Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Bill.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 13 April 1938.

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Photo of Reverend James Barr Reverend James Barr , Coatbridge

I at once bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. My point was that the Ridley Committee says most distinctly that, in fixing the date you must take into consideration all the areas, and it expressly says that Scotland will not be satisfied with a date that might suit England and Wales, and therefore, it takes a different line. It was with that argument that I was dealing, but I do not pursue it. I thought it was a point, and I just mention it in the words of the great philosopher, Immanuel Kant: Act so that you can universalise the law of your maximum "— Which means, If your date is not suitable for Scotland, then it will have to be removed for the others. [Interruption.] Yes, that is exactly what Kant meant. I might just say that the minority report of the Ridley Committee, which was signed by Councillor Brady, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague), used these words: Our examination of the proposal convinces us that any hard-and-fast fixation of the period of control is undesirable. They go on to argue that they are not of opinion that we should deal with decontrol as though it were a thing that was necessarily desirable, but rather that a certain measure of control might still have to be exercised. There is one other consideration only of a general kind that I adduce, and I think it applies to England as well as to Scotland. House building has reached a certain crisis in respect of luxury building, labour and materials. So much so that in Scotland we have had two conferences on the subject, one on 30th September of last year, and the other on 25th March last. They were by no means confined to any one party. All Members of Parliament were invited, and representatives of county councils and other local authorities. The first of these was presided over by Sir lain Colquhoun of Luss, Bart., Convener of the County of Dumbarton, and the second by the Vice-Convener. They said that unless certain measures were taken, the building of houses for the working classes might be brought to a complete close in Scotland.

The conclusion that I draw from the figures that I have submitted is that the problem will still be there in vast proportions at the time of the date fixed in the Bill, and still calling for some measure of control. Behind it are the question of increase of rent, the raising of standards, and of general housing progress. I understand that, in any case, Parliament will come in, and that the Minister has given a promise of a committee of inquiry as to whether it should he the date in the Bill or another date. In the town of Jedburgh in Scotland there was a celebrated judgment given in the reign of James VI. Some summary executions were carried out. From that time it was known as exacting what was called "Jeddart justice," according to which a man was hanged first, and tried afterwards. The Minister, in putting in this determination in the first Clause of the Bill and then appointing a committee of inquiry, is giving us a new form of Jeddart justice. Before he has even started his State trial, and before he has elected his jury, he raises the gallows in the first Clause, which I will call the first charge in his indictment, and fixes the date of the public execution, namely, 24th June, 1942. History has a strange way of repeating itself, and, long before 24th June, 1942, comes round, it will, I predict, be true of the right hon. Gentleman and his gallows: So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.