HC Deb 28 September 1926 vol 199 cc409-508
The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir William Joynson-Hicks)

I beg to move, That the Regulations made by His Majesty in Council under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920, by Order dated the 22nd day of September, 1926, shall continue in force, subject, however, to the provisions of Section 2 (4) of the said Act. This is the sixth time, I think, that I have moved this Resolution to confirm the Regulations made under the Emergency Powers Act, 1920. On the last occasion when I submitted this Resolution to the House I was accused of having made too lengthy a speech, and I am sure it will be for the convenience of the House that I should not speak so long this time. I do not think it is necessary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Go on!"] A month ago the main accusation against putting these Regulations into force was that there was no real need for them, because the country was so quiet. The House knows, in the main, why, in the view of His Majesty's Government, it is necessary that these Regulations should be passed. We have the Act of 1920 before us, and we are of opinion—and for that opinion we are responsible—that a condition of emergency has arisen, and when such a condition arises it is the duty of the Government to put such Regulations as they see fit into force, subject only to the assent of the House of Commons.

We have from month to month put these Regulations in force and they have from month to month received the approval of the House of Commons. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] At any rate they have been passed by the House of Commons and a majority of hon. Members have expressed their approval. In a House of Commons constituted like the present one very few things could be unanimously passed. I do not intend to repeat the observations which I have made before on this subject. [HON. MEMBERS "Why?"] I will not repeat them out of deference to the susceptibilities of hon. Members opposite. On each occasion I have thought it my duty to give the figures for each month in regard to cases which have come under these Regulations. I am very sorry to have to announce on this occasion that the cases which occurred last month have been much more frequent than in previous months, with the exception of the month of the General Strike. From the 22nd August last to September 22nd, 309 cases have occurred and 212 of them were under Regulation 21; 50 under the Regulations relating to the supply of coal and so forth, and 19 were under Regulation No. 20. I am sure the House will be pleased to know that in regard to these prosecutions there were only 13 cases where the magistrates thought it necessary to inflict the punishment of imprisonment. There were 189 cases in which fines were inflicted, and there are 61 cases still pending.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN

Has the right hon. Gentleman used his powers under Regulation 33, relating to arrest without warrant?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Those are not powers to be used by me, but they are powers given under the Regulation to the police, and a very large number of those cases have occurred.

Mr. JOHNSTON

May I draw the Home Secretary's attention to the fact that part of Regulation No. 33 can only be used with his assent?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I apologise to the hon. and gallant Member, because I am mistaken. My powers under Regulation No. 33 have not been used at all during the last month. I was confused on this point by the sudden jumping up of the hon. and gallant Member.

Captain BENN

I will send the right hon. Gentleman a copy of the Regulation.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The hon. and gallant Member is always very courteous, and I shall be much obliged to him for helping me or correcting me in any way that is necessary. In previous Debates the fear has been expressed that when the miners began to return to work there would necessarily, or at any rate very probably, be steps taken to prevent them going back to work, and that cases of intimidation and even instances of violence would occur. The figures unfortunately prove that this month a number of cases have occurred in those particular districts where there has been more or less a return of the men to work. I will take four counties, namely, Nottingham, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire, where the return to work has been most pronounced.

Mr. GRUNDY

You are making out a case for the coalowners.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

On the 24th of this month there were 17,678 miners at work in Nottingham. In the previous month there were only about 600 at work: there were no cases under the Regulations at all, and this month there are 20. In Derbyshire the number at work has risen from 6,000 to over 20,000, and the number of cases which in the previous month was only four has increased during the last month to 131 cases. Similarly, in Staffordshire, where the rise in the number of miners at work in round figures has been from 10,000 to 16,000, the number of cases under the Regulations has risen from six to 13. In Warwickshire, where the increase in the number at work has been from 5,000 to nearly 12,000, the number of cases under the Regulations is 21.

Mr. STEPHEN

Will the right hon. Gentleman say where he gets his figures of the number of miners at work?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I get them from the Mines Department, and I get the figures as to the number of cases from the police.

Mr. HARDIE

The right hon. Gentleman has given certain figures. Can he tell us what proportion of those totals relates to safety men?

Sir W. JOYNSON - HICKS

Very roughly speaking, the number of ordinary men at work is something over 100,000, and the safety men must be between 50,000 and 60,000.

Mr. MARDY JONES

The Home Secretary says there are over 100,000 men at work in the mines. Has he made any investigation to ascertain how many of those men were never down the pit at all until the stoppage began?

Mr. SPENCER

The right hon. Gentleman said he was dealing with the period between the 22nd August and the 22nd September. Is he dealing with precisely the same dates now?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I am dealing with the period between the 22nd August and the 24th September.

Mr. GRUNDY rose—

Mr. SPEAKER

I must ask the hon. Member not to interrupt.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I am giving such information as I have in my possession. Perhaps hon. Members will allow me to complete my statement, and they can ask any further questions, because practically every Regulation can be raised in the form of an Amendment, and then I shall be glad to answer questions more fully. The point I was making is that as a larger number of men are going back to work, there has been an increase in the cases occurring under the Emergency Regulations. In the four counties I have mentioned the number has increased from 11 to 191 in one month. I think that disposes of the suggestion that there was no need for these Regulations.

In the previous month, it is quite true that there was a very small number of cases, but, human nature being what it is, it is not surprising that, if miners who are out of work to-day see large numbers of their friends and colleagues going back, they should endeavour, as far as they legally can, to prevent them from doing so. They are, of course, quite entitled—and I do not for a moment say otherwise—they are quite entitled, within the limits of the law, if they can, to persuade any of their colleagues not to go back to work. On the other hand, the responsibility is equally great upon myself and upon His Majesty's Government to see that those limits are not exceeded, and that, if the limits of the law are exceeded—if peaceful persuasion degenerates into intimidation or, even worse than intimidation, into riot—it is the duty of the Government of the day, and it would he the duty of any Government of the day, to step in. It would be the duty of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, if he were in control of the Government at this time, and I am sure he will agree that, if the law were disobeyed he himself would be one of the first to enforce the law as the law stood. We have had his speeches and his professed opinions, and I am quite sure he would not deny that that is the position. An that is solely the position that His Majesty's Government takes up to-day. The law regarding the right of men to work must be maintained, and it is for that purpose, and for that purpose only, that these Regulations are now being laid before the House.

I know there will be questions with regard to one of these cases. The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Paling) has very kindly given me notice that he proposes to raise the question of the action of the police at the Bullcroft Colliery. That being so, I think it would be more courteous to him that I should allow him to develop his case against me, and then supply the answer, which I think the House will deem to be a sufficient one. There is only one other point that I should like to mention, and that is with regard to Regulation No. 22, as far as it affects processions. On the last occasion I was asked many questions with regard to my action under this Regulation. There has been only one case during the past month in which I thought it my duty to consent to the application made to me by the Chief Constable of Glamorgan, I think it was to authorise him to prohibit a procession, in which, I believe, an hon. Member opposite was announced to speak. I am always sorry to prevent an hon. Member from speaking, but, in the particular circumstances of the case, I felt it my duty, having regard to the strong case made by the Chief Constable, to grant his request that he might be impowered to prohibit these processions during the particular period in question. That is the only case in which the Regulation has had to be enforced during the past month, and, as all the other cases are the subject of separate Amendments, I will content myself at this moment with moving that the Regulations be accepted.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD

The Home Secretary began his speech by reminding us that this is the sixth time he has moved this Resolution. It is the sixth time that I am going to oppose it. The Home Secretary was quite under a misapprehension, however, when he said that he felt last time that we objected to the length of his speech. Indeed, we did not. All that we objected to in the right hon. Gentleman's speech last time was its irrelevancy, and to-day his most captious critic could not raise that objection. Last time, when he defended his Regulations, he said: "Give me these Regulations again, because, you see, there are no cases worth speaking about under them. I am asking that these Regulations should be renewed because the country, really, is so quiet." To-day he changes his position, and says: "I have actually got 309 cases." Just think of it—309 cases, with over 1,000,000 men out of work and going through a most critical time. When, as he says quite rightly and as we have to recognise, there is a certain breakaway in certain districts—a condition of affairs that will give him and his police a most trying time—there are 309 cases from John o' Groats to Lands End.

