, for instance, hon. Members will examine any very poor part of London, they will find that the conditions of poverty, illness, and so on, are not widespread in a uniform way in that particular district, but they are in patches. There are in different parts of London certain definite patches or pockets of very poor and very degraded and very often criminally-minded people. I could indicate to hon. Members certain definite localities where you could find a very small proportion of criminals, mentally deficient people, prostitutes, vagrants and so on. To a certain extent those areas are created by the actual conditions of those necessitous areas and they act as centres of infection for the whole of the good community. They are really points from which the life of the community is being drained away. Until those particular areas, which are limited and geographically well-defined, are dealt with effectively, you cannot deal with the problem of necessitous areas, because you have a continual disease exhalation poisoning the life of the community.

You want to do the first thing that is always done with regard to infectious disease by any medical officer in charge of it; you want to separate the sick from the well. You must take a number of people who are in the labour market and are being treated by the ordinary Poor Law, and are sick in one way or another away from the people who are well. That is a thing which was not dealt with by the hon. Member who opened this Debate. It can be done largely by administrative effort—the separation of the unemployed and healthy men from those who are unemployed and unhealthy. With regard to training colonies, I urge very strongly indeed that colonies of the character proposed by the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley and by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, which cannot be too highly commended, ought to be separated as far as possible in every way from the Poor Law. A great deal can also be done by educational methods, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion. While the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley urged quite rightly that men should be trained to settle on the land in this country, it is also necessary to realise that at the present time, as a matter of immediate policy, it is easy to train them for settlement in the Dominions. I therefore urge that that should be borne in mind, and that as a matter of setting the forces of healthy growth at work in these necessitous areas you should attempt to pick out from those areas as large a number of young and healthy men as possible, and set them to work either on the land of this country or in the Dominions. I believe that one or other of these two things would be very desirable.

There is another matter to which I would refer, though it would require legislation. I do not think you will be able to tackle the problem of necessitous areas unless you tackle your parasitic industries in those areas, and you cannot do that unless you remove the industries out of the towns into satellite towns, and break up the large areas in town populations which are in themselves a cause of disease, and that disease you cannot cure as long as that condition remains. It is absolutely impossible to cure the difficulties as they exist in West Ham or Middlesbrough or Southwark, or any other necessitous area, while those conditions remain. You must get away from these places; you must break up these places and deal with them in a pretty vigorous manner, if you are to get healthy growth and healthy circulation of life and healthy circulation of wealth. One has to look at this matter of necessitous areas, and the industries in them, keeping in mind another aspect of national finance. It is not altogether a matter of financial administration as between national finance and local finance. You have to consider another financial factor—that is the capital value of the life of the man or woman employed in those districts.

I do not know if hon. Members realise that the life of a manual worker in a poor district in London or any large industrial town, is between five and 10 years shorter than that of a man of the same kind living under better conditions of life. That means to say that the conditions of that life actually deprive the community of at least five years' work from that man. I do not put it on humanitarian grounds. That is one of the ways in which parasitic industries make their profits—by turning the capital value of human life into pounds shillings and pence. It is a very bad thing for the community that it should be so. These industries are not content to take the subsidies afforded out of Poor Law relief, National Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance, but they also take part of the life capital of men; they actually take years of these men's lives. That is a thing which we certainly ought to stop. It would probably require a complicated procedure to do so, but a great deal can be done by purely administrative measures. The Ministry of Labour have very large powers and the Ministry of Health have large powers for dealing with such matters as housing, public health, and the treatment of defectives and consumptives and all the different classes of the community who need to be separated and segregrated in order to bring the problem within our grasp. I believe if we are willing to take a sufficiently big view, we can solve the problem of the necessitous areas.

Appeals have been made for peace and harmony in our industries. Peace and harmony depend on elementary justice and commonsense, and the way in which to establish our industries firmly is to offer our workers a reasonably secure chance of a happy life and regular work. At present the so-called necessitous areas of our community are the foundations on which the industrial life of the nation is based. The foundations of our industrial life are in a morass of insecurity, discontent and financial profligracy in those areas. Our industrial life is founded on the slums and the parasitic industries which are using up human life. I believe, inevitably, we must turn from the financial and administrative aspect of this matter to the human factor. If we looked at the necessitous areas, not from the point of view of rates or the amount of subsidy which the Government gives, but from the point of view of the organisation of the life of the people, in order that they may be healthily and properly employed, we should get much nearer a solution of this difficulty. I do not think it is so excessively complicated, but you cannot solve the problem by revolving round and round it like a wasp on a pane of glass. I hope the Minister will adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) and set up, not one colony, but a number of colonies, and encourage all those measures which aim at the development of life and energy and at growth out of the conditions of the necessitous areas, instead of allowing them to drain our life away as they are doing at the present time.

The subject before the Committee is one which calls up recollections of the days when I occupied the position which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health occupies now. It always appeared to me then, as it very largely does now, that the discussion of the question revolved very much round the point of whether the money to deal with this troublesome problem is to come from the rates or from the taxes. Interesting as that point is in itself, it offers no solution of the problem. It is merely a question of source from which the money is to be forthcoming in order to deal with the difficult question of what we are pleased to call, somewhat inexactly, necessitous areas. I cannot agree with the diagnosis of the last speaker as to the causes of the problem. His eye seems to be fixed exclusively on certain parts of London. When I was dealing with this matter my worst necessitous areas were large industrial districts like Sheffield and Middlesbrough, not full of degenerates and parasitic industries, but full of workmen of the finest type and masters of the greatest ability who had no opportunity of exercising their craft. This was due to the fact, obvious to anyone who takes the trouble to analyse the figures of unemployment more than superficially, that certain specific inudustries suffer from depression—in a relatively small number of cases with intensity—and unemployment in a particular industry produces the present anomalous condition of things. Therefore, in dealing with degeneracy, which is really the problem which the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Haden Guest) has brought forward, or in dealing with the industries to which he refers—and machinery exists which could be applied in the cases of industries such as he indicated—you are not really dealing with the fundamentals of the problem which we have to solve in this matter.

There are two aspects of the question. One may be called the Poor Law aspect. From the Poor Law point of view, one feature which seemed to be obvious when I had to deal with this problem, was that our Poor Law system dated from the time of Queen Elizabeth. Anybody who has to administer it, will discover that, while it may have been suitable or adaptable to the economic conditions of the Tudor period, it is entirely unsuitable to modem industrial conditions. The delimitation of the areas under that system was unscientific. The result is that when in a certain area like Sheffield you had drawn together a large population from outside, as was the case during the War, and when that population after the War found there was no employment, under your Poor Law, many centuries old, you could not restore them to where they came from, and the whole burden fell on the ratepayer of a relatively limited area. The obvious answer is that the areas should be much more widely spread.

We had the same case in South Wales. We had a relatively small mining area like Bedwelty, where the pits had gone out of commission, where we had the whole population almost starving, the board of guardians bankrupt and the shopkeepers bankrupt. Obviously it was fantastic to impose a burden on that community, which spread over a county like Glamorgan, could have been carried without difficulty, and the time would have come when the population would have followed the natural course of absorption which takes place. Therefore, administratively, the first thing you want to do from the Poor Law point of view is to deal with the wider area. Take the case of West Ham and other outlying districts around London. I was responsible in this House for introducing the equalisation of rates in the London Poor Law area, but then you have growing up outside that circle an enormous industrial area, and just because it happens to be administratively separated, quite arbitrarily, from the great body to which it belongs, a very heavy burden is cast on the resources of the rateable valuation of the very poorest people. That is quite wrong and unfair, and obviously the right answer is that they should be included in the larger area so that you can pool rich and poor equally in meeting this burden. That, of course, does not really deal with the entire problem. I must confess I always had a certain amount of sympathy, even though officially I had to oppose that view, with those who said that when unemployment of an exceptional character fell upon these areas it was more a national than a local concern. There is a great deal to be said for that view, but it carries with it the corollary that if it is admitted that national assistance is to be forthcoming, you must have national control over expenditure. You cannot allow boards of guardians to spend national money at their own sweet will. If that condition is admitted, I think there is a great deal to be said for these exceptional cases receiving assistance from outside.

In regard to the wider problem, I do not wish to open up again a proposition which I have laid before the House of Commons on more than one occasion, and which has been before the country for more than one year. I still maintain, however, that it is possible, without any additional expense to the community, by a more intelligent method of using the money which you are paying out in unemployment benefit, so to stimulate your industries—those industries which require stimulating and which are basic—that a large amount of your difficulty would disappear. It is extraordinary to, me that the sequence of events seems to have been so little followed or understood by those dealing with this problem when the evidence is so obvious on every hand. The chief trade depression for some years—it is improving a little—has been first in the shipbuilding industry and next in the engineering and in the steel and iron trades. The steel and iron trades are connected with the coal trade, and it may be a surprising fact to know that if the steel and iron industries of this country to-day consumed the same amount of coal as they did in 1913, we would actually have a shortage of coal in this country instead of the present depression. That shows the intimate connection between them, and yet the Government subsidise coal at the bottom when they could, without any expense attaching to the taxpayer, have subsidised shipbuilding and engineering at the top. If that had been done, the rest would have followed naturally in its course. The scheme is still there, and it can still be used, and I believe by its means we could get through a great deal of our present difficulties. I believe it would tend very largely to accelerate the undoubted improvement in trade which has been unfortunately interrupted by the present labour disputes. I am certain it could be fruitfully employed, and would with the smallest amount of trouble and expense, and the least dislocation and in the shortest time, produce the most effective results.

The last speaker referred to conditions of health and housing, and I quite agree with him in much of what he said upon those matters, but he will want to go much further, if he is to prevent the production of those degenerates whose aggregation in these areas produces the very type of industry to which he referred. I do not agree with him that it is the low paid type of industry which produces the degenerate areas. I think it is the degenerates who crowd into those areas who attract what he calls the parasitic industries, and I think he will agree with me that prevention ought to begin at the beginning. To stop the production of degenerates would seem to be a physiological, rather than a sociological problem which public opinion is not prepared to deal with, and when the hon. Member talks of the causes of these evils, and of making alterations in our social structure, he should bear in mind that some day you will have to take some steps to prevent the production of an element and a class in the population which is not required.

5.0 p.m.

I turn for a moment to the question of emigration. A certain stimulation of emigration to the Dominions and Colonies would be of the very greatest advantage. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon (Mr. Lloyd George) brought forward arguments which we have often heard, and with which nobody diagrees, but the question of the method by which to apply the principles laid down is a great deal more open to discussion. I think myself that the methods which he has proposed are more likely to depopulate our country than to populate it. It is more possible to drive people out of business who are in it than to bring people into it who know nothing about it. For all that, the problem is there, and it ought to be dealt with by whatever Government is in office. There is a great deal to be done, and not merely by slavishly adopting any one system from any one country. I see a new development with which we are just beginning to experiment in this country, which is much more likely to be fruitful, as far as we are concerned, in the use of our agricultural land than adopting the methods prevalent in Denmark, and that is the intense improvement of our grassland, such as is being worked out in Germany. The subject is too long for me to expatiate on it now, but it is one which is being taken up and to which the Minister of Agriculture could very well apply some of his time. There are so many directions in which science could be applied to agriculture, and I think that we are very backward and remiss in not doing more in that direction.

I am hopeful, myself, of absorbing our unemployed population. There is one great law which people are liable to forget and with which nature has kindly provided us, and that is the law of compensation. It is a law which, when things look black in one direction, suddenly shows bright hopes in another. Who would have thought a few years ago that we could establish in this country a great industry like the artificial silk industry, which is rapidly developing, which in a few years' time will employ many thousands of people, and which, with the improvement of methods, may employ hundreds of thousands of people in the next ten years? How about the development of industries like wireless, which has been recently seen to grow and to require more and more people to carry it on? In an industrial country like ours there are always hundreds of new things coining along to employ surplus labour, and, therefore, the reservoir or pool of such labour, although it may be over full at one time, will, in normal conditions, undoubtedly diminish, again.

It is the intermediate times, the slack times, that ought to occupy our minds. The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs spoke about labour saving machinery. I am sure he did not mean to imply that its use would ultimately produce unemployment. It is those slack periods to which it is really the duty of the community to pay some regard, and that is really where our whole organisation of the unemployment problem up to now has been inefficient. The slack period between the stoppage of the uneconomic pit and the development of the new colliery is an aspect of the coal mining problem to which I hope the Government will pay considerable attention. Germany, I observe, when they went through a somewhat similar crisis on the Ruhr, worked out schemes for the absorption of the men before a pit was closed, and they did not throw thousands of people out of work, but relief schemes were created beforehand, and the thing was done systematically and in an orderly manner. It is certain that we have the capacity to organise things as well as any other country, and finance ought not to stand in the way. I can imagine that we could organise public works, new road schemes, and so on, in advance, and plan them so that you can systematically take your people from one place and put them to work in another so as to form a continuous chain of employment.

We all recognise—and hon. Members who understand mining recognise it very well—that the reorganisation of collieries is a question of time and may involve temporary stoppages, but nobody wants those people to leave the industry. It would be in every way deplorable, and, therefore, it seems to me essential that schemes should be thought out well beforehand and placed on orderly, well thought out, and agreed lines between all the parties concerned. I do not know how far I should be in order in discussing the effect of the Government stoppage of the Trade Facilities Act, but I am certain it will not help the unemployment problem, and I should have thought that some such scheme as that would be essential for the reorganisation of the mining industry. It is no use disguising the fact that at the present time money is very difficult to obtain for collieries, and if this great new reorganisation is to be carried out, it can only be done with the assistance, not of a subsidy, but of Government credit such as has been extended to many industries in the last few years. I believe that if this is done a great many of the fears about hundreds of thousands of men walking the streets and unable to find work will largely vanish.

Housing is very important in this connection. The creation of new houses so as to be able to transfer men and get the necessary mobility is of the very first importance, and there, again, I think there should be co-operation between the Ministry of Health and the localities in the terms for the erection of houses, of whatever type, and co-operation in finance. I am convinced that these problems are not insoluble, but they are not soluble as long as you treat every one of them as a watertight compartment, and as long as one Minister says: "This has nothing to do with me," and another Minister says: "I must safeguard my particular interest." If you appoint a committee to correlate these things, I am convinced that the problems could be solved and many of our difficulties overcome. The position is not really hopeless, and I believe that in a first-class industrial country like ours the difficulties could be alleviated and brought down almost to vanishing point.

I intervene in this Debate because I represent one of the necessitous areas. I will not deal with the agricultural question, which has been raised by the right hon. Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond), but I am in agreement with him in regard to the desirability of larger Poor Law areas. I am afraid, however, it was he, more than anybody else, who prevented unemployment being taken over as a national charge, as I think it should have been. In the early years, when unemployment became acute, our local council refused to levy rates for unemployment, saying it was a national problem that ought to be financed from national funds, without local funds being called upon, and I think it was the right hon. Baronet himself who refused that and advised them to raise loans, which they did, with the result that to-day they have raised in loans considerably over half a million pounds, and for some years to come they will be crippled by the repayment of the principal and interest of those loans. I believe it would have been easier if those areas had been widened. The right hon. Member suggested that they might have included the whole of Glamorganshire, but if you go in that direction, you might just as well go all the way and put it on a national basis, which I think would be the only fair way. At present it is unfair as between district and district. In fact, the Poor Law system of this country, when we are talking about differences made by unemployment during the last few years, has always been unfair as between one district and another, and it always will be unfair until the whole system is made a national one.

In the constituency that I represent we have two Poor Law unions, the Newport Union and the Bedwellty Union. I know men on both of those boards, one of which is quite as capable as the other, and yet there is a great difference between those two unions. I happen to live in the Newport Union, and I pay rates there, so that in one sense I should be very pleased that they are lower in Newport than in Bedwellty, but that does not make it any fairer. The one district is highly industrial and the other largely agricultural, which makes all the difference. There are two great differences. The source of income is affected in a colliery district in a way in which it is not affected in the agricultural district, for in the former it is based upon the output of the collieries. A large proportion of the assessable area of the Bedwellty Union is derived from collieries, and the assessment is on the basis of output. In consequence, when a colliery closes down or works short time, the assessable value drops, and the reduced rating capacity has to be made good by other ratepayers at a time when a large number of them are unemployed, so that it cuts both ways. To put it briefly, when the rating capacity of collieries is lower, the guardians' expenditure on relief is increased, so that they are hit both ways.

If I compare those two unions, hon. Members will see where the difference comes in. Even in 1914, before unemployment was as bad as we have had it since, the Bedwellty poor rate was 6s. in the £, which was very high indeed. In the Newport area it was only 1s. O½d., so there you get the unfairness of our Poor Law system in normal times clearly shown. In 1925 the poor rate in Bedwellty was 10s. 8d. in the £, and in Newport it was 2s. 1d. The amount of relief had gone up in altogether a different ratio—I think, about nine times in the Bedwellty area and five times in the Newport area. For the half-year ended March, 1925, a loan of £70,000 was obtained. It was advised by the Minister, so that they should be able to carry on, and that meant 2s. 6d. in the £ for the half year, so that if they had been rated to the full amount that they required for relief, the rate would have been 15s. 8d. in the £ last year. They were paying relief in 1914 amounting to £18,252 in Bedwellty and to £11,598 in Newport. That was in normal times. In 1925 it had gone up to £166,400 in Bedwellty and £55,830 in Newport. That is nine times more in one area, and five times more in the other, the reason being that one area was agricultural and the other almost entirely industrial. The estimate for the present half year is no less than £233,000 odd, there having been a further loan granted a week or two ago. The weight of all these loans means crippling those districts in the future. Of course, with all the unemployment, and the relief required, they need to have additional officers and offices, and additional expenditure in other ways.

The arrears of rates in Bedwellty in 1921 were £142,961. Newport had no arrears whatsoever. The report I have from Newport is that in February this year, there was something over £33,000 of current rate uncollected, that there was no difficulty in the 41 parishes, and that by the end of March that would all be in, and had all come in. That is the difference in the two areas. The estimated difference in the relief now paid and in normal times in Bedwellty is £150,000 per annum, and in Newport £44,000. Of course, the tightening up of the rules applied to unemployment insurance, for which my hon. Friend opposite was very largely responsible, has affected the rates very considerably in the industrial parts. The new conditions will cost the Bedwellty Guardians about £30,000 a year more in relief. Newport said the amount was negligible.

It does not, therefore, affect alike two adjoining areas in the same con- stituency. The difference is so unfair that I think nothing less than a national scheme for unemployment should be established. We have asked for grants for necessitous areas. If that were agreed to, it would be none the less fair for all. If the whole of the loans were taken over by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and paid in these necessitous areas, it would be none the less fair, because of others on the border line. There would be some hardship upon somebody, which is another argument in favour of a national scheme, and a national scheme only. As regards the Widows' and Orphans' Pension Fund, Bedwellty thinks that that will relieve them of an expenditure of from £10,000 to £15,000 a year. The Newport people say it relieves them to the extent of £10,000 a year. But against that, as I have said, the tightening-up of the unemployment scheme has meant £30,000 less to Bedwellty.

I venture to think the Economy Bill will have some effect, again, because the grant to the Unemployment Fund is to be reduced, and they will make the number of men fit in with the amount of money, so that there will be a further cutting-off in the Employment Exchanges, and, consequently, more people seeking relief from the guardians in those areas. The loans raised by Bedwellty up to February of this year total £579,000. They have raised a loan since then. Newport has raised no loan whatsoever. Its future is free, while in the years to come Bedwellty will be burdened with the repayment of its loans. I will give the loans they have had. On the 31st March, 1922, they had a loan of £70,000. That was the first loan that was advised by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). At that time, if he had devised a national scheme, this area would not be placed in the position in which it is placed to-day. In 1923, it had a loan of £110,000; in 1924, £110,000; in 1925, £129,000; and the estimate for this year of all their requirements will mean another £160,000. That makes up the total I gave of £579,000. There has been an addition to that for 1926. The repayment of these loans, which is a very serious matter, will be in 1927 £65,373, which is not a very hopeful view for 1927.

How much in the pound?

I cannot say how much repayment in the pound; that is the repayment of principal and interest.

It is a burden on industry.

