Letters and Papers Concerning the Trans-Persian Railway and Other Railways in Persia [‎184r] (367/442)

305
Coal Mines
306
[ 25 May 1914 ]
{Northumberland) Bill.
by the complete and excellent plans and
methods which obtain for the settlement
of differences between employer and
employed in the coal trade.
Lord WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE:
My Lords, I desire to thank your Lord-
ships for the kind way in which you have
received this Bill, and for the friendly
manner in which your criticisms have been
uttered. The grievances which I have
ventured to bring forward have been in
the main practically admitted by almost
every speaker; yet at the same time
there seems a universal disposition to ask
me not to put the House to the trouble and
inconvenience of voting against a measure
which is destined to relieve these grievances.
It may be that this Bill is a bad Bill. I
said at the beginning of what your Lord-
ships allowed me to say in moving the
Second Reading that the promoters of the
Bill are prepared to accept any amount of
amendment, provided that the House
admits the principle of the Bill and thereby
confesses that there are conditions pre
valent in certain mines in Northumber
land which ought not to prevail. We have
been told in the course of this debate
that there is not so much backing for this
Bill outside the House as 1 think there is ;
that I have not only exaggerated the evils
which I seek to redress, but that I have
also over-estimated the support that is
behind the Bill outside. I am not quite
so sure about that. My noble friend Lord
Crawford wanted to know why the men
had not made themselves felt in the proper
channels through their representatives in
Parliament. I suppose he meant that
the Labour Party had not made them
selves felt. I do not know whether or
not the Labour Party in the House of
Commons represents the labouring men in
England as a whole. I should say it is
very doubtful. I should think that if all
the labouring men of the country were
asked whether the Labour Party really
represented them the answer might sur
prise some of those Members of Parlia
ment. At any rate, that is speculation.
But this is a fact that you cannot get
away from, that the Northumberland
Miners’ Association passed a resolution,
I believe unanimously, asking the noble
Lord, Lord Joicey, not to oppose this
Bill.
Lord JOICEY: The Council of the
Northumberland Miners’ Association.
Lord WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE:
Well, that is already a considerable support
for the principle of this measure. I think
that to introduce Bills into this House
time after time and not to go to a Division
upon them gives this House an air of
unreality which is highly undesirable if we
are going to try and make ourselves into a
vital body in the future. But it appears
that if I divided the House on the Bill I
should not get, as far as I am aware, a
single supporter, and every one would say
that although the grievances were admitted
your Lordships could not vote for the Bill
because the machinery I had brought
forward was so defective ; and even the
noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, would be
able to be represented out of doors as
being on the side, not of the angels,
but of the plutocrats whom he and his
friends in the other House are always
denouncing.
I do not wish on this occasion, my Lords,
to put you to the trouble of a Division.
But I withdraw this Bill on one condition,
and one condition only, and that is that
those who are most concerned in this
matter, the owners of the mines who have
opposed the Bill but who at the same time
have admitted that there are grievances,
will understand—I am sure they will not
think that I am forcing their hands in this
matter—will understand, in the language of
the man in the street, that it is up to
them ” to see that in the meantime every
step is taken in this matter to meet the
men who are principally concerned. I am
quite sure that they will fall in with the
suggestion made by Lord Crawford, that
the production of this Bill will give a
stimulus to meetings between employers
and employed with the object of putting
right that which is at stake. On that
condition, and on that condition only, I will
not put your Lordships to the trouble of a
Division this evening. But that gives me
and my friends a perfectly free hand to
introduce, if we think well, other Bills at
some future time for this purpose which
will be perhaps couched in different lan
guage from that of the Bill which I have
i introduced this afternoon.
Amendment (by leave of the House)
withdrawn.
Then the original Motion (by leave of
the House) withdrawn.