There are two observations that I would make on those cases. First of all, the Home Secretary admits that, of the 309, no fewer than 212 are for sedition. He knows as well as I do that sedition is a thing that is undefinable—that anyone getting up in a temper may utter a few sentences which have no effect at all upon anybody, the worst effect that they have being upon himself, and he regrets them as soon as he has uttered them. [Interruption.] Really, I am not going to sneer at the Home Secretary. He quite rightly says that we arc human. He knows that what. I am saying is perfectly true, that, on occasions like this, when men have to be got together and when the conduct of a dispute has to be seen to, if he liked to apply that Regulation, instead of 212 cases, he could have had 2,212 cases during the last month; and when he had them there would not be a single case that a man of common sense would think of handing over to the police. That is the situation—309 cases, of which 212 are under Regulation 33—[HON. MEMBERS: "Twenty-one!"]—I get mixed up, like the Home Secretary—under Regulation 21; and only 13 of the cases that have come before magistrates and have been settled by magistrates have been sent to gaol. Really, I was hoping that, before the sixth time of asking came, the Home Secretary would have taken a broad, common-sense view of the matter and stopped the whole thing.

4.0 P.M.

My second observation is this: It may he 309 cases, or it may be 3,009 cases, but that is not the interesting, the sug- gestive and the enlightening figure. What the Home Secretary ought to have told us, and what I should like him to tell us, is how many of the 309 cases could not be dealt with by the ordinary law. That is really the point. The Home Secretary is not justifying prosecutions of evil-doers. No one is asking him to do that. He is not asking the House of Commons to enable him to do that. If he were, I do not know that I would stand here and refuse his Resolution. But what he is asking the House of Commons to do is to say as a preliminary, "We know that the ordinary law is not effective. We know that, if the Home Secretary and the police forces of the country were left with the ordinary law in order to meet the difficulties of this coal dispute, they would be thwarted again and again, to such an extent and in such a number of instances that the whole nation would run the danger of lapsing into a serious state of lawlessness and disorder." That is his case, and, if he cannot make that case out, then he has not: made a case out for his Regulations. If he looks through his 309 cases, he will not find half-a-dozen that could not have been dealt with quite as effectively under the ordinary law as under his Regulations. During this last month, having had a little more leisure than usual, I have been trying to read the cases and to get put into my possession local reports of some of the chief cases that have been tried, some of which are included in the 309 cases, and some of which are cases reported to us last month. I am bound to say that I have not yet come across a case that could not have been dealt with under the ordinary law. Since I started this investigation about a month ago I have not come across a single case that I venture to say, in the opinion of anyone with an absolutely impartial mind, could not have been dealt with under the ordinary law

I have, however, come across evidence by witness after witness—some of them men I know personally, who have been up either as accused persons, or as witnesses—which, though I should not like to say what view I should have taken if I had been on the bench and heard the statements made, judging as a news- paper reader, have impressed me with this, that the existence of these Regulations does give the police force, the chief of police and his subordinates, men who have very difficult work to do, a sort of assumption that the law is rather lax for them as well as for the magistrates who are going to apply the Regulations. I am quite sure that the Home Secretary sees the psychological point that I am making. If he and I have to administer the ordinary law, there is something rigid and severe for us, and we feel that we have to be tremendously careful how far we go, whereas, if Parliament says to us, "This is a special time; this is a special occasion" and if there are Regulations which practically hint to us to this effect—"Use your powers and when you have used them there will not be too rigid an enquiry into the conditions under which you use them," the psychological effect is looseness in the administration of the law.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

The right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that I have said that?

Mr. MacDONALD

No.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I wanted to he quite clear. It is only hypothetical?

Mr. MacDONALD

I hope that no one will get that impression from what I am saying. I say that when the House of Commons opens up the law as it were, loosens its rigidity and its sort of be-wigged formality, which is a very important thing to be attached to the administration of the law, and makes it more of an ordinary, casual affair by passing these Regulations, it does have that psychological effect upon what I would call generally the police forces of the country, and consequently, if hon. Members will read those reports as I have read them, they will find very convincing evidence both by witnesses and accused persons to show that when there has been disturbance it bas ant always been solely caused by those who have been brought before the magistrates. Therefore, these very Regulations are multiplying the cases. If the right hon. Gentleman trusted to the ordinary law, first of all, the ordinary law would be good enough for him, and, secondly, his cases would not be so many, and yet not a single criminal would escape. That is my case against him. I respectfully submit to the House that the Home Secretary has not made out a case for his special Regulations. He has made out a case for the law. He has made out a case for the ordinary law. He has made out a case for policemen. He has made out a case for magistrates. He has made out a case for fines and imprisonment. But who asked him to make out a case for that? He is knocking at an open door. He has got to make out a case for special law, special administration, special sentences, and special arrests, and I venture to say that he has not uttered one single sentence that justifies the Resolution that he has now moved.

Captain BENN

The right hon. Gentleman, neither on this occasion nor on any other of the six on which he has introduced this Resolution, has attempted to justify it on the only ground on which it could be justified. Not only so, but he admitted to-day that Regulation 33, which gives him the most objectionable power of arrest without warrant, has never been used at all. Is it to be supposed that this House wishes to endow the Home Office with power, which even they are not called upon to use? Surely the power given to the Home Secretary should be adequate for dealing with crime, but not more than adequate, and certainly should not allow him latitude to deal with things which in the judgment of many people are not crime at all. As regards Regulation 21, may I remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman has declined to put at the service of Members even the words of the charge in these cases. I pressed him two months ago, inasmuch as it is almost impossible to get them from the newspapers' reports of these cases, to give us the actual words of the charge, so that we should know what it was people were doing which rendered them liable to fines and imprisonment under Regulation 21. The right hon. Gentleman has declined to put that elementary information at the service of Members of the House of Commons. It leads us to suppose, and rightly to suppose, that the charges are intended to be vague, and that the law is intended to be vague in order to give an opportunity for putting down move- ments and expressions of opinion which in themselves no one would regard as being criminal.

