I beg to move,

"That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill that they shall have regard to the provisions of Section 56 of The Public Health Act, 1925, so far as Clause 14, sub-clause (2), is concerned."

I beg to second the Motion.

May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether it is in older to ask for some explanation on this matter—whether this question is debate-able I If so, I think that, before the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. H. Williams) is allowed to "get away with" this Instruction, if I may so phrase it, some of the other distinguished Conservative Members whose names are attached to this Motion should—the hon. Member himself having now exhausted his right to speak—give us some explanation. Otherwise, I myself propose to vote against such an irregular procedure, and I hope the House will support me, not in order to serve any particular interest or anything else, but to serve the far more important matter of the correct procedure of this House where Private Bills are concerned.

Perhaps I may be allowed to say that this Motion has the approval of the promoters of the Bill. Its purpose is to limit the amount of money which a municipality may be allowed to spend upon theatrical performances or entertainments. According to the Public Health Act, they are restricted in that direction, and the promoters of the Bill are quite prepared to accept this Instruction.

It seems to me that that explanation makes it more undesirable than ever. I think the municipality ought to be free to decide for itself how much it is going to expend upon matters of that kind. It may be very desirable, in the interests of the well-being of the residents in that particular municipality, that there should be public entertainments of an educative and recreational character, and I certainly think that the Corporation itself should be the proper judge of that. I hope that, if this Instruction is going to be pressed, the House will force it to a Division.

Opposed Private Business cannot be taken on Friday. The Motion must stand over.

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

"I think I may say without the slightest hesitation that the principle underlying the proposed Bill is one which will have the whole-hearted support of all reputable members of the auctioneering profession, but I thought I would take the liberty of drawing your attention to the reason, namely, the difficulty of proof, which has always debarred the Council of this Institute from promoting such legislation. Possibly Parliament may see some way around this difficulty."

"To the above suggestions I would add that the society strongly approves of your efforts to do away with these 'knock-outs' and 'rings,' which are alike harmful to producer and consumer."

"Any agreement made with reference to a sale by auction not to bid at the sale in Competition with any other person with intent that the property offered for sale shall be afterwards acquired by the persons making the agreement, or some or one of them, from the purchaser of the property at the sale shall he a criminal offence."

"Any sale at an auction with respect to which any such agreement as aforesaid has been made may be treated as fraudulent by the vendors or their agent, as against a purchaser who has been a party to such agreement. Any person who is a party to such an agreement shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100 or to a term of imprisonment with or without hard labour for any period not exceeding six months or to both such fine and such imprisonment."

I beg to second the Motion.

"The knock-out is regularly resorted to by various classes of dealers and most auctioneers are unable to cope with it. The proposed Act will considerably reduce the activities of the ordinary knock-out."

"Although there was ample evidence that there was a knock-out in regard to this lot, it was clear in law that that in itself afforded no answer to the action."

When the hon. Member refers to middlemen, does he mean to say that this Bill is confined only to agents acting as middlemen?

I was regarding the ring as being a sort of middleman between the vendor on the one side and the purchaser on the other. I do not regard him as a bona-fide middleman, serving a useful purpose to the community.

A dead letter.

If that Act has not resulted in a large number of prosecutions, it has not proved altogether ineffective. I respectfully submit that the mere fact that it is generally known that secret commissions are illegal, has acted as a deterrent. Under this Bill is may be difficult and it will be difficult, no doubt, to get proof, but from time to time members of the rings will fall out, disagreements will arise and then action will, no doubt, be successfully taken. Auctioneers desire to purify their auction marts. It does not appear to be in the public interest that anyone should be able to go to the Board of Customs and Excise, put down a £10 note, and walk away with an auctioneer's licence, just as if he were buying a dog licence or a gun licence. It is not desirable that anyone and everyone should be able to obtain an auctioneer's licence in this way, and the sooner legislation is introduced to deal with that matter and give a proper status to the men engaged in a valuable and honourable profession, the better for all concerned.

I take it that this Bill does not propose to interfere with the present system of dealing in auctioneers' licences?

No, I think the hon. Member will find that my argument is relevant. It is time that the public should receive some measure of protection. The hon. Member for King's Lynn (Lord Fermoy), in moving the Bill, referred to the position of agriculturists. From the point of view of the agricultural producer, whether that producer be a large farmer in a big way of business, a smallholder, or a labourer who only sends a pig to market once a year, the position of the vendor is unsatisfactory at the present time. The Bill only deals with one aspect of the marketing question, but the whole question of auction marts calls for consideration. The Markets and Fairs (Weighing of Cattle) Act, which we passed last year, is doing something in that connection. If rings are to be broken, not only is legislation required such as is now proposed, but steps must be taken for the regulation of auction marts, In this way, and in this way only, can the full value of open competition be obtained. So long as small auction marts are allowed to grow up anywhere and everywhere like so many mushrooms, then so long will rings be encouraged. It is only the auctioneer who is in a really strong position who can make a stand against rings but even he is to some extent in the hands of the buyers, because, naturally, he does not wish to take any action which would in any way tend to antagonise his clients. Sir William Wells, past president of the Auctioneer and Estate Agents' Institute, when speaking as a witness on behalf of the auctioneers before the Select Committee last autumn, said:

"There is unanimous feeling that such evils, namely rings, do exist, and there is a unanimous feeling that if anything can be done to stop them the institute will be glad to see it done."

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

"Any agreement made with reference to a sale by auction not to bid at the sale in competition with any other person with intent that the property offered for sale shall be afterwards acquired by the persons making the agreement or some or one of them from the purchaser"—

On a point of Order. May I ask whether an hon. Member has the right to reflect upon the accent of the constituency of another hon. Member?

