SAFETY MEN.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I am sorry to suggest that the hon. Member has not read the law, but there again there is all the difference in the world. That comes under a separate heading, under the Act of 1875. It is clear that if anyone seeks to incite—and I have recently taken legal opinion upon this—or to induce another man to break a contract, he is guilty of an offence. That is not peaceful picketing at all. It is seeking to induce a man to break a contract. Safety men in Yorkshire, for instance, are subject to 14 days' notice on either side, and, if men leave the work without giving the necessary notice, they are guilty of a crime under the law of the land, altogether apart from these Regulations—[An HON. MEMBER: "Civil action, 741 surely?"]—and if anybody induces them to break their contract, whereby damage is done—I have not the words of the Act of 1875 before me—

§ Sir H. SLESSER

The Statute is entirely different. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to see the Statute, I will hand it to him.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Let me read the section: Where any person wilfully and maliciously breaks a contract of service or of hiring, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the probable consequence of his so doing, either alone or in combination with others, will be to endanger human life, or cause serious bodily injury, or to expose valuable property whether real or personal to destruction or serious injury, he shall on conviction….be liable. That Section is the law of the land to-day, and I am prepared to stand at this Box and say, quite definitely, that that law will be enforced. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite differs from me with regard to the law. I am not a lawyer, but only Secretary of State. I am advised by the Law Officers of the Crown that that Section is good to-day, and that if a safety man breaks his contract, whereby he may cause injury to individuals or to valuable property, as might be the case by mine flooding, he is liable to a penalty. Further than that, under the Common Law of the land, any man who induces another man to commit that crime is personally liable. That is my view of the law, and, under that view of the law, I entirely agree with the warning issued by the Chief Constable of the West Riding of Yorkshire—it is not a case of peaceful picketing at all—that if people induce men to break their contract, whereby damage may be done to valuable property, they are responsible. I am very much obliged to the hon. Member for having raised that question, because it is very desirable that it should be put clearly, and that people, who might be inclined to induce others to break their contract, should know that they themselves, in the view of the Law Officers of the Crown, are committing a crime also.

Mr. WILLIAMS

The right hon. Gentleman, if I may say so, has rather clouded the whole issue. One does not suggest that the safety man who leaves 742 his work without giving his legitimate length of notice is doing right at all. This poster containing a small portion of that particular Section of the Act read by the Home Secretary is interpreted to mean that no person is permitted peacefully to picket on the lines which the right hon. Gentleman said previously was legal.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I will endeavour to make the law perfectly clear. It is now admitted by the hon. Gentleman that, under the Section, it is a crime to break your contract as a safety man whereby damage may be done to valuable property. I now say it is a crime for any person to go to a safety man, and induce him to break a contract whereby a crime is done. If anybody goes to a safety man, and says to him, "You have a contract running, but at the end of a fortnight you are free. I ask you to come out at the end of a fortnight." That, you are entitled to do. That is, I think, the correct interpretation of the law.

§ Miss WILKINSON

Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Chief Constable of that area to explain that?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I think the Chief Constable of that area and the chief constables of other areas will probably read the speech I am making this afternoon, in which I am trying to make clear, so that anyone will understand, exactly what is legal and what is not legal. The question of the narrow line between what is peaceful persuasion and what is intimidation is one that it is impossible for me to lay down here. Suffice it to say that one must be careful not to use any threat against a man, whom it is sought to persuade not to go back to work, or to come out of work, or to use threats against his wife or family; and I think the hon. Member opposite will agree that that is the proper course of action. There is no objection whatever to a personal attempt at peaceful persuasion. But take a mass movement of pickets against a particularly small body of men. There, I think, it becomes very doubtful, indeed, whether that can be called peaceful picketing, because behind that there is the threat of an overwhelming mass of men marching down against a small body of men, and, human nature being what it 743 is, if the worker goes back to work, he knows he may be subjected, I will not say to intimidation, but, at all events, to a good deal of unpleasantness, and there is, I agree, a great deal of difficulty and a great deal of unpleasantness which affect the minds of men, but with which the law is unable to deal.

I freely say that, and I would like to appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite in this difficulty to play the game, as it were, in regard to picketing. Where you know a man, or where you have influence with a man, I say you are entitled to go to him and say, "Look here, old fellow, you and I have known one another for years. We belong to the same club. We are all out. Cannot you stay out, too?" That is perfectly fair. On the other hand, if you go to him and say, "We are all out. I know you. We all know you. If you do not come out it will be the worse for you." That is not playing the game. Or a wife talks over the wall to the wife of a man working and says, "Your husband is a blackleg." I do not say that is illegal, but I say it is hardly playing the game. I am appealing to hon. Members opposite who have power in the mining districts. We have so far conducted this dispute, in all parts of the country, without grave disorder, and it says a great deal for the good temper of the mining community and, if hon. Members opposite will forgive me, it says a good deal for the good temper in which the police as a whole have carried out their very difficult duties. Here you have got a large section of the country where there is grave difficulties. We have got police who are controlled by a Chief Constable responsible to the local authorities, and it is my primary duty as Secretary of State to see that law and order are maintained. My primary duty is to see that every man who desires to work should have the fullest possible protection, and I say, with knowledge, that, taking the country as a whole, the police have behaved with magnificent care, attention and, in many cases, kindness. Hon. Members opposite have given cases where tempers have got the upper hand, where feathers have flown, and where injuries have resulted on both sides. We cannot help that, and I have said on previous occasions that I shall be prepared to go fully into any case 744 raised here, or to give any information in my power. On the whole, I want to bear my testimony—and I am very pleased that so many hon. Members opposite have received it, at all events, with some measure of assent—to the way the police have endeavoured to carry out their duties as policemen, and remembering that they themselves are part of the community of which they have to take care.

§ Mr. PALING

Do I understand from the statement which the Home Secretary has just made that where a man approaches a safety man in a pacific spirit—in the language of the Home Secretary, "Look here, old fellow, you and I have known one another for years"—he is allowed to do that, provided houses no language which can be called intimidation, and does nothing to make the man break his contract—that he can approach him, and ask him to come out, providing he will give notice to terminate his contract?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Oh, yes.

§ Mr. PALING

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the police are not interpreting it in that sense at all, but are actually saying that a picket has no right in any circumstances whatever as an individual—not in twos or threes—to approach any safety man or picket him in any circumstances?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The statement made by the hon. Member is correct up to his last sentence. A picket, whether in regard to safety men or ordinary workers, has no right to force his attentions upon a man who does not want to hear him speak. You are entitled to appeal to the "old fellow" to come out, but if the "old fellow" does not want to come out, you have no right to force your attentions upon him. Our laws are based on common sense, and I do hope and trust that we shall have, during the coming month, good temper. I shall do all on my part, subject, as I said, to the carrying out of my duties. Hon. Members may not all agree with me, but the right of protecting a man who desires to work is a fundamental right which it is not only my duty to protect, but which I shall protect. In doing this, in carrying out my duties, I would like to appeal to hon. Members opposite for that friendly co-operation 745 which it is the boast of all English people they can maintain in spite of differences and without losing their temper.

§ Mr. BATEY

Before the Home Secretary sits down, will he not attempt to deal with the question of the prohibition of public meetings in certain areas?

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

There is an Amendment down with reference to the prohibition of meetings, and I thought it would be more convenient to make my statement when we come to that.

§ Sir H. SLESSER

We do not apologise in the least degree for once more opposing these Regulations. Our only regret is that, with the distinguished exception of one hon. Member of the so-called Liberal party, no Liberal is present in the House. Perhaps they do not think this suspension of the common law and the enforcement of what is really martial law is worthy of their attention. I think a great deterioration has taken place in the Radical and Liberal party since the old days when they were the jealous guardians of public liberty, and the disintegration of the party in the country is, no doubt, due to their indolence in this matter in the House. That, however, is no reason why the party to which I belong should not endeavour to carry on that tradition of the defence of individual rights and personal liberty which the Liberal party have now abandoned. No one can deny that these Regulations, taken as a whole, do constitute a kind of extra law, are no part of our general law, and are, indeed, a kind of martial law, such as might possibly be justified if this country were at war with a common enemy. These Regulations are, in fact, the Defence of the Realm Regulations brought up to date, and used against the mining population rather than against the enemy.