We are sliding into regarding these Regulations as part of the normal law. It is a pitiable thing to see the Home Secretary or the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department getting up month after month and saying, "I have spoken so often about these Regulations; what is the use of saying anything more about them?" The right hon. Gentleman ought to justify them more vehemently and cogently, if he can, every month in, which he continues Le exercise these powers. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are making a great mistake in permitting the Executive to seize these powers. It must be remembered that the day may come when they will not be supporters of the Government but will be Members of the Opposition. Under these powers all the processes of legislation are suspended, and a simple Resolution of the House enables much to be done which in the ordinary course would require sanction by Statute. These Regulations do not merely affect personal liberty, but also personal property and personal conduct. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) yesterday advised the use of one of these Regulations for bringing the coalowners, who are standing in the way of industrial peace, to reason. If the Conservative party insist month after month on passing these Regulations, it will be useless for them to rely upon the vote of the House of Lords in any subsequent Parliament to prevent similar Regulations being put into force again. There will have been a strong precedent. Six times the House of Commons and the House of Lords have consented to these Regulations. The Home Secretary professes to see in them a code.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite may find that the time will come—I will not say it "will find," because I value liberty greater than the power in the hands of any Government—when their acquiescence and their subtleness to-day and on all these occasions in giving the Home Secretary these powers may turn very much to their disadvantage. The Regulations also affect personal liberty. They provide for arrest without warrant upon such charges as attempting to induce someone to do something calculated to cause disaffection among the civilian population. There is much in these Regulations which has no specific meaning at all, and must be interpreted according to the prejudices and political opinions of the bench. Last time we were told by the Under-Secretary of State that nearly every Justice on the benches before which these cases come is interested in the coal industry.

Mr. GRUNDY

That is a fact.

Captain BENN

That is a very interesting admission. Someone moved an Amendment providing that Justices with a financial interest in the coal industry should not try these cases. What was the reply? It was that practically all the Justices had a financial interest in the coal industry. In fact, the Under-Secretary of State said that, if the House passed the Amendment, it would be impossible in some cases to fill the bench. What a bench before which to bring a man charged with attempting to persuade someone to do something calculated to cause disaffection among the civilian population! I see the junior Member for the City of London (Sir V. Bowater) in his place to-day, and I have long wanted the opportunity of asking him a question. He is a magistrate, and sits on the Bench as these other men sit on the Bench, and our case is that, before many of these Benches it is impossible to get a judicial and fair interpretation of such vague charges. About a year ago the hon. Gentleman had brought before him a young man charged with having stolen a newspaper van. The hon. Gentleman first of all congratulated the accused upon the leniency which had been shown—he was one of those who are called "British patriots"—by the Public Prosecutor, an official of the Home Office. That was a strange statement to come from the Bench. Then, in binding him over, he went on to say: "Young fellows like you ought to be in the police force." These are the people who are to be turned into police constables, and who, in the judgment of the hon. Member for the City of London, are to write down in their notebooks what words they consider are calculated to cause disaffection. "Your efforts to be good citizens"—that was the description from the Bench—"would be best promoted by joining the police force." Is the hon. Gentleman surprised that there are people who object to putting these powers into the hands of magistrates who exhibit such bias?

Who are the Ministers who are claiming these powers? There is the Under-Secretary of State. I take him first. He is of the opinion that the people of this country have a selection. They can either be loyal to the King and Constitution, or loyal to the Red International, but if they are loyal to the King and Constitution they must be Conservatives. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] If hon. Members question that, let me give a quotation: Captain Hacking, M.P., and Two Loyalties. A person whose loyalty to King and Country and Parliament in which the country had grown great, and through which we had evolved to our present structure. That was loyalty to the Conservative party. The other loyalty was the loyalty to the Red International. What are unhappy individuals like myself—[Interruption.] That is the mentality of hon. Members. They go to meetings, and explain that the War was fought on behalf of Tariff Reform and the Safeguarding of Industry Act. Now let me take the engaging and always courteous and sportsmanlike figure of the Home Secretary. He has a very strong following among the Conservative party. He is very modest. I notice he told them at Hounslow, "I am not the only strong man in the Government." I will quote his words: I do not want you to believe that the Home Secretary is the strong man of the Government. I am only one member of His Majesty's Government. What modesty! The right hon. Gentleman is about the only member of the Government who has any achievement to his credit. He got a charter for Twickenham.

Mr. SPEAKER

Is that under these Regulations?

Captain BENN

I am afraid that is merely an obiter dictum, or a gloss, as to the right hon. Gentleman's credit. But although he is a stern figure, he is not unbending. I do not know—this is strictly relevant to Regulation 21—how hon. Members have been spending their holidays, but the Primrose League has been giving a great deal of entertainment to the electors of the country. I remember Lord Curzon stating, in propagating the Consumers' League, "Wherever the population is densest, there form a branch." The Primrose League has now a new attraction for the wavering voter. It is called the Cabinet film. I am going to quote a sentence from this film which, believe me, is strictly relevant. When those who enter these fetes and so forth have enjoyed the ordinary round of gaiety, and sung the National Anthem, they are admitted to the film. The film they see is a picture of the Home Secretary on horseback, and then follow these words—relevant to Regulation 21. People who waste their time reading Milton's "Areopagitica" under the impression that it has something to do with free speech should listen to this poem. I am not good at reading poetry, but I should like to read this. These are the words published by and with the authority of His Majesty's principal Secretary of State for the Home Office: Jix the boy for work, Jix the boy for play. Notice the cumulative literary effect of the repetition of the word, Jix the lad when times are bad To keep the reds away. [HON. MEMBERS: "Author!"] It is published by the official organisation of the Conservative and Unionist party, and I say the time has come to put a stop to the performances of this buffoonery, fiddling away the great Charter, and playing chuck-farthing with the Constitution of our country.

Sir HENRY SLESSER

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

These are the Regulations with which we are principally concerned. The Leader of the Opposition has already said that the real charge we make against these Regulations is that all the offences they deal with can actually be dealt with to-day properly and efficiently under the existing law. That is a very important question. If it be the truth that the existing law is competent to deal with all these offences, a very large part, if not the whole, of the justification for the continuance of the Regulations disappears, and I want, in the first place, therefore, to follow up what my right hon. Friend said and show that it is actually the fact that the subject matter of Regulation 21 can be and is dealt with by the existing law. It starts off dealing with the question of sedition. Although my right hon. Friend said these offences were dealing with sedition—that is the sidenote of the general Regulation—I think the right hon. Gentleman, as I understood him, indicated that the bulk of them were really cases rather of impeding or interfering with men going to work rather than sedition in its true sense. I did not understand him to say, specifically, that any case actually of sedition had come under these Regulations during the last month at all, but let me assume that it has. We have had in this country a law against sedition. I think the memory of man knoweth not to the contrary. We have laws dealing with treason, with treason, felony and with sedition, and there is inserted into this Regulation the rather dangerous term "disaffection"—dangerous in this sense, that while it is true that causing disaffection is one clement of sedition, it is treated here as a new offence altogether and as something beyond sedition, It is rather interesting to observe that when the discussion on this very Regulation took place under the Emergency Powers Act at the time of the general strike, the Attorney-General told us that disaffection might mean something rather more than sedition at Common Law, that it was not a mere synonym and was, therefore, I understand, to that extent actually extending the law.

My case is that the present law dealing with sedition is quite competent to deal with all seditious utterances of any kind whatever. It deals with any acts calculated to cause disaffection or ill-will, and it only has this distinction from the Regulation, that a person charged under the existing law must be tried before a judge and jury. If the right hon. Gentleman is to make out his case, he has to say, in substance, that there is something in the existing coal stoppage which makes it inexpedient that a man who is seditious should be charged before a jury, because that is the only difference made, that the jury drops out. I should like to know whether the right hon. Gentleman really is prepared to say that, supposing someone is ill-advised enough to make a speech which the police think to be seditious, its effect on coal being won at present is a reason for denying that person the right of trial by jury, because I want to get at the concrete difficulties and mischiefs to which these Regulations are directed. So far as sedition is concerned the only change is the denial of trial by jury. I do not know on what ground that can be justified. A man can be arrested and can stand his trial, he can be committed, the powers of the police to stop him uttering seditious words can all be exercised without prejudice and without doing away with a jury. He can be arrested and committed and brought before a magistrate, and in extreme cases bail can be refused, and yet he may have the right of trial by jury preserved side by side with the removal of a man from the sphere of his seditious operations. I take the strongest ground that can be put against us. On no ground is there any case for removing from that man, even if he is a probable danger, the right of trial by jury.