It seems to me very harmless.

The accent is not, Sir. The representative of the Home Office, when this Measure was being debated in another place—insufficiently debated, and I hope it will be more fully debated here to-day-said that while he thought the Measure was quite a "nice little Measure," he did not see how it would ever be enforced, but it would not do any harm. The Home Office know all about little Measures that do not do any harm. They have a large supply of them in the pigeon-holes at the Home Office, ready to be trotted out at the end of the Session. If prosecutions cannot be obtained, I submit that we ought not to pass this Bill. It is not fair to keep on putting on the Statute Book Measures which the Home Office does not intend to enforce. It destroys the public trust in legislation, it makes the law ridiculous, and only too often it leads to the punishment of the decent, law-abiding citizen, while the man who is skilled at the job escapes free and makes increased profit.

As an auctioneer, my object in rising is to endeavour to straighten out some of the issues in connection with this Bill where there is a real difficulty. The superficial knowledge of some people upon this subject may lead them astray. I take the opportunity of asking hon. Members the pertinent question: Is there such a thing as fraud in the ring? If so, this House ought to endeavour to put it right. I am here to say that in certain lines there is fraud in the ring, as, for instance, if a man goes to an auction, not with the idea of purchasing, but with the idea of participating in the profits of a ring. That cannot be done in any other trade.

Why?

I will tell you why. The man who goes to an auction in the way I have described is probably a broken-down man who in the past has been in the trade. He finds there is a way of making money simply by attending auctions. He goes to the people forming the ring, and they accept him. He probably has no money but he knows the ring. Regardless of whether he is a wealthy man or a poor man, the auctioneer has to accept him as a bidder, and if property is knocked down to him the auctioneer has no redress. So, such a man stands to win, while the vendor or the auctioneer stands to lose. Can hon. Members tell me of another trade where you can do that without fraud?

Bookmaking.

I do not happen to be a backer, but I do happen to be an auctioneer—

The hon. and gallant Member has challenged us to mention another trade. I say that the backer who is accepted by a bookmaker may act in exactly the same way as the broken-down bidder he has described. The bookmaker has no redress. Another trade is that of money-lending. There are certain scoundrels with titles and good connections who make a living by borrowing money from moneylenders, and who then come to Parliament for redress.

I do not quite follow the argument of the hon. and gallant Member. I always understood that when a man made a bet on a horse, he generally put down his money, and that the first thing the book maker did was to handle the money, except in the case of credit betting. I do not know much about moneylenders, but in that case I suppose the moneylender would have a distinct understanding as to the man who was borrowing from him. I have pointed out, however, that in the other case, it is possible for a man to get money by simply going into an organisation at these auctions which is, I contend, an illegal organisation. Hon. Members opposite do not understand the ring. They do not know one jot about it. What happens in connection with the ring in certain trades, particularly the old machinery trade A man wants to buy a certain piece of machinery and attends the auction with the desire to purchase. When he gets there, he finds he is up against the ring. He is compelled either to employ one of these men on commission, or to enter into the "knock." There is not a Member in this House who, if he thoroughly understood the working of the "knock" would be a party to it. An hon. Member has spoken about conscience, but no one with any conscience at all would enter the ring. Yet if a man does not enter the ring for certain things, he cannot buy them at all. Who loses the money? The vendor loses, or, if it is a bankruptcy, the people whose interests are involved and who have been expecting a reasonable dividend find that they cannot get it. Somebody else comes in who has no right to it, and takes the plunder. These people assemble in the auction room or in the mill where the auction is taking place, and they bid, and without putting down a farthing, they go to some other room or sometimes even remain where they are or else go up to a public house and divide up the profits. There has not been any fair competition whatever. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) made some reference to an organisation which fixed the price of rubber. These men do not fix a price at all.

I did not say they fixed a price.

I understood the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to say so. I think he said they are prepared to buy it, and that the brokers fixed the price. I made a note of it at the time. I would point out that the men in the ring do not fix a price at all. Their object is to get the articles at an absolutely rock-bottom figure. The object of the ring is not to fix a competitive price, but to stifle and kill competition altogether. In some cases they do kill it. There if no fairer form of sale than the auction, if it is conducted in an honest and above-board manner. We ought to endeavour to protect both the buyers and the sellers of articles. Auctioneers do not want to be oppressive to the buyer who is as necessary to them as the seller. They want the best relations possible, but you cannot have that when you know there is a body of men in the auction room, not out to rob the auctioneer but out to do something which they know they cannot do except by means of the ring. The ring has to embrace everybody. The buyer knows he is going to be robbed if he does not join it.

I would like to ask the hon. and gallant Member, who is an experienced auctioneer, this question. Suppose you reverse the case, as often happens, and take the instance of a new purchaser coming into an auction room, where there are others who have been accustomed to buying the articles that are being put up. They say: "We do not want this chap to come in and buy, because it will be another one in our trade," and they begin to bid the article up, so that the new man sees no profit in it. What does the hon. and gallant Member say to that?

As an auctioneer, I should rather relish it. It would have one honest effect, which the ring has not, and that is that we should get the actual buyers, and if a man foolishly bought at too dear a price, he would soon drop out of the market. Hon. Members opposite apparently do not understand the ring, and I was thinking, when my hon. Friend opposite was speaking, that he would riot make a good auctioneer so much as a good parson. The one thing an auctioneer must not do is to endeavour to impress his audience with a certain fact and at the same time be chuckling to himself. He must be transparently honest. That is the attitude of the Opposition this morning. They are going to kill the Bill, because they do not like it, or else they are going to talk it out. Let them be quite fair with us on this side.

Why is the hon. and gallant Member's name not on the back of the Bill?