In 1928, it will be £57,911; in 1929, £67,035; in 1930, £64,413. And so it goes on. They are burdened to such an extent, that they will not know how to live in the years to come. This matter will have to be faced, for I do not know what a district like that is going to do unless the question be faced. The result will be that they will not be able to meet these payments, which will have to be met from somewhere else. These loans, indeed, are a very serious matter. The scale of relief at Bedwellty, which was sanctioned, and even suggested, by the Ministry of Health, is a shilling or so per week more than in the Newport area, which is natural, because the cost of everything is higher in an industrial district than in an agricultural district. If it be a shilling more, the difference is very small, and really does not make up the difference between the prices of commodities in the different areas. The Economy Bill will, of course, further increase the rates. The amount of money for unemployment will be made to fit in, and that will raise the rates. People will have to come on the rates, especially in the colliery districts. Although there is a demand for a reduction in wages to-day, the wages paid have been so low, and unemployment has been so bad, that these people are not prepared for even a week's stoppage. They have to apply to the guardians almost at once. The present lock-out in a district like Bedwellty will send up expenditure again. Then, as to education, although Circular 1371 was withdrawn, it was estimated in Monmouthshire that it would mean a 6d. rate. Although the Circular was withdrawn, Clause 14 of the Economy Bill puts them in the same position as they were before.

The putting of these things on the local rates is very unfair. Unemployment, above everything else, should have been one of the things that should have been a national burden, met from national funds. We have heard on many occasions in this House from the hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Barker) as to the cost at Blaina. Up to 1921 it was one of the best communities, I should say, in the whole country. In 1920, they collected 90 per cent. of the rates, which I suppose would compare favourably with any other district. But it began to go down from then through unemployment setting in. The pits were closed, and the whole township was put on the rates. In April, 1921, there was only 41 per cent. of the rates collected for Blaina; in April, 1922, 28 per cent.; in April, 1923, 19 per cent.; and in April, 1924, 23 per cent. So that they have come down from 90 per cent. to 23 per cent. In that area the number of owner-occupiers of houses is no less than 1,329. There were unemployed about 950 of that number, the result being that 75 per cent. of the property is mortgaged up to the hilt. That will be a continual burden upon the guardians. There is another town in the same Poor Law area, Rhymney, another old prosperous town, where, to-day, I think there is not a single industry working, but the people there happen to live nearer than the Blaina people to the more successful work, and through workmen's trains and other means, they can find work in surrounding districts, so that it has not been as big a burden there as in the other area. Still, it is a considerable burden, and when you compare two unions, as I have done, the difference is not due to more capable administration in one than in the other. Although we ask for some relief for these necessitous areas, I do not think you will ever settle the problem until the State takes it over as a national burden, as I think it should have done from the very beginning.

The hon. Member who has just resumed his seat has, I think, emphasised once again an aspect of our industrial problem, which, sooner or later, must receive from Parliament, and particularly from the Minister of Health, more than a passing consideration. I was myself very disappointed, in the discussion which took place last week on the necessitous areas, with the reply of the right hon. Gentleman, but I excuse him on the ground that perhaps his mind was full of other questions. But I do say that local taxation is having a more serious effect on industry than almost anything else of which we can speak. I believe that if we could have laid before this House statistics showing what is the effect of rates on a ton of coal, on a ton of steel, on a ton of transport and on a ton of shipbuilding, it would be found that the cumulative effect is the difference between selling our steel and ships at a profit, and not being able to sell them, because we cannot compete.

We have never had an authoritative statement presented to this House. I do hope that the Balfour Committee now sitting will deal with this aspect of the problem, and give us some information by which we can pin down the relationship of taxation to industry. For this reason, as has been very well said by the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. C. Edwards), and which was very much emphasised by the hon. Member for the Hartlepools (Sir W. Sugden) last week, that the disparity between a highly industrial area and a residential district is so great that the burden is not spread equally. It is placed heavily on the districts which, really, by reason of their industrial difficulties—that is to say, the competing in the markets of the world, and competing with labour which works longer hours for the money it gets—are to that extent handicapped, and, further, they are handicapped by putting upon those districts a burden of rates which is sufficient to make the industries incapable of competing in the markets to which I have just referred. I ask in all seriousness—and I do not want to specially single out hon. Gentlemen opposite—that these questions should receive greater consideration than has been the case in the past. I am one of those who think that the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is 10 times as helpful as the speeches we have had so often from various quarters of the House, and which are largely based on sentiment in regard to the depraved conditions in the slums.

You may talk as much as you like about parasitic industries and the relationship of life in our slums to the other branches of society. But as one whose life from the age of 13 to 20 was spent in a slum in the way of business, which was identified with an area of the sort, I came in. contact so much with the lower strata of society that I can say from my own experience that these slum areas are largely made up by the drifting of people who are either physically or mentally inefficient. They drift into these areas. It is not solely the result of parasitic or other industries, because when you talk in the way—reference was made by one hon. Member to the gas mantle industry—that is often done about industries that one must always remember that the whole conditions of any specified industry is in a large measure due to the competition in the world's markets, and the prices paid for mantles, or in other of the industries described as parasitic. I do not accept that term "parasitic." The wages paid in these industries are, in a great measure, due to the competition of the forces of the world, and until we can alter those forces we shall either have to abandon industry altogether or to pay the economic wages of the industry. It is very unfortunate, but we cannot get away from facing the facts.

We have heard a great deal of the necessity of better processes in industry, of the need for research, and all those things which will enable industry to carry on in a better way, with more scientific appliances and so on, thus producing lower costs, and paying higher wages in the industry. I want to point out, or to ask the Minister, to say how can an impoverished industry, which has for a lengthened period of years been struggling to make ends meet, and cannot pay either good wages or dividends, provide money for the purpose of scientific research? It is asking too much of that industry. I am going to suggest that the Government Departments concerned, particularly the Board of Trade, which is supposed to look after the interests of trade, and the Board of Agriculture, which is supposed to watch the welfare of agriculture, should realise to the very full—I am not going to say they have not helped—should realise, not partially and spasmodically, but to the very full, that they have obligations to devote money freely on wisely-directed and proper research work, and so give the industry concerned, for which they are primarily responsible as State Departments, the benefit of the best research work'—if they come to the conclusion that, by the money they provide and the scientific knowledge which is available, the Departments would be giving to these industries very much needed help, help that would put them on a proper footing!

Industries to-day are only paying low dividends and low wages. They have not the means to embark upon experimental and exploratory schemes, though they may desire to find better methods, and a more profitable way of competing. These considerations will have, I think, to receive some attention. I am not suggesting the Departments are not doing something in the direction I have indicated, because they are, but I think they could do more. Then again, might I suggest even to the leaders of the trade unions, who I know are prompted in their policy to promote the welfare of the men engaged in industry, that they might also view their responsibilities aright? Those in the trade unions they represent are more or less partners in industry, and they should be real partners in industry—

I am afraid the hon. Member is now getting beyond the scope of the Resolution before the Committee.

I am very sorry, Captain FitzRoy, I will deal with another aspect of the subject. In our great industries we have had in a large measure captains of industry, men of brain, and we have had the tightening up of regulations. I want to say in all seriousness—for the matter has been emphasised repeatedly—that in this respect the trade unions, like every other branch of trade should review their own regulations that are operative in many of our great industries, and consider whether the policy which provides that one man should only do one job at a time—

There, again, the hon. Gentleman is getting beyond the scope of the Debate.

Well, then, Sir, I do not want to trespass in that way. There is, however, just one other point I should like to make. We have been discussing the necessitous areas and Poor Law administration. It has been argued here, and I also have suggested that some rearrangement of the burden of taxation should be made so as to make it easier for the industrial areas than it has been in comparison with the non-industrial areas. When we attend to this matter we must remember that there must be equality introduced by the Department, so that the relief grant is regulated. The two things must go together, I do feel this, that some of the areas to which we are referring, by a generous administration of our Poor Law, are sapping the self-reliance of many of our workers. There are areas—I do not wish to mention any—but there are areas, London areas and others, which have been very generous in their administration of the Poor Law. They have done it with the best intentions. They have given generously. In some cases you create a burden by the Poor Law, and that burden is cast upon the industries, and when that is so, you are indirectly affecting the industries which belong to that particular district. The effect of that is that the generosity of those who administer the Poor Law in certain areas has accentuated the troubles which we have to meet.

If an industry is burdened those engaged in it lose their employment because of the inability of the industry to compete. Those who have the responsibility of administering the Poor Law, have the greatest responsibility, and they are not entitled to come down to this House and complain about the failure of the Government to do all they ought to do if they are not equally making their own contribution by a wise and judicial administration in their own areas. There is nothing worse than the sapping of the self-reliance of those who are engaged in industry. I think we can very properly direct our attention in that direction.

To-day there are undoubtedly masses of young people who are growing up in the belief that the State ought to do for them what they ought to do for themselves. Having regard to the fact that we have a percentage of our population who are not very strong-willed, and not very competent to fight their way in the world, who value lightly their responsibility and succumb, and in that process accept what they otherwise would have to fight for, our policy should be, whether in the administration of industry or of the Poor Law, to encourage the younger generation to fight—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Let me finish my observations to fight with that robustness which was known to genera- tions past, and not to succumb and think that they can jog along comfortably with the assistance of the Poor Law; that they have not to make any effort on their own behalf. If this policy is allowed to grow up amongst any section, amongst a certain section—I am not suggesting it is a vast section, but there, is a section, however small it may be—if it is encouraged, that section is always in danger of becoming an increasing and a growing section. Therefore, I do suggest that the Departments and the Minister should not fail to attend to these matters, in relation to our local government. There are many hon. Members in this House who are engaged in the work of local government. They should endeavour to correct, so far as lies in their power, those matters which need correction before they venture to offer criticism to a Government Department for their lack of what they think they ought to do for industry.

The Committee, I think, will agree with the very powerful lead which has been given for a specially favourable consideration of the claims of the necessitous areas. I think, however, that the figures which were given by one hon. Member must have struck us. I venture to think that such statistics suggest a special claim upon the nation at large. What is the position? In these industrial districts we find large masses of men out of work through no fault of their own. These people cannot be allowed to starve; something must be done for them. There is the drain on the rates, as we have heard from hon. Members, and there is also the inability of the necessitous areas to bear such burdens. The Government must in some form or other aid these necessitous areas. I remember, and the whole House will remember, that in the days of the War, when some places on the East Coast, some towns there, were being bombarded, they made an appeal to the Government to come to their help on the ground that as we were all in the War, it was unfair that one part of the country should suffer while the rest of the country should go free. That consideration which applied in the days of the War, I venture to think, should apply to the necessitous areas as a whole. I have always felt in these Debates on unemployment, in listening to such speeches as that powerful speech we heard from the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), that the matter was one entitled to the sympathetic consideration of members of all parties. I have further felt that we are in danger, a standing danger in these Debates, of being more concerned with the relief of unemployment than we are for its remedy. We are in constant danger of concentrating our attention on consequences rather than causes. We are all, I think, prepared to acknowledge that in social, as in all individual ills, the first step in searching for a remedy is to ascertain the nature of the disease. In talking of unemployment, in its essence, we talk as though it were all of one piece, one texture, one colour, whereas, I may remind the Committee, unemployment has a three-fold aspect. There is, first of all, the cyclical, that form which at irregular periods afflicts industries and occupations usually regarded as stable. Then there is the seasonal form, in which the periods of unemployment follow each other with a regularity which can be calculated. Last of all, there is the most sinister aspect of unemployment, what may be called chronic unemployment, that form which persists through all the seasons of the year with an unyielding obstinacy. That, I think we are all agreed, is the form of unemployment which constitutes the gravity of the problem in our time.

Reference has been made to Denmark and other agricultural countries. It must be recognised, I think, that where the life of a community is based wholly, or almost wholly, upon agriculture, there is rarely chronic unemployment. When, however, the life of a community is based upon manufacture and export, it is subject to the sway of forces over which it has no control. I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) put his finger on the spot to-day when he suggested that employment in a community depends upon buying no less than upon selling. What is the main generating cause of unemployment in our country in these days? I think I shall carry Members with me when I suggest that it is loss of markets, due either to the poverty of countries which were once our customers or to the fact that other countries are now competing with us for outside markets. Unfortunately, this country no longer possesses its old monopoly. Countries which formerly purchased from us now manufacture for themselves, and for export as well as for home use. Sooner or later, and sooner rather than later, I hope, this House must face the problem from that standpoint. A short time ago the General Federation of Trade Unions made a very practical suggestion. They suggested the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry, on which no politicians of any kind should be given a place [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I am glad to find that is appreciated.

We are not politicians.

No, I never thought so.

Your party are out of work because you are politicians.

It ought to be recognised more clearly than it is that unemployment is not due to one cause, but to a number of causes acting in combination. There are circumstances which predispose to unemployment, circumstances which precipitate unemployment, and circumstances which perpetuate unemployment. We ought to have a scientific examination into the operation of these various causes to ascertain which predispose to unemployment, which precipitate it and which perpetuate it. In the recent action of the Government in appointing the Coal Commission we have a precedent for such a Commission as has been suggested. I think we are all agreed that the Coal Commission has done excellent work by exploring the industry and by throwing light on various aspects of it, and it would be well if we could have a Commission of Inquiry into the real causes of unemployment.

This is a problem which transcends all political strife, and is a matter for national co-operation and not for party exploitation. It is no good going on with attempts to relieve the co-sequences of unemployment while leaving the causes untouched. Reference has been made to migration to the Dominions and the Colonies. That is an avenue which can be explored. I hope migration will be regarded not as deportation, but as a means of helping all classes, and that facilities will be found to enable all classes to take advantage of it. The effectiveness of any unemployment scheme must be measured by two things, firstly, the completeness with which it can absorb the unemployed, and secondly, its power to create more economic value than is consumed in the process. We must set ourselves to do two things if this problem is to be solved, or if its solution is to be brought even within reasonable dimensions: to recover lost markets and to discover new markets. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) made a memorable delaration that there are no rabbits to be found in the hat. We all recognise the force of that observation. It is up to the House, it is up to the Government, it is up to all parties, to seek the rabbits where alone they can be found.

To those of us who have been identified with the movement to get a reorganisation of local taxation, this Debate has been very interesting. There was a time when some of us in the East End of London were looked upon as though we were revolutionaries, because we dared to demand that national burdens should be nationally borne. Now we find that in all parts of the country and in all parts of the House, on the opposite side of it as well as on this, the problem is being recognised in all its potentialities. In the district I represent we are "up against it" in the extreme. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health and those associated with him in his office know that we are perpetually appealing to them for loans, and that since the depression in trade set in we have borrowed no less than £2,000,000—not to meet a local responsibility, because by no stretch of the imagination can it be described as local. The interest we have to pay next year and the payment to be made in redemption of the loans, will amount to more than our total rate for Poor Law purposes in the years before the War. I would like to ask those who know more about figures than I do how long this is going to continue? Either some Government, it may not be the present one, must face the problem, or we shall have the absolute bankruptcy of some of our most important industrial areas. The poor cannot go on keeping the poor for ever; and, as an hon. Member opposite pointed out, manufacturers, too, are beginning to find out the seriousness of the problem.

A suggestion was made to the Committee—and though districts were not mentioned I suppose we in the district I represent were referred to—that we were mainly responsible because we are too generous in the administration of relief. As a matter of fact, we give a family of three people less with which to keep themselves for a week than hon. Members opposite pay for the maintenance of a convict at Dartmoor. If the ordinary workman is inclined to be a law-breaker, it would be better for him, from the physical point of view, to break the law and to get a sentence of penal servitude than to ask for Poor Law relief. Per head of the population, you are paying more for the maintenance of your criminals than for the maintenance of people who are genuinely out of employment; so the charge of extravagance is on the other side. I came to-day through the East End of London and saw the soldiers marching back from Victoria Park, as though they had beaten the Germans once again. They came through the City and they were cheered, naturally cheered, because they were workmen who themselves will be out of work in a few years time. They are nearly all short-service men. They marched through the City with their bands playing, well dressed and well provided for—better off than the men who have to go down the coal mines. So far as we are concerned, we have no opposition to those men; but we know the bill will have to be paid.

In West Ham this week we have had 15,000 more applications for relief. Why? For men and women thrown out of work because of the dispute. If there had been no general strike at all the mere stoppage of the mines would put thousands of our people out of work. The Government's own restrictions mean that the power supply will be reduced by almost 50 per cent., and automatically thousands upon thousands of men and women will be thrown on Poor Law relief. Those people do not belong to trade unions, because in many cases they are in sweated industries; for one reason or another they are not members of trade unions, and they come automatically on to the Poor Law. What are we to do with them? The Minister of Health can- not tell us, except that we are to follow a certain scale of relief which he has passed. Are those of us who are members of Boards of Guardians to say to them, "There is nothing for you"? We have to come to the right hon. Gentleman and ask him whether he is prepared to lend us some more money, when he knows he will never get it back. "You cannot take the breeks off a Hielan'man." We have got down to the bottom of things; we cannot face the situation. We are paying 9s. in the £ for poor rate purposes alone out of a total rate of 25s., and the rate keeps on going up, not through any fault of ours, for we cannot help ourselves. There ought to be a reorganisation of our taxation. Nobody objects to paying. But then the suggestion is made that there must be some control over local expenditure. We do not object to control, providing we get a fair deal in the amount of control. The Minister of Health already has power in this matter. So long as we were able to find money out of our own pockets, there was no control, but as soon as we have to borrow money there is control, and conditions are laid down which we have to accept. We are up against two propositions. On the one side we have got people who do not want control, and on the other side we have got people who want all control.

Could not the Government meet us to this extent? They have turned down the proposition that this expenditure should be recognised as a national charge, but could not they say that in cases where the Minister is satisfied as to the circumstances loans will be granted free of interest? The interest alone on the money we have borrowed will shortly come to as much as our total rate was 10 years ago—if we are compelled to go on borrowing. That would be a small contribution for the Government to make towards the solution of what is becoming daily a more difficult problem. As a compromise on the whole position as to national and local charges, let us say that the money borrowed by local authorities which have been forced into the position I have described should be granted free of interest. It would be a small contribution, not all we would like to have, but at least what we are entitled to as a contribution towards the big responsi- bility being placed upon localities which are hard hit.

6.0 p.m.

Through the administration of unemployment benefit we are also in a great difficulty. Almost every week fresh people are being disqualified, and they come for Poor Law relief. Where is it going to end? Those of us who represent districts like my own are always being lampooned because, I suppose, we are not regarded as being respectable. If respectability means that you have always got to shirk your responsibility, then we we are not respectable. We have always placed the proposition before the public that we are prepared to accept full responsibility for our poor as far as we are able, but when we are asked to pay 25s. in the £ in rates, 9s. of which is for Poor Law purposes, and we find another district gets off with 7s. in the £ for the same purposes, then we naturally feel that we are not being fairly treated. The people who can afford to pay get off in this way, and those who cannot afford it are compelled to shoulder the burden. For these reasons, I ask the Government not to turn down the appeal which has been made to them. If they cannot meet us by granting us some direct assistance, at least, they ought to say that they will allow us to have the loans we have already obtained, and those we may apply for in the future, free of interest.

There is a big body of opinion growing up in the East End of London in favour of declaring that we should not administer the Poor Law any longer. We are prepared to look after the children and the old people and administer our medical services, but we cannot go on for ever carrying all these able-bodied people on our shoulders in addition to our other responsibilities. All I can say is that the general strike will be nothing compared with the position which will arise if our Poor Law authorities are forced to meet the position now being forced upon them. Therefore, I hope the Government will meet us, and, if they are not prepared to take over the administration themselves, in which case it will cost much more than it is costing now, I hope they will do something in the direction which I have indicated.

I know there are a good many hon. Members more qualified to speak on this subject than I am, but I wish to say that the point of view which has been expressed by the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) is one which I think must appeal to the sympathies of every Member of this House with considerable force, in whatever part of the House he may happen to be sitting. I know it has been the custom to speak of unemployment as a national problem, and I do not think there is a single Member of the House who has not used that phrase. It is when you come to apply that phrase in a practical way that one appreciates the difficulty, and one realises that in such a district as that represented by the hon. Member for Silvertown, they are called upon to find a large sum of money to meet a problem which does not arise out of the ordinary conditions which obtain alone in that district, but which is part of the problem which we all have described as a national problem.