May I point out the enormous advantage there is in having this trial by jury. I have pointed it out before, but as I have been unsuccessful in converting the Home Secretary, I will point it out again. You get the direction of the Judge. You get that careful consideration of all the elements of the case which must be missing in a rapid trial before a bench of magistrates. Sedition is an offence of so serious a nature that the law has always regarded it as a matter for a jury. The right hon. Gentleman told us on a former occasion that he was only half a lawyer. I am going to say he is three-quarters, if not a whole lawyer. He will remember that in the 18th century one of the great subjects of dispute was the treatment of seditious libel. Was it to be tried by a Judge or by a jury? Were the jurors to be judges of the fact? That was the great question that was raised by Fox's Libel Act. Under that Act, which chiefly dealt with seditious libel and libels of that kind, there was a right to a jury. Under this Regulation, not only is the right to a jury removed, but instead of putting back the law in the position it was before Fox's Act, that a Judge instead of a jury should hear a case, you are now substituting a bench of magistrates for a Judge. So we are actually worse off under this Regulation than before the middle of the 18th century. Then at least you had determination by a jury. Now you have determination by worthy, honourable, conscientious, but legally ignorant gentlemen who serve their country by sitting on a bench of magistrates and who never were intended before these Regulations were passed to exercise any such functions. So much for sedition.

I pass now to that Section of the Regulations the object of which is to prevent people interfering with the right of others, and impeding the distribution of food, and so on. I have pointed out before to the right hon. Gentleman and I pointed out to the Attorney-General at the time of the general strike, that the words in the Regulation: Nothing in these Regulations shall prevent a person peacefully persuading another to strike, must mean something. Whatever the Regulations may mean, they do not destroy the rights, whether they are wise or unwise rights, which exist under the Trade Disputes Act, permitting peaceful picketing. The Attorney-General, in answer to me, agreed with my proposition. No Regulation can make it an offence for any person to take part in a strike by peacefully persuading any other persons to take part in the strike. Regulation 21 provides: A person shall not he 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. In the absence of any Regulation to that effect, the law as it stands to-day in regard to peaceful persuasion is unaffected. Tinder the existing law, directly persuasion ceases to be peaceful the offender falls under the penalties of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875. As the Home Secretary has said, and I agree with him, directly persuasion ceases to be anything but absolutely peaceful, it falls under the Act of 1875. Therefore, the existing law is adequate to deal with these cases. There is nothing to justify the existence of an extraordinary law.

May I now deal with a point which is even more fundamental? The Emergency Powers Act as a whole can only be used when there is a state of general emergency. When you have any dispute which is not of such wide dimensions as to constitute a general emergency, you cannot pass these Regulations; you cannot alter the law. You have to rely upon the Act of 1875. In other words, you are in this absurd position, that if the whole of this dispute were limited to the Midlands area you could not use these Regulations, but because other men are out of work in other parts of the country you have a dispute of such general dimensions that in the Midlands area you can use these particular Regulations. That is a wholly illogical position. I do not believe that it was ever intended by the authors of this Emergency Powers Act that these sort of Regulations should ever be drafted. I have read the discussions which took place on the Second Reading of the Emergency Powers Bill in 1920, when the late Mr. Bonar Law and the present Home Secretary spoke. On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman was by no means so sure of the expediency or the validity of these Regulations as he is to-day. He got up, I will not say in a captions spirit—perhaps that is not the right word to use—but in a guarded, careful, and criticising mood, and I do not blame him. On the Second Reading of that Bill in 1920, under which the present Regulations are made, he said: I have felt a real anxiety with regard to this Bill, not because some such Bill as this is not needed. … My anxiety is of an entirely different character. It is an anxiety as to any alteration in the constitutional position of the House of Commons. I am not arguing that powers should not he given, for the Leader of the House has convinced me that powers should be given to the Government; but this Bill, in effect, rivets for all time the previsions of these Defence of the Realm Act Regulations on the country, and does it without any interference by Parliament. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not want to run away from his own Language— The Leader of the Opposition told us that the Regulations made by the Government might last for fourteen days. Under the provisions of this Bill, if it is passed and Parliament is not sitting, the Government may declare that an emergency has arisen, and then Parliament need not be summoned for fourteen days, during the whole of which time the fresh powers under this Bill, and any Regulations made under them, could be put into operation, and then when Parliament meets there is a further fourteen days during which the Regulations apply until a Resolution is passed by the House to the contrary. So it is clear the Government may make any Regulations they like within the four corners of this Bill. Heaven knows, the Bill is wide enough, and those Regulations may enure, whatever Government is in power, for 27 days at least if Parliament is not sitting. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say: I am not at all sure as a Member of the House of Commons that it is wise to give any Government such enormous powers as those uncontrolled by the action of Parliament.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

I was not dealing then with this Bill.

Sir H. SLESSER

The right hon. Gentleman was dealing with the power which exists under this Act of putting Regulations into force before they obtain the consent of Parliament. He went on to say: This Bill deals with the preservation of peace, with questions of food, light, transport, in fact everything which conduces to the well-being of the people of this country. The Government can make any Regutions. They may commandeer under these Regulations any man's property—it may he right or wrong—food or coal, and the Government have the power to do that without the intervention of the House of Commons. I am not at all sure that under the Bill as it is now drawn they cannot go further and make Regulations—I believe they can—declaring enforced labour on any one of us in regard to the distribution of coal, transport, or what not."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th October, 1920; cols. 1420–1421, Vol. 133.] I do not propose to read the whole of what the right hon. Gentleman said, but I think he will agree with me that he did feel at the time that Regulations under this Act should be used with extraordinary caution and care, not merely with the consent of the House of Commons, but that the use of them altogether should be a matter of extraordinary care. I want to lay down this proposition—I know it is useless to expect the right hon. Gentleman to accede to it in the middle of this dispute—that on another occasion the right hon. Gentleman should reconsider these Regulations and delete all those which are really unnecessary. Take the law as it exists, confine his disciplinary Regulations merely to those cases which he thinks go beyond the ordinary Common Law, and not abolish the right of trial by jury. If he does that, then I think that if we are brought face to face with such a situation again, it will not be necessary to have six or seven debates on these contentious Regulations.

