I am entirely in the hands of the House, but it seems to me that it would be for the convenience of the House if we took the first three Orders and discussed them together, then the next two Orders together, and finally the last Order. Of course, the House will be at liberty to divide on any Order.

So far as the Opposition are concerned, we welcome that suggestion, and are willing to take the first three Orders together. No doubt two votes will be called for, but the general discussion could take place at once, and I think it would be for the convenience of the House.

I beg to move,

"That the Additional Import Duties (No. 4) Order, 1932, dated the twenty-fifth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the eighteenth day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, be approved."

The House is now being invited to consider a series of Orders under the Import Duties Act, and in accordance with the suggestion that has just been made and agreed to, it will be convenient if the first three Orders are taken together. The first two of these three Orders relate to horticultural products. The third Order is a mere revocation of duties under the Horticultural Products (Emergency Customs Duties) Act of 1931, and I think will not require any discussion. In the view of the Minister it was necessary to clear the field, as at the 1st of September, of any duties that were then in force under the other Act. Order No. 4 and Order No. 5, which are the two that call for our consideration, deal, first, with potatoes, and then with horticultural products generally. There was no desire to deal separately with potatoes, but it was found that imports of potatoes, particularly in the month of July, were so extensive and abnormal that the British growers' position was affected. His supplies were available and were sufficient to meet requirements, but he found his market being entirely cut from him by abnormal importations. Therefore an Order was made earlier in date than would otherwise have been the case, applicable to potatoes.

Order No. 5 is, I imagine, the one on which general discussion will take place. It deals with horticultural products generally. I need not remind the House of the structure of the Import Duties Act of 1932 and the machinery under which the Import Duties Advisory Committee make recommendations upon which the Treasury make Orders, subject to those Orders being submitted to this House for confirmation under Section 19 of the Act. The House will find in the White Papers the recommendations of the Import Duties Advisory Committee in each case, setting out the matters that have been called to their attention, the inquiries which they have made, the recommendations which they have received and the grounds for making the decisions to which they have come. The Orders are in common form and follow substantially the recommendations.

With regard to Order No. 4 the House will see that potatoes are dealt with by duties which are set out. It will be convenient perhaps to sketch shortly what has occurred with potatoes. Under the Horticultural Products Act new potatoes were subject to a duty of 2d. per lb. from 5th January to the end of February, 1d. per lb. in March and ½d. per lb. in April, and for the rest of the year they were subject to the general ad valorem duty. Main crop potatoes were liable to, that later duty as from 1st March. Under this new Order No. 4, which has been in operation since July, and therefore for over three months, main crop potatoes are liable to a duty of £1 per ton all the year round, and new potatoes will be chargeable with a duty of ½d. per lb. from 1st November to the end of June, and with a duty of £1 per ton for the rest of the year. It might be thought that that duty on early potatoes terminated too early to afford adequate protection during the period of bulk marketing, but it must be remembered that from June onwards early potatoes are a staple foodstuff and a duty of £1 per ton, in the view of the Government, ought to go a long way towards checking the flood of low-priced imports which bring chaos and ruin to the industry in this country. While growers here can produce sufficient early potatoes for the rest of the season, there is an automatic safeguard against a rise in price.

As regards main crop potatoes the imports are small, except when home prices are high or the home crop is short, and it is thought that a duty of ½1 per ton will restrict, when prices are low, the small imports which exercise an effect on prices wholly out of proportion to their volume, while, when prices are high, the duty is not high enough to affect imports seriously. So far, therefore, as potatoes are concerned, a comprehensive review of the position has been made by the Advisory Committee and the Order applies to new potatoes in the way I have indicated and to main crop potatoes also.

The comprehensive Order No. 5 dealing with horticultural products contains considerable differences from the duties imposed under the earlier Act. The duties under that Act on luxury produce were operative for the whole year but in the case of seasonal fruits the ditties terminated about the time when the borne crop came on the market in bulk and the object of the Act was to prevent a foreign grower who had climatic advantages from obtaining the cream of the early market. Now the object of Order No. 5 is more extensive. Its object is to afford protection to the home grower at the time when his crops are being marketed and therefore in most cases it will be found, if a comparison is made of the duties, that the duration of the duties has been lengthened, and, broadly speaking, a uniform duty has been imposed for the whole period. The higher duties under the earlier Act during certain periods have been discontinued, because a higher duty at a particular time of year was found to have no very great stimulative effect on production here and because, with regard to horticultural products, a certain amount of import actually does positive good. Public taste has to be stimulated by the fact being brought to public notice that the season for particular articles has arrived, and therefore a slight anticipation of the season in a modest degree is a positive help to the home market.

The operation of the Act of 1931 was limited to one year and the Advisory Committee in their Report dealing with Order No. 5 expressly state that it is not their intention to make any alteration in this scheme of protection before the autumn of 1934 but they add the customary warning that they will not hesitate to recommend the removal of any duty if, owing to lack of organisation, the prospect of a commodity being produced here in substantial quantities and at reasonable prices falls short of what may be expected. That is a regular warning which the Import Duties Advisory Committee put in their recommendations as a direct notification to the parties interested, that these duties which are intended to help, which are intended to give some protection to the industry, are also intended to mean that local growers must see to their own methods of marketing being satisfactory to distributor and consumer and that these advantages are only given conditional upon proper attention being paid to those points. The Import Duties Advisory Committee say that if instances are brought to their notice in which these points are not being properly observed, they retain the power to recommend the withdrawal of duties.

It may be convenient to tell the House some of the consequences which have resulted from the duties under the Horticultural Products Act. They have yielded £750,000 in revenue. They have reduced the import of practically every article which has been made chargeable with an additional duty, and those reductions have been especially marked in the cases of flowers, cucumbers, hot-house grapes, strawberries, cherries, and asparagus. The grower in this country has, in almost every case, been able to obtain higher prices for his own produce. There has been undoubtedly a stimulus to local production and to the preparatory steps for the growing of horticultural produce. The House will recollect the encouraging figures given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture in his recent speech. There has been great activity in glasshouse construction. The grubbing up of small fruit trees has ceased. There has been an increase in the area under production of the vegetable crops on which a duty has been imposed.

The signs, therefore, of the effect of these duties are all directly encouraging and the duties under the two Orders now before the House are estimated to be of great value to this industry. A more prosperous industry means increased production, and increased production means increased employment and decreased imports, and, with increased production and improved methods of producing and marketing, the consumer may be able to obtain most of his requirements at home at prices within the reach of everybody. We shall then have done something to stop what is an anomaly to all who are familiar with the market garden areas of the Continent—the anomaly that we, with our climatic advantages and our immense consumption of these wholesome and valuable products, should have allowed so much of our market to have been presented to foreign nations when we might so well have covered the ground ourselves.

Every time I listen to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and several of his colleagues, including the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my appreciation for the law and its learning becomes greater. It has been said that a really good lawyer never quite minds whether he is defending or prosecuting and that he can make out an equally good case for either side. The hon. Gentleman has made some magnificent Free Trade speeches in this House, and his arguments more often than not have been very conclusive. This morning, however, I observed that he could read a Protectionist brief as well as the Chancellor of the Exchequer or any of his satellites. He certainly has given the impression that his heart was in his speech, although I should have preferred to hear him making that speech from a back Bench, without the assistance always forthcoming from the Department. In any case, although the clarity and the skill with which the hon. Gentleman addressed the House were as usual, I do not think the conclusions reached were quite so good.

He dealt first with potatoes, and he told us that a halfpenny per lb. would be imposed for eight months in the year on new potatoes. That does not seem very much, but if such a duty were put upon coal, £4 13s. 4d. per ton, the consumer would think it a very great burden, and tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of people would shiver throughout the winter because of that very small duty. For the main crop, the duty is only £1 per ton. I am not at all sure, the Government having ventured upon a tariff career, that we can complain bitterly about that, except that potatoes form a staple part of the workers' diet and that every penny exacted, directly or indirectly, will ultimately express itself in industrial disputes, industrial guerilla warfare. Hon. Members opposite had better understand that every time they increase the cost of living to the great mass of the people, who are living now on the border line, not to mention the 3,000,000 who are attempting to exist on unemployment benefit, discontent will result.

It is generally known, and the Orange Book issued by the right hon. Gentleman's Department, with its expert officers, definitely states that if there is one consumable commodity which could be controlled it is potatoes. They are produced in certain specified areas in this country, and they form a very important part of the produce and commercial side of many of the farmers in those areas, but it is the one commodity, except in abnormal periods, that we neither import nor export in any quantity whatsoever. Only when there is an abnormal shortage here, which, curiously enough, Nature seems to level out by giving a large surplus abroad, is there any huge import of potatoes at all. Consequently, imported potatoes make very little difference, on the whole, to the home producer of this commodity, and I suggest to the hon. Gentleman and to the Tariff Advisory Committee, through him, that so long as they insist upon conceding to the producer of this or that commodity just what they demand, without insisting upon organisation as a precedent to any duty, we shall never get any real organisation in the agricultural industry.

We shall certainly oppose this duty, not because of any lack of desire to see the farmer prosperous, not because we do not feel that the farmer is entitled to a reasonable price for anything that he produces, the same as any other industrialist, but because in 1932 that industry, that workshop, without any sort of 1932 organisation, cannot hope to prosper in this present-day competitive world. Agriculturists must do as other people have to do. They must organise, they must anticipate requirements and potential demands; they must have a machine to deal with their surplus when Nature gives a crop in abundance. If they will do that, and satisfy the nation, the townsmen as well as the countrymen, that they have utilised what organisation is possible, but that they are still not doing fairly comparably with other people, perhaps the Opposition will be willing to consider duties or some other measures that would affect them in the right direction.

With regard to the fifth Order, I want, first of all, to refer to page 3 of the White Paper, where the Tariff Committee makes this statement:

"We think, therefore, that the duties to be imposed when the present emergency duties terminate should have as their primary object the adequate protection of the home grower when his crops are ready for the market, whilst at other times regard could properly be given to considerations of revenue."

Will the hon. Gentleman point to any section, sub-section or paragraph of the Customs Duties Act which gives the Tariff Committee power to supersede the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Here apparently their consideration goes beyond the imposition of a protective duty, and they definitely suggest a duty for revenue purposes. The Opposition never believed that the Tariff Committee was set up to occupy the illustrious position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if we are to have three Chancellors of the Exchequer imposing or recommending the imposition of duties, it will be most difficult for Members of this House to keep pace with all the avenues that will lead to the elimination of their very small incomes. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us at the conclusion of the Debate, which probably will not be too long delayed, just what part of the Customs Duties Act concedes the power to the Tariff Committee to recommend duties exclusively for the purpose of revenue.

I observe that the direct and indirect taxation in the first 12 months of the Government's tenure of office has taken a very sudden turn. Whereas in 1931 indirect taxation amounted to 34 per cent. and direct taxation to 66 per cent., for 1932–33 the estimate is: indirect taxation, 39 per cent.; direct taxation 61 per cent. The burden persistently seems to be falling upon those least able to bear it, and while that may be acceptable as coming from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his normal budgetary period, we hesitate to accept any recommendation or decision of the Tariff Committee devoted exclusively to that purpose.

12.30 p.m.

I wish to deal briefly with several of the items referred to in Order No. 5. The hon. Gentleman told us of the magnificent results of that Order. We have already received £750,000 in revenue. That is good from the Chancellor's point of view, but from the consumers' and from the national points of view, it might not be quite as good as the hon. Gentleman would have us believe. A duty was imposed, and is now recommended, on tomatoes, obviously for the purpose of helping the home producer. I have some figures here for June, July, and other months. The home-grown tomato in 1931, first quality, was 8s. 2d. per 12 lbs. The imported tomatoes for the same month from the Canary Islands were, for first quality, 4s. 11d. Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what value this duty will be to the English grower with such a margin between the prices of the home-grown and the imported? The imported tomatoes from Holland in the same month were 6s. for first quality. Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what advantage this duty of 2d. will be to the English grower? The only result can be that the revenue will benefit at the expense of the consumer, and, as the poorest of the poor buy the cheapest, it is an imposition, notwithstanding what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mile End (Dr. O'Donovan) said the other evening, on the poorest people. It is not calculated, either, to help the home growers as the hon. Gentleman would have use believe. In July, when the duty was still 2d., the price for first quality home-grown tomatoes was 6s. 4d. per dozen lbs. The only imported tomatoes for that month came from Holland, and the price was 4s. There is a margin of 2s. 4d. per dozen lbs.

