10 DECEMBER 1925
By the decision of the National Wages Board, no change will be made in the wages and conditions of the men—the companies not having made out their case for a reduction, and the Board not being able to entertain the claims of the men’s Unions for increases in wages and improvement in conditions.
The House of Lords passed through all its stages the Bill to confirm the recent Irish agreement, and the Glasgow Boundaries Bill was also disposed of. A new clause was inserted in the Criminal Justice Bill eliminating forfeiture of theatre licence as the sole penalty for the unauthorised performance of plays, and leaving it to the discretion of the Magistrates to impose a pecuniary penalty as an alternative to a temporary or permanent suspension of the licence.
Mr Snowden’s amendment for the rejection of the Safeguarding of Industries (Customs Duties) Bill was defeated in the House of Commons by 308 to 142, and the Bill was read a second time. Defending the duties, Mr Churchill said they covered one-three-hundredth part of our imports. The Government would require three hundred years to carry a general tariff at the rate they were proceeding. He affirmed his opposition to a general tariff, and said that the Government, while carrying out its safeguarding pledges, had no intention of reviving issues that would divide friends and unite opponents.
Questions relating to the duration of the Treaty with Iraq were asked in the House of Commons. There was very little truth, said the Prime Minister, in the suggestion that Britain was to be bound down to the protection of Iraq for another twenty-five years after the expiry of the present Treaty.
Lord Oxford, speaking at the Liberal Fair in London, said that “Fight every seat” would be one of their battle-cries in the next campaign.
Sir James Craig, Premier of Northern Ireland, explained in the House of Commons, at Belfast, the position of Ulster under the Boundary Agreement.
Mr Ramsay MacDonald, speaking to his constituents at Port Talbot, said this country had lost its peasant population—it had wasted it. The Labour party could, however, bring them back by a well-devised scheme of land settlement. They would settle people on the land in groups of at least 200 families. Land settlement and afforestation must be co-ordinated.