I have never heard the right hon. Gentleman give an answer to my question as to why he wishes to dispense with the right to a jury. I have asked that question six times, and I ask it for the seventh time. I have never had an answer. If and when the right hon. Gentleman does answer, will he say in what way the present law is inadequate? Will he point out in what way the present law is not adequate to deal with the matters contemplated in Regulation 21. It will be idle for the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten) to give us a general speech on the deficiency of trade union law. That may or may not be the case, but it has nothing to do with these Regulations. This Regulation does not deal with the question of strikes. It only deals with what we may call. criminal acts. If those are dealt with by the ordinary law, then, in Heaven's name—if I may quote the hon. Member's pious ejaculation on the last occasion—why not resort to the general law? I have also an objection to Regulation 22. That Regulation deals with public meetings and processions. There the right hon. Gentleman may say that he is taking powers which are not covered entirely by the ordinary law. I hope hon. Members will bear in mind this fact that it is only when you get an enormous cessation of labour which practically spreads over the whole kingdom that these Regulations come into operation at all. You may have an area teeming with sedition, full of disaffection and where all sorts of violence and riot is going on, but you cannot use the Regulations under this Act, because the whole thing is covered by the provision that the trouble must be of such a general nature that it imperils the supply of food, fuel, etc., for the whole country. The whole thing is illogical. Emergency arising from want of food, fuel, etc., is one thing, while emergency arising from riot and disorder is another. Some hon. Members seem to think that in any limited area these Regulations can be brought into force. Let me refer to the governing words of the whole matter. It is only when it appears to His Majesty that any action has been taken or is immediately threatened by any persons or body of persons of such a nature and on so extensive a scale as to be calculated, by interfering with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel, or light …. that action can be taken. That means that the emergency must be something in the nature of a general cessation of labour. You can have a general cessation which is absolutely peaceful, and you can use these Regulations. On the other hand, you can have a partial cessation which is absolutely violent, and you cannot use these Regulations. If we consider what was the intention of Parliament when it passed the original Act, we shall find that it only uses the words "preservation of peace." The whole of this vast mass of Regulations is like a pyramid depending upon the words "preservation of peace." I cannot believe that it was the intention of. Parliament, when it passed the Act, to preserve peace by doing away with the trial by jury. How do you preserve peace by doing away with trial by jury?

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

When the hon. and learned Gentleman refers to these Regulations as a pyramid depending upon the words "the preservation of peace," I would point out to him that if he looks at Section 2 of the Act, he will see that it provides that Regulations may be made where His Majesty may deem it necessary for the preservation of the peace, for securing and regulating the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel, light, and other necessities, for maintaining the means of transit or locomotion, and for any other purposes essential to the public safety and the life of the community.

Sir H. SLESSER

I am much obliged to the right. hon. Gentleman. Of course, the main object of these Regulations, and that is my case, is to preserve the supply of food, fuel, light, etc. I agree that the words "essential to the life of the community" are inserted to ensure that the people should get food, fuel and the necessities of life during the cessation of work, but it is important to note that these Regulations depend upon the words "preservation of peace." I have not dealt with those things not relevant to Regulation 21, concerning the supply of coal. This Regulation is mainly designed for the preservation of peace.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

Regulation 21 deals not merely with sedition, but with any Act likely to impede, delay, or restrict the supply- or distribution of food, water, fuel, light, or other necessities. The very Regulation which the hon. and learned Member suggests does not deal with these matters does, in fact, deal with them.

Sir H. SLESSER

What I was saying was that the Act itself cannot make it an offence for a person peacefully to persuade another person to take part in a strike. You come down to this: The existing law, under the Act of 1875, makes intimidation or molestation already an illegal act, and the only thing that this Regulation does is to do away with trial by jury.

Sir GERALD HOHLER

This is summary jurisdiction, not an indictment. In the old days you would have had an indictment and a very heavy penalty. Here you have a penalty of only three months.

Sir H. SLESSER

That is an entirely different point, and I quite agree with my hon. and learned Friend. When he says that this is summary jurisdiction, not an indictment., he is saying what I am saying. The hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that the fact of indictment necessitates a jury. The fact of summary jurisdiction means no jury. Therefore, the effect of the Regulations is to allow a person to be tried otherwise than by a jury.

Mr. HARNEY

What would be the effect if the Home Secretary found that "it appeared to him" that there was a state of general disaffection, and it was entirely local, and it "appeared" to no one else? Is the Home Secretary's view sufficient?

Sir H. SLESSER

My hon. and learned Friend should put that question to the Home Secretary. One of the advantages of sitting on the Opposition side of the House is that one has not to answer questions. I think the answer is that the thing is so loosely worded and so contrived that it has only to appear to the Home Secretary that such and such a state of affairs is so, and it is so. He has merely to contemplate a state of affairs, and it is so. The hon. and learned Member will remember that the Early Fathers spoke of the Deity contemplating, and it was so. These Regulations go very much beyond "the preservation of the peace." If the Home Secretary will read the speech which was made by the late Mr. Bonar Law in introducing the, Emergency Powers Act on the date I have mentioned, he will find that there was not a shadow of a suggestion before the House of Commons at that time that the general structure of the law or the nature or ambit of offences was to be enlarged or altered in any way. The Whole of his speech was devoted to the emergency which he said was very critical, because it would deprive the country of its fuel supply. He said it did not apply to fuel only. He spoke of huge stocks of coal. He said: It, is obvious that we must have under our control the means of transferring those necessaries of life.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th October, 1920; col. 1400; vol. 133.] Then he went on to give details, and one was the preservation of the peace. There was not a suggestion of an extension of disaffection, not a suggestion of persons being arrested, "because a situation has arisen, etc." It was the "preservation of the peace." What can that mean? It can only mean that where people commit specific breaches of the peace they may be specifically dealt with under the Regulations. I believe that this whole matter and the tendency of legislation in recent years is to take an Act, and with slender authority to build up a whole mass of bureaucratic Regulations. To such Regulations right hon. Gentlemen opposite do not object when they deal with the liberty of the subject, but they are the first to object when they deal with the liberty of capital. Yet the principle is exactly the same. The liberties of persons should be definitely secured in legislation, and if legislation does not completely and definitely say what the rights of authorities are this House ought to look with the greatest jealousy on interferences such as are here suggested. It is for that reason that we oppose and shall continue to oppose such a Regulation as this. If there were any Conservatives on the other side of the House—I do not believe that there are—they would agree with us in this protest against this needless and reckless destruction of the Constitution.

Mr. PALING

I beg to second the Amendment.

The Home Secretary seems to have changed his ground somewhat to-day. On previous occasions he has argued in favour of these Regulations on the ground that there has been comparative peace throughout the country, and that that was due to the Regulations being in operation. He told us that the Regulations had prevented trouble. To-day he argues that we should have the Regulations continued because a greater number of cases of disturbance have occurred during the past month than during any previous month. I am interested, however, in bringing to the notice of the House what has occurred in my own constituency. No doubt the Home Secretary will have received a letter from the Urban District Council of Adwich-le-Street, in whose area a baton charge by the police took place. The letter reads: A meeting of the Urban District Council of Adwich-le-Street was held at the Council Offices on Tuesday, the 21st day of September, 1926. There followed a list of those who were present and a record of the passing of the following resolution: Mining Dispute. It was resolved that. this Council strongly protest against the action of the police in batoning innocent men, women, and children in a most callous and cowardly way at Carcroft on the evening of Wednesday, the 15th instant, and that copies of this resolution he forwarded to the Home Secretary, the Chairman of the Standing Joint Committee, and the Member of Parliament for the Division. The resolution was supported by all the members present with the exception of one who voted against it. I do not quote the names because I do not think they are necessary. For some time past, at the pit mentioned, there has been a difference of opinion as to whether safety men should be allowed. This question has caused some heat among the various factions. Some were in favour and some against. I believe that the colliery company could have avoided all the issue if, when they got consent for the safety men to work, they had used the power judicially. They did not do so, and the result was that the men were withdrawn and a certain amount of temper was created. The police, who have such an idea of their duties, and seem so anxious to carry them out as regards working men, would create a better impression if they were as anxious to carry out their duties with the managers and the people who may have been responsible by their injudicious statements for creating heat and temper amongst the working-class people. I leave the matter at that.