What benefit can that be to the home producer Judging from what has already taken place, we have discovered an upward tendency in the price of both imported and home-grown, and yet the margin between imported and homegrown remains in 1932 exactly what it was in 1931 prior to the imposition of the duties. The home-grown prices from June to August, for first quality, in 1931 were 8s. 2d., 6s. 4d. and 5s. In 1932 they were 9s. 8d., 7s. 7d. and 5s. 8d. That indicates clearly that the home consumer not only pays the duty upon the imported tomatoes, but an addition which is taken by the retailer for collecting the bigger price. That is certainly not very helpful to the consumer, and I do not see how, with this margin between the imported price and the home-produced price it will directly assist the producer of tomatoes in this country. We are therefore obliged to oppose the duty on tomatoes.

Does the hon. Gentleman include Channel Islands tomatoes in home-grown?

The Channel Islands are excluded from duty.

Are they included in the price given for home-grown?

No, but I have the price for the Channel Islands which can be given in comparison with the home-produced. For first quality in May and June, 1932, the home-grown prices were 16s. 3d. and 9s. 8d., and for the Channel Islands 14s. 6d. and 8s. 10d. As there is no duty on Channel Islands tomatoes, I do not see the point of raising that question.

On cherries a duty of 3d. per lb. is recommended in this Order. Let us look at the price for cherries for three periods in order to see whether there is any justification for the duty. The average price in 1913 was 46s. per cwt.; in 1931, 44s. 9d.; and in 1932, 73s. 9d. That is approximately an increase in 1932 over 1913 and 1931 of 30 per cent. Surely there is no justification for a further duty of 3d. Agriculturists in the House are constantly telling us that they are selling beef at a price below the 1914 price. Here the price of a certain fruit is 30 per cent. in excess of the price of 1913, and yet the Government are imposing a duty of no less than 3d. a lb.

For what period of the year is the hon. Gentleman quoting the price of cherries?

In the reply given by the Minister of Agriculture giving the average of wholesale prices for homegrown cherries, he took the period May to August in 1913, 1931 to 1932. That duty of 3d. per lb. on cherries, a commodity where the producer is receiving 30 per cent. over pre-War prices, seems wholly unjustified. On gooseberries only one-halfpenny per lb. is recommended, but in the light of the prices this year, I want to ask the hon. Gentleman whether, as an old Free Trade Liberal, he can stand at that Box and justify this duty of £4 13s. 4d. per ton. I have turned gooseberries into tons as the hon. Gentleman turned potatoes into lbs. The price in 1913 was 15s. 6d. per cwt., and in 1932, 32s. 3d.—a 100 per cent. increase. Yet the hon. Gentleman suggests that it is good business to impose a further duty on gooseberries. I should like to hear him give us a lecture on the benefits of Free Trade, and, becoming Mr. Hyde instantaneously, give us another lecture on the value of Protection. I think that he would do both equally well.

With regard to plums, the recommendation is for only 1d. a lb. Look at the price of plums as given by the right hon. Gentleman in reply to a question, and see whether there is justification for this increase. The price of egg plums in 1913 was 10s. 3d. per cwt. In 1932 it was 26s. 3d.—an increase of 156 per cent. above the pre-War price. Yet the hon. Gentleman suggests that it is good business to impose a further duty of 1d. a lb. on plums. If that argument can be sustained, there is nothing further to be said. I do not think that even the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) could bring foward any argument against any protective duty which the Government suggested if the hon. Gentleman can sustain his argument to justify a further duty upon plums with such prices staring us in the face.

On strawberries, a duty of 3d. per lb. is recommended. I have tried my best to appreciate the point of view of the hon. Gentleman and those fruit producers who invite the Tariff Committee to make this recommendation. Strawberries are here for only a, short period, and I am sure that every hon. Member likes to enjoy half a lb. on occasion. At least, I have seen a number of hon. Members on the Terrace enjoying a few. We are not really concerned about early strawberries, which are a pure luxury at 2s. 6d. a lb. We are, however, concerned about the main crop, which for a short time and in small quantities, sometimes provide a luxurious Sunday afternoon's tea for the working classes. The average price of strawberries in 1913 was 4d. per lb. The price this year was 7¾d., or nearly 100 per cent. increase over pre-War. Still, the hon. Gentlemen recommends a further duty of 3d. per lb. If the price of strawberries had fallen like the price of meat, that is had made a perpendicular dive such as was referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the other day, one could understand such a recommendation; but only on four occasions between 1920 and 1932 has the price of strawberries fallen below 100 per cent. in excess of the pre-War price, and the price has been as high as 250 per cent., 156 per cent. and 131 per cent. above pre-War price, and even this year it was 94 per cent. above. The hon. Member is recommending 3d. per lb. duty on strawberries. He has his majority, and I suppose he will get his duty.

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to ask him a question, because my constituents are interested in this subject. From what is he taking those figures, and would he corn-pare the prices with the price of some other commodities, such as coal, for instance?

I am quite willing to make a comparison in the case of any commodity the Noble Lord cares to bring forward.

Well, coal.

Coal, if you like. The price of coal represents, I think, somewhere round about 17 to 20 per cent. over pre-War prices. [Interruption.] It has actually been below that point. I am speaking from memory. I am not referring to the price paid by the consumer. I am referring to the price received by the producers at the pithead, which is very often a very different thing.

I am sorry to ask the hon. Member one more question. I am much obliged to him for the courteous way he has replied. Is he referring to the retail prices of the fruit, or the prices received by the grower?

The right hon. Gentleman who replied to the Parliamentary question which I asked could perhaps answer that question better than I can. If I read the question and the reply, the Noble Lord will be able to make the best of it he can. I want him to have the facts at his disposal. In my question I asked the Minister of Agricul- ture to state the average price of strawberries for each year since 1920 and the average price in 1913, showing for each year the percentage increase or decrease compared with 1913. I am presuming that the right hon. Gentleman gave the reply as produced by his officials but whether they are wholesale or retail prices only the right hon. Gentleman can say. From my angle, however, it makes no difference to the argument. The, price here, whether it be wholesale or retail, is an average of well over 100 per cent. over pre-War prices, and yet there is a recommendation for a further duty of 3d. per lb.

Is the hon. Member aware that in the districts where these strawberries are grown there has been an increase of from 110 per cent. to 120 per. cent. in the labour costs of picking and cleaning the strawberries?

I am not sure about the wages in agricultural areas being 100 or 110 per cent. over pre-War. If that is the case, then pre-War wages must have been verging upon slavery wages, because there are eight counties where the agricultural labourers' wage is less than 28s. per week. If that is 110 per cent. in excess of pre-War wages, am I to understand they were paid only 14s. pre-War?

In the Wisbech area, where a large proportion of the strawberries is grown, labour is paid considerably over 30s.

That applies also to Kent, where strawberries are grown.

I have some little knowledge of the change that has taken place in wages, and I am prepared to appreciate that point, and I am making full allowance for it. I wish everybody would make as full allowance for changed conditions when thinking of miners' wages. I would be very happy to be equally generous to every other producer or worker in the country. I hope I am making due allowance for that point. The average rise over the prewar price is 100 per cent., and on top of that the hon. Gentleman recommends a further 75 per cent. duty—since the prewar price was 4d.

I must also make an observation on the question of currants, since the Noble Lord who owns and controls one of the newspapers in this country makes a big point about currants whenever he delivers a speech. I refer, of course, to Lord Beaverbrook. I heard him make a speech in North Norfolk about currants imported either whole or as juice from Russia, and I was amazed at the way he carried away that audience by the statements he made there. What is the position with regard to currants? If the fruit is really necessary, and we must grow it, then the grower is entitled to a reasonable price —we say that all the time—but there is a difference between a reasonable price and an outrageous one. The price of blackcurrants in 1930, according to the right hon. Gentleman, was 4d. a lb., and in 1923 7½d. a lb., an increase of round about 90 per cent. On blackcurrants a duty of 2d. per lb. is recommended, which is calculated to bring the price up to round about 9d., being 125 per cent. increase over the pre-war price of 4d. Can the hon. Gentleman justify this duty of 2d. in the face of those figures? It seems to me to be impossible.

A duty on raspberries is also recommended, and on redcurrants. The noble Lady who represents one of the Scottish divisions is not present, or I should have liked to say something to her about raspberries. The hon. Gentleman recommends a duty of 2d. per lb. on imported raspberries. The price of raspberries in 1930 was 5d. per lb., and in 1932 7d. per lb. The duty of 2d. is equivalent to an increase of approximately 40 per cent. I have a cutting from a Scottish paper—the Minister of Agriculture will perhaps know something about this—referring to raspberries, real raspberries. Last week a public inquiry was held into a proposal that the marketing of raspberries in the Blairgowrie district should be conducted as a joint cooperative venture under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931. Presumably the right hon. Gentleman's marketing officers would be present. These sensational figures were forthcoming at that inquiry. A crop of raspberries for jams and canning has a sale price of £33 per ton, and the output of the crop would make, apparently, £200,000. Under the present system it is assumed that it costs £12,000 to sell that £200,000 worth of raspberries, whereas the Marketing Board's estimate is that the same raspberries could be sold at an expenditure of £2,000, which includes £1,000 per annum for a distribution manager. There the right hon. Gentleman's Department suggests that a saving of £10,000 could be effected. There are only 453 growers who grow in quantity, and that makes all the difference between sheer poverty and being able to carry on. They could get about £22 or £23 per ton by the mere process of instituting a marketing scheme as recommended by the Marketing Board.

The only other item I wish to deal with is that of flowers. You are imposing a duty upon imported flowers. The hon. Gentleman thinks that the duty has done very well indeed. Here is an example which could be multiplied ten thousand times—a producer sent along 128 bunches of flowers to a bazaar in. Scotland. He stood there and watched the auctioneer auction them for 2s. 4d. It had cost 2s. 2d. to get them there. Therefore, he received 2d. for his trouble, and for fertilisers, rent, labour, and so on. That was not the end of the story. The producer pursued those 128 bunches to the retailer's shop and, three hours from the time that his flowers were sold for 2s. 4d., he saw them in the shop at 5d. per bunch or £2 13s. 4d. for the lot. The producer got 2d. and the retailer received £2 13s. 4d. If we make adequate allowance for meeting all the charges of the shop, I think there is not an hon. Member but would say that it is an outrage—[Interruption]—perpetrated both upon the producer and the consumer.

While it may be necessary to do certain things to assist horticulturists and agriculturists, we are, I suggest, starting at the wrong end. We ought to insist upon the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1931, not only being accepted sympathetically by the farmers, but being utilised to the maximum extent. If we can remove a good deal of what Lord Linlithgow, when he presided over the Commission in 1923, referred to as "the £300,000,000 margin" between the producers and the consumers, horticulturists and agriculturists would not be nearly so depressed as they are. We are convinced that, while the Government will get their Orders and will impose these duties, they will inflict punishment upon miners, with their wretched wages, and upon the rest of the people, before receiving any de- finite guarantee that agriculturists will try to help themselves. We say that it is unfair, but if we must pay the price, because of the smallness of our numbers and the determination of the Government to do the wrong thing first, I hope that we may expect that the Government, having penalised the consumers, will insist that the maximum organisation possible will be introduced into this industry. We shall most certainly oppose these Orders in the Division Lobby.

I am sure that the House will agree with the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) that, if anything can be done to decrease the margin as between the amount the producer receives for his agricultural produce and what is paid in the retailer's shop, it is desirable that it should be done. It will be proved as a result of these duties that it has been possible to retain a large amount of the profit which has been made in the retail shops. It was not for the purpose of discussing the whole of these Orders that I rose. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman who introduced the Orders today on the way in which he has explained them to the House, and also for the protectionist tone of the speeches which he has made.

I have risen to refer to the date at which the higher duty on potatoes lapses. Last Saturday, the Members of Parliament for the County of Cheshire met the representatives of the National Farmers' Union. Among many stories that were told of the difficulties of the farming community, great stress was laid by them upon the expiration of this duty on 30th June. The case which the representatives of the National Farmers' Union put forward was that, whereas in the South of England 30th June may be a satisfactory date, in the North of England, where potatoes mature at a later date, great hardship was caused. They made an appeal to us to press the Minister by every means to alter that date to the 31st July in the interests of the producers of potatoes in the northern counties. If the date were altered, the alteration would be of great value to those producers, and would be of considerable help to them in the difficult times through which they are passing. The one object I had in rising was to press the point upon the Minister. I hope that he will give it consideration.