We have had this afternoon a defence of these Regulations which, I think, we have never heard before, and it is that with which I wish to deal. I have often asked the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary why, in his opinion, the common law of this country was not sufficient to deal with offences which might arise, but he has never really given me an answer until to-day. The answer he now 746 gives is that he recommends these Regulations on the score of leniency. He says the sentences are quick, and the matter is easily disposed of. It is The short, sharp shock From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block. But the shortness and sharpness of the sentences is really no justification for refusing to allow cases to be dealt with by the ordinary processes of law. I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that these Regulations create a great many new offences. It cannot be said of these new offences, which do not exist at common law, that they are cases in which people get greater leniency, because the offences could never have been committed at common law: they have been created by these Regulations. Whatever justification there may be for these Regulations, which are not even made by an Act of Parliament, and which cannot, I think, be properly understood even by the magistrates who have to deal with them, seeing that they have no relation to any continuous doctrine of the law dealing with these matters, it cannot be said that they deal with offenders any more leniently than does the common law. We have never yet had any justification for the creation of new crimes, most of them borrowed and brought down from a time when this country was at war, and having for their object then the protection of the country against an enemy. One Noble Lord was foolish enough on one occasion to make a speech in the City, which was certainly calculated to cause disaffection, in which he did compare the miners somewhat closely with the enemy. But that is no reason why the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary who, I am sure does not share that view, should have Regulations of this kind.

It is really important that the right hon. Gentleman should acquaint himself fully with the actual law in this matter. I have had the curiosity to contrast the liability under the statute law with the liability under these Regulations for offences in regard to which that alternative method of procedure exists—I wanted to see which was the more lenient—and, to my amazement, so far from procedure under the Regulations being the more lenient method, I found the statute to be the more lenient. I am referring now to 747 the Section, which the right hon. Gentleman has often mentioned, dealing with the penalty for intimidating or annoying or by violence refusing to allow people to work as they will. That is the well-known Section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875; and I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is nothing in the Trade Disputes Act which has prevented that Section continuing to operate as the law. But offenders against that Section may now be dealt with alternatively under Regulation 21 of the Emergency Regulations, and sometimes are, because, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, under that Regulation the offence of impeding and restricting the supply of food and so forth, a similar offence, may be committed. Let us compare the two penalties. Under the Regulation the penalty is imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding three months, or a fine not exceeding £100, or both such imprisonment and fine. What is the penalty under the Act. It says: Shall on conviction thereof by a court of summary jurisdiction, or on indictment as hereinafter mentioned, be liable either to pay a penalty not exceeding £20, or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three months, with or without hard labour. So far is the Regulation from being more lenient than the Statute that under it one can be fined £100, as compared with only £20 under the Statute. Therefore, so far as this particular Section is concerned, the whole of the argument that these Regulations are more lenient is absolutely beside the point. As a matter of fact, there is greater penalty for interference with the right of people to dispose of their labour as they think well under the Regulation than under the Statute itself.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The hon. and learned Gentleman is not addressing himself to the real question. I was dealing with the question of Assizes. Under these Regulations there is what is called a short and sharp remedy for intimidation which takes the form of assault. The penalty for that is three months. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that the alternative method of sending a case of assault to the Assizes might involve the offender in a very much larger penalty—certainly up to two years' hard labour.

§ Sir H. SLESSER

I am dealing with the particular Section which says: Shall on conviction thereof by a court of summary jurisdiction or on indictment"— I am dealing with Section 7.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I was dealing with the common law.

§ Sir H. SLESSER

The Section goes on to say that he shall be liable to pay a penalty not exceeding £20 or to be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three months. As far as the statutory wrong of interfering with the right of people to work as they will is concerned—I am not speaking of assault—the penalty is greater under the Regulations than it is under the Statute, even though procedure under the Statute may result in the case being taken to the Assizes.

What is the position when we come to the question of so-called disaffection, a new kind of petty sedition, created under the Regulations, which does not exist at common law at all. Unless the case amounted to sedition there could have been no prosecution or conviction at common law at all. Let us assume there was a case where one really could satisfy a jury that there was sedition within the meaning of the common law—though I do not think there has been one so far which has been put as high as that: mostly they have been cases of disaffection. I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman should think that the Judge at the Assizes would treat the matter any more harshly than do the magistrates. In a recent case where persons were found guilty on a charge of sedition, a case of far more gravity than anything in connection with this mining dispute, a case in which it was alleged that there really was an attempt to subvert the constitution, a case so important that the Attorney-General himself appeared to prosecute, the Judge offered to bind over the prisoners—with the exception of certain prisoners who had already been convicted—if they would give an undertaking not to repeat the offence. Taking that as an example, and it is the only recent case I know of—

§ The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Douglas Hogg)

I think I know the case to which the hon. and learned Gentleman refers—what is known as the "Communist prosecution." The learned Judge 749 did not make any such offer. He did ask the people in the dock whether they were willing to undertake to abandon the Communist Party altogether, and they refused to give that undertaking, and he then sentenced some of them to six months and some to twelve months. It was not a question of binding them over not to repeat the offence, but of asking them to sever their connection altogether with a party.

§ Sir H. SLESSER

That may be, but the point is not whether he asked them to do one thing or another; whether it was to leave the organisation or abandon the newspaper matters nothing. What I am pointing out, and I do not think the Minister disagrees, is the leniency with which the case was treated by a Judge. I am showing the right hon. Gentleman that in a case concerning an allegation amounting to something really seditious the persons concerned were treated with extraordinary leniency by the Judge, whereas in cases which are nothing like sedition, which amount at the most, possibly, to cases of a little disorder, or something not very much more than picketing, people convicted under these Regulations have been sent to prison for three months—treated far less leniently than the defendants were at the Old Bailey. I say there is no reason to suppose that our Judges, who on the whole are far more trained and competent to understand such accusations, would deal with a case arising out of a dispute in an industrial area more severely than would the local magistrates. I do not say that to cast any reflection on any magistrate, but to deal with the argument of the right hon. Gentleman that there is a justification for this sort of extra martial law on the ground that it is more lenient. I say new offences are created. I say that in the one particular class of case which accounts for most of the prosecutions, namely, cases of interference with the right of people to work as they will, the statutory penalty is, as a matter of fact, a little lighter than the possible penalties under these Regulations, and further that many new offences are created which do not exist at all at common law. I cannot see that there is any justification for these Regulations in the Safety of the Realm, and I cannot see that the right hon. 750 Gentleman can justify them on the ground of their lenicency—certainly that will be the opinion among people who have been tried under them. The serious matter about these Regulations is that we are getting into a habit of mind of looking upon them as the law of the land. Every month more and more difficulties and misunderstandings arise. We hear arguments from the Home Secretary as to what the law is or is not, whether Chief Constables may state the law, and explanations are needed from the right hon. Gentleman upon these legal troubles which are produced because we are not allowed to deal with these matters under the ordinary law of the land. In this way the Government are introducing a sort of arbitrary criminal code which really has no legal interpretation behind it. I hope that if ever we have another long dispute of this kind the whole of these Regulations will be overhauled before being introduced. These Regulations were devised for another time and an entirely different purpose, because they were drawn up to deal with a state of war. But now they are being used for all sorts of purposes.

I know the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly sincere when he says that a man has a legal right to peacefully persuade a man either to work or not to work under these Regulations. I am satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman has really set out these things in the memorandum dealing with the Regulations, although he has not set out the Regulations dealing with the Statute. If, under these circumstances, Chief Constables or the Magistrates get confused, who can blame them? In one part we find it is set out that it is lawful to persuade other persons not to work, and then we come to Regulation 21, in which it is made an offence to impede in any way the production and supply of certain commodities. I want to know where is the line to be drawn? If I persuade somebody not to work I do impede the production of commodities. Surely, these Regulations are producing a great deal of un-necessary confusion. This is not a new point, because I put it to the Attorney-General some time ago. It is a very difficult thing for a Chief Constable or a lay Magistrate to understand all these subtleties in the law.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Regulation No. 21 says: Provided that a person shall not be guilty of an offence under this Regulation by reason only of his taking part in a strike or peacefully persuading any other person to take part in a strike. Surely, anyone can understand that.