I want to ask two or three questions, because I find very considerable difficulty when discussing unemployment in arriving at an accurate opinion in regard to which one can feel perfectly satisfied. Before the events of the last fortnight it was announced that the figures of unemployment showed a considerable decrease, and it is in regard to that fact that I want to ask a few questions. I should like to ask the Minister of Labour how many men under the age of 25 or 30 are now on the Unemployment Roll. I am referring to the period ending a fortnight ago. It seems to me that this really has reference to one of the most disastrous complications of the unemployment problem. Unfortunately, it is the case, I am afraid, that there is a very large number of men in this country, young in years, many of them ex-service men, who since the War have never really had a proper opportunity of settling down to work. Whilst one recognises that even in normal times there must be a certain number of unemployed, one of the aspects of the problem which causes me the gravest anxiety, and must cause the gravest anxiety to anybody who looks at this problem from the point of view of the welfare of the country, is the number of young men who have not had a chance of working, and are not working now, and who have no prospects of being able to find employment in the future. It is for that reason that I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to refer to this aspect of the problem, and to tell us how many men under the age of 25 or 30 are out of employment, and what prospects there are in his opinion of finding employment for that class of person in the near future.

My next question is, how far is the decrease in unemployment due to the employment of women, because that is a practical problem. If the decrease in the unemployment figures is merely due to the fact that a certain number of women have been absorbed in a certain kind of industry and the men folk are still out of employment, then the decrease does not show much improvement in the actual position. My third question is, has the Parliamentary Secretary got any figures he can give us in regard to the extent to which the industrial districts are drawing men from the rural districts? This is part of a large problem which I shall not deal with now, but it has a very important relevance to the whole question of unemployment in this country.

There was some talk a short time ago in some newspapers about creating a brighter London, and we should all like to create a brighter country. We all know what has been done in the rural districts under the Board of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture by means of women's institutes and various other organisations to add to the interest and attractiveness of life in the rural districts; but unfortunately it is the case that in large numbers young men, and virile men, are every week leaving the countryside for the large towns where either they do not find work, or, if they find work, they do so at the expense of others who are thrown out of employment. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary, if he can, to give us some indication as to the extent to which these resources are being drawn from the countryside.

Another question I wish to ask is, What is responsible for the reduction in the unemployment figures? From whence have these people been absorbed, and into which industries have they gone? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will also say whether there are industries, and which they are, in which there has proved to be a real shortage of labour? These four questions are subjects upon which some information would be of great value to myself and many other hon. Members who, without seeking to put forward any hindrances to a solution of the unemployment problem, are anxious to form a genuine estimate of the seriousness of the problem in the country at the present time.

This discussion has ranged over a fairly wide field, and I wish to raise one or two points which I think are relevant to the main question we are now discussing. As one of those hon. Members of this House who joined a deputation to the Prime Minister, the result of which was that the Goschen Committee was appointed, I would like to make one or two remarks as to what I understood was the decision of that Committee. It has been a great source of disappointment to many hon. Members connected with necessitous areas that no practical scheme was found by that Committee suitable to be recommended to the Government. Personally, I think that Committee took rather a narrow view of its powers and its duties. Certain schemes were put forward for consideration which were found to be, on careful analysis, impracticable and unworkable, and I have no hesitation in saying that if that Committee, which was a very strong one, consisting of men with wide experience, held that view, their decision would be accepted by most people.

I think, however, it was a narrow view, because they put the whole onus of suggesting schemes upon other people, and the onus should lie upon the Government of the day. If that Committee were unable to recommend any specific schemes which were brought before them, at least it should have considered alternative methods which might have had the desired effect. We are now faced with the position that no practical scheme has been recommended to the Government, and the only thing we can do is to consider what I myself have always advanced as a much more important aspect of the case and the wider issue which underlies this problem, namely, the whole question of the basis of national and local taxation. I know schemes have been suggested for necessitous areas, but they have mostly been as a palliative or some temporary expedient to meet the present condition of those areas.

In the present condition of the country and in its present situation the whole basis of our taxation as between local and national taxation seems to me to demand reconsideration. After all, we are now faced with this tendency. All social legislation which is put forward in regard to health and other services, and which is perpetually being put forward, involves some charge upon the rates. We are passing a great number of small private Bills and Government Bills, all in the class of social legislation, which will lead to some increase in local taxation. In addition to that, there is a tendency in regard to Unemployment Insurance Schemes to administer them in a way that gives fair play to the members who are insured in those schemes. Therefore, we must regard unemployment insurance as an insurance, but by the mere lapse of time the bringing into effect of these statutory regulations involves expenditure and automatically throws a charge upon the rates.

In my own constituency I find, for instance, that in the week ending on the 3rd April this year, 5,159 persons were relieved, at an expense to the rates of £2,100, as against 4,100 persons last year at an expense to the rates of £l,590. The addition is about 1,000 persons at an increased cost of £575, or about 12s. per person, so that there is no case here of extravagance or of improper administration by the board of guardians. When we consider the expenditure of the country as a whole, it is surely the total amount of expenditure that we have to consider; it does not really matter whether it is local or whether it is national. On page 7 of the Financial Statement for the year there is given—I suppose because the Treasury realise the importance of this question of local taxation—a statement showing the amount of taxation that is raised locally, and it is interesting to note that the amount spent on Poor Law administration is by no means the greater part of it. People are very apt to exaggerate the cost of Poor Law administration in regard to local taxation. The amount raised locally in England and Wales was £147,000,000, of which £31,000,000 was spent on the relief of the poor, £31,000,000 on education, £9,000,000 on police, and £74,000,000 on other services.

When we consider the expenditure of the country as a whole, and when we consider questions of economy, it is no economy simply to transfer certain burdens from local to national expenditure, just as it would be no economy to transfer them from national to local expenditure. What we want to consider is what is the best way in which those burdens may be borne, how they can have the least harmful effect upon productive industry, and whether, by easing a burden here or shifting it a little there, it may be possible to produce a good effect upon the general state of employment and prosperity in the country as a whole. When we come to consider the basis of local taxation, an entirely different aspect immediately confronts us. The basis of local taxation is really purely mediæval. I can imagine no one, except, perhaps, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood)—who is entirely mediæval—thinking that it can be right to raise money for public services solely upon the basis of the assessable value of land. That idea belongs to a day, surely, when land was almost the only form of property in the world, when the occupation of land was a very reasonable and proper criterion of the capacity—

Is not land the only form of property whose value is created by the communal expenditure of the ratepayers' money?

If I were to plunge too far into that controversy, I should probably be called to order, but I was trying to point out that, whereas the occupation or ownership of land might have been a reasonable criterion for the raising of money for public services in times gone by, in the present state of this country it is no longer a good criterion. When we really consider the proper solution of these problems, we must feel that this Government or some other will some day have to face the question whether the whole system of raising local taxation is not built upon an obsolete and mediæval foundation. Apart from that, we must realise that this method of raising the money required for local services throws an undue burden on productive industry. I have just quoted figures showing the increased cost of Poor Law relief this year as compared with last year in my own constituency. In addition, one works, rated at some £10,000 a, year, has gone into liquidation, another great works allied with it has also gone into liquidation, and there are three great works standing idle, so that you have, side by side with the increase in local expenditure, a reduction in the amount of assessable value from which the money can be raised. That is very serious for the great basic industries of the country, and I am bound to say that many people feel that in these questions the power of finance and the power of the rentier have been exercised unduly against the power of the entrepreneur and the power of the producer—that there is a real opposition between the interests of finance and the interests of productive industry, and that there has not been sufficient consideration by the bankers of the demands of the producer. The whole tendency of this method of raising taxation, if it goes on, must be to increase all the time the cost of the basic products.

I quite recognise that the Government are unable to produce, through the Goschen Committee or any other committee, a satisfactory expedient by way of subsidy to these necessitous areas, but I think the tune has come for a really careful consideration of the whole of the problems relating to local and national taxation. It may be possible to transfer altogether certain burdens from local to national expenditure, and that, of course, would mean that the control of that expenditure would have to be national control. After all, however, the way in which many of these burdens have grown up is quite arbitrary. In 1870, for instance, Parliament in its wisdom declared that all children should be educated at the public expense, and, in doing so, laid it down that part of the expenditure was to be borne by the National Exchequer and part was to be provided from local taxation. There is, however, no fixed and immutable law by which such a division should be made. It might have been argued that, since Parliament had declared that all children should be educated, it was up to Parliament to provide money for that purpose, and that it had no real right to throw that burden upon certain areas.

This problem, of course, would not be as pressing as it is if all England were divided into entirely homogeneous areas. The whole point is that the areas are not homogeneous—they are not of the same character. As the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) has often pointed out, there are areas where you have very many poor people living, as opposed to wealthier areas, but you have more than that. By our system of trade, and by our system of building up industries, which, of course, is based upon geographical reasons, you have in one area nearly always collected certain trades all of the same character. For instance, you have the shipbuilding areas, you have the areas of heavy industries, iron and steel and so on, and, therefore, when there is a slump in the particular industries in those areas, there is an undue burden for the time being. If all the country were divided for purposes of local taxation into parishes or areas which were of exactly the same character, it would not matter in the least, of course, whether the money was raised locally or nationally; the effect would be the same; but when you have both of these two factors existing side by side, when you have certain trades that are liable to great fluctuations collected in one part of the country, which, therefore, during a period of slump, has to carry unduly heavy burdens, it does become a question whether that situation could not be eased by shifting the burden from one shoulder to another.

I venture to think that this question will have to be faced, either by this Government or by some other Government, and we shall have to try, whether it be by altering the basis of local taxation from that of assessable value to an income basis, by shifting certain burdens entirely on to the National Exchequer, or by some other means, to check the tendency, which many of us view with alarm, towards the paradox that business to-day is profitable in inverse ratio to the number of men employed and the quantity of assessable land occupied. You have the extreme case of the professional man, perhaps employing one clerk and occupying one room rated at, say, £100 a year, making an income of, perhaps, £40,000 a year, while, so far as rates are concerned, he makes practically no contribution. On the other hand, you may have an unsuccessful business, occupying a large acreage of ground which is necessary for the purposes of the business, losing money, perhaps, in these times, year after year, and yet carrying this enormous burden, simply because the nature of the business requires the occupation of a large area of assessable land. This is a really serious problem in many industries, because the burden due to the necessity for the occupation of large areas of land makes it more and more difficult for them to meet competition in other countries. Therefore, I not only feel bound to express disappointment that the Government have been unable to find temporary expedients to help necessitous areas—upon which, however, I do not lay so much stress at this moment—but I venture to stress what seems to me to be the underlying problem of the whole matter, namely, that very soon some steps will have to be taken towards a general review of our system of taxation, particularly with a view to reducing as far as possible the burdens which now fall so heavily upon the great productive industries of this country.

I think that the speech we have just heard, well informed and closely reasoned as it was, will be greatly appreciated on this side of the Committee. This question of national and local taxation is one in regard to which we on this side have a policy, and that is that in questions which are not local but are national in their character, such as the effect of unemployment, questions which have to do with national industry, and the various economic considerations that face the nation, the expenditure ought to be borne by the State. That point of view has been well put by the last speaker, but I would like to put to him one consideration in reference to it, and this also will be of interest, I think, to the hon. Member for North Paddington (Sir W. Perring). It is no use pointing out how rates are a handicap to industry, or how difficult it is for industries to compete when they are very highly rated locally, and at the same time to support the argument that is continually being put forward from the other side with regard to national taxation, that such taxation is a hindrance to industry in another way by interfering with the springs of capital and capital investment. If you are going to take the line that rating in local areas is a greater burden upon industry than taxation, then you are arguing for placing more taxation upon the nation, for placing more imposts upon the taxpayers of the country, and you have then to deal with the effect of that taxation upon industry in another way.

A few weeks ago during the Budget Debates the late Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out that 100 years ago the ratio of taxation to the national income, that is to say, to the income of the people of the nation, was about one-sixth, and to-day it is practically the same. The figures are £72,000,000 against £400,000,000 a 100 years ago, and to-day you have a Budget of £800,000,000 against a national income of £4,000,000,000. My right hon. Friend pointed out that the body of people enjoying the income can better afford to pay a sixth of a large income than of a small one. It is less a burden to pay one-sixth of an income of £4,000,000,000 than it is to pay taxation of a sixth upon an income of £400,000,000, so that, though we are going to take the burden for these national considerations, such as unemployment—these avenues of expenditure—away from where they obviously mean a great burden upon industry and place it upon the shoulders of the nation, that is, upon the general taxpayer, you must take into account the fact that the nation is not the poor nation it is alleged to be, that it is much richer proportionately than ever it was, that there is a far better case to be made for placing unemployment upon national taxation than there is for letting the burden of rates mount still higher, especially in those particular localities referred to.

I wanted to speak more particularly upon the larger question of unemployment in relation to the aspect of administration, which was touched upon by the opener of the Debate and also by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George). The right hon. Gentleman's speeches are extremely interesting nowadays. They remind me of the story of a nigger who was fishing from the deck of a ship. He caught a fish which was very heavy and pulled him into the sea. He scrambled back on deck and soliloquised, "I wonder whether this nigger am fishing or the damn fish an niggering." That query rather suggested itself to me with regard to the tone of the speeches that are being made by one section at least of the Liberal party. I think it is the case of the fish niggering, and I do not think these advanced ideas that are being put forward will go very far from the standpoint of the political complexion of the House. What the hon. Member said on the subject of agricultural education and development was very important. In a speech he made some time ago he said the balance of imports over exports this year has turned. We find ourselves unable to sell as much as in our present plight we have to buy. I think the adverse balance is something like £400,000,000.

I know this question is involved with invisible exports and the rest of it, but it is a coincidence that that adverse balance is precisely the amount that we pay for foreign food. As I said yesterday—it is very curious that it is possible to go over some of the points that were dealt with on the Board of Trade Vote—and as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs bore out, although the question of export trade is exceptionally important so long as you have to find the wherewithal by selling goods to buy the food that you do not grow for yourself, yet it would be far better that we should make ourselves more a food-growing country than we are at present. We are the only country which has not agriculture as its fundamental basis. Our agriculture is not really so fundamental as in most countries which, even in their export trade, are competing fairly successfully with us. It is only on the basis of a highly developed agriculture you can get prosperity and you can, at any rate, counteract the influence of the bad conditions of fluctuations of trade, of commerce, of wages, of industrial conditions, and so on in those European and Asiatic countries against which we are competing. It is important, therefore, that we should consider very carefully the possibility of training unemployed men for work upon the land, and I hope the Government will pay much closer attention to that subject. Surely, it is possible to get more accurate facts and figures and a closer idea of what is possible in the way of research in the utilisation of our land. We are told we could extend our food-growing capacity. That is obvious, because it has diminished very rapidly in recent years, and I believe with scientific and intensive cultivation, with the application of half or quarter to research that we put, for instance, into the development of poison gas, we should go very far in making ourselves independent of foreign countries with regard to our food supply.

That is one of the reasons why I feel very much concerned about this question of emigration. It is possibly necessary to pay attention to the question of emigration in many cases, but, from a fundamental point of view, surely it is not a, good thing that we should, first of all, encourage emigration to our Dominions when our own country is going out of cultivation year by year. The reason why it is a bad thing, in my opinion, is this. It is not a question of the emigration of the least capable or the least trained or the least physically fit. Our Dominions will not have such people. They want people who have some knowledge of farming, people who are physically strong, fine specimens of manhood capable of developing the Dominions. We cannot afford to lose those people and leave the less efficient behind. It may be necessary that some amount of emigration should take place, but our attention should surely be directed to using that good material on our own land and keeping this country and its stock as efficient as it could possibly be. I am aware that you cannot solve the agricultural problem by turning unemployed men loose in a field. I remember when the right hon. John Burns was President of the Local Government Board, the development of the Hollesley Bay Colony was turned down, I think, rather unfairly and unjustly, because of the essential difficulties that the President was faced with in endeavouring to solve a difficult problem, the problem of unemployment, destitution and inefficiency by the process of founding isolated agricultural colonies.

I do not think that is quite the way you have to do much more than that. There are certain difficulties that you have to consider. More and more with the development of modern society, the development of towns and the amenities of town life, with the taking of people for generations away from the land, there is a psychology that you have to deal with. The townsman does not like the isolation of the countryside; it is very difficult to get people voluntarily to set themselves to become agriculturists when it means isolation and conditions that are unfavourable in many ways, but particularly with regard to social life. You have to allow time for the training of the men. You have to find money for it. You have to get the best expert advice, which the Government ought to be able to do, in order to make them able efficiently to cultivate the soil. Then you have to deal with the question of putting them on the land. Housing has been referred to, but it is more than a question of housing. Why is it not possible, side by side with this policy of Britain for the British, cultivating the land and training our men for agricultural pursuits, to get back some of those subsidiary industries for the countryside? There is the making of boxes and wicker baskets and a thousand and one things subsidiary to agriculture. Why should they all be done in the towns? Why should not they be done in the villages and places which will make it possible for a different kind of life to be led from that of the old type of agricultural labourer?

During the War you got over a similar difficulty with German prisoners. You put them upon the soil 25 miles away from a town. You got motor lorries to take them out in the morning and bring them back at night. You have to consider the possibility of spreading the population out and not merely putting them on the land and letting the thing solve itself, because it will not do it, but you have to take hold of the question on practical lines. I welcome the line of discussion that has taken place to-day. It is very important indeed. I am not arguing against doing all you can in developing our export trade. My opinions are pretty well known. Under the circumstances, we have to do our best to develop and restore our foreign trade, but you are not going to be so successful as you were in the 19th century, because other nations have become industrialised on the top of a more efficient agriculture than we possess. That is a very serious consideration. If we make the best use of our land agriculturally, on practical and scientific lines, it will be far better than merely trusting to private enterprise and the scramble for profits in order to solve problems of this character. You will not solve them in that way.

I should like to say a word with regard to the inefficiency and the badness of State interference and State regulation in industrial matters. This applies to the question of agriculture and any administrative action that can be taken with regard to research and the training of agricultural workers. No one on this side, be he ever so much a Socialist, denies the disadvantages of State interference. No one denies that State control, in the sense of bureaucratic departmentalism, can be carried too far, and is often very bad. Our point of view is that even with its badness it is much better than the waste of efficiency in many sides of our present individual enterprise system. With regard to the larger and general question, we are ready as Socialists to discuss with the Government side how to overcome the difficulties and how to make State regulations and State control of national industry consistent with such co-operative autonomy as is possible.

It is no argument against State control or Socialism merely to say that it means bureaucracy—it may do—but if the best men in the nation, especially the best business minds, apply themselves particularly to the fact that it is impossible to solve many of these peculiar industrial problems by leaving them entirely to private enterprise, then we can get together and find how we can counteract the admitted disadvantages of State interference with and Government control over industry. We want to find some way in which we can serve public ends and coordinate and apply production and distribution in a scientific manner. It need not be by the bureaucratic methods that are suggested. We on this side, as Socialists, do not believe in bureaucracy. We want scientific consideration of things, and it is not sufficient merely to leave the question to settle itself. We must apply the mind of the nation scientifically to bring to a solution all these problems, which are very complex and essentially national.

I do not propose to take up much of the time of the House, because the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Charles Edwards) has given a startling set of figures in regard to the situation which has arisen in some of our industrial districts, and has pretty-well covered the ground. With the hon.

Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Captain Macmillan) I am sorry that the Goschen Committee could not find a way out of the difficulty in which we find ourselves in the necessitous areas. In the district where I come from the poor rate at the present time, without allowing anything for interest and repayment of loans, is soaring somewhere in the region of 10s. in the £. The right hon. Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) said that in regard to one of the necessitous districts—Sheffield—the trouble there was that people went into the Sheffield area because of certain work that was required to be done during the War and that when the War ended the work came to an end, they could not find employment and they were not adapted for other kinds of work.