May I take this opportunity to say as few words as I can on this subject of the dates. What has just been said by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer), as applying to northern England, applies much more forcibly to Scotland, and not only does it apply to potatoes but it applies to many other products mentioned in these Orders. I have already raised the question twice in this House. I have asked the right hon. Gentleman who was Minister of Agriculture, on those two occasions, and I have also asked the right hon. Gentleman who was Secretary of State for Scotland to take steps to modify these duties, in order that Scotland and the North of England may not be penalised as against the South of England. I am sorry that more of my Scottish friends are not here to-day, so that they might bear out what I say. We have made repeated attempts on the Floor of the House, and in other places, to induce these two Gentlemen to agree to modify the dates. The actual request that we made was that at least a fortnight or three weeks' postponement should be granted.

1.0 p.m.

I agreed with every word the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade said in introducing these Orders, as regards the conditions in the countryside among nursery gardeners and all growers of fruit and tomatoes. I know many such cases. But in Scotland there is complication which we said was bound to arise, that before the Scottish grower had a chance of selling a reasonable proportion of his produce, the maturity date had arrived and foreign imports came in. I had a conversation with one of the leading officials of the Scottish Farmers' Union last night. He did not know my name or that I had already spoken on this point. I was introduced to him, and he attacked me on the subject at, once. He said: "Do you Scottish Members realise that you have allowed these maturity dates to be arranged in such a way that the Scottish farmers have been unable to sell their produce? Do you also realise that one of the reasons for the present glut of potatoes is that many Scottish farmers thought that these horticultural duties would enable them to sell their new potato crops, whereas, in point of fact, the maturity date arrives and the new potatoes were left in the ground, instead of being sold as new potatoes and that that is doing much also to increase the present glut of potatoes?" Therefore, while warmly endorsing all that the hon. Gentleman has said, I would ask him to consult with his colleagues and see if something cannot be done in this direction.

I rise for the purpose of strongly supporting the recommendations of the hon. and gallant Member for Peebles (Captain A. Ramsay), who has spoken on behalf of the claims of Scotland and the North of England, including Lancashire. We know that in Scotland there are some very important areas where splendid early potatoes are grown, and I would put in a strong plea for the extension of the date until the 31st July in the case of early potatoes. As regards main-crop potatoes, we know that we can produce as many of these as are needed for consumption in this country, and to get over the difficulty in that case total prohibition would be necessary. At any rate, a, duty of £1 per ton is entirely inadequate to meet the present state of affairs, and I would reommend either total prohibition or an increase of the duty.

All of this legislation has proved to be of great advantage to the country. We know that there is a large amount of unemployment, and the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) seems to forget the interests of the agricultural labourer. If this legislation is encouraged, there will be more agricultural workers on the land. The result will be to bring men from the industrial centres, and that should be the object of all Members of Parliament. We hear a good deal about tomatoes, in which the hon. Member for Don Valley is keenly interested, but I would like to remind him that there is a good deal of difference in the quality of tomatoes. The English tomato and the Channel Islands tomato are of far greater value than any foreign tomato. The foreign tomato is dear at the price; the English tomato is cheap.

That has always been our point—that people only buy the very cheapest tomatoes because they cannot afford to buy the better quality, and the mere process of putting a duty upon the very cheap tomato does not help the home grower at all, but merely penalises the poor.

I do not agree with that view. The object of these Orders and of the Government's legislation is to produce at home more English tomatoes of better quality, so that the poorer classes may have the advantage of that better quality. If the course advocated by the hon. Member is pursued, there will never be sufficient English tomatoes to supply the working class. There is also the question of labour. I mentioned the other day that I knew of a man who had bought 33 acres of land, and found six persons employed upon it, men, women and boys, getting only the agricultural rate of wages. Now there are 46 people engaged upon it, largely occupied in growing tomatoes according to all the latest scientific methods, including sterilisation of the soil and everything else that can be done to get the best results; and these are skilled men getting more than the agricultural rate of wages. We want to encourage legislation that will produce results of that kind.

We also hear a good deal about cherries, but the hon. Member for Don Valley has forgotten to put before the House the fact that the season of 1932 has been unfavourable for cherries, plums and strawberries, and he has referred only to years which have been favourable. As regards black currants, there was a glut last year, but, with the introduction of canning factories, the glut has now been dealt with. The canning industry is increasing; we have now 84 establishments, where previously there were only six. That is the object of this legislation—to produce fruit and vegetables in the disposal of which the canning factories can assist. The importance of the strawberry industry in providing increased labour has been mentioned. Hundreds of acres are being laid down to strawberries for the purposes of the canning factories alone, and we know that the English strawberry far excels in quality any foreign strawberries, and is worth far more.

With regard to raspberries, we know that this industry is a very important one in Scotland, employing a great deal of labour. In the Dining Room the other day I saw a beautiful sample of Scotch raspberries which had just been picked and were of lovely quality. Is it not our duty, as Members of the House of Commons, to encourage the growing of these fruits at home, and thereby employ labour? Why, also, should not our homegrown fruit be given good names? I understand that there is a variety of raspberry called "Lloyd George," which is of very fine quality, and, surely, any fruit bearing that name would be sweet and beneficial. I admit that there is something in the argument of the hon. Member for Don Valley that we must devote ourselves to the organisation of our own markets at, home for various products, and I trust that those who are engaged in the growing of potatoes and similar produce will devote themselves to putting into operation the Agricultural Marketing Act, so that there may be an increased price for the producer and a lower price for the consumer.

I only intervene for a few minutes, because in view of the large number of Orders—eight in all—with which we have to deal, some of us feel that we should be better employed in concentrating our energies on the bigger problem of iron and steel, which is dealt with in one of the later Orders. It must not, however, be thought that our objection, or, at any rate, mine, to these Orders has changed. We had long days of discussion last summer on these or similar Orders when they were originally introduced, and we scrutinised the details of the various proposals, but, under our new system of an Advisory Committee and tariffs, it clearly would be impossible to examine the hundred and one articles that are brought before the House in these various Orders. None the less, I am satisfied that our prediction as to the ill effects of these duties on the supply of these commodities at cheap prices has been justified. At any rate, in the poorer districts, like the East End of London, scarcity was the order of the day last summer.

I realise that there was a failure of the crop, but there was a scarcity of strawberries and cherries in the home market, whereas with free imports some of that scarcity might have been made up, and these delectable fruits might have been brought within the reach of the poorer classes of the community. In the street markets, where most of our people buy their commodities, I talked in May, June, and July to the street traders, and they had a very different tale to tell from those hon. Members who represent producers. They pointed out that their stalls were bare and that trade was bad because prices were quite beyond the pocket of the ordinary working man at a time like this, when employment is scarce and many people are in receipt of insurance benefit. The policy of free imports, with all its faults and difficulties, has the great advantage that when there is a glut the consumer gets an advantage, and the poorer members of the community are able to enjoy a much more varied diet than would otherwise be the case. As regards tomatoes, anyone with plenty of money in his pocket would obviously prefer to buy English tomatoes of good quality, but you cannot afford to do so if you have no money. If you are down on your uppers, if you are on the dole, if you are on short commons, the cheap inferior imported tomato has to fill the bill.

We have got to accept the policy of the Government. It is no use voting against it; we can only protest. What strikes my admiration is the extraordinary diligence of the three commissioners who attempt to deal in detail one after another with strawberries, asparagus, fabric gloves, scissors, wrapping paper, and rose bushes, and who lay down their rules as if they were experts in everything. I am inclined to think that these duties are not the result of the overpowering wisdom of the three commissioners. They are the result of the energy, the push and the good organisation in putting their case of the various interests concerned. I cannot help thinking that if the various agricultural interests were as diligent in organising their industry in the direction of marketing, they would get better prices for their commodities than any Protectionist system would give them, and that the profits of their trade would go to them instead of to the retailers and the various wholesale distributors. I quite agree with the hon. Member who said that if we concentrated our energies on marketing, the consumer would gain and the producer would gain. Under this system the producer may gain a little, but the consumer loses every time.

I can claim to have some knowledge of this subject. I was associated for many years with one of the largest importers of fruit and vegetables in this country, and I say without any hesitation that if you want the fruit and vegetable industry to survive in this country, you have definitely got to protect it, and you have got to protect it in a comprehensive and not any halfhearted manner. The right hon. Gentleman referred to potatoes. May I say at once that there were very few days during the whole of the year that we were not called upon to sell imported potatoes. They are not seasonal in the true sense of the word, as we understand it. In the first 10 months of this year no less than £6,000,000 worth of potatoes was imported into this country. If hon. Members opposite—and I say it with all respect and humility—have the interests of the unemployed and the workers as much at heart as they profess to have, and we on this side also profess to have, you certainly have got to protect the producers, and you have got to endeavour to find work for the unemployed agricultural labourers.

I hear continually speeches made from the point of view of the consumer. There will be no producers unless the production is protected. The hon. Gentleman who last spoke said that if you are down and out, and have not any money, it is desirable to buy inferior goods. If you have no money at all, you cannot buy any goods, and unless you protect the work of the workpeople, which is the industry of the producers, you will have very little money for the unemployed to spend. It is in the interests of the agriculture of the country as a whole that the fruit and vegetable industry should be comprehensively protected for not only short periods, but even for longer periods, because when those periods elapse, then the fruit that has been pulped abroad during this particular period is then dumped into this country, and you find the jam and canning merchants who take the bulk of the goods will hold up their purchases if it suits their pockets until these dates have elapsed and then purchase the fruit and vegetables which then can come in without any tariff whatsoever. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should bear this in mind, and it may be that on some future occasion he may think fit to reconsider and alter the dates in this particular Order.

I rise to oppose these Orders. We can now speak with considerable experience, and if there is anything which has convinced me that our opposition to these proposals has been Mstified in the past, it is the applause of agriculturists in this House of the statement made by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) when he illustrated the wholesale prices of flowers as against the retail prices in the shops. It is a mistaken idea for Members on the other side of the House to suggest that we on this side are not anxious to see British agriculture and horticulture in a more prosperous condition, but we say seriously that the experience of the duties has proved conclusively that the way the Government are attempting to remedy this matter is the wrong one. You impose duties on a large amount of fruit and vegetables which cannot be provided in our own country. The hon. Gentleman has just mentioned that potatoes to the value of millions of pounds were imported in the past year. I think he will agree that that importation of potatoes was very largely the result of a shortage in our own country. The market could not be supplied with home-grown potatoes. Now the result of the soft fruit duties has not only created a great hardship on the poor people, but it has robbed them entirely of fruit as part of their daily diet.

The hon. Member has referred to me personally. I cannot accept his view that these millions of pounds worth of potatoes were imported here because of any shortage of crop.

I think if the hon. Gentleman will make inquiries, he will find that that is true, and I would ask the Minister of Agriculture himself whether that is not correct. Coming to soft fruit and vegetables in this list, we in the Northern parts of the country in the past year were robbed entirely of a large number of fruits named in this list. We could not get any cherries, strawberries or blackcurrants at all. Many of us interested in institutions could not even get them for institutional purposes. The manufacturers of preserves and jams complain because there was a shortage of fruit. We gay—and I think the applause from the other side of the House totally proves it—that the re-organisation of the fruit industry must first start in a proper marketing understanding, and an advantage needs to be taken of the marketing boards that could be set up if the Government felt so inclined. We have not the slightest objection if the Government take that course, but we say that you are imposing hardships on the poorest in the country while giving no guarantee that the producer will fare any better than he is doing now, when there is such a disparity between wholesale and retail prices.

If you are going to give protection to the fruit grower, the consumer is entitled to protection, and, if it is true—and it is not denied—that the illustration of the hon. Member for Don Valley can be multiplied by thousands, why cannot the Government see the wisdom of installing marketing boards so that the consumer can get fruit at a reasonable price, which will go into the pocket of the producers rather than of the middlemen? This is the wrong way. You are not only imposing a duty on poor people, but you are robbing them of the possibility of fruit being part of their diet at all. We cannot see that this is likely to benefit the industry unless the Government are prepared to accept the policy that we propagated for weeks during the discussion of these duties, and, when the Government are prepared to do that, they will find that we shall be ready and willing to fall into line so long as the consumer gets the protection to which he is entitled.

The hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) marvelled at the amount of work that the Advisory Committee get through and he wondered how they did it. I will tell him. They listen, they think, and they act—three things that might be taken to heart by many Members who sit on the bench from which I am speaking at this moment. The hon. Member who has just spoken repeats what was said 12 months ago and seems to have learned nothing. In the ancient city of Aberdeen we have a motto which might also be taken into account by Members of the House. "They say. What say they? Let them say!" That is a condition that many of us have got into when Members from those benches rise. They repeat the old stuff which is as dead as Methu- selah and we have heard it so often that we have got quite sick of it. The hon. Member is wrong in his statement about the shortage of potatoes. We have had no shortage at all. I have that information within the last five minutes from one who is as intimately acquainted with the industry as Mr. Deputy-Speaker is with the rules of the House.

May I ask whether, excluding the present season grown potatoes, there was not a definite known shortage in the output for 1931. If the hon. Gentleman searches back in his mind, he will recall that the present Home Secretary definitely admitted that there was a clear shortage in the 1931 crop.

From season to season there are shortages for various reasons. Potato growers have had no heart to put down potatoes, but as soon as they had confidence that the Government were going to let them have fair play in the markets of the world they began to plant, and they will plant more in future if they get fair play.

I got up for one purpose only, to say a word about potatoes to the new Minister of Agriculture, whom we all welcome, particularly in Scotland, with the greatest possible acclamation. The question of potatoes is a difficult one, but I think he will find that the plan that I am going to suggest will possibly be better than having the potato question before the Advisory Committee. We ought to have a special advisory committee for potatoes alone on the same lines as the advisory committee with regard to dyestuffs. That Committee was set up 10 years ago and consisted of three producers, three consumers and a neutral chairman. They laid down quite plainly that, so long as there is a supply of dyestuffs large enough for the consumers, so long as the price is all right, we say to the foreigner: "We are much obliged to you for all the kindness you have displayed in sending dyestuffs to this country in the past, but for the moment we can supply our own dyestuffs at a reasonable price in great quantities and so we do not want to do any business with you." So long as potato growers can grow potatoes at £4 10s. or £5 a ton, and so long as a stone of potatoes can be sold re- tail at 10d. or a shilling, we shall politely say to our friends overseas: "We are much obliged to you, but we are growing all the potatoes we want for the moment, and we shall control your potatoes." If there is any shortage about which the hon. Member worries so much, we shall say: "Come on, put them in. We will consume them for you and pay you for them. In the meantime, we are going to preserve,"—protect if you like—"our own market and our own potato growers, and we are going to supply enough potatoes at a reasonable price for our own population."

The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) said that he is going to oppose this Order, but his opposition was rather half-hearted. I hope we may be able to remove his opposition and make him eventually support the Order. I know he has a very great interest in the restoration to the land of the labour which should be employed upon it, and he must know that that land which is under intensive cultivation employs the greatest amount of labour on the land. He should, therefore, support any measure put forward which would help to increase the cultivation of fruit and vegetables. I hope he will reconsider his position. He referred to the rise in price of plums, strawberries, and so on. I would remind him, as I did in the interruption which I made, that the whole rise in prices since 1913 might be said to have gone into the pockets of the labourers employed in that particular industry. We do not object to that. We recognise that the wages paid in the early nineties were far too low, and we are only too pleased if the agricultural industry can be made such as to enable us to pay a decent wage to the agricultural workers.

The hon. Member for Don Valley has another interest, that of the consumer, and I ask him to consider whether the imposition of the duty of £1 a ton, and the duty upon early potatoes, are not in the interests of the British consumer? Statements have been made that last year there was a shortage of potatoes in this country. It is true, and the result of the shortage led to artificially high prices. The duty was put on, and what has been the result 4 Confidence has been given to the growers of potatoes, and the acre- age of potatoes this year is up by 12½ per cent., and that fact, coupled with an increase of something like one ton per acre, has caused a surplus of potatoes in this country and low prices. If a duty can establish confidence among the vegetable growers of the country so that at all times there shall be such an acreage grown that there will always be a sufficiency for the consumers, then the consumers will not be burdened with the high prices that they were paying for potatoes last year, but will always have the knowledge that every year they will have a decent average price to pay. That is what we desire for this industry. I submit to the hon. Member for Don Valley that the duty will protect the consumers from having, in times of shortage, to pay such high prices.

I agree again with what the hon. Member for Don Valley has said with regard to the necessity for agriculturists making some effort at marketing arrangements. Low prices of potatoes in this country are due, not to the foreign supply so much as to our home supply, and it should be possible for the potato growers of the country to make such arrangements under the Agricultural Marketing Act that any surplus can be removed from the market and so allow the remaining potatoes to fetch an even price. I agree with the criticism of the hon. Member on the back benches opposite that British agriculture and the producers of agricultural products are suffering to-day to a very large extent by reason of the difference between the amount the producer receives and the price which the consumer has to pay, and in my opinion, if that difference was not so great the consumers would be able to obtain their articles cheaper and there would be an increase of consumption to the benefit of the agricultural producer. I wish to say, on behalf of the agricultural industry and the fruit and vegetable growers, how very much we appreciate what is being done under the present measures. Our only criticism is that some of the figures are not enough, and that the time, particularly in regard to new potatoes, does not extend sufficiently late in the year. That is our only criticism and we desire to express our thanks to the National Government for the action which they have taken.

The hon. Member for Leominster (Sir E. Shepperson) has given a very good answer to the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman), and I recommend the hon. Member to take a dose of his own medicine. The hon. Member for Leominster has pointed out what we have said so often, that a tariff or protection is no use whatever unless you have a proper organisation of the industry concerned. That was the burden of the work undertaken in the last Parliament under the Agricultural Marketing Act. Our complaint is that we are not getting on, we are not getting proper organisation for marketing, or protection for the consumer and the producer. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh and his friends appear only to look at one side. They talk about protecting the producer from abroad, but they do not talk about protecting the consumer at home by common organisation. We on this side of the House welcome very much the speech of the hon. Member for Leominster on this subject, but we are still waiting—and we hope that we are going to get it from the Minister of Agriculture—for real organisation and efficiency, so that we may not have either ridiculously high prices and a shortage or ridiculously low prices and ruin, but proper and ordered production. We have always taken the view that what is wanted is an ordered, fair price, one which is fair to the producer and to the consumer, but you are not likely to get that under unregulated private enterprise.

I wish to support the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer), that the question of extending the period during which the higher duties charged on potatoes for one month should be seriously considered. As he pointed out, potatoes in the north come on to the market later, and the growers feel very strongly that the Minister and the Committee have been guided by the advice of people trading in the south, and that the interests of the people in the north have been overlooked. I wish to make the same plea with regard to tomatoes. There is a very large production of tomatoes in my constituency, but they do not come on to the market until August, and, when they are ready, the growers find that the duty has been re- duced to a penny. Throughout the whole of this year I have met with constant complaint about the matter, and I have been strongly urged to bring the matter, as I have done, before the Minister of Agriculture. I hope that it will be considered, because every reason which exists for the duty of 2d. in June in the south exists as strongly in the north in August when the tomatoes come on to the market.

There is one other matter with reference to price. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) gave interesting figures about prices. They must have been wholesale prices. On this point, I would like to give a little personal experience. In the first week of September, I was in Suffolk and saw a shop with a great many tomatoes for sale. They were being sold at 6d. a lb., and I asked the shopkeeper to be good enough to look up the prices at which his tomatoes were selling the year before. He did so and said that the price this year was ld. less than in 1931. I asked him where he got his tomatoes from in 1931 and where he was getting them from this year. He said that in 1931 he bought practically only imported tomatoes. The proportion was 25 to 2, and he said that this year it was the other way round. He also said that he bought practically nothing but English tomatoes and that he had only bought about two crates of foreign tomatoes. You have there a practical illustration of a diversion of trade, and yet the consumer was getting tomatoes at 1d. a lb. less.

I think that it will only be courteous to the House if I reply briefly to the Debate—though I know that there are several other Orders in which hon. Members take a great interest —the more particularly after the very courteous and, as always, fully informed speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams). The criticism of the Orders has turned into three groups. (1) That they are non-effective, (2) that they are too effective, (3) that there are difficulties of administration which ought to be got over. To take the last point first, it is particularly stressed in regard to the dates of the Potato Order. Obviously that will have to receive our close attention. The difficulty with which we are faced is the difficulty that crops come on earlier in the south than in the north. That is one of the difficulties which has had to be dealt with in regard to imported potatoes in the month of June. We must remember, however, that this is only the first year. We have not had anything like 12 months experience of the working of these Orders and we shall certainly require to watch them and modify them from time to time. They will require review and examination by the Import Duties Advisory Committee from time to time because in all these things if one goes on the lines of first principle one will certainly be wrong. It is an experimental thing and we intend to continue, to extend and to confirm the results of experiment.

To turn to the main point, that these Orders are too drastic and effective, the hon. Member for Don Valley has quoted figures which were interesting to me particularly as I have watched him building up a case in the questions which he has addressed to the Ministry of Agriculture over a period of weeks. When I was examining his questions and the answers that he was to receive it was very clear that he was building up the figures for a rise in prices between a period this year and a period last year. I wondered whether he realised the great fallacy which would invalidate the figures when they were brought on to the floor of the House. He is comparing prices of produce from abroad, and particularly from Holland, last year when we were on the Gold Standard, with prices this year when we are off the Gold Standard. Of course, a rise in prices in goods from Gold Standard countries would inevitably take place after that change had been made. The difficulty of comparison is very considerable because the prices are not like with like. In all these cases you need to examine very carefully what the effect has been of the drop in the value of the £ as compared with the Gold Standard currencies and the value of the £ a year ago when it was on a parity. Let us look at the figures which the hon. Member quoted and compare them with others. Take the price of British tomatoes. In September, 1931, the wholesale price for first quality was 4s. 7d. for 12 lbs. In September, 1932, the price was 4s. 9d. There is no sign there of the 100 per cent. rise or the other enormous rises in price to which the hon. Member drew our attention. Second quality tomatoes fetched 3s. 6d. per 12 lbs. in September, 1931, and only 3s. 7d. in September, 1932. I do not think that anyone would say that an enormous and unreasonable rise has occurred between those two periods.

Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to recall that I never suggested a rise of 100 per cent. in the price of tomatoes. I gave the price for June and I think for July. Having quoted now the September prices for first and second quality tomatoes will the right hon. Gentleman quote the first and second quality prices for June and July in 1931 and 1932?

Certainly. In June, 1931, the price of first quality tomatoes was 8s. 2d. for 12 lbs. and in June, 1932, 9s. 8d. The price for second quality was 6s. 9d. in June, 1931, and 8s. 3d. in June, 1932. It surely is obvious to every hon. Member what is happening. It seems that by the shutting out of the lower qualities from abroad, for the benefit of home production that home production has increased and the proportionately higher price of the earlier months has given place to the proportionately lower price of the later. It may even be said by hon. Members that the danger will be not that the home producer will raise his price, but that he will produce in such excessive quantities that he will cause a glut and break his own market. Hon. Members in that respect are pursuing two lines of argument which it will be difficult for them to reconcile. Why not, they say, deal with this problem under the Marketing Act? The hon. Member for Don Valley who gives so much attention to these matters must agree that under the Marketing Act the producer occupies a position of great advantage compared with any other section whose interests will be reviewed under that Act. The object and intention of the Marketing Act is to make it more possible for the producer to obtain a better price. That is the fundamental intention of the Marketing Act.

By organisation.

Not merely by organisation. The hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) cannot get away with it in that way. He and his hon. Friends opposite voted for another Quota Act which was passed to enable the producer to get a better price and that was not merely by organisation. The Coal Quota Act was to increase the price of the output from the coal mines.

The hon. Member for Don Valley gave figures for other prices particularly fruits, which did show a sharp rise this year as against the year before. The year before was admittedly a year of exceptional glut in these products and that the whole of those gluts should be thrown uncontrolled on the British market as argued by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) is an argument which we totally deny. We say that continual sales of bankrupt stocks are not of advantage either to the buyer or the seller and are a disadvantage to the people of this country. The figures which the hon. Member for the Don Valley gave in regard to cherries and strawberries and so on are I think invalidated by that fact, namely that those were exceptional glut years, when a glut of foreign produce was thrown upon the market, making it totally unremunerative for the home producer to gather his crop, let alone sell it. We were bombarded in that year with deputations who said that the price of the home produce had fallen to such lengths that it did not pay to collect it. Obviously that is not a state of things which any hon. Member would like to see perpetuated.

The right hon. Gentleman will remember that I made my comparisons not as between 1931 and 1932 but the prices in 1913 and 1932.

