UNEMPLOYMENT.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

I beg to move, That this House deplores the entire failure of the Government to deal with the problem of unemployment and its continuance in a course of policy which, by lowering the purchasing power of the masses and restricting the flow of trade, has resulted in an increase of over 400,000 unemployed in twelve months; and this House calls upon the Government to initiate and carry through a far-reaching plan for the utilisation in the interests of the nation of the national resources in land, credit, materials, and man-power which are now lying idle, so as to increase the total production of wealth in the country. I want, at the outset, to say that in putting down this Motion of Censure on the Government and raising once again the question of unemployment, we think that we should at least have the support of the Lord President of the Council and his late colleagues, who set us a splendid example during the last Parliament on how to pursue a Government on so vital a matter as unemployment. I think that almost every week there was either a Motion on the question of unemployment or a Motion of Censure on the Government in one form or another. As conditions are very much worse to-day—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Yes, considerably worse—we propose to take every opportunity of raising this most vital and important question. It has been said by a great Socialist that either society will settle the unemployment problem or the unemployment problem will settle society. There is a growing body of opinion in the world that that statement is true, and because that is a fact we are determined to press this question on the attention of the House.

In regard to one side of the question, we are not following the tactics of the Lord President of the Council and his colleagues. They charged the late Government with being the cause of unemployment. We do not charge this Government or any other Government of the past century with having caused the conditions which have produced the world economic crisis, but we do charge the Government with this fact, that whatever steps they have taken they have made conditions considerably worse and that, in the main, they have done nothing or any importance to deal with this great question. They have settled down, in 1202 the face of the criticism of their own supporters and in face of the appeals made to them by their own supporters, to a sort of complacent satisfaction that everything is well in the best of all possible worlds while they are on the Treasury Bench. We do not accept that point of view. We say that the Government have been, not only remiss, but very reactionary in regard to this great question.

Every intelligent employer of labour, certainly some of the largest employers of labour in this country, believe that the hours of labour should be regulated, if possible, by international agreement. At Geneva, however, the representatives of the Government have taken the line of blocking the proposal to establish a convention with that object in view. The Prime Minister ought to tell us the reason why the Government have taken that line. I have heard him say—I was going to say on thousands of occasions—certainly on many occasions, that a reduction in the hours of labour is one of the means of dealing with unemployment. Now he is at the head of a Government which is opposing not the actual introduction of a 30 or 40 hours' working week, but the proposal made at Geneva for establishing international agreement on this subject. The right hon. Gentleman cannot deny that the representative of the Ministry of Labour took that line.

§ The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Henry Betterton)

As the right hon. Gentleman has referred to the representative of the Ministry of Labour at Geneva, may I repudiate his statement as being not even remotely true?

§ Mr. LANSBURY

I repeat the statement that the representative of the British Government at Geneva most definitely took that line, and it is unworthy of the right hon. Gentleman to interrupt me in that fashion. He knows very well that what I am saying is true. He also knows that the Labour representatives at that conference emphatically repudiated his representative and protested against his action. So far as that matter is concerned the Government's action has not only been reactionary but is opposed to the best progressive minds in the capitalist world in this country. Sir Harold Bowden has put it on record as his opinion that not merely a 40 hours' 1203 working week but even a less working week is necessary, and that a restricted age period will have to be introduced. We recognise that it is probably impossible in a general way to carry through that principle without some international agreement. Instead of the Government supporting us enthusiastically in that attitude, they have enthusiastically taken the other line.

Let me come to the Government's complacency and especially the Prime Minister's complacency. I have read his letter to the Bethnal Green local authority. I am glad that the Bethnal Green Corporation has given him a good answer. That local authority happens not to be a Labour Council. It is made up of representatives of all parties. Therefore it cannot be said to be actuated by spite or prejudice, Socialist prejudice, against the Prime Minister. Its appeal to the Prime Minister brought from him a statement which I think hon. and right hon. Members must regard as one of the most extraordinary statements ever made by a Prime Minister on such a subject. There will be many things for which the Prime Minister will be remembered, but I think this is one that will be remembered to his discredit for ever, because in that document he talks about arresting the growth of unemployment during the past year. I do not quite understand on what the right hon. Gentleman bases that statement. The argument is that unemployment increased during one period of 1929–31 and that it has not increased in the same ratio during 1932. Of all the amazing arguments, that is the most amazing. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the European crisis which broke out some six months before his late Government went out of office came because of the expected failure of Germany and Austria to meet their liabilities. I thought that the nonsensical statement, still made in this House, that that crisis was caused because of something that this country was or was not doing had been exploded long ago.

There is not a single banker or financier in this country—I challenge any hon. or right hon. Member to find one—who will now stand up and say that the crisis which broke over Europe during' June and August of 1931 had any- 1204 thing whatever to do with the affairs in this country except in regard to the money market in the City of London. This nation had met all her obligations. This nation was under no obligation she could not meet, and the debtors of this nation had no right, and could have no right, to call in question our stability. It was the stability of the money lords of the City of London at stake, and that of nobody else. That caused a crisis not only in Europe but in America and in this country, and, obviously, when a crisis breaks out the figures run up very rapidly.

But taking the right hon. Gentleman's own period of office, the figures for January this year show an increase of 176,000, making a total of 2,903,000 out of work, and 170,000 on the Poor Law. Add to those the workers who are not insured, as I mentioned some weeks ago, and as the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) mentioned yesterday, the new army of black-coated proletariat, who were represented at a meeting in London the other night by university professors who came down to deplore the fact that now there is no room for men trained in the universities, and they did not know what occupation they were going to follow. The two right hon. Gentlemen, the Minister for Health and the Minister for Labour, can add also those by your cynical, your brutal administration of transitional payments—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—I will repeat those words for the benefit of hon. Members—the cynical, callous, brutal administration. Let hon. Members go to their constituents and jeer at them as they are jeering at me. You push these tens of thousands on to their families, and if you add them all together, you will find that the number will total well over 3,500,000. That is the figure which, with the utmost complacency, the right hon. Gentleman discussed yesterday and the Prime Minister dealt with in his letter to Bethnal Green.

There is another point in which the right hon. Gentleman will be interested. There have been 245,000 people added to the Poor Law roll since September, 1931—perhaps somebody will tell us how much advantage that is to the community—and 306 persons out of every 10,000 of the population of this country 1205 are in receipt of Poor Law relief. In the county of Durham, one of the divisions of which the right hon. Gentleman represents, 667 per 10,000 are in receipt of Poor Law relief. I wonder if those who jeered at me just now, when they sit at home and listen to the wireless, have ever heard the gentleman who Has been sent round to visit these desolate areas up and down the country, and have heard the piteous stories which are told by him as to the conditions which he finds. A Press friend of mine said the other day that if we had any imagination in this country, we would gather together the very best writers we had, and send them broadcast through the land to write down actually what is happening in this country, so that the country could have a picture. I can give a word picture of what happens in my own division.

Everybody here knows, and nobody can contradict it, that these terrible, degrading, demoralising conditions, forced upon masses of people, are calling forth protests from nearly all the organised clergy throughout the country. I believe there is not a ruridecanal conference in an industrial area that has not put on record its opinion that the unemployed are being crushed both in body and soul by the conditions under which they are living. Medical officers in many parts of the country also bear their testimony. When questions are put to the Minister of Education or to the Minister of Health, some vague statement is made on the subject which means nothing at all, and they get round the fact that medical officers of health are reporting a steady deterioration in the children attending the schools. That has been repeated in this House, and no notice has been taken of it whatsoever. I know a school in Poplar where there is a very large percentage of the children having to be attended to because of the tendency to phthisis. Everybody knows that phthisis is, in the main, a disease which arises from poverty and overcrowding. If children are under-nourished and live under bad conditions, it is evident that they will suffer, and if you want to know the reason they are suffering, it is the atrociously low payments which are being made, and the forcing of people on to the family.