§ Sir H. SLESSER

It is very difficult to understand where to draw the line, because it is laid down that you must not do anything to impede, delay, or restrict the supply or distribution of food, but you may persuade a person to take part in a strike. I know these things cannot be amended now, but they all produce uncertainty. Under the Common Law all these offences were clearly defined. I understand the Home Secretary, at one moment during his speech, said that there was something criminal in inducing other persons to break a contract.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

To break a contract under this Section.

§ Sir H. SLESSER

I thought the right hon. Gentleman put the point much wider than that. I would like to know if these Regulations permit or do not permit, apart from the Section, a person to persuade others to break contracts whereby the result will be as laid down by Section 20, to restrict the supply or distribution of those various articles? I do not know. The Home Secretary knows that there is much doubt among Chief Constables and Magistrates as to what these Regulations really mean, and, seeing that many of them deal with offences which have never been defined in a Court of Law, it is not surprising that they have some difficulty in knowing what they mean. How a Magistrate can tell what disaffection means as laid down in these Regulations I do not know, because there is nothing laid down to guide him. If it means the same as sedition, then we know where we are, but if it means something over and above that, then we are in a difficulty. All this suspicion and difficulty arises through attempting to create a criminal code by these Regulations. If the legislation of our country needs alteration, then let us discuss the matter here and have the criminal law properly defined by Act of 752 Parliament instead of leaving it to the Government to create crime where otherwise there is no crime.

§ Mr. KIRKWOOD

On this occasion the Home Secretary has taken up another attitude from that which he previously took up with regard to the Regulations we are discussing, and on this occasion he has not been so aggressive or militant. There has not been the same swagger about the right hon. Gentleman to-day that we have had to suffer when these Regulations were before the House on a previous occasion. I ask the House to consider what it is we are faced with at the moment. Who is it these Regulations are being imposed upon? Are they being imposed upon the Germans, the French, or the Russians, or are they aimed at a section of our own countrymen who are always turning our country down? There is only one answer, and it, is that these Regulations are aimed at the most useful section of the people of this country, the most valuable asset in Great Britain and the finest material in the world, namely, the British working-class.

To-day you are attacking that class as bitterly and cruelly and callously as if they were not human beings at all. I am addressing the Home Secretary. I noticed to-day the manner in which this House, composed of men and women who are supposed at any rate to be intelligent, felt outraged because the dignity of this House was being assailed. It is sheer nonsense to talk about dignity when you have a House of Commons listening to the Home Secretary telling us in that cool, calculating, well-fed way that these Regulations are not so harsh as the common law. What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by fooling us in that way? Why are these Regulations asked for if they are not more harsh than the ordinary law? The result of putting these Regulations into operation is to set class against class. If ever there was a class war, or if ever there was clear evidence of it, we have got it to-day. If ever there was a ferocious Government in power preying on the flesh and blood of the people of this country, it is the present Government. There never was such a hypocritical Government holding sway in this or any other land, and there never was such a hypocritical Home Secretary as the present one.

753 The right hon. Gentleman stands there and discusses the sending to gaol of the finest workers in this country. He stands there discussing ways and means of sending to gaol, women, old women, the mothers of the British race, the mothers of the boys who defended us from the Germans, and how does the right hon. Gentleman treat them to-day? He hands them over to any insignificant stupid Chief Constable—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—I know what I am talking about. By these Regulations you are handing over the liberties of the community to the Chief Constables. I know there are some of them who will behave decently, but when you hand over to Chief Constables powers such as these under the circumstances prevailing at the moment there is bound to be trouble, more especially when the people realise that the Government which has power over these Chief Constables is on the side of the owners and not on the side of the miners. That is what we are suffering from to-day.

What did the hon. Member for Armagh (Sir W. Allen) tell us? He told us that Ireland was not getting its fair share of coal. If the Government had been honest, they would have told Northern Ireland that there was no coal from Britain to give them, that it is all so much lies about the great number of miners that is being employed. It is not true. He said another thing that struck me very forcibly. He said, and it is quite true, that they were cutting down fruit trees, and he was appalled. So may anyone be; but it never seemed to dawn on the intelligence of the Tory Members of this House that there are more valuable things being cut down to-day than fruit trees. There are little children in the mining villages starving at the present moment, and these are the finest fruit trees that this or any other country ever had. It is on your heads, every one of you, every one of the Tory Government. If there is a God in Heaven, you will have to give account before Him for the suffering that the women and children of this country are going through at the present day.

Go on with your regulations! Here we find the miner right up against it; there is no doubt about that. The miners' leaders are working beyond human endurance. I have never known, in all my 754 experience of over 30 years, of leaders working so hard as the miners' leaders are working at the present moment, rushing from one place to another. None of you that I see here have a constitution that could stand it one week; Cook has stood it six months, and he will stand it six years. We will help him, and when you have killed him we will take his place. Yet, in this free Britain, the land of the brave and the free, where free speech has always been held—how we swagger about it whenever we go on the Continent! We are the free men; we have the right to give expression to our opinions and none dare make us afraid—in the midst of all that, the Home Secretary goes and bars Cook, or, at any rate, he backs the chief constable who dares to stop Cook from addressing his own men. There is the freedom that you boast about—freedom as long as you do not operate it, but, the moment you operate it, you are banned and threatened as Cook was in all manner of ways.

That is how the miner sees it. What is he going to do? The miner says that if he is defeated—of course, he cannot be; the working class cannot be defeated; it is impossible—the miner sees that he is being put up against it. He is being rushed by this Government, and there is only one thing standing in the way of the hope of the matter being solved, and that is the owners, not the colliers. They see all this going on. They see that if it is a bad settlement for them the active men who have been fighting for their fellows in the workshop—I know what it is; I have come through it—the active men will be sacked and will not get a job in the mines; while the men who do work will be bullied at their work as they have never been bullied before—crushed, driven down to slavery by this great Tory Government and these emergency powers at the instigation of the owners, in order that they may wring profit, in order that some men may become rich through the degradation of the entire British race. If you crush the working class of this country down below a certain standard, how are you to expect to have an Empire or an Imperial race if they are underfed and over-worked? You cannot have it two ways.

Further, the miner sees his wife, the first day when they start work, having 755 to go round to the grocer and pay the bill, which will be deducted from his wages; and not only that, but they have signed away to the parish councils that immediately they start work they have to pay to clear that bill. Therefore, they see that their condition is going to be absolutely hellish for years—nothing but black, staring slavery for the miners of this country. The miner says, "Well, you have put me up against it, and I am going to destroy the mines. I am going to pull out the safety men; I am going to flood the mines;" and you can take it from me in this House that I will do all I can to back the miners to flood the mines, to destroy the mines. I never make any apology for being a Scotch man; I have never changed my action to suit either Irish, English or Welsh, and I say here that if Scotland, my native land, after I have played the game, after I have done what I possibly could to make this world the better while I have been here—if my country turn me down and send me and my class down to slavery, I will do everything I could to burst my country, never mind bursting the mines.

That is how the miners view it, and I warn this House that that is what you are faced with; and that is the spirit in which we of the Labour party decided to-day. All the tameness has gone; we decided to-day as a party, at our party meeting, that we are going out to do all that we possibly can to stand by the miner. The whole party is pledged to it. Of course, you can hear laughing, and you can hear smiling—[Laughter.]—you can hear titters, but Smile and smile, and be a villian all the while. I want also to tell the House something more, and it is this, that the whole trade union movement is rallying to the miners, and that the trade union movement are going to levy themselves for the miners. I can tell the House that right off the bricklayers have decided to give them 6d. a week. That is a good beginning, because, if the miners are supported financially—and they are going to be—all the powers in Britain will never beat the miners. You can go on with your powers and your Regulations, but you will get no more coal than you are getting at the moment.