I suppose they found some better man or some better-looking man to back the Bill. We, as an institute, have kept out of this until it has come on to the Floor of the House, and now we say as members of the profession that we think it will remedy a serious evil, and that it will put money into the pockets of the people who should have it, and not into the pockets of people who take advantage of rings in the auction room.

I was interested to hear the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Central Bradford (Lieut.-Colonel Gadie), who has just sat down. I am sure he is a very successful auctioneer, because transparent honesty, which he says is necessary for a successful auctioneer, was characteristic of his speech. He is not supporting the Bill, his name is not on the back of the Bill, nor was the institute of which he is a member supporting it until it came here. All that he demands of the House, apparently, is that it should give the Bill a Second Reading; "and," says he, "we do not mind what happens to it after that; we merely wish to show that the House of Commons can deal with practices which are now rife in the auction room." There can be no doubt, if only to take the evidence of the last speaker, that there are many evils in the auction room and that there are sharks who infest it for their own purposes. The only question is whether this Bill is likely to do anything to mitigate or put an end to those evils.

I always listen with very great pleasure to the speeches of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Newcastle - under - Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood). He is such a strong individualist, and always seems to be in such strange company in the Socialist party, but sometimes—if he will let me say so—he allows his individualism to carry him away. On this occasion it is leading him, and he is leading his party to support one of the most corrupt, and fraudulent parts of what you call "the capitalist system" 'that you can find. Just let us sec what a ring at an auction is. It is a combination by the buyers at that auction to crush all bidding except by their members, and offer a low or nominal price in order that they can meet afterwards and divide the plunder among themselves. The man who sells gets a very low price and the public to whom the goods are passed ultimately do not get those goods at a cheap price. In the case of rubber to which the right hon. Gentleman referred the combination is to give the buyer and user of rubber cheap rubber; but the object of an auction ring is to give the seller of goods as little as possible, and charge the public as much as possible when they are resold. It is perfectly well known, and my hon. and gallant Friend who has spoken with a humour and an adroitness which as ere very refreshing, has told the House that this sort of thing is happening now. Is permeates the auction system.

The Seconder of the Bill said that if the House accepts the view that there is a grievance, then the House will accept the Bill. Nobody in this House or outside, perhaps, who has any practical experience of the management of auctions would doubt that there is a serious grievance, and the question which the House has to consider, in my humble judgment, is whether the remedy which this Bill seeks to apply is a fit and suitable remedy. I do not entirely share the strong view of optimism expressed by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down. Perhaps because I am a lawyer, I take rather a serious view on the question of extending crimes. I think the House will accept the view that it is a wholesome rule that only when a practice is clearly vicious, and civil safeguards do not exist, is it desirable to make it a subject-matter of crime. In this case, if the Bill passes in its present form, can it be said there will not be an excess of remedy? Clause 2 provides, in effect, that the vendor, on discovering that there has been a knockout—and no doubt deciding for himself that the price he has obtained is less than the price he ought to have obtained—may elect to void the sale. He has the opportunity of electing to say, "This sale is null and void, and I claim the article back, so that I may either possess it again or put it up for sale again." That is a remedy which the law at present does not provide. The cases which have been cited this morning result from the fact that, according to the law as it stands at present, a vendor who is legitimately-aggrieved by a sale which has been a knock-out has no remedy in law unless he can prove some wilful misrepresentation, which rarely exists, on the part of those who purchase. If and so far as this Bill is directed to provide the remedy that a vendor in a proper case may void a sale where it has been improperly conducted by reason of a knock-out, I, too, would agree with that.

I quite agree with what the hon. and learned Gentleman is saying, but in the case I cited the vendor was not complaining at all.

I quite appreciate that, but if, as I fancy they do, the promoters of this Bill put in the forefront of it the desire to make this knock-out a crime then I, for one, would have considerable difficulty in supporting it. At least it should be so arranged that if the Bill be given a Second Reading it shall emerge finally in a form which substantially carries out the remedy provided in Clause 2. As has been stated, if it would be difficult to get sufficient evidence—and it must necessarily be so —of the existence of a knock-out to enable a. vendor to void the sale under Clause 2, how infinitely more difficult will it be to obtain sufficient evidence to justify a conviction?

Before addressing myself to the provisions of the Bill, I have to announce that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is disappointed not to be here himself to speak on the Bill. But, unfortunately, he is indisposed with a slight attack of influenza. We have had a very interesting discussion on this Measure and we have had from the hon. and gallant Member for Central Bradford (Lieut.-Colonel Gadie) a very interesting speech as a result of his practical experience. We have had from the Mover of the Bill a general outline of its principles, and we have had from the Seconder a full history of the subject and an account of many grievances which at present exist which he thinks would be covered and cured by the Measure. There is no doubt that rings are formed. We have heard that from the hon. Member for Central Bradford, and we know it from the proceedings of the Select Committee set up in the House of Lords. We have had every evidence to show that these rings are formed. We know that public auctions are held, and that afterwards private auctions are held at which the same goods are disposed of again, but at very different prices. But I venture to suggest that it is difficult to devise provisions to check undesirable practices and not at the same time to bring within the criminal law persons entering into agreements which are quite innocent and not so clearly indefensible as to justify criminal penalties. Attention is directed by the promoters of the Bill almost exclusively to cases in which hardship is caused to the vendor by a combination among purchasers. There may also be cases, which the House should take into consideration, in which combinations among purchasers are perfectly proper for the purpose of—if for no other—bringing down the price of the articles offered for sale to a fair level.