This trouble occurred a week last Wednesday night. Several hundred men and women were congregated before the pit gate. They did not get off the main road, for the pit gates are on the main road. Certain blacklegs were at work. The meeting passed part of its time by singing the "Red Flag," and a certain amount of booing was indulged in when some of the men came from work. I grant that, after the Home Secretary's statement last month that in his opinion booing was unlawful, and after the people had been warned, they ought not to have booed. But they did boo. I suppose that that will be counted an offence against them. These were the only two things that could be levelled against them. Police were brought from Doncaster. It was stated by one of them that two minutes would be allowed for the meeting to disperse and that then a charge would he made. All the evidence that I have been able to collect seems to suggest that although the intimation was given that a charge would be made in two minutes, the two minutes were not allowed, but the charge was made almost immediately after the intimation, and as a result many men and boys suffered grievous bodily injury.

I know the people down there. I have been brought up among them, and I worked for years amongst them as an organiser and a man in the pit. I know that there is not a better body of law-abiding citizens in any neighbourhood in this country, and I am convinced that if the police, or the man in charge of them, had gone to that meeting and had stated simply that the people were meeting unlawfully and would have to disperse in two or three minutes, every man, woman and boy in the crowd would have gone home peacefully and there would not have been the slightest trouble. But these Regulations give the police a licence. Here are some of the cases of injury. The police were not content with batoning men. I have here details of two cases of boys, 16 years of age, who Suffered as a result of this charge. I have been down to the district and personally investigated the cases. I saw one boy. He does not work at the pit at all. He was going home at the time of the charge. I believe he had been to the picture palace. He was struck twice on the back of the head, knocked down, and left unconscious on the road, until another man picked him up and got him home. I went to see him two days afterwards and he then bore the marks of the batoning upon his body very plainly. When he was knocked down he fell in the roadway on his face. He had a huge scar over his eyes and on his nose and down the whole of his cheekbone where the flesh had been scraped off when he came in contact with the road.

5.0 P.M.

Another ease is that of a boy, 16½ years of age, who was batoned on the shoulders and arms, and bore the marks of it in the shape of a huge black bruise. Another case is that of a young man whom I have known personally for 12 years. He is a man of the most pacific disposition, who was going home with a child, nine weeks of age, in his arms. He was batoned by the police and he carries; the marks. He was hit over the eye and in the wound several stitches had to be inserted. I have a mass of evidence here from various individuals who suffered. Here is the evidence of a man who lived near the scene of the charge. He says: On Wednesday night, 15th September, about half-past ten, my daughter and myself were surprised by a rush of people, men and women, bursting into the back yard in an awful state of excitement. I went to the door and invited them all to come into the house, and then went to the back yard door to look outside. Here I was met by six policemen. I was never outside my own back yard, but one of the policemen ordered me to go inside. I said, I am all right, I live here,' and he said, 'Go inside and don't look outside,' and he pushed me across my back yard, through the kitchen door, and banged the door to. The language he used was as bad as ever was used at Billings-gate. My next door neighbour was bludgeoned while standing at his back door, the bludgeon being broken over him. The cries of men and women were agonising outside for some time, and I had some people here till after midnight, frightened to go home. This is a true statement, and I can substantiate it by a lot more witnesses if needed. The secretary of the local branch of the Miners' Union says: The worst case that I know of was that of the old gentleman, Mr. Raybold, who was having a casual walk with his sons. They knew nothing of the events, the old man is almost blind and is over 65 year old, and this poor fellow was struck several times by the police. I have a mass of 10 other cases almost similar, varying from these of men 25 to those of men of 70. I saw a good many of these men at the meeting I went down to. There is no question of the fact that they were batoned. Some of them pulled their coats and shirts off to show me what had happened. I saw one who was a mass of bruises up to the shoulders.

I suggest, to the Home Secretary that this is not the best method of carrying out these Regulations, and that if he knew of the kind of people who had suffered he would not refuse the request which I shall make to him to day, that an inquiry shall be made into this business. I know he will have the report of the whole proceedings from the police, and that it will probably differ from the account of the facts as I have stated them. I may be accused of being biased on the side of the men. It is natural that we should all have some bias. The statement of the police will be equally biased, so that the best way of getting to the truth of the is whole business is to have an inquiry into it. I will guarantee that those people, whose evidence is written out here, will be brought before the inquiry. Is it in order, for instance, for a imbue inspector to say, when certain people visited him, "If I had been down there, you would not be at liberty now." Is that within their duties? Is it within the province of a policeman or of an inspector to go to the house of a Communist and tell him he will probably get arrested, and try to get him to make a statement?

The Home Secretary is an intensely religious man. I remember reading a speech made by him at the Albert Hall, in which he criticised Members of the House of Commons and the Bishops for not being on the platform with him to issue a clarion call. He would be the first man then to disagree with bad language on the part of the police. In nearly every case I have investigated these people have complained of the bad and filthy language used by the police when this baton charge took place. I suggest that that is not proper. It may be that in the course of their duties they lose their heads somewhat, but they should control their tongues better than they have done. The Home Secretary ought to inquire into this matter. I should also like him to inquire as to whether the windows of a man who lives near the pit gates were all broken by the police on that night. The evidence that can be laid before him from scores of men and women who were in that crowd, and from those who suffered from the batoning, warrants an inquiry into the whole business, and the Home Secretary should grant my request. He need not take my evidence, but I ask him equally not to accept the evidence of the police as the last word in accuracy. I ask him to hold a judicial inquiry into the facts. Such an inquiry would tend to placate the feelings of the people down there and to make them think that these Regulations are not always being used against them and for the benefit of the owners, but that in spite of these Regulations there is some justice still left in his country.

Sir HENRY CRAIK

I have listened with great attention to all the Debates upon this question, which have, curiously enough, faithfully repeated themselves on each occasion, but there was no greater instance of absolute fidelity of repetition than in the speech which was delivered a. few minutes ago by the late Solicitor-General, who, having brought his charges and made his appeals, did not think it worth while to wait to see the result of those appeals and charges. I listened also to the speech of the late Prime Minister, and he, with equal fidelity, rested his chief charge against these Regulations upon exactly the point which was reiterated and insisted upon by the late Solicitor-General, namely, that all these matters might equally be dealt with by the common law. He quoted, with great triumph, certain words used by the Home Secretary in quiet, calm, considered language, language which was proper to be used by any Member of the House. Of course, we are all equally jealous of the liberties of our fellow-subjects, and it is absurd to think that we rashly subscribe to these Emergency Regulations from the simple love of placing a new instrument of tyranny in the hands of the Government. But the late Solicitor-General thought he would make a tremendously impres- sive charge against the Home Secretary when he accused him of rank inconsistency for having uttered these cautions when it was his place to act as a critic of the Government of the day. We are all equally jealous of any infringement of the liberties of the subject, but the late Prime Minister waxed quite eloquent on the subject of the infinite wrong that was done by introducing these new Emergency Regulations instead of doing all that one had to do by the common law. He said that these alleged offences could be equally well brought within the range of the common law. It was a sort of invitation to the prosecutors to try if, by some ingenuity, they could find something in the common law which would enable them to convict.

