Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: I ask for that indulgence which the Committee always gives to a new Member while I endeavour to deal with some points which seem to me to have a great bearing on the subject of this Resolution, but which, so far as I have been able to find out, have not yet been touched upon. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Northern Lanarkshire (Mr. Sullivan) told us that he regretted that the Labour...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: 56. asked the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to adopt the resolution passed by numerous branches of the British Legion urging the immediate setting up of a national employment committee to investigate and to recommend to the Government employment schemes of public utility on a scale commensurate with the present problem of unemployment?
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: 36. asked the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to introduce legislation to give effect to the recommendations as to betterment contained in Section 3 of the Second Report of the Acquisition and Valuation of Land Committee, so that the cost of public improvements may be reduced by securing to those who carry them out a sufficient proportion of the resulting increase in the value of land...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: 52. asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the verdict of the jury and observations of Mr. Justice Lush in the recent case of Harnett v. Bond and Adam in the King's Bench Division; and whether a Royal Commission will be appointed forthwith to inquire into the best means of preventing the state of affairs which it appears prevail with regard to the law and...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: May I ask that the setting up of a committee to inquire generally will not be delayed pending the decision of appeals? It may take some months before this particular case is finally disposed of.
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: 43. asked the Prime Minister whether he has now come to a decision as to the promised inquiry into the questions of lunacy law and administration raised by the case of Harnett v. Bond; and whether he can now give an undertaking that the inquiry will not be held up pending the determination of possible appeals in that case to the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords?
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: We are discussing to-night what is almost universally regarded outside the House, and I hope also within it, as the most important and most urgent of all subjects that we have to consider. I should like to try to take a comprehensive view of it rather than deal only with matters of detail. You may approach this question of unemployment from the point of view of mitigating its effects when it...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: May I supply the correct figures?
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: I rise for the purpose of saying a very few words on the subject of the inspection of industry under the administration of the Home Office, but, before doing so, I should like to refer to two points in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. In the first place, with regard to the administration of the Aliens Act, I think it comes within the experience of all of us that...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: I have listened with interest to the explanations of the Minister of Labour of the performances of the Government with regard to the promises which were put before the country by their party at the last Election. The schemes have not emerged from the hat, but, at all events, we have heard all there is to be said, I should imagine, at this stage, at all events, with regard to them. I notice...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: Promised too much.
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: No.
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: I did not say that the Government ought to have abandoned anything which they had done. What I said was that they ought to have done something else, and in addition to anything that they had done.
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: I should like to try and answer the questions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Ashley) as to what is to be done by the Minister with the information which it is proposed that he should receive from the applicant for a licence. The answer to that is contained in Sub-section (2, b) of Clause 7 of the Bill, which gives the Minister the power of...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: Certainly not; but what the Clause does propose is that, when the Minister is exercising the duty which Sub-section (2, b) of Clause 7 imposes upon him of determining who are the proprietors who are to have the licences, and of seeing that the right is not limited to one particular proprietor, he should know at that stage with whom he is really dealing, and whether, having allocated to the...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman is supplying the House with the thoughts of the Minister. I now understand that the point is that it would be better that what we desire should be achieved by an Amendment of Clause 8 rather than by a separate Clause. That may be so, but I think the answer to it is that the two Clauses are dealing entirely with different subject-matters. Clause 8, in...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: 39. asked the Minister of Labour whether he can state for plasterers, carpenters and joiners, slaters, and bricklayers, respectively, in the city of New York, what is the trade union rate of wages; whether such men are commonly employed on time or piece rates alone, or with any system of bonus what are the terms applicable in each case; what is the usual output per hour; what are the usual...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: 76. asked the Minister of Health whether he has taken any and what steps to ascertain what measures have been taken, at what cost, and with what degree of success, in the several British Dominions and in various foreign countries, particularly in the American States and especially in New York and Pennsylvania, to promote the building of dwellings since the Armistice; if so, whether he is...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: The County Council of Essex and other counties apparently from one document read by the Minister are under the impression that they are going to make some money out of the Bill. They ought to have the pill as well as the jam, and they should be prepared to submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the Minister. It would be entirely unjust to my constituents in Islington, where, I believe,...
Mr Arthur Comyns Carr: The Amendment which is being moved by the Minister is a direct attempt to reverse the decision at Which this House arrived when it was invited to decide and did decide between the respective merits of two Amendments on the Paper. One Amendment, which was accepted by the House after debate, is in the terms now appearing on the Paper in respect of which the Bill has been recommitted. The...