What applies to Sheffield applies to an area like Bedwellty and other industrial valleys in South Wales, especially the Pontypridd Poor Law area, which embraces the Parliamentary Divisions of Rhondda and Pontypridd. A large number of men were brought into that district during the War to replace men who had left and also to produce a greater quantity of coal for the needs of the nation during the War. Suddenly, at the beginning of 1921, we found 14,000 men who had been employed at the collieries in the Pontypridd Poor Law Union thrown out of work, because the collieries had come to a standstill through no further work being available, and they were too poor to carry it on. In that small area we had 14,000 men who in consequence of their unemployment became dependent either on the Unemployment Insurance Fund or upon the Poor Law Union for their maintenance. These men who are unemployed are settled in the district and there is no other work for them to do. We are not like Sheffield, where there are other industries. In the Rhondda Valley and in the Pontypridd area we have only the coal mining industry. We have no side-lines there; we are dependent upon coal mining for employment for our people.

The problem with which we are confronted has not been brought upon us by our own action; it was forced upon us during the War. The hon. and gallant Member for North St. Pancras (Captain Fraser) paid a very high eulogy to the successive Governments with regard to what they have done for the ex-service man, and asserted that the pledges that were made during the War in regard to employment had been carried out. I am exceedingly sorry that I cannot endorse that commendation, and I will apply one test to show that successive Governments have not carried out their pledges. In the Pontypridd Poor Law area last week there were over 1,200 ex-service men receiving Poor Law relief. I am not alluding to able-bodied men. The hon. Member said that it could not be proved that, in respect to anyone who had done service and had been disabled in the War, the pledges in regard to him had not been carried out. What is his reply to the situation that exists in the Pontypridd area? These ex-service men were in receipt of Poor Law relief.

Without pension?

They are disabled men. Over 800 are certified to be disabled to the extent of between 4 per cent. and 9 per cent. and 400 are certified to be disabled to the extent of from 14 per cent, to 19 per cent. Any man who is disabled between 4 per cent. and 9 per cent. or 14 per cent. and 19 per cent. cannot follow his occupation as a coal miner. It is unfair that the Pontypridd Union should have to bear the Burden of these 1,200 men who are certified to be disabled as a result of the War.

The right hon. Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) spoke of the necessity of having joint control between the Ministries of Labour, Pensions and Health. The Labour party have been advocating that for years. In this case, surely, the Ministry of Labour could find some employment for these men, and relieve them of the stigma of having to receive Poor Law relief after having served during the War. They are no longer fit for the coal mining industry. They could not go back even if the mining industry was ever so prosperous, because of the disability from which they suffer. I would urge that there should be coordination of the Departments in this matter. I am profoundly disappointed that the Goschen Committee was not successful in finding' a solution for the troubles from which we have been suf- fering from 1921, through circumstances over which we have no control. We have from 5,000 to 6,000 people in receipt of Poor Law relief to-day. It is manifestly unfair that the extra burden of maintenance should be cast upon the locality in respect of men who are suffering as a result of their war service. We maintain that the burden ought to be borne nationally rather than locally.

7.0 P.M.

During the last Debate on this subject considerable stress was laid by Members opposite on the question of the wealthy boroughs in the Metropolitan area not contributing adequately towards the needs of the poor in the poorer districts. Particular mention was made of the City of Westminster. The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Miss Lawrence), said, very truly, that Westminster is a very important and wealthy city, and suggested that that city was not doing its duty by the poorer areas. It is only fair that the fact should be known that Westminster does contribute heavily to the poorer boroughs within the Metropolitan area. In the City of Westminster—I speak for it because I happen to be a member of the City Council—we had an aggregate assessable value at the last quinquennial valuation of over £9,000,000, and last year we raised, by a rate of 9s. 9d. in the pound, £4,036,000. Of that £4,036,000 and of that rate of 9s. 9d. in the pound, the City of Westminster paid away to the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, and under the Equalisation of Rates Act, 1894, over £900,000. It was equivalent to 2s. 3d. in the pound on the rateable value. I venture to suggest that Westminster has done its duty well to the poorer areas.

The point was that though dealing with the poorer districts in the county of London, like East and West Ham and Tottenham, those outside the county get nothing at all from the rich parts of London within the county.

I agree with the hon. Member that the position is a very anomalous one. The position is that within the Metropolitan area, where there are 28 boroughs, this contribution is made to the Metropolitan Poor Law Fund. But that does not alter the fact that the suggestion was made, that Westminster, this very wealthy and influential city, was not doing its duty to the present area. Of 9s. 9d. in the pound rates in this city, 2s. 3d. in the pound is paid away to the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund and under the Equalisation of Rates Act. It may interest the Committee to know that, so far as the actual domestic requirements of the city are concerned, all they need is £522,000 for lighting, paving, baths, and other domestic requirements. In addition to that, all they need for their own guardians is £118,000, making a total of £640,000 out of the very large total of £4,036,000. All the rest is paid away to outside bodies. Part goes to the Metropolitan Asylums Board, £260,000; part to the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, £756,000; the London County Council for the General Rate took £772,000; for Education £980,000, for Equalisation of Rates £169,000, and for Metropolitan Police £434,000. These are the figures for 1925–26. Therefore, the Committee will appreciate the fact that, although Westminster is a very wealthy city and a very large sum of money is raised, it is raised to a large extent for the benefit of outside bodies. It may be said that it would be possible even to increase the rates and give a further contribution to the poorer areas. I want to point out, however, that although there are very many wealthy people in the city and many important buildings, there is also the fact that there is a considerable poor area in the Pimlieo district, and any increase of assessment and the raising of rates would affect materially and prejudice the poorer people within this great city. I suggest therefore that Westminster has done its duty very nobly to those in need of material assistance.

It is perhaps inevitable that, in a Debate of this description, a large number of speeches should be devoted to painting to the Committee the terrible conditions of some of our districts at the present time. I am not oblivious to the fact that half of my unfortunate constituents at the present moment are on the Poor Law, and cannot live except for Poor Law assistance. There has been in the course of this Debate a long series of speeches not merely deploring and pointing out the present inequities, but also making suggestions to the Government of very valuable and possible reforms. I hope the Parlia- mentary Secretary, when he replies, will deal with the points raised in some of those speeches. We have had suggestions not only from the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), but from various other Members, of lines on which it might be possible to train more people for work on the land and to make it easier for people who want to cultivate the land to get on that land.

We have also heard a very valuable suggestion made as to the necessity of reforming in some way our system of local taxation. There has been the suggestion, for instance, that London rates should be equalised more fully than they are to-day, and no man painted a truer or more sombre picture of local government in the poorer districts of London than the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones). The case that was made out for the spreading of the burden of unemployment throughout greater London rather than leaving it localised as it is at present would take a great deal of answering from the Government benches. The hon. Member opposite who sits for Loughborough (Mr. Rye) and represents Westminster has pointed out, quite clearly, that Westminster has done its duty. I would like to point out to him and to the Committee that I wish I was quite so certain that the Duke of Westminster is doing his duty. Nothing personal is meant. Obviously, we have got to get greater resources for these authorities.

When the right hon. Gentleman states that the Duke of Westminster is not doing his duty or inquires whether he is or is not, may I draw attention to the fact that the Duke of Westminster recently in effect gave the City of Westminster an important site for a housing scheme.

I was only using his name as an illustration in connection with revenue for those local authorities. It is well known that the ground landlords contribute not one penny piece to the rates, either in Westminster or elsewhere. When we hear of the poverty of those districts, I wish the Government would remember that it is possible to supplement the revenue by calling on the owners of ground rents to make a small contribution to the local exchequer. It would be a mere measure of justice, and would tend to make it more possible for those local authorities to make both ends meet. It is well known that in Scotland the ground landlords do contribute to the rates, a small amount it is true; but in England so far they are exempt, and, if it be necessary to supplement the revenues of those boroughs, I would submit there is a source ready to tax, and justly available for local needs. The Government themselves, as a result of the Coal Commission's Report, have decided to adopt one of the points in that valuable document, that the royalty owners should contribute definitely 5 per cent. tax upon their royalties towards the welfare fund. The expenditure of the rates is the communal welfare fund, and we might work for a similar contribution by that particular class of property owner to the local necessities of the different boroughs, not only in the East End of London but in Westminster also. I feel certain that the hon. Member who sits for Loughborough would be only too glad to see the revenues of Westminster increased, so that we might have a town even more beautiful, well kept, well dusted, and looked after than it is at present.

By far the most illuminating speech of all came from the hon. and gallant Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Captain Macmillan). He was speaking to the Committee in accents and language and voice that reminded me of our late colleague here, Sir Leo Chiozza Money. He made out an irresistible case for the revision of local taxation. I did not think the hon. and gallant Member for Stock-ton-on-Tees was quite aware of the basis of our local taxation, but at any rate he did realise that the principal curse of this present system of local taxation is that it levies a specially heavy burden upon productive industry and upon housing. I, who sit for a district which is very largely a mining district, would emphasise his argument by saying that in North Staffordshire the rates on the colliery companies are a large factor in making the getting of coal in that district unprofitable. The very heavy local rates levied on the collieries, and upon iron and steel works at Shelton Park mean the producing of goods in this country at a price which cannot compete with neutral markets overseas. The rates are added as an overhead charge to the cost of production. They make industry after industry unprofitable, and yet it requires a Debate such as this for an hon. Member on the Conservative benches to point out to the Government that it is this extraordinary heavy burden of local rates on factories and productive industries that creates unemployment, throws our men out of work, and makes it more difficult for us to recover our proper place in the trade of the world.

I am glad to see the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health is present. I wish he had been present when the hon. and gallant Member for Stockton-on-Tees was making his speech. Cannot he in the near future take a hint from his own followers behind and make a change in local taxation which would be of inestimable benefit to British trade and would help to reduce unemployment? Last year in the passage of a certain Bill, he took steps to relieve machinery of half the local rating. Unfortunately, the burden which was taken off the shoulders of productive industry in that case was transferred to the rest of the ratepayers and in fact was spread to other forms of industry. Everyone of his arguments in recommending that change to the House were arguments on all fours with the argument used by the hon. and gallant Member for Stockton-on-Tees, and he showed that it was those rates on machinery which added to the cost of production and increased unemployment. He took his courage in both hands, divided his party very largely and carried that proposal. Cannot he go further?

Here is the coal trade in a particularly bad condition, but the iron and steel trade is almost as uncomfortably placed at the present time. Those two industries feel the burden of local rates more than any other. Why cannot he just consider what Birmingham would have done 30 years ago. Thirty years ago Birmingham would have been in the forefront of the argument that rates should be taken off buildings, improvements and factories, and placed upon land value, which is the creation of communal effort. There you have a just and advantageous basis; just, because the value of the land is created by the community and not by the owner—and I attach more importance to justice than to anything else—and advantageous, because by placing the burden there you relieve industry, you encourage employment, and you cheapen production. Speaker after speaker in this Debate has put forward the contention that if we are really to get to the root of the unemployed problem we shall have to get more people back on to the land. Most people, even the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, look upon it solely as a question of the Government spending money to acquire the land and make it good, and training the men to work it. There is the other side as well.

Can we not, instead of merely assisting men to get on to the land, assist the present owners to use their land and ask the men to go there. At the present moment land that is badly used, whether it is urban or rural land, land that is allowed to grow thistles, to go out of cultivation, land that is only a receptacle for dead cats and empty tins, is the property of the worst citizens in the country, for that land in proportion to its uselessness, or rather in proportion to the bad use made of it, escapes its rates and local taxation. We, therefore, meet the arguments put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for Stockton. on-Tees (Captain Macmillan)—the reform of local taxation and the relief of producing industries—we meet the arguments put forward by the hon. Member for St. Pancras (Captain Fraser), the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, and the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury)—the desirability of getting more men on the land—and we meet the argument of the hon. Member for Silver-town (Mr. J. Jones)—the exhausted resources of these small, poor local authorities—by persuading the Minister of Health to change the basis of local taxation and levy his rates, not as at present in a form that penalises industry and helps landlords to keep their land idle, but in a way which will free industry completely from these burdens and lay the burdens themselves upon those people who have it in their power not only to keep the land idle but to keep Englishmen idle too. Let him levy his rates upon them so that there will be a stimulus to them to use their land, or to sell it to someone who will use it.

I did not intend to intervene in this Debate, but I notice that as a means of meeting the unemployment of this country the question of agriculture has been referred to. Previous speakers, including the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), have given the House the impression that people did not go on to the land because the land could not employ them, that if you only made it more attractive you would get men to go on to the land. I do not think the Committee quite understands the position. It has been said that there is far less land under cultivation now than there was immediately after the War. Why is that? I know that immediately after the War all classes of the community were willing to go on to the land, they were willing to put their capital into the land and employ labour, but the result has been, and I know it from personal experience, that the capital which has been invested in this way has not made a profitable return. And that is one of the reasons why land is gradually going out of cultivation. Another reason is that the agricultural worker is paid a less wage than almost any other trade in the country. We have heard a great deal as to how we are to get the unemployed back to the land, but does the Committee realise that the unemployed youth is now leaving the land; and little blame to him. As one who has lived in an agricultural district I am proud of the young men we rear in the country, and we generally find that if they go to the towns and seek employment they get that employment. What attraction is there to-day in the present circumstances? You may educate your boys but unless you give them some attraction to return to the land I am afraid you will get very few of them back. It is suggested that if we cultivated more land we should find more employment, but at the present time we cannot get sufficient labour to work the land that is already in cultivation. That is the condition of agriculture at the present moment.

Thirty bob a week.

I agree, and that is one of the things of which I am complaining. But does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the farmer to-day in the present conditions, and in certain districts, can pay more than 30s. a week? I know a great many farmers who are paying 30s. a week, and they would be richer if they did not employ any labour, but let the land go out of cultivation. They are too patriotic for that and cling to all the land they are cultivating.

Will you let the labourers have the land instead?

If the right hon. Member would only wait he would find that I am going to make a suggestion. It is that we should encourage small occupying ownership; and I will tell the Committee why I make that suggestion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs quoted one or two instances of men going to Canada and starting their holdings there. They have been successful. Those are more or less exceptional cases. You will never get people to remain on the land, or go back to the land, unless you can give them an incentive, something that is their own, something to which they can look forward. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) seems to think that it is the landlords who are standing in the way of the occupying owner to-day. Perhaps without being conceited I may say that I know a little more about country districts and the rural conditions than he does, and I do not think you will find many landlords who will stand in the way of the occupying owner. But where you cannot get an occupying ownership you may have a tenancy under the county council. I quite agree that where you have a tenancy the man should have a bit of land. A bit of land has a curious attraction for a tenant. If the man is only a tenant he works for a master, and at the end of five or six years, whether he leaves or not, he is always afraid that either the master may not like him or that he will not like the master, and he does not take any real interest in his holding.

A great many cottages have been built by county councils, and it has always struck me how few of these council houses have been made to look like real homes. They have not been made to look like real homes because of the uncertainty of the tenancy. If we can only have small cottage holdings by which these men can become owners there will then be no difficulty, and there would be no question in a few years of the men being turned out of their homes. I have discussed this question with some of my hon. Friends and they say, "Yes, but supposing a farmer dismisses that man, what is he going to do?" That man is living in his own home, and you cannot turn him out. He will work for another master. But if you are going to put him in simply as a tenant, and the master does not like him, he can be turned out. I think it is absolutely necessary in certain cases that there should be tied houses, but I do not think that is the best way of improving rural conditions and getting people back to the land. I hope the Government will make a great effort to push forward the policy of occupying ownership. It is going to be the work of years. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs by his scheme will never solve unemployment, and he will never get more people on to the land. The Labour party talk about bringing people back to the land, but unless they are going to make that land profitable men will not go back in spite of anything they may do.

We have to be united on this question. This is no party question. We must all do all we can to make rural life happy, and get men of all classes back to the land. If we are united we may do a great deal, but as long as we are divided you will see the industry of agriculture in a decaying condition, with less and less people on the land. One of the reasons why land is not better cultivated to-day is because you cannot get sufficient labour to cultivate it in an efficient manner. My hon. and gallant Friend opposite says, "Yes, at 30s. a week." Does he suggest that you should protect a man's wages and that when that man has produced a commodity you are going to sell it in a free market when other countries can produce the same commodity at a cheaper price?

I am sure that many on this side of the Committee will agree with much that the last speaker has said. It is somewhat unfortunate that in debating this question we should be without the Report to which the Minister of Health referred last week. If I understood aright what he said, it was that the Goschen Committee had come to the conclusion that none of the suggestions made were at all practicable for giving assistance to necessitous areas. It is somewhat unfortunate that the terms of reference to the Goschen Committee should have been too narrow, for the Committee was limited to considering any scheme which might be submitted to it. The terms of reference did not suggest that the Committee should make any suggestion other than a suggestion based on one or other of those schemes. Therefore, it would not appear that the consideration which they gave to the subject could be wide enough to cover what is really required. Even if it had been wide enough, it may be that the Government would think that there was nothing which could possibly bring about a solution of the problem.

I suppose we may take it, from what the right hon. Gentleman said, that so far as any assistance to the necessitous areas is concerned, in the direction which has been suggested here from time to time, it is really finished with, and that if relief were in any way suggested, the Government would be inclined to say that they could not go any further in that way. We are all agreed that there is a very considerable amount of difficulty which would have to be overcome. In one way or another grants have been given and a great deal has been done for the relief of unemployment. But we have all to recognise that the schemes which have been put forward from time to time, while they have lessened the total of unemployed somewhat, have still left us with 1,000,000 people out of work. Some four or five years ago the Minister of Labour in the Coalition Government said that, so far as he could see, after the War there would be at least 800,000 people more or less continually unemployed. We have not got down to that figure yet, but we are finding it exceedingly difficult to get the total reduced. I am sure that there is a general feeling in the House that we should ask ourselves whether there is nothing more that we can do in directions other than that in which we have hitherto gone.

In 1919 the then Prime Minister called a special conference of representatives of workers and employers—what was called the Joint Industrial Committee—and the Chairman of that Committee, the right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne), at the first sitting, expressed the view that the assembly had no parallel in our history. He regarded it as a body which might make extremely valuable suggestions towards difficulties which were then foreseen. That Committee presented a Report of a very valuable character. It was very quickly drawn up, and it mentioned under their respective heads a number of things which the Committee thought might be done in order to meet the then difficulty. The Committee dealt with unemployment and with a number of other matters in close relationship to it. There was a special Report presented by the Labour members of the Committee on the causes of unrest and the remedies.

It is truly said that there is to-day a great deal of feeling of a character very similar to that which existed at the time when that Committee was instructed to report. We meet here to discuss this question again and again, without making anything in the way of real progress. We have almost got into the way of feeling that the numbers of unemployed must continue and that there is no solution. But none of us can regard it as in any way satisfactory that this Parliament, with all its possibilites and powers, should be discussing this question again and again and yet getting no nearer to anything in the way of a solution of the problem. I want to ask whether it is possible for us to get back again to the spirit of 1919, when that Conference met and the Committee reported, whether if there were a somewhat similar conference now, with an equally wise chairman, we might not get more in the way of finding some solution. I do not suggest that we should have a conference confined to the discussions of 1919. We should in no way limit the outlook or inquiry which the Committee might make. There are tremendous difficulties to be faced. There would require to be the very beet possible spirit. But this problem is one of such magnitude that the time has gone by for any quarrel about particular methods. I do not think it is a question for the House alone to deal with. There are many people outside whose assistance and advice we should be only too glad to make use of, people who would be able to give very valuable contributions. I throw this out as a suggestion, and possibly some good may come of it.

There have been several suggestions from both sides of the Committee, that what we want to do is to get as many men as possible on the land. There is certainly no disagreement on that point. The only difficulty is that no concrete solution has been put forward by any of the speakers. Although I do not pretend to be able to put forward a panacea for all the land difficulties, I can mention one or two difficulties from which the land is suffering. The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) spoke of the large amount of agricultural produce that we get from abroad, and the sum mentioned was £400,000,000. He suggested that possibly £100,000,000 worth of that might be grown and sold in this country. It will be universally agreed that that would be a good thing, but unfortunately I did not see from his speech how it could be accomplished. The bulk of the produce that we get from abroad is corn produce, and that produce is the hardest to grow in this country as a paying proposition. Climate difficulties are well known, and it is a fact that as a whole bakers prefer foreign wheat to English wheat in making bread. The British farmer has to face competition in the weather in getting as good a grain of corn as his foreign competitors produce.