It is argued—I heard Lord Snowden argue it one day—that it is cheaper to 1206 keep them on these miserable doles than to find them work. I do not deny that you are saving money, but you are heaping up for yourselves conditions which, I am sure, this House will live to repent. Everywhere the physique of the people is going down. Before the War the same thing was happening, and you discovered it when you came to get recruits for the War. The number of C.3 men was enormous in relation to the population. If the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary of State for War is here to-day, he can speak as to the number of men who, because they are physically unfit, are rejected by the Army, and this is growing, and has been growing for some time past. It means that the population is being forced to live under the real subsistence line. Then there is scarcely a day but one reads of suicides and murders, most of them attributable to sheer despair. Everyone read the story of a poor woman who was starved to death. I undertake to say that there are thousands of cases like that which never come to light. The doctor gives a certificate that death was due to consumption, bronchitis or influenza, whereas, in many cases, it is because of sheer starvation. And what else can we expect on the paltry sums that are given even under the ordinary rates of benefit? You talk about it being cheap. Is crime cheap? I read the other day in the Press that the crimes in London had gone up 200 per cent. How many are there that never come to light at all? The report of those in authority was that the increase was among the younger people. Can anyone wonder at this increase in crime among young people? It seems to me that you have got to set that against your money gain. You may have gained it at too great a cost in the life and well-being of the people.

The right hon. Gentleman and his Government take this line. They cannot pay any more money; they cannot give any bigger allowances; and, at the same time, they cannot set people to work. I will come back to that in a moment. The right hon. Gentleman, in his letter to Bethnal Green, and previously, said that there are these shemes for the rich people to help the poor, and that we must, in the main, rely on this to help redress the balance. Personally, I am built in the sort of way that if people are in 1207 trouble and I can help them, I am very glad to do so, and so I believe are all the Members in this House. I have nothing at all to say against anyone helping a person who is in distress in any sort of way, but when every night I have to face a poster going home on the Underground Railway appealing for my unemployed clothes to go to unemployed men, and read the various appeals, and I listen to the right hon. Gentleman over the wireless, I think it is disgusting, it is a disgrace, for the British Government to throw this on to the shoulders of private charity. It ought never to have been possible for any Prime Minister of this country to have done this. Let anyone go to industrial areas and ask how far this private charity is able really to touch the fringe of the question. It cannot begin to touch the tiniest bit of it. If hon. Members want to know whether that is so, let them hear what Lady Londonderry, in her appeal, circulated on behalf of the Personal Service League, states that some of her correspondents have said to her. I did not publish this; her ladyship has published it, and I think this House ought to take notice of it, because it brings very vividly to light the truth of the statement of the clergy and others to which I called attention just now. This is what the British Sailors' Society of Lowe soft said: We are exceedingly grateful to you and the members of the Relief Organisation for the two magnificent bales of clothing you have so kindly sent.…The distress is most keen. People cannot live on clothes. Many of them are not living; they are only existing. When I say that, I am told not to talk sob stuff. They are merely existing. That is the statement which is made by the representative of the British Sailors' Society at Lowe soft. Then the University Settlement, Shire hump ton, said: We found that mothers had cut up their underclothing for children. That is what the woman who gave up her food for her children did, and, having done so, died, and people can only sneer at it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!" and "Withdraw!"] The hon. Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscounts Astor) has just come into the House, and knows nothing at all about it.

Viscountess ASTOR

I know—

§ Mr. LANSBURY

The statement goes on to say: men and lads were unfit to seek work for lack of boots and trousers; and some were in rags. These cases can be matched in every industrial area of the country. There is Don caster. A district nurse there says: I am a. district nurse in a very poor mining town, and nearly all my mothers are without clothes for the babies. Here is a statement from Cannock in Staffordshire: There is terrible poverty, women bringing babies into the world and no clothes to put them in. Girls unable to go to service because they have no clothes, and the women without shoes and clothes to wear. Here is another statement from Colwich: If only people understood and could realise that if you are unemployed you do not starve, but you have no money to replace clothes. In the Potteries the distress just now is terrible. This statement finishes with the slogan: We cannot escape our responsibility. That is what I want to say to the House of Commons. We cannot escape our responsibility. It is the responsibility of every man and women in this House; and I repeat that private charity will not even touch the fringe of the question. The few extracts which I have read prove conclusively what has been said from below and above the Gangway, that the Government are keeping the unemployed in a state of semi-starvation. The Prime Minister and Ministers in general have taken the line that public works are futile. No Socialist and no trade unionist has ever said that relief works are a cure for unemployment. We have never advocated mere relief works. The right hon. Gentleman, to his credit, was the first statesman in this country, as a Minister of the Crown, to bring forward a proposal that the working people of this country when out of work ought not to be driven to the Poor Law, and he issued a circular telling local authorities that they ought to take active steps to find useful employment for the unemployed. It is a disgraceful distortion of the truth for the Prime Minister to talk as if all the work carried out since 1920 has been a burden on the community. It has been no such thing.

1209 In a previous Debate I interrupted the Minister of Labor and asked whether he would produce figures analyzing the expenditure of local authorities, assisted by the Government, on roads, railways, gas, electricity and parks since 1920. The notion which the Minister of Labor tried to suggest that this money was all wasted is so much arrant nonsense. He knows that money spent on housing and on other public works is not wasted. We heard from the right hon. Member for Hill head (Sir R. Home) the other evening that had it not been for the action of the previous Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister the tube developments which are now taking place would have been impossible. But all the money which has been spent in this way is piled up in a lump sum and treated as if it was money which has been thrown away on made work. It is not true. It has been spent on works of public utility, which are of service to the nation. I am not going to take it from the Prime Minister that the money spent on the housing estates in Poplar, which he inspected, has been money wasted. It is remunerative in many ways. It has been spent for the well-being of the community, and will give a return not only in better housing of the people but in better health. The Government have shut all this down and say that they cannot now carry on such work.

The hon. and gallant Member who opened the Debate yesterday, and also the hon. and gallant Member for Harrow (Sir I. Salmon) asked that works of this character should be put in hand. The hon. and gallant Member for Harrow said that he would support the building of public offices. I do not know how much money you are going to make out of that type of building; but if I had proposed it the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have poured scorn upon it and would have asked what return we were likely to get on the expenditure. But last night, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you had to rule out of order a Bill which had passed all its stages in this House except Third Reading because the Government have determined that the grant which was to have been given shall not be given. A bridge or a tunnel is absolutely necessary on the Humber. There is some disagreement as to whether it 1210 should be a bridge or a tunnel, but the grant for the work has been stopped simply because of this craze for economy, which in this particular case is sheer madness. Work on the Dart ford tunnel and at Alexandra Palace has also been stopped. While it is true, as the Prime Minister said, being a good Socialist, that unemployment is inherent in the capitalist system, we repudiate altogether the doctrine that the work on housing, drainage, the prevention of floods, the sweeping away of slums, the reconstruction of railways, work on idle land, the growing of food and the reorganisation of transport, is not good and useful work. We say that at a time when ordinary industry is in a bad way such work ought to be undertaken. There are some things which you can hold over when trade is flourishing, but when trade is bad these are the sort of occupations which should be taken up.

I am not going to apologise for speaking about agriculture. The first speech I made when I entered Parliament in 1911 was on this subject, and I said then what I say now, that if this country is in a bad way from the point of view of employment there is one field to which you can apply. If you desire to balance trade and to stop imports because you are unable to send out exports, if you say that you must develop the industries within this country, then agriculture is the one industry which should have been taken in hand long ago. I shall be told that the Minister of Agriculture has a lot of schemes up his sleeve. He has a lot of committees. We used to be criticised about the number of committees, but this Government have gone one better, they have a committee every other day. The fact is that not a single extra man has been found employment on the land during the year and not a single acre more has been brought under cultivation. If you want to stop imports surely you ought to find work for the men at the docks and the mines, who will be displaced, by reorganising the land system of the country. The Government have done no such thing.

Let me deal for a moment with the question of unemployment as a world problem and as a national problem. It is perfectly true, as the Prime Minister has said, that unemployment is inherent in the capitalist system. In America they 1211 have appointed a committee to investigate the causes of unemployment. It is the same in other countries. Unemployment is rife in every civilised country of the world; whether they are on the Gold Standard or off the Gold Standard, whether they have balanced their Budget or whether they have an unbalanced Budget, whether they are Protectionists or Free Traders, whether they are self-contained or, like ourselves, are dependent on the outside world. Unemployment is common everywhere, and every student of the problem knows that it does not matter whether a country is Free Trade or Protectionist. I am surprised that the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Macmillan) is continually raising this question with the Labour party in these discussions. It is not a question as to whether you are Free Traders or Tariff Reformers. Whatever you are you have unemployment arising from a cause which is well known, and that is the abundant power to produce and the failure to consume within your own country, or outside your own country.

