§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS),in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said: It is not my intention at the present moment to speak generally on the second reading of the Bill. It will be more convenient that I should do so when the Amendment is moved by the right hon. Baronet the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach). But as it is my intention, in accordance with the intimation I gave on Friday night, to propose in Committee of Ways and Means tonight an amended Resolution on the subject of the Spirit Duty, I think it is right that I should now, on two points, give some explanations. Those two points relate to the Spirit Duty. The first question refers to what has been addressed to me this evening by the hon. Member below the Gangway (Mr. Boord) and by the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of York (Sir Frederick Milner), as to the repayment of the 1s. difference between the 12s. for which the Resolution was taken on the 30th of April and the 11s. which we propose as the duty on spirits now. What I said on the 30th of April—and I have referred to my notes so as to be perfectly accurate—was, that if the proposals of the Government should be 1418 rejected by the House, of course it would be necessary to repay the difference between the 12s. and the 10.5., which is the duty under the present law, because there would be authority to levy more than the 10s. That was the statement I then made; and in my absence, a few days afterwards, the Secretary to the Treasury, in reply to a Question, repeated those words, adding, however, that it would be for the House to decide, in that event, whether the additional sum should be so repaid or not. I have ascertained that the state of facts as to the payment of duty on spirits since the 30th of April is as follows:—The amount of duty which, according to past experience, might have been expected to be received during the month of May and up to the end of last week may be taken roughly at between £1,600,000 and £1,700,000; whereas the amount actually received, allowing for the higher duty, was only about £1,200,000. Therefore, primâ, facie, it was clear that the amount of the stocks of duty-paid spirits held by the trade had during that period greatly fallen off; and the amount taken out of bond does not represent anything like the consumption. I am also told, and I believe it is true, that in all parts of the country the consumer has been charged at the higher rate during the last month; and therefore I should say, primâ facie, as I remarked the other night, that, under such circumstances, no repayment should be made to the person who bad paid the duty, inasmuch as he had been entirely recouped by the amount paid by the consumer. But I should be the last person to wish to do anything unfair to an individual or to an interest, and the course I propose to take is this. From to-day—and I have already taken steps in the matter—I propose to commence a thorough inquiry at the different places where duty is paid on spirits as to the circumstances I have already given to the House from general report. Before the Committee on the Bill is finished, I shall be able to know and to report to the House what is the real state of the facts on this subject, and I shall be able to advise the House whether a clause shall be inserted to qualify the declaration I made on Friday. I trust that that arrangement is one which will meet with the approval of the House. The second point on which I am anxious to address the 1419 House, before the right hon. Baronet moves his Amendment, relates to the effect of the additional duties in connection with the consumption in England, Ireland, and Scotland. On the 30th of April, I think not in my Financial Statement itself, but in answer to inquiries addressed to me subsequently, I gave very roughly some figures on that subject, stating at the time that they were rough. But shortly afterwards there appeared in a financial journal which is entitled to the greatest respect, as always analyzing financial questions with extreme care—I mean The Economist newspaper—a very elaborate table representing what was supposed to be the division of the duties on spirits and beer between the consumers in the three parts of the United Kingdom. I took some pains, after perusing that calculation, to ascertain to what extent, the figures were justified. I will give to the House the result. The original figures in The Economist of the 2nd of May attributed to the three parts of the United Kingdom a consumption of spirits in the following proportions. The number of gallons of spirits supposed to be consumed in England was 13,100,000, in Scotland 8,350,000, and Ireland 7,310,000. The revenue from these quantities was then stated, and also the revenue from beer; and the total revenue from spirits and beer was then given as in England £14,140,000, in Scotland £4,.510,000, and in Ireland £4,330,000. These figures were reprinted in every part of the Kingdom, and formed the foundation of a heavy attack on this part of the Budget. But in the following week The Economist discovered one serious mistake, and raised the revenue in England to £15,750,000, reducing it in Scotland to £3,640,000, and in Ireland to £3,410,000. But a still more serious mistake existed, and has not been corrected to this date from this calculation foreign and Colonial spirits were altogether left out; and the House probably knows that more than five-sixths of the spirit coming from abroad is consumed in England; so that the proportion between the three divisions of the Kingdom was altogether inaccurate. According to the first calculation of The Economist, the number of gallons of spirits consumed in England was 13,100,000, whereas in fact it was 23,200,000. In 1420 Scotland the number of gallons was stated to be 8,350,000; but, in fact, it was 7,500,000; and the number of gallons of spirits stated to be consumed in Ireland was 7,300,000 gallons, whereas, in fact, it was only 5,800,000, the difference being due to the causes I have described. With respect to the Revenue, the differences are these. According to the original calculation, the only one reprinted all over the Kingdom, the revenue received from beer and spirits in England was stated to be £14,141,000; in point of fact, it was £19,200,000. In Scotland it was stated to be £4,520,000; whereas it was, in point of fact, £4,100,000. In Ireland it was stated to be £4,340,000; and, in point of fact, it was £3,600,000. So that whereas it was represented at first that the revenue from beer and spirits was in the proportion of about 3½ in England to 1 in Scotland or Ireland, in point of fact the Revenue derived from beer and spirits in England was as 5½ to 1 in Ireland, and as between 4½ and 5 to 1 in Scotland. If the wine revenue be added the proportion paid on liquor in England would be still greater. These are very important corrections of the calculations of The Economist put forward as accurate by opponents of the Budget in all parts of the country; and, that being so, it is just as well that the accurate figures should be given. No doubt, no one will be more glad of this than the distinguished editor of The Economist himself.
§ MR. ORR-EWINGasked how much the revenue would represent per head?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)I have given the facts, and anyone can make that calculation for himself. It will also be interesting to the House to know to what extent the revenue received from England, Scotland, and Ireland will be increased by the proposals which we make. That also has been the subject of several calculations, which I do not think it necessary to correct; but I will give the accurate figures. Assuming the revenue to be, as I stated on Friday, increased by £600,000 from spirits and £750,000 from beer, or by a total sum of £1,350,000, the following would be the proportion between England, Scotland, and Ireland. The addition to the duties received in England from the consumption of spirits would be £382,000: in Scotland, £123,000; and in Ireland, 1421 £95,000. With respect to beer, the addition received in England from the increased duty would be £660,000; in Scotland, £30,000; and in Ireland, £60,000. Thus the total increase of revenue arising from the additional duties on beer and spirits would be in England, £1,042,000; in Scotland, £153,000; and in Ireland, £155,000; or, in other words, more than 77 per cent of the additional duty would be paid by the English consumer, 11 per cent by the Scotch, and 11½ by the Irish. I hope the House will excuse me for having at this moment interposed with these figures, because if I had not done so the debate might proceed on wrong assumptions. I have shown that seven-ninths of the additional duties will be paid by England, about one-ninth by Scotland, and one-ninth by Ireland. If to this be added the additional Income Tax, Scotland will pay less than one-tenth of the additional taxation, Ireland less than one-sixteenth, and England more than five-sixths. I do not wish to stand now an)' longer between the House and the right hon. Gentleman; but at a later period it will be my duty to speak on the whole subject of the Budget.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH,in rising to move—
That this House regards the increase proposed by this Bill in the Duties levied on Beer and Spirits as inequitable in the absence of a corresponding addition to the Duties on Wine, and declines to impose fresh Taxation on Real Property until effect has been given to its Resolution of 17th April 1883 and of 28th March 1884, by which it has acknowledged further measures of relief to be due to ratepayers in counties and boroughs in respect of local charges imposed on them for National services,said: There are, I think, many points on which this Budget invites, very temptingly, criticism from the other side of the House. I might, for instance, dwell on the extraordinary fact that under a Liberal Administration, which ought to be economical if anything at all, we have an Expenditure of £100,000,000. I might ask how it is consistent with a doctrine which has been laid down by the Prime Minister as the most important rule of sound 1422 finance,—namely, that under any circumstances we ought to pay our way—that a sum which may be as much as £3,000,000, and can hardly be less than than £1,100,000, is to be carried on to the taxation of the following year, to be dealt with by the Successor, whoever he may be, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with an implied promise that part of the taxation by which the increased expenditure is to be met this year by Her Majesty's Government is not to be renewed. I might ask why it was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Financial Statement, exaggerated his deficit by taking 5d. as the normal limit of the Income Tax, when, if the rate at which that tax stands in the current year is considered, you will find that the average rate of the Income Tax under the present Government has been 6d., while it was only 3d. under the late Administration. I have no desire to enter into these subjects now. I have no desire, as the Prime Minister did me the honour to suggest some weeks ago, to express any censure on the Government, or to move a Vote of Want of Confidence. My intention is to call attention to the proposals in this Budget, to ask the consideration of the House for any arguments I may have to bring forward in support of my views, and to invite the Chancellor of the Exchequer to re-model his Budget if the considerations I advance seem to require it. I do not intend to dwell on the changes in the Budget announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday. I do not imagine that he considers these changes were of very great importance, because the Government did not think it worth while on Friday to keep a House to get them sanctioned. I cannot understand why they should have been made, because in any case it is clear that the £300,000 which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to give up in respect of the Spirit Duties will be required to meet the deficit of the present year, unless it is, which I cannot for a moment suppose, intended to perpetuate a state of disturbance in the spirit trade. Again, I cannot conceive why the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes that the increased duty on beer should terminate on the 31st of May. If this offer of the right hon. Gentleman to the brewers is to have 1423 any effect at all, I think it will be found that they will be clever enough so to utilize it as to deprive him of no little part of the increased revenue he expects to derive from the tax. There was one part of the Financial Statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to which I listened with the greatest pleasure, and in which I wish to express my cordial concurrence. There is nothing in the Amendment which I venture to propose which, to my mind, conflicts in any way with the view expressed by the right hon. Gentleman that this increased expenditure should not fall wholly on property or on those payers of Income Tax who are by no means synonymous with the owners of property. I am glad that such a statement should have been made on behalf of a Cabinet which includes the President of the Board of Trade. I wish only that the right hon. Gentleman had put it more completely into practice, because I do not believe that in any country in the world will there be a greater inequality of taxation among classes than if this Budget passes into law, between the well-paid artizan who consumes neither spirits nor beer and the unfortunate person with a small income who just falls within the clutch of the Income Tax collector. In the circumstances with which we have to deal, any Chancellor of the Exchequer who feels it consistent with justice to increase the indirect taxation of the country has a very difficult task to perform. That is owing to the financial policy with which the name of the Prime Minister will be identified, a policy pursued by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer for 40 years, and taken from the example of Sir Robert Peel—namely, that of removing one by one, and sometimes by leaps and bounds, articles from the Customs tariff of the country. That policy, in certain circumstances, places the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a very serious dilemma. Either he has to propose new indirect taxation, which is always odious, or else he has to make an almost impossible choice from the few articles on which taxation can be increased. That is the reason why the right hon. Gentleman has been driven to a course with respect to indirect taxation equally unjust and financially unsound. Why has it not 1424 been possible for him to cast his net over a wider space, and to bring a larger number of the population within this increased taxation? Her Majesty's Government must contend that their increased expenditure was necessary for the country. If it was necessary for the country, it was necessary for the whole population. The policy which rendered an increase