"3. In 1908 a case was brought to the notice of the Home Office where dealers were alleged to have agreed not to bid against one another, and to have subsequently held a second and private auction for the purpose of re-auctioning among themselves several articles bought at the auction and of sharing the profit on them. It is presumably this practice at which the Bill is aimed. The matter was considered in 1908 in consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions, but it was decided that, having regard to the legal decisions, such an agreement was not per se illegal and that, in the absence of any evidence that would establish a charge of conspiracy, criminal proceedings were out of the question."

I want to ask whether any complaints have been made to the Home Office about the fraudulent nature of these transactions.

I cannot answer that off-hand. The conclusion of the Home Office and the Government is that we admit that there is a general evil existing to-day with which it is desirable to deal. We are not sure, however, that this Bill will effect a complete cure. We are not sure whether it will not adversely affect cases which would never really or rightly be considered as criminal, but we recognise the laudable objects of the promoters of the Bill. As is usual on a Friday, the Government Whips will not be put on, but the Government are quite prepared to advise the House to give the Bill a Second Reading, and if that is given we are prepared to assist the promoters during the Committee stage with all the information we have at our disposal. We ask for the co-operation of all Members in devising Amendments to limit the provisions of this Bill to those practices which are recognised by common consent and by all parties in the House as being mischievous and unfair.

The Bill before us this afternoon raises a question in which a great many Members of the House are interested from different points of view and for different reasons. Everybody who has had occasion to go into an auction room or has taken an interest in any article which is for sale in an auction room knows the extent to which these practices prevail. My experience, however, has never been that they have reduced the prices paid to the vendor but have increased them. One of the operations of the ring is that if you go into an auction room and bid against them, you are soon told that you will not get what you want, and afterwards the private auction takes place between the members of the ring and they square up the uneconomical price they have paid when they met to buy. I have had experience in two different cases during the last few months at provincial auctions, where a certain article in which I was specially interested was treated in that particular way. Therefore, when we deal with this matter let the House remember that the ring operates that way as well as the other way. The ring among dealers is just an evolution of private enterprise which hon. Members opposite regard as the ark of the Tory covenant.

Oh, the Bill is of some value.

I gathered from the hon. and gallant Member that he was not at all sure about any part, except that it meant to do a good thing, and therefore he came to us and said, "Since have become Member for Ripon I have had experience of certain difficulties that my constituents have undergone. It is wrong that a farmer should get less for his bullock than he thinks is fair, or than what we might call the cost of production, or, the economic value, because five or six gentlemen, instead of acting separately and individually, act in co-operation and in combination. Therefore, I want to make that combination illegal. In making it illegal, I am not quite sure of the means that are being adopted, but, in order that we may assure our people that we mean to do something, we have drafted this Bill, and we shall be very much obliged if the House will carry it and put it in order in Committee." It is playing with the House of Commons. The only comment I wish to make is that I do commiserate with the poor unfortunate British farmer, who is told to believe that this Bill is going to help him on having fallen into the hands of such incompetent custodians as are revealed by those who have produced this Bill and who are now advocating it on the Floor of the House of Commons, and on being really likely to get into a worse state of things than those under which he now complains he is living. I hope that this House will show, not its support or approval of rings, not its approval of the operation of rings, hut that it does not approve of a method of window-dressing such as this Bill is. Those who have drafted it, those who have moved it, and those who have supported it, one and all confess to its utter and absolute incompleteness and inability to meet the situation with which it is supposed to deal. I hope that the House will reject the Bill, because, by doing so, it will declare once again that it desires that those hon. Members who introduce legislation of this kind should at any rate take the trouble to produce a proposal that on the face of it appears to be fair.

I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition should so consistently inpute mala fides to those who sit on this side of the House. Here there is an undoubted grievance and an undoubted evil. I think the right hon. Gentleman will admit that the knock-out system is an evil. Yet, because a Bill is brought in on this side of the House, a Bill which frankly may not go quite so far as it should to protect the owner, the vendor, or the seller, the right hon. Gentleman gets up and says, "This is mere window-dressing. This is merely brought in as a species of eyewash and for party political purposes." For myself, I protest against any such statement. It is a genuine and bonâ fide attempt to deal with an admitted evil. It may possibly be that the Bill as it is drafted is not adequate, but, if it be given a Second Reading, as I hope it will, when it gets into Committee upstairs it can be amended and can be brought down again to the Floor of the House in such shape as will undoubtedly put an end to the evil, the knock-out system, the combination and conspiracy of dealers to get the better of owners of property.

The hon. and gallant Member for Ripon (Major Hills) gave a good deal of advice to us on this side of the House, and expressed himself as being very disturbed at the idea that we might make a mistake, and might do something which might be used against us. All I say to that is the old maxim, "Beware of the Greeks when they come with gifts." When we need advice of that kind we prefer to listen to the right hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) than to the hon. and gallant Member for Ripon. That is what we intend to do to-day and, if we had any doubt about it, we would have none after the speech made by the hon. and learned Gentleman, who although he sits for an agricultural division and I have no doubt knows all about the farmers, has been or is very near Westminster. After his speech and the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Preston (Mr. A. R. Kennedy), and, above all, the speech of the hon. and gallant Member who spoke for the Home Office, no one can vote for this Bill with a clear conscience. What is remarkable, too, about this Bill is that we look in vain to see the name of the only auctioneer in the House on the back of this Bill. As the Mover and Seconder have had to leave the House, perhaps the hon. Member who speaks for the Farmers' Union will inform us why, when the names were put on the back of the Bill, the only auctioneer in the House was not invited to put his name down. Perhaps he would tell us, too, why all the backers are confined to one party. If this is such an excellent Bill, why did not the promoters of the Bill seek the support of other parties? If I wanted a private Member's Bill to go through, I would go to the hon. Member opposite. But, if it is only for party capital that you want it and in order to cover up the fact, which the farmers are beginning to find out, that you have no agricultural policy, I can well under-stand why only Conservatives' names are on the back of the Bill. It will be said, I suppose, "Oh, this Bill only affects country auctions. It is only in agricultural auctions where these evils exist. There is not expected to be much opposition to it." We can now understand why those paragraphs appeared in the newspapers. This is the only contribution this Session to the agricultural problem; it is the one contribution to the agricultural problem from the hon. Gentlemen on the Back Benches on the other side of the House who represent agricultural constituencies.