§ Mr. MACMILLAN

The right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood my remarks. All I did was to call attention to the conflict of views between the official Motion today, objecting to any restriction of trade, which presumably is a free trade policy, and the official policy of the Labor party put forward in August, 1931, for complete control of trade by the setting up of import boards.

Viscountess ASTOR

Hear, hear.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

The hon. Member and the hon. Member for the Sutton Division had better read it again and think a little more. Our position is perfectly simple.

Viscountess ASTOR

Hear, hear.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

Your mother ought to have flogged you badly. There is no contradiction in our policy.

Viscountess ASTOR

On a point of Order. Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe in people flogging children?

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Dennis Herbert)

The Noble Lady has been long enough in this House to know that that is not a point of Order. Hon. Members 1212 are not entitled thus to interrupt a speech by raising as a point of Order what is not a point of Order at all.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

I wish to reply to the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Macmillan). It is perfectly true that we believe in the national organisation and control of industry, even if that involves controlling imports or exports. Whatever it involves we stand by it. But what the Government have done by the Ottawa Agreements has been to restrain and restrict trade even within the system under which we are working—to restrict the flow of imports and exports between countries. We voted against it and told the House the reason why we voted against it, although some Liberal Free Traders voted for it. In America this question of the causes of unemployment has been considered. This House will never get to grips with unemployment until it considers what are the fundamental causes of unemployment. We have the transport world agitated because a new means of transport on the road which has come into being conflicts with the interests of the railways. Now I read in the Press a statement that we are to have fleets of aeroplanes to carry passengers from the towns to the seaside, and there will be another complication. We find that sort of thing everywhere.

I find that I am up against this: If I ask for reorganisation for agriculture, or of mining, or of cotton or of iron and steel, I am told that reorganisation will inevitably create a bigger production with less labour. That is true of every industry. In America, Mr. Hoover or a committee that he appointed, has worked out a set of figures, and here are some samples. The old-fashioned brick-maker never produced more than an average of 450 bricks per day. The modern brick plant can produce 400,000 bricks per day per man employed. Think of the difference. One hundred men working five modern brick plants can to-day manufacture all the brick that the United States is able to use in any one year. That is one fact. The adult population of North America could supply all its material wants by working four hours a day for four days a week. A century ago pig iron was produced in the United States at the rate of 25 tons per man per year. In 1929 there were blast furnaces producing it at the rate of 4,000 tons per man per year. A 1213 farmer with modern agricultural machinery can now accomplish in one hour what 3,000 hours were required to do a century ago. Between 1920 and 1929 the United States increased its manufacturing production by 36 per cent., yet during the same period the number employed in the factories actually declined by 6 per cent. Nearly half the present estimate of unemployed, now calculated to embrace one quarter of the entire working population, would not be reabsorbed in industry even if the American factories resumed their peak production of 1929. A rayon plant that has recently been set up in New Jersey runs 24 hours a day without any human aid whatever. Here is a quotation: The question thus inevitably arises whether it would ever again be possible, within the bounds of the present economic system, to provide work for the bulk of those wanting employment, and, if not, how order and prosperity can ever be hammered out under the present economic system. I think everyone in the House must agree with that statement. But what are the Government doing, what do they suggest in face of that situation? By the speeches that they make and the committees they set up they admit that this is a matter for the Government. They cannot now fall back on the old doctrine that prevailed in this House, that the handling of business and commerce was entirely a private matter. The right hon. Member for Hill head (Sir R. Home) said the other night that the chaos and confusion of London traffic must be dealt with, and that was why he supported the London Passenger Transport Bill. But what about the chaos and confusion in the industrial world and the world of economics? It is just as bad everywhere, and as far as I can see, it is not proposed to do anything, in this House anyhow. I see on the Order Paper a Motion that I would like very much to hear discussed. While I am not sure what it really means I would like to hear the Prime Minister and his friends explain it. If necessary, we could give up a day or two days that would otherwise be ours. This is what the Motion states: That in the opinion of this House there is urgent need for a comprehensive plan providing for the organisation of national industry under the advice of industrial councils"— 1214 That is a bit Socialistic, if it is not Socialism— the co-ordination of financial, industrial and political policy"— I would like to see that argued out, and to know what it really means— through the assistance of a representative investment and development board "— When we said something similar to that hon. Members opposite put it across the wireless that not the walls of Jericho, but the walls of capitalism were falling about our heads; but when hon. Members opposite say it, it is all right— and the raising of prices to an economic level by methods which would include (a) controlled monetary policy"— Talk about Daniels come to judgment. You are a lot of little Daniels. It is what Lord Snowden told us would be "Bolshevism run mad." I see the hon. Member for Winchester (Sir G. Ellis) is present. He is associated with this Motion, which goes on— (b) the attraction of new capital into the channels which would produce a better equilibrium in production, and (c) the provision of credit facilities for desirable developments for which the necessary capital cannot be readily obtained under the existing methods of banking and issuing houses.

§ Sir GEOFFREY ELLIS

rose —

§ Mr. LANSBURY

One of the names attached to this Motion is "Sir Geoffrey Ellis." That is the hon. Member.

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, in referring to a Resolution which is on the Order Paper, will not hold out an invitation to the House to discuss it.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

I said that I would be willing to give up a day, or even two days, which we might have at our disposal in order that this Motion might be discussed. I mean in the future, not today, oh, no.

§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER

I heard the right hon. Gentleman quite clearly, and I Was hoping that in reading the Resolution he would not interpose remarks about it which might make it difficult for hon. Members who follow him not to discuss it.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

Honestly, if I thought I was departing from the Rules, I should have gone into some of these matters as matters relating to unemployment and matters which it is very neces- 1215 sary to discuss. The Motion I have read proves that in this House and in the City and amongst business men there is a conviction that the economic system under which we are living must be changed, and changed fundamentally. The proposals in the Motion I have read are fundamental proposals. I hope that the Government will not give us a complacent, self-satisfied statement that things are not as bad here as they are in other countries, or as they might have been if the Prime Minister and the Dominions Secretary had been at the head of a Labor Government. That is no consolation to the unemployed and is no answer to our case. Our demand is, first, that the condition of the unemployed who cannot be absorbed either by public works or in any way, should be improved. I have always held that the number of unemployed does not lessen the need of the individual unemployed man. Whether there are 1,000,000 unemployed or only one unemployed man, the need of the one unemployed man and the need of the 1,000,000 are equal. They all have to live; their wives and their children have to live, and the rent has to be paid.

There is in this country at the moment abundant work to absorb many thousands of the unemployed. There is unemployed money. We are told that by the bank managers and others. There is unemployed land; there are unemployed raw materials. The thing that stops us is that the Government have what is from my point of view the insane theory that it is not as advantageous to spend money in that way as to spend it in a private way, that is through private employers. If we spend £5,000,000 on clearing slums away from a municipality I do not see the difference between spending the money in the way I have indicated and handing the money over to be spent by private individuals or private organisations. You circulate the money and the only difference that I can see is that you may get a better job done under public enterprise than under private enterprise.

When we ask for national ownership and national organisation of industry we claim that these are the only means whereby you can, within the limits of scientific production, bring about scientific consumption. If the world is to 1216 come out of the crisis in which it is today, it must be by means of a new basis for industry and a new basis for the relationship of men and women to industry. It must be by the use of scientific power in order to produce for the uses of mankind and not merely for private profit. At present it is private profit which stands in the way. People cannot make money individually out of the building of houses. People cannot make money in this country out of the growing of food. Yet it is true that houses are wanted and that food is wanted and we say that if the community takes control of these things it can bring production and consumption to match one another.