There are other difficulties. The Government can certainly encourage the growing of arable produce in this country. Nearly all corn—wheat, flour and biscuits to a certain extent—obtained by Government contract is foreign. All such contracts should be placed in this country. That would certainly assist the corn producer. There is one good thing which the Government are doing. They are encouraging the growing of wheat of a nature which is comparable with the foreign-grown wheat at the establishment at Cambridge. I hope very much that when this wheat is proved, it will be equal to the best. foreign wheat. The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs mentioned that he liked the systems of Denmark and Holland, and he referred to those two countries as Free Trade agricultural countries. Denmark is not a Free Trade country, nor is Holland. Denmark is entirely an agricultural country, and, therefore, it puts tariff duties on just those commodities that suit it. It is a very flat country. Within its area are, I believe, only two hills, about 500 feet high, and there are practically no industries.

There is practically no produce brought in from abroad, and therefore all the resources of the co-operative movement in that country can be employed to sell their produce abroad. Where co-operation fails in agriculture in our case is that we are constantly swamped by the importation of foreign produce into this country, a factor which has upset all the systems of co-operation so far started here. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) made the suggestion that the labourer should own land. I think all Members on this side would be very glad to see the real agricultural labourer owning land, but, like all his party, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman refuses to face the practical difficulties. Another hon. Member talked about scientific co-operation. It is these theories, unsupported by any practical suggestions, which make the agriculturist so tired of being preached at constantly. Quite naturally, they look to see the result of experiments which have been made in small holdings.

I was privileged recently to see the result of the settlement of some ex-Service men on the land in Kent. The holdings were excellent in many respects. The total acreage was about 700 acres and the small holdings ranged in size from about 15 acres to 50 acres. They were of a very suitable size, it was good land, and there was an excellent market available, namely, London. But there is this difficulty, that the money expended in buildings and in other ways on the small holdings caused a loss on the 700 acres of about £l,000 a year to the county. If the Government are going to repeat that all over the country it means a very large total loss. In addition to that, there is a more serious consideration and that is the capital which each of these men requires in order to make the small holding a paying proposition. The amount of capital varied roughly from about £1,000 to £2,000 each and the man with £2,000 in his small holding was better off than the man with only £1,000. From that it will be seen the enormous expense and difficulty involved in getting small holdings going all over the country. They had one advantage; they did employ more men on this land than were employed before the small holdings were started. But the capital which each individual must have, and the interest on the money which the authorities have to borrow, are difficulties in the way of making small holdings on a large scale a paying proposition.

It is well to recognise the reasons why the country is unpopular as compared with the town. Lower wages are mentioned as one of the causes, but there are other minor reasons which accumulate. There is the question of the distance which the children have to travel to school, and the general educational difficulties. There is the loneliness of the wives who very often have been brought up in towns, and hon. Members will probably know of cases in which a man who has been doing well on the land has been persuaded to leave the country by his wife. Perhaps the wireless and omnibuses will do something by bringing the towns closer. There is another difficulty in which the Government can help us, and that is the housing difficulty. So far, neither the Chamberlain scheme nor the Labour Government's scheme have helped rural areas much. The houses which have been built in rural areas have been very close to the towns and have been largely occupied by townspeople. A scheme should be started to encourage the building of houses in purely agricultural areas. The landlord system, so much decried by the Labour party, and crippled by the taxation of the Liberal party, had this advantage, that it did build houses in order to meet the growing needs of the agricultural areas. What is more, where the estate was of the proper size, there was a squad of builders, plumbers and other workers to keep the houses in proper repair and not until taxation crippled the landlords did that system fail. It is possible in certain cases to continue it, but that is generally in cases where the landlord has an income derived from other sources, or is interested in other businesses. That shows that the whole matter in connection with the land is very largely a matter of capital, and it is difficult to see how the Labour party's solution, namely, nationalisation, can succeed.

The question of rates has already been raised. Rates bear very heavily on the country, and are increasing in the country as in the towns. The road rate is very heavy, and, as in many other things, the farmer does not see that the road rate brings him in a fair return for the money he is paying. When the farmer is so near the border line, I think he should receive special terms in regard to rates. All sides will agree that the agricultural industry is worse hit than perhaps any industry except coal mining. There is a certain similitude between coal mining and agriculture in that the coal mining difficulty is partly one of housing and the agricultural difficulty is also partly one of housing. If there is any one thing which the Minister can do to help agriculture, I would ask him to do as much as he can to facilitate the building of small cottages in the country.

I want to make a personal appeal to the Minister with reference to the housing in my constituency. The Blaina area has been very badly hit by unemployment for the past five years, and practically no houses have been built there in that period. The housing conditions are deplorable and have been condemned by the county medical officer, while there have been several serious epidemics. I have made personal efforts to get the Minister to receive a deputation from the local authorities, but up to the present without success. The Minister will not say "yes" or "no," but the deputation is denied access to him in London. I understand he is sending down an inspector.

I may point out to the hon. Member that this Vote deals with unemployment. Does he intend to connect this subject with unemployment?

I was going to point out that it is through unemployment that this housing difficulty has arisen because the Minister, owing to the poverty of the area, has refused to sanction a loan. I wish to emphasise, with all courtesy, what I have already said, and I want the Minister to accede to the request which has been made to him by the local authorities. They are not satisfied to be represented by proxy, especially when the proxy is representing himself rather than the authorities. The question of unemployment has been continually before the House of Commons since 1920, and the Minister of Health has acted in more than one capacity with reference to this question. I remember when a deputation, one of the largest which ever waited upon a Minister, waited upon the Prime Minister of the Coalition Government to ask relief for necessitous areas, and one of the strongest spokesmen on that deputation in favour of relief for the necessitous areas was the present Minister of Health. Now he has changed his attitude.

We have brought before the House of Commons on many occasions the condition of these areas, the inhabitants of which are treated as if they were living in penal settlements. Unemployment increases their poverty and, at the same time, increases their local taxation. Opinions have been expressed from all quarters on the question of local taxation, but nothing is being done. A Committee has been set up by the Government and a Report has been made, but the Report is not available to Members of the House and we do not know what are the findings of the Committee. We do know, however, that the misery in these areas is beyond description and why people should be singled out for treatment of this kind in a highly civilised country like ours passes my humble comprehension. It does not matter how many times the question is brought before the House of Commons; a day is appointed, a number of speeches are made and the end is always the same. Nothing whatever is done and the people of these areas are left in a deplorable condition. Industries are being shut down very largely through the increase in the local burden of rates.

The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Charles Edwards) in a forcible speech has given striking figures which ought to receive the serious attention of the Minister. In the Bedwellty area they have paid £500,000 during the last five years to relieve unemployment alone, and the condition of the area is no better now than it was two or three years ago. As a matter of fact, owing to the present lock-out, the whole area is now unemployed. Yet the Government in this Vote are actually reducing the amount for this purpose by £325,000. That reflects no credit on the Government, and the money saved to the national Exchequer will simply increase the local rates. Reference is made in the Vote to juvenile employment, a question which affects my constituency very seriously. For the last four years every boy upon reaching the age of 14 has been turned out of the school and has been unable to get any employment. We have hundreds, if not thousands of boys, who are not receiving education, who are not receiving unemployment benefit and who cannot get employment of any kind. They are to be seen every day half clothed and half fed going with sacks on their backs to pick up pieces of coal at some old "tip"

8.0 P.M.

The condition of the young men in these areas is a disgrace to the country. Nothing is being done to educate them, to find them employment or to train them for employment. Nothing is done for them until they are upwards of 20 years of age. That is a very short-sighted, stupid and cruel policy. These boys ought to be kept at school or trained for some employment. There should be some effort made to maintain these boys, because they are not entitled to unemployment benefit, and it is almost impossible in an area like Bedwellty to get any relief for them from the Poor Law. These are very grave questions. They are questions that are causing tremendous unrest in this country. There is not the slightest doubt that the upheavals that we are seeing day after day are the result of the ignoring of these very profound questions by this House, and it makes one almost despair to get up in this House, month after month and year after year, and recite these terrible details, and to find the Government absolutely callous and deaf and doing nothing whatever to relieve the situation. I should like to refer to other matters in this connection, but I am afraid I should not be in order. There is a matter which arises really out of unemployment, and that is the way in which the Ministry of Health are refusing to lend loans to education authorities and retarding—

I am afraid the prevision of the hon. Member was right.

I am sorry. I did not want to transgress, but I should like to have brought that matter forward, because it is a very serious one to my constituents. I will conclude by making a really honest appeal to the Minister to give deputations access to the Ministry, so that they can themselves lay their grievances before him. It is quite impossible for this work to be done by proxy, however good an officer the right hon. Gentleman may send down to the localities. It will not satisfy these local authorities, and I think they ought to have more generous treatment, and at any rate they should have access to the Minister when they want to come and see him.

If there be any hon. Member—and I do not think there is one, unless it be my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour—who has sat right through this Debate, he will, I think, sympathise with me in my difficulty in trying to clear my mind as to what it is that I have to answer. Hon. Members seem to have been in considerable doubt as to the subject of the Vote which we are supposed to be discussing, and I cannot help observing that more than one hon. and right hon. Gentleman seemed to have no further interest in the Debate after he had discharged his speech. I am glad to be able to except from that observation the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury), who opened this Debate and who is mainly responsible for the fact that we are continuing this Debate to-day. He wanted to have another shot and tell us a little more about his ideas in connection with Hollesley Bay. I have the fullest sympathy, and I am in accord, with the hon. Member in his general theory that no system is satisfactory which attempts to deal with unemployed men simply by giving them enough to live upon but without finding them any work to do. I agree with that position, but, of course, the problem which faces this Government, as it has faced every Government in succession, is really, on the general question of unemployment, to try to find work for people who cannot find work in the trades in which they have been accustomed to work. The situation is, no doubt, specially complicated by the fact that the intervention of the War brought about a situation in which a large number of young men have never had any specialised training and have never had the oppor- tunity, which has been given to young men in the past, of learning a trade. We find ourselves, therefore, in the presence of a considerable number of men who, in normal and ordinary times, would have been skilled men, but who to-day are absolutely unskilled and, therefore, are waiting upon that particular part of the market in which there is the greatest superabundance.

The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) says that the one industry in which there is room for any number of these men is on the land. His chief object, I think, in intervening in this Debate was to give a little further fillip to that land policy which has had such a disastrous effect upon his own party, but he did not tell us to-day, and he never has told us, how you are going to enable the people whom he is going to put on the land to make a living out of it. It is not the slightest use to talk about Denmark and to say that if we had the same number of people in proportion to our population engaged in agriculture as has Denmark, we should not have any unemployed. Of course we should not, but we have to face the facts of the situation as they are to-day, and the fact is this, that Denmark has got its market, and has got it in this country. If we are going to replace Denmark and take the market for ourselves, either we have got to have Protection and to keep the Danish produce out, or else we have got, somehow or other, to find some way of producing here more cheaply than they can produce in Denmark. We have had no help from the right hon. Gentleman on either of those two points, and until he can show us how we are going to enable the people who are going to be taken out of the towns and given a six months' course of training to earn a livelihood on the land by producing more cheaply than that highly organised and specialised nation, Denmark, I, for one, cannot treat his remedy very seriously. Let me come back to the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley. He keeps mixing up two classes of people. He talks about the spirit of adventure which used to carry the old explorers out to every part of the globe, and which now, according to him, animates the ordinary tramp.

No, I meant the person who nowadays is the well-to-do tramp, who goes round in a yacht or a steamship and shoots tigers and wild game and so on—the same spirit, in a very different sense.

Perhaps there is a certain amount of truth in that. At any rate, I agree that there is quite a considerable percentage of the tramps who prefer that style of life to any other. The hon. Member tells us that nowadays there are going to the boards of guardians able-bodied men who, in the ordinary course, would have found work in a skilled trade—

Or unskilled.

Or unskilled, but the difference between Hollesley Bay and the sort of colony which alone has a chance of success is that Hollesley Bay is filled with people who never, under any circumstances, could develop into suitable agricultural workers.

indicated dissent

The hon. Member shakes his head, but that is what I think is the explanation of Hollesley Bay's non-success.

Will the right hon Gentleman go down with me and see?

I should like very much to go down to Hollesley Bay, either with or without the hon. Member, but I am afraid that he cannot get over the fact, which I pointed out the other day, that out of the people who are at Hollesley Bay only an infinitesimal proportion can be found work on the land. I say that you must contrast what has happened at Hollesley Bay with the comparative success which appears to be attending the Ministry of Labour at Laindon. There you have got a colony where people are selected with a view to giving them a training either for oversea settlement or for work on the land. The hon. Member does not want people to go overseas, but I see an hon. Member immediately behind him who thinks that that is the best chance. At any rate, this colony provides both. It provides both for men who want to go overseas and for men who want to stop here, and up to the present the success which has attended this experiment is sufficient, I think, to give us some hope that the experiment may not only be continued in that particular place, but that it may perhaps be extended elsewhere. I think we should all be only too glad if, by the expenditure of a certain amount of money in training these men, you could really succeed in pulling them out of the ruck of the unemployed who never will be able to find work and putting them among the ranks of those who really will be able to provide for themselves.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Sir A. Mond) thinks that the question of necessitous areas cannot be dealt with unless you have very much larger areas than are covered by the existing usage. I am inclined to agree with him, and I can in this respect—in respect of the Necessitous Areas Committee and the whole question of necessitous areas—only repeat in two or three words what I said on the last occasion. I said then that a number of schemes had been put before the Government for the allocation of an Exchequer grant among the so-called necessitous areas. Those schemes have been examined by the Committee which was set up for the purpose, and that Committee has reported that not one of them is a practicable scheme. They have at any rate in several cases reported that, in their opinion, no amendment of the scheme could make it practicable. Then we are told that they ought to have been allowed to look around to see if they could not think of a scheme of their own. To that I say, first of all, that this is no time for coming upon the Exchequer for further grants of £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 to be allocated to various localities and to be paid for by the taxpayers in increased taxation, and, secondly, I say that if you are going to have central funds distributed for this purpose, you must have central control, the very thing which I desire to avoid and which, I believe, I can avoid. I would ask hon. Members who are interested in this subject just to look, if they will, at the report of the speech which I made on the last occasion, and they will see what I believe to be the real, permanent policy which this House ought to adopt in this connection.

I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman did not deal with the question of emigration. A question was put to the effect that the people taken out could only be physically fit and highly skilled, and that it left behind those who were unfit.

It being a quarter past Eight of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No . 8, further Proceeding was postponed, without Question put .

I beg to move,

I do not propose to discuss now the artistic and æsthetic beauties of Waterloo Bridge. I will leave that to others who are more competent than myself. I will only say now, that it is a matter which is to be deprecated to set about the destruction of great monuments erected in the past, if they can be preserved. There is a great tendency in these days to look at everything from an entirely utilitarian point of view, but there are other considerations, and everyone who conies to London, and sees the River Thames with its buildings, particularly Somerset House, the Cathedral of St. Paul's, and the whole vista of the river, must be struck by the beauty of the bridge, and its entire appropriateness to the setting in which it is. It would Be, I venture to submit, a national calamity that a bridge of this beauty, this fame and these associations should be destroyed, unless it were an absolute necessity.

The controversy about Waterloo Bridge has arisen because there has been a serious subsidence of two piers of the bridge, and it had to be closed for a considerable period, and alternative means of crossing the river provided. It is admitted on all hands that the problem of Waterloo Bridge has to be dealt with. I submit that the problem of Waterloo Bridge is not an isolated problem. It is part of the whole problem of traffic crossing the river from North to South, and vice versa, and to deal with Waterloo Bridge as an isolated case would lead to great error, and possibly great extravagance and unnecessary expenditure. It has been contended that the bridge is too narrow for the traffic. As a matter of fact, it has been shown that the traffic over Waterloo Bridge is from 14 per cent. to 15 per cent. less in recent years than it was in the year 1913, so that it cannot be contended that the traffic over the bridge has extended, and for that reason the bridge ought to be destroyed, and another one erected in its place.

I will turn to consider the subsidence of the arches. It is a fact, I believe, that owing to the construction of the Embankment, and other alterations on the banks of the river, the area of the River Thames has been diminished by at least one-tenth since the days when the bridge was constructed, and, by the narrowing of the channel, the rapidity of the tidal stream has been increased, as stands to reason. Therefore, owing to the scouring of the bottom of the river, the speed of the tidal stream has been increased. From this it has happened that a considerable portion of the gravel which overlies the clay-bed of the river under the piers in question has been gradually swept away by the increased speed of the stream, and the construction of the piers, devised to meet the state of things existing more than a century ago, has not proved to be adequate to meet the new conditions. What has happened has been that the gravel stratum has been scoured away and the channel has been deepened. Some years ago an attempt was made to meet this, but it was not successful. Concrete aprons were placed out, but as the scour increased, the bed of the river was swept away. Now the gravel is beginning to be swept away and the two pillars, particularly No. 4, have sunk seriously. In all these matters it is a conflict of expert and engineering evidence. At any rate, a large number of engineers believe that it is possible to underpin these piers and preserve them as part present structure. There is, I say, a conflict of evidence. On the other hand, engineers of great experience in dealing with London's subsoils are prepared to undertake the work and to stake their reputation upon it, and contractors of eminence are prepared to carry out the work if the scheme should be adopted. It is not my business to judge between the experts, but it may be said that the opinion of Sir D. Hay with some variation of detail is supported by a number of engineers with experience at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, London and elsewhere in the kingdom in underpinning of arches and bridges, and this method has been successfully adopted and carried out without difficulty and without loss of life. In the case of the Rhine a bridge carrying the railway was successfully underpinned. I am not contending that these opinions are absolutely decisive, but at any rate it is the opinion of Mr. Dalrymple Hay, and firms are prepared to undertake the work and preserve the piers and Waterloo Bridge as it now exists.

In the reports made upon the reconstruction of the Bridge I rather gather that the London County Council engineer's estimate for the work, which means the underpinning of the piers, is£988,000. The estimate for underpinning the bridge as it now exists and filling in the two archways which are more or less defective would be from £650,000 to £725,000. But this is not what the County Council is now proposing. They have abandoned the scheme for reconstructing and spending, approximately, £1,000,000 to take down the bridge and reconstruct it, because they now come to the House and ask us to vote a sum towards taking down the bridge completely and building a new bridge. It is stated that the County Council is now proceeding to call for competitive designs for an entirely new bridge, the cost of which we do not know. The sum of £1,500,000 has been more or less vaguely talked of in connection with this matter. I think I have said enough to show that there is a very strong case indeed for believing that Waterloo Bridge can be preserved if it is desired to do so. On the ground of keeping a great national monument, even apart from the traffic going across it, there is no reason to destroy the bridge. In fact to put a new bridge over that part of the river would be in the opinion of experts to interfere with the traffic in the Strand, and would lead to greater congestion and greater difficulty of traffic than at the present time. I put it to the House that this problem of the traffic across the river is not going to be solved by a new Waterloo Bridge of a wider description. It is no use driving the traffic into a dead end, or into the congested traffic running at right angles. Something else has got to be done, and this problem of Waterloo Bridge reconstruction will not help us for one moment or help the great problem of the north and south traffic across the Thames.

There is the case of St. Paul's Bridge and the case of Lambeth Bridge, and the case of the projected Charing Cross bridge. I venture to suggest that at this juncture that it is folly to spend £1,500,000 when we do know, whether the London County Council or anyone likes it or not, in the immediate future something must be undertaken, something must be done to find an alternative means of crossing the Thames between Waterloo Bridge and the present Westminster Bridge: that is to make a high level bridge which will reach over the Strand and take the north and south traffic further back into London where it can be dealt with without congestion.