of taxation necessary was not advantageous only for those who drink beer or spirits, but also for those whose circumstances or whose taste may lead them to prefer wine or tea. I heard many suggestions before this Budget was introduced that the increase of indirect taxation might be effected by an increased Tea Duty. It is not my business to suggest a tax in substitution for the tax of the right hon. Gentleman; but I cannot imagine that anyone would say that the present tax of 6d. per pound on tea was anything but moderate. I think that something may be said as to the proportion in which that tax falls on the cheaper kinds of tea as compared with its incidence upon the more expensive classes. But the general average of 6d. in the pound is certainly a moderate tax, and the Prime Minister will be the last person to deny that, because in his celebrated Budget in 1860 he declined to reduce the duty on tea, when it stood at 1s. 5d. in the pound, stating that, in his opinion, that ought to be the minimum in time of peace. Strong financial arguments might be adduced for increasing the Tea Duty. The Chancellor of the Exchequer refers to the steady progress in the consumption of tea; and it is evident from the Returns that by a comparatively small addition to the duty on tea, you would obtain from that article as much Revenue as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his most sanguine moments can anticipate from these duties on spirits and on beer, because the condition of the revenue from beer and spirits is precisely the opposite of the condition of the revenue from tea,. The revenue from beer and spirits is a decreasing revenue; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, when imposing an addition, which is now an addition of 10 per cent, upon spirits, and which, if there was no decrease of consumption consequenton that additional duty, ought to return more than £1,600,000, only estimated the increase at £600,000; and 1425 when proposing the increased tax on beer, which ought, if there was no decrease of consumption, to return au increase of £1,300,000, he only estimated the increase at £750,000. There hardly has ever been a Budget when the anticipated increase of revenue from increased taxation was so completely out of proportion to the taxation which the right hon. Gentleman intends to impose. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman should be charged, as some of his Predecessors have been charged, with deliberately under-estimating his probable receipts from those sources. I am afraid that he has far more likely over-estimated than under-estimated, and that the very possible result of these increased duties will be similar to that which was remarked by Sir Robert Peel in 1842, when he pointed out that a o per cent increase on all Excise and Custom Duties in the previous year had yielded to the Revenue no more than 1 per cent. How does the right hon. Gentleman justify his proposals? He appears to argue that because this year the estimated receipts from liquor were less, both in proportion to the total receipts from indirect taxation and in amount than they were 10 years ago, that therefore this increased indirect taxation which it was necessary for him to levy should be placed upon liquor. But that seemed tome to be the strongest argument against his own proposal, because that falling off in receipts was due to a decreased consumption. Why is it that the Government have not increased the duty on tea? Because they know that an increased duty on tea would he unpopular in the country, and especially unpopular with their own supporters. Why is this? I do not believe that it arises from any ignorant impatience of taxation on the part of the great masses of the people. I believe that if the country were in real difficulties, if a great crisis occurred, and great sacrifices had to be made, the masses of the people would be willing to bear the taxes which would be necessary to meet the danger. But I can understand that they do not care to bear this increased taxation when all the results that they see from this vast expenditure are baffled and discredited diplomacy in one quarter of the globe, and purposeless slaughter in another. The right hon. Gentleman in his Financial Statement alluded to 1426 those who now control the policy of the country. I think that the Radical teetotaller may fairly be said to be the principal controller of what the right hon. Gentleman was pleased to call the military policy of the Government. I can quite imagine that the Radical teetotaller does not care to bear any share of the expense of such military operations as have distinguished that policy; and therefore it is that, instead of increasing the taxation on some article of practically universal consumption, like tea, the Government have selected for increased taxation two important British and Irish trades, already heavily taxed, and by no means so prosperous as they were formerly, and have added insult to injury, because at they very same moment when they impose this increased taxation on these trades, the; are proffering a boon to the foreign producer of the very article—namely, the strongest class of wine, which principally competes with these home industries. What are likely to be the effects of this increased taxation? The right hon. Gentleman told us this evening that he had reason to believe that the price of spirits had already been raised to the consumer, at any rate in some places, in consequence of the increased duty. That may have been done; but I very much question if it could be generally clone. I fancy that, looking to the difficulty of adapting any rise in retail prices to the amount of the increased duty in the present bad state of trade, it will be impossible generally, even for the dealers in spirits, to raise the price of their commodity, especially now that the increased duty is to be 1s. per gallon instead of 1s. What I fear is that the consumer will feel this new taxation not so much in an increased price for the same article as in the deterioration or unwholesomeness of the article provided. I fear that the consumer of spirits will be too often maddened by raw spirits, sold to him by per-sons who will not have been able, owing to the increased taxation, to bear the necessary expense of mellowing their spirits by keeping them in bond. Again, if a man wishes to buy those higher class of whiskies made from the best malt, he will find them adulterated with very inferior sherry, or spirits made from rice. Then what will the brewers do? I am unwilling to cast reflections on that great industry; but I am afraid 1427 that, in the first instance, the brewer will be tempted to water his beer. If this should be so, the result will be that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not derive from his increased duty the increase of taxation which he anticipates. But the brewer may do something else. He may make his beer from sugar and other articles inferior in quality to malt, and sell a more unwholesome liquor, and in that way the interests of the consumer will be affected. I do not think it possible that the brewer will be able to recoup himself for the extra taxation, whatever the spirit dealer may do, by increasing the price of the article that he sells. The direct effect of this will be a decrease in the consumption of the best qualities of malt in the manufacture both of spirits and beer, and how will that affect another great industry? The price of barley will, I am afraid, continue to fall, and that will be the fast nail in the coffin of the representatives of the most depressed industry in the country—namely, the corn-growing industry. I should like to know why it is, if the right hon. Gentleman has made up his mind that the only source from which he can derive his increase of Revenue is from intoxicating liquor, that he does not raise the duty on wine, as well as the duty on spirits? Certainly, wine is no more a necessary of life than beer or spirits. It is an article produced abroad, Which competes with our great home industries I do not think that the idea of substituting cheap foreign wines for beer or spirits as the poor man's beverage affords any reason for reducing the Wine Duties, or not raising them correspondingly with the duties on beer and spirits. I do not, of course, mean to say that if by keeping the Wine Duties low we obtained great commercial advantages for the trade and manufactures of this country that would not be an element in the question that ought to weigh very much with any Chancellor of the Exchequer in arriving at a conclusion in the matter. But is that the case? We know very well that both the French and the proposed (Spanish Treaties were intended to carry out that idea; but both those Treaties have fallen to the ground. I do not wish to inquire whether the policy of those Treaties was consistent with strict Free Trade theories; for they were both 1428 framed by the Prime Minister, who is a strict Free Trader if he is anything at all. But I would argue that if we are to introduce a policy of bargain in these matters, which the French Treaty and the Spanish Treaties certainly did, you ought to carry out that policy of bargain consistently. But what was done? Why, with regard to the French Treaty, the duty upon all wines was largely reduced at the same moment, not only upon French wines, so that Spain and all other wine-producing countries obtained for their wines corresponding, if not precisely similar, advantages to France. Spain saw that plainly, and France saw it too, and I fancy that from that has sprung the feeling on the part of both of those countries that our policy being to lower duties as far as we can and not to levy differential duties in any case, they therefore might, without any fear of mischievous results to themselves, repudiate their part of the bargain, confident that whatever happened our Wine Duties would never be raised. Certainly, our commercial relations with both those countries are in anything but a satisfactory condition. I believe that our exports to France are practically at a standstill. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No.] I have it upon good authority, at any rate, that many articles which under the old Treaty were freely admitted into France are now largely excluded from that country. But with regard to Spain, I do not think that the right, hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board will contradict me when I say that the Spanish tariff is practically prohibitory, and that whatever happens Spain can make no worse arrangement with reference to manufactured articles coming from this country than that which exists at the present moment. I contend that the worst thing that Her Majesty's Government could do, if they desired to secure better commercial relations with Spain, is to give her this boon of raising the limit of the 1s. duty on wine to 30 degrees at the very moment when Spain has repudiated that part of the Treaty which did give our commerce some advantage. On the other hand, can it be seriously feared that if we were to raise the duty on wine to a corresponding amount to the increased duty upon beer and spirits, at 1429 the same time taking care so to regulate that duty that it might he as little oppressive and as productive as possible, any action against this country would he taken by France or Spain? On this matter I should like to quote to this House n statement made by Mr. Giffen, of the Board of Trade, before the Wine Duties Committee. He impressed upon that Committee that France, Spain, and Portugal had more reason to be anxious about their trade with us than we had about our trade with them, because they have a larger trade with us in proportion to their whole trade than they have with any other country, while we only send them one-tenth of our exports of British and Irish produce, most of which, I may say, consists, especially as far as Spain is concerned, of such articles as coal, which she could not do without. I believe that if Her Majesty's Government really wish to change all this and to open Spain to English manufacturers the wisest thing they could do would be to take the course which is required by justice to the home interest, which they now propose to tax, and instead of giving Spain a boon, by practically reducing the duty upon wine, to make such an alteration in our wine tariff as would be specially injurious to Spain. Again, I think that by raising the Spirit Duties and by practically lowering the duties upon wine the Chancellor of the Exchequer has entered upon a path which will involve very considerable danger to the Revenue, owing to the risk of fraud and of illicit distillation. Upon that matter I should like to quote to the House a statement made by a very high authority, Mr. Seldon, to the Wine Duties Committee. He described to that Committee that the basis of the existing system of Wine Duties was in very proximate relation to the Spirit Duty, which would be defended by Wine Duties maintaining that relation, hut which would be ruined, or seriously damaged, if they were out of relation to the Spirit Duty. And in a very able Memorandum attached to the Report of that Committee, I find that soon after the conclusion of the French Treaty, when the French complained that the 1s. duty on wine was not extended to 30 degrees, and Mr. Cobden tried to persuade Her Majesty's Government to give to Prance that concession, the Prime Minister replied that the proposal 1430 was one of a most grave character in its hearing upon the Revenue of the country, in connection with the vast sums derived from other strong drinks, and that it amounted to a proposal that a gallon of proof spirits, if contained in three and a-quarter gallons of wine, should be admitted at a duty of 3s. 4d., whereas if the wine were distilled abroad and the spirit imported here as an extract of the same bulk and strength, the duty upon it would be 10s. 5d. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that he did not think it safe to anticipate with confidence any state of things in which such a relative scale of duties could he maintained. Later on the French asked for a uniform duty up to 40 degrees, when the right hon. Gentleman replied that if they meant a 1s. duty—A tax so much lower on the alcohol in wine would in all likelihood paralyze this important arm of our Revenue.And it was quite in accordance with this view that—A power was reserved to us in the French Treaty, of increasing our duty on wine in case we should increase our duty of Excise chargeable on spirits.What I say is this—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has destroyed the relation between the Wine and Spirit Duties, the importance of which was so strongly insisted upon by the Prime Minister. I do not know whether I shall be told that the Report of the Wine Duties Committee did not attach much importance to the danger of illicit distillation; but that Committee distinctly recommended that the charge on wine for every degree above a certain limit to be fixed by the Executive, which limit they did not state, should bear an approximate relation to the Spirit Duties, and throughout their Report it is perfectly clear that they could never have had really in their minds the supposition that the existing Spirit Duty of 10s. 5d. could be increased. I feel that I ought to apologize to the House for the length of time I have occupied. ["No!"] But I am now only about to come to the second part of my Amendment, which relates to the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the Succession Duties in this Bill. I hope that in discussing this matter we shall not hear anything from the Prime Minis- 1431 ter as to the relative burdens which are borne by property and by labour, because it appears to me that this question of assimilating the Death Duties on personal and real property cannot be affected by any such argument. I understand the desire of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be to place an equal tax upon all successions by death, whether real or personal. In the first place, I should say that if we were to consider this matter solely with reference to the Death Duties, that equal duties in theory would by no means prove to be equal in practice. In making these duties nominally equal you take no account whatever of the respective capacity of real and personal property to bear them. Look at the immense advantage which personal property has over real property in the matter of outgoings and in the different proportions of net to gross Revenue respectively derived from them. I altogether deny that there is any equality between the two classes of property in their power of bearing this increased taxation; and I would add that whereas an inheritor of personal property can almost always, if he likes, dispose of a portion of that property in order to pay the Legacy Duty charged upon it, it is most difficult and often practically impossible for an inheritor of real property to do anything of the kind. But, Sir, my main contention as against this proposal in the present Bill is that you cannot consider the question solely in relation to the Death Duties, and apart from other taxation on real and on personal property. Equalize the taxation on these two classes of property by all means if you like, but equalize it completely: and remember, above all, that the whole of the taxation borne by real property as distinguished from personal property is very far from being included in the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Why, Sir, to do otherwise would not only be a gross injustice to real property; but it would also be in direct contradiction to the admissions of Members of Her Majesty's Government at any time during the last three years, when the burdens on real property have been discussed in this House; and, as my Amendment points out, it would be a direct violation of the principle of two Resolutions adopted in 1883 and 1884 by the House of Com- 1432 mons—the first of which was supported by Her Majesty's Government and the whole of those who sit behind them, and the second of which was supported by all who sit on this side of the House, and which, taken together, may therefore be considered as having received the unanimous assent of this House. What was the principle which was common to both those Resolutions? It was that relief should be given to ratepayers in counties and boroughs in respect of certain charges now exclusively falling upon them. When my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Sir Massey Lopes), who has so often and so ably brought this question before Parliament, originally took it up some years ago, it was necessary to expound the difference in the taxation on real and on personal property, and to prove by statistics that the former class of property ought to be relieved. We have got beyond that point now, for it has been universally admitted that personal property owes a debt to real property in this matter. Year after year we have been hoping against hope that Her Majesty's Government, having made this admission, would find some way to pay that debt. What is their way to pay it? It is a "new way to pay old debts" indeed. Their way to pay the debt of personal property to real property is to increase that debt by nearly £1,000,000 a-year. That such a proposal as this, dealing with a part of the question to the disadvantage of real property, should come from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of all those who sit upon that Bench, I must say, has caused me the greatest possible surprise. Why, Sir, on the 24th of April, 1884, the right hon. Gentleman said in the course of his Financial Statement—The time is approaching when, under a general Local Government Bill, relief will have to be given to the payers of local burdens; and this relief, whatever its amount may be, will accrue mainly to owners of land and houses—that is to say, to real property. It seems to me that that should be the occasion for adjusting and finally settling the Death Duties. I have given considerable attention to the matter, and the problem, to my mind, is not very difficult to solve."—(3 Hansard, [287] 514–5.)Was ever a more definite promise made by a Minister? Was ever promise more completely broken? And yet the right hon. Gentleman, in all his long speech on the Budget, said not a word to ac- 1433 count for the change. We have a right to insist that in accordance with their own statements and the Resolutions of the House this question should be dealt with as a whole, and not be touched piecemeal to the disadvantage of that class of property which they admit is too heavily taxed. I do not wish to enter into the details of the proposed alteration of the Succession Duties. I am not competent to do so, for they are matters of very great technical difficulty; but I would say generally that I think that there are serious objections to the manner in which the Bill imposes the Death Duties on the two classes of property. I will not object to the 5 per cent Income Tax on corporate property, except by saying that it appears to be a severe tax by way of commutation for Death Duties. But the proportionate increase in the Succession Duty under this Bill will press more heavily on near than on distant relations, and I think that provision is a very harsh one. There is, however, a matter of greater importance. It is contained in the last paragraph but one of the Statement on the subject that has been circulated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There we find that before real property can be enjoyed by a person absolutely or as tenant at will he will be taxed on the capital value, and not only on the life interest. Now, this is a very extraordinary proposal, as coming from the present Government, because, when the present Prime Minister, in 1853, first instituted the Succession Duty, he laid great stress on the duty being levied on the life interest rather than on the capital value. The right hon. Gentleman said on the 18th of April, 1853—We propose, therefore, totally to abolish, for the purpose of Legacy Duty, or Succession Tax, the effect of settlement, so that the person who succeeds to personal property will pay ac cording to his interest. He will pay upon the capital, if he succeeds to the capital; and if he succeeds to a lesser interest, he will pay upon the value of that lesser interest. The Government, then, thinking it just that a less amount should he taken from rateable property than from property that does not pay these special burdens, have to ask in what way that distinction can best be struck…We think…that the fairest mode in the case of an estate would be found to be this—that the successor to real and rateable property should be in all cases taxed upon the life interest only, or on a minor interest, if he has only a minor interest…Some remission ought to be granted to property which is now subject 1434 to a great weight of peculiar and exceptional taxation."—(3Hansard, [125] 1397–8.)That peculiar and exceptional taxation, which was then estimated by the right hon. Gentleman at £14,000,000 or £15,000,000 a-year, now amounts to more than £30,000,000. Why have the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues repealed this advantage which they deliberately gave to real property in the matter of succession as some makeweight for the exceptional burdens which real property has to bear? On another occasion the right hon. Gentleman argued—If you charged on the capital value of a mortgaged estate (after deducting encumbrances and deductions from gross to net rental) there is no way in which you could meet that ease so as not to give the tax the effect and character of an engine for displacing the present possessor. I think it would he an invidious, an offensive, an unwise, and an unjust measure not to facilitate the parting with property by persons disposed to part with it, but to lay on a tax in such a way as would have the effect of forcing them to part with it; and there is no tax, however moderate it might be, if it were fixed upon the capital value of such an estate as I have described, when you consider how attenuated the income would he, which would not have the effect of compelling the possessor to bring his estate into the market.Are not these words even more true now than they were then? There, perhaps, never was a time when one great part of real property—namely, agricultural land—was less able to bear taxation. It is notorious that in most parts of the country the value of land, whether for sale or for letting, has considerably decreased. In the last Return for Income Tax that I have been able to obtain the total assessment of farms in England under Schedule B decreased by more than 6 per cent in 1882–3 as compared with 1881–2. But this by no means adequately represents the real decrease; for an average of this kind is very far from showing what certain parts of the country are really suffering. I find, for instance, that Herefordshire shows a decrease of 9.27; Lincoln, 9.30; Nottingham, 9.71; Warwick, 9.96; Rutland, 10.68; Wilts, 10.85; Huntingdon, 11.85; Suffolk, 12.11; and Cambridgeshire, 13.21. And if it were possible to analyze the matter further, I am sure, from my own knowledge, that you would find that even these figures do not really represent the fall in value of certain kinds of land. I believe that the letting value of whole 1435 districts in the corn-growing parts of the counties I have named has decreased at least 25 per cent on the gross rental, and anyone who knows anything of the outgoings of a landed property can judge what that means; while, on the other hand, the landowner is incapable of relieving himself except at a ruinous loss, for there are absolutely no purchasers in the market for property of the kind. This depression, so far from passing away, is, I am afraid, increasing. It is extraordinary that at such a moment, in spite of the Prime Minister's arguments, in spite of the Resolutions of this House to which I have referred, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should impose a fresh burden on property so unable to bear it. It is very generally admitted that there never was a time when there was a greater necessity for the expenditure of more capital in the improvement of agriculture or in the introduction of different methods of agriculture into this country. We hear a great deal about the necessity of improving the accommodation provided for labourers in the agricultural districts. I venture to say that the well-disposed among landowners have done at least as much in this respect as could be expected of them. But I quite admit that there is much more to do. Hon. Members opposite often profess their anxiety to promote these beneficial changes. How do they show it? By adding to the taxation of those who even at present find it sufficiently difficult to carry out improvements of this kind. Sir, there is another proposal often made. We are told of the advantages of largely increasing the number of small landowners. What sort of temptation do you hold out to the industrious man to invest his savings in land when you deliberately increase the taxation of land at such a moment as this? I do hope that I may have said something to induce the Government to reconsider their proposals and to withdraw those parts of the Budget to which I have referred. There can be no financial necessity in the current year for this permanent change in the Succession Duties. The right hon. Gentleman admits that all he expects to gain for the Revenue is £200,000 this year. I believe no Succession Duty would be payable until after 12 months from the date of death on real property, and that this increase of £200,000 would 1436 come mainly, if not entirely, from personal property passing by settlement, with, perhaps, a little from real property directed to be sold. It would be quite possible to make these changes in the law without touching the larger questions involved. But whether that be so or not, the Government ought to be consistent. A few weeks ago the general feeling of the House induced the Government, much against their will, to give some aid from the Exchequer to the local ratepayers in bearing those new burdens of Parliamentary registration which they had intended to impose upon the rates. What was the argument stoutly put forward by the President of the Local Government Board? We asked him to make a permanent alteration in the law so that the incidence of these expenses should in future be on the Exchequer instead of the rates. But in answer the right hon. Gentleman told us that such an alteration—which, by the grant which had been made, was admitted to be just—could not be made in the last year of a Parliament. If a Parliament in its last year cannot permanently relieve the rates from a burden which it is admitted they should not bear, how is Parliament in its last year qualified to impose a permanent and unfair charge of this nature on the whole real property of the country? I do not wish to obtain any Party triumph. I hope the views which I have endeavoured to put forward may be supported by Members on both sides of the House, and that I may have done something to persuade even the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My object is to defeat the proposals in this Budget, unjust and injurious as I believe them to be to whole classes of the community, by every means in my power, and if I cannot persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer I shall appeal from his decision to the just and fair judgment of the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
§
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House regards the increase proposed by this Bill in the Duties levied on Beer and Spirits as inequitable in the absence of a corresponding addition to the Duties on Wine, and declines to impose fresh Taxation on Real Property until effect has been given to its Resolution of 17th April 1883 and of 28th March 1884, by
1437
which it has acknowledged further measures of relief to be due to ratepayers in counties and I boroughs in respect of local charges imposed on them for National services,"—(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach,)
—instead thereof.
