I notice that this new Clause is exactly similar to that which was considered when the Bill was in Committee. Therefore, I cannot select it to-day.

On that point, Mr. Speaker, I understood that you had been informed that the Clause was put down again, because new information had been obtained which we desired to give to the Minister. I do not know whether you were informed of that and whether your decision now is in view of that fact?

I was informed that a new Clause had been drawn, but I understood—I may have misunderstood what was said—that there was some difference in it; but this Clause is the same as that which was moved in Committee.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 11, at the end, to insert:

"( ) Every such licence shall contain such provisions as the Board of Trade may deem expedient for protecting the amenities of the locality to which the licence relates against injurious affection by reason of the exercise of the rights granted thereby."

I beg to second the Amendment.

I do not think that my hon. Friends have realised what would be the result of their Amendment. It would not carry out what they seem to desire. They ask that where there is a voluntary arrangement between a landowner and a a licensee the Board of Trade should take special powers to lay down special conditions about amenities. Surely when my hon. Friends talk as the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. M. Beaumont) did, about "incalculable harm" being done, they must see that what they are doing here is to raise a very special plea, namely, the plea that particular landowners shall have special protection in special cases, as compared with neighbouring landowners when voluntary arrangements are made, notwithstanding the fact that they already possess rights in this respect under the common law. At present if a factory of any kind is erected and if it is likely to cause a nuisance or in the phrase of the hon. Member to do "incalculable harm" then those concerned have their rights under the common law.

"Where no oxen are the crib is clean; but much increase is by the strength of the ox."

I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that this matter would be adequately safeguarded under the regulations, but as I read Clause 6 and as I have been informed, the subjects which the regulations may prescribe do not include this subject.

I have said that in so far as the regulations deal with the work and the regulation of the flow and so forth, all of which of course has a bearing on this matter, this question will be covered by them. In so far as they do not deal with those matters, then everyone has rights under the common law equally. What my hon. Friends are asking is, that one partciular section of landowners should have an extra protection which their neighbours do not enjoy.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 10, to leave out from "right," to the end of Sub-section.

"subject to any modification or adaptations specified in the order."

I beg to second the Amendment.

The House will appreciate the fact that the Waterworks Clause Act, 1847, contains a number of Clauses which are not law by virtue of that Act, but only become law if embodied in private Acts of Parliament. The Act expressly contemplates, for obvious reasons, that in any such private Act using the machinery which is there set out, those Clauses may be expressly varied or excepted. They are general model Clauses, which in a private Act dealing with waterworks would likely require some modification or adaptation, having regard to particular local conditions. Under this Bill, insofar as it brings in and applies the Waterworks Clauses Act of 1847, the order which is to be made by the Railway and Canal Commission takes the place of the private Act of Parliament and the object of this proviso is that in dealing with the question of pipes being laid under the highway, the Railway and Canal Commission shall take the Waterworks Clauses Act as their guide, but, having regard to the difference of the subject-matter and the special local conditions, they will, of course, have to modify and adapt it.

With the permission of the House, may I ask one further question? Under Section 22 there is provision for the working of minerals lying near the works not to be worked without notice, and in Section 23 there are provisions with regard to compensation. Can the hon. and learned Gentleman assure me that in no case will people be deprived of their rights under those Sections?

If the works in question affect mines or minerals, quite plainly the mine or mineral owners will have the rights set out in the Clauses to which the hon. Member has referred, and the Railway and Canal Commission will have to apply the principle of the Bill, making the necessary modifications having regard to the different subject matter.

I beg to move, in page 6, line 9, at the end, to insert:

"(3) The provisions of this Act shall continue in force until the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and forty-six, and no longer, unless during the twelve years ending on that date not less than one thousand two hundred tons of petroleum shall have been gotten from wells or boreholes operated in exercise of rights granted by a licence granted under this Act, in which event the said provisions shall continue in force until other provision is made by Parliament."

I beg to second the Amendment.

My Noble Friend and his colleagues dislike the Bill now as much as they did earlier in the week. They now propose to amend it a little differently than they proposed earlier in the week, but their Amendment is substantially the same proposal as we had in Committee, except that the figures are slightly altered. I do not think those who have been opposing the Bill will be impressed by our arguments. It is true that they are acting under advice, as we are. Their advice is one thing and ours is another, but, if they will not mind my saying so, I attach more value to the advice given to us than to the advice given to them. What is the view of my noble Friend? It is that if this Bill does not produce oil in commercial quantities by the end of 12 years it ought to be brought to an end. It is well known to the House, however, that if Parliament wishes to bring this Measure to an end, they can do so in the ordinary way. They can terminate the whole Act or part of it. One of the reasons why in this case it would be detrimental to the interests which we are wishing to encourage is that nobody knows how long the oil supply of the world is going to last. Not even the advisers of my noble Friend would give a firm figure of that period. Nobody knows how valuable oil is likely to become. We cannot tell, and it is impossible to prophesy.

