Distress and Unemployment.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 9 December 1931.

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Photo of Sir Lewis Jones Sir Lewis Jones , Swansea West

Yes, I understand that interruption. Let us also give them the benefit of our social services, which are worth considerably more per head of the population than the social services of Belgium, which are reckoned at 5s. 6d. per head. If we were to attempt to bring such a body of men to this country there would be a hue and cry throughout the land. Fortunately, our immigration laws prevent us from doing such a thing. But we are doing something worse. We say to the Belgian workers, "Produce your steel in your own country. Work at your low rates of wages—wages such as no trade union in this country would tolerate—spend your money in your own markets, follow your own standard of living, and we will then take the products of your labour. We will import the products of your labour into this country and throw our own workmen on to the street to live on the dole, with its 10 per cent. cut—in short, to be supported by our own workmen and not by you." That, apparently, is the policy which would appeal to hon. Members who are continually opposing this proposal to safeguard the standard of life of British workmen against the sweated conditions on the Continent. The Prime Minister, speaking at a conference of the Labour party at Birmingham in 1928, I think, said: Where there are examples of sweated goods produced under conditions against which British people cannot compete without lowering the standard of living, the remedy is not in safeguarding but in prohibiting the entry of such goods. I respectfully suggest to the Members of the Labour party that the conditions under which steel is manufactured on the Continent would not be tolerated for a moment in this country. Those conditions are such that if they were introduced in this country they would constitute a complete reversal of labour conditions, and cause a very serious lowering of the standard of life of the people. If we can make out a case proving that the Continental conditions are such as would not be tolerated in this country, then I suggest that there is ample justification for doing something which will safeguard, not only British producers and consumers, but will also protect the standard of life of the British worker. In 1925 the Iron and Steel Trades Federation passed the following resolution: That the executive committee calls the attention of the Prime Minister to the parlous state of the iron and steel trade of this country, and to the adverse competitive facts outside its control, and urges the Government to take immediate steps to protect the iron and steel trade against the competition of countries where the hours of labour are below the British standard. I suggest to the members of the Opposition that the state of the iron and steel industry to-day is worse than ever it was before, and that the wages conditions are much more serious than they were in 1925 when the Resolution which I have just quoted was sent to the Prime Minister. The hon. Member for Pontypool dealt with the conditions prevailing in the tinplate industry and suggested that the importation of cheap foreign steel bars was absolutely essential to the welfare of the tinplate trade.