Clause 1. — (Appointment of Commissioners.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Coal Industry Commission Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 25 February 1919.

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Photo of Mr John Clynes Mr John Clynes , Manchester Platting

If the Home Secretary is making very brief speeches with the object of saving Parliamentary time, I hope he will forgive me for venturing the opinion that he is making the industrial situation rather more difficult by not going more fully into these matters. He is not saving the industrial situation by avoiding some fuller answer to the points which have been submitted from this side of the House. The whole case is not covered by the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation of the effect of this Amendment upon the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman should look at the matters as they come beforethe House in the light of the effect that they will have upon the whole industrial situation. The Bill apparently is especially submitted to Parliament because of the grave industrial situation in the country. It is from that standpoint that these Amendments ought to be treated and discussed. Probably to-morrow hundreds of thousands of workmen, including a large number of miners, will turn to see what the Government have had to say officially through the mouth of the Home Secretary on this Amendment,definitely asking that the Commission should not be empowered to investigate the question whether or not the mines should become national property. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] We have had no definite statement upon that question from the right hon. Gentleman. We have been assured that the great work of reconstruction is to be undertaken by this Government, and that immense changes are to be set on foot so as to make this an entirely different country. We cannot have these immense changes if we are going to proceed upon lines which will substantially leave things as they are. Very many big alterations must take place, and in our view this is one of them.

Coal is the foundation of practically all our other industries, and of all our great commercial undertakings. It is a commodity so socially necessary that we feel that it ought to be socially owned and controlled. I venture to say that if public opinion were sounded on this specific question it would be shown to be overwhelmingly in favour of making the mines the property of the nation. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I grant that the country has been quite recently consulted, but I submit to hon. Members opposite that if they had definitely told the electors in their constituencies that they would not vote in favour of the nationalisation of mines they would, at least, have had increased difficulties in getting returned to this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I do not want to exaggerate the point, but so far as one can judge from the Press, from conversation, and through all those mediums through which filters what we term public opinion, a great deal of popular approval of the miners' claim has been manifested. A reassuring statement from the Government on thepoint would, therefore, have a very close relation to the issues in dispute, and would go far in allaying some of that feeling in the minds of the miners that the Government have no sympathy whatever with what they conceive to be the source of many of the grievances from which they have suffered for many years. I submit tothe House that this above all other points is a question which ought not to be sublet, which ought not to be delegated to any outside body, but which should be dealt with by a big assembly like this Coming as we do fresh from the country surely we can claim to be able to deal with this question and to have from experience, and from our own knowledge the material wherewith to resolve in our own minds whether the mines should be the property of the nation or not.

If we cannot have a definite opinion without investigation can we have some statement from the right hon. Gentleman as to what the attitude of the Government will be in the event of the view being expressed by the Commission that the nationalisation of the mines would have the effect of securingmore economical working and would enable the work to afford better conditions and wages for the miners. I submit that the right hon. Gentleman ought not to treat this matter in such sparse terms as he has done, and ought to have in mind the effect on theminers'attitude. This week and next may prove crucial weeks for the country for probably a good many months to come, and I should like some more sympathetic attitude, some more hope, some more reassuring statement made to us before we are obliged to carrythis matter into the Division Lobby. We know that we shall be beaten, but that is not the point. The mere record of the figures one way or the other will not alter the industrial temper at the moment, and if the right hon. Gentleman can say anything which will tend to lessen the feeling of soreness in the mind of Labour, then I think we shall not have pressed him in vain.