Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 6 October 1931.
Mr Andrew MacLaren
, Stoke-on-Trent Burslem
If I am going to be tied down merely to commenting on the Bill, and not showing as best I can that it does not cope with the situation at all, and that it is the wrong way to deal with a rise in the prices of food, I have at least given a hint of what I think might have been done to increase the supplies in the country and keep down prices. With regard to this whole bureaucratic tendency of running around and inquiring and nosing into people's little shops, and finding out what they are all doing, I believe in allowing the free operation of natural economic Laws to determine prices, and not in calling upon busybodies to run along and see what everybody else is doing. It seems, however, that one is left almost alone in this House to advocate freedom of action and leaving to the operation of natural law those things which we now seem to think the bureaucracy in Whitehall can do under the instructions of Governments. It has been tried in other countries, and wherever you go in Australia, for instance, and make inquiries as to the operation of the fixation of prices, you hear all sorts of complaints, and not merely complaints, but reports as to the way in which certain people who are selling at prices which may be deemed to be inordinate are allowed to continue those prices if a certain amount of consideration is handed over between the man in the shop and the inspector. I am not saying that that would happen here, but the temptations are there, none the less.
Your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, has been so severe that I feel that my wings are clipped, because I looked forward to the Third Reading to give the Bill a proper trouncing, and I hoped to make it plain that there were other ways and means of dealing with food prices than by setting up machinery of this kind. I was interested to notice that the Minister said he hoped that six months would be quite enough time to give this Bill, and indeed it would not be proper in the interests of—shall I use the phrase?—window-dressing to extend the six months to a year. But surely we cannot look at what is lying ahead of us without feeling that measures will have to be prolonged much longer than six months. There are 12 months lying ahead of us, and it will take a very wise Government, and very busy all the time, and much more busy during the next 12 months than the Prime Minister was during the past two years, to reconstruct society and rear it into some semblance of normality out of the mess in which it now finds itself. By the end of six months, probably, the difficulties will have been accentuated, what with the drop in wages caused by the insurance policy and the tendency for prices to rise.
I was amazed to hear the Minister suggest that we had certain supplies in the country which he thought would be quite sufficient to cope with any emergency, because last week one of the leading financial journals of this country tabulated almost a column of articles that were bound to rise in price in the near future; and, if that is so, I do not think we should be too complacent, and think that by passing this Bill, six months will see us into safety.
With regard to the loose phrasing of the Bill, I did not enter into the discussion on that point, but I think the Attorney-General will agree that certain words in the Bill are not in purely legal language. The word "exploitation" is used. I do not know how the Minister is going to be quite clear in his own mind as to when exploitation really takes place. If certain rises take place in rents and rates, and these are incorporated in prices, will it be deemed to be exploitation if the shopkeepers take advantage of that situation, or will it be deemed to be in the natural course when increased taxation and local rates—as undoubtedly will happen, owing to the distress in local areas—take place and are merged in prices? Will not the Minister act, but deem it to be in the normal course that prices should rise in proportion? It would be interesting also to know how a court of law would define the word "exploitation." I think it would be much better to put in the proper words, such as "taking advantage of a certain situation" and to get rid of this word "exploitation." I am afraid the Prime Minister has had a hand in this and has got back to his old soap box days and used this word which they used to sling about in his earlier period.
Further in the Clause I notice that the phrase "unreasonable increase in price" is used in a negative way. When is a rise in price deemed to be reasonable or unreasonable I can conceive two barristers in the Law Courts having a fine time on that point, and the Attorney-General, from his experience before the House of Lords in questions of appeal on the De-rating Act, will agree that much clearer language than this has given no end of opportunity for litigation and expense. Your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, by which I must abide, and which was due, no doubt, to your apprehension that I was about to refer to something which is very near to my heart, has rather compelled me to put on the soft pedal. The Bill is necessary in present circumstances, but I only wish that the two years that have passed had been more fully used by the Prime Minister in those nights when he frittered away his time and no one could get him tied down to anything, and when entertaining Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford was more in his line than preparing the country for the crisis that was coming, philandering rather than preparing himself for his task—
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