756 Before I have finished I want to draw attention to this point. You are always repudiating the poor miner—the working class. They are this and they are that; but did it never strike the Home Secretary and the Government of the Tory party that at the moment all the management is about the mines—all the brains, all the collar-and-tie brigade are there—the staff are all there, and there is no coal coming up, which proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that, if it is so necessary, the most valuable asset that you have is, as I have already said, the miner. It is the duty of the Home Secretary, if he claims to have the interest of Britain at heart, as I have—[Interruption.] I do not want to say a word, because, if I do, I shall say something that I shall be sorry for, but it would be true. I am appealing to the very best of my ability in order to save a very serious crisis arising, because it will arise as far as I am concerned; I will make no bones about that. I am going round the country advising the miners never to yield, no matter what they do, no matter what they destroy. The leaders can call me a revolutionary and wash their hands of me, but they will never change me one bit. During the weekend I am going to tell the miners, rather than yield, to blow the mines and everything else to a bag of rags.

I say this because I want to save trouble, for, as most of my colleagues know, I just say on the Floor of the House of Commons what I will say on the platform— not to get any notoriety—I can get any amount of notoriety—but because I believe that the miners have a just cause. They are not asking for an increase of wages, they are not asking for a reduction of hours, but they are simply asking to work under what were considered to be the normal conditions under which on the average they had been working for a long term of years. Take Durham; you are going to put the hands of the clock back about 50 or 60 years. Think of that, you Tory Government. I am giving you a chance to consider well the path that you are treading, because it is your own fellow-countrymen that you are dealing with. We shall be able, because we have the ear of the British public, to prove to them that the miner is not asking anything that this country cannot afford to give. We tell the people 757 that this idea of the economics of the situation does not matter a snap of the fingers, that the most important thing is not whether the Astors will get their millions or not—the most important thing is that the children that we bring into the world shall be fed. We do not believe that Britain is a done country; we believe that our country can afford to give the miners a comfortable living, and we would not be worthy of our sires if we were to remain silent on these benches here and say nothing, and allow all this twaddle to go on about law and order and one thing and another when there are thousands of these children starving. It is our duty in defence of our country to stand up for these men and women and do what we possibly can to instil into them the characteristics of our race—that is, the love of liberty—and to try to stem your propaganda and your ideas of crushing the working classes. That is what you want. We of the Labour movement say we will not stand for that. We will defy you and your law and order. You can do what you jolly well like. If you interfere with our speakers, others will take their place. That is a challenge to you, and you can make a kirk or a mull of it.

Mr. W. M. ADAMSON

I beg to move, in line 3, after "1926," to insert the words, "other than Regulations 21 and 22."

I move this Amendment particularly in view of the action which was taken recently under Regulation 22. The Chief Constable of Staffordshire took upon himself the responsibility, evidently after consultation with the Home Secretary, of proclaiming a meeting in my constituency which was to be addressed by the Secretary of the Miners' Federation. The Home Secretary, in justifying the action of the Chief Constable, quoted a speech of Mr. Cook which had taken place in the same district somewhere about seven or eight weeks ago. He was questioned later as to why action was not taken then against the individual who made the speech. It is probable that round about the same period, or at a later period even, speeches of mine might have been quoted to the Home Secretary when criticism of the police was offered by me at very similar meetings. I want to ask the 758 Home Secretary why action was delayed for two months, and the meeting should be banned because of one particular speaker, because in addition to Mr. Cook there was to be the Treasurer of the Miners' Federation and other local speakers who have been taking the responsibility of the dispute during this period. My mind takes me back to the period when the speech was made which was quoted by the Home Secretary last night. Prior to Mr. Cook speaking, a procession of miners had taken place. A car with police officers drove up and took the flags and banners from the miners, and used that provocative method of trying to cause a disturbance, so that they could create some action which would make the miners retaliate. Fortunately, by the wise advice of their leaders, they let the banners go, and went on to the place of meeting. Unfortunately probably for the discussion to-night, whatever action was taken was taken under a by-law and not under these Regulations. I am not going to contradict the police officer's statement in any way. In all the meetings I have held the police have been tolerant and, because they understood the local conditions, they have always been friendly. It is only the introduction of police from other districts which has caused any difficulty whatever in the mining districts, and it is because they have not the slightest knowledge of the habits of the men and women concerned that they take the action they have taken in many instances.

It was under circumstances such as this, and because of a speech made after such an event, that Mr. Cook was banned from speaking in the Cannock district. I am not concerned to defend the miners' secretary—he can do that for himself—but I am concerned with the right of free speech in my constituency, and I intend to go to the division this week-end and in the same place hold a meeting. That is not an idle boast, and I am not seeking to defy the law in any way, but I am going, and I believe with plenty of help and assistance, to make certain that the right of free speech is not going to be banned in any part of the mining area. The very first portion of these Regulations says: Provided also that no such Regulation shall make it an offence for any person to take part in a strike or peacefully to 759 persuade any other person or persons to take part in a strike. Surely the purpose of the miners' secretary on Sunday last could only be to appeal to his fellow members to stand loyal and to prevent the breakaway of the miners—to stand together for the principles they believe in, for the right of a national agreement, for the right to negotiate the conditions under which they should be employed. I ask the Home Secretary why that meeting was banned, and I want to quote a letter I have received to indicate the attitude of mind of those who have been confronted with this position as to what it means. It is written by a member of the urban district council and a member of the executive of the Miners' Association in the Cannock District: You will be surprised to hear that some of us miners' officials were called upon early this morning by police officers who were instructed to inform us that our meeting, at which others were to speak, had been forbidden. We were threatened with arrest if we attempted to hold meetings anywhere in Staffordshire. Mounted police in big numbers have been sent into the districts and it is estimated that 950 police assembled this morning. Although some 15,000 men gathered together no-one was allowed to address them. I can understand, after the statement of the Home Secretary, that they were determined not to allow Cook to speak, but why prohibit the meeting and not the individual? If I had attended that meeting, as I might possibly have done, should I too have been refused if my constituents were assembled to hear my opinions upon the dispute? Incidentally, is it not possible that the other speakers who attended there were quite as legitimately entitled to speak at the meeting? Let us face the facts under these conditions. Probably the Chief Constable believed he was acting rightly in preventing the meeting because of the possibility of men being persuaded not to return to work. The very prohibition of the meeting, according to the Press, resulted in 2,000 more men refraining from going to work yesterday. Whatever their idea was in even giving a semblance of support to the Chief Constable in prohibiting the meeting, surely, in the interests, as you might believe, of getting an end of the dispute, even if the men are forced to return by starvation, that was not the way, as I think 760 the Home Secretary must have done in his letter to the Chief Constables, to encourage them to prohibit meetings when they thought it necessary. Was it not sufficient that they had the law behind them and the Emergency Regulations, which you have passed in spite of our opposition, for the Chief Constable to take whatever action he thought fit, even without the possible semblance of support from the Home Secretary who had no opportunity of knowing what was likely to take place in the district. Have there been any complaints respecting the behaviour of the men, apart from singing their labour songs, in forming processions and in trying legitimate methods to beat down the opposition of the mineowners, in order to get fair terms? Have there been any complaints or even the semblance of any cases where prosecutions could actually be taken? With very few exceptions, there have been no complaints of the behaviour of the men and women. They have behaved themselves remarkably well under difficult conditions, and I think we are entitled to ask that the Home Secretary should review his position and take command, so that a Chief Constable should not have it in his power to ban and prohibit meetings, thereby denying the right of free speech. We ask that an opportunity should be given for us to express our opinions and to carry on in an ordinary constitutional way.

§ Mr. D. GRENFELL

I beg to second the Amendment.

