§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether his attention has been drawn to the meagre character of the information given at page 7 of the Statistical Abstract about Scotch and English Local Taxation; also to the fact that the latest year for which even the brief details are applicable is so far back as 1873–4 for Scotland; and, whether an effort will be made during the Recess to complete the Scotch and English Returns so as to supply the public with the means of knowing that local taxation is yearly on the increase, and that the amounts now collected by local taxes are vastly in excess of those levied fifteen years since?
§ MR. DODSONMy noble Friend the Secretary to the Treasury has asked me to answer the Question. The Statistical Abstract is not prepared by the Treasury or Local Government Board, but by the Board of Trade; and neither the Treasury nor the Local Government Board are responsible for it, except so far as regards any figures in it taken from their Returns. The Local Taxation Returns for 1879–80, and the Local Government Board Report for the last year, have both been presented to Parliament and are ready for issue; and these, in connection with the preceding Returns and Reports, will, so far as concerns England and Wales, furnish all the information required.
§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, it was very inconvenient to be put off from the Head of one Department to another. He had been shoved off from the Secretary to the Treasury to whom he had put the Question, to the President of the Local Government Board, who had no right to interfere with the local accounts of Scotland, and now to the President of the Board of Trade, who really had no duties whatever in connection with the local accounts either of Scotland or England. He had got information from the President of the Local Government Board about English local accounts which he did not ask for. He was perfectly well aware of what the right hon. Gentleman had just told him; what he wanted was local accounts of Scotland, now seven years in arrears. 28 He complained to the Speaker that he could not get the answer he wanted. He now asked the President of the Board of Trade to give him a satisfactory reply to the Question?
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, that as the Question had been put down to the Secretary to the Treasury, his attention had not been called to it until a few minutes ago. He was afraid, therefore, that he would not be able to give what the hon. and gallant Gentleman would consider a full and satisfactory reply. The subject of these Statistical Returns, especially in regard to local taxation, had been under the consideration of the Board of Trade, and they were not satisfied themselves either with the completeness of these Returns or with the lateness of them, and thought that in both respects they might be materially improved. The matter had still further to be considered by Mr. Giffen, the present Head of the Statistical Department; and if nothing had yet been done in the matter, it was due chiefly to the fact that the Department had lately been overburdened with the necessity of preparing complicated and difficult Returns, and that they had not had time to give the matter the consideration which it deserved.