Nothing more fundamentally and permanently dangerous could be imagined than to suggest that the Common Law should be twisted, perverted and exaggerated in order to catch these offences. Surely we are preserving the law much more by making these times of distress and disorder the subject of specific Emergency Regulation and by not attempting to deal with them by the ordinary Common Law. We have just listened to a long list of alleged errors in justices, cruelties and outrages from the hon. Member. The hon. Member knows perfectly well that we can call an equal number of witnesses to give an exactly opposite account to that which he has given. This is not the place to hold an inquiry. The Home Secretary can hold an inquiry if he thinks it proper, but to attempt to constitute this House, on the evidence of one single witness, into a court of inquiry and to attempt thus to dispose of the charges made against the guardians of the law, only shows how dangerous this state of emergency is. I do not wish to keep the House long, for I have listened long to these Debates and have never intervened in one before, but I do again urge that nothing could be more misleading than the chief argument urged by the late Prime Minister and by the late Solicitor-General, neither of whom has taken the trouble to be present to listen to any argument that may be used against their speeches. Nothing could be more dangerous than, instead of resorting to Emergency Regulations in order to meet an emergency state of disorder, to try and strain the Common Law beyond its limits and then to leave that strain on the Common Law as a permanent strain upon the future.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. James Hope)

I ought to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Amendment has been put, and that speeches must be confined to that particular Question.

Sir H. CRAIK

It was in moving the Amendment that the late Solicitor-General especially insisted on this point. I thought it my duty to show that it was a fallacy of the worst type, and a danger to the future of England.

Mr. HARNEY

I do not think the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken really does justice to the arguments to which I listened of the late Solicitor-General. I do not desire to say much on these Regulations, but the Home Secretary will agree that Regulations 21 and 22 enable very special provisions of law to be put into operation, and that all such matters as the ordinary offences of doing acts likely to cause sedition, of publishing matter which is of the same character, and of holding public meetings with a view to sedition, are covered now by the ordinary law. It is true that to bring this ordinary law into play is, at the moment, cumbersome. It is also true that under it there is the security offered to the delinquent of having a jury. I quite understand that in a state of emergency it may be advisable to give more summary powers, but surely there must be a case of real emergency to justify such action. You cannot claim that at your own sweet will, you can put into force Regulations which have the effect of wiping away the ordinary protection which a jury and the necessity for an indictment give to the offender.

We have to ask ourselves: Is there really at this moment such justification as was contemplated by the Act, for putting in force these two Regulations? What was the justification contemplated? It was that there should appear to His Majesty, which of course means to His Majesty's advisers—to put it shortly, that it should appear to the Home Secretary—that action was immediately threatened which was calculated to interfere with the supply and distribution of food. The right hon. Gentleman has to be satisfied himself that action is now impending and is now threatened which tends to interfere with the distribution of food. Is there any such justification at the Moment? This is the sixth time that the Proclamation has been put in force. I do not suppose the right hon. Gentleman would say that as long as the dispute lasts we ought, automatically, to continue the Regulations. That would be contrary to the Act. You have to show in reference to each proclamation that at that particular time there exists a state of danger of the distribution of food being interfered with. Is there any such danger now? What evidence has been brought forward to show that on a real, extended scale the distribution of food is threatened? I know of none.. One reads the papers day by day and sees a little case here and another there, such as exist in ordinary times. But can any fairminded person say that at this moment there is a general threat among the disaffected in the community to interfere with the distribution of food? If there is not, then, unquestionably, this is undue and improper interference with the liberty of the subject and takes away, in reference to offences already covered by the law, the protection which is offered by having a jury and having an indictment. Therefore, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw these two Regulations as unnecessary.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

I have listened with considerable interest to this discussion and to several of those which have preceded it, on the same subject, and I think the right hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) hardly did full justice to the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for South-East Leeds (Sir H. Slesser). The right hon. and learned Gentleman spun an even larger net of legal cobwebs for the entertainment of the legal Members of this House—because I feel sure that the majority of the lay Members of the House were not particularly interested—than he did on the last occasion. The hon. and learned Gentleman made a great song about the fact that a man under Regulations 21 and 22 does not get a trial by jury. Of course he does not for the offence of sedition, and he should be very thankful. If he were to be indicted and tried by a jury he would probably get penal servitude instead of three months—indeed, I am not sure that the penalty, in some cases, is not death. Apparently, the Regulations are not severe enough for the hon. and learned Gentleman, who wants something far more drastic.

With regard to the statement that the common law adequate for these offences, he threw doubt and derision upon the points which I have put on former occasions but I may say, with all respect to him as an ex-Solicitor-General, that I think he is misleading the House. Everybody knows that if the 1906 Trade Disputes Act had not been passed, these Regulations would never have been necessary. Never, on this side of Jordan, would they have been needed if the trade unions, instead of being put up above the law, has been made liable for torts and faults. It is because they have been into the position which the priesthood occupied prior to the Reformation that they are not so responsible under the ordinary law of the land and that these Regulations are necessary so as to get at the individual members more efficiently than they could be got at under the ordinary law. If the trade unions and their funds were liable then trade unionists would be kept in order by them instead of being incited to breaches of the law.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

The hon. and learned Member is now embarking on the discussion of a rather wide question and one which is same way off these particular Regulations.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

I was dealing particularly with Regulations 21 and 22, and I was replying to what I might almost describe as the provocation of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for South-East Leeds. The point taken against these Regulations by the hon. and gallant Member for Leith (Captain Benn) was that they endow the Home Secretary with powers which he will never use. There are many powers which are never used. That only goes to show the sanity of the ordinary administration of the ordinary policemen. You may give all kinds of powers in this country to various authorities, but they are never exercised to the maximum. They are used with discretion by those who have the duty of administering them.

We have heard an hon. Member in the course of this discussion refer to some cases of disturbances with the police which came under Regulation 22. I say that there is an alteration in the law in Regulation 22—and in that respect I differ from the ex-Solicitor-General—because this Regulation covers a procession which may lead to a breach of the peace. Everybody knows of the processions which take place and which are intended to be a form of peaceful picketing. Some of these are huge processions, but according to the 1906 Act any n amber can picket, and as long as the picketing is peaceful and orderly there is to be no legal objection. It is obvious, however, that if a gigantic procession goes to a particular pit with the intention of peaceful persuasion, that will almost certainly conduce to a breach of the peace or cause under demand to be made on the, police under the Regulation. A large body of police will have to accompany them. We have seen again and again what has happened in various strikes as a result of the 1906 Act. Poor young lads are incited to go out on what they believe to be a legal picket—a picket of such enormous numbers that it is certain to lead to a breach of the peace. Then we have cases of the kind to which an hon. Member on the other side has recently referred, where young lads are badly hammered. They are led into this trap by the unfortunate state of the law.

