asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the present position regarding the proposal to set up a development council for the pottery industry.

Following a meeting between my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Secretary, and both sides of the industry in Stoke-on-Trent on 7th November, I told the British Pottery Manufacturers' Federation and the National Society of Pottery Workers that I intended to publish shortly my proposals for a pottery development council.

Can my right hon. Friend give us any idea of what is meant by "shortly"? This matter has been in hand for some weeks now.

There were discussions for a long time before this decision was finally taken. I am sorry that I cannot at the moment say when we shall be able to publish my proposals.

Does this mean that the right hon. Gentleman intends to force a development council on the industry, or has he secured the necessary agreement?

No, I am sorry to say that the employers, having at one time been favourable to the idea of a development council, suddenly, when the infection spread on the subject of development councils, changed their minds.

Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that any such bodies are of real value to an industry only when they are entered into voluntarily by both sides?

I am doubtful whether the other side would enter voluntarily into the kind of organisation which the employers have in mind.

Is this not one of the results of compulsion, which this side of the House warned the right hon. Gentleman about some time ago?

No, Sir. A sudden decision on the part of employers in a number of industries to refuse to cooperate in the establishment of development councils faced me with the necessity of making a very difficult decision, and after a long period of negotiations and almost inexhaustible patience, I finally felt that I had to come to a decision about it.

Will my right hon. Friend agree that although the party opposite warned him about this position, they did not at that time say that they would organise this obvious resistance?

I have every reason to think that the Opposition to development councils was certainly not organised by the party opposite. The fact that it was organised and took on a political character is not, I think, in doubt.

asked the President of the Board of Trade what proposals are under consideration for the setting up of development councils under the Industrial Organisation and Development Act; what progress has been achieved; and when it is expected that final decisions in respect of them may be expected.

I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given on Tuesday to a Question by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) about development councils for the wool textile and clothing industries. I have dealt with the pottery negotiations in the answer I have just given my hon. Friend. In the hosiery and cutlery industries, proposals for development councils are under consideration, but I cannot yet say when final decisions in these cases will be taken.

Is it not a fact that there is available in the best organised factories experience which should be available to the rest of the industry, and is there not also a wider public and a community interest to be taken into account apart from the employers' side?

Yes. I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend has just said.

In view of the success which has attended voluntary cooperation of chambers of commerce and others with the Government, would it not be wise to continue still further with sweet reasonableness to try to get voluntary agreement about the establishment of development councils?

Sweet reasonableness is one thing but sweet reasonableness for ever and ever towards people who are determined not to co-operate, is another. If we are to look for analogies, the great success achieved in the cotton industry should be a sufficient guide to what our policy should be.