Compensation for Damage (Northern Ireland) Grant.

Part of Orders of the Day — Civil Services and Revenue Departments Estimates and Supplementary Estimate, 1922–23. – in the House of Commons at on 17 May 1922.

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Photo of Mr William Adamson Mr William Adamson , Fife Western

I do not propose to follow the line taken by the last two speakers, for I want to deal with the Vote before the Committee from a particular point of view. The hon. and gallant Member for South Antrim (Captain Craig) said that, in consequence of the responsibility of the Government for many of the happenings in Ireland, he thought that this country was bound to help so far as meeting the damage was concerned, and I do not know that that would he seriously contested by the Committee. One of the things, however, upon which I am certain the Committee would like to be assured, is that, in passing a Vote of this character, which has for its object the compensation of people who have suffered either personally or materially, all sections of the people of Ireland are to be justly and fairly treated in connection with the payment of that compensation. I think that in the consideration of the payment of compensation a section of the people of Northern Ireland have been overlooked, and it is for them that I desire to speak. The hon. Member for Falls (Mr. Devlin) stated in the course of his eloquent speech that he was putting the special case of that section of the people of Northern Ireland who were willing to labour and were prevented from doing so; and he stated that that section of the Irish people had had to be compensated largely by private charity. I think he said that no less a sum than £500,000 had been contributed from various sources for the purpose of helping to maintain them.

I want to draw the attention of the Chief Secretary to the fact that the sum mentioned by the hon. Member for Falls did not entirely account for all that had to he done on behalf of that section of the people of Northern Ireland, namely, the organised workers who were thrown out of employment in the shipyards. That £500,000 did not represent all that it had cost to maintain these nice and their dependants. The attention of the Labour party has been drawn time after time to the fact that, on account of the prevention of those men from following their usual employment in the shipyards and elsewhere, many of our trade unions have had to incur a heavy liability. I have here a communication from the secretary of one of our trade unions to the secretary of the Labour party, asking that, when we are considering this question of compensation for damage done in Northern Ireland, we should urge upon the Chief Secretary and the Committee the necessity for taking into consideration the large amount of money that has had to be expended by the trade unions of the country in maintaining the men and women who are being brutally forced out of employment, particularly in Belfast. This secretary goes on to say that his own union has not only had to pay out-of-work benefit to these men and women, but that there has also been a very substantial bill for replacing tools belonging to the members which were deliberately destroyed. That alone has cost this union no less a sum than £3,000. He goes on to say that the cost of out-of-work benefit to their members who were thrown out of employment in this way—men whose only crime was that they were Catholics and trade unionists—[Interruption]—amounted to no less a sum than £10,000, in addition to the £3,000 which I have already mentioned for tools that had been wantonly destroyed.