The Regulations which the hon. Member proposes to delete are interpreted by the Home Secretary in such a way that they interfere with our lifelong freedom of speech in this country. The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Paling) made a speech yesterday calling the attention of the Home Secretary to what was happening in his own constituency in Yorkshire. The Home Secretary has told us this afternoon that in a number of districts meetings have been banned, but the statement of the right hon. Gentleman did not afford sufficient justification for the banning of those meetings. I object to this Regulation because of the possibility of its being improperly enforced. We have warned the Home Secretary that the ultimate end will be to make the Regulation itself a 761 farce. The position has now arrived when men occupying chief positions in the Miners' Federation, Mr. Cook, the Secretary, Mr. Herbert Smith, the President, and Mr. Richardson, the Treasurer, are affected. Mr. Richardson alone awaits the ban of the Home Secretary. He is one of the most respected men who ever sat in this House. The other men are also respected. The Home Secretary makes no discrimination. He says, in effect, that these people are obnoxious to the mineowners, not because of any danger arising from their actions but because their actions are objectionable to the coalowners. They make an appeal to the men not to listen to the inducements of the coalowners to return to work but to stand loyal to the Federation and to stand out for a better settlement.

The Home Secretary has referred to a statement made by Mr. Cook, in a speech made two months ago, when he referred jocularly to the police as "bluebottles," and told them that their batons were useful weapons of defence and offence in certain contingencies, but that the baton was a very poor substitute for a pick in the matter of getting coal. That is the only thing in Mr. Cook's speech which the Home Secretary could quote in justification of the ban. The Home Secretary is the last man in the world to object to anything said by Mr. Cook. Mr. Cook lives a very active life in the movement; he has great gifts of speech and has a very flowery and poetical vocabulary, but he has never indulged in the phrases in which the Home Secretary has indulged. The Home Secretary, in defiance of the law and constitution called upon the lord god of battles to help him, and to witness his defiance of the constitution of the country he told the Government of the day to "Fire and be damned." That is a sample of the right hon. Gentleman's language. If he searches the records of Mr. Cook's speeches he cannot find anything approaching those terms. Had Mr. Cook said what the Home Secretary has said, one would not have been surprised to find a ban put upon him, but he has said nothing approaching a seditious statement or a statement likely to cause disaffection among His Majesty's subjects.

The charge against Mr. Cook has been founded on a report provided by the 762 police in the Staffordshire area. It would appear that a policeman took notes in a standing position without a table, without any facilities for rapid writing or accuracy, and this police report is brought up in this House, and not in a Court of Law, as evidence of Mr. Cook's misdemeanour in the past. I have had some experience of speaking in the presence of the police during the last week or two. I make this complaint to the Home Secretary, that at two of my meetings I found police present making a pretence of taking notes of what I said. I am quite sure that if the police in the Staffordshire area are no more competent in the making of reports than the police who have tried their 'prentice hand in reporting my speeches, then their report is not very reliable. I was speaking on a subject in which miners are interested, namely, the relation of wages to the cost of living and the relation of wages to profits, and the police were taking notes of that. They were taking notes of a subject which had no semblance of interference with civil rights, no semblance with the policy of His Majesty's Government, and certainly no relationship to anything likely to cause a breach of the peace. It was a technical examination of facts. As a magistrate, I appealed to the policeman who was taking notes not to make himself look so stupid and foolish. I asked him to desist, from playing at reporting. If that is the kind of report which has been produced against Mr. Cook, it is no evidence at all to those who have had experience of police methods.

The result of proclaiming Mr. Cook's meeting has done more than Mr. Cook's eloquence could have done in keeping men from work. Mr. Cook has great eloquence and great influence with crowds, but the banning of his meeting has certainly resulted in many men withdrawing their labour. I find that the number of men at work in that area since the proclamation of the meeting is nearly 2,000 fewer than before the ban. The Government are violating the decencies of social relationship in this country. They have come so openly on the side of the coal owner. The Home Secretary in particular has mis-used his powers against the miners so flagrantly that the people of this country, of all shades of political opinion, are rapidly losing confidence in him. Here is a report from the "Times" 763 of to-day with respect to the banning of Mr. Cook's meeting. The Walsall correspondent of that newspaper said: The action of the Staffordshire police in preventing Mr. A. J. Cook from addressing meetings of Cannock Chase miners yesterday has given rise to much criticism. Among the miners themselves there is intense resentment, for up to the present there have been the friendliest relations between the miners and the police and there have been no untoward incidents during the strike. Mr. Cook has been in the same area on several previous occasions during the dispute, and has been permitted to hold meetings. To-day there was some bewilderment when the miners found that the police permitted a meeting to be held at Heath Hayes, and that a statement was forthcoming from the superintendent of police at Cannock to the effect that there was now no further ban on miners' meetings. This is not correct, for Major Hunter, the Deputy Chief Constable of Staffordshire, informed me this afternoon that the police had power to exercise their discretion and prohibit meetings where they apprehended disorder as a result. It did not necessarily mean that a ban would be placed on all meetings announced to be addressed by Mr. Cook. I am informed that when the miners' secretary last addressed the miners in Cannock Chase he made a violent attack on the police, which surprised his hearers. This was not reported at the time in the newspapers. It is a remark which has come to the Home Secretary and gone back from his office to the police in the neighbourhood. At the time it did not appear in the local Press. The newspaper proceeds: Mr. Cook has announced now that he will return to this area to-morrow and will speak at Heath Hayes, Hednesford, Pelsall, and other places in Staffordshire. The action of the police is commented on unfavourably, not only by the general public, but by the Press supporters of the Government in Birmingham. People are amazed that, whereas Mr. Cook was not allowed to speak last week-end, he is allowed to speak to-day in the same area. The statement which he will make to-day is likely to be the same kind of statement that he would have made last week-end. It will be an appeal to the miners to rally round the Federation and to abide by the policy of the Federation. The Home Secretary knows that Mr. Cook, as a responsible official of the Miners' Federation, must appeal to the men and explain to them how the Federation views the problem, and explain to them minutely the policy and 764 hopes of the Federation. How can the Home Secretary justify the banning of the meeting last week-end and allow Mr. Cook to speak in the same area to-day? The result of this confusion, which becomes worse confounded each day, is that more men have withdrawn their labour from the pits because of the interference with the ordinary elementary rights of citizenship. They have shown their resentment against the Home Secretary's action by withdrawing their labour, when otherwise they might have remained at work. This action can only have the result of retarding a settlement and of creating more bitterness between the parties than has been shown up to the present. There have been no great manifestations of hatred and malice between the parties. The coalowners and miners, much as they differ from each other, have shown no great manifestation of malice in action or spoken words, although certain coal owners in interviews with the Government have said things much more capable of being described as sedition than anything that Mr. Cook has said.

I complain of the banning of meetings in other areas. In Derbyshire the other day a local preacher, who was banned in his attempt to address the miners on the subject of the dispute, asked for permission to preach from a text in the Bible, and that was banned. Scripture is banned by the order of the Home Secretary through his minions in that area. He was denied the right to preach a sermon in the open air to a crowd of people. A local leader of the men who is also a local preacher asked permission to preach a sermon; he was refused! That is what we are coming to.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Will the hon. Member tell me the date and place?