And you oppose it.

Certainly. The fact of the matter is that the farmers in this country are extremely hard hit. Cheap food is imported into the country and the only remedy the hon. Gentlemen opposite have is a system of tariffs and they are not allowed to bring that in by the Conservatives who sit for industrial constituencies. They fall back then on all sorts of substitutes. One day it is the marking of grapes and gooseberries imported into this country. The next day it is a petty Bill of this kind and I suppose to-morrow it will be some Bill about which they can talk at dinners of farmers societies and say what friends they are of agriculturists. The real blot on the Bill was pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Preston. I would ask any Member who has any doubt to look at Clause 2 of the Bill. Under this short Clause, any vendor or his agent can complain against the sale if he is not satisfied with the price. That means that no bidder, bona fide or otherwise, will ever be sure he has made a secure purchase. If this Bill passes in this form, you will ruin the whole system of auctioneering in this country. It will mean that no one can bid at an auction and be certain that no complaint will be made. That alone should be sufficient to decide everyone to vote against it. The next objection I have is that this Bill, according to the speeches of those who have so far favoured it, is aimed entirely at the small dealers. The great brokers in Mincing Lane dealing in thousands of tons of tea, the rubber brokers and the other dealers in raw commodities, most of whom might be described in the words of the hon. Member who has just spoken as parasites, are apparently ignored, yet they have rings.

Does the hon. Member say that brokers who deal in Mincing Lane never see and handle the goods? What does he know about Mincing Lane?

It is perfectly true that a great many people who deal in commodities on the commodity market never do handle or see the goods. There are products from India which it is almost impossible for anyone to buy unless he is a member of the ring. I can quote an actual case of which I have some knowledge, namely, that of mica. The market for mica is very restricted; it is only produced in one or two countries, and only certain qualities are obtained in India, and only from certain mines. Mica is a commodity for which no substitute has been found. It is absolutely essential for certain electrical manufactures—you cannot make a good dynamo without mica; and you cannot to-day buy mica except from a member of the mica ring. I have tried as a manufacturer and user to buy mica against the ring, but it is impossible, and those gentlemen for the most part never touch or handle it. That is an actual case which I can give to the hon. Baronet from my own experience; and my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander), who is connected with the vast co-operative movement in this country, and probably knows as much about practical business as any Member of this House, confirms what I have said.

The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) attempted to draw me, and to suggest that this was a party Measure. I sincerely hope the House will realise that there is no party spirit whatever about this Bill, and that the mere fact, for which I am not responsible and for which I am not supposed to answer, that the names which appear on the back of the Bill happen to be those of Members en this side of the House, must not be taken as in any way indicating that it is only Members on this side who can see the evil which this Bill attempts to remedy. I know, as a matter of fact, that so many people were desirous of putting their names to the Bill that the promoter, in self-defence, took the first who came to him, in preference to making any other selection. I support this Bill, and I feel that so many admirable speeches have been made in favour of it that the case has been proved, at any ate to the extent that it is certainly wise that we should give the Bill a Second Reading and allow A to go to a Committee.

In supporting the Amendment I agree with the description of this Bill by the Leader of the Opposition, when he described it as pettifogging. I do not think we need go very far for the explanation. I noticed when the ballot was taking place for private Members' Bills how assiduous the Whips of the Government had to be in order to usher, I will not say urge, their supporters into the Lobby to sign the book, and with what reluctance they went, for fear they might get a prize. Having listened to the Mover and Seconder of the Second Reading, it struck me that they did not seem to be very eager. They did not seem to have any zeal for the job. They were heroes because they were cowards in a sense. Of course, I do not mean to say that they are cowards, really.

It is only the vendor who can put on a reserve price.

He is the man who is selling the goods.

You said "anybody."

I mean the owner of the goods. He can put on a reserve price, I suppose the auctioneer cannot put on a reserve price. The Auctioneers' Society is concerned in prices being forced up, and they object to rings buying cheaply because that affects the amount of their remuneration. Why do people send goods to auction, and why do people go to auctions? I suppose it is to take advantage of the market, or because they want to sell quickly.

I was about to observe that when people have goods to sell, they are not compelled to send them to auction. It has been pointed out by hon. Members supporting the Bill that because rings combine to buy commodities cheaply at auctions, and then sell them in the open market at enhanced prices, it is wrong. What I do not understand is why, if a ring can purchase goods at auction at less than the real value, they should not dispose of them at the market price, whatever it may be. The hon. Member for Stone poured discredit on that being done. I would remind him that it is one of the most priceless tenets of the people on this side, to take advantage of the market, and then to talk about economic law. If a ring of a few men can buy cheaply and sell the goods afterwards to the ordinary purchaser at the proper market price, why cannot the farmer also sell his goods at the market price, without taking the risk of sending them to auction, having to pay the auctioneer, and running the risk of the goods being sold at very much below the real price.

If a butcher had to travel, say, 100 miles to purchase his requirements, he would find his overhead charges en much increased that the public would have to pay more. It is in his interest for the auctioneers to collect the produce together for him to buy.

