I am very glad to know that the speeches to-night have been sympathetic to the proposal put before the House. The Home Secretary has been talking about sitting around a table and getting an agreed Measure. I thought that had been done over two years ago. Our representatives who sat upon the Committee signed the findings of that Committee with the idea that a Bill was to be brought in immediately to give effect to them. There were some things in the findings that we did not like at all. One thing especially was that a man who was on compensation at the time was not to benefit by the new Bill or by the recommendations of the Committee. Notwithstanding that, for the sake of agreement our representatives signed the recommendations, To-night we are again talking about agreement. I do not know whether the proposal is to get the same Committee together again and to go over the business once more. We were hoping that the Home Secretary would tell us that he was bringing in a Bill to give effect to the findings. My hon Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. T. Shaw) made a statement as to what the cost would be, but he was far too high in his estimate. He was speaking of the coal industry. I suppose he had in mind full wages for an injured workman. Why in the world an injured workman should not receive full wages when at home I do not know. But that is not the finding of the Holman Gregory Report. The payment up to now for that industry is something less than 2½d. per ton, and it is estimated that if the full findings of the Holman Gregory Report were given effect to the cost would be less than 3d. per ton. It would be a cost upon the industry, and, as far as South Wales is concerned, the workman would pay no less than 83 per cent, towards the fund, and the employers only 17 per cent. From the employers' standpoint, therefore, it is not a very serious matter.

Many deputations have waited on the Home Secretary, sometimes from the whole of the trade unions and sometimes from sections of them. For the last two years we have put down resolution after resolution, and yet we find ourselves in exactly the same position to-day. The widows are left as they were before, with £300 only, and the judges make that pay- ment of £300 go as far as possible. The highest amount I have known a judge to give, no matter how many children are left, has been about 25s. a week. These widows would have been far better off if there had been no £300 and they had applied to the guardians, for they would have received much better treatment. I have been wondering during the last few months whether we had a Compensation Act in force or not. After March, 1921, thousands of our light employment men were deprived of the work they were doing and no compensation was paid to them, because up to that time their earnings had been over and above what they were when the men worked in their normal occupation, at 'least in the case of those who were injured before the War began. So they received no compensation. The judge decided that it was owing to the state of the labour market that these men were idle and he refused to give compensation to the extent of the injury that they received.

We thought that was wrong; the employers thought it was wrong and they came to the decision that half the difference between the assumed earnings of the light employment men, and what they were actually receiving at the time of the injury should be paid. An agreement was arrived at, that a few shillings a week should be paid to some of these men, but the judge decided entirely against that, because of the labour market. What the labour market has to do with injury I do not know, but that was the position taken up. We contend if there is any legislation in need of overhauling, it is that in relation to workmen's compensation. We hope that in the very near future, a Bill will be introduced giving effect to the findings already agreed upon, apart from any new findings that may be come to. We feel that such a Measure is long overdue. We have pressed for it time after time, and I hope we are nearer to it to-day than we have been previously. My wish is that the Home Secretary should immediately bring in such a Bill.