Lieut-Colonel WATTS-MORGAN:

I feel that my first word must be to congratulate the Member for the North-east Division of Cornwall (Sir Croydon Marks) on the very eloquent and very humane thoughts and sentiments which he has expressed with regard to the Resolution that has been put so ably and so fully by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. W. Smith). For 16 years, until the outbreak of War, from the passing of the Act of Parliament that first recognised the right of the workers and their dependants to compensation for injuries, I was in charge of a mining district in which there were close upon 40,000 men employed in the coal industry alone, and the part of the work which gave us very great difficulty was the very meagre provision already pointed out by my hon. Friend especially with regard to the injury. Whatever the wages earned the maximum was fixed at 20s. a week and the minimum might be almost down to 5s. or 6s. a week. I do not profess to know exactly what did take place when the 75 per cent, benefits were added, because, as everybody knows, I was engaged elsewhere from the year 1914, but I do want to refer to my experience of 16 years, when I exclusively dealt with this work, both in regard to the inadequate provision made for long standing cases of injury and especially with regard to the fatal accident cases in addition to the cases enumerated by my hon. Friend behind me. We have had some cases from the Rhondda Valley in which the husband was injured and lay on a bed of sickness or disability, and during four or five years he was unable to come out from the house, and in several cases all we had to take from the colliery company or the insurance company was the funeral expenses due for the burial of the man.

We have had scores of cases where widows have been left with a long string of children. Take the case of a widow left with from four to five or six children. In some cases perhaps the eldest boy might be a girl or might be a boy. [Laughter.] Let me put it in my own way again. What I mean is that the eldest child might not be a breadwinner, even if it were a boy of 12 years of age, for there would be some years more for its maintenance before it could get any employment to bring wages into the family exchequer. We have had innumerable cases where there wore four, five and six children left with a widowed mother, and for years we had a county court judge who would never give us any more in these cases than 12s. a week. The amount might range from 10s. to 11s. or 12s. a week. Scores of times have we appealed to the county court judge, in cases of sickness or want of clothing or want of boots, on behalf of the little children. We could get nothing different because he always made the reply that he must have regard to the provision of the Act that the money must last until the youngest child became 13 or 14 years of age, and he measured the amount of maintenance to the widow on those lines. This is a great hardship, and I hope that when the Home Secretary replies he will deal with that phase of the question. It is in respect of the widow and the children that the amount of £300, or any other amount that can be fixed, is totally inadequate.

9.0 P.M.

We have also men living to-day who have met with an accident 10, 12. or 13 years ago. Some of them have lost completely the use of their limbs. Some have had both their legs off. Some have maimed bodies, and are now being wheeled about in bath chairs, if friends are able to assist them in getting about, and others are obliged to remain at home. We have eases of that kind to-day in the Rhondda Valley, where the men are getting only from 10s. to 12s. and 15s. a week. In no case where they have been totally disabled for life have they received the maximum of £l a week. Such men, when they meet us from day to day or from week to week, say: "When are you going to do something to assist us and to put our cases upon a just level, and to give us the rights that we ought to receive?" For the last five or six months the workers, especially over the South Wales coalfields, have had their minds agitated very much with regard to the situation. They are agitated because they see that nothing has been done and that no promises are made of anything to be done. They see that the increased provisions which were added to the Act of 1899 and its further amendments, are likely to terminate at the end of this year. I would like to reinforce the appeal already made that at least on humane grounds they shall get the minimum of the Amendments proposed by the Departmental Committee set up by the Home Secretary and presided over by the distinguished and learned Member for the Southern Division of Derbyshire (Mr. H. Gregory). I hope that no opportunity will be lost, and that in these cases, as a matter of right and justice to the workman, we shall have an improved Compensation Act, clearing away some of the present disabilities, and as far as the widows and children are concerned, giving them protection. The Holman Gregory Report, as it is called, defines very clearly the right of the widow and children, separate and apart. That is the minimum that we ought to receive, and a new Act ought to be brought into force as early as possible.