I suppose it depends upon what the particular market is. The London butcher does no such thing. He goes to Smithfield, and he says to the dealer, "I want mutton, or meat." The dealer says, "The price is so much," and he has to give the price. If there is anything wrong in the system we ought not to have this Bill but we ought to set about doing away with auctioneering altogether. The supporters of the Bill say that it will not do away with all the evils. In that case it is rather an unworthy Bill. I cannot accept the view that this Measure is aimed at the protection of the public. All the speeches in its favour go to show that it is aimed at protecting the auctioneer rather than anybody else; and perhaps the vendor. The hon. Member for Kings Lynn (Lord Fermoy) spoke of the unfair earnings of other people, but that seems to me, to quote Bernard Shaw again, another case in which vice has become transformed into virtue, on the part of hon. Members opposite. It is not the man who works at a trade or profession who becomes rich. Complaints have been made of the lack of free competition. Society, as organised to-day, tends towards that end. There is the Steel Trust, the big five of the banks, the railways, shipping, all tending towards that end, and they are supported by hon. Members opposite. When we introduce Measures to try and stop it there are all sorts of cries about confiscation and other things from hon. Members on the other side. The argument that members of these rings render no public service comes rather badly from hon. Members of the Conservative party. They are the bulwarks of that system. A bulwark is something which holds up a fabric, and the bulwark which holds up this fabric is to be found on the benches opposite.

Not to support the Bill as at present drafted, but to pass the Second Reading and then amend it in Committee.

The Under-Secretary for the Home Office produced arguments against the Bill, showed how its provisions could not, act, yet says that if it went to a Committee, we might lick it into shape. In view of the amount of work that has to be done in this House and the congestion which takes place towards the end of the Session, such a pettyfogging Measure as this ought not to be allowed to go upstairs to block really good legislation which the country wants.

Let me first of all stress the point which has already been mentioned—that one way by which an individual can fight these rings is to place a reserve on the goods, whatever they may be. But that is essentially a rich man's privilege. A poor man cannot afford to do it, and that is one reason why I am very anxious that the Bill should have a Second Reading. The problem is rather different when you consider property and, say pictures, and agricultural produce, but in all cases there is the same handicap on the poorer man. He cannot afford to put on a reserve and he is, therefore beaten by the ring. Take a small local agricultural market. A comparatively well-to-do man puts some bullocks up for sale, but if the bigger dealers not there, then there is a slump in the price from 5s. to 10s. a cwt. I know this from bitter experience. I am able to take my stock back and bring it in another day when there are more buyers present, but the poor man, who has to realise his property, is up against the ring all the time and is beaten every time. He has to let his property go for what it will fetch. That is a genuine grievance and I hope the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

I do not think that agriculture is the subject of debate.

I am sorry if I am out of order. It is because I believe that the Bill will be a small benefit to the farmers and the agriculturists that I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.

I am not always in agreement with my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood), in what I think are some of his rather exaggerated ideas regarding personal liberty. I think that he very often stands for what be presumes to be individual rights when really he ought to be considering public interest as a whole. On this occasion I find myself in agreement, and I regard his attitude as absolutely right. The House owes a debt to his for having moved the rejection of the Bill. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Major Hills) tried to convey to the House what he thought was in the minds of hon. Members sitting on these benches. He would not state what was in his mind, but he thought there was something in our minds which would lead us all to talk about this Bill. I have been rather interested in watching the course of this Debate. So far we have had 15 speakers. Of those 15, four have spoken from this side of the House, one from the Benches below the Gangway, and 10 have spoken from the other side of the House. If there be a mysterious reason for speaking this afternoon, it must be found on the Benches of the Tory party. Those who have followed the discussion must be impressed with one fact. To use a colloquialism, it sticks out a mile in the speech of the Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs. In parenthesis let me say that everyone regrets to hear of the indisposition of the Home. Secretary, and hopes that he will soon be back amongst us. Right outside the speech of the Under-Secretary all the time was a criticism of the bad drafting of the Bill.

I said there was no Measure that did not receive alteration when it went into Committee.

I accept the correction of my interpretation of what the hon. Member said. Even now I do not think his statement is quite correct, because there are many Government Measures which go through without alteration, especially in Committee upstairs, when the Government desire to avoid a Report stage debate.

The hon. Member said that many Bills go forward to Committee upstairs and are not amended, in order to avoid a Report stage. It is essential to have a Report stage downstairs when the Committee stage has been taken upstairs.

If not amended in Committee?

If the Bill is taken in Committee of the whole House and there is no amendment made, there is no Report stage.

I accept the correction. Let me return to the Bill. There is one fundamental objection to it, quite apart from the various points which have been raised. I very much object to the idea which is prevalent of constantly making new crimes. When we were a primitive community there was practically only one crime, that of murder, of which notice was taken, but as society gets more complex, or what is termed more civilised, so those concerned with Government administration seem to turn their attention with ingenuity to the finding of new crimes. The motto seems to be "Let us have a new crime every day." It is a sort of perpetual motion with regard to crime making. Here we are having a new crime made. Having declared what is the crime, if it is right for us to declare that a certain action is a crime, surely we ought to have adequate machinery for dealing with that crime? What does the first Clause state?

"Any agreement made with reference to a sale by auction not to bid at the sale in competition with any other person with intent that the property offered for sale shall be afterwards acquired by the persons making the agreement or some or one of them from the purchaser of the property at the sale shall be a criminal offence."