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEBefore I come to the main argument of the right hon. Baronet's most important speech, there are two matters as to which I wish to remove some misapprehension which may exist in the minds of some Members of the House. The right hon. Gentleman began his speech by complaining that the Government did not think it worth their while to keep a House on Friday last. As this circumstance is one within my own knowledge, and even personal to myself, I wish to assure the House in the strongest possible terms that in order to prevent the inconvenience to trade involved by not passing the Resolution great efforts were made, in which I was personally engaged, to keep a House. The right hon. Gentleman then went on to speak of our having embarked in a policy of carrying forward to a future year charges which ought to fall on the present year; and there, again, I think misapprehension exists. The fact is that, putting aside all technicalities, we are paying off as much in the present year as we are putting off to the next. There is no carrying forward involved in the present Budget. I pass to the main argument and most important portion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, which contains declarations of policy of an interest such as has seldom been placed before the House. The speech attracted an amount of attention which was not only due to the ability with which the right hon. Gentleman always addresses the House, but which was an attention of that special kind which awaits the announcement of a Chancellor of the Exchequer on a Budget night. The right hon. Gentleman, with a good deal of preparation, worked up the question of what taxes he and his Party would be likely to put on us. The right hon. Gentleman excited a breathless condition of interest on both sides of the House. We all know it is easy to object to taxes and to find fault with any conceivable tax. The right hon. Gentle- 1438 man, by the terms of his Resolution, finds fault with the increase of the Death Duties. By his speech he has found fault with the increase of the Beer and Spirit Duties. He told us he was the protector of small payers of the Income Tax. The Income Tax did not find favour in his eyes. But what did find favour in his eyes? The right hon. Gentleman would not carry forward charges to a future year; he did not like raising the Income Tax or any of the duties which it was proposed to raise; but he proposed to the House, in the name of his Party, on this great occasion, of which long Notice has been given by the second man of the Party, an increase in the duty upon tea. The right hon. Gentleman did it avowedly because tea was an article of universal consumption. We all know tea is an article of universal consumption. I wish that the owners of landed estates in this country would do all they could to enable the poor to get milk as well as tea. One of the greatest hardships in the rural districts, as compared with what was the case 10 or 20 years ago, is the absolute inability of the poor to obtain milk. But, in spite of that total absence of milk, the people do drink tea, and the whole population consume tea. The right hon. Gentleman admits that the Tea Duty would be unpopular with those who sit on this side of the House and with the Radical Party. What reason does the right hon. Gentleman give? He says that we are supported by the Temperance Party and the Radical teetotallers, who, he says, objected to war. That is a characteristic of the Radical teetotallers that I am glad to hear admitted. It is assumed, therefore, that such a policy as the taxation of tea would be specially unpopular to the Liberal Party and the supporters of the Government. If we are to discuss the character of the constituents of the two Parties in the State, if such phrases are to be used with a sneer, as they were by the right hon. Gentleman, I prefer the Radical teetotaller to the pot-house politician. If we are to discuss that question in a graver way and upon its merits—it was not I who introduced these things; it was the right hon. Gentleman who sneered at the Radical teetotaller, who was supposed to be in favour of peace—I would point out to the House why tea is not an available article for an increase of duty. Tea is 1439 already very heavily taxed—indeed far more heavily, in proportion to its value, than is beer. The great bulk of tea imported into this country is taxed 50 per cent upon its wholesale value, and beer only 20 per cent.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEWhat beer?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEI think the hon. Member will have very considerable difficulty in proving that beer pays 90 per cent at the present time. A calculation which is in my possession goes to show that beer pays 20 per cent at the present time, and that, with the increase proposed by this Budget, the total charge for the year's duty will be 23 per cent instead of 20, as against 50 per cent which is paid by tea. Yet all the dreadful consequences predicted by the right hon. Gentleman are to ensue. There is to be a total cessation in the growth of barley, and an enormous adulteration of beer, and all this is to be caused by an increase of duty from 20 to 23 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman spoke by way of suggestion; but he was too skilful to dwell upon the subject of the possibility of levying ad valorem duties, because, he said, the duty fell as heavily upon the cheaper as the dearer teas; he seemed to think that the cheaper tea was heavily taxed. It must be remembered that it is only for statistical and financial purposes we discriminate between the cheaper and the dearer kinds of tea. Substantially, it is only the cheaper kinds of tea which have to be taken into account, because the expensive teas consumed by a portion of the rich bear a very small proportion to the total importation of tea. It is futile to suppose that any great increase of duty could be obtained by raising the duty only upon the dearer kinds. It was quite clear that the right hon. Gentleman wished to raise a large amount by increased duties, such an amount as would take the place of the proposed increase of Beer and Spirit Duties. I can assure the House that that cannot be done without a substantial addition to the present duty on the cheaper kinds of tea. After making this indiscreet proposal with regard to tea, the right hon. Gentleman proposed another tax, one upon wines. I admit, generally speaking, that Beer and Spirit Duties 1440 fall in a large proportion upon the poor, as compared with Wine Duties, which fall chiefly upon the rich. But when the right hon. Gentleman uses the term inequitable, and says it is inequitable to increase the Beer and Spirit Duties without raising the duty on wine, he treats the Budget as though it consisted only of a proposal to raise the Beer and Spirit Duties. The House, however, will recollect what was said both in the Budget speech and in the Resolutions, as to the amount of taxes left by the Budget which will fall upon the richer classes, and it was hardly worth the while of the right hon. Gentleman to descend to claptrap such as this. The right hon. Gentleman used the word inequitable, and to make use of that word in reference to one part of the Budget, while ignoring the remainder, is what I call claptrap. He did not tell us how much he thought we could obtain by an increase of Wine Duties. Surely it is worth while considering whether you can obtain a sufficient amount to make it desirable that you should incur the risks and the inconvenience of imposing the additional duty. It has been suggested in the public prints that we should increase the duty upon sparkling wine and upon bottled wine. I believe it would be difficult to get more than a few thousand pounds from these two sources, and it is matter for consideration whether it would be prudent to make a change for so small an amount. But a portion of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman showed that he contemplated increasing all the Wine Duties, although in another part of his speech he appeared to limit himself to the wines strongest in alcohol. The whole wine trade is a decreasing trade; it is a trade which shows a steady decrease; and it is doubtful whether a general increase of Wine Duties would not be followed by a further diminution in trade. Whenever it may be necessary and expedient to raise the Wine Duties, the House has not parted with the power of raising them to meet any great demand upon the finances of the country. The right hon. Gentleman recommended that we should make an increase which should be specially injurious to Spain. I will not discuss International relations; we do not think the Spaniards have behaved particularly well; and I will not 1441 quarrel with the rather harsh terms I which the right hon. Gentleman used. Any change in the Wine Duties based on alcoholic strength would be specially injurious to Spain, and it would be specially injurious to a small but growing trade with the British Colonies, and the most important of those Colonies which do not put protective duties on British goods. New South Wales is an example. It would be impossible to put on a duty injurious to Spanish wines without crushing the trade in wine growing up between Now South Wales and this country. I have seen proposals made of differential duties against the wines of Spain; but the right hon. Gentleman is too cautious and prudent to adopt that suggestion. The right hon. Baronet argued his case with reference to France as well as Spain. He evidently thinks, as I should gather from his speech, that France has raised her duties against us.
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHI did not mean to imply that. Only on certain articles.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKENot on the whole?
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHYou are worse off than you were before.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKENo; we are not. We are distinctly much better off than we were, not only vastly better off than we were under the Cobden Treaty, to obtain which we reduced our Wine Duties, but much better off, on the whole, than we were before the negotiations of 1881 and 1882. The Returns of Trade during the last five years show a considerable increase in the export of British and Irish produce to France since the years 1878, 1879, and 1880. No year since 1880 has fallen so low as that year, which was worse than 1879. There is an apparent decrease last year as compared with 1883; but it is a decrease due to shrinking in value and not in quantity. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to suggest an increase of Wine Duties by way of reprisal for the treatment he supposed we had received from France. Certainly an increase of the duties upon sparkling and bottled wines would be regarded in France as specially directed against wines of that country, as only small amounts come bottled from Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. If we raised our duties, the Free Trade move- 1442 ment in France would be greatly weakened, and an agitation might arise to deprive this country of the most-favoured-nation treatment. Although no Treaty was made, great reductions were obtained in 1880 and 1881. These reductions were adopted in the Belgian Treaty, which was made concurrently; and this country has benefited by the increase of trade with Franco and Belgium. I am bound to say that you would imperil any reduction of duty which has been granted to this country by the raising of duty apparently directed against French wines. I now pass over to one or two other observations which the right hon. Baronet made with regard to the Wine Duties. He quoted the Wine Duty Committee and the evidence of a great many witnesses who were examined; but he entirely failed to quote the main result of the proceedings of the Committee. The right hon. Baronet succeeded in convoying to the House the idea that the Committee recommended an increase of duty; but they recommended a decrease. When the right hon. Baronet quotes the proceedings of a Committee in this House, it is only fair that we should be made aware of the result of those proceedings. The right hon. Baronet then went into ancient history, and quoted former opinions with regard to the Wine Duties, and as to the effect of the low duty on cheap wines, which he seemed to think a very bad thing, there again pointing to action which had a very great effect on trade between this country and France. These opinions of the right hon. Baronet are ancient opinions, and are out of date with the Customs authorities, who with their present experience of the working of low duties on cheap wines are now satisfied that the low duties do not conflict with the remainder of the fiscal system of the country. The right hon. Baronet then went on to attack another part of the Budget. He says that the Death Duties ought not to be increased until the Local Government Bill had handed over, according to the policy which had been announced in this House, to localities certain taxes in he of contributions which are at present made to the State. I want to know, if the change is just and equitable in itself, why it should not be made at the present time, without waiting for subsequent changes which are also just and 1443 equitable. The right hon. Baronet also speaks of the relief of the ratepayer and the property owner as though the two were exactly the same. They are not. When a grievance of the poor ratepayer is put forward we do not associate him with the owner of landed property.
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHThe Chancellor of the Exchequer last year used these words—
This relief, whatever its amount may be, will accrue mainly to owners of land and houses—that is to say, to real property."—(3 Hansard, [287] 514–15.)