I believe this somewhat rapid decision, this sudden decision to destroy Waterloo Bridge, a wrong step has been taken, and inquiry should be set up to deal with all the factors in the case, and to deal with them on the Floor of this House. The whole problem of London traffic as well as the beauty of the Thames and its aesthetic and architectural possibilities should be left to that inquiry. There need be no very long delay in dealing with this matter. This controversy has lasted for some time, and the various technical and professional opinions as to what is required should be got and harmonised so as to bring them into proper relation one with another and so deal with the problem, not on the smaller question of the destruction of Waterloo Bridge which ought not to be destroyed at all, but should continue to fulfil any useful and necessary and efficient function in dealing with its share of London across the river traffic. What is required is the investigation I Rave suggested and a report, and the most expert opinions which can be got together, for this is not a case only of the London County Council; it is a national problem and one in which Parliament should have its share. For these reasons and others which I hope other hon. Members will put forward I venture to bring this proposal before the House and to move that Item 9 be omitted from the Bill in order that an inquiry may be held.

I beg to second the Amendment.

During the last few years since the War every kind of municipality in this country has been engaged in setting up war memorials. Suppose that instead of erecting all those separate war memorials we had, as a nation, collectively, built somewhere in London the finest architectural memorial that we could devise, and had lavished upon it all the art of which our greatest artists were capable, and then suppose that 100 years hence it was found to be inconvenient for traffic. Do you imagine it would be easy to persuade people to destroy that war memorial for the sake of convenience? Waterloo Bridge was by Act of Parliament designated Waterloo Bridge, and erected as a memorial to the gallantry and the achievements of our Army at the Battle of Waterloo. It is the memorial of the Waterloo campaign, officially so made and so consecrated by this House. Now we are asked, upon some practical grounds, to knock down this war memorial of our ancestors, to destroy that which was set up in memory of their deeds. A more miserable proposition was never laid before the people of this country.

This Waterloo Bridge, besides being thus sentimentally sacred to the people of this country, is, I make bold to say, the finest architectural achievement of the 19th century not only in this country but in all Europe. If I am asked to substantiate that statement I shall, of course, find it difficult to do so, because tastes differ, some people think one way and some another, but that is the general consensus of the opinion of the civilised world, at least of that part of it which pays attention and which develops its taste in these matters. The bridge is not only a noble work of architecture, renowned throughout the whole world, but it occupies a position of such extraordinary eminence in the midst of this greatest city on earth that its reputation is worldwide. It stands adjacent to Somerset House, and from the principal points from which it is to be seen, looking down the river, it stands as a foreground to the dome of St. Paul's. The combination of that beautiful bridge with that noble building at its end, and with St. Paul's rising behind, is, in fact, the one great vista, the one great magnificent scene that this city possesses. That is London! For all the peoples of the world, and the peoples of our own race scattered about the world who come to London, that must be one of the great visions that will recur to their minds when they go away. And we are asked to destroy that and to put some kind of modern structure in the place of that!

We are asked to do this for practical reasons. Practical reasons have their value, but they have also their limitations. Nobody, I suppose, would be willing to drive a road through Westminster Abbey for practical reasons; I doubt if they would tunnel under St. Paul's, for practical reasons; I almost doubt whether they would drive a highway through this House, for practical reasons. There are limitations, and the question is where the line is to be drawn. Sometimes there will be objects of national interest and importance which lie balanced on the line of division, and some people may say one thing and some another as to destroying or preserving them. The people of Croydon, to take a small instance, found the Whitgift Hospital extremely inconvenient, and in order to make some exit from the town more convenient they desired to cut off a corner of Whitgift Hospital and thus to ruin its architectural value. They were not allowed to do it—I think it was this House which interposed some difficulty—and were forced to keep their most precious treasure—not that many of them knew it was so; but to their very great advantage they were prevented from destroying a portion of an ancient building of considerable, interest and much beauty, for practical reasons. In that case the sentimental or the artistic reason was held to override the practical reason, and the road had to twist itself about a little bit.

There is a by-pass road round it.

Well, there may be a by-pass round Waterloo Bridge. I have been a little bit pontifical, and I apologise to the House for thus describing the superlative eminence of Waterloo Bridge as a work of art, but I am supported by official bodies, whose opinion one is bound to take into account. The Royal Academy has pronounced in favour of the retention of Waterloo Bridge, for artistic reasons. The Royal Institute of British Architects has expressed a similar opinion; and the London Society, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Architectural Club, and other bodies of repute, whose opinion carries weight, support absolutely what I have said about the artistic value of Waterloo Bridge.

Not only is it a magnificent work of architecture, but it is an extraordinary piece of craftsmanship, of laying stone upon stone, worked by hand in the manner that is no longer likely to be followed in any building hereafter to be erected. It represents a bygone and very magnificent work of the hands of man. Apart altogether from its artistic value, as a piece of craftsmanship, as a memorial to the skill of the handicraftsmen of a hundred years ago, it ranks highest amongst all the works that exist in this country. Every man who laid hands on its building must have been proud of the exercise of his handicraft on so splendid a thing; and as a memorial to handicraft as well as a memorial to art, and standing as it does in the heart of London, it deserves to be preserved to the end of all the ages.

Why is it to be destroyed? It is held that the traffic problem overrides the supreme artistic value of this work, and that for considerations of traffic it must be done away with. The phrase in the Schedule of the Bill speaks of the bridge being "reconstructed," whereas the proposition is nothing of the kind. If we hold the county council to the wording of that Schedule, what they ask for is money to reconstruct the bridge. We would not mind that, if that is what they were going to do. But what they mean by reconstruct is to destroy, and build a new bridge, and that is not reconstruction. Reconstruction, yes, but destruction, no! The traffic problem amounts to this: You have, by the necessity of things, two lines of traffic, one going North and South and one going East and West, and they have to cross the bridge. That is the problem you have to overcome. You get in no degree a solution of that problem by widening the bridge. Even if you double the width of the bridge you double the block in the Strand, and make things still worse. Therefore, that is no solution of the problem at all. The problem of the London traffic is a very much larger thing than that. You have got sooner or later to tackle that problem on a large scale and face the necessity of constructing a bridge at Charing Cross. That is a thing we must come up against sooner or later, and that is what we shall have to do. You may postpone, but you will not really improve the serious problem of London traffic except by a great undertaking in the Charing Cross direction.

One of the practical reasons which leads me to oppose with all the vigour I can this undertaking foreshadowed by the London County Council is because it will really be spending a large sum of money which will tend to postpone the tackling of the problem on the large scale in which it must eventually be tackled. When you have spent £1,000,000 or £1,500,000 in this way you have really done nothing to tackle the real problem. We have also been threatened with a bridge at St. Paul's which would be a terrible disaster, and would mean a great danger to St. Paul's Cathedral. We are also threatened with the destruction of Waterloo Bridge, and the third misfortune is the postponement for years to come of the very necessary construction of a bridge at Charing Cross. That triple disaster is threatened, and I entreat the House at all events to save us from one of the prongs of this fatal trident.

The whole question of our London bridges should be treated as a single problem. At the present time the London County Council have part of the river to look after, and the City Corporation have to look after another part, but no single authority is taking the problem of our London bridges into its consideration. No authoritative commission has ever examined the whole question, taking into consideration the history of the past and the likelihood of developments in the future. I hope as a result of this Debate that the Government may perhaps see fit to appoint a Commission to look into the entire problem as one great and single problem, regarding it in all its aspects in order to arrive at a solution which will benefit the whole city and improve instead of damage its beauty, and which will find a solution of this problem on practical lines, at the same time preserving the amenities and the beauty of which we have had reason to be proud in the past.

This question was before the House two years ago when I had the honour of representing the County Council on the introduction of the Money Bill of that year. We were then at the beginning of our troubles with Waterloo Bridge. We discussed it then not only in connection with the bridge known as Waterloo Bridge, but in relation to the general traffic problem of London in connection with bridges over the Thames. I want to assure the House that the London County Council has taken no hasty action in regard to this matter. For two years they have been considering this question, and we have had the advice of eminent engineers who have served the Council for many years and eminent engineers outside the Council itself, some of whom have world wide reputations. We have also had the advice of many people interested in this question not only from the engineering but also the architectural point of view and also from the purely aesthetic and historical point of view, and everyone has had an opportunity of laying their views before the Council. Meanwhile the position in regard to the bridge has become very much worse as far as the traffic is concerned, and we were obliged to build a temporary bridge alongside of Waterloo Bridge to take the necessary traffic. That relieved the position somewhat so far as the traffic was concerned, but it did not in any way solve the problem.

We have had four alternative courses placed before us, and it was not until the end of last last year that the Council itself, after various deliberations, many consultations, and after receiving many deputations which came before the Council, took a final decision in this matter, and then the Council decided by an overwhelming majority that the re-building of the bridge was the only course which the Council could safely take.

Will the hon. Member tell the House how he voted on that occasion?

By 82 votes to 32 it was decided that the only course to take was that the old bridge should be pulled down and a new bridge put in its place. The hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green has asked me to state how I voted on that occasion. I have no hesitation in saying that I voted in the minority, because I honestly believed at the end of last year that it was quite possible to reconstruct the bridge, although at a very great cost. As to the artistic value of the bridge, I agree with everything said by the Seconder of this Resolution, and I believed that the problem of the bridge itself might have been solved by a reconstruction or underpinning of Waterloo Bridge. But I believe that no longer. Now matters have gone very much worse with the bridge itself, and I believe the cost of underpinning, or rather, reconstructing the bridge, would be very much heavier than it was then; and I have come to the conclusion, after a further and much more minute study of the traffic problem, that the traffic problem in London is growing so rapidly that it would be almost useless to continue to have, where Waterloo Bridge is now, a bridge which only takes three lines of traffic.

I was saying that we had four possible courses before us. The first course would have been to underpin the existing bridge, as was suggested by an eminent engineer. If we had done that, it is quite true that a year ago we might, perhaps, have saved the bridge, but, so far as traffic was concerned, we should still only have had the old Waterloo Bridge, of its old size, with three lines' of traffic, and nobody knew what would be the actual cost of underpinning. We were told by an eminent engineer, who is specially interested in the matter, that it would cost £650,000, but I am inclined to think it would cost a good deal more. The second course that we had before us was to reconstruct Waterloo Bridge in its present state, that is to say, exactly as it is now, with its three lines of traffic, but with much stronger, deeper and firmer foundations. That, we were told, would cost £988,000. That may be a sound estimate or not; it is almost impossible to gauge the truth of estimates1 of this kind.

The third course suggested was that we should rebuild Waterloo Bridge, building it much wider so as to take four lines of traffic. The advantage would be that the bridge would be able to carry more of the traffic which we believe will in time require to go over Waterloo Bridge, wherever other bridges are built across the Thames. That, however, would only give one more line of traffic, and it would have the very unfortunate effect of interfering seriously with the river traffic. In considering the question of Waterloo Bridge, we should never forget that there are two kinds of traffic which have to be considered, the river traffic and the over-bridge traffic. To deepen the existing narrow, 120-foot arches of Waterloo Bridge would have a dangerous effect on the river traffic. It would render the navigation of the river much more difficult to have deep arches than to have the arches as they are now, and, if the bridge were broadened, the arches must necessarily be deepened, although it would not be possible at the same time to make them of larger span. Therefore considering also that this would cost a little over £1,000,000, we decided that it was not a suitable method of dealing with the problem.

The fourth plan was to pull down Waterloo Bridge and build an entirely new bridge—a, stone bridge taking six lines of traffic, with arches of a span of 180 feet, and with only five arches instead of the existing eight. That would solve to a very large extent the traffic problem; so far as we can see it, it would solve it for the moment. It gives ample room and space for the river traffic, and it allows six lines of traffic on Waterloo Bridge itself. That scheme would probably cost a little over £1,250,000. The Council decided to adopt that fourth plan, and all I have to say further on the matter is this: We have as a duty to look to this matter as a traffic problem primarily, and we consider that, from the point of view of traffic, whatever may be the case with regard to the future planning of Charing Cross Bridge or any other bridge over the Thames, it is essential that there should be a proper cross-river traffic where Waterloo Bridge is now. In the second place, for us, who have to ask the ratepayers for their money, it is a problem, if we are going to spend £750,000, or £1,000,000, or £1,250,000 of the ratepayers' money, whether we are justified in asking the ratepayers for that money merely for the preservation of an historic monument.

9.0 P.M.

For these reasons the council decided to rebuild Waterloo Bridge, and what we are askings for now is £100,000 in order to begin operations. I hope that the House will not pass this Instruction, because in that case one of two things must happen. If we are allowed no money for this specific purpose this year, what are we to do in the existing ruinous state of Waterloo Bridge? Are we to do nothing? It looks to me, on the other hand, as though we should have to take it out of the rates. We have no money for this purpose, and I hardly think that the hon. and gallant Member who moved this Instruction tonight would like to see the London County Council bleeding the ratepayers for this purpose by taking it out of the rates account. It is quite certain that money will have to be spent on making the existing Waterloo Bridge safe within the next 12 months, and, unless we get the money now for that purpose, it will be very difficult indeed for the council to deal with the necessary repairs to the bridge itself. I have put the case for the council as succinctly as possible. Four courses have been open to us; we have given full consideration to every one of them, and we have come to the conclusion, with very much reluctance on the part of some of us, especially myself, that nothing can be done with the present Waterloo Bridge to make it a good solution of the traffic problem, and that we shall have to pull it down and build a new bridge.

I rise for the purpose of opposing the Motion, and I do so with due regard to all the sentiments that have been expressed about this wonderful bridge. I remember, during the short time that I was at the Ministry of Transport, meeting those who were interested in Waterloo and other bridges and I remember that in one case the last word to me from the deputation, whom I received sympathetically because my feelings were with them, was that the bridge should not be destroyed because Shakespeare once walked over it. That, I am sure, is the difficulty in which the Minister of Transport now finds himself in matters of this kind; he is torn between those who want the improvement made and those who want the monument to remain where it is. I speak rather from the river point of view, which has not been touched upon quite so strongly as the traffic problem. I remember Waterloo Bridge for, I suppose, quite as long as anyone in this House. I have known it all my life. When I was an apprentice I helped to take the timber to Waterloo Bridge to save it from subsidence, and, on looking up the accounts of that operation, I find that considerably over £500,000 was spent upon it. I remember helping to float to the spot the elm piles which were put round the bridge. If the bridge is again to be repaired in the same kind of way, I suppose it would last for perhaps another 60 or 70 years. If the bridge is going to remain there all that time it is going to be an obstruction over which I do not know how we shall get.

The modernising of the river has been so great during the last 30 years that it calls for a different kind of traffic entirely from what was known when Waterloo Bridge was built. When I was a young fellow on the river, we used rather to like these obstructions because they kept novices away. Unless you knew the way to negotiate a bridge, you could not get through. I remember the obstruction of Waterloo Bridge from my very early days. It always wanted a very practical man to find his way through with much smaller craft than have to go through now. It was the same at Vauxhall, old Battersea, Putney and Kew, but they have all gone. I have learned wisdom since then, and I can quite see that that kind of obstruction must go. Though I give way to no one in my admiration of Waterloo Bridge, I should prefer to see it somewhere else nowadays than where it is. If by any means it could be transported to the higher reaches of the river it would be an excellent thing to do. While it was able to stand and could be used, for the sentimental reasons which have been put forward no one liked to complain of it, but when it is in the state it is in now and the suggestion is to practically rebuild it, you are going to rebuild a real obstruction, which will be realised more and more as the years go on. It is not as if you were just doing it up for a year or two. You must do it in such a way that it will stand for the next 60 or 70 years. It is over 40 years since it was done, and it has stood all this time, and to expend anything like £500,000 or more means that you must be doing something that will last a great number of years.

With all the improvements that have been made, we have now the finest docks in the world, and the river is the only way from them. There is no way from them by land, until you get a new road, which is going to cost £4,000,000 or £5,000,000, to the docks, and Heaven knows when that is going to be done. The river is the only great highway that we have. On the land you have the power, if there is a chance of doing it, of shifting the traffic, perhaps this way or that, but on the river you have not. There is only one waterway, and if you allow an obstruction to remain you can see the effect that is going to have on all the craft that will be used in the next 30 or 40 years. The whole of the riverside is altering. I have the same admiration as others have for a bridge like Waterloo, and for the whole riverside. It reeks with interest. Look at the Tower. I could run right down the river and give you all the places—I know them so well. The trouble is that you cannot widen Waterloo Bridge. If you widen it it will not be navigable. The hon. Member who spoke for the County Council said it would make navigation more difficult. It would make navigation impossible if the bridge was widened. It is at such a heavy angle that only by knowing the way can you find a way through. If it were any wider you would not get through without damage. Barges and the kind of craft now used on the river are more than double the size they were w*hen the last repair took place, and the tendency, as the wharves get better and machinery improves, is to increase the size of the craft for the cheaper and better transit of traffic. I remember the day when I thought it was better to have obstructions, that it was better for the navigation to be difficult and for craft to be small, but I do not think that any longer. Take the whole of London up to, say, Brentford. You have modernised all the bridges right through except this one, and while this might have stood as long as it was able, it would in my opinion be a great mistake to spend a great deal of money on it and perpetuate what is really an obstruction for a great number of years.

The only other word I want to say is this. After all, you are dealing with a body of some importance, the London County Council—which ought to know its own business. I will not say this House has no right to interfere, but it ought to be very careful how it interferes with a great body like the County Council. I entirely agree with the suggestion—I made it when I was at Whitehall for that little time—that it would be a great advantage if all those who are responsible for bridges across the Thames tried to act together, but whatever you do and whatever you say, you cannot get away from the fact that this bridge will come down altogether if you are not very careful, because having put the piles in to hold the bridge up, it is making the scour much more intense and I believe is affecting some of the other piers, which will have to be looked at very soon. The bridge has practically got to come down if it goes up again—it amounts to the same thing. The great demand is that it should be wider. If you make it wider, you obstruct the navigation to such an extent that you will have done a lasting injury to the traffic on the Thames. For these reasons I oppose the Motion, and hope the House will allow the County Council to do its own business in its own way.

The hon. Gentleman has made, as we all feel, not only a very charming but a very effective speech, and I am sure I am not the only one who has been much impressed by it. I agree entirely when he claims that the House should exercise its undoubted rights very carefully before it interferes with the deliberate judgment of the London County Council, and I agree with him also when he says practical considerations of traffic, whether afloat or on the road, are considerations which must be given full weight.

Waterloo Bridge, besides being in the charge of the London County Council as one of the municipal adjuncts in connection with traffic, is a great national monument, and while I would most gladly acquiesce, once there is preponderate authoritative judgment expressed that the bridge cannot be preserved without wholly disproportionate practical inconvenience and fearful expense, I am not prepared to accept the suggestion that it should be pulled down and destroyed until that situation is really established. The hon. Member for West Fulham (Sir C. Cobb), to whose speech we listened with great attention, will pardon me when I say that I have not in the least appreciated the processes of his mind which enabled him a few months ago to vote against the particular proposal which he is now recommending to the House. He voted only a few months ago as a member of the County Council against this very proposal. He told the House that something has happened to him—I do not know what—between December of last year and the present time, which has convinced him that his second thoughts are best.

I did not say that anything has happened to me, but that a good deal has happened to the bridge.

The hon. Member's foundations have been undermined and he thinks it is hopeless to underpin. Anyone who has studied the documents, as far as they are available, will have some difficulty in understanding why an opinion which was held a few months ago that we ought to have some authoritative judgment expressed as the result of an impartial inquiry, should be abandoned at the present time. Let me point out to the House what appears from the actual document issued by the London County Council. I have here the agenda of the county council for the 15th December last year. This document shows that a bridges' sub-committee had been appointed which was considering this subject in detail. The report of the Improvement of Bridges sub-committee of the 10th December, 1925, covers a number of pages, drawn up and signed by Mr. R. C. Norman, a most distinguished member of the county council. The report shows that the subcommittee, specially appointed for the purpose, had had before them the traffic considerations in great detail, the views of a number of very expert gentlemen, engineers and others, and they reported most faithfully to the body which appointed them what was the effect upon their minds of this mass of material. They say that, counting all the engineers who from first to last have made considered reports on the subject,

"technical opinion is as equally divided as it is possible to be with regard to the practicability of maintaining the existing structure."