I was desiring to be even more fair to my hon. Friend than he is to himself. I do not think that, the 1913 prices as against those in 1932 are comparable at all. I am sure the hon. Member does not desire to see the agricultural labourer go back to the wage which he was paid in 1913. None of us desire to see that. The argument based on glut prices in an exceptional year is one which we wish to exclude from the economic history of this country. We do, however, admit the argument about administration. The only other point which the hon. Member brought forward was a comparison between the Dutch prices and our own prices claiming that the difference between our prices and the Dutch was so great that therefore these duties cannot be effective. That seems to me to be an argument which is refuted by the facts.

The reduction in tomatoes imported from Holland from June to September, 1932, compared with the corresponding four months of 1931 is no less than 38 per cent., so that these Duties have been efficient. The imports from Spain in the same period dropped from 4,000 tons to 121 tons, so that it is perfectly clear that the object for which the Duties were imposed is actually being realised. As to their causing hardship, we are still, in the year 1932, buying £424,000 worth per annum of imported cut flowers, which seems to indicate that the people who spend money on these things are still able to find the money to buy foreign-cut flowers even with the duties placed upon them.

The final argument was that the retailer is getting too large an advantage. I do not wish to embark on a heresy hunt against the retailer. There are good and bad retailers, but I say that

I beg to move,

"That the Additional Import Duties (No. 6) Order, 1932, dated the first day of September, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the eighteenth day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, be approved".

At the suggestion of Mr. Speaker, and for the convenience of the House, it was decided that Orders No. 6 and 7 should be considered together. I am sure that the House is anxious to pass as soon as possible to Order No. 8 which deals with iron and steel and that very little explanation of Orders 6 and 7, which are of a miscellaneous character, will be necessary in order to secure their confirmation. Order No. 6 relates to three classes of commodities—certain preserved fruits, candied peel, and poultry and meat paste. The Committee have made very detailed recommendations in accordance with the usual practice, and the Treasury Order follows the recommendations. The fruits are luxury articles, and there seems to be no reason why they should not bear the additional duty. As to the poultry and meat paste, most of the well-known brands are already of British manufacture. There is keen competition in the internal market, and there is no reason for any rise in price. Foreign imports in this class are chiefly of German sausage, which is not likely to be an article which will arouse any very considerable interest.

The Order also deals, as will be seen in the second part, with a miscellaneous collection of substances. With regard to screws, there is perhaps a word to be said. Screws of various kinds are one of those commodities in respect of which there has been international agreement, and in this country imports have been made very heavily, at prices far below those ruling in the country of origin. For three months following the imposition of the Additional Import Duties duty, we found that the British producer was being heavily undersold, notwithstanding the 20 per cent. duty. The addition of these duties is intended to place the British manufacturer on a competitive basis with the foreigner, and already a reduction in home prices has been effected since the imposition of the higher duty. Under the third part of the Order there is a considerable number again of miscellaneous substances, including scissors, gloves, paints, varnishes, wrapping papers of various kinds, hair combs, and a number of other articles, and for all of those articles reasons are given by the Advisory Committee in their recommendations, and unless any special point arises on any of them, I merely beg to move that that Order be confirmed.

Order No. 7 deals with two classes, wagons and shoes, and I think the House would like a word with regard to the second part. On wagons, the recommendations are quite clear, but when we come to boots, bootees, shoes, overshoes, and slippers, I think the House should know, in two sentences, the extraordinary effect of the arrival of Japan in the year 1931 as a competitor. Japan came into this trade in 1931. Her interest hitherto had been small, and by the end of that year she had become practically the largest supplier of this class of article. Before 1931 no rubber boots came in at all, and nearly one quarter of the whole of the imports during 1931 came from Japan before the end of the year. The figures are extraordinary. In 1929 she sent merely a few dozen pairs of rubber shoes; in 1930, 8,000 dozen pairs; and in 1931, 167,000 dozen pairs. This is only one other instance of the wholly extraordinary effect on world trade generally as a, result of intensive Japanese exports. It serves as an instance to call the attention of the House to the way international trade is varying all over the world as a result of Japanese efforts to secure markets under terms which we regard as unfair competition. I shall be happy to answer any questions on these Orders.

Will the hon. Gentleman explain what he means by unfair competition?

I mean unfair in the sense that there is no competitive basis by which a western supplier of like articles can compete with the eastern supplier.

We have had put before us a miscellaneous set of recommendations. It is difficult in the course of one afternoon to deal with such a varied mass of products and we get little chance of a proper discussion. We are just given the recommendations from the Committee about these duties, but we are not given any information as to where these goods come from and the effect that this tax will have on our trade with other countries. There are only one or two points with which I can deal in connection with No. 6 Order. I should like to have a word in regard to leather gloves. We understood that this form of protection was to go with efficiency and the organisation of the trade. We are told that it is an old-established industry, but there are a lot of old-established businesses in the country and they are not always efficient. There are 300 small manufacturers of leather gloves and the trade is quite unorganised. They make only the higher grades of gloves. The imports that we have had hitherto have been the cheapest type such as are worn by the poorest classes. The mass production of these has been developed in certain countries, and I want to know in these circumstances whether the industry at home is prepared to deal with the demand for cheap gloves. I understand that there is no big firm in the industry; it consists of many small firms who have not hitherto catered for the cheap market. They go along on their own specialised lines. We have nothing about that in the report of the Committee. This duty will kill the re-export trade of which £190,000 worth is done. There is a long list of goods in this Order, such as paints and varnish, with which we have not time to deal.

Then there are screws for wood. One of my hon. colleagues will have something to say about them, but it seems to me that this is a very curious way of dealing with these matters. Apparently everything was all right as long as there was a world monopoly of screws; as long as they were tightly holding on to one of those international agreements which oversteps all the limits of patriotism it was quite all right, they could make what profits they chose, and they did make very good profits; but as soon as they fall out and honest men come by their own, then each particular section has got to be protected. I should like some more information about this matter. All we have got is an assurance given by the manufacturers. I suppose we shall always get assurances from manufacturers of every sort. I do not think an assurance of that kind, based on no information given to the House, is worth very much. I am not going to deal with the minor matters of poultry and meat pastes, sausages, glacé cherries, and so forth. Those are mainly luxury items, and it is not worth while spending much time over them.

The hon. Member has told us something about rubber boots, bootees and the like, but I do not think the report of the Advisory Committee goes into the matter in any detail. Here we are supposed to be protecting ourselves against the competition from Japan. One thing I would like to ask is why boots which cover the ankles suffer a duty of a penny a pair more than the others. It seems to be a mid-Victorian regulation. I should like to be given some assurance as to the cost of these articles. We are told the market is flooded by cheap Japanese goods. What are they used for? A lot of very cheap goods are used for sports, and no one wants to discourage sport.

I should like to know something about the organisation of these trades in this country. In their reports the committee often stray outside their bounds and talk about revenue considerations, but we hear very little about the efficiency of the trades. When we were discussing this legislation we were always told that Protection and efficiency must go hand in hand, and that there must be proper organisation, but we now hear very little about that side of the matter. I think that before long we ought to be given a report on all these trades showing what has actually happened, because even Pro- tectionist Members have commented on the danger of trades going to sleep behind tariff walls. These rubber shoes may be an instance of dumping from Japan, as is alleged. We are told there is unfair competition. Unfair competition used to be talked about 20 years ago. I should like to know something about the organisation of the rubber trade. The information given to us is wholly inadequate, and we do not believe that any of these advantages ought to be given to private interests without the very strictest and closest inquiry by the committee in the interests of the community.

We have just listened to one of the most typical speeches from the Labour benches I have ever heard. Apparently there is no such class in this country as the workers or the producers of these goods. The hon. Gentleman showed a great deal of consideration for the re-export trade, and shed a certain number of crocodile tears over the consumer who wants to buy the cheapest kind of Japanese footwear or sportswear, but apparently did not remember that we have over 2,500,000 people out of work. It is these industries which are employing some of the people who are in work, and if we did not take some such steps as these a lot of them would be thrown out of employment.

I only wish to raise one question on Order No. 6, and that has to do with gloves. It is very remarkable that with regard to the two branches of this one industry—because glove-making is one industry—the Committee should arrive at exactly opposite decisions in regard to leather gloves and fabric gloves. They seem to have decided, according to the arguments put forward in the White Paper, that the leather glove industry—and this is rather unlike the criticisms of the hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee)—has been fairly well organised, has been capable of producing a considerable proportion, about 60 per cent., of the gloves that have been used in this country, and that therefore it is an industry worth preserving. In order to preserve it, they reccommend an increase in the duty from 20 to 30 per cent. On the other hand, in regard to fabric gloves, a smaller branch of the same industry, they say:

"This industry has reached a high degree of development in Germany, whence the world market is supplied with gloves made almost entirely from Lancashire yarn."

They go on to say that if they were to give a high degree of protection to the manufacture of these gloves in this country, they were afraid that the price would be higher, that the consumption would go down, and that Lancashire yarn production would suffer. On that argument, the whole of their position is based. What justification is there for that? What security have we that the German manufacturers of glove fabrics will also use Lancashire yarn? Why should they not carry their organisation a little farther and decide to manufacture yarn for the gloves? Why should they not import cheaper forms of yarn from other European countries where there are lower wages than obtain in this country? There are all these possibilities. We may find that in grasping at the shadow we have dropped the substantial bone.

2.30 p.m.

This subtle form of argument is supposed to be Protection for the Lancashire yarn industry by a side wind, but, if that is so important that we are to throw out of employment practically all the people who are now engaged in the fabric glove industry in this country, we may find we have got nothing, because the German glove industry has begun to use other forms of yarn. What is the argument? The White Paper says:

"During and immediately after the war a largo production was developed in this country both of gloves and of the fabric of which they are composed."

That hardly does justice to it. Immediately after the war, and until the end of 1920, we were employing about 10,000 workers in the fabric glove industry. Now there are a few hundreds. Why should we not go back, now that we need employment, in what is, after all, a luxury article? People may talk about the necessity for gloves, but if it is only a question of having gloves to keep your hands warm, it is not fabric gloves, but a heavier kind of gloves, that would be a necessity. Why should we not go back to that position? The Committee say that the fabric glove industry,

"notwithstanding the substantial measure of protection given by the Safeguarding Duty,"

was only carried on on a very reduced scale. That is not a very fair statement. We alternately put on a 33 per cent. duty and then took it off. Every time it was taken off by hon. Members now on the Opposition side, when they had the power to throw people out of work, we opened our gates freely to a flood of importations from Germany that lasted for about a couple of years out of the next five-year period of the fabric glove safeguarding duty. It never had a chance. In the earlier part of this year, under the 50 per cent. duty, the industry was going up by leaps and bounds. Every person in my constituency, and in the West generally, who had any skill in using sewing machines and making gloves, was brought into employment, and we had even to bring down from London girls who had had a certain amount of training in the use of machines in order to work in the glove industry. Suddenly the whole thing has been thrown out of gear again, and, in the supposed interests of the Lancashire yarn manufacture, this industry is to be killed. The White Paper makes another threat. At the end of the paragraph dealing with this subject, it says:

"We propose to examine further the question whether it would be practicable and desirable to remove the additional duty of 10 per cent. to which glove fabric is now subject as being within the general category of tissues of cotton."

It is certainly true, as is stated, that such fabric gloves as are made here are largely made from imported fabric, but, if there is no actual manufacture of fabric gloves in this country, there will be no possibility of maintaining a glove fabric industry; the one goes with the other. But, instead of putting on a sufficient duty to keep the industry of fabric glove making not only alive but growing in this country, and a lower duty on the glove fabric, so that we could manufacture both the gloves and the material of which they are made, the Import Duties Advisory Committee have decided that both these industries are not worthy of any protection, and that, therefore they had both better go.

It is necessary for me to tell the House, further, what has happened in the six months under the 20 per cent. duty since the 50 per cent. duty was taken off. In March, the eight principal firms manufacturing fabric gloves in this country together made, in that month, 17,598 dozen pairs. In the month of October, the production dropped to 4,500. One firm, who made 3,999 dozen pairs in the last completed month of the earlier period, are now only making 766. The Advisory Committee were warned that this would be the result. It has been the result, and it shows that in six months the industry has been practically destroyed. We have a higher rate of unemployment in Bideford, the principal glove-making town in my constituency, than in any other part of Devonshire, although not one girl capable of making a glove was out of work only six months ago. That is the policy which is so strongly advocated from the benches opposite, and it is the only part of these Orders that they would applaud. Although the hon. Member for Lime-house was entirely against the placing of an increased duty on leather gloves, he made no criticism of the fact that the fabric glove industry was to be destroyed.