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEThe grievance always urged in this House is that of the small class of ratepayers in towns and of the small farmers. I doubt whether the highest economical authorities in this House would consider that the Death Duties mainly hit these persons. The right hon. Gentleman complained of our touching the question of local taxation at all in a piecemeal fashion. This argument comes with peculiar want of force from the right hon. Baronet, who nearly destroyed the Government and the Liberal Party a few weeks ago by the extraordinary insistance with which he tried to touch this question in a very piecemeal way. He quoted some remarks of the Prime Minister with regard to the taxation of real property, and then asked whether rates had not increased rather than diminished since those remarks were made. The rates in towns have increased very greatly since; but the rates in the country have not. Our view is that the change which we propose is a just change, and ought not to be necessarily dependent upon certain other changes relating to local taxation. The right hon. Gentleman did not, I think, shake that view; and the belief I held before he made his speech, that this small instalment of justice ought to be given at the present time, I hold still. Let the House bear in mind that landed property already possesses one great advantage in taxation. The land is generally left for lives, and personal property generally right out. Personal property left right out pays on the whole amount, whereas the land does not, but only its life interest. This is a clear advantage to the owners of land, which they will retain if the proposal is carried into effect. Now, the right hon. Baronet went on 1444 to say that he did not wish to make a Party battle of this, and that he did not wish really to inflict any damage on the Liberal side of the House; but that all he desired was to change or modify the Budget. But I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that if that is his view he will not be allowed to hold it quietly to himself on this occasion. If he defeats us on this occasion he must take the responsibility of that defeat, and he must have the courage of his opinions and be prepared to go forward with his proposals for taxing tea, which he admits is universally consumed, and a tax on which would, he admitted, be unpopular. We have had the courage of our opinions. This is not altogether a popular Budget; but I venture to say that it will be a very popular Budget indeed beside that shadowed forth to us by the right hon. Gentleman to-night. This question cannot be treated as a mere question of change of Budget. It is a question of life and death, and must be treated as a question of life and death; and if the right hon. Gentleman defeats us on this occasion he must try to form a Government on the policy he has placed before the country to-night. The right hon. Gentleman will, I think, find that those who sit on the Ministerial side of the House are singularly elated by his speech. I do not think that they could have found a better policy to go to the country with than the one which the right hon. Baronet has presented them with. Time will show, and I think the time will come when the Tory Party will regret that they have proposed a weighty duty on tea, and that they have sneered at the Temperance Party of this country.
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, the right hon. Baronet who had just sat down was good enough at the commencement of his speech to denounce claptrap, but had used a great deal of it himself. The right hon. Baronet had attributed a great many views to his right hon. Friend which he did not hear him announce. He did not hear him propose a duty on tea—[Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Hear, hear! and Ministerial cries of "Oh!"]—but he had heard the right hon. Baronet who spoke last support the Beer Duty as a tax on pothouse politicians.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEWhat I said was that if we were forced into 1445 these considerations I was bound to say that for my part I preferred the Radical teetotaller to the pothouse politician.
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, the right hon. Baronet expressed himself in terms of disapproval of pothouse politicians, and he sneered at them; but there was not a single Metropolitan Member who had attended so many pothouse meetings as the right hon. Baronet.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEI beg to give a most unqualified denial to that statement.
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, his memory was sufficiently accurate to enable him to say that there was no Metropolitan Member who had been so assiduous in attending what ordinarily went by the name of pothouse meetings as the right hon. Baronet. The great mass of the Radical clubs who supported the right hon. Baronet had beer and spirit licences; and to support pothouse politicians out-of-doors and denounce them in the House of Commons was nothing but claptrap. The right hon. Baronet had stoutly denied that there was any carrying over of the deficiency to next year; but there was a carrying over, and for the right hon. Baronet to deny it was to deny the existence of the Bill which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had introduced to make good his deficiency. This year he took all that he could from the Sinking Fund, and next year he proposed to pay out of the same fund what he could to meet the deficiency which was carried over from this year. Of course, any taxation was unpopular; still it was remarkable that whenever it was proposed to tax any home produce, the Radical Party were dumb, but when it was proposed to tax an article of foreign produce they raised every possible objection. Lord Beaconsfield once observed that the Radical Party were friends of every country in the world but their own. Thai seemed to be true when they came to the question of taxation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had endeavoured to buy off opposition from the Beer and Spirit Duties by intimating that next year the Beer Duty would be repealed. But if that were an equitable duty, why should they take it off next year? Was it proposed to take off the Spirit Duty next year? There was no response to that question.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, if he did not immediately answer every question contained in the speeches of hon. Members, it must not be assumed that he agreed with what might be inferred from or implied in them.
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTON,continuing, said, now he would ask very seriously, was it in the power of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to promise the repeal of any portion of the taxation which he put on this year? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he would not be a party to the taxation of property unless he also taxed articles of consumption, and that he would not be a party to the increase of the duty upon spirits if he did not increase the duty on beer. Next day he proposed to take off the duty on beer; but he believed that an enormous proportion of the taxation now imposed would be necessary for many years, even in the moat favourable circumstances. The Chancellor of the Exchequer estimated a deficiency of £15,000,000, but the Vote of Credit was only for £ 11,000,000; consequently, there would be a deficiency of £4,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to put on taxation to the amount of only £7,000,000; consequently, the greater portion of the increased taxation would be necessary for the ordinary purposes of the year. The right hon. Gentleman had been acute enough to say that this excessive expenditure was exceptional. It was nothing of the kind. What would be our position next year? They must make an allowance for at least £1,500,000 of Supplementary Estimates; that made a deficiency of £5,500,000 out of £7,000,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would not tax property unless he put taxes on articles of consumption; therefore, if he took off the Beer Duty next year, and left on the increased Income Tax, he would throw lover the cardinal principle upon which be proceeded. The expenditure this tear was £100,000,000. It was perfectly clear that next year we should have an increase of the existing amount of the ordinary Estimates, which this year were £88,000,000 sterling. The Estimates in respect of the Army, Navy, and Civil Service were £4,000,000 in excess of the Estimates of last year, which were the highest ever laid on the 1447 Table of the House before. When such an increase toot place, he appealed to the experience of Members whether it was not likely to remain a portion of our ordinary expenditure? But the expenditure of the Government was £10,000,000 in excess of the Estimates which the late Government proposed, and for which they made provision. Therefore, they found that the ordinary expenditure of this Government, which was pledged to economy, was £10,000,000 in excess of the Estimates of the late Government, which was denounced as extravagant. The average increase was £2,000,000 a-year. In Mid Lothian the Prime Minister denounced the excessive Supplementary Estimates of the Government of that day. But no Government had sinned so much in that respect as the Government of the right hon. Gentleman. There were last year no fewer than five separate series of Army Supplementary Estimates, four separate series of Naval Supplementary Estimates, and three separate series of Civil Service Supplementary Estimates, while the amount averaged between £3,000,000 and £5,000,000 sterling. In fact, there was an aggregate of £12,000,000 sterling for Supplementary Estimates in five years. In addition, the Government introduced the largest Vote of Credit ever asked for. There were four points to which he wished to call attention with regard to the policy of the Government—firstly, that the normal Expenditure of this country had reached many millions more than had ever hitherto been the case; secondly, that the average annual increase had taken place by leaps and bounds; thirdly, that the Supplementary Estimates had attained an extraordinarily high figure; and, fourthly, that in times of peace we had a Vote of Credit that exceeded that of many War Budgets. Putting all these things together, he believed that our expenditure next year would reach an amount which would not permit the Chancellor of the Exchequer to effect any reduction of taxation. The President of the Local Government Board was very much in favour of the large increase of the Succession Duty proposed by the Government. He said, if it was just and equitable, there was no reason why the duty should not be increased. But the Opposition contended that it was unjust and inequitable unless pro- 1448 perty, which was taxed so highly for Imperial purposes, was relieved of the burdens imposed upon it for local purposes also. At a time when the Party opposite desired to increase the number of landowners, it was astonishing that they should support a proposal which must result in the extinction of small freeholders. By the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a small freeholder, on succeeding to his inheritance, would be compelled to pay treble the duty which he would have had to pay formerly. The result would be that a small freeholder would be forced to sell his heritage on succeeding to it, and thus the number of small landowners in this country would inevitably become less. The President of the Local Government Board had told them that the acceptance of the Budget as it stood was a question of life or death to the Government. But Governments had before now taken back their Budgets; and if the Government should resign, in the event of defeat, on the present occasion, they would resign, not through fear of the difficulty which his right hon. Friend's Motion would place in their way, but through fear of other difficulties. He, therefore, hoped the House would not be led in any degree by the threat of resignation which had been held out. The Succession Duties were only estimated to produce £200,000 this year. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to decide to forego this sum, his Budget would not materially suffer. The proposal of his right hon. Friend was clear. He said, if the Government must put an increased duty on beverages, let it be put on wine, and no answer had been made to that proposal. The Expenditure of the country was increasing at an enormous rate; and if the House should now assent to the proposed increased taxation, on the ground that it was only to be temporary, the almost certain result would be that in the end the additions would form an integral part of the permanent taxation of the country. In his Mid Lothian speeches the Prime Minister attributed the increased taxation of that day to the vigorous foreign policy of Lord Beacons-field. Now, however, unprecedented Votes of Credit were proposed in support of a policy which was by no means vigorous. The meaner and shabbier the foreign policy of the present Go- 1449 vernment was, the larger were the demands made upon the country. A principle laid down by Lord Beaconsfield 20 years ago, when the relations between Germany and Denmark were strained, was that the more the influence of England was reduced in the counsels of Europe the less security there was for peace. Now, the reason why these enormous Estimates were proposed, and why this unpopular taxation was imposed, was that the Government had reduced the influence of England to a nullity. Although nominally at peace, the House was asked to sanction a War Budget. It was possible that his right hon. Friend would be defeated, and that this unpopular taxation would pass into law; and, as he had said, he was convinced that if it did, instead of being merely temporary, it would become a permanent charge. He should not be sorry, in one sense, if the Amendment were rejected, because the eyes of the country would then be opened to the causes of the enormous expenditure, and they would be led to carefully consider the policy of the last five years, which had resulted in imposing upon the country the mischief and injury of immense taxation at home, and inflicting upon us all the discredit of constant surrender and humiliation abroad.
§ MR. ALLSOPPSir, as one of those largely affected by the Beer Duty, and while still objecting to the imposition of an increased tax upon a trade which has already many heavy burdens to bear, I nevertheless recognize the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the fact that he has endeavoured to meet the trade in a fair spirit by limiting the operation of the tax, and thus making the extra 1s. per barrel a war tax, and a war tax only. If, therefore, my vote vote had to be given on this part of the Budget only, I should have felt it my duty to have abstained from voting; but there are other proposals in the Budget to which I strongly object, and shall be obliged, therefore, to record my vote in favour of the Amendment moved by the right hon. Baronet.