I understand that doctors may differ, like lawyers and other unnecessary persons, but it is a very different thing to come to the House of Commons and say that there is formed by expert opinion, by which we are bound to be guided, an overwhelming preponderance of judgment that this bridge cannot be saved, and to say that the situation is, that it is "six of one and half a dozen of the other," and that

"technical opinion is as equally divided as it is possible to be"—

That is the present situation according to the sub-committee.

Will the right hon. and learned Member explain to the House what else the Committee said?

I am going to do so. Next, they quoted with approval this view of the Bridges' Committee— These being the conclusions of this committee, what is it they recommended to the county council? They pointed out in their report that policy in this matter is necessarily dependent upon engineering considerations, and that the council, with all respect to its members, is a most unsuitable body for the determination of vexed technical questions. The hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Gosling) has assured us, from very long and interesting experience, that he fears the bridge is going to fall down, but that does not impress me much, because this question really depends upon extremely expert judgment of engineers and others. Therefore, this sub-committee of the county council only five months ago recommended the county council on these lines:

What happened to the report of this sub-committee? It came before the County Council, and it was proposed that the very course should be taken to which I have referred, and the hon. Member for West Fulham—I am not in the least reproaching him, but I am pointing out a very material fact—a most experienced and valued member of the council, voted in favour of that proposal, yet to-day he is recommending the House of Commons to authorise the destruction of the bridge. There was another view expressed by a gentleman of great eminence, who moved to leave out all the words after a certain word in line 1, and to substitute the following resolution:

There can be no question whatever among persons of any party who really feel the importance of preserving these great historic traditions, that it is an immense misfortune if this bridge has to be pulled down. Whatever may be the wisdom of the County Council, it is quite certain once they pull it down they will never be able to give us again a memorial of that age. I cannot imagine that, thinking of these practical considerations, that we ought to see this in any other spirit than the spirit in which we expect the London County Council in a hundred years' time to consider a proposal on the grounds of traffic inconvenience or what not, to move the Cenotaph from Whitehall. The fact is that apart from this being admittedly one of the most splendid monuments of the genius of Rennie, apart from it being characteristic of that combination of practical skill with beauty of form and usefulness which may be found in that age, it stands at a place in London where every visitor realises that it is one of our great treasures. What is going to be said of the House of Commons if it has to be written of this Parliament, "You did not think it necessary to get rid of Charing Cross Railway Bridge, but you pulled down Waterloo Bridge instead." I cannot believe that people who really respect the great possessions of the nation would do that. Therefore, I submit while no doubt this has to be done, if it is proved that it cannot be maintained or if it is established that the inconvenience is so gross and other methods were impossible, that we must sacrifice a great artistic treasure, I do submit that the circumstances as I have tried to describe them, do not justify the County Council in getting this power from the House of Commons. Their own subcommittee has strongly recommended another and more careful course. There are known to be extremely authoritative persons who believe that the bridge can perfectly well be restored and maintained and in those circumstances I think it would be a pity if the House of Commons were to give authority which, once given, can never be withdrawn and authorise a destruction which hereafter we might bitterly regret.

The right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) has expressed a hope that this matter of Waterloo Bridge might be referred to some impartial tribunal. I have the honour to be a member of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, and this matter has been referred to them by the Minister. It has been under their consideration now for some considerable time, and whatever the right hon. Member for Spen Valley may think of that Committee from its personnel, I would remind him that it was entrusted by Parliament with dealing with the great problem of London traffic and many problems of the co-ordination of that traffic. I hope it may be of interest to the House if I briefly tell the conclusions that that Advisory Committee came to and the reason for its conclusions. It was decided that the problem of Waterloo Bridge could not be treated as an isolated problem of a single bridge. It was felt that the bridge problem should be treated as whole. The Committee, therefore, with all the advice and facts in possession of the officials of the Ministry, have been considering the bridge problem in that way. We decided to deal with what I call the bridges in the centre zone of London, that is seven bridges commencing with Tower Bridge, and ending with Vauxhall.

I need not remind this House that four of those bridges are under the control of the City Corporation, the Tower, London, Southwark and Blackfriars, and four are vested in the London County Council: Waterloo, Westminster, Lambeth and Vauxhall. I hope I may be allowed to express the deep debt of gratitude that the Committee feels to its Chairman, Sir Henry Maybury, who collected and collated the vast amount of detail that was necessary. This great splendid Report which he submitted to the Committee formed the basis of their deliberations and the decision they came to. I am not going to burden this House with all the decisions we came to, but I would merely refer to the decision in regard to Waterloo Bridge. The main result of our deliberations was this, that to-day 43 per cent. of the whole of the traffic across the bridges in that zone is passing over two bridges, London Bridge and Westminster Bridge. We unanimously came to the conclusion that the time is not far distant when some relief will have to be given to those two famous bridges. May I give a few short figures showing the tremendous increase of traffic over the seven bridges in the last 12 years? Statistics have been taken during July from eight o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at night of the traffic passing over these bridges. The first figure was taken in 1913 and the second figure in 1925, for the three City bridges—Southwark Bridge as a matter of fact at that time was in the hands of the engineers—and the result is as follows: In 1913, 42,000 vehicles, with a tonnage of 147,000 tons, went over the three City bridges. In 1925 it had increased to 48,000 vehicles, with a tonnage of 209,000 tons, an increase of 14 per cent. in vehicles and 42 per cent. in tonnage.

When we come to the three bridges under the control of the London County Council—and once again one of the bridges, Lambeth Bridge, is out of action—we have very startling figures. In 1913 there passed over these three bridges, Waterloo, Vauxhall and Westminster, 36,000 vehicles. In 1925 there were 52,000 vehicles, an increase of over 44 per cent. and the tonnage over these three bridges had increased at the rate of about 35 per cent. Coming to Waterloo Bridge itself we had these rather interesting figures. Waterloo Bridge is, of course, the narrowest of all the London Bridges. It has only accommodation for three lines of traffic, whereas the approaches to the bridge, on both sides—and this is a most important point—will accommodate five lines of traffic. You have the fact, therefore, that here is a bridge whose approaches can accommodate five lines of traffic on both sides coming to a bottle neck with only three lines of traffic possible, and I am expressing the unanimous view of the Traffic Advisory Committee that in central London to-day any bridge which has only three lines of traffic is uneconomic. It can only be used economically by using it for one-way traffic only, and that is an intolerable way in which to treat a great London central bridge.

Does the hon. Member suggest that the traffic over Waterloo Bridge has also increased. Is it not a fact that the traffic over that bridge has decreased?

I am coming to that point. The traffic over Waterloo Bridge has decreased by 14 per cent. as compared with 1913, and I am able to give some satisfactory reasons for that decrease. If we take the tonnage which is passing over the whole of these seven bridges to-day at 10O per cent., then only 6 per cent. of that tonnage is passing over Waterloo Bridge, and the reason is this, that Waterloo Bridge has for some time been avoided by vehicles, and the traffic that should have passed over that bridge has been diverted to Westminster Bridge. Let me give some rather interesting figures in proof of this. Take Westminster Bridge, for which, I am sure, every Member of this House has a great personal affection and reverance, and comparing 1913 with 1925, for the hours between eight in the morning and eight at night—the number of vehicles over Westminster Bridge has increased by no less than 82·5 per cent., and the tonnage by 87·6 per cent. This amazing increase over Westminster Bridge, which now takes more traffic on the vehicular basis and the tonnage basis than any other bridge in London, is largely due, in our opinion, to the divorce of the traffic which clearly should have gone over a bridge like Waterloo Bridge. Whilst there is no fear or anxiety for Westminster Bridge at this moment, and, indeed, an eminent firm of civil engineers have recently reported favourably upon it, I would like to ask the House to contemplate what might happen if the strain on Westminster Bridge became too great. The presence of the County Hall and St. Thomas's Hospital at one end of the bridge practically makes it impossible to put up by the side of it some temporary arrangement, such as was erected by Waterloo Bridge, and so the Traffic Advisory Committee look with great anxiety to the future of Westminster Bridge because of the possibility of it being overstrained and the impossibility of giving it relief.

What are the alternatives which the Committee have considered? We have considered most carefully every one of the alternatives mentioned to-night. We have considered the question of underpinning the present Waterloo Bridge, and I can assure the House that we have had nothing but admiration for the great efforts, the sympathetic efforts, of that great volume of artistic opinion which has been standing for the preservation of that bridge. We have admired the great efforts of the Earl of Crawford and many other distinguished men. We fully sympathise with their point of view, but we have to look at this problem from a traffic point of view. I need not stress what has been said—namely, the difference in cost, the problematic figure that has been given for underpinning Waterloo Bridge and the figure of £1,500,000 which the new bridge is supposed to cost. It has been said to us, as it has been said here to-night, why do you not build a new bridge at Charing Cross? That is a very common argument, and we have carefully considered that proposal. I am sure the House will allow me to give our views on the question of Charing Cross Bridge. It has been advocated for many years, and there will be agreement in this House that the unsightly iron railway bridge mars a vista across the Thames of unparalleled beauty. We shall all agree on that, but I sometimes wonder whether people realise what it would cost. The removal of Charing Cross railway station to the south side of the river, the removal of the bridge itself and the building of a new traffic bridge, we are advised would cost, after paying compensation of one kind and another, something in the neighbourhood of £15,000,000. I would remind the House further of this, that it would receive the most stubborn opposition from the Southern Railway. They will tell you that every day they bring into the railway station from 35,000 to 45,000 people, and what that great volume of traffic means is a very serious problem.

Another proposal made to us is to let the station remain and construct an entirely new railway bridge and superimpose upon it a capacious road bridge. We have said "No" to that proposal. It would cost untold millions. Another proposition we have had is a bridge commencing at Nurse Cavell's statue sweeping over the Strand by means of a bridge, across the Thames and meeting the present Waterloo Bridge where it joins Waterloo Road. The cost of that proposal, we are assured, will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £5,000,000. All these things were most carefully considered by the Committee. I hope I may be allowed to read a few sentences on these two matters of Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge from the Report of the Traffic Advisory Committee on London Bridges, which was submitted to the Minister: pros and cons, have decided to support the County Council. My hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Sir M. Conway) asked about the block which might occur in the Strand if six lines of traffic suddenly came in place of three. My answer to that is this—that that would have been a pertinent point of criticism perhaps a year ago, but during this year the Committee have been experimenting at great centres with gyratory forms of traffic. They can be seen outside this House, in Trafalgar Square and at Hyde Park Corner. We shall be able to cope with increased traffic in the Strand because of the new system of movement in Trafalgar Square, and also because the Strand itself is becoming more and more a one-way street.

Just a word in conclusion with regard to the future. In dealing with the bridge problem in London you must always take a big conception and the long view. I have told the House the lesson of the last 10 years in the growth of traffic over these bridges. What is to be the result of the next 10 or 20 years? In 1921 in Greater London the number of people who held a licence to drive a motor was one in 48. In 1925 it was one in 25. That is to say that in four years the motor-owning public of Greater London has practically doubled. What is it going to be in the next 10 years? In 1910 the journeys per head of the population in Greater London, for trains, omnibuses and trams, were 250, while in 1925 they were 440. There you have two factors, an enormous increase of motor vehicles and increased travelling by the general public. There is another great factor. New towns are arising in Greater London. The London County Council, through its wise decision in regard to housing at Becontree, Downham and Bellingham, is causing new towns to arise, and we are advising and welcoming that proposal.

I have had the privilege, thanks to the kindness of my right hon. Friend the Minister, of acting on a Court of Inquiry into improved travelling facilities in North London and East London, and we have the same appeal from all these millions of men and women, "Give us improved travelling facilities." The essentials of improved facilities are fluidity of traffic and rapidity of traffic. One of the greatest problems of congestion to-day is the insufficiency of bridges across the Thames. It is no use building wide roads if when you come to the Thames you have bottle-necks. Bridges are the key positions. So the Advisory Committee, without hesitation, has advised the Minister, who referred this matter to them, to support the London County Council, and I hope that this House will not be unmindful, as the late Minister of Transport has told the House, that the London County Council is a great body to whom this House by Statute has entrusted the bridges.

I intervene in the Debate for only two or three minutes. I have a very uneasy feeling that if the subsidence of Waterloo Bridge had not taken place we should never have heard anything with regard to the widening of the bridge. I am certain that, but for the unfortunate subsidence, the Traffic Committee, the County Council and other authorities would not have interfered with Waterloo Bridge. We have had a very interesting lecture with regard to the fact that Waterloo Bridge can very easily and safely be repaired. My humble contribution to the Debate is this: I have always taken a deep interest in the river, as the hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Gosling) knows. I was Chairman of the Bridges Committee of the County Council on more than one occasion, and I suggest that Waterloo Bridge ought to be repaired and maintained as a memorial of Waterloo. The hon. Member for Whitechapel referred to the fact that it is very difficult to navigate Waterloo Bridge. I have done a good deal of sailing, and have also navigated in the river, and I think that that is the case. But what is the proposal? He admits that the scour comes across the river at a very awkward angle indeed. It is proposed now, instead of having a three-line traffic bridge, to make it a six-line bridge. I suggest that that will make the navigation at that particular point double as difficult as it is now.

The right hon. Baronet forgets that the new bridge will have only five spans.

That is all very well, but in spite of that the set of the river at that particular point, through an arch which is practically a tunnel, will make the river very difficult to navigate. I challenge the hon. Member for Whitechapel to contradict that statement. He knows the traffic difficulties well. The long barges that they have now, with a bridge having six lines of traffic, will be a danger to navigation. I am very much surprised that the Port of London Authority have not taken action with regard to that very fact.

The Port of London Authority want the bridge, and support the idea.

My second point is that we are essentially a dilatory race. I recollect many years ago, when I was more active in this House, fighting a battle in regard to national buildings—the Board of Education and the other buildings—which were being put up in Great George Street. That corner was about to be built, and there was a magnificent design with a cupola at the top. It was suggested then that, inasmuch as the rest of the building could not be proceeded with for some time, the cupola should not be put up at that time. I insisted that the cupola should be put up, although everyone said it would be unsightly, because it would be years before the rest of the building was put up. Had that cupola not been put up, the corresponding cupola at the other end would never have been erected, and that design never have been completed. The point of that story is that if you widen Waterloo Bridge and make it into a six-line traffic bridge, the Charing Cross Bridge will not be built for 20, 30 or 40 years. People will be content; they will say that the expense of the Charing Cross Bridge is too great. On the other hand, if Waterloo Bridge is merely repaired, and frankly made into a monument of Waterloo, I believe the Charing Cross Bridge would be forced on the attention of London, and would be built.

In spite of the objections of the railway, everyone admits that a bridge at that point is absolutely necessary. I do not think the point about taking the station to the other side of the river weighs with people at all. One hon. Member spoke of 35,000 people using it. I am surprised that there are only 35,000 people, and I do not think that is an argument against a Charing Cross Bridge. If only 35,000 people use it, surely it ought to be swept away, and we ought to have a proper bridge there. I ask hon. Members to mark my words. I am speaking in this House (my words will be reported), and I say that 20 or 30 years hence Charing Cross Bridge will not be built, if the present Waterloo Bridge be pulled down and another constructed in its place. Canova, one of the greatest critics of his time, said it was worth while coming to London to see Waterloo Bridge alone, and I ask hon. Members to bear that in mind.

I yield to no one who has taken part in this Debate as regards admiration for the beauty of Waterloo Bridge. I am essentially a Londoner, and I am very proud of that monument, as it has been described, and I have enjoyed the view from it as many other Members have, but although Keats has told us that its beauty. In regard to this bridge, we find that those who are most concerned about it, those who have artistic consciousness, are themselves very much divided in regard to the beauty of Waterloo Bridge. At any rate, it will be admitted that John Ruskin knew something about art and architecture, and in his "Lectures on Architecture" he makes this reference to Waterloo Bridge:

Thus we find that one who was acknowledged as an authority on artistic matters did not hold the view which has been expressed so often during this Debate. The right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) laid great stress on the point that a committee of the London County Council had made a report in regard to the balance of opinion among the experts on the question of a new building or of underpinning the existing structure. The right hon. and learned Gentleman would not know that the report of the committee was only carried by the casting vote of the chairman. The committee were equally divided, and the minority took a view quite opposite to that expressed in the report.

Is the hon. Member referring to the sub-committee or the general committee?

To the sub-committee. The right hon. Baronet the Member for South Hammersmith (Sir W. Bull) has cast some doubt upon the views put forward by the hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Gosling) regarding the navigation of the river, but with all respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I prefer to take the opinion of the hon. Member for Whitechapel on that matter, because he has had practical experience all his life in connection with the river. In the documents which have been submitted to us urging the preservation of Waterloo Bridge, we find it reported very emphatically that the plans which were put forward are absolutely impossible of being carried out. I would ask hon. Members to refer to page 24, Appendix 7, and they will see a considered opinion there of the scheme which is put forward for underpinning. We should remember that the London County Council is charged with the maintenance of this bridge and has taken considerable trouble in investigating the various aspects of the question, including the historical aspect, and I think they are absolutely right in the action which they have taken. The hon. Member for the English Universities (Sir M. Conway) suggested that no one would propose the removal of an ancient monument purely for traffic considerations, but I would recall to him that a much more historical monument than Waterloo Bridge, namely, Temple Bar, was removed because of traffic considerations. In this case the traffic considerations are so important that the House will only do right in supporting the London County Council's action.

I join in this Debate in order to draw attention to the very definite opinions expressed by five of the six experts who were called in by the conference of learned societies concerning the demolition or preservation of this bridge. Sufficient emphasis has not been laid on the opinions of these experts, who were skilled and technical men, and who were consulted as to whether the bridge could be underpinned, and so maintained. Five of them reported, without hesitation, in favour of underpinning, and the sixth decided that the views expressed by the London County Council's advisers were correct. Not only did these five experts give this opinion, but they were men of acknowledged experience. They were not theorists or visionaries, but men who had undertaken work of this description. They included men who had tunneled under the Thames, and one of them had underpinned the Newcastle high level bridge. Furthermore, 17 civil engineers, including Sir Wilfred Stokes and Sir Francis Fox, said that this bridge, which was alleged to be worn-out and defective, was nothing of the kind, but could be preserved and ought to be preserved.

Yet in the face of these opinions, when the recommendation of the sub-Committee, which had been adopted by the Improvements Committee, came before the London County Council that body, to the astonishment of the general public, ignored the views of the experts and ignored the outcry raised on all sides on sentimental grounds. They cared nothing for a national monument, nothing about the record of the great battle of Waterloo, but decided that the bridge must come down. It would be a calamity if that which was erected, or at all events adopted—because it was commenced in 1811 and finished in 1817—as the equivalent of our Cenotaph to-day were taken down on the ground of traffic needs; we should be taking part in a most scandalous action. I ask the House to remember that there is no suggestion, on the part of those who are in favour of this Instruction, that the London County Council should be told it is their duty to underpin this bridge. All that we say is that this question, a vexed question if you like, should be referred to a technical commission of experts versed in engineering matters, and that, if they decide that the bridge should be underpinned, at least the matter might be reconsidered by the London County Council. When I read the agenda of the County Council I found that statements made by the sub-Committee were, many of them, in favour of the retention of the bridge, and I noticed that they said:

I am not surprised that Members of this House feel extremely reluctant to see a plunge taken in the direction suggested by this Bill. We on the London County Council, who have had to deal with this extremely difficult problem for the last two years, have lived through the whole of the agitation; we have had to live through the anxiety and the distress of having to deal drastically with a monument of this character, but we have been forced step by step to realise that the matter had to be dealt with and that it was the responsibility of the Council to deal with it. Two years ago we found that one pier had subsided. To-day that bridge would be in the river if that pier were not being held up by the supports which we put under it, and a second pier to-day is in the same condition that the first one was in two years ago. While this deterioration is going on, we are advised that, as a result of those supports which we put under the arches, the river is silting up and navigation is being threatened. Already in February, 1925, the Council had passed a resolution to the fact that in their opinion it was desirable that the bridge should be reconstructed, but that was not an operative resolution. After that was passed, very largely at that time to draw public attention to it—because we were anxious to do nothing unnecessarily to hurt aesthetic feelings, in which we shared—further examination drove us to the conclusion that time was extremely valuable in this matter, and that the Council might be held up to the odium of the public should anything serious happen in connection with that bridge.