The CHANCELLOR of the EX-CHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain)

Once more the House has before it an official Opposition Motion of Censure on the Government in connection with unemployment. I wonder how many official Motions of this kind have been moved by successive Oppositions against successive Governments in successive Parliaments since the beginning of the depression. There have been so many of them that we have lost count of the number and all have been characterised by certain common features—first the ascription by the Opposition to the Government of the sole responsibility for unemployment—[HON. MEMBERS: "No"]—or, as in the present case, the sole responsibility for the increase in unemployment; the rejection by the Government of the day of that responsibility and its attribution to world causes; a general, in fact a universal sympathy with the unemployed coming from all parties and in the end a continuance of the unemployment. After so prolonged and painful an experience of this great series of discussions it might well be thought that there was nothing more to be expected today than the iteration and re-iteration of the old arguments and the old rebuttals and that if anybody expressed any hope that improvement was in sight or was about to set in that could only be set down to a sort of dogged optimism which refused to take into account the evidence.

We certainly must admit that the optimism which is felt today must be of a qualified character, and yet I think that a qualified optimism is not only 1217 more cheering but more appropriate to the present circumstances than the unqualified pessimism which has just been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps the difference between the attitude which he takes up, the outlook which he has expressed, and that which I consider to be more correct is to be found in the fact that when we come to consider what is to be done the right hon. Gentleman has no contribution to make except the old one that we have heard so often, the one that has failed already, the one comprised in the Motion, that once again we should begin to splash money about in the hope of finding in that way means of absorbing the unemployed, or else that we should change the whole system and substitute Socialism for Capitalism. How long is that going to take?

§ Mr. LANSBURY

Ask the Prime Minister?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

What, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, are the unemployed going to do in the meantime?

§ Mr. LANSBURY

You tell us now.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

The right hon. Gentleman would be more effective if he kept away from the purely personal line which inspired nearly the whole of the observations which he addressed to us. Surely we may reserve personal vendettas for less serious subjects than that which we are considering now. As far as the Government are concerned, they are convinced that the long experience which the country has now gained of the efforts of their predecessors over a series of years has enabled the country to distinguish the true policy from the false. They are further convinced that there exists to-day sufficient evidence to show that we are, at last, upon the right road. I, for my part, welcome the opportunity which the Opposition have given us to state as clearly as I can the aims of the Government in dealing with the unemployment problem, the methods which we have in view to achieve that end, and the reason why we have departed from the policy followed with varying degrees of enthusiasm by our predecessors.

On the Paper there is not only the official Opposition Motion, but an Amend- 1218 ment to it in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel). There is much in that Amendment to which I see very little reason to take any exception and, indeed, the matters mentioned in the latter part of the Amendment are all matters which, if judged upon their merits, are certainly worthy of support and some of them form portion of the declared policy of His Majesty's Government. But if hon. Members look at the first words of the Amendment they will find it clearly implied there that these proposals are put forward as a practical contribution towards the solution of the unemployment problem and as being likely in the long run to enable us to provide for a reduction in taxation. While, as I have said, on their merits these proposals are deserving of support, yet when they are put forward in that way as a remedy for unemployment they seem to fall into exactly the same fallacy, though perhaps not to the same degree, as the vague and sounding phrases of the Opposition Motion. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has recently become a convert to the doctrines of Signor Mussolini—a quite unexpected development on his part.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

When was this?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I saw in an article the other day that the right hon. Gentleman spoke with approval of the policy which he said had been advocated by a distinguished Italian statesman. I venture to say to him that it is always dangerous to apply to one country remedies which may be very suitable for another country where the conditions are quite different. It is true that we have been advocating and operating relief works of one kind or another in this country for the last 12 years. So long as we could cling to the idea that unemployment was only a passing phase and that therefore all we had to do was to provide some temporary employment until normal times returned, so long it seemed a very reasonable proposition to consider the advisability of anticipating needs which would normally not arise until a few years hence. But I do not think that any thoughtful Member of this House now believes that the mal-adjustments which have brought about this world-wide unemployment are likely to be corrected so 1219 rapidly and so completely that we can look forward with any confidence to the reduction of unemployment to a comparatively small figure, within, shall I say, the next 10 years.

As a matter of fact, we have already exhausted practically all we can do by way of anticipation of needs and that remedy is no longer open to us. I go further than that. The right hon. Gentleman has been to a large extent basing his denunciation of the present Government upon a misrepresentation—I am not saying a willful misrepresentation, but perhaps I might say a misunderstanding of the Government's position. He has said that the Government are of opinion that no public works of any kind ought to be undertaken. We have never said anything of the kind. What we are saying is that the provision of public works for the purpose of providing a remedy for unemployment has been tried out and has failed. The right hon. Gentleman says it has never been tried out.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

I said that nobody ever proposed it from this side.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am not interested whether the right hon. Gentleman proposed it or not, but I am interested in the question as to whether it is a practical remedy, and for that purpose I have tried to make a rough calculation of the sum that has been spent over a period of years in State-assisted works for the purpose of providing employment and for the development of various activities of local authorities, and I find that from April, 1924, down to September, 1931—that is, about 7½ years—the capital value of works of this kind, including housing, was about £700,000,000.

§ Sir HERBERT SAMUEL

Including roads?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Yes, including roads, but capital value only. I am not speaking of maintenance.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

Would the right hon. Gentleman give us, as I asked the Minister of Labour to give us, an analysis of that £700,000,000, showing just what it has been spent on? It is very important that we should know. I do not mean now.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I will not give a complete analysis—I do not really think that is necessary for the purpose of my argument—but I will give some analysis, a broad analysis, and it is as follows: £450,000,000 was spent on housing.

§ Mr. LANSBURY

Is that waste?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

The right hon. Gentleman still misunderstands the position. It is not a question of whether it is waste or not, but of how much employment has been provided and how far it was a remedy for the problem of unemployment. I hope presently that I shall get him to take in the argument. Of the remaining £250,000,000, £90,000,000 was capital expenditure upon roads, £120,000,000 was in unemployment grants, and £40,000,000 was in grants by the Lewis Committee. That makes the total of £700,000,000—£250,000,000 besides the expenditure on housing,

§ Sir H. SAMUEL

By unemployment grants does the right hon. Gentleman mean expenditure by the Unemployment Grants Committee?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Yes. There is an enormous sum of money which in 7½ years has been poured out and what effect has it had in reducing unemployment? I confess that I was astounded to find that the average number of men directly employed through, the expenditure of this money was only 90,000. The actual peak was reached during the period of office of the late Labour Government, when it rose, as has already been pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, to 114,000.

§ Mr. MORGAN JONES

Directly employed?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Yes, directly employed, but double it if you like, and put in the indirectly employed as well. That gives an average of 180,000; and what was the result on the total figures of unemployment? At the beginning of the period the unemployed were 1,250,000, and at the end of it they were 2,800,000. I cannot think how any thoughtful and intelligent person considering those figures can come to any other conclusion than that the expenditure of all that money—some of it remunerative in money and some of it remunerative, let us say, in 1221 health or in the general well-being of the people, but other parts of it completely unremunerative—did not even touch the fringe of the unemployment problem, but indeed left it worse than it was before. Therefore, I say that it is criminal folly to pursue that policy; to pursue it in the hope of deluding people into thinking that a policy which has continuously failed in the past is suddenly going, by some miraculous change, to succeed in the future, is a policy which certainly this Government will not support. No, it is the deliberate opinion of the Government that that policy has failed and that we must have done with it once and for all, and that is an opinion held unanimously by the Cabinet, held, that is, by men who have all tried this policy in one degree or another in the past, in separate parties, and who are satisfied now that the policy, if it ever was applicable to our conditions, is no longer so applicable.

§ Mr. THORNE

I can see some of your colleagues looking rather concerned about that statement.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Now I want to make, not a qualification—I have nothing to qualify in the statement I have made—but an addition, because it is so easy to misunderstand, especially when you are not very anxious to understand, and it is highly desirable that in this matter the Government should not be misunderstood. I ask the House not to read into my statement more than I have said. The hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Macmillan) yesterday used some phrase to the effect that we have now put the plug in the bath, and he thought it was time to turn on the hot water. One of The functions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to try to keep the House and the country from getting into hot water, and sometimes he has to put in cold for the purpose, but I do not want him or any other of the supporters of the Government to suppose that our attitude in this matter is one of rigid theory, or that we have not got exactly the same realisation as any of them may have that there may be cases, and indeed that there must be cases, where it is possible for the Government, in one way or another, to stimulate industry and, on its merits, to help forward a scheme which will give us an economic return.

