Mr William Stewart: I beg to second the Amendment. In rising to address the House for the first time, I am sure that the House will extend to me the indulgence which is usually extended to one who makes his first speech here. I am sorry that my maiden effort should be made against this scheme, because, in common with my hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Sir M. Conway), I am a lover of London,...
Mr William Stewart: February is a bad month.
Mr William Stewart: I wish to submit a few points which I want to ask the Prime Minister to bring before the committee. There is the question of the Gold Standard and its relation to the Exchange. We in this country are under very many difficulties and we are particularly in a difficulty owing to the Gold Standard.
Mr William Stewart: I submit that if I can show that the question of the Gold Standard and its relation to Exchange is affecting unemployment, it is a question that can be raised in this debate.
Mr William Stewart: If you buy a yard a material in Oxford Street and the measure of that yard is different from the yard when you buy material in Regent Street, how are you going to get a standard upon which to go? The difficulty with regard to the Gold Standard and its relation to Exchange is like that. This difficulty of exchange has a great deal to do with the question of unemployment, and I want to know...
Mr William Stewart: I bad an idea that we were going to get at the root of the question to-day, and I do not see how we can do that unless we get at the basis of how people are paid. The Exchange in such stabilised countries as America and in Canada has varied by as much as five per cent. If the Exchange varies that much, it varies the price and value of your goods. I therefore submit that the question of the...
Mr William Stewart: Surely I am getting at the root of the whole problem.
Mr William Stewart: I want to get at the root of this problem. If you have a cancer you must get it diagnosed, and I suggest that we have not got this problem diagnosed.
Mr William Stewart: I wish to know whether the Committee will take into consideration the question of money being raised in the London market to finance foreign industry in competition with our own industry, which money will not be lent to British firms under any conditions. I hold that these are root problems of the whole question of unemployment. We talk round the subject, we talk about Free Trade, or...
Mr William Stewart: I have been only 10 minutes on my feet, and I have been talking for only five minutes out of that 10. If I were left alone, I should soon finish. These points have been brought into the discussion by Front Bench Members, and surely we back-benchers are to be allowed the same rights.
Mr William Stewart: I submit that rationalisation is a matter of very serious import, and as one who does not agree with rationalisation, because it is only knocking workmen out of employment, making a machine of business and casting aside the human element, I submit that rationalisation ought to be examined by the Committee. I do not wish to detain this Committee any longer, because it seems to me that all the...
Mr William Stewart: Why not?
Mr William Stewart: That is a matter of opinion.
Mr William Stewart: I rise to support the Amendment. When the Bill was being read a Second time and it was going to be opposed, I felt very diffident about speaking on the matter, but I did my best to get the opposition withdrawn. The promoter made this statement: I am authorised on behalf of the promoters to say that, if the Bill is sent to Committee after having received Second Reading, we shall be prepared to...
Mr William Stewart: Not directly but indirectly, in that they appoint the architectural board. I want my hon. and gallant Friend to see if he cannot do what I think is a reasonable thing, and make this council, which is a representative body, and which we have gone to great trouble to get made a representative body supreme. The admission committee is subject to the council. Why then make the council subject to...
Mr William Stewart: It may be strange for one who is not a lawyer to talk about a subject which apparently exhausts the minds and brains of the distinguished lawyers who have spoken already, but I want to approach this matter from a common sense point of view. No one here wants to interfere with the Dominions doing exactly as they Like, but we do want to prevent our own right to do as we like being interfered...
Mr William Stewart: Any state; I did not refer particularly to the Irish Free State.
Mr William Stewart: They can do that legally to-day?
Mr William Stewart: That is no answer to my question. Can they do it legally today? That is my whole point.
Mr William Stewart: 44. asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give details of purchases from the United States of America during the War showing, respectively, the quantities and qualities of munitions and other materials purchased and similarly of foodstuffs purchased, together with their respective unit prices then and the relative prices to-day; and how the capital sum due was arrived at?