I rose to call attention to the effect of the McKenna Duties in a much larger branch of enterprise than that which has already been dealt with. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his Budget speech and intimated that he was going to abolish the McKenna Duties, there was undoubtedly a good deal of alarm felt, not merely throughout the motor trade itself, but through all the incidental trades associated with it. The agitation which naturally arose was perhaps in some instances a little overdone and there was a good deal of exaggeration perhaps in certain sections of the Press and amongst certain protagonists of the interests of various parties in the industry. But in the deputation which the Chancellor of the Exchequer received, and at which 'the Financial Secretary was present, no exaggerated statements of that nature were presented at all. On the contrary, we confined our arguments within the rigid limits of fact. We pointed out the number of persons who would be directly affected in the first instance by the removal of these duties, and secondly the number of interests in affiliated and incidental trades which were bound also to be affected m soon as the duties came to be removed. Although I take the same position as the hon. and gallant Gentleman, that the highly abstract atmosphere in which certain Members of the Government live will not help us to any concession during the Finance Bill, I would at all events call attention to what has happened since the previous debate took place. I put down a question the other day to the Minister of Labour, calling his, attention to the increase of unemployment in Birmingham and the Midlands. I asked him whether he was aware that the week ending 9th June showed an increase of something like 5,000 in the number of unemployed in the Midlands as against the preceding week, and he answered that the statistics of unemployment for that week showed an increase as compared with the preceding week, 'but detailed statistics on an industrial 'basis were compiled only at monthly intervals, and he was unable then to state what particular industries were affected. I was naturally anxious to ascertain whether this sudden increase in the number of unemployed in the Midlands was due to the effect of the abolition of the McKenna Duties on the motor trade, and I asked if he could give any information of the extent to which it was being increased by the abandonment of the duties. He regretted that he could not give me an answer as the statistical Department was very short-handed, and owing to the process of economy adopted by the House, he had not enough staff to obtain the required information.

It is quite clear that in this important area of the country, there is a steadily rising tide of unemployment, which is almost entirely due to the fact that these duties are about to be removed. Birmingham is a city of small industries. There are between 1,200 and 1,300 small traders. A great many of these were able to carry on during the past two years, through the flourishing condition of the motor industry, in other parts of the country as well as in the Midlands, which acquired from the small firms certain accessories and parts necessary in the trade. The immediate effect of the Budget speech was that the motor manufacturers suspended or modified large orders which they had placed with these small manufacturers, and naturally this at once led to notice being given to a large number of workpeople that employment could not be continued. A great firm like Lucas's in Birmingham has been obliged to give notice to something like 1,000 hands in the course of the past month or six weeks. That is a condition of things which I am sure no party contemplated when the right hon. Gentleman made his Budget speech. Of course, with all his facile methods of dealing with opponents, the right hon. Gentleman fastened on to one or two of the somewhat extravagant statements which have been made in the newspapers, and on that based his whole argument against the speeches which had been made from the Front Opposition Bench. In a matter like this—we all know the promises which were made in regard to unemployment during the last General Election—the Government ought to have made a more careful study of the results which the abandonment of these duties would have upon the industries of the country before they made it part of their financial policy. Even now it would not be without profit to the Government to make a careful expert examination of the extent to which highly skilled workers are being put out of employment in large numbers because of the course which is being pursued by them. The struggle to-day at the instance of employers to keep their people employed is exceedingly great. There is not much sympathy in certain parts of the House for the employer, but during the last five hard and difficult years the employer has made great sacrifices in order to enable his workpeople to make their livelihood out of the industries in which they are engaged, and no one has observed with greater concern and anxiety the continuous exodus of the highly skilled workers in the engineering trade than the employers whom they served.

Thanks to their adherence to an old shibboleth and the pursuit of mid-Victorian Free Trade doctrines, great numbers of men, especially men of the quality of those engaged in the engineering trade, are being sacrificed. The Government ought to have given more thought than they apparently did to this point before they introduced these modifications in the taxes. They lose revenue. They do not confer a single benefit upon any soul in this country. They do not reduce the price of motor cars, which in point of fact had been reduced because of higher efficiency and greater production under the existence of these duties. They confer not a single benefit on man, woman or child, and, looking back on the result of their work during the past six weeks or two months, we have weekly another 1,500 skilled men added to the volume of unemployed who register at the Employment Exchanges. In the districts where these industries have contributed so much to the maintenance of the working population the Labour party will have some difficulty in justifying their financial policy the next time they have to make an appeal. I ask the Financial Secretary whether he has any influence upon the stony heart and the somewhat confused economic intelligence of the Chancellor to induce him even now to consider whether there should not he some modification in the determination of the Government to abolish these duties on 1st August. It is not much consolation to the workpeople who are out of employment to know that the Government is salving its conscience by adhering loyally to an old exploded economic principle. At the same time it is of considerable consequence to them to realise that in other parts of the world, in the United States or in Germany, workmen are producing and selling in this country articles in the production of which they themselves should be employed. We are receiving to-day volumes of goods produced under conditions of cheap labour and longer hours in corn, petition with our workpeople here, and this action of the Government in abolishing these duties, at a time when employment was slowly improving and the whole motor industry was prepared to accept the responsibility of standing on its own merits at the end of three years, has struck a severe blow at national prosperity from which it will take us a considerable time to recover. I ask the hon. Gentleman even now to consider whether the position of this industry and all the people employed in these little trades which work for it should not be taken into account.