§ MR. O'SULLIVAN,in supporting the Amendment, could not congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his change of front with regard to the Budget, for the right hon. Gentleman had neither made a decent retreat nor had stuck to his guns. He (Mr. O'Sullivan) 1450 thought Her Majesty's Government had made a serious mistake in putting a tax upon an article which was already considerably overtaxed. The new figures given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that evening were certainly most extraordinary, and were sprung on them by surprise, especially with regard to Ireland. He (Mr. O'Sullivan) looked upon the proposal to increase the Spirit Duty as an attempt to destroy a most important industry in that country. To prove the importance of the spirit trade in Ireland it would be sufficient to say that in January, 1883, there was in bond and in store in that country 20,550,000 gallons of Irish-made whisky, representing a value of over £5,000,000. On the same date there were in the English bonded stores only 7,000,000 gallons of whisky made in various countries, representing, including gin, a value of about £1,500,000. Home-made spirits ought not to be placed on the same footing as cigars and tobacco, the raw material of which was grown abroad, and was therefore a foreign product, whereas our spirits were manufactured from home-grown barley. Ireland had only three principal trades—that of linen, that of whisky, and that of porter; and it was now sought to destroy her whisky trade. Formerly Irish trade was destroyed by special legislation, but no one would nowadays think of bringing in a Bill to destroy any particular branch of Irish industry; but the present action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would prove as fatal to the trade he referred to as any legislation could do. He might be told that this increase in the Spirit Duties had been made in the interests of morality; but, if that were the case, why had not an equal tax been put upon alcohol in all its forms? Why was spirit selected? Was it not a well-known fact that that article was at present taxed 200 or 300 per cent over its actual value, and why should another 10 per cent of taxation be added to it? During the last 30 years, however, the Liberal Party had made frequent attempts to destroy the Irish whisky trade. Thirty years since the duty was only 2s. 4d. per gallon on Irish whisky; it was now 400 per cent more than the first cost of the article. He should like to know whether there was any trade in this country which would stand such a duty as that? The 1451 result of the taxation in Ireland had been to reduce the number of distilleries to one-third the number that existed 50 years ago, and the effect of this policy was that they were destroying the makers of a pure wholesome whisky, and driving hundreds of thousands of people into early graves and lunatic asylums by encouraging the consumption of inferior spirits. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer were actuated by any motives of morality, why did he not put a tax of 2s. duty upon whisky taken out before it was one year old, and 1s. on whisky taken out before two years? If he had done that he would have the whole House with him, and would have served the cause of real and solid temperance more than all the tinkering Bills ever brought into this House by the Temperance Party. The result of the present proposals would be to encourage the manufacture and consumption of inferior German spirit made from potatoes, which was only fit for lighting lamps. This Budget offered a direct bonus to foreign manufacture. It was not merely those engaged in the whisky trade who would be injured, but the farmers, who now found barley a profitable crop. Again, the proposal was such as it would make Ireland and Scotland pay two-fifths of the whole duty, notwithstanding that their population was not one-fourth of the whole of that of the United Kingdom. The number of gallons of spirit according to population consumed in the three countries and the amount paid per head of the tax would show this. He held in his hand a very important calculation, which showed that Englishmen drank, on an average, a little over four gallons per head of alcohol in all shapes, Scotchmen a little over three gallons, and Irishmen only two gallons, or a little more than one-half that consumed by Englishmen. Yet see he w they were made to pay for this luxury in the different countries? The Scotchman paid in the shape of duty 18s. 1d. per head, the Irishman 13s. 10d. per head; but the Englishman, who consumed twice as much as the Irishman, paid only 11s. 8d. per head. Was this a fair way of taking what was known as an "even keel" for the three countries? If any Irish or Scotch Members voted for the Government tonight, he could only say that they preferred their Party to their country. 1452 The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that he expected to receive only £900,000 from the spirits and £750,000 from beer; but he maintained that Ireland and Scotland alone would pay more than that sum themselves. He asserted, without fear of contradiction, that the right hon. Gentleman would have got £1,000,000 sterling from Ireland and Scotland alone under the 2s. increased duty on spirits. By the change he now proposed that amount would be reduced to £500,000. When introducing his Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken as if the tax on beer would but very slightly affect Ireland. He (Mr. O'Sullivan) would show the House that Ireland paid more than her share of that tax also. There were 44 breweries in Ireland, and one of these alone would pay over £60,000. The remaining 43 would surely pay another £60,000. Was that a trifle? Under these proposals of the Government Ireland, with 1-16th of the wealth of the United Kingdom, would have to pay l-9th of the taxation. An admission made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in bringing in his Budget showed his position in regard to the increase of the Spirit Duty to be altogether inconsistent. The right hon. Gentleman said—"As to spirits, we have satisfied ourselves that they may now well bear an increased duty." What, he (Mr. O'Sullivan) would ask, could these words mean, except that the consumption of spirits was increasing? Yet the fact was the Government had for some years past been pursuing a policy which was steadily destroying one of the few industries they had yet remaining in Ireland. Some years ago they had 93 distilleries in Ireland, while they had now only 31, and that notwithstanding the fact that it was admitted on all sides that drinking had increased all over the country—a consequence of the extensive substitution of bad spirits for the wholesome articles formerly made. In the face of a falling consumption it was outrageous for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to attempt to put an increased duty on Irish and Scotch spirits. People sometimes wondered at the persistency with which Irish Members strove to obtain a Home Legislature for Ireland; but he asked whether the circumstances he was now mentioning, if they stood alone, were not a justification for their moving Heaven and earth to get a 1453 Home Parliament? By the policy the English Government had long been pursuing in Ireland, the spirit trade was being thrown into the hands of German distillers and others, to the great detriment of Irish interests. Had the Government proposed to put an increased duty on raw spirits the whole House would have supported them. Were there not many other things upon which taxation might justly be imposed to make good the deficit? Why, for instance, should not a tax be imposed on ground rents, which yielded large incomes to persons who contributed nothing out of their own pockets for the improvement of the property from which they derived them? A tax on ground rents in all cities and towns would be a most equitable tax, and as much as £3,000,000 a-year might fairly and easily be made by taxing them 10 per cent. Next to taxing ground rents he would levy a tax upon clubs, which were nothing else than public-houses in disguise, and gave rise to an evasion of the laws regulating the sale of intoxicating liquors, and were a source of vice and immorality, as many of them were nothing better than dens for gambling and drinking. See the difference in duty on the drink of the wealthy and the drink of the working man. The working man who went into the shop of a spirit merchant and bought a bottle of whisky paid 1s. 6d. to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, while the wealthy squire who invested in a bottle of champagne, several times the value of the whisky, contributed only 2d. £250,000 might be raised by taxing high-class wines and cigars. It was the man who drove in his carriage who contributed least to the Income and to the expenses of State. It was the old story of the wealthy making laws to tax the poor and to relieve themselves. Three-fourths of the taxes of the country were raised from consumable articles, and certainly nine-tenths of that was paid by the poor and working class, which ought to be sufficient without adding more to their burdens. He had always since he had come into that House exerted himself in favour of the working man, and as long as he had the honour of occupying a seat in that House he would continue to do so. He assured the House that he was in earnest in the proposition which he had made some time ago, although hon. Members laughed at it. He be- 1454 lieved that they should double the Income Tax upon every man who was un-married at the age of 30 years. A man who had family to support, a house to maintain, and servants to keep was entitled to some relief; and, besides, he believed that a married man was more likely to do good to society than a single man. He did not, therefore, think it at all unreasonable that a single man should pay a double Income Tax, as he could spare it far more than a married man, and, besides, it was a tax which he could get rid of any day he liked. For all these reasons he would strongly support the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet, and he would call upon all the Irish and Scotch Members to support it also. Any Irish or Scotch Member who supported the Government on this question thought far more of the considerations of Party than seeing his country crushed down by undue taxation. The Government taxed Ireland and taxed Scotland heavily, so that taxation might sit lightly on England.
§ COLONEL O'BEIRNEsaid, that, as an Irish Member who usually supported the Government, he felt bound on this occasion to vote against them. He considered it a very great hardship that the Irish people should have their national beverage taxed to the extent proposed by the Government. The extra tax on beer would, he understood, be in operation for one year only; but the additional tax on whisky would be retained in perpetuity. That was not fair. In regard to whisky they knew from past experience that taxes put upon it were never removed. He did not, besides, believe that Ireland should be forced to contribute so much to the large expenditure incurred by Her Majesty's Government in their foreign policy, such as in the war in the Soudan. He felt very strongly on this point, for Ireland, as far as he knew, derived no benefit whatever from this large expenditure. As far as Ireland was concerned, it was utterly useless. Another reason why he objected to the proposal of the Government was that the teetotallers would escape altogether paying their just contribution towards the national expenses. If the taxes were just and sound they ought to affect everybody in the country. It was generally supposed that people became teetotallers from very excellent motives. It had been stated, on good 1455 authority, that there were 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 of teetotallers in the country, and that a very large proportion of thorn abstained from drink solely because they dared not trust themselves with a limited quantity of liquor lest they should become drunkards. They had no alternative but to abstain. He failed to see why teetotallers should be altogether exempted from taxation—in fact, the way in which the teetotallers and the Salvation Army were exempted from taxation was a national disgrace. The President of the Local Government Board said he did not like to impose a further duty upon wine, because it would give offence to France to do so. But if the French considered that a tax would be beneficial to them they would not shrink from imposing it lest it might give offence to England. He thought that an increased duty should be laid on wine and champagnes especially for this reason also—that such a course would help to reconcile the poorer classes of this country to the increased taxation imposed upon them. At the same time champagne, it should be remembered, was also taken by the lower classes a good deal. ["Oh!" and laughter.] Yes, he believed that the miners in the North of England often drank it. For these reasons he would vote in favour of the Amendment.