May I ask the hon. Baronet whether we are responsible for these Orders, or for the imposition or taking off of duties?

I was only referring to the criticism, by the representative of the party on the front bench opposite, of the part of these Orders to which he objects, and to the fact that he had no criticism to offer of the part which throws out of work practically the whole of the people engaged in a small and struggling industry which used to employ 10,000 people.

The hon. Member who followed the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade referred to the question of screws, which, he said, had been imported into this country at prices very much below those ruling in the country of origin. It is evident that some reorganisation is necessary in connection with the screw trade, because they had an international agreement which created a monopoly of the whole output of the industry. Evidently, since the breaking of the international agreement, they have begun to feel the pinch, and have to make application for additional import duties. I would like the hon. Gentleman to tell me what was the cause of the international agreement being broken. Was it because the manufacturers of this country withdrew from it, and compelled other countries to compete so successfully with our people in this country, as it is said they have been doing? This is a point which might seriously be considered, because the British production is not such as would be a real menace to any particular part of the trade in this country.

We manufactured, in 1931, approximately 16,000,000 gross of screws, and, according to the White Paper, roughly speaking, only 3,000,000 gross of screws were exported. I fail to see where the importation of screws from other countries can do what is said in this White Paper. It is stated that the people who are exporting their goods to this country

"Secure in their home markets under the protection of high tariffs, these manufacturers have been able to quote very low prices abroad."

But the White Paper, after stating the case of the importers, says that British manufacturers will be able to place on the foreign market their goods much cheaper, and, at the same time, cheapen supplies to the British consumer. I want to know how it is possible to quote a cheaper price to the people abroad and to our people here. The statement made by the hon. Member, in his opening remarks, was that screws were quoted in this country at prices very much below those ruling in the country of origin, which means that the price in the country of origin have been increased to the home consumer.

They also promise in this White Paper that they will watch the interests of the home consumer. I wonder who is going to watch the interests of the home consumer, because not only has there been a monopoly abroad, but there has been a monopoly in this country. The manufacture of this commodity is in the hands of one firm to a large extent. Nettlefolds, I think, are by far the largest makers of screws in this country, and I would like to ask if they are in financial difficulties—whether they have not been making sufficient return on the capital invested that they are entitled to ask for protection? We find that in the two years 1918 to 1920 they paid dividends of 15 per cent. tax free, and from 1920 to 1930 10 per cent. tax free. During the last two years they have paid no ordinary dividends at all, but last year they made a net profit of over £233,000. Is it necessary that these people should be protected I Surely their organisation is sufficient now to provide them with a profit on the capital invested.

Whatever may be said about the import duties, they are going Ito increase the cost of articles to the home users, and put an additional cost upon all works in connection with which screws are used. The value of the imports affected it is difficult to estimate, but the total value of imports of nails, tacks, rivets, washers and screws for 1931 was something like £230,000. It may be said that they are going to protect the home user, but will they? Every additional duty placed upon any commodity coming into the country means that the user is going to have to pay. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Of course, that is a. matter of opinion. You cannot tell me anything than has been reduced owing to the imposition of an import duty. [HON. MEMBERS: "Screws."] There is only one thing about screws. The consumers are being screwed in every possible way, and it is about time for them to make it clear that they have no intention of submitting to these things where they are not necessary. In this industry there is no evidence of any need of an import duty because they have been holding their own in world competition, and would have been holding their own to-day but for the breaking of the international agreement. I should like the hon. Gentleman to reply to the questions I have put to him with a view to clearing up the position of this industry.

I am amazed at the speech we have just heard. The hon. Member dealt entirely with screws, but apparently he had not taken the trouble to listen to the very definite statement of the Parliamentary Secretary in which he explained that already the price of screws has been reduced since the duty was imposed, and in consequence of the duty.

I mentioned no other article but screws.

The hon. Member got up to make a speech about screws, and he discussed the price of screws. The Parliamentary Secretary also discussed the price of screws, and, while we are on the subject of screws, we might as well stick to screws, and the price of screws has been reduced since the duty went on. I should have thought that is all there is to be said about screws. Again, we had a rather extraordinary speech from the hon. Member for Lime-house (Mr. Attlee) on the question of rubber shoes. He said: "Why do we not look into the efficiency of these firms?" He must know that whatever other Charges you can bring against rubber manufacturers, they are outstanding examples of the very highest industrial and scientific efficiency. Is it not time that hon. Members opposite stopped slinging mud at British industries?

I never slung any mud. I only said that I wanted information, and I am now getting it from the hon. Member, who is always so ready to give it.

If you ask questions about people's characters, you are implying that there is something doubtful about them. That is the general implication. If you are satisfied about it, you do not ask questions. I want to reinforce the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) about the extraordinary difference in the treatment accorded to two branches of the glove-making industry. I think that Parliament and successive Governments have treated the fabric glove makers abominably. May I give the history? On 23rd August, 1922, they were given protection at the rate of 33⅓ per cent. against gloves from Germany only. Under the provisions of the Safeguarding of Industries Act, duties could be put on against individual countries provided, of course, that we had no treaty with those countries which prevented such discrimination. That was the position with Germany at that time. The duty lapsed on 20th August, 1924, because the Government of the party opposite refused to continue Part II of the Safeguarding of Industries Act. On 23rd December, 1925, under the provisions of the Safeguarding White Paper of the last Conservative Government a Bill was introduced which, among other things, imposed a duty of 33⅓ per cent. on fabric gloves. That duty ran for five years and lapsed on 22nd December, 1930, and at once the industry was in difficulties. But the importation was so abnormal this time last year that it received attention under the Abnormal Importations Act and a duty of 50 per cent. was imposed. The results of that very high duty—I think rather too high—was the immediate resuscitation of the industry. Factories which had been definitely closed were brought to life again. A friend of mine who had not had an order for 12 months was able to start his factory. Then there came the Order of 26th April under the Import Duties Act, which reduced the duty from 50 to 20 per cent., and at once the industry was again in difficulties. Now we have the decision that 20 per cent. is to be the limit. The hon. Member for Barnstaple gave the figures, and it has also been shown to me, that the production in October was roughly one quarter of the production last March.

I do not wish to criticise the Import Duties Advisory Committee, because all of us want to keep it out of political argument. I am speaking on this issue because there is a question of principle involved. They have definitely raised the issue by their recommendation that they may deliberately contemplate the extinction of an industry, and that is, I think, a very grave matter of principle. Therefore, it is right that the House of Commons should seize the opportunity of this Report to express, not by a vote, because we have not an opportunity of doing it by a vote, but in speech our views as to whether it is right that now that this country has adopted a policy of Protection we should deliberately contemplate the wiping out of an industry—because that is what it means—and the entire destruction of employment in a number of small towns in this country. You will completely paralyse the social life of a certain number of small centres. There is at stake possibly, or might be a total employment of anything up to 10,000 people. At the moment the number is much smaller. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary, in reply, can only say that the matter will be taken into account, because these matters have been referred to the committee. I hope that if the committee receive any further applications from this industry they will give the most serious consideration to it in view of the disastrous consequences which, I believe, will follow their present decision.

I rise to support the observations which have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams) and to appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to ask the Government to request the committee to reconsider their decision in regard to fabric gloves. It is sometimes said when we make these requests to the Government that they have no power to ask the Advisory Committee either to reconsider or to consider anything. If my hon. Friend will look at Sub-section (3) of Section 2 of the Import Duties Act, he will see that it is abundantly clear that any Government along with any member of the public has the opportunity of requesting the committee to consider any recommendations:

"The Committee shall take into consideration any recommendations which may be made."

That, surely, must mean by anybody, and I am sure that my hon. Friend does not suggest that the members of the Government are nobody.

What is the basis upon which the Tariff Advisory Committee should make their recommendations? It is a remarkable fact that the Import Duties Act lays down no principle at all upon which this matter should be considered. I was delighted to hear the Parliamentary Secretary—if I heard him correctly—say that the object the committee had in mind was to give British industry reasonable opportunities of fair competition with foreigners in our home market. That is the basis upon which, under the Ottawa Agreements, British manufacturers are to be given an opportunity of selling their goods in the markets of the Empire, and it is to be hoped that they will at least be given similar opportunities here in our own market.

I had an opportunity of reading the case submitted to the Tariff Committee on behalf of the fabric glove manufacturers and the glove fabric manufacturers. Their case was based solely on the fact that the wages paid in Germany were far lower than the wages paid in this country. It was on that basis alone that they asked for an additional duty. I have also had an opportunity of reading the case submitted by the opponents of the application. With the exception of the Fine Yarn Spinners' Association of Lancashire, the remaining opponents' case was based on the statement that we can make far more profit by importing foreign-made fabric gloves than by manufacturing them ourselves. One of the remarkable features of the opponents' case was that it was supported by a leading glove manufacturer in this country. In the past, judging from the buttons on the gloves and the words "British Made" that they had been in the habit of putting upon those buttons, people have supposed that this firm had been making their gloves in this country. Yet they supported the opposition on the definite basis that they could make more profit by importing fabric gloves than by making them in our own factories in this country.

So far as the opposition of these people is concerned, it is contrary to the very principle that my hon. Friend enunciated as the reason why the Committee turned down the application. There was not a scrap of evidence submitted to dispute the fact that the wages in Germany were from 50 to 60 per cent, the wages paid here, nor was there the slightest evidence given to suggest that the figures supplied by the applicants for the additional duty were incorrect. In regard to the objections from Lancashire, it is very remarkable that the last five or six pages of their case in opposition stressed the very point that the hon. Member for Barnstaple made, that not only would Germany eventually spin the yarns that Lancashire was now selling to them, but that they had in fact started to do so. The fine cotton spinners of Lancashire gave figures showing how that trade, the spinning of those yarns in Germany, had been growing in the course of the last few months. It seems to me that in opposing the application in this case Lancashire has been doing what she has done so often before. She has adopted the very short-sighted policy of looking to what she may sell at the moment and overlooking the long-sighted pohey of where she is going to sell her yarn when Germany begins to manufacture the yarns herself. Germany does not buy those yarns from Lancashire out of thanks for the fact that we allow fabric gloves to come in here at the present rate of duty. She buys the yarns because she cannot get them from anywhere else and she will obviously go on buying the yarns so long as she cannot get them from anywhere else, whether we put a duty on fabric gloves or not. I appeal to the Minister that he should ask the Committee to reconsider their decision and to advise the Government what duty should be imposed upon this class of goods, in order to give to our manufacturers a full opportunity of reasonable competition in our home market.

I want to emphasise the admirable point made by the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir B. Peto) as to the inconsistency of the Advisory Committee. In their recommendation not to put a heavy duty on fabric goods the Committee say:

"This would be likely to lead to a considerable increase in price and a serious contraction of consumption, with adverse reactions on the yarn industry of Lancashire."

I want the Parliamentary Secretary to reconcile that argument with the other argument where a Duty is desired. The two arguments are not consistent. The hon. Member for Barnstaple is an honest Protectionist, and when he finds a Free Trade argument put in. he cannot understand it.

Is the hon. Member aware that the price of German-made gloves has gone up since the Order was made?

I am not discussing the price of German-made goods. I am discussing the inconsistency of the two arguments. You cannot have it both ways. The Advisory Committee, composed partly of Protectionists and partly of Free Trade members, apparently want to do something for Free Trade, and, when they do not want to give a Duty, say that it will lead to a "considerable increase in price." That is what Free Traders say, and hon. Members who are Tariff reformers will realise that this contention is confirmed by the Committee and that duties do tend to an increase in price. In this case they will react on the Lancashire yarn industry. I desire to emphasise this Free Trade point of view. If by a Duty you prevent the purchase of Lancashire yarn the same thing applies if you put a Duty on anything else. We do not send goods out of the country for nothing. The more goods we import the more goods we send out. [Interruption.] In that case, why not arm this Committee with the right to prevent all goods coming into this country? If hon. Members are correct it would be a good thing to prevent all goods coining into this country and let us live on each other. And what about the consumer? He gets the advantage of cheap goods under Free Trade. [Interruption.] Is it not an advantage to buy goods cheaply? Why deny people that advantage? How are you going to build up your foreign trade if you prevent goods coming in? If you prevent goods coming in how are you going to send goods out? I am utterly at a loss. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Barnstaple in the very logical mind which he has. He is a Protectionist who believes in Protection, and cannot understand how it is possible to have a recommendation based on Free Trade arguments in one Order and based on Protectionist arguments in the other.