§ Mr. GRENFELL

That was last weekend in Derbyshire. What would have happened to the Old Testament Prophets if the Home Secretary had been in office in Jerusalem. Jeremiah and Zachariah would have had to toe the line if the present Home Secretary had been holding power in those days. I would appeal to the Home Secretary to dispense with these new Regulations—to leave out Regulations 21 and 22. Failing that, I suggest to the Home Secretary that he 765 cancels the orders to the local police and mayors. A meeting was banned and the Chief Constable for the county made it his business to go round the houses of local leaders and use most improper language, intimidatory language, in a most disturbing fashion, to my mind. The statement I have here is:

The Chief Constable, acting on the instructions of the Home Secretary, went to a local leader's house and told him this meeting he proposes to hold next Sunday is not to be held. He said, 'I shall see to it, you shall not hold meetings in future. I want to show you something else. If you want to see what a baton charge is like, I will give you an exhibition one of these days.' The Chief of Police of the County of Monmouth goes to a local leader's house, where there is no threat, no intimidation, the working people living as peaceably as they have in the past. They are a fine type of people. Here is a Chief Constable using provocative language. That is the man the Home Secretary should ban. That is the kind of inflammatory speech. Mr. Smith and Mr. Cook could not use language of that kind. Here is a man responsible for the maintenance of law and order in that district doing that. I have had a report that they have banned meetings in my own Division. I can claim that no more law-abiding and worthy citizens live anywhere in the four Kingdoms. In six months there has not been a single summons for the most minor offence. There has been no obstruction, no intimidation, no violation of the law of picketing in any way. The police and the working people are more friendly and more careful to preserve friendship than ever they have been before. It is not the police in my district who ask permission of the Home Secretary to ban meetings. These instructions have been pushed upon them. They have been told in these printed farms, "You ban meetings at so and so." And they must ban the meetings. I said it was the Chief Constable of Monmouthshire who made these threats of a baton charge at Tredegar. I have been a bit confused. It was Superintendent Edwards, the local superintendent, who made that threat of a baton charge.

Coming back to my own district, the people there are anxious to be friendly with the police. They know nothing is gained by violence. They do not want 766 to be fighting. They will stay out for weeks and months in resistance of the coalowners' proposals. They try to conduct themselves as well as they can. They want the right to hold meetings, because otherwise they cannot carry on the business of the Federation with two or three thousand branches or lodges all over the Kingdom. There are 400 branches in South Wales alone. You cannot have a meeting of every branch; you must have four or five branches together. Here is a meeting banned, not because Mr. Cook or Mr. Herbert Smith or any of those more famous characters are going to speak, but because two local agents propose to speak. One of them is a local preacher, if that is any recommendation in this House. It is certainly no recommendation to the coalowners. One of my colleagues, a local preacher, and a very estimable man indeed, was anxious to address his own members in my district, and he was banned. I hope the Home Secretary will inquire into the interpretation placed upon his own Regulations, and see whether or not these Regulations, as they are being carried out, are more in violation of the constitution and an interference with the civilian population than anything any of the leaders of the men have done.

§ Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Will the hon. Member tell me where and when this local preacher was banned?

§ Mr. GRENFELL

Last Saturday in Derbyshire. I really do not remember the name of the meeting. Perhaps other speakers will give more details. The other instance was in one of the villages in my own constituency. It has a Welsh name which by strange coincidence means "The Lord's meadow."

§ Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM

I wish to seize this opportunity of welcoming this attitude of the party opposite in favour of free speech. Many of us at the present time have examples of what is not free speech when we are addressing meetings, and I am glad to see that the Labour party, when it comes to the point—and they themselves have meetings, not disorganised or in any way interrupted by the party opposed to them, but turned down by the police—are naturally indignant. I am certain we all ought to have free speech, and I welcome it from them that they too share that 767 aspiration. I am one of those who feel that it is a great mistake to suppress public meetings. I think a public meeting should not be suppressed either by the police or by the side opposed to the speakers. We must all of us realise that the position in which the police are placed in many cases is extremely difficult. After all, it is not Mr. Cook or anybody else who is held responsible for the results of what may happen at a meeting of that kind, if anybody is blamed and if there is trouble. There may be trouble such as in the case of Staffordshire, where men have gone back to work and the Miners' Federation have gone down to try to bring them out again. In my opinion, the Home Secretary is right in trusting the men on the spot. I hope very much that these meetings will be stopped as little as possible. In Durham, where I come from, I can state with perfect truth, that the relations between the police and the miners are as good as they can be, and we have had no trouble, so far as I know, about the suppression of public meetings. Let me again say how really glad I am to see that we have opposite a party determined to stand up for free speech, and I trust very much they will allow us to have it also.

§ Mr. G. THORNE

I trust I may be justified in again venturing to address the House to-night on the same subject as last night. I do so because I am a Staffordshire Member, and I am very jealous of the law-abiding character of the people there. I have been very considerably disturbed by the course which has been taken; that is why I ventured to make a personal and direct appeal to the Home Secretary last night. I did not ask him to withdraw this Regulation. I did ask him, and I ask him again, whether he does not think it wise to reconsider the decision to which he came of giving those general instructions to the chief constables in the various districts, and whether it is not a matter he should have taken entirely in his own hands, so that no Proclamation or prohibition should take place except with his direct approval? I think this is somewhat of a test case. I agree with what he said last night regarding the character of the Chief Constable. All of us in Staffordshire have great admira- 768 tion for the Chief Constable. On the other hand, we have a right and a duty to criticise any actions which we consider unwise. I think the Home Secretary entirely agrees with the quotation I made last night, one sentence of which I venture to re-quote: Prohibition, unless danger of disorder is very real and apparent, necessarily raises this issue of free speech, and by so doing may easily do more harm than good in the long run. I submit that the action taken in Staffordshire last Sunday is likely to have the effect of doing more harm than good. I submit very respectfully that there was no justification for the course taken. Five hundred more police drafted into one district to prevent Mr. Cook speaking. I certainly do not in the slightest degree support the words which, the Home Secretary said last night, Mr. Cook used in a prior speech. He said that speech was made two months ago. He admitted that no ill effects resulted from that speech, and how therefore something which happened two months ago and had no ill results then was going to have an ill result now, is beyond my comprehension. The point I am going to urge will show the mistake in judgment which has been made. An hon. Member said he understood Mr. Cook was going to hold a meeting to-day. I hold in my hand a telegram to the effect that he has held a meeting in that district. Cook spoke, orderly meeting, 5,000 men Pelsall this afternoon, only two or three police present, no disturbance. I am glad to be able to put that on record as indicating the orderly and law-abiding character of the people in that district, and I do not think there was any justification for this strong action which might possibly have created the very disturbance it was desired to prevent. I do not wish to labour this point to-day, but I press very strongly whether, in the interests of peace, it is not wise for the Home Secretary to retain this power in his own hands. Every Chief Constable may not be held in such high esteem as the Chief Constable of Staffordshire. We have the Home Secretary in this House, and we ought to look to him not only to take the technical but the direct responsibility for proclamations issued in these circumstances, and if we can secure from him a promise that he will reconsider his view, and will himself require to be informed of any proposed proclamation, and that no 769 proclamation will be made except under his express authority, some good will result from a discussion of the matter.

§ Sir H. SLESSER

I want to follow up what the hon. Member has just said, and draw the attention of the Home Secretary to the Regulation itself, which I really think contemplated that in every case there should be a direct and separate proclamation whenever a Chief Constable was to stop a meeting. These are the words of the Regulation itself: When there appears to be reason to apprehend that the assembly of any persons for the purpose of the holding of any meeting or procession will conduce to a breach of the peace and will thereby cause undue demands to be made upon the police, or will promote disaffection, it shall be lawful for a Secretary of State, or for any mayor, magistrate, or chief officer of police who is duly authorised by a Secretary of State, or for two or more of such persons so authorised to make an order…. Speaking as a lawyer, I think the intention of the words of the Regulation was that whereas a mayor and magistrates, by virtue of their office, have power to proclaim a meeting, a chief officer of police can be vested with that power by the Secretary of State, but is vested only for the purpose of making a particular order for a particular meeting. As a matter of law, I think the Regulation has been unduly strained. The chief officer of police can be vested with these powers under the control of the Secretary of State's authority, but the general intention was that where the Secretary of State thought a meeting should be stopped, a direct order should be given. This general order besides being undesirable is, I think, straining the Regulation rather further than the actual words go.

§ Mr. TINKER

I wish to refer to a matter of which I have notified the Home Secretary, but before I come to that question let me say a word or two on the speech made by the hon. and gallant Member for Barnard Castle (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam). I take it he objected to meetings of his party being interrupted—

§ Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM

Yes, continual interruptions, and not allowing other people to speak at public meetings.