1222 My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health yesterday removed, I trust, any misunderstanding which may have existed as to the attitude of the Government towards local authorities. Undoubtedly there are many works which could properly be put in hand by local authorities today, and certainly nothing that has been said or done by the Government ought to deter them from making applications for loans. I think myself that we have spent in the past a great deal more money upon roads than we could properly afford, but I am not prepared to say, although we certainly are not going to embark on another great programmed of road building, that there are not cases where, very properly and usefully, we might spend money upon the completion of a work which is not yet completed; I am not prepared to say that there are not cases now where the replacement or the alteration of a bridge might remove a bottle neck or an obstruction to traffic; I am not prepared to say that there is no expenditure which might properly be undertaken by Government Departments in replacing or in altering buildings which are inconvenient and do not offer a possibility of carrying on work effectively and economically; I am not prepared to say that it is not possible to develop, at an even greater rate than we are doing now, the telephone programme of the Post Office. All these are matters which are constantly under review by the Departments in conjunction with the Treasury, and I assure hon. Members that there is no Member of the Government who is freer from prejudice in these matters than I am or who is more anxious to view all these questions, not from the point of view of a rigid and unyielding economy, but from the point of view of common sense.

I might give another instance of the sort of thing that I have in mind, in connection with the express vessel which was laid down for the Cunard Company and work on which has been suspended. The Government have given a great deal of time to the examination of the position in relation to that ship, though I was sorry to see the other day definite statements in the Press about the resumption of work upon the Cunarder, which certainly were not justified by any of the facts. Yet it is the case that the Government have not shut the door to 1223 assistance in some form or another which would enable the completion of that vessel, but the assistance would have to be dependent upon the fulfilment of certain conditions which would seem essential to us if the objects for which the vessel was originally laid down are to be attained. Those conditions would include, among other things, the consolidation of existing British interests. I do not think that at the moment I can say more upon that subject usefully, except that the matter is being actively pursued, but I hope I have said enough to show that in all these matters what are guiding the Government are the merits of each individual case. I want, to prevent any possible misunderstanding, to repeat that, while we believe that the merits of a case may justify assistance by the Government, we cannot and must not expect that schemes of this kind, although they may attract a large amount of popular attention, are going to make any appreciable effect upon the major problem of unemployment.

The right hon. Gentleman dealt with one other matter about which I ought to say a word at once. He quoted some very interesting figures from an American report, which I dare say many of us had seen before. There is not the slightest doubt that the displacement of labour which is going on in every industry, and in agriculture as well, throughout the world, and which cannot be stopped, constitutes one of the greatest problems that lies before the civilised world in the immediate future. There has been a dislocation of the old equilibrium, and somehow or other a new adjustment has to be arrived at. That is not a problem to be solved in five minutes. It is one of the most difficult problems that you can approach, and it will attract the best brains in every country before a final solution is arrived at. In the meantime, there must be a transition period in which things will be very difficult, and unemployment will be largely increased by the operation of these causes. The right hon. Gentleman has no right to say that a delegation of the British Government went to Geneva and opposed a proposition for a shorter working week. If he has read the report of what took place at Geneva he must know that it is an altogether misleading description of what took place. In case he has not read it, 1224 I will read it now. Here is an extract from the report of the Preparatory Technical Conference on Hours held at Geneva: The British Government delegate stated that his Government considered that the question of the compulsory limitation of the hours of work to 40 a week had not yet been sufficiently examined to warrant a definite conclusion being reached, and that therefore his Government were opposed to proceeding at the present time with the project of a draft convention. He pressed for a comprehensive inquiry into the whole question before any definite action was taken. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] We are to take it from those triumphal cheers that the right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen opposite would at once proceed to the adoption of a draft convention before they made any inquiry as to what that might mean. It has not even yet been decided what effect it will have on rates of wages, and I do protest against the right hon. Gentleman so misrepresenting the attitude of the Government from purely party motives when every sensible trade unionist knows that to interfere in this delicate matter which connects and must connect hours of work and rates of wages without having decided what would be the effect upon the competitive power of British industry is sheer folly and lunacy.

What is the Government's policy in regard to unemployment? There is no vagueness about our aims or about our methods, although, of course, in matters of this kind, where we are dealing with forces which operate over a large part of the world, it is not possible for us to do everything without co-operation with other countries. I will define what our policy is, for purposes of convenience, under four heads, although I must say by way of warning that one cannot exactly divide it in that way because one head almost insensibly slides into another. The first essential towards the recovery of trade and increased employment is the restoration of confidence. I do not think that I say anything controversial when I state that in September, 1931, confidence in this country, in regard to both people in this country and people outside, was very badly shaken. Memories are so short that it is as well to repeat that at that time we actually had to borrow £130,000,000 in France and America in order that we might keep our currency from going out of control. 1225 Therefore, the first aim of the Government is to restore confidence. Can anybody say that we have not already to a large extent succeeded in that aim?

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) who, after delivering a speech an hour long in the Debate yesterday, has not thought it convenient to come here to-day—[HON. MEMBERS: "He has been here."] Where is he now? The right hon. Gentleman said that in his conversations with various people he could find nothing to justify any hope that things were really getting any better. I have heard him say that so many times before. In conversations of that kind a great deal depends on the way in which the questions are put. It is a curious thing that in the conversations I have had I get exactly the opposite reply. I am told on all hands that while the actual amount of business to be recorded moves only slowly upwards owing to a variety of obstacles, and particularly perhaps to the difficulties of obtaining payment from foreign customers, there is everywhere greater confidence among the buyers. As to the condition of things abroad, so far from having to borrow money in other countries, we are today embarrassed by a sort of flight to the pound which, if it were not for the existence of the Exchange Equalization Fund, might easily lead to fluctuations in the exchange value of sterling of a temporary character which would cause great embarrassment to our trade.

What is the explanation of this return of confidence? In the first instance, it was derived from the cessation of borrowing to balance the Budget—an operation, by the way, which some who have not my responsibilities are now urging upon me under the specious plea that it would be an act of boldness and courage. It was derived not merely by the balancing of the Budget, not merely by our economies and the imposition of extra taxation that we restored confidence; it was by the positive step we took to check the trade balance and to stimulate industry. By the Import Duties Act we regained control of the home market, and as the result of that the House is aware that the excess of imports over exports of merchandise was reduced by £120,000,000.

§ Sir H. SAMUEL

Did not the depreciation of the pound have anything to do with that?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

It had something to do with it, but not the major part.

§ Sir H. SAMUEL

It was by far the major part.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

That is not a matter which is susceptible of proof. Then the success of the Ottawa Conference, in spite of the gloomy prognostications which were made by some of those who did not wish to see this country make agreements with other countries of the Empire, helped to restore confidence. Then the cheapening of money which followed upon the great Conversion Loan operation has also contributed greatly to the same result. Our success is not complete; how could it be with the world as it is in present conditions? Checks and disappointments are inevitable, but they should not lead us to be discouraged. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs yesterday told a story of how during the War, when things were not going very well, he asked a distinguished general: "How long is this War going to last, and when will it end?"

§ Mr. CHURCHILL

"By what means will it be brought to a conclusion?"

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend. What was the answer he got? It was, "Keep pegging away." The right hon. Gentleman did not say what his comments upon that answer were at the time, but I can imagine them. To keep pegging away was the thing to do, and in the end it won the War. Today we have to keep pegging away if we are to succeed in bringing about trade recovery. We have had a disappointment about inter-governmental obligations. The right hon. Gentleman spoke almost with glee of the fact that no single nation had yet ratified the provisional agreement arrived at Lausanne. As a matter of fact, nobody expected that that agreement would be ratified by any nation at this stage. It has been said that I am surprised and disappointed that the United States Government was not able to agree to the suspension of the payment due last December. That was a 1227 set-back, just as we had set-backs in the War; but the right hon. Gentleman did not despair then, and I see no reason why we should despair now. Keep on pegging away. Even though we may from time to time find that we are not getting on as fast as we should like, nevertheless, if we persist we shall get there in time. I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman has changed his views, not because he is 15 years older than he was then—though it is difficult to see that he is—but because he was then in charge of national affairs and now he is not.