§ MR. CLARE READsaid, he hoped he would be allowed to supplement some of the remarks he had made on the Budget night with reference to the Malt Tax, because that subject was one in which he took a great interest, and nearly 20 years ago he was returned to Parliament to try to abolish it. The agriculturists of this country were like the Egyptians, who instead of having their burdens lightened, had them greatly increased. That seemed to be the general policy of the Liberal Government towards the agricultural interest. The only effort made in his time towards the reduction of the duty on beer was when Mr. Disraeli in 1857 proposed that the Malt Tax should be reduced one-half; but the House of Commons soon disposed of the Malt Tax and of his Government at the same time. Lord John Russell, before the days of Free Trade, said that if he happened to be in Office when Free Trade was adopted the first tax he would repeal would be the Malt Tax; but some years after- 1456 wards when he was in Office he entirely forgot that promise. Lord John Bus-sell proposed an addition of 5 per cent on the Customs and Inland Revenue and on the assessed taxes; and it was curious that whereas on almost all the other things the 5 per cent was abolished, it still remained on beer up to the present day. He was, therefore, very much obliged to the Chancellor of the Exchequer when, putting on the 1s. duty, he said that it would not continue beyond next May. It was well, at all events, that a time should be fixed beyond which the tax should not continue. When Mr. Cobden proposed the abolition of taxes on soap and a great variety of other articles he also recommended the abolition of the Malt Tax; and it was a strange thing that of all these taxes the only one retained was the Malt Tax. He remembered Mr. Cobden saying that when he went abroad and saw the people of the country drinking their own free wine, he could not but contrast their lot with that of the agricultural labourer who had to pay a tax on the beer he drank. In 1880 the Prime Minister transferred the tax from malt to beer, and said he only wanted to obtain an equal amount of taxation from beer. But now he found, from a Return to Parliament in 1884, that the duty upon beer was no less than 24s. 4 ¼d., being something like 2s. more than it was before. Then there was an addition to that—namely, the heavy increase of the duty for licences upon the publicans. In many country districts it was more than double what they had previously paid. No one could doubt that there was great depression of the agricultural interest, and that depression was most severely felt in the Eastern counties, where, in these latter days, barley had been the only crop that had paid for cultivation. And yet barley was the crop the Chancellor of the Exchequer singled out to put an increased duty upon. The county he had the honour to represent (Norfolk) grew more acres of barley than any other county except Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, the acreage being generally within a trifle of 200,000 acres, and he calculated that this increased duty would be something like a tax of 10s. an acre upon every acre of barley grown in that county, and, of course, throughout England. Dividing the tax between the 1457 consumer and the producer, the Norfolk farmers would have to pay out of their poverty something like an increase of £50,000 under this new Budget. The average price of barley per quarter was about 28.s., and the duty levied would be something of the same amount. Therefore they would have a tax of 100 per cent upon their barley. The Chancellor of the Exchequer estimated the increase of the Revenue from the 1s. on beer at only £750,000. But unless there was a very limited consumption, the 1s. ought to bring nearly double that amount. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman must believe that this increased taxation would diminish the consumption, and very much decrease the price of barley, while, at the same time, it would invite further substitutes for malt, not only from other grain, but from bounty-fed sugar, a thing which not only crippled our Colonies and ruined the refiners in the East End of London, but inflicted on farmers in the Eastern counties very great discouragement in growing beetroot sugar. He hoped the time would come when beer would be put under the Adulteration Act. People ought to know when they drank beer whether it was made of malt and hops or of other materials. It had been said that the brewers would pay the increased taxation, and that it would not fall on the consumer. He thought, however, that the brewers would take care not to pay it. Since 1880 the quality of beer had very much deteriorated, and it was therefore possible that the brewers would not be able to make it weaker; but they might use some substitute for malt and hops, which would be very disadvantageous to the community. In his opinion, the duties on Spanish wines ought not to be reduced. When he was in America, just out side the city of St. Louis, he visited a large distillery whore an immense amount of spirit was made from maize. He asked what became of that spirit, and was told that the whole of it was manufactured in bond; that one-tenth of it was sent to Antwerp, and nine-tenths to Spain for the purpose of fortifying their wines. The manager told him he did not doubt that a great deal of the spirit came to England in the shape of Spanish wines, and that it was admitted into our Free Trade country at a very considerably less duty than it would pay than if it were made from 1458 malt and barley in our own country. That was a very strong reason why we ought not to reduce the Wine Duty, as it was proposed to do.
DR. CAMERONsaid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that in the additional taxation he proposed to levy on beer and spirits England would have to pay £382,000 of additional duty on spirits against £660,000 additional duty on beer, while Ireland would have to pay £95,000 additional duty on spirits as compared with £60,000 on beer, and that Scotland would have to pay £123,000 increased duty on spirits against £30,000 as levied on beer. Now, that would show the enormously greater extent of the consumption of alcohol in the form of spirits in Scotland as compared with England. In considering the question of the Beer and Spirit Duties, it was fair to take into consideration the general scheme laid down by the right hon. Gentleman. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that he wished to distribute the burdens equitably between the payers of direct and indirect taxation, and that while the Income Tax was to be levied on the former, the proposed Beer and Spirit Duties should fall on the latter; and he exempted wines from increased taxation on the ground, as he (Dr. Cameron) understood, that the Wine Duty was paid by persons who bore the direct taxation of the country. Now, taxes might be levied for purely fiscal purposes, for the purpose of raising Revenue, or for protective purposes. We taxed alcohol and tobacco for purely protective purposes, and, so far as our reasons for governing the taxation of these articles were concerned, they were perfectly consistent with the principles of Free Trade policy; but protective taxation which acted unequally, and favoured some as compared with others, was neither consistent with justice nor Free Trade. Great anomalies existed in respect to the taxation of alcohol in different forms. We taxed alcohol as it existed in beer at the present moment—or rather as it would after this Budget Resolution was passed—at the rate of 1s. 5½d. per gallon of proof spirits, while we taxed whisky at the rate of 10s. per gallon of proof spirits. Now, beer was, according to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's figures, essentially the English mode of consuming alcohol, 1459 and whisky was essentially the Scotch mode, and less essentially the Irish mode of imbibing this poison. For every 1d. which the Englishman paid for a given amount of alcohol in the shape of duty, the Scotchman or the Irishman who drank whisky, swallowing the same amount of alcohol, paid from 6d. to 1d. That was an unfair and indefensible anomaly, and one which was tolerated only because they had become so habituated to it. The right hon. Gentleman would do well to bear in mind the warning given by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue many years ago as to the danger of the further increase of the Whisky Duty leading to the increase of illicit distillation. If the effect of the proposed increased tax on spirits should be to lessen drunkenness, he (Dr. Cameron) would support it heartily; but he did not believe that that would be the result. One result of such increased duty upon spirits would, he believed, be found to be an increase in illicit distillation. Another result would be the use of new and cheaper spirit, and a further effect would be increased adulteration. If, as Byron laid it down, that "Man being rational, must needs get drunk," alcohol in the shape of good sound whisky was probably as good a spirit as he could get drunk upon. The anomalies were borne patiently because they had become habituated to them. He thought it was not too much to ask that when any change was about to take place care should be taken not to aggravate these anomalies, as the present proposals now did. Care should be taken to do away with the existing anomalies, and to arrange that the tax on alcohol might fall equally on the different sections of the community in this country. That might be easily done if they put a tax of 4d. or 6d. a gallon on alcoholic drink, whether it happened to be beer, or wine, or whisky. If they did this, they would raise a much better Revenue. It would be an absolutely fair way of dealing with the matter, and it would tend to reduce the anomalies that already existed. It was the only system also that was free from the vice of Protection that ran through the proposals of the Bill. The levying of an extra 4d. or 6d. a gallon on proof spirits, no matter in what beverage it might be, would, of course, raise an objection in the view of those who wished to see cheap beer; 1460 but if they wished to smooth English Members by giving cheap beer, they were likely to ruffle the Scotch and Irish Members by imposing increased unfair duties on spirits. The Irish Members would take care of themselves. He would also like to see a Wine Tax. It was said that the persons who paid for wine were those who paid Income Tax; but he was not aware that this doctrine was universally true, and, besides, it was no reason why they should not pay a tax for the alcohol they consumed as well as their neighbours. He reminded the Chancellor of the Exchequer that Scotland had a motto which ought to be a warning against unnecessarily irritating that part of the Kingdom. In Scotland the people were willing to accept a great deal on the imprimatur of the Prime Minister, and from what he had heard he thought that a considerable section of the people would accept many things which possibly they might find difficult to square with some of the principles laid down in the course of the Mid Lothian campaign; but when it came to a question of bad whisky or dear whisky, the right hon. Gentleman might find a large section of the Scotch people roused into potential revolt which almost nothing else would justify. He had presented a Petition in the afternoon from more than 72,000 of his constituents, and that was a Petition the like of which he had never been asked by his constituency to present during the 12 years he had sat in the House of Commons. Burns had said that freedom and whisky went together; and there was no precept in all the code of ballad law that was more religiously followed than the injunction with which Burns coupled the statement, recommending the people to "take off their dram." Slightly altering the poet's recommendation, he would suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that if freedom and whisky went together he should take off his tax. He did not need to go to tea to find the money he required; he had only to go to wine. He urged that when a change was proposed it ought to be in the direction of removing anomalies, instead of aggravating those anomalies, as he considered the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would do. At the same time, he did not support the Amendment, because he regarded the Spirit Duties simply as a 1461 sad incident in the Budget Bill, which, so far as the Bill went, laid down very considerable improvements in our system of taxation as a whole. He had referred to this one particular incident of the Bill, and when in Committee they came to the particular clause he should vote for the views he had now expressed; but he did not see the least inconsistency in voting for the second reading of the Bill now.