§ Mr. TINKER

I can assure him that no one on this side of the House agrees with that kind of thing. We want everyone to have the right of saying what they think, but I did hope, after what he said, that he would have appealed to the Home Secrtary to remove the ban placed on our meetings. He stated that he was in favour of free speech, but agreed with the action of the Home Secretary. The two things cannot go together. What I want to refer to is the agreement in Lancashire in regard to the safety men. Under this agreement the safety men are allowed to work in the mines where the employers agree that the conditions which obtained on 30th April shall prevail, that is, a seven-hour day and the same rate of wages, the men to be employed only on safety work, and no coal to be worked. We have kept that agreement in Lancashire. At the Cronton Collieries, near Prescot, this agreement obtained on 13th October, but on that day the employers decided to revert to an eight-hour day. That was a clear breach of the agreement, and the employers knew it, because they went round to the safety men telling them the new terms and the conditions and asking them whether they would remain at work. The safety men said "No, you have broken the agreement and our engagement terminates." There was no trouble.

The next day the safety men did not go in, and the surface manager of the colliery, accompanied by a police inspector and sergeant, visited them at their homes. The surface foreman told them that if they did not go to work there would be no further employment for them. I am not objecting to that. What I am objecting to is that a police inspector and sergeant should accompany the surface foreman on a mission of that kind. They had no right to do so. If the surface foreman wanted to get the men back to work, he had a right to visit them, but he had no right to use the police for the purpose. That is what we object to. The employers have no more right to use the police than have the miners. I have sent the Home Secretary particulars of this case, and if he finds the facts are as I have stated. I hope he will put a stop to this kind of thing. Where we are accused of ex- 771 ceeding the picketing laws the police have a right to come in, but where we are trying to keep law and order the police should be neutral and should not favour the employers. I hope the Home Secretary will look into this case and let me know his decision later.

§ Mr. PURCELL

I support the Amendment on the ground that I do not think the Home Secretary is entitled to these powers at all; he is not entitled to continue to give this support which is wholly in favour of the coalowners. There is no question about that. The whole of these Regulations are specifically designed to defeat the objective of the miners. Even if the Home Secretary went as far as to promise to remove the ban, there would still remain the fact that the make-up and mentality of the Courts of this country, particularly the magistracy in out-of-the-way districts, would give him all the protection he wants so far as law and order are concerned. On the benches of the various Courts in the land he has quite as much support as he needs for the purposes of law and order—as much as anybody need expect. Our great unpaid were never better represented from a Tory point of view than they are at present. Apart altogether from any attitude of a Chief Constable himself, the attitude of the magistracy towards boys and girls and men and women in the various districts is the biggest outrage ever perpetrated in connection with any dispute.

In my own constituency, where there has been some little consistency in the sentences imposed and in the general action of the Chief Constable, without any question of meetings being banned, we have had attacks on men and women in such a form that the mere following of the crowd was a severe offence, and the fine as much as £3, £4, £5 and £6. The ban on meetings is a small thing compared with the penalties imposed by the magistracy under the dictation of the Home Office or on the advice of the Chief Constable or local superintendent. Here we are faced with some of the most savage sentences possible. These people have not the money to pay, and cannot pay the fines which are imposed for the smallest conceivable offences. Instead of getting peace, you will only get more revolts on the part of the people. In 772 my own area we never had a solitary case of any description until the Chief Constable came down with all his force of mounted men and his police in motor cars. We had no summonses, no charges of any kind. All this proves that the Government have made up their mind, definitely and deliberately, to assist the coalowners to starve the mineworkers into submission. The ban on meetings is only a part of that policy. The fact is that this Government are acting in a most murderous manner as far as the miners are concerned, and have made up their mind to force the men and women back to work through starvation. It is wholly in favour of starving the miners into submission.

This is proved by the orders which have been issued to various localities and by the attitude of the Minister of Health towards boards of guardians. In my own district an organised attempt is being made to starve 7,000 miners back to work. Every vestige of support has been removed. This is the most bestial Government that has ever perplexed this country. It is a Tsarist Government. We can use the same words which hon. Members opposite used towards Ireland. You may prohibit our meetings but we shall endeavour to continue those meetings and defy you. We are under no obligation to obey your law and order. We do not respect your Regulations, or your orders. They are only used to beat down the wages and the conditions of the workers in this country, and to assist the worst type of employers that ever beset a nation. The Government are the advance guard of the coalowners and are using the forces of the police, the Army and transport, for the purpose of protecting the coalowners and in order to help them to cut down the wages and conditions of the workers. There is no case on record in which there has been more sacrifices in support of the maintenance of their own solidarity and less disorder than in the present dispute.

The Government are anxious to promote disorder. They are desirous of creating disorder in order that they may call out the troops and see whether ordinary soldiers will fire on their fellow workers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Drivel!"] I hope they will not. I hope they will refuse to do so. I think you want to try them. If it was not for our men— 773 [HON. MEMBERS: "Drivel!"] I think it is the most honest thing I have ever said in my life. You say "drivel." If it were not for the drivellers in the mines of this country you would have to go to work, the lot of you. Come and get your own coal. Come into our districts and attend our meetings. Come yourselves and do not send your Chief Constables to ban our meetings. I hold that in the present circumstances it is our business to defy these orders, to assist the populace wherever we feel that we are justified in holding a meeting to call out these people, to peacefully persuade them, if you like to leave the mines just as you would seek to starve them into submission. We are entitled to defy your orders as we please. I believe that if you carry on this dispute for more and more weeks you will not get more production of coal. On the contrary, I think that you will encourage large numbers of the men to go back to work without agreements at all. After 25 years' experience I have no hesitation in saying that I would do in the mining industry as we have done in my industry—when we cannot get an honourable agreement we let the men go back without any agreement at all, and there is at once guerilla warfare.

§ Mrs. PHILIPSON

Not the British worker.

§ Mr. PURCELL

We were Britishers long before some of you people were born. We have made the sacrifice, and you have made the profits out of it. The Government stand condemned in the eyes of the world as the most bestial, brutal and murderous Government that ever existed.

§ Mr. KELLY

I wish to support the Amendment. I confess that after watching the proceedings of the Government, they seem to me to be more concerned with operating Regulations than with any endeavour to end the mining dispute. They have had many opportunities, of which one would have expected them to take advantage, but rather than do so they have concerned themselves with getting another Proclamation and the renewal of Regulations such as these. I do not appeal to the Home Secretary to take the power into his own hands. I cannot understand why a Member of my own Front Bench appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to take this power into 774 his own hands rather than to leave it with Chief Constables at the moment of operation. I am concerned with neither the Home Secretary nor Chief Constables having this power in their hands. We have had no case made out for these Regulations. To-day, as a month ago, the Home Secretary has given us no evidence that he requires such Regulations. Yet, the House of Commons is asked to hand over to him the power under these Regulations, some of which he knows the Government Departments will never operate, because they tell against the mineowners. The right hon. Gentleman asked for these Regulations in the terms that he used a month ago, "For fear lest something might happen." If that is the only point that he has to place before us, surely that is a reason why we should always have these Emergency Regulations in operation rather than the law of the land.

The Home Secretary is operating the Regulations with regard to public meetings. Some people have suggested that, with regard to Staffordshire, his ban was placed on the meetings because of the Secretary to the Miners' Federation. That is not correct. As a fact, the first meetings banned in that area were the meetings to be addressed by Mr. Richardson. I wonder what Mr. Richardson has done that the Home Secretary should be afraid of the meetings being held. Is it that the Government are afraid that the miners will hear the true facts of the case instead of being misled by the section of the Press which has published the choice parts of speeches and not told the whole story of the miners' representatives? It is not only for the banning of meetings that the Home Secretary is asking for these Regulations. I wonder what he is afraid of when he asks that a Regulation should still operate to prevent mutiny among the armed forces and to prevent anyone disaffecting the fire brigades, and why he is asking for power to take action against those who impede the supply of fuel, food and so forth? He is asking for that Regulation, and at the same time he refuses to operate the Regulation which he has had for months against those who are impeding the supply of fuel. Here are the owners, who declare that, despite the fact that the coal is available and only requires to be won by the men who are willing to 775 win it, unless their conditions, which are worse than those of April last, are accepted, the country shall not have the coal.