My second head is that we have got to raise wholesale prices. We must raise gold prices if we can, and, in any case, we must raise sterling prices. I am not now going to enter into any argument about how that can be done. The House knows there are two views upon that subject, and that one thing which is certain is that no steps that have yet been taken to that end by any country have been successful. Nevertheless, there is one case in which we here have been able to act without any assistance from other nations, or at least with assistance only to a limited extent, and that concerns meat, because ours is practically the only market for surplus meat. The arrangement made at Ottawa for the voluntary regulation of the production of meat, an arrangement which was extended after we came home, has already achieved an amount of success which encourages us to think that it might be extended with advantage to other commodities.

As to other methods of raising prices, they are really involved in my third and fourth heads, which are respectively "The provision of cheap money" and "International co-operation." Regarding money, I think it will be generally agreed that while the provision of easy credit and low interest rates will not, of themselves, suffice to produce trade recovery, yet they are an essential precedent to trade recovery. I do not think anybody will deny that we have at any rate provided cheap money. The House may be interested in these figures, which illustrate what happened to the rates of interest during last year. I have a table which compares the rates of interest in January, 1932, and January, 1933. The 1228 Bank Rates was, at the first date, 6 per cent., and it is now 2 per cent. The Treasury Bill Rate was 4.982 per cent., and it is now .768 per cent. Three months fine bank bills, 5.56 per cent. in January, 1932, now 88 per cent. Day-to-day money, 4.19 per cent., now 7 per cent. The long-term rate of interest, as measured by the yield on buying 4 per cent. Funding Loan in the market, was 5.01 per cent. in December, 1931, and 3.55 per cent. in December, 1932. That is a direct result of the Conversion Loan.

§ Mr. MAXTON

Was not the Conversion Loan just one item among others?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I cannot enter into a discussion on that point now. I say this table shows the very striking contrast between the rates of interest prevalent at the beginning of last year and at the end, I need hardly add that the present rates are the lowest since the end of the War. It is satisfactory to be able to say that, so far as we can see, the long-term rate may be considered almost as a permanent acquisition, and so far as the short-term rate is concerned it is likely to continue for a very considerable time. Some people would say that an abundant supply of money is even more important than cheap money. In order to test that we have to look at the bankers' deposits at the Bank of England, and at the deposits at the Joint Stock Banks. Bankers' deposits, which in 1931 averaged £64,700,000—not a very different figure from the preceding years—had in 1932 reached £81,300,000, and in January, 1933, they averaged nearly £114,000,000. The deposits of the public with the London Clearing Banks in January, 1932, amounted to £1,714,000,000, and in January, 1933, had risen to £1,983,000,000. Although 1932 was a year of great conversion operations, and therefore not a particularly favourable period for new issues, still, it is not unsatisfactory to see that new capital issues for industrial purposes in the United Kingdom, excluding local authority issues, amounted in 1931 to £32,900,000 and in 1932 had risen to £75,900,000.

It may be asked, "With all this money lying idle, why is it not used? "The answer to that is, "Because confidence has not yet been wholly restored, and because of the international barriers to 1229 trade which prevent the use of that money." It is in order that we may try to get the international barriers if not removed at any rate lowered, that we have urged and done all we could to promote the calling of an international conference. I know that some people get disheartened by the delays, jealousies and cross-currents which always seem to arise at international conferences so that they are sometimes inclined to say, "Why not give them a miss, do without them altogether, and see if you cannot work entirely within your own boundaries." That is a policy of despair. If these international questions are to be solved, it can only be done by international co-operation, and to those who say, "Then, are you going to wait until it is possible to convene this Conference, which is so frequently put off?" our only answer must be "Yes, we must wait until it is possible to convene that Conference," but if in the meantime we are making any progress towards a better understanding with other nations on the subjects which will be discussed at the Conference, then the time is not wasted, because when we come together we shall be nearer agreement and will find it easier to come to a conclusion. It is a hopeful sign that the Preparatory Committee of experts which met at Geneva were able to secure so large a measure of agreement upon a series of subjects upon which there was every reason to expect that there would be wide divergences of opinion.

So I claim on behalf of the Government that this policy which I have set forth under these four heads is not only a constructive policy, not only an intelligible policy, but is already producing results which can be seen and which justify us in saying it is the right policy. When we come to examine the situation we must always remember the background against which it is to be measured. All the industrial nations are being carried along, like logs on a Canadian river, by a stream of forces bearing us down the valley of depression. All of us are fighting against the current, and if we want to see whether the methods of one nation are better or worse, or more or less successful, than those of another we must not merely look at the bank but look to see also whether we are overtaking them or they are overtaking us.

1230 I ask the House to consider these few figures dealing comparatively with employment, with production, with exports and retail trade. As to employment, in 1932 the numbers of the unemployed in this country averaged 2,813,000, an increase of 3 per cent. over the figures for 1931. In Germany they averaged 5,561,000, an increase of 22 per cent. over 1931. Insured persons who were in employment in the United Kingdom in 1932 showed a decrease of 1 per cent. over the preceding year, but the index of persons employed in manufacturing industries in the United States during the same year showed a decrease of 17 per cent. In the case of production, during the first nine months of 1932 production in the United Kingdom showed an increase of 1 per cent. over 1931. The figures for the United States showed a depreciation of 25 per cent., in Germany 22 per cent. and in France 55 per cent. The volume of exports of the United Kingdom was slightly higher last year than in the year before. Germany's exports were 30 per cent. worse. During the first nine months of 1932—the only period for which I have the figures—they were 21 per cent. worse in the United States, and in France during 1932 they were 24 per cent. worse. In the case of the retail trade, the latest returns show that the value of that trade in the United Kingdom fell by only about 4.7 per cent. in the United States by 25 per cent., and in Germany 19 per cent.; while, if we take the volume of the retail trade, it was steady in this country and in the other countries was down about 10 per cent.

In view of those figures, which show that at least we are not going down the stream like other countries; in view of the vast and admitted improvement in the condition of this country compared with last year; in view of the restoration of confidence which is apparent everywhere except when the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs is present, I ask the House not to be tempted into thinking that short cuts are a better policy than the one we have been pursuing. Short cuts are often the longest way round. I have told the House that the Government are fully alive to the possibilities of stimulating trade where suitable opportunities arise, and that they are not going to be hypnotised by any preconceived ideas or theories. I 1231 suggest to hon. Members that we cannot succeed in our aims by any panicky or hysterical changes of policy. What we have to do is to keep pegging away, as the general said, and trust to persistent and consistent efforts; and, above all, we must sustain our courage and our determination.

§ Mr. CHURCHILL

I will only venture to detain the House for a short time, because I had not intended to intervene at all until I heard some of the statements which fell from my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I must say I think something should be done to express the feeling of disappointment, and even of hopelessness, which must have arisen in many hearts as he proceeded upon his precise, well marshaled, orderly discourse. What is the picture that he puts before the House and before the country? What is the proposition? It is that everything is being done that can be done and that all is proceeding satisfactorily and in due course, but that, in spite of all this, many years must pass before the figures of unemployment can be reduced to—I think he said—a small figure. That is a ghastly prospect for us all to have to face, and it was that phrase of the right hon. Gentleman's that induced me to trespass for this moment upon the time of the House.

Ten years! Is that the last word of His Majesty's Government? I rejoice to think that by the unexampled provision which this nation made for the relief of distress through insurance schemes and otherwise, and by the faithful performances of the taxpayer, material distress is to a very large extent withheld from our people, even in this terrible time, but material distress is not the whole evil of unemployment. There is this frightful moral agony of unemployment. Take the case of the 3,000,000 unemployed. You are not merely dealing with the weaker brethren, with men who hardly ever keep a job, but you are dealing with a couple of million men who have hardly ever been out of work in the whole of their lives. Take these men. I see the figure of the breadwinner, the father of the family, sitting in his chair in his cottage. Ten years! His wife has perhaps got a job 1232 —perhaps she has got his job—and his daughter may have got a job. His son, a young boy, may have got some blind-alley occupation. The father of the family, whose honour and faith are pledged to carry those dependants on his shoulders, sits there in his chair, a burden upon the house, helpless in the midst of those whom he had vowed himself to defend, his very right to exist challenged in the land for which, perhaps, he had been ready to sacrifice his life not many years ago. It is no good going to that man and saying: "Keep pegging away!" What has he to keep pegging away at?