Realising the difficulties when we originally had to deal with them, we asked the City to come in and share the responsibility with us. We suggested to the City of London that there should be a Joint Committee set up to examine the whole question of the bridges, both in their area and in ours, but, in their wisdom they decided that they could not take that step, and we had to go on alone. We hear a good deal to-day about engineering opinion. We found, in this dilemma on the County Council, that we had various opinions, but before this controversy was raised we were not satisfied to ask our own engineer to give us his opinion, but brought in two other most eminent engineers, who had immense experience in bridge construction—Sir Maurice FitzMaurice, who had been our own engineer and who had been watching this bridge and the other bridges for years, and was thoroughly acquainted with the problem, and Mr. Basil Mott. They gave us their opinion before any of these storms had arisen, or before anybody was, shall I say, briefed in the matter, and they said that, of course, nothing was impossible to engineers if we did not mind the cost in money and possibly the cost in life, which was a very serious opinion for the London County Council to have.

After that, other engineers, extremely eminent, I admit, but men who had not had the knowledge and had not been nursing this bridge like our own engineers, gave their opinion, but the right hon. and learned Member for the Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon), with all his ability, could not put it higher than this, that there was a fifty-fifty opinion that the bridge could be reconstructed. Could a responsible body like the London County Council, playing with the ratepayers' money, take a fifty-fifty chance? After all, it is the Council that is responsible. If this House refuses us this money, does that remove our responsibility? So long as there are alternative courses open to the Council, does it not yet carry that responsibility? I have heard no suggestion here that if this is to be a national monument, if this House will control things, there is any money coming from the nation to rebuild the bridge. The money has to come out of the pockets of the London ratepayers. Nobody can suggest that the county council is blind to aesthetic or historic matters. We have spent heaps of money in trying to save historical monuments, and in building up museums, where we pay tribute to history. This bridge is the responsibility of the London County Council, and this House will do a serious thing if it should refuse to allow the council to deal with the bridge along the lines on which it may be advised, out of capital account. An alternative is open to the council, but if that alternative had to be adopted, we certainly should not be justified in putting a much heavier burden on the ratepayers, and the only practical result would be that we should have to withdraw our support from a lot of other big schemes in London which are being adumbrated to-day. That being so, I hope this House will hesitate before it gives an adverse vote on this matter.

I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Greenwich (Sir G. Hume) with some surprise, but that surprise was not confined to his speech, because I may refer also to a similar speech made by the hon. Member for West Fulham (Sir C. Cobb). I plead guilty to being also a member of the London County Council, and also plead guilty to having voted with the minority on this question, but I had in my company in that minority not only the hon. Member for West Fulham but also the hon. Member for Greenwich. I can respect the attitude of the hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Gosling), who has been consistent in his attitude, that owing to the needs of traffic, and so on, it is necessary that this bridge should be removed, but I fail to understand why, after having all the discussion in the London County Council, after listening to the debates, after reading the report, after seeing all the engineers in December, I think I am right in saying, the hon. Member for Greenwich voted in the minority. Now, for some reason I fail to understand, except, perhaps, that he has been asked to back the Bill, he entirely changes his attitude for a hundred and one reasons.

I did vote in the minority, but my reason for doing so was that I wanted to give public opinion one more chance of being satisfied.

That is exactly what I am going to ask the House to do—to give public opinion one more chance. I do not think I need say any more. I think the interruption of the hon. Member for Greenwich is far more effective than his speech. I want to give the nation one more chance. I am all in favour, and always have been in favour, of the autonomy of London government. I quite agree in principle that a great town like London should have the right to manage its own affairs, but, unfortunately, only too often has the House intervened. It will not, for instance, leave London to manage its own business, and has a Traffic Advisory Committee run by an official of the Ministry of Transport, who invents all sorts of roundabouts and various methods of running London traffic, no doubt good in themselves. The House, unfortunately, in the past has been only too prone to interfere in the internal affairs of London government.

If it were really a question of constructing a new bridge across the river, if it merely affected the facilities of London traffic, I quite agree it would be far better to leave it to the elected members for London on the London County Council. But this question is something very much larger. It is something of national importance. After all, London is not merely a conglomeration of towns, not merely a great place where a large number of people live and work, and form a town. London is the capital city of the Empire. It is not only the political centre; it is the inspiration of every part of the great Dominions which form the British Empire. I am a Londoner, but for a number of years I lived in New Zealand, and I have family connections with New Zealand. My friends and relations come to London in the same spirit as devout Catholics go to Rome or Mohammedans go to Mecca. They look upon London as something more than its capital; they look upon it as the spiritual inspiration for the whole Empire. Every stone is precious. Every street means something. Every building is of value. It is treasured and pictured in almost every home in almost every part of the Empire. I know there are some who think the Empire is based on economic, not sentimental, bonds, but, believe me, there are those to whom London is an inspiration, which they value in a way, perhaps, it is difficult to understand by those who spend most of their time within its areas.

It is for them I appeal. It may be mere sentiment that looks upon the River Thames in the way that has been described, and because of the inspiration of Waterloo Bridge, which is part of the great national monument with Somerset House and is an architectural feature associated with London as it is known to visitors from other parts of the Empire. I think, therefore, we cannot look upon this problem as merely a traffic question. It is not a question as to whether three or six lines are sufficient for the traffic. We have to look upon it as part of the artistic tradition of the capital city.

When, however, we come to the technical point of view, I think a very strong case has been made out for a reconsideration of that side. The hon. Member opposite I remember swept aside the technical advice of 25 years ago called in to give information as to the possibility of saving the bridge. This latter point has been shown by experts who speak with great authority and have a right to give their opinion. Sir Dalrymple Hay has had more experience of dealing with the problem of London clay than of any other man, and he was able to say, when asked as to whether the bridge can be saved because of this particular difficulty, that there is no practical difficulty in underpinning the bridge. It would be better economy to spend half a million in saving this bridge than having to spend not less than £1,250,000 and probably £1,500,000 in building another bridge.

I agree with the right hon. Baronet the Member for Hammersmith South (Sir W. Bull), that to have an entirely new bridge at the cost of £1,500,000 makes the chance of constructing a new bridge at Charing Cross a remote possibility. I would remind hon. Members that if the foundations of Waterloo Bridge are weak, the foundations of the Charing Cross Bridge are equally rotten. During the War we had a Bill promoted by the railway company to strengthen that bridge. The evidence then showed that the bridge was quite unsatisfactory for heavy trains, and the South-Eastern heavy trains are now diverted to Victoria, while only local traffic is taken across Charing Cross Bridge. Sooner or later the railway company know that they will have to reconstruct Charing Cross Bridge. No doubt they would like to put the cost of rebuilding it on to the London ratepayers, but if there were a conference of all the authorities concerned—the Traffic Advisory Committee, the London County. Council, the City Corporation Bridge House Estates Committee, and the railway company—I have no doubt that if they really wished to construct a new bridge a very satisfactory bargain could be carried through. With the traffic congestion in the Strand, a new bridge carrying ordinary traffic is far more urgently required than the widening of Waterloo Bridge.

The Advisory Committee admitted that, and were only frightened at the cost. But there is a nice little nest-egg in the hands of the City Corporation Bridge House Estates Committee, who are going to build a bridge at St. Paul's which, I submit with very great respect, is not wanted. The authorities of St. Paul's Cathedral view the proposal with great dissatisfaction, because they are afraid the extra congestion of traffic there may weaken the foundations of the dome of St. Paul's, to preserve which so much money has already been collected; and with Southwark Bridge, which has recently been rebuilt, the traffic interests of that part of London do not seem to justify this very large expenditure. Is it unfair or unreasonable, to suggest that this large fund, which is now entirely in the hands of the City Corporation, who are rather jealous of spending it outside the City boundary, really belongs to London as a whole? If that fund became available, there could be a reconsideration of all the circumstances affecting the needs of new bridges along the River Thames. Meanwhile, we are going to prejudice the whole problem by embarking on what I think is a quite needless expenditure upon a brand new bridge, when this fine national monument can be preserved at a reasonable cost. Therefore, I ask hon. Members to take a large view of this problem, and to exercise their rights as Members of Parliament to preserve that great monument which commemorates Waterloo.

Like the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Mr. Harris), I would ask the House to take a large view of this question, a view large enough to include a thought for the development of traffic in the future. Undoubtedly Waterloo Bridge is of great aesthetic interest, but in its present situation, having regard to the inlets to it from Kingsway and Wellington Street, it is not of the value to traffic that it should be. There is another factor in the situation which has not been mentioned, and I only rise to mention it, and that is the possibility of Covent Garden market being moved to the Foundling Hospital estate. We have the promise of the authorities of Covent Garden that any new scheme for the development of that area would enable us to create a one-way street in the Strand, with a parallel route for traffic along Maiden Lane and Covent Garden out into Aldwych.

The present bridge is now avoided by all fast-moving traffic. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Central Wands- worth (Sir H. Jackson), I am a member of the Traffic Advisory Committee, and I say that bridge is now definitely avoided by all fast-moving traffic. I think it will be fair to say that 60 per cent. of the traffic at present using the bridge is heavy traffic for Covent Garden. With the closing of Covent Garden market and the development of rail facilities for feeding the new site, Waterloo Bridge would attract its fair quota of fast-moving traffic. In its present state it is three-line traffic bridge, and with any slow-moving traffic making use of it, fast traffic cannot then get through. The site is an admirable one for a five-span bridge, with outlets to the south and to the north, and a widened bridge would, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a good many others, relieve the present abnormal stress on Westminister Bridge. Complaint is made that no authoritative people have discussed this problem. The London County Council have had it under discussion for upwards of two years. Much is made of the fact that five eminent engineers have said that it is possible to underpin the bridge.

If you had 500 eminent engineers I am sure every one of them would answer, "Yes, it is possible to underpin the bridge." It is possible to do this at a cost which is estimated between £650,000 and £900,000, and then it would be-guaranteed for only 25 or 30 years. On the other hand, for an expenditure of £1,300,000 you get your six-line traffic bridge with a guarantee of 100 years' life. The House has been called upon to give those who oppose this Measure another chance, but if you do so, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many experienced people, it will simply check the development of London traffic from north to south for a period of 75 years.

With regard to the construction of a bridge at Charing Cross, that has been estimated at the lowest to cost £9,500,000 and at its highest £15,000,000. If we find £15,000,000 for that purpose it will take three or four years to get the necessary legislation passed, and then it would take three or four years after that to build the bridge. In the case of Waterloo Bridge with the by-pass bridge which has already been erected, if the County Council are given the powers now being asked for, there is nothing to stop the new Waterloo Bridge being erected during the next two years. Whichever way are looks at it, one feels that it is a serious thing to destroy a monument of that character. I have not had much of the aesthetic about me, and at sunset I have enjoyed looking at Waterloo Bridge; but when I place against that the necessity of the development of the traffic facilities of London and catering for the increasing volume of traffic from north to south, and the ever-increasing size, weight and length of the river traffic, I am bound to say that I ought to support this Measure, and I am willing to seek my sunsets elsewhere.

I ask the House to remember that the London County Council have considered this problem for two years and the Traffic Committee for one year. We have had before us the committees interested in art and various aesthetic bodies, and willing as we were to meet their point of view, we have unanimously been driven to the conclusion that this new bridge is essential for London traffic, and if built on proper lines, I do not think it will be an eyesore, or calculated to wound the aesthetic notions of Londoners.

We have had a Debate to-night on a subject which is a welcome change from the barren topic of political controversy. Not only is the subject we have been discussing a most interesting one, but the speeches delivered have been of very high merit, and they have shown that hon. Members, whichever side of this question they take have deeply studied this important subject. Personally, when I heard those who pleaded for the retention of the bridge on the ground of its beauty and its historic associations, I felt that I must support the instruction. Then, when I heard other hon. Members pointing out the necessities of London traffic, and that you could not for all time hold up the traffic on the river—which is, perhaps, even more important than the road traffic—I felt that I could not vote for the instruction. As far as the Government are concerned, their attitude is simple and plain, and, I think, logical. It is that this is a matter the responsibility of which must, and should be shouldered by the London County Council, and that it is not a matter of sufficient public importance for the Government itself, as a Government, to intervene.

Having said this, may I, in a few sentences, because there are other hon. Members who want to speak before Eleven o'clock, put this to the House? The statutory duty of looking after certain bridges in the Metropolitan area has by Parliament been put upon the London County Council. By law they are the guardians of these bridges, and are responsible for their upkeep and their reconstruction. The London County Council is a popularly elected body, and a very important body, second only to Parliament in this area. I put it to the House of Commons that we must envisage a very important decision if the House deliberately rescinds a decision of the County Council on such an important matter. It is not outside the power of the House of Commons; the House has a perfect right to do so; but the House of Commons must consider the responsibility it takes when it thinks of overriding a decision the responsibility for which has been specifically put by law on the shoulders of this great democratically elected body. If the House of Commons does so, I think it must consider whether the London County Council may not, possibly, look to the National Exchequer to help them in their difficulty. If the wishes of the County Council are turned down, and their views as to the ratepayers' money are rejected, then I think the House of Commons might find itself in a difficult position as regards these London bridges in the future. I repeat that the decision is one for the House of Commons. The responsibility is for the County Council, but I do press the House to consider whether it would be right in overriding a decision of a great body such as the London County Council.

If any further argument were required to reinforce the Motion which has been moved to give an instruction to the Committee with regard to this Bill, I think we have had it in the speeches to which the House has listened with such interest and attention from all sides to-night. They show that in every quarter authoritative opinion on the subject is still in a state of flux. The hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. B. Smith), from the Front Opposition Bench, said, and I entirely agree with him, that in a matter like this it is necessary for Parliament and the country to take a long view. It is just for that very reason that we want to have this matter referred to an independent and authoritative committee, so that the whole question of these bridges across the Thames may be considered together, and that we may have an authoritative report on the whole matter. That is the whole case of those who are moving this instruction to-night—that we should not in a moment of panic rush into some decision which may be irrevocable and irreparable. A thousand times is that argument enforced when we remember that the matter at issue is one of our greatest national monuments. The Minister has said the London bridges are a matter for the London County Council, and that it would be very improper, and Parliament would be going outside its proper functions were it to interfere in this matter.

No, I did not say that. I said the House of Commons should investigate the point. I did not say it was improper.

I am quite prepared to accept that emendation. It was undesirable for the House of Commons to interfere in the matter, as the London County Council had the responsibility of the bridges. But Waterloo Bridge is not only a bridge across the Thames. It is one of the great national monuments of the country. Suppose it was proposed to run a highway through St. Paul's Cathedral so that the traffic in Cheap-side could be relieved, would you say that was a matter for the City Corporation and Parliament ought not to interfere? Of course you would not, and St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey are unquestionably comparable monuments with Waterloo Bridge. Waterloo Bridge is not only a national monument. It is recognised for its beauty all over the civilised world. It is one of the most outstanding bridges in the world, and for us to sweep it away because there has been a vote of a chairman of some subcommittee of the county council without the most authoritative pronouncement would, in my opinion, show that Parliament was unworthy of the great trust that is reposed in it.

In the speech the Chairman of the County Council made this evening, there was one point that struck me. He said this committee of the London County Council that had had this matter in hand had approached the Corporation of the City of London, who are the other great bridge authority in the Metropolis, and that, rightly or wrongly, the Bridge House Estates Committee had declined to negotiate with them in the matter. If this is referred, as is suggested in the Instruction, to an authoritative committee appointed by the Government, the first thing it would do would be to invite the Bridge House Estates Committee to come into consultation with them. We have heard to-night, what we all know, of the shortage of cash, both national and municipal, that is available even for great improvements. If you get the Bridge House Estates Committee and the Corporation into conference on this matter of a bridge across the Thames, you will have at any rate for discussion a sum of £4,000,000 which that committee has already accumulated for the building of a bridge over the Thames. The Corporation of the City of London and the Bridge House Estates Committee have again and again gone outside the limits of the narrow purview of the City in order to do work of national importance. The Bridge House Committee provided the funds for the building of the Tower Bridge. The Corporation also gave the nation Epping Forest and Burnham Beeches, which are also outside the purview of the City.

If the Corporation, again with that wide view it has often taken in time of national emergency, would say, "We are not going to build a useless bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral and incidentally greatly endanger another national monument"—if you do not take care you will have all your national monuments coming down—but offered to build a bridge at Charing Cross, conditionally on Waterloo Bridge being underpinned and restored, you would have a scheme which could be started without any delay and Waterloo bridge could be preserved as a national monument.

The right hon. Baronet the Member for Hammersmith (Sir William Bull) said he was uneasy about this matter because had the bridge not begun to subside he thought the question of a wider bridge might never have arisen. At the risk of offending those who take the aesthetic view, although I do not desire to offend, I am going to try to put briefly another point of view. I am uneasy in another way. I feel that had this bridge not begun to subside, it would never have been regarded by many Members of this House, nor by many people outside, as the very important national monument which it is said to be. I have every respect for historical associations, but when I was told earlier this evening that this monument was to be compared with the Cenotaph, it made me hesitate. Another speaker told us something which led those who did not know this particular piece of history to see that there is some doubt whether the comparison with the Cenotaph is a fair one. This bridge, I understand, may have arrived at maturity some short time after the Battle of Waterloo, but it was begun four years before, and it is not, therefore, representative of any very unanimous or national desire to have it regarded as a permanent edifice for that object.

One can only examine the evidence in regard to the bridge, for as regards one's own capacity of judging on one's own knowledge, the question is exceedingly difficult. It may be said of me that perhaps I am in a peculiarly difficult position for I have not seen the bridge since I went over it 10 years ago on the way to Waterloo Station. Possibly that is a qualification for the ordinary man in the street who does not see the bridge either, although he is the man who will have to pay. He is the man who must be regarded by the London County Council. I hope it will be believed that I have every regard for the aesthetic view which is so strongly and firmly put forward, but I submit that that view represents the view of a very small minority, and that the ordinary man in the street, the ordinary traveller going to and from his work and, above all, the ratepayer whose money is being used by the County Council are entitled to primary consideration.

The right hon. Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) said that he would agree to the demolition of the bridge were it shown that the cost of underpinning it or of reconstructing it in something like its present shape was out of all proportion to the usefulness of the bridge after such a process had taken place, and if at the same time it was shown that the present disadvantages of the bridge were really very grave. The evidence which can be obtained by anyone who cares to go into it at the County Council shows that these two conditions have been satisfied. It seems to me to be a considerable waste of money to spend something between £600,000 and £900,000 for a patched-up job, when for a very little more we could get a really fine modern bridge. The evidence which can be seen by anyone who cares to look for it, shows that both as regards road traffic and river traffic the second condition laid down by the right hon. Gentleman is met. That is to say, there is at present very serious embarrassment to both those types of traffic.

In view of the enormous increase of traffic in the last four years, it cannot be denied that in four or 40 years' time these conditions would be very greatly aggravated. Then it is suggested that to make a new bridge here will postpone for a very long time the Charing Cross scheme. We have been shown conclusively, I think, that the Charing Cross scheme cannot come to fruition in any event for some considerable time. The Charing Cross Bridge is good for another 30 years, and if that is so, we must let it stay there for something like that time. At any rate, we cannot contemplate meantime embarking on a large expenditure which the Charing Cross scheme involves. I had the honour to be a member of the London County Council a year ago, when I voted for the demolition of this bridge thinking a final settlement had been come to, but the County Council in their wisdom through the action of others, held the matter over for 12 months. Further discussions took place, and I am bound to say my feeling, quite apart from any special inquiry I may have made in this matter, is that it would be very wise if this House took the advice of the London County Council. The London County Council have given very mature consideration to the matter. They have not lightly entered upon this matter which disturbed many of them from the aesthetic point of view more than it disturbed me. For my part, even if I had not inquired into the matter, I would suggest that the Debate here to-night must convince any person who has any special knowledge of the subject that this, the greatest of all municipal bodies, should be followed in the advice which after serious and anxious consideration it gives to the House.

Question put,

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill to leave out Schedule 1, Part 1, Item 9."

The House divided: Ayes, 96; Noes, 158.