It is a sorry time when a Government asks for Regulations such as these. I am not concerned with the Home Secretary looking at the Regulations in a generous way. I am not concerned with asking him to take the power into his hands for the purpose of prohibiting meetings. He has no right to prohibit the meetings of the men in order to deal with questions affecting their dispute. It would be far better, and the Government would be doing something worthy of their office, if instead of playing with this side of the work they were engaged in trying to bring the parties together and getting a settlement of the dispute. As one who has been long engaged in negotiations arising out of industrial disputes, I am convinced that if the Government had had one man who was capable of negotiating, this dispute would have been brought to an end long ago. The employers throughout the country realise that and say so. I ask the Government to engage upon that side of the work rather than this.

§ Mr. WRAGG

I do not propose to emulate the example of the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Purcell) by uttering a violent diatribe against the Miners' Federation. I do not propose to attach to the Federation such epithets as he has chosen to attach to the coalowners and the Government. I do not call them a bestial Federation, as he has called the Government a bestial Government. But surely the Miners' Federation are as much or a good deal more to blame for the continuance of this stoppage than ever the Government were. The miners themselves have never had an opportunity of expressing an opinion on the continuance of the struggle, and hon. Members opposite know that quite well. I know, as chairman of a company, the way in which the ballots are carried on and all the transactions done in order to save Mr. Cook's face. It is a mere travesty of balloting. These Regulations are absolutely necessary for the protection of the miners. As owners we do not require the Regulations at all, for if the men are left to themselves, without the violent talk which goes on, without 776 this so-called peaceful picketing and peaceful persuading, they will go back, and will be able to arrange the best possible terms that the industry can afford. If the Miners' Federation had accepted the last offer of the Government the men could have been back to-day, could have been sharing in the temporary prosperity which some districts are getting to-day. They would have gone back if they had been left alone to do it. But, of course, Mr. Cook prevented it. If the miners of the country have imposed upon them such a man as that, of course all this misery comes to them—simply through that man. Everyone knows it. The moderate miners know it. I meet lots of them.

§ Mr. WALLHEAD

They have asked you to go to your own constituency to address miners' meetings, and you will not go.

§ Mr. WRAGG

I offered to go to my own constituency to address the miners on the request of the miners' leaders, provided they would guarantee to put in the chair a chairman who would keep order, because I am so well acquainted with some of the extreme miners' leaders that I know they do not desire the truth to be given to the miners. And if I went down there without some responsible person to keep order, I should simply address a meeting of the howling minority movement. I do not want to address those people. I want to address the moderate men who belong to the majority movement, not the friends of the hon. Member for the Forest of Dean. I say most distinctly that the miners have lost within the last month the best opportunity that they have ever had of getting an honourable settlement of the dispute. If they had agreed to go back in districts, every matter of hours and wages could have been referred to the national tribunal which the Government pledged themselves to establish. They would not have it.

Mr. BECKETT

Did the owners accept the last offer?

§ Mr. WRAGG

There is no question of their accepting the offer. The Government offer was to create a statutory tribunal which would be binding on the owners. They could not make it binding on the miners. You cannot make men go to work if they will not, or if they 777 are dissuaded by their leaders. Give the men proper protection, do away with this peaceful intimidation and threatening. I have seen the mass picketing. I have seen thousands collecting round a pit trying to frighten those poor men who had the courage of their convictions. There are brave men who will face a howling mob in order to go back to work and then hon. Members opposite say that it is peaceful picketing. I have seen 2,000 men trying to stop a few miners going into a pit when only four policemen were present. [HON. MEMBERS: "What happened?"] One man was pushed off his bicycle and the others were hustled about and, of course, hon. Members opposite know that this succeeded in keeping these men away from work because they were afraid of their lives. But if that is the way in which freedom of working is to be carried on, then God help the country. It is simply a question of intimidating these men and, therefore, for their protection I heartily support these Regulations and, personally, I should like to see them enforced in many districts in a stronger way than they are being enforced at present.

Mr. RICHARDSON

Before speaking on the particular case which I desire to bring to notice, I would like to reply to the hon. Member who spoke last as to the goodness and charity of the coalowners. I feel sure that if the hon. Member is, as he says he is, one of the best employers in the coalfield, and if he goes down to his constituency, the local leaders will see that he gets nothing but fair play. But I know something about colliery owners, and I wish to bring the hon. Member's attention to one or two things which have happened in my own county. I remember, not very long ago, that a colliery company for two years paid its shareholders 100 per cent. Not only did they do so, but they gave their agent £1,000 as an honorarium and smaller amounts to other officials who were effective in bringing about this 100 per cent. What was done for the miner who produced the coal? He only got the bare wages that the agreement provided. That was his share of this exceptional prosperity. Therefore, I cannot accept these statements about the goodness of the coalowners. I have been too long in the coal trade to accept such statements 778 without seeing the facts. The very fact of people being paid bonuses for getting extra work done and for securing a bigger rate of dividend means bustling and harrying the men and still asking for more.

I oppose these Regulations. I have said already that they are unnecessary and if the coalowners acted as honourable people, as far as my own county is concerned, there would be no necessity for them. The very best relations existed between the men and the police in Durham up to this dispute, nay, up to the past week or two. The men indeed have been helping the police in every way. It cannot be said of the Durham miners—nor, I believe, of any of the miners—that they are criminals. I believe the percentage of real crime committed by miners is small enough to compare favourably with the percentage of crime in any other grade of society within the shores of this country. Apparently, a new Regulation has been made to ban the meetings of Mr. Richardson and Mr. Cook. That ban fell on the shoulders of Mr. Richardson at the outset, because he was on the scene hours before Mr. Cook arrived, and consequently it was not Mr. Cook's meeting which was banned but the meeting of Mr. Richardson, who is the treasurer of the Federation. I have known him from his boyhood and have watched his career and I know he will not do any act of which he need be ashamed. Two miners' leaders in any colliery district would be worth 100 police for keeping the peace, but I make this straight statement, that what is being done to inflame feeling by the owners themselves is likely to cause trouble, and these Regulations, instead of being put up against the miners, ought to be put up against the owners.

Let me give a case. There is a colliery in my own division which usually employs nearly 3,000 people. Peace reigned there throughout the dispute but the owners opened the pits and got four men who were probably out of work in adjacent areas to come to work with three other men. To guard these people, a posse of from 50 to 100 police has been drafted into that district. Is not that action likely to inflame men and women who have been suffering for nearly six months trying their best to secure the right to live in their own country? That is all 779 they are asking for. They are asking to be allowed, as it were, to go at the end of the line but apparently hon. Members opposite say "No, we will not give a subsidy, we will not do anything to help you." All the while hon. Members opposite are seeking to compel the miners with the weapon of starvation to accept a wage less than that paid to any other body of men in the country and even longer hours of work, despite the fact that the miner has to toil underground under such terrible conditions. That is what the miner has to face and you are asking for these Regulations to keep the miners in order. What about the other side? I am sorry that disputes happen but I have addressed meetings from the same platform as Mr. Cook and I have yet to hear Mr. Cook utter one inflammatory sentence which would ask men to commit any crime. Indeed in the Biblical phrase he has said

"Remain in thine house."

and has told the men to be quiet until something came that gave them the right to live. I may state that recently 20,000 people assembled at a village to hear Mr. Cook. He was unable to be there at three o'clock in the afternoon, the time arranged for the meeting, but he promised to be there at six o'clock, and at that hour the number had very considerably increased. Mr. Cook at that meeting talked in such a high moral tone that even those of his opponents who were there admitted that he spoke as a man ought to speak. Then you have the case of these employers who bring in four or five men, who cannot in any circumstances get the coal—they could not get an ounce of coal by means of these men—but who keep the men there for the very purpose of causing mischief among the population. Trouble nearly occurred yesterday, and batons were drawn but never used. Had it not been for the miners' leaders there might have been trouble.

I ask the Home Secretary to consider whether it would not be better to allow the miners' leaders to use their influence in keeping the peace. You