The two points that have arisen in this Debate are those connected with the fabric glove industry and those connected with the imports of screws. Those hon. Members who have spoken about the fabric glove industry will realise that there is no proposal in this Order that there should be a duty on fabric gloves. Their discussion, therefore, is not relevant to the question whether or not the House should adopt the particular duties which are in the Order. Theirs is clearly a complaint that

I beg to move,

"That the Additional Import Duties (No. 8) Order, 1932, dated the twenty-first day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the twenty-first day of October nineteen hundred and thirty-two, be approved."

Order No. 8 relates to iron and steel, and knowing the interest which is attached to the matter, I propose quite shortly to state the effect of the Committee's recommendation and the nature of the Order which has been made. It relates to the heavy section of iron and steel, and the proposal is that a duty of 33⅓ per cent. be continued for a period of two years, provided that the industry in the meantime has made satisfactory progress with a scheme of reorganisation. It will be appreciated at once that this extension for a long term follows upon two extensions of three months each, and in order that the House may understand the position, let it be clear that we are dealing with iron and steel from the moment of the production of the pig iron down to the rolled steel in billet, bar, girder, or plate. That branch of the industry employs somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 insured workers, or something under two per cent. of the insured workers in industry in this country. In terms of volume, it is something under 8,000,000 tons of metal a year.

Competition comes from Belgium, France, and Germany, and is particularly in the form of billets and bars, a large quantity of foreign bars specially suitable for sheet and tin-plate having, as the House is aware, found its way to this market. It is a startling fact, and it is clear to demonstration, that foreign exporters of iron and steel coming in the category now under discussion have progressively reduced their prices to an enormous extent. The cost in the country of origin is in some cases very much greater than the cost at which the goods are exported, and the import price into this country of foreign steel, measured in gold, has fallen 60 per cent. as compared with the price of steel three years ago. The Advisory Committee and the steel trade are alive to the fact that the interests of the consumer must not be prejudiced by this Order, which has been in force for over six months. No deleterious effects have been experienced, and the advantage of the Order is that a definite line of policy is laid down instead of a temporary three-months-to-three-months basis.

The House will appreciate that the foreign exporter of iron and steel cannot indefinitely sell at a loss without serious consequences to himself, but if he is under the impression that the market will again become free at the end of a given period, and if that period is a short one, he may well be prepared to go on making losses for a short period as a definite part of the price for securing the market at the end of that time. It is believed that the very policy of making this date for three months only and then extending it for a further three months has encouraged the foreign exporter in the belief that he will secure a better entry by keeping in the market in the interim. The announcement of the duty for two years should put an end to any doubts upon that matter, and the foreign exporter is now notified in the clearest possible terms that any short-dated policy of consenting to bear a loss will be of no avail to him, and that the 33⅓ per cent. duty is deliberately devised to re- main in force for a sufficient length of time to enable the home producer to reorganise his plant and output, and to deal effectively with his foreign competitors. That is at once the reason and the justification for the period of time which the Committee has recommended, which the Treasury has adopted, and which the House is now asked to confirm.

I should like to register a protest, which, I am sure, is shared by hon. Members in all parts of the House, at an important Order like this being brought forward at 3.15 on a Friday afternoon. It is in the power of the Government to put the most important Order first, and they have deliberately conspired to limit the discussion on it to three-quarters of an hour. These duties are now in force without the least possible regard to the wishes of Parliament, and surely if they are to be confirmed the House ought to be given much more time to discuss them. As I know that there are many Members who wish to speak on this important matter, I will make my remarks as short as possible. If any case can be made out for a tariff, this is an instance of the way in which tariffs ought not to be imposed. The Government and the Conservative party have skirted round this question of tariffs on iron and steel for many years. They have approached it very tentatively, and from time to time we have heard speeches on the subject from the front bench. We have listened to speeches in the country from the Lord President of the Council, in which he has suggested the grave risks of giving tariffs to iron and steel; and the President of the Board of Trade has made his most eloquent Free Trade speeches on this very subject. There was, therefore, considerable reluctance to impose these duties.

If the President of the Board of Trade had been wedded to the policy of tariffs on iron and steel, the courtship must have been conducted with great delicacy. With his betrothal, when the Import Duties were imposed, iron and steel were not included. His Presbyterian conscience must have been violated, because it was decided to have a companionate marriage by means of a six months' tariff. This afternoon we are seeing the ceremony consummated.

We have not thrown any mud, such as was the subject of complaint in the Debate on the last Order, at the iron and steel trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech made on May 4, said:

"Let us take the iron and steel industry as a case in point. If they are to be efficient they must not only be able to supply the requirements of the home market at a reasonable price, but their costs must be sufficiently low to enable them to compete successfully with foreign competitors both at home and in foreign markets. I say at once that whilst we shall give consideration, and favourable consideration, to any recommendations which the Committee may hereafter make to us for the setting up of a permanent framework of a tariff for the iron and steel industry we shall not be satisfied unless, simultaneously with the granting of that tariff, we found that the industry was taking the necessary steps to reorganise itself and to put its house in order." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th May, 1932; cols. 1131–2, Vol. 265.]

So the house is out of order. We have not said it is out of order, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have not said it is inefficient, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have not said that the British steel industry is lagging behind its competitors in the rest of the world, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It cannot be said that we are throwing mud. All the mud is being thrown against these patriotic Britishers by the patriotic Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There is a further piece of first class evidence that the iron and steel trade was considered to be in a position in which it would not be judicious to grant it a protective tariff. If my memory serves me accurately, the industry made an application for Protection under the Safeguarding of Industries Act. We were not told that it was rejected, but it; was never granted, and I understand that one of the conditions for granting Protection was that the industry had to prove itself efficient, so we have to assume, if all the evidence goes for anything, that the application was not granted because the industry was at that time inefficient. When the first of these duties were imposed, iron and steel were left out. Then we had a speech in the House by the President of the Board of Trade, a speech from which I will not quote, because, like most of his speeches upon Protection, it becomes increasingly ambiguous. Then we had a tariff for three months. Everybody in the industry knew that if there was any case for Protection at all there was no case for Protection for three months only. That was a most stupid thing. If you are going to "bank" upon Protection, then give the industry Protection in a sensible manner. It was absurd to assume that the steel trade could get any of the benefits, if there are benefits under a tariff, with a tariff for three months only.

Then they came along and gave an additional three months. Why was the three months tariff given? We were informed by the late Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade—who has now been elevated to a position in which, I am sure, he will discharge his duties with credit to himself and good results to the nation—when these duties were imposed, that this was a perfect example of how to use scientifically the powers of Parliament to grant a tariff, because the Advisory Committee were going to meet the representatives of the steel trade and make it a condition of the tariff that the industry should reorganise itself. It was a perfect example of what has been called by some of the young Members of the Conservative party, who are able to romanticise even upon Tariffs, State planning—reorganisation behind the barriers of Protection against foreign countries. Sir George May met the owners in the steel trade. He warned them seriously that they could not expect to obtain Protection unless they gave evidence that they were going to reorganise the trade. Of course, they at once hoisted the flag or reorganisation. They appointed a committee immediately, and sub-committees out of that committee. Those committees have been meeting. We have not been informed what they are doing. All these things are done in camera, and the House of Commons has no information at all. But the committees have been going on, and I await reports from them with great patience and with hope. What have they reported? We have it here before us. They,

"Strongly urge, therefore, that the Advisory Committee will recommend that the duties on iron and steel products, adjusted as proposed, should, subject to their being satisfied as to the continued progress of reorganisation, be maintained for at least two years."

The first report of the committee which was to reorganise the industry in order to justify tariffs is that which asks for still more tariffs for two years. We have, those embodied in the Order before the House at the present time.

I want to make one short point, because it is an essential point. It must not be understood that hon. Members on these benches hold the view that basic industries, like iron and steel, can be thrown open to the anarchic competition of world economic affairs without disaster to British industry. I strongly hold the view that you cannot expect large aggregations of capital such as are necessarily employed in the steel industry to be attracted from the ordinary credit resources of the nation into the industry on the small margin of returns which results when the industry is exposed to the day-by-day competition of the world market. I am profoundly satisfied with the view taken by this Party, which is that the modern unit of production has reached the stage where it cannot be properly replenished on the margins of competition allowed.

Are you providing industry with the conditions of reorganisation by putting on a tariff? We were told that the price of steel has fallen by 60 per cent. in the last two years. Can any tariff properly protect industry against such wide fluctuations as that? This Party stands primarily for the national ownership of the iron and steel trade and for the national control of imports on iron and steel, and not for the tariff method at all. The situation in the iron and steel trade is exactly similar to that which exists in the coal trade. There is a productive capacity far in excess of any reasonable assumption of consuming power. In the steel industry, on a conservative computation, there is a capacity to produce about 13,000,000 tons of steel annually. On the most optimistic estimate, there is a market for 9,000,000 tons, taking the peak figure in the last 10 years. I suggest to hon. Members who are vitally interested in the steel industry that, with an output of 13,000,000 tons, to compete for a 9,000,000 toil market, means that there is, in each unit of production in the steel trade, the same condition of incalculability as if it were exposed to the competition of the world market.

3.30 p.m.

That is the central proposition. Each single company in the steel industry is not being given conditions suitable to its reorganisation, when competition among themselves places each unit in exactly the same state of uncertainty and incalculability as if it were exposed to world-market conditions. It is because that position has arisen that the reorganisation committee is unable to make any recommendation that is satisfactory to Parliament. The reorganisation committee's first duty must necessarily be to reduce the productive capacity of the steel trade according to 'a reasonable calculation of the market for the industry. The next proposition is: who is going to die? Who is going to the wall? Who is to surrender his place in the steel market? Can you expect to find agreement between competitors there? Can you expect to find that banks, who are deeply involved in respect of enormous sums of money which have been necessary to keep the steel trade alive during the last seven or eight years, will, without external pressure, abandon their claims upon the steel companies? One of the most important difficulties with which the steel industry is confronted is the fact that the banks, having no industrial experience in this country such as the German banking system has, have lent money to the steel trade, and are now trying to salvage their commitments. There is an example in the case of the Ebbw Vale Company, to whom a large bank has advanced a large sum of money in the stupidest way, without being able to impose conditions as to technical reorganisation, and that bank is keeping that poor company miserably alive in order that it may be able to salvage its commitments.

Are we to understand that the hon. Member wishes the bank to kill that particular company?

Killing a company and killing an industry are not the same thing. You can save a monarchy without cutting off the King's head. The hon. Member is now mixing up the unit of organisation with the unit of production. You can destroy a steel company, and, indeed, that might be an essential condition of the reorganisation of production. Our proposition is that the tariff which is at present proposed will not provide the industry with the conditions essential for reorganisation, and that, consequently, its effect is merely to protect the profits of steelmasters in certain parts of the industry at the expense of the consumer of steel in Great Britain. Iron and steel are such an important raw material, lying at the foundation of all the finishing trades of this country, that no raising of prices and no limitations of any sort ought to be allowed without the best possible safeguards that the consumers of steel will be able to get their steel in circumstances which at least compare favourably with those of their competitors abroad. Such conditions, however, are not imposed; the matter is left to the exercise of voluntary judgment on the part of steelmasters who are competitive and not co-operative, and who, therefore, cannot possibly do it.

Our view is that, if the iron and steel trade is to be reorganised, it can only be done by the imposition of some overriding authority upon the iron and steel trade itself. [HON. MEMBERS: "Trade unions!"] The trade unions have recommended to the iron and steel industry a scheme which would save it, but which the employers are too competitive and stupid to adopt. The employers in the steel trade are displaying exactly the same evidence of lack of co-operation which has been shown by the coalowners of Great Britain for the last seven eight years. The coal industry to-day is no better off than it was when the merciless competition was started which has reduced the standards of labour in the coal trade. Therefore, I say to hon. Members who are interested in the steel trade that they are not obtaining from the House of Commons the conditions for their industry which they ought to obtain. The House of Commons is asked to give this largesse to the iron and steel trade without getting any compensating conditions in return. I conclude as I started, by saying that this is one of the ways in which Protection ought not to be given. It is simply building a wall around chaos, and there will be as much chaos inside the tariff wall as there is in the wall itself.