The noble Lord and his friends have given us a lesson in pertinacity in opposing a Measure with which they do not agree. When we on these Benches make our stand against a proposal, we accept the position for the time being when it is put to us by the other side. In spite of the position which the Government have stated in regard to this Bill, however, the Noble Lord and his friends are still persistent this morning. It would not be wise to limit the Bill for 12 years because during that time oil may not be found and certain things may happen to deter the search. If Parliament feels in 12 years' time that the Measure has been ineffective, it can in its wisdom alter it. When we on these Benches come into power there are many Acts of Parliament which we shall tackle and put right. The fact that they are on the Statute Book will not be a barrier to us. If in 12 years' time this Bill is not working as it ought, Parliament can alter it, but let us give the Measure a chance. Let us see if by public control we can do better than private control has done in the past. It is a step in the right direction to say that what is in the ground should belong to the State.

I do not propose to detain the House long on this subject. Like the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker), we know when we are beaten and when we have not an earthly chance to stop this Bill getting into law. Therefore, it is not the present intention of those with whom I am associated to waste a long time on Debate or to challenge a Division, because the opinion of the House has been tested and a decision—a wrong decision, in my view—has been taken. For all that, we cannot let the occasion pass without registering our unaltered and unalterable opposition to this Bill in principle and in detail. We are still entirely in the dark and unsatisfied as to the reasons which have led the Government to take this very drastic step and this divergence from principle. We are still in the dark as to why they have resolutely declined to accept any compromise or any alteration whatever. We know that at this stage, if the heavenly choir came down and moved the rejection of the Bill, the results would be exactly the same; the bells would ring and the cohorts from outside would come in, and, in answer to the blandishments of the Whips, would see that the Government had their triumph.

I trust that I may be allowed on the Third Beading to call the attention of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General to the very serious position which may arise in the event of oil borings going through coal measures. Those borings may acquire, by the lapse of 20 years, rights of support which are very much more serious than had occurred to me during the Committee stage. Instead of 2½ acres of coal, as I then thought, being sterilised, possibly, by the existence of a bore hole, the area may be very much wider. A bore hole of considerable depth, say 3,000, 4,000 or 5,000 feet, which is nothing out of the common, if passing through deep coal measures, may require a support which may sterilise a very much larger area than 2½ acres of coal, and, as hon. Members opposite will be aware, that means a tonnage of gigantic proportions. It is possible that the Bill as it stands, and the rights of support which under the Common Law these undertakings will acquire, will have a damaging effect, and I urge my hon. and learned Friend to see whether, even at this late stage, some provisions similar to those in the Public Health Act dealing with the support of sewers cannot be inserted which would provide a certain measure of security for mineral workings in the vicinity of an oil well. I have had the opportunity of discussing this matter with my hon. and learned Friend, and I hope he does realise that there is a really serious risk of this Bill doing damage to the coal industry. I regard the Bill as quite certain to do irreparable damage to the petroleum industry—though we are not certain that we have got one—and it would be disastrous if the Government not only destroyed an unborn petroleum industry but also did serious damage to the coal industry. I think my hon. and learned Friend is familiar with the point, and I hope he will consider it, possibly in another place, because it is a point of very great weight.

I do not think I have taken quite so strong a view about this Bill as my noble Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Marquess of Hartington), but I regard some of its provisions as being a very remarkable departure from established precedent and custom and the protection of the individual. I imagine, from one or two remarks made by my hon. Friend the Secretary for Mines in the course of the Debate, that there must be some reason for hastily bringing in this Bill, even though we have not been able to extract from him what it is. I do not think that any hon. Member who is told that it is urgently necessary in the national interest to have this drastic national control of oil would be prepared to cavil at it very much, but I am afraid the Treasury Bench took a good deal of exception to the request for information on this point and attributed motives to us who asked for this information which, in point of fact, are not there. I thought the House was genuinely interested to know why, at this moment, when there are many other things to engage the attention of the administration, this nationalisation of oil Bill should have been thrust through Parliament. We have not been able to extract the in- formation, and we shall have to rely, and properly so, upon the good faith of the administration when they tell us that they have good reasons for introducing it at this moment.