The speeches which have been made to-day in support of this Bill are very misleading. Every speaker seems to have had it in his mind that there is something wrong, but when one reads the Bill it is impossible to see how the Bill is going to put right anything which at present is considered to be wrong. What is contained in this Bill to prevent any two or more individuals coming to an agreement about bidding at an auction? One of those individuals then appears at the auction and buys, and the others, by paying him a fractional profit, can remain outside the Bill altogether. If they only give a farthing or one-eighth of a penny of profit it takes them outside the scope of the Bill, and I ask hon. Members to consider that point very carefully. I had hoped that some of the speakers would have brought into the Debate the real inference of the auction sale. I had hoped that the hon. Member who spoke on the other side and who said he was an auctioneer would do so. I remember as a boy helping to bring cattle of various kinds down to Ayr to be sold at the market there. There was a famous old auctioneer there who had a long white beard, and I can remember on one occasion being in the market very early and having a conversation with him. I said to him, "You will be selling single heads of cattle to-day; how are you going to tell the proper price of all these different sizes and kinds of cattle?" He said to me, "Ah, that is the business of the auctioneer," and stroking his long white beard, he added, "It is a matter of the cunning of the seller and the simplicity of the buyer." It is that simplicity which is being played upon by these practices of which the promoters of the Bill complain, bat the Bill cannot stop these forms of combination. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Lamb) brought in the question of art, and gave the House a very good illustration. He might have gone further, and he might have shown that, apart from the auction room altogether, there is an organised system in this country of dealing with such matters. For instance, in regard to etchings, there is an organisation which buys up a certain number of etchings, gets the original plate and breaks it, and then the whole of these etchings are sold in countries where they fetch very big prices. If you are going to deal with this kind of thing at all, you ought to have some Measure which will be general. The hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. A. Williams) gave an illustration of bringing cattle into a market where the price went down by 10s. per cwt. He did not explain whether, if he had been compelled to sell those cattle, as the poor man would be, the consumer would have got the benefit of that 10s.

No. Repeated experience has shown that the consumer gets no benefit. The butchers get the benefit.

That is the answer I desired. I think it is the true one and from practical experience in buying I know that to be the case. That shows another weakness in the effort which is being made in this Bill to deal with such matters. As I have shown, the Bill cannot stop such things because, wherever a man makes some little additional profit, he is outside the Bill and it may be so small as to be practically nothing. Price as determined by purchasing power, has to be considered. An hon. Member has said that price is determined by the people who turn up in the market to buy and the hon. Member for Stone said that agricultural produce was more subject to market conditions than anything else. I accept that, because where you have perishable goods you have either to dump them or sell them, but the promoters of this Bill would have been better advised if they had sought to bring in a Measure dealing with this kind of thing the whole way through. I can understand the argument that if a man is compelled to take 10s. per cwt. less for his cattle, that reduces the amount by which such a man could increase the wages of those working for him, but just as we have been told that the consumer does not get that 10s. so we have no indication that it is going to increase wages. Those are two points to be considered. If hon. Members opposite will follow this thing out a little more closely, they will see that what they are really demanding or desiring, although they do not put it in this Bill, is the organisation of distribution, because when a speech was made from this side recently, asking why the farmer could not get what he had to sell direct to the distributing centre, it was replied that he could not travel a hundred miles to do so. But that is only a question of organisation. Buying and selling are no part of the organisation of distribution.

Auctions are organised collecting.

Not primarily, not for distribution. They are simply there for sale. Why need we have these things going on outside, in that radius? Why not come to the central market? Why should there not be a central market? The hon. Member for Stone referred to the Motion moved from this side of the House not long ago in connection with coal, but he seems to have misunderstood it. What we were advocating was the co-operative distribution of coal to cut out the kind of thing with which this Bill is supposed to deal. You cannot have it both ways. You have either to admit that the one side is right or that the other is wrong, and I am sure that if hon. Members opposite understood as clearly as we do, we who are connected more with the consumers of the articles that are being spoken of, they would understand that they would get the support of the consumer the moment they tried to establish this direct and central co-operative marketing. That is the one way out. If you want to get rid of this supposed double dealing, you can only do it by having your real, central organisations, where there is no possibility of that kind of thing being done. Some people seem to forget, when this kind of question comes up in this House, that we are dealing with a system of society in which it pays a man to do a thing which is wrong.

The hon. Member would not be in order in dealing with the wide question of the regeneration of society.

If we can get the regeneration of the seller and of the people in the markets, we shall have the basis for a reconstruction of society. You seek to prevent people taking advantage, but as long as you have a system that makes it possible for a man to become richer because he does wrong, yon are going to have the perpetration of that wrong. If you wanted to destroy what you are complaining about this morning, you would stop the method whereby it profits a man to do a wrong thing to another, and that could be done in a Bill. If hon. Members like to take this Bill back, I will come and help them in drawing up the other Bill.

Go on the Committee.

There is no need to go on the Committee. Such a Bill would go right through the House. On the question of distribution, there is another side that can react, and that is that where you find out that you gee not getting the prices you want, you reduce the quantity coming into the market, so as to raise the price by scarcity. That is also a vicious side of the present system. People who want to deal honestly go to market, and they find that they are not being honestly dealt with.

Restricting output.

Yes, but that is what is done. I am surprised that men who are so skilled in their own trade as are the farmers, or the Grass Trust as I call them, should have been so careless in drafting this Bill that even the Cockney Member who said he belonged to the City of London said he could see his way to drive a number of motor omnibuses through it. That shows that it is not very closely drawn. I suggest that there is still time to withdraw the Bill and get it put right. If you persist in this Bill, it will be defeated. The common sense of the House will say: "We want some thing done, but we do not want it done in this stupid way." We, on this side, who want things justly dealt with, who want to see justice as between man and man, stand for justice, but you are not going to make any greater justice by a Bill like this, which, let me repeat for the third time—

I would remind the bon. Member that there is a rule against repetition.