If hon. Members opposite would be content to put their institutions on the same. level as the associations of other citizens, then these Regulations would never be required. For my part, I do not welcome these Regulations. The statement is made that they are being passed by the Government in the interest of the owners because the Government are on the side of the owners. There is no foundation for that statement. What has the Government allowed to be done? The miners all along have had an enormous sum of public money given for the relief of themselves and their dependents while they were striking and saying to the community, "We will deprive you of coal." If the mineowners had been paid by the boards of guardians proportionate sums in lieu of profits, at the same time as the miners were taking money in lieu of wages, then it might be said there was some equality—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

I hope the hon. and learned Member will confine his argument to these particular Regulations.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

A previous speaker said that the Regulations were being passed in the interest of the mineowners and I was controverting that statement.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

I ought to point out that when a hon. Member is moving an Amendment to a Motion of this kind he is still speaking to the main question, but once the Amendment is proposed from the Chair the discussion has to he confined to the Amendment.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

I may say, Sir, that, I think is a new point of Order to most Members of the House. I was always under the misapprehension that when a Member made a speech, another Member was entitled to reply on the particular points which had been raised. However, I submit that these Regulations—which nobody dislikes more than myself—are necessary in this particular crisis. There is no doubt whatever that, as the law at present stands, when you have bodies like, the Miners' Federation, with which it seems impossible to make any settlement, something of this kind is required which will give the ordinary workman liberty and the right to work and the assurance that he will not be interfered with, possibly by a tyrannical minority of the workers themselves. Something of this kind is necessary to protect the liberty of the subject. Nothing could be more preposterous than the speeches to-day of hon. Members of the Labour party and the hon. and gallant Member for Leith and others who have been responsible for weaving this web which trammels the ordinary working man to-day and prevents him having the liberty to work, or to employ himself as he wishes. For them to pose as defenders of liberty while they are opposing these two Regulations which are meant to secure economic liberty is wholly inconsistent and illogical. The biggest enemies of the liberties of the working classes sit on the benches opposite.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I gather that the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten), who dislikes these Regulations intensely, is going to vote for them. I dislike them intensely, and am going to vote against them.

Mr. MACQUISTEN

We might pair.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I would not like to pair with the hon. and learned Gentleman until I have made quite clear to him my reasons for taking, in the Division Lobby, a different view from himself on this question. This Debate, although it is the sixth Debate on the same subject, has been a very useful one and not the least useful contributions have been the speeches of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my hon. and learned Friend the ex-Solicitor-General. I think it just as well that the Labour party should make it quite clear that, whether they are in opposition or in power, they look upon Regulations 21 and 22 as not being wanted in an emergency in this country. There can be no justification for such a form of legislation as this. I have spoken at about 40 meetings during this dispute and I take it that all the speakers at those meetings except myself have rendered themselves liable to arrest under Regulation 21. All, with the exception of myself, sought to excite disaffection against His Majesty's present Government. I, have been very careful always to say that the right hon. Gentleman, His Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Home Affairs is doing his best; that he is, of course, a strong man and that his impartial attitude towards this dispute cannot be questioned. I have even included the Prime Minister in that exordium. But even I, have, I believe, caused disaffection towards the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because I have expressed the view that when the right hon. Gentleman was turned down by the rest of the Cabinet he ought to have resigned. The fact of the matter is that these Regulations are so widely framed that everybody who has taken a side in this dispute, whether with the men or with the masters, could be brought within Regulations 21 and 22.

That is what I object to in this form of legislation. There is an infinite number of potential criminals who have tried to restrict the supply of fuel, and the police are left free to select which one they want. That is not a form of justice which will ever appeal to the English people. Here you have a general decree throwing outside the law everyone who is trying to restrict the supply of fuel of the country, and you leave it to the police to use their unaided intelligence as to whom they shall proceed against before a bench of magistrates, who are as partial as any other person taking part in the dispute. That is bad politics and bad morality. It reminds one of the decree issued, I think, by Philip II of Spain when he sentenced everybody in the Netherlands to death. He could not put it into operation, but he left it in the hands of Alva to arrest and burn anybody he liked. Here the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary outlaws many of the population and leaves it to the police to select their victims as they choose. I think the police have been extremely moderate, but I am afraid the figures given by the Home Secretary to-day show that the powers given under these Regulations are getting better known to the police—l'apétit vient en mangeant. They find it so easy to run in anybody who is inconvenient, and therefore the increase of crimes under Regulation 21 may not be due to increased criminality, but to an increased familiarity of the police with the powers they possess.

I am all for law and order, but let us know exactly what the law is, so that a man may know when he is going to cross the line. The danger of this sort of legislation is that so many people, knowing themselves to be within the net, may say, "Well, I may as well be hanged for a man as for a sheep," and they go further than they would otherwise go. I urge hon. Members opposite to use their influence to suppress this particular form of legislation. It can only do harm to the attitude of citizens generally towards the law. There is also the other reason which I have already referred to. The real value of this Debate has been to make quite clear to the House and to the country the attitude of the Labour party towards this form of legislation. We nearly had to introduce something like these Regulations when we were in office, but Regulation 21 was never embodied in any emergency powers brought before this House by the Labour Government, and I hope it never will be.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS

May I ask whether the right hon. and gallant Member is now giving to the House a statement as to what was in the Emergency Regulations proposed by the Labour Government? I have been very particular in making no statement as to those Regulations, and I thought it is only fair that the same course should be followed on both sides of the House.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I am saying that we never introduced this particular form of legislation in any Regulations we brought forward. I do not propose to say what Regulations we should introduce if we had to do so. But we did not introduce Regulation 21 or Regulation 22, or advance any arguments in their favour. Now we have had a statement from the Leader of the Opposition and from the ex-Solicitor-General making quite clear their hostility to this form of legislation, and in spite of the temptation there may be to use this particular kind of legislation, not against the workers, but against the masters, I trust that their opposition will remain to any form of legislation which can be used in this particular way, incriminating a large number of people and leaving it to the Executive to decide which particular persons are to be proceeded against. If we are to have this sort of legislation, let us have it in black and white so that the House can go through it in detail. Let us know where we are; let the potential criminals know where they are; but do not leave the use of this power in the hands of the executive police forces which will be out of the control of this House, and may act in a manner which everyone would deplore. I do not think this Regulation has been of any assistance to the Government. It has created in the minds of the workers themselves a feeling of absolute hopelessness as to what the law is. Over and over again I have been asked whether something is or is not illegal. You cannot tell them. Everything is illegal under this Regulation. It would be much better if people knew where they were, if they had a Statute saying exactly what they are entitled to do and what they are not to do. At the moment they are in a com- plete haze as to what the law is or how any bench of magistrates will interpret the law, and you get a state of exasperation which is deplorable and which does not lead to peace in the country.

Mr. STORRY DEANS

I do not desire to take up much time of the House in considering these Regulations, but it is important, as we are passing Emergency Regulations, which are a departure from the common law of the land, that the House should fully consider them. Therefore, I make no apology for intervening in the Debate. I am as jealous as the ex-Solicitor-General for the Common Law of this country; it is the citadel of our liberty. But no one sitting on the benches opposite can deny that a strike of great magnitude is an emergency—[An HON. MEMBER: "It is not a strike."] I beg the hon. Member's pardon. Let me say that an industrial dispute of great magnitude, which causes feelings to run high, is such a situation that certain powers must be given to the Executive. It is, of course, open to the hon. Member to say that there is no emergency; that a strike or lock-out, or industrial dispute, does not create such a state of emergency. But hon. Members opposite cannot say that, because the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down has said that the Labour Government proposed to enact, and would have enacted, Emergency Regulations on the occasion of a trade dispute during their short tenure of office. If a state of emergency exists when it is the case of a transport dispute, how can hon. Members opposite say that a state of emergency does not exist when it is the case of a dispute which goes so nearly to the life of the country as the present coal dispute?

Sir H. SLESSER

My suggestion is that, though a state of emergency may require Regulations dealing with the supply and distribution of food and fuel, it does not require Regulations interfering with the liberty of the subject.

Mr. DEANS

It is quite clear that when you have one of these gigantic disputes, when tempers rise and there is a great deal of hot blood, ordinary and respectable people do things which ordinary and respectable people would not do in ordinary times; and what is the good of shutting our eyes to that fact? I do not care whose fault it is, I will give hon. Members opposite the case that it is entir