The attitude of the Labour party can be described in two or three sentences. We believe that the Government have done the right thing in preserving for the State any petroleum there may be in this country, and we supported Clause 1 through the various stages from that point of view. If there be any petroleum, we believe that it ought to be vested in the State. The Noble Lord the Member for West Derbyshire (Marquess of Hartington) believes in private ownership of royalties. He states, because a certain court decision was given in 1568 that all minerals except gold and silver should belong to the landowner, that the landowner ought to have any petroleum that may be found in this country. The only thing that I can say is that the Noble Lord ought to be glad that that court decision was given in 1568. He has done well enough out of it. He has lived upon royalties. When I hear the Noble Lord and his colleagues talking about the amenities of the countryside, I think it is nothing more nor less than sheer hyprocrisy.

I must remind the hon. Member that he must please address his remarks to me.

I have spent many pleasant hours in the districts surrounding where the Noble Lords reside. They have excellent amenities. They have talked about this Bill destroying the amenities of the countryside, and I remember what has taken place in mining districts. The only thing that I can say, Sir, it that to me it is sheer hypocrisy. So far as ownership is concerned, we are glad that the Government have taken it. With regard to Clause 2, the Government have made a sad mistake in not exploiting the petroleum as a State undertaking. We believe that it could be done. This is not nationalisation of industry in the ordinary sense of the term, because at the moment no industry exists. There would be no question of compensation in taking over an existing undertaking. In our opinion, the Board of Trade could successfully exploit it. On the whole, we agree to the Third Reading of the Bill which is, we believe, in the national interest.

rose—

The Noble Lord must take his medicine; he has been given it long enough; and the hon. Member for Aylesbury may take his as well; I shall not give way. I say to them both, when they talk about the mandates at the last election, that there was no question of a mandate for the support of private mineral wealth, and I say to this House, through you, Mr. Speaker, that, while I believe that the Government have done the right thing in bringing in this Bill, and while I believe they have been courageous in resisting the demands made of them, I think that the Noble Lord the Member for West Derbyshire cannot be proud of the manner in which he has argued this matter. I say again that he has put the personal point of view lather than the point of view of the constituency which he represents.

The hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith) perhaps ranged a little wide in his remarks. I propose, if I may, to return to the subject under debate. I should like to appeal once more to the President of the Board of Trade to give us just a little more information about the genesis of this Bill. I listened to his reply on Clause 1 during the Committee stage with my usual admiration, and at the same time with some entertainment. I expect that nearly all Members of Parliament have had in their time the experience of rounding on someone whom they believed to be a mischievous heckler, only to find at the end of the meeting that he was an earnest supporter anxious for information. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman was in that melancholy position the other day. We are quite genuinely seeking information; that is what we want. We are not in the least anxious to embarrass the Government in any way whatever; and, after all, I do not think that the question we ask is an illegitimate one.

I do not want to allow this Bill to leave the House without making one final protest. We have heard from the benches opposite a very fierce attack on my Noble Friend, but I think that, when the hon. Member reads the account of what he said, he will think it rather unworthy of him. May I say for myself that I have no interest whatever in royalties? I live in the most beautiful county in the whole country, and I want to see the amenities of that county protected. I hope that no oil will ever be found there, because, if it were, it would ruin the amenities of the county.

I trust that by this time the President of the Board of Trade realises that, in the admittedly fierce attacks which we have made upon the Measure which he has sponsored, no personal attack on him or his colleagues is intended at all. We have never for one moment questioned his sincerity or the purity of his personal position, nor do we desire to make any attack upon Liberal Members of the Government as such. But, at the same time, the right hon. Gentleman must surely realise that, when a National Government introduces a piece of Socialist legislation, with the almost whole-hearted approval of the Socialist Opposition, the Right wing of the largest party supporting the National Government can scarcely be blamed if they look with a certain amount of suspicion, or rather doubt, upon their colleagues, and murmur to themselves:

"The stranger within our gates,

He may be evil or good;

But who can say when his ancient gods

Shall re-possess his blood?"

"Veil them, cover them, wall them round—

Blossom and creeper and weed—

Let us forget the sight and the sound,

The smell and the touch of the breed!"

The wigs are on the green this morning, and it is a battle between the noble Lords here and the other members of the House of Commons. What surprises me is that some of the Lords in the other Chamber should be asking why this Bill was brought in. It comes from the other place, so if they were to ask their fathers they would be told why they had thought it necessary to bring it in. This morning I am supporting the Bill, though it is not the whole-hearted support I would like to give to the Measure. There are two chief points in the Bill: one is the acquisition of the mineral rights, and the second is the handing over of those rights to another body of people. On the whole, I shall give support to the Bill, because it is admittedly a principle which has not been admitted in this country for many hundreds of years. It has always been understood as was said by the noble lord the Member for Rutland (Lord Willoughby de Eresby), who spoke on the Second Reading, that the owners of the land had always thought they had the right to everything above the land up to heaven and everything below the land down to hell. Now the Government of the day, for some cause or other, has said "No, we cannot allow that to go forward," and we have to try to find out the reason of that.