I am not impressed by the argument of the Government, neither with those which were used by the Minister of Health yesterday, nor with those of my Tight hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that all measures of stimulating or subsidising production in one form or another ought to be ruled out at this time, because they have failed in the past. I do not think that it is true to say that they have failed. They may not have stemmed the enormous world tide of unemployment, but they may have mitigated it. In fact, you can show that they have to a certain extent mitigated its force. Naturally, if you have a great world tide of unemployment flowing, you will be able to show a much larger total of unemployment at the end of the year, although you may have received benefit from those measures. I deprecate altogether the non sequitur that because unemployment has increased while remedial measures were employed such measures should no longer be adopted. I think that the Government would have been very well advised last August in taking some steps to open up, as far as they could, the building trade and the development of public works. There are some very well-known, great public works, one of which I see was destroyed last night, and which at any rate would give us a better island to live in after they were completed.

I would not for a moment ask the Government to perform impossibilities or to reproach them, because they cannot cure unemployment, but unemployment has only increased about a quarter of a million in the last six months. It would have been quite 1233 possible, by taking prudent steps last summer or last autumn, to take that extra 250,000 off. It would not have rid us of the evil and it would not have solved the problem, but it would have given the Government the right to say that they had stemmed the tide and that there was a diminution, however small, and not an increase, in unemployment. Believe me, an event of that kind would have a far greater effect upon your credit, upon your national prestige and upon the reputation and authority of the Government, than anything you will get out of a £50,000,000 Sinking Fund, however strictly and punctually it is enforced. It would not have been a reasonable thing to embark on another large, bold programmed at a time when there was public panic, as there was in 1931. Of course, you could not do it when there was a great conversion operation, but all could have been put in readiness, and I am bound to say that nothing that I have heard in this Debate has shaken my view that it would have been a wise and reasonably prudent step, justified on the highest economic and on the broadest grounds of long policy, to have set on foot a programmed sufficient to have brought a quarter of a million mere men into employment at this moment.

I entirely agree that these are but palliatives. What I felt in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the hopelessness. I greatly preferred his speech, with its carefully considered and marshaled arguments, to the Prime Minister's broadcast; that, I thought, was most deplorable. The Prime Minister likes to broadcast. He has endeavoured to secure a monopoly of it for himself, and he endeavours to exclude from the use of that great organ any opponents and any critics. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman did not make a better use of it. When I heard those statements about the duck pond—no, it was the paddle-pool—and the rope mats, and the renovation of the archaic Roman bridge, I thought of those men sitting in their cottages, in this distress that falls upon them, and I am bound to say that I think that that speech must have been a shock, a very great and an insulting shock to them, coming as it did from a Prime Minister who, in the first in- 1234 stance, led the Socialist party into office on the claim that he could cure—virtually cure—unemployment.

Then the Bethnal Green letter—the "death-knell Green letter" it might be called—which has been expanded and expatiated upon by the Chancellor of the Exchequer this afternoon, is virtually a statement that there is no immediate plan or policy which the Government are pursuing, other than allowing the great drift of world events to take their course. I do not think that it is right to condemn men because they cannot encounter the tide of world events, but you are entitled to condemn them if the spirit which they produce does not show that they are endeavoring as far as they can to do so. Immense powers reside in this Government. You compare its action with previous Governments; that is not fair. No previous Government, except in the War, has had the power which this Government has, an absolute power. In both Houses of Parliament, overwhelming majorities; a mighty Press to support them; broadcasting. You have every power at your disposal, and all that is to come, is what we have heard today. I am sure that when the right hon. Gentleman's speech is read it will be felt all over the country that it is very poor, thin fare for this nation, and that a far greater constructive effort, more grip, more mental energy, more resourcefulness ought to be represented by those who have those great powers, and who are in charge of our destinies. If this that we have heard today is the last word that the Government have to speak upon this problem, then indeed the outlook before us is grave and lamentable.

§ Mr. DAGGAR

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has attempted to give the impression that the Leader of the Opposition held that the Government are responsible for the unemployment problem. That was afterwards supported by the statement that the increase in unemployment was not due to the action of the Government. We have never held that the Government are responsible for the problem of unemployment, and I challenge the accuracy of the statement; but we also challenge the accuracy of the statement that the increase of the problem is not due to the action of the Government. In any case, whether the 1235 Government are responsible for the increase or not, we maintain that they should so administer the Unemployment Insurance Fund as not to permit the unemployed to starve in this country.

Reference has been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Danbury), who moved the Motion, to the very sad case which was reported in the newspapers, in which a mother starved herself in order that her children might have sufficient to keep themselves alive. We were told in the newspapers that there were nine in that family living on £2 8s. a week, and that, even in that instance, 3s. per week was coming into the home as a result of the employment of one of the members of the family. There are hundreds of thousands of cases similar to that one, and, in fact, worse, because one child was earning 3s. a week. I wish to direct the attention of the House to the statement that was made by the coroner, an educated individual, and a man in an important office. He stated that it seemed to him that there was something wrong that those people should be starving. He said: I should call it starving to have to feed nine people on £2 8s. per week and pay the rent. If there were any justification for the Motion, it would be the fact that here is an educated man who gives the impression that he was not aware that nine people were expected to live on a miserable £2 8s. per week, an amount for which this Government is largely responsible. In the Motion we ask that the Government should initiate a plan that will increase the total production of wealth in this country. I do not entertain the slightest hope that the Government will pay any regard to that item in the Motion, because they are already convinced, as has been pointed out previously from these benches, that it is preferable, and, in fact, more economical, to pay unemployment insurance benefit, rather than to provide employment for the unemployed. On 4th November last year we had a three days' Debate on this question of unemployment. The Government always ignore the fact that when men are idle there is, with 3,000,000 unemployed, an annual loss of £600,000,000 1236 worth of wealth to this country. There is not only the payment of benefit to unemployed men—which, we contend, is wrong and economically unsound—but the possibility that there would otherwise be of producing wealth is being lost to the extent of £600,000,000 a year. As was pointed out in the Debate to which I have referred, we have never had less than 1,500,000 unemployed since 1921, and, following the same basis of calculation, we have lost in wealth, in nine years, over £2,700,000,000. That item is always conveniently ignored by the Government, who contend that it is cheaper to provide our unemployed people with unemployment benefit than it is to provide them with employment.

Reference is made in the Motion to the reduction that has taken place in the purchasing power of the masses under the present Administration, and I desire to emphasise the extent of this decrease. The rates of wages were reduced in 1932—and, by the way, I am not blaming the Government for that reduction; all that I am doing is emphasising the terms of the Motion, which points out that there has been a considerable decrease in the purchasing power of our people. Wages were reduced at the rate of over £248,000 a week, or, in a year, some £12,412,000. During 1931 and 1932 there has been a reduction in the wages of our people of over £32,400,000. What is still worse is that, while wages have been reduced, the working hours have been actually considerably increased. In 1932, the hours per week were increased by 7,500, equivalent to 375,000 for the year; and the total increase in the number of hours worked by our people in 1931 and 1932 was over 7,000,000, as compared with an actual decrease, in the year 1930, of 43,675,000. I assume that it is a mere coincidence that we should be taking part in a discussion on unemployment on the 16th February of this year, and that a Motion on the same subject was discussed in this House on almost the same day last year, namely, the 17th February. The Minister of Labour, in the course of that discussion, said: The Motion stands in the names of six hon. Gentlemen, four of whom are connected with the coal industry, and are, indeed, among the most trusted and experienced leaders of the miners. They are, I know, as disturbed as I am at the disclosure of figures which show that there is 1237 an increase of unemployment in that industry. They are anxious, as I am anxious, that this House as a House of Commons and the Government as a Government should do all that they can to help the coal industry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT 17th February, 1932; col. 1715, Vol. 261.] I would ask, what have the Government done since that statement was made in 1932? What are the facts with regard to the mining industry at the present moment? Last year, the output of coal in Great Britain was only 209,250,000 tons, showing a decrease, as compared with 1931, of over 10,250,000 tons. The output in 1932, as compared with 1930, showed a decrease of 34,750,000 tons. The 1932 output, compared with that of 1929, showed a decrease of 48,750,000 tons. It is to the credit of someone—certainly not to the discredit of those who occupy these benches—that this, with the exception of 1921 and 1926, during two national stoppages, is the lowest output of coal in this country for the last 34 years. The exports, obviously, reflect the decrease in the amount of coal produced in this country, and we find that last year, as compared with the year 1931, the exports of coal from this country were reduced by over 3,850,000 tons; while the exports for last year, as compared with 1930, show a decrease of approximately 16,000,000 tons.