While I said the third time, I did not mean a repetition. It was only to try and get it to sink in on the other side. That part of the Bill which makes it possible for people to combine and yet get out of the provisions of the Bill is the most serious objection to it.

The Debate has shown quite clearly the existence of these knockouts is generally assumed, to put it no higher than that, but the effect is that a portion of the ultimate consideration paid by the ultimate buyer goes, not into the pockets of the vendor, but into the pockets of a number of men who, I contend, have no right at all to it. The argument of the hon. Members opposite is that, while they agree that this is one of the evils of private enterprise, this Bill is doing very little, and not going far enough in remedying those evils. For myself, I would say that if this Bill goes any way and does only a little to remedy that state of affairs, I shall certainly support it. As a matter of fact, I believe it will go a great way. What is the evil that this Bill is designed to meet? I do not think I can do better than refer to the judgment of one of the learned Lord Justices in a case which has been referred to again and again to-day, namely, that of Rawlings. Lord Justice Scrutton said:

"The effect (of this agreement) upon the public or the community was that free competition at auctions, affording a ready market for realising goods, was restrained, and the property of any member of the public selling goods might be sold well below its true value."

"if the law under modern conditions re quires alteration, it must, I consider, Be altered by the Legislature."

Nonsense!

Is not that the effect of the opposition to this Bill? I believe this Bill will do something to stop that, and I hope that the House will unite in giving a Second Reading to the Bill.

It is very significant that of all those who have spoken from either side of the House, apart from the Mover and Seconder of this Bill, none has been whole-heartedly in favour of it. Some qualification has been made in each case, and I have never heard a Bill so thoroughly dammed with faint praise by its supporters as this particular Bill has been. The hon. Member who spoke last, and many other hon. Members, have suggested that we on this side of the House are indifferent to evils which exist in auction rooms. That is entirely untrue. We are just as conscious as they are of the fact that evils do exist in connection with auctions, and we want to get those evils remedied; in fact, we on this side want to get all evils done away with. But the difficulty is that we do not agree as to the particular method which is advised in this case. We do not think that a Bill such as this is the proper way of dealing with the evil which exists in connection with auction rooms.

Had I allowed that line of argument, I should have to allow an answer to the hon. Member.

Well, I should be very glad to hear an answer. There has been a good deal of damaging criticism of this Bill in the course of this Debate, and we should like to hear much more from those Members who are backing it as to what they have got to say in reply to that criticism. But the point I was going to make was that, rapacious though the lawyers be, and anxious though they are to have an increased number of laws in order to increase their possibilities of business, even they draw the line somewhere. I have looked at this Bill with a great deal of interest, and at the backers of it, and, as far as I can see, not a single backer is connected with the law. It seems, therefore, that the lawyers themselves do not regard this Bill as one which justifies their support and I am going to set that down to the virtue of the legal fraternity.

I was saying when this unfortunate interruption took place, due to the lack of interest in this Bill on the part of hon. Members opposite, that a hypothetically vindictive Home Secretary might take proceedings against a Labour Member of Parliament and that the latter might be fined what to him would be quite a large sum. Owing to the straitened circumstances in which most of us on these benches are, that hon. Member would be unable to find the money and would be involved finally in bankruptcy. All his realisable assets would be taken, and we should have the pathetic spectacle of all his household gods being offered at auction. might have amongst them an article which he particularly treasured, and he might go to the auctioneer and appeal to him, in the words of the pathetic old ballad which used to be familiar to me, "Don't put my father's picture up for sale." The auctioneer would say, "I regret it very much, but every available asset has to be realised; the sale must proceed." The man would go round to his friends, and possibly would find one who would undertake to bid for this particular picture. Then he would go to others of his friends who were going to the auction and would say, "Look here, old man, I want to try to get that picture of my father bought in for me, and I do not want you to go and bid up for it." His friend would say, "Very well, I won't," and three or four others of his friends would say exactly the same thing. That would be a conspiracy; people would be combining to prevent free and legitimate bidding. The picture might be knocked down to my friend's friend, and if this arrangement were then discovered action would be taken against him and he would be fined £100 and might be given six months' imprisonment; and that would not be the end of it, because the sale would be declared null and void and he would lose his father's picture. I submit that is a perfectly legitimate example of the kind of thing which might happen if this Bill became law.

I intervene in this Debate in order to state my views in regard to the general problem of dealing with trade combinations and price fixing associations. I am rather surprised to find the hon. and gallant Member for Ripon (Major Hills) supporting this Bill. If he is in favour of the principle, I take it he will be in favour of any Bill in principle which seeks to restrain abuses set up by trade combinations and price fixing associations. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was the Chairman of the Departmental Committee appointed to make inquiries with the idea of restraining abuses of this kind, and I had to sign a Minority Report issued by the Committee of which he was the Chairman. I did so because I felt that we had not sufficient legislative powers to restrain abuses in trade. Therefore, this is rather a helpful admission for the hon. and gallant Member to make. I suppose he will now be prepared to support legislation to interfere, not with rings of this kind but rings which raise the price of building material.

Any proper Measure will receive my unqualified support.

Another point I want to make quite clear is that, leaving aside all questions of personal liberty, which have been so eloquently put forward this afternoon, there is also a question which any responsible Government must keep in mind, and it is that if they are going to deal with abuses of this kind against the community it is iniquitous to proceed by legislation of a specialised character. In America nothing worse has grown up in American law and practice than the legislation introduced of a specialised character. If there is any necessity to deal with restraint of trade or the forestalling of trade it is surely necessary to proceed by means of a general measure which would protect any citizen in the community, and it ought not to be applied against a particular class. I think we should be lacking in our duty if we gave our consent to a Bill which is dealing with this question in that particular way.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question he now put."