It seems to me time that a supporter of the Government should support the Bill. We have had very half-hearted support from the other side and a continued fire of opposition behind the Front Bench and it is time one said a few words to show that there are supporters of the Government who really believe that this is a good Bill. May I express the regret of, I am sure, all supporters of the Govt. at the attack made from the benches opposite on the Noble Lord who is not at the moment in the House. Perhaps, as he is not present, I may say a few words that I should feel rather embarrassed in saying if he were here. I do not agree in the least with the point of view that he has put forward. He has always been on the side opposite to myself, but we all know his particularly lucid and forcible exposition of principles in which he sincerely believes. I am sorry that an hon. Member opposite should think him an appropriate person to accuse of particularly mean and sordid motives, and I think he has selected a particularly bad victim for that purpose.

I have not taken part up-to-date in the proceedings on this Bill, and I am not supporting the Government on it. I have been in Scotland. If I had been here, I should have voted against the Government. I should like to press them for some explanation as to their reason for bringing the Bill forward. The hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith) said that we who are supporters of the National Government were not elected to support private property and rights. I agree that we were elected to support the National Government but we were not elected in any degree to support the National Government if they decide to go messing about dealing with things for which nobody ever asks, and without giving us any proper explanation as to why this sort of thing is being done.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) pointed out that this Bill has come from another place, and I cannot believe that a Bill of this kind coming from another place would be a confiscatory Bill or one making an attack on the owners of property. It would be inconceivable unless the other place were acting contrary to its past history. As he pointed out, the sons of the Lords might ask their fathers why the Bill has been introduced. It seems to me that their fathers are in favour of it. I should be very pleased to hear the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. Stuart) say that he was satisfied that there was no confiscation under this Bill. I am fully satisfied upon the point. If I thought it were a confiscatory Measure, I would not support it. I do not think anyone would support it. We have had no Communists in this House since Saklatvala, and there is no confiscatory intention in the minds of any hon. Members. The real position, as has been pointed out, is that the existence of oil had never been, dreamed of in this country. Nobody had ever thought of it. Many people do not believe it. It is true that there has been a small operation on the estate of the Noble Lord, but the production of oil has not been a serious commercial enterprise in this country. If we had gone ahead with a great number of oil wells and we had had a very large industry with all the usual appurtenances, which, as the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn has said, devastate the surrounding landscape, and the Government had proposed to come in and take possession of these things, it would have been a very different matter.

As a new Member, I have during the past fortnight learned some lessons from the opposite side of the House. I came here to fight for Socialism, and the attitude that has been taken up by hon. Members opposite on this Bill has inspired me with a determination to put forward every effort in the future to try and get the principles of Socialism adopted in this House. I do not expect to get them under the present conditions [HON. MEMBERS: "You are getting them in this Bill"]. This is a piebald piece of legislation, and those who say that it is Socialism do not understand Socialism. They need a few evening classes on Socialism if they say that this is Socialism. There is nothing in the Bill that gives any inkling towards Socialism.

The discussion that has taken place on the Third Reading of the Bill has covered most of the ground covered in the Committee stage, and I need hardly say that there is nothing new to be said about the Bill. One or two of my hon. Friends behind me have repeated the questions which they put over and over again in Committee and I think they must be content with the same answers now. I would, however, point out that the object of the Bill is a very sinple one. It is to set doubt at rest. The House can judge for itself whether doubts exist. It is clear from discussion in Committee that doubts exist. The view was put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for County Down (Mr. D. Reid), and the hon. and learned Member for Ashford (Mr. Spens) who have had considerable experience in dealing with this branch of the law, that there is no such thing as private property in oil. They have held that view most tenaciously and have argued it on more than one occasion. There are others who hold the same view—that view is not accepted by my Noble Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Marquess of Hartington) and other hon. Members who support him. These conflicting views show the doubts that exist. So long as there are any of those doubts it is impossible to secure that readiness to step into what is an unknown field which we all desire, not on political grounds but on industrial grounds. It is to set those doubts at rest that the Bill has been introduced, and the Bill will achieve that end.

"Where, until recently, was there an incentive to do anything? Until recently there was no question of a protective duty on oil supplies."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th June, 1934; col. 292, Vol. 291.]