As to unemployment among miners, we are told that on 19th, December, 1932, there were no fewer than 305,385 unemployed miners. The figure for 1931 was 257,223, so that the number of unemployed miners last year, as compared with 1931, was increased by 48,162. During the same discussion, the Minister of Labour said that part of that increase—there was an increase at that time—was due to the exceptionally mild winter. I submit that the right hon. Gentleman should immediately send his compliments to the Labour Correspondent of the "Times" newspaper, who, in commenting on the figures supplied by the right hon. Gentleman's Department as to the number of persons unemployed in this country, which appeared in the "Times" of 7th February, made this statement: The severe weather—for the day on which the count was taken was the coldest for four years—may explain part of an increase of between 13,000 and 14,000 in the number of building industry workers unemployed in London and the south-east, 1238 where, also, between 9,000 and 10,000 additional distributive trades workpeople were without employment. The Minister last year contended that the increase in the number of unemployed was due to mild weather; while the gentleman in the "Times," who was only stating a fact, said that the increase last year was due to the weather being of a rather severe kind. It is about time that the Government ceased giving us such childish, trivial, puerile explanations of the continual increase in the number of unemployed. Such explanations, in my opinion, are only surpassed by a statement ascribed to no less an authority than Sir Charles Marston, that be believed that the real cause of the distress and unemployment in this country was due to the fact that 75 per cent. of the people never entered a place of worship.

I have been consulting what is known as the Local Employment Index, which gives the percentage of unemployed among the insured population. I may, perhaps, be pardoned for referring for a moment to my own constituency, which is one of the distressed areas of South Wales, and is typical of many areas in South Wales. My Division is served by three Employment Exchanges, which are responsible for the registration of the unemployed, and also pay out benefit every week. We have one at Crumlin, one at Abertillery, and one at Blains. I find that the percentage of unemployed among the insured population in 1931, at Crumlin, was 20.1. In 1932 it had increased to 43.2. In Abertillery, in 1931, the percentage was 29.2, and last year that figure had increased to 66 per cent. Blains, the conditions of which are well known in other parts of Great Britain, had a percentage, in 1931, of 45.9, and last year the percentage was 78.4. That is as compared with percentages, for the whole of Wales, of 30.9 in 1931, and 38.0 in 1932. The tragedy is not to be found solely in these figures. The tragedy, in my opinion, is to be found in the conditions in Blain, where in 1931, among the juveniles, there was an increase of 113 per cent., and in 1932 an increase of over 156 per cent.—to be exact, 156.7

. We, as representatives of mining areas, claim that the continual depression in our divisions is due mainly, if not solely, to the tariff policy of the Government. Last evening my hon. Friend the Member for 1239 Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) made a similar charge against the Government. There was the usual Tory titter on the benches behind him, and it was joined by a Member who represents a mining area, and who should have known better, because, to my knowledge, he had been supplied with the information with which I am about to deal. We contend, as miners representatives, rightly or wrongly—and to put us right is the responsibility of Members of the Government—that tariffs have had the effect of reducing the amount of coal exported to Germany. This was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Spennymoor, and I shall be pleased to be corrected if the observations I am about to make are not well founded. We have never held the view that the reduction in the amount of coal exported from this country to Germany is due to the German quota system, but we say that the reduction in the amount of coal under that system has been largely due to the tariff policy of this Government, and has been responsible for rendering permanently unemployed an additional 12,000 to 15,000 miners in South Wales.

What are the facts? They can be found in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade on 23rd March, 1932. He stated that in September, 1931, Germany took from this country under her quota system, which I agree was in existence before the tariff policy was tried, 420,000 tons of coal per month. On 1st October of the same year she reduced her quota of British coal to 300,000 a month. On 1st February she further reduced it to 200,000 tons a month, and on 1st March to 150,000 tons a month. On 1st April, not an inappropriate date having regard to the existence of the present Government, Germany further reduced her quota to 100,000 tons, and that is all the coal that she is taking from Great Britain. The first Bill that embodied the tariff policy of the Government was introduced on 18th November, 1931. The second Bill, known as the Import Duties Bill, was introduced on 4th February. So that the reduction from 300,000 tons per month to 100,000 tons was due, in our opinion, to the tariff measures of the Government. If it is right to assume that Germany anticipated tariffs with the advent of a Tory Administration, the further reduction from 1240 420,000 tons per month in September to 300,000 tons in October was due entirely to the tariff policy of this Government. Even if Germany did not anticipate tariffs being introduced by this Government, the reduction of 120,000 tons per month before the first tariff Measure is less than the subsequent reduction of 200,000 tons per month.

The Minister of Labour, in a speech that he delivered on 19th March, said he believed that he was justified in entertaining feelings of unrestrained optimism as to the future. I should like to know his feelings now after the Government's tariff policy has been tried, and after the conclusion of so many international conferences. The right hon. Gentleman is not quite as optimistic today as he was 12 months ago, but the Prime Minister, with unrestrained modesty, is saying precisely the same things now. Last week he said: There are definite signs of increased activity. There are now signs of national recovery. He may be a reliable politician, but he certainly is not a person upon whom any reliance can be placed with reference to what may happen in the future. I prefer the statement of Sir Arthur Salter who said: The signs of a real revival in trade are scarcely yet visible. That is borne out by the increase in the number of unemployed from 25th January, 1932, to 23rd January. 1933, which amounts to 468,978. We are generally told that there are more in employment. the right hon. Gentleman has made that statement on more occasions than one, but he will derive no satisfaction from that source in replying to this Debate, because on 23rd January last the number in employment was a little over 9,285,000, which is 172,000 less than in December of last year and 76,000 less than in the year before. We are also told that a particular month's figures are not reliable. Let us take the year's figures. In 1932, compared with 1931, there was a decrease in the number of persons in employment of 69,000, and that is the lowest figure since 1923—another record under a tariff administration. Comparing 1932 with 1930, there is a decrease of those in employment of over 445,000 and, compared with 1929, a decrease of 868,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who can 1241 always be relied upon to deliver a sour speech when a Motion is under discussion the terms of which do not agree with himself, said in November last: We have to recognise that, while we may hope to get an. increasing number of them employed in their own trades, it is a large number who are not going to find that employment, and we must make some provisions to make their lives happier and more tolerable and to preserve in them their self-respect and their fitness to take work if work should be available."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th November, 1932; col. 261, Vol. 270.] The Government cannot claim that they have endeavoured to do that. They have taken from the unemployed, by the means test alone, over £10,000,000 a year and, by reducing benefits, have also taken £12,800,000 a year and from those who are in employment, in the form of increased contributions they have extracted no less than £5,000,000 a year—a very peculiar method of maintaining the self-respect of an unemployed man and making it possible, when an opportunity of employment should offer, for that man to enter an insured industry. It is a wonderful method, a typically Tory method, of making people's lives happier and preserving their self-respect.

The Prime Minister has also told the unemployed what he has done and what he is prepared to do for them. In the letter to which reference has been made this statement is to be found: With a view to doing everything possible to assist those who must in the meantime suffer from unemployment, the Government has, therefore, as you know, with the co-operation of the National Council of Social Service, enlisted the help of voluntary bodies throughout the country for the provision of occupation and recreation of unemployed persons and for caring for their welfare generally. Much excellent work in this way is already being done. That is the only gracious act of the Government to which we are under an obligation to refer. They made a grant to the National Counc