I agree with the hon. Member that 40 or 50 minutes on a Friday afternoon is not adequate for dealing with a subject, of this importance. We are parting with the control of this industry for two years. We are going to fix a policy which will affect all the elaborate organisation of the industry, and neither under the provisions of the Import, Duties Act nor by the ordinary machinery of the Finance Bill will it be possible for the House of Commons to change it for two years. Therefore, I think we are justified in examining the proposal rather fully to see how it is going to affect the various industries. I quite agree with the hon. Member who has just spoken that this is no new problem. It dates back, not to the last Parliament but to the Parliament, before the last, when there was a committee appointed by the Lord President of the Council, then Prime Minister, to examine all the ramifications of the trade, to see whether it was advisable to safeguard it and how far it was possible to reorganise it. This is no bolt from the blue on the iron and steel industry. This is no surprise gift. They knew that they were going to have a chance of getting benefits from the country, and they have had good time to review the whole situation.

As the hon. Member pointed out, they were given three months. We do not blame the committee—I certainly do not—for giving them another three months for a further investigation in order to see whether the grant of Protection might not suffice to enable the industry to play its part in national economy. I will not say it was sinister. I always treat the committee with respect, and I want to keep it outside the arena of party politics, but it is unfortunate that, instead of the committee investigating the problem itself, appointing economists and with officials from the Government Departments, and using the usual machinery of investigation, they handed the whole thing over to the industry itself. They made the industry the criminal at the bar as well as the jury and the judge. I would like hon. Members to study the annexe giving the conclusions of this committee. It will not come as a surprise to the House to know that arrangements as to price and supply have proceeded far more rapidly. They were very quickly able to come to price-fixing arrangements under the shelter of the tariff, but although they have been thinking over this problem for the last two or three years, they say they are not in a position for another two years to come to any proposal for reorganisation. So that this over-worked, over-harassed committee, on the advice not of an impartial committee but of the trade itself, is going to have the two years for which they ask.

I am glad that the hon. Member who has just spoken referred to the President of the Board of Trade. He very rarely graces this House with his presence. I agree that he has a very competent substitute in the Parliamentary Secretary, but, after all, the hon. Gentleman has not got the position, and, if he will allow me to say so, the business experience that the President of the Board of Trade has. The President has made speeches on the iron and steel industry, and it would be a great temptation to go back to the old Free Trade days; but at this late hour I will not do that, and I am far too old a friend of his to remnid him of the days when he and I thought alike. I am Doming to his new era, to the time when he has been President of the Board of Trade. No doubt hon. Members will be familiar with the great speech he made to a rather hostile House on the iron and steel problem just before last Christmas. He said:

"We are discovering that those who are the producers of steel are much more vocal than the users of steel. It was only with the greatest trouble during the last few days that I have been able to collect views of some gentlemen who are large and important users of steel. Because they are not connected with some organisation which covers a very large area of the steel trade they have not had their representations put before the Board of Trade or before other Departments."

He went on to say:

"When you compare them with the number of persons in insured trades who are also in industry which depends upon steel in various stages and in various classes for its raw material, you will see how marked is the contrast. I take the latest figures we have, and in July there were engaged in the heavy trades 188,000 individuals, in the using trades 1,825,000 individuals. Similarly, if you take the case of the unemployed. The unemployed in the heavies were 83,000, according to the latest date in October. Among the using industries they were no less than 537,000. I just put this simple appeal to the House. When we are dealing with this question do not let us underrate the 1,800,000 and give the whole of our sympathy to the 188,000."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th December, 1931; col. 2003, Vol. 260.]

I have come up to-day particularly co speak of the 1,800,000 men employed in the using trades and the vast complex interests who are dependent on cheap and abundant steel for their prosperity. You cannot eat or wear steel. It is a raw material and I am going to show how, as there is no one to look after their interests while this Steel Committee is sitting and arranging prices, but forgetting about organisation, the vast interests of the consumers of steel are being sacrificed. I am going to give a practical example. I have in mind a very large firm in the North of England, whose name I am prepared to give to the Parliamentary Secretary, which, until 12 months ago, was working to 100 per cent, of capacity, employing 425 men full time and was full of orders. Now they are working only 35 hours a week, the number of men employed is down to 225 and there are much smaller orders and inquiries because of increased prices. It is common knowledge that British steel is recognised by the trade as a whole as superior in quality, and the users of steel have had a practical monoply for most of the constructional trade in the country and in the Crown Colonies because British steel is nearly always specified. It is a very curious thing that, in spite of the figures in the annexe to the Report as to the low prices prevailing in Belgium, France and Germany, British steel manufacturers for their general home trade, in spite of competition, are able to maintain their prices. They have not had to suffer from foreign competition because of the custom of the trade to insist on the use of British steel. The firm I am speaking of, now on half time or worse, paralysed for want of orders, have been able to buy steel in the world market.

It is a mistake to think that all English manufacturers are inefficient. On the contrary, allow English manufacturers a fair field, allow them to buy their raw material in the open market unhampered by tariffs, whether Imperial or home protection, and they are able to hold their own. I am not one of those who would disparage British industry. In this case the industry is able to pay better wages than the Dutch. Owing to better organisation and efficiency, and to the fact that they have been able to buy their semi-raw material in the open market, they have been able practically to collar the trade. Now along comes the Custom House officer. Immediately there is, not only a duty, but an adverse exchange, the imported article jumps up to £6 5s. 0d. Even then—and I want the House to mark it—they can compete and hold their own to some extent with the foreigner. In spite of the high duty and the adverse exchange, they are so well organised that they can compete. What are the Steel Combine doing? Anybody who is familiar with the trade realises the temptation of a monopoly to take advantage of the position. They have devised a very ingenious system of rebates. They are not satisfied with the tariff given to them by the Government, but in order to monopolise the trade and to dictate to the consumer they have devised an ingenious scheme of rebates. I meant to bring details along with me to the House, but I will let my hon. Friend know how the rebate is arranged. It is arranged for the whole of the orders for steel from one of the firms signing the rebate undertaking to go to one of the combine firms and for there to he a rebate of 10s. a ton.

That is for home use?

Yes, for home use—from £8 15s. to £8 5s. The firm to which I have called attention, like any other firm, requires not only foreign trade but a proportion of home trade. If they refuse to sign the rebate form they are deprived of an opportunity of getting steel from one of the combine firms and they lose the advantage of the 10s. a ton, and are thus cut off from obtaining orders for bridge building and steel construction, and engaging in the various ramifications of the steel trade.

We have to recognise that the tariff is here, and we have to swallow it and put up with all its disadvantages. We cannot alter it. All we can do is to look after the interests of the consumer. I suggest to the Minister that he should insist that the Tariff Commission should inquire into the whole system of rebates, not in two years time after the damage has been done and most of the engineering firms have been knocked out of the market, but now. If the Commission says that it is outside its province, a Departmental Committee should be appointed right away in order to inquire into the whole system. I am assured that as a result of the working of the extra duty, plus the rebate system, the whole of the orders which formerly went to my friends who own this big construc- tional engineering firm in the North are going to competitors in Holland, and for the first time in the history of the firm they are being cut out by Dutch competitors. Before tariffs they were working full time, with 450 men; after tariffs they are only working a 35-hour week and have only 225 men, and meanwhile the business is going to Holland. There is one of the practical results of a tariff in practice.

The Lord President of the Council said that we have to learn in the light of experience. We are learning in the light of experience that it is a very serious thing to put on this duty for two years, trusting entirely to a committee composed of the producers of the article. If we are to have a committee, let it be a joint committee of both the users and the consumers of steel. One hon. Member said that he was in favour of price arrangements, of monopolies and of agreements with industries abroad. Of course he is. He is logical. He is a Socialist. He wants to nationalise industry. The way to get industry nationalised and to bring about Socialism is to destroy freedom of contract behind tariff walls. My hon. Friend believes in that. He believes in Socialism. I dislike Socialism. I want to see freedom because it is essential to progress, but if you are to have a monopoly of this kind, exploiting the consuming interests, inevitably you will be led to some form of nationalisation or State control. For these reasons, I shall vote against these proposals. I should have liked to elaborate my opposition more, but I content myself by protesting most emphatically against the attitude that the Committee have adopted, because of the effect of these duties on the consuming interests concerned.

I rise to express my approval of the action of the Advisory Committee in recommending these Orders, and the wisdom of His Majesty's Government in accepting and implementing them. At this hour it is impossible to say more than a few words in supporting the Order, but there are one or two points that I should like to impress upon the House. No one who has had any interest in the steel industry or who has any knowledge of what is happening in that industry can have any doubt as to the vital necessity for an Order of this kind. I speak from this bench and I speak as a Free Trader, I speak as one who deplores the necessity for action of this kind, but I am bound to confess that, after very long and anxious thought, I can see no alternative to an Order of this kind if we are to preserve this basic and fundamental industry, one of our greatest industries, and if we are to maintain the standard of life of the workpeople engaged in it.

There are certain aspects of international trading, particularly between European countries, in regard to which the principles of international trading as we have been taught them in the past, and as this country has practised them, have no longer any real, practical bearing. We are living in a completely changed world, and this question of the steel trade is one of the changed factors. It is no longer a question to me of Free Trade or Protection in the sense in which we have generally discussed the issue. We are discussing the merits of a new system in this country. Other countries have departed further and further from the view that we have held for something like 80 years. Instead of following us they have gone wider and wider apart from us. It does not matter how devoutly we worship at the shrine of Cobden or at the shrine of Adam Smith, our fervour will avail us absolutely nothing if other countries decline to follow us in the belief in our doctrine and exploit our belief in it ruthlessly, so as to threaten us with absolute ruin in our basis and fundamental industries.

The Lord President of the Council, in his speech last night pointed out the changes in practice which had taken place and which were forced upon us during the War by enemy action. During the War we were compelled to do things which we did not like to do and things which we did not desire to do. He pointed out that we were compelled to do these things in sheer self-defence. In this country we do not look upon trade as being war, but in my judgment the analogy is a true one. We have been driven to do this in sheer self-defence. I would very much prefer to see all the channels of trade absolutely free, but if other nations insist upon making conditions more and more difficult, then we must take such steps as we consider necessary to protect the standard of life of our own people and to protect our own industries.

This is one of those steps. The position, as far as the price of imported steel is concerned, is well known, and there is no time or me to go into that question in detail, but I cannot understand the case referred to by the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris). Everybody knows that the price of steel is £1 per ton less now than it was a year ago, and it is idle to put a case forward like that of the hon. Member and expect us to reply to it unless we are aware of the details. What is going on in the steel trade is real dumping. There has been a great difficulty in finding a definition of the word "dumping", but the definition given by the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) is crystal clear, that it is selling in a foreign country at a price which is below the cost of production in the country of origin. That is what is happening in the steel industry. The Advisory Committee say:

"The cessation of clumping is an essential pre-requisite to any such scheme for the rehabilitation of the iron and steel industry."

I agree with the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), and I wish that the Advisory Committee had taken prompt and drastic action at once. The forestalling that has occurred has filled out warehouses, and as soon as these stocks are exhausted I expect to see another influx of imported goods made under conditions which the iron and steel workers of this country would not tolerate. One word about efficiency. We have often heard the terms efficiency and rationalisation used; two magical worth which have often been used in connection with the steel trade by people who do not know the difference between a blast furnace and a slag heap. It is time that someone said a word in defence of the British steel industry. In my own constituency there is a steel industry which is as efficient as anything in this country, indeed, as efficient as anything in the whole of Europe. It has a composite plant, owns its own colliery and, so far as profits are concerned, has spent between £5,000,000 and £6,000,000 since the end of the war, of which more than half has been found out of the company's own reserve of profits. It is idle to talk so loosely and bring general charges of inefficiency. Everyone knows that there is inefficient plant in Great Britain and inefficient workmen, just as there are inefficient managers. In conclusion let me say that this Order will at least give hope to miners and to workers in the iron and steel industry; to transport workers and railway workers, among whom there are hundreds and thousands unemployed and who up to the present have seen little chance of gaining anything in the way of occupation. It gives the industry also a sense of stability, the two years period will do that. It will also help those hundreds and thousands of workers in the north east of this country, where we have suffered so acutely from unemployment for so long. I shall support the Order.

I wish to raise a single specific issue, of which I have notified the Parliamentary Secretary, who I understand is to answer for the Government. The point relates to a question arising out of the early part of the recommendations made by the Advisory Committee. It is essential that the Government should realise that the recommendation made in this report—