§ MR. COOPEsaid, it was his intention to support the Amendment. He could not help thinking that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be woefully disappointed in the result which he expected from the increased duties on spirits and beer. He entertained a strong conviction that the increased duties on spirits would lead to no increase in the Revenue. He believed that not only smuggling and illicit distillation would increase, but that adulteration would be carried to such an extent that the Revenue would not be benefited a shilling by this taxation. The same remark applied to the increase of the Beer Duty. He admitted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made a concession in the brewers' interest. In making this concession, and in fixing the duty to terminate on the 31st of May, he thought that the right hon. Gentleman had fairly met the representations of the trade. On that point, therefore, he did not feel inclined, to oppose the measure; but, looking at the Bill as a whole, he was satisfied that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would fail to receive those results which he anticipated. He trusted that the House would accept the Amendment.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsaid, that the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet set up as an unfortunate precedent. No one listening to that discussion would suppose that the Bill dealt with matters such as the Tea Duty and the Income Tax, matters of far larger concern than the questions raised by the Amendment, which would more properly have been submitted at a later stage of the Bill. He was passing through the Central Hall of the Houses of Parliament the other day when he was stopped by a brewer from Lancashire, who complained of the increased taxation of beer. He asked this representative of the Lancashire brewers if he would kindly suggest some alternative which he could 1462 convey to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This gentleman at once suggested that Probate Duty or an equivalent tax should be imposed on all succession to real property—in fact, the very proposal against which the right hon. Baronet was now protesting—so that if he desired to please this Lancashire brewer he must be careful not to vote with the right hon. Baronet. Two lines in the Amendment were devoted to the proposed increase of the Spirit and Beer Duties, and four lines were made up of determined opposition to the equalization of the Death Duties on all kinds of property. He had heard from some of those who complained of the increase in the alcoholic duties that they made representations to certain Members of the Party opposite, begging them not to mix up the two questions; but that the front Opposition Bench was, as he should have expected, quite unwilling to let go their objection to an equal tax at death on real property. In the Resolution before the House there was an obvious unreality. In the mixture of the right hon. Baronet, the spirits and beer were evidently thrown in to give a dash of popularity to the all-important conclusion as to landed property. There were some people who went to battle with the women and children in front of their army. That was like the policy of the right hon. Baronet, who placed the working man forward to protect the landed gentry. The right hon. Baronet assumed that the increased charge on spirits and beer would be equitable if there were a corresponding addition to the duties on wine. He was certain that this assumption which was in the Resolution would be more unpalatable to those who traded in alcoholic liquors than anything which had been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The main question as to the Spirit Duties was contained in the following sentence from the Board of Inland Revenue in 1860, in which the Commissioners stated that:—
The rate of duty charged upon spirits had now, in all probability, reached a point beyond which it will not be found advisable to carry it for the purposes of revenue.The question, in his opinion, at least, was a Revenue question. Would the increased duty on spirits be paid? He was bound to confess he was not at all convinced upon that point by the 1463 speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The duty was now 20d. upon every bottle of proof spirits. That was an extremely high charge. He was not sure that the authorities were very successful in detecting illicit manufacture of spirits, or that the apparent decline in consumption over which they had rejoiced was not partly due to smuggling or illicit distillation. This was an aspect of the Spirit Duty which made it desirable that the addition should not be regarded as being necessarily of a permanent character. As to the Beer Duty, they had heard during the last fortnight every variety of opinion upon the incidence of this tax. The hon. Member for Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) said it would fall on the farmer and the consumer. Thinking the matter over for himself, he had come to the conclusion that it would to a largo extent be paid by the producers, and that therefore it did not meet the recommendation by which it had been supported. The duty on beer was rather more than ½d. per quart. That was a high duty. The tax on a bottle of champagne, costing 3s. 6d., was said to be 2d., or one-twentieth of the cost. Such contrasts were not agreeable. It was, no doubt, quite true that the wine-drinker was usually an Income Tax payer, and that of the beer drinkers the vast majority never paid Income Tax. But it must be remembered that working men paid heavily upon their tea and tobacco, and he had no doubt that as a rule working men paid a much larger proportion of their income in taxation than the wealthy classes. The country brewers complained in a recent memorial, dated May 8, that the proposed increase of 1s. per barrel was not specifically connected with the War Tax, and distinctly implying that it was only on account of the absence of such an assurance that they expressed themselves agreed. Their prayer was that the increased duty should not be made a permanent charge. This had been provided for by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He now passed to that which was the real question of the evening—the new charges upon property. His objection to the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so far as they touched the Death Duties, was one external to the business of his Department. They would tend, he feared, just as the 1464 late lamented Lord Cairns's Settled Land Act tended, to aggravate that master evil of the English land system, the practice of placing land in strict settlement. The payment in the case of settled land would be, as now, upon the value of the life interest; whereas in the case of land held in fee simple, or by a tenant in tail—that was, by one with power to obtain the freehold—the charge would be upon the capital value. The consequence would be to encourage the practice of settlement. What had been the ostensible and what the real reason why the savings of a professional man or of a tradesman and the property of a landowner should be differently charged with Death Duties to the advantage of the latter? Ostensibly the difference had been permitted, because of the liability of rateable property to local charges. Succession Duty did not add a farthing to local charges; it did nothing but diminish the inheritance of the successor. But, really, the difference had been made because of the practice of settlement. When the Prime Minister dealt with this subject in 1853, he said—As a matter of fact, under the social arrangements of this country, our great estates are settled estates.And because our great estates were settled estates we had exempted from the duty on capital value those which were not settled estates. The Chancellor of the Exchequer now proposed that Succession Duty should be paid upon capital value where the land was to be enjoyed by a person absolutely or as tenant in tail. He was within the bounds of moderation in saying that this provision would not affect one-fourth of the soil of the United Kingdom. And under such a system it was only natural that the small proportion of land taxable upon capital value should be still further diminished. While the House acknowledged the equity of the proposal it would observe the necessity for restricting, and, he hoped, of abolishing, the practice of strict settlement. If the landlords would help, for their own advantage, in abolishing all that which the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War had called—The artificial and obsolete restrictions of law which still hinder the natural distribution of land in a manner which would be most advantageous to the State,1465 he would undertake to say that the value of their possessions would be increased by very much more than the proposed taxation. He should not now refer to the gross injustice, as he conceived it to be, of the exemptions from the charge in lieu of Probate and Legacy or Succession Duties given by the Budget to the property of Corporations. The proposal to give to 2,000,000 acres of land held in mortmain a statutable title to exemption was a deep stain upon the Budget. The operation of the Budget would be to favour the passing of land into the injurious condition of mortmain and of settlement. That was the unquestionable tendency of the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman. This must be met by speedy legislation. Then this charge now to be sanctioned would fall equitably upon all land, and the soil of this country would regain a value more nearly proportionate to that of free land in other countries in regard to its advantages as to markets and fertility. The practical consequence would be that the land would be valued in each generation, and that a fair proportion of the increment of value would be received by the State. There was one economic fallacy which was brought forward by the right hon. Baronet—namely, that this taxation was inadvisable because it was a tax upon capital. He admitted that, as a general rule, the Succession Duty was a tax on capital. But he denied—and in this denial he had the support of the highest economic authority—that in the circumstances of this country that was a valid objection. Taxes on capital were not objectionable where a large portion of the revenue was converted into capital by payments to the fundholder; nor could the objection be regarded as sound in a country rapidly increasing in wealth, where the taxation so obtained formed but a fraction of the annual increase of capital. But he repeated his protest against the form in which the right hon. Baronet advanced his opposition. This was not a Beer and Spirit Bill. Its first proposal dealt with tea; its last with Income Tax. In voting for the second reading he declined to be committed as to any one of the proposals to which the Amendment referred. To vote against the second reading because one objected to one or two features of a Budget would be an evil departure 1466 from the best rules of Parliamentary conduct. The time would probably come when he (Sir Michael Hicks Beach) would be one of the first to regret the bad example he had set to-night. The dangerous precedent, so dangerous to a Conservative Ministry, was probably due to the right hon. Baronet being fearful that his place would be taken by the noble Lord the Member or Wood stock (Lord Randolph Churchill) if he awaited a more Parliamentary and legitimate opportunity.
§ MR. ORR-EWINGsaid, the President of the Local Government Board had failed to furnish one single argument on behalf of the Budget. His whole speech was an attack upon the suggestions made by the right hon. Baronet who had moved the Amendment. He evidently thought he had got a very popular question when he dwelt upon that of tea with so much gusto, and that it would form an additional cry on the hustings. But he did not do justice to what the right hon. Baronet said. He never suggested that they should tax the tea consumed by the working classes; but what he suggested was that, by the judicious raising of the tax on the higher qualities of the tea, he might have got a considerable revenue upon an article which was generally consumed without putting an additional burden on spirits and beer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had surprised him, and he dared say surprised the House also, by the figures which he put before the House. Why did the right hon. Gentleman not put these figures sooner before the House and the country? No one could cheek them that night; but he believed the corrected figures published in The Economist to be substantially correct, and he was inclined to think that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been able to bring out any great difference of results from the figures he would have placed them before the country long before this. He (Mr. Orr-Ewing) had put down an Amendment to the Revenue Bill immediately after it was submitted to the House; but, unfortunately, having been out of London his Amendment had lapsed, and as it was necessary that he should have renewed it it was not in his power now to move it. He would, however, read the terms of it to the House, It was, in effect, as followed:— 1467
That the proposed increase of 2s. per gallon on spirits was unjust and inequitable to Scotland and Ireland, and that no increased duty should he charged on spirits unless wine, beer, ale, and porter were charged equal duties. And further that, considering that 1,711 stills had been detected during the last two years, it was inexpedient to make any increase in the duty now charged on spirits.It would, perhaps, be not uninteresting to the House if he gave a short sketch of how these duties had been dealt with since the beginning of the century. Early in the century the Government of the day had increased the duty on spirits to 6s. 2d. per Imperial gallon; but in 1814, owing to the enormous extent to which smuggling and illicit distillation were carried on in Scotland and Ireland, the duty was reduced in those countries to 2s. 4d. That reduction had an immediate effect, for in the following year the amount of money collected as duty by the Revenue was greatly increased. In 1825 the duty was raised by 6d. per gallon, making it 2s. lOd. During the years to which he had referred, and up to 1830, there was not only a duty of 9s. 10d per barrel on ale and 4s. 10½d. on beer, but there was also a duty on malt of 2s. 7d. a bushel, with 5 per cent added, and also a large duty on hops, which were now entirely abolished. In 1830 there was also a duty charged on cider. But in 1830 it was proposed to abolish the duty on beer, on the ground that it was unfair to charge the general public a duty on beer when many people had liberty to brew beer at home for their own consumption. The proposal, however, was stoutly resisted by Parliament and by the brewers and publicans, on the ground that it would be unfair to have the duty taken off beer and left on malt. In 1830 an additional duty of 6d. per gallon was imposed on spirits in Scotland and Ireland, and at the same time 10d. per gallon was added to the duty in England; while in 1834 1s. was taken off the duty in Scotland and Ireland. This difference in the duties in England and in Scotland and Ireland was made for the purpose of doing justice to the two latter countries, because whisky was deemed to be the national drink in Scotland and Ireland. Then, in 1842, Sir Robert Peel raised the duty in Ireland by 1s., in order to equalize it with the duty then imposed in Scotland. The duty upon Scotch and Irish spirits had 1468 been raised from time to time. In 1852 the present Prime Minister raised it to 4s. 4d. per gallon in Scotland, and to 3s. 4d. in Ireland. In 1854 the Prime Minister again raised the duty on spirits to 6s. in Scotland, and to 4s.in Ireland. In l855 the right hon. Gentleman again raised the duty to 7s. 10d. in Scotland, and to 6s. in Ireland, thus equalizing the duty in England and Scotland in 1858. Mr. Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, equalized the duty on spirits in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and increased the duty to 8s. per gallon; and in 1860 the present Prime Minister further increased the duty by 2s., thus raising it to its present standard of 10s. per gallon. At this moment Ireland and Scotland were paying an undue share of the taxation of the country, and it was now proposed to aggravate that injustice to the extent of 10 per cent. The reduction in the consumption of spirits which the Chancellor of the Exchequer contemplated would result from the increased duty upon them amounted to more than 4,500,000 gallons, which would reduce the demand for barley in Scotland by some 232,000 quarters. The result of the change proposed to be effected in the duty would be to throw an unduly heavy charge upon agricultural land in Scotland. No one would dare to propose to make Scotland and Ireland pay double the Income Tax paid by England; but the present duties on alcoholic drinks had the effect of making Scotland pay for the alcohol she drank an amount larger than double the amount of Income Tax paid in 1883. He was sure that English Members had only to take those facts into their consideration to determine them not only to resist the proposed increase of duty on spirits, but to take care, from year to year, that justice was done to England and Scotland in that matter. Moreover, an increase of the duty would, in his opinion, be a premium on illicit distillation. This would, of course, have a most demoralizing effect, and he hoped the Government would see their way to withdraw the additional 1s. per gallon which it was still intended to impose. He knew the increased duty was supported by teetotallers and others upon moral grounds. In his belief, there were no higher principles of morality than truth and justice, and there was no lower form of morality than cant and 1469 hypocrisy in defence of injustice; and he held that anyone who was acquainted with these and other facts which he had put before the House, and yet supported the present duties upon alcoholic drinks upon the grounds of morality, shut out all sense of justice from his mind. It was a question of fiscal duties, and justice could not be done to England, Scotland, and Ireland until the duties charged upon spirits, wines, and beers should be according to the alcohol they contained. That would not only be just to the people of Scotland and Ireland, but it would place all foreign countries from which we imported wines, spirits, or beer upon terms of justice and equality. He believed that in consequence of his Resolution having dropped from the Notice Paper he was unable to move it; but he would vote for the Resolution of the right hon. Baronet.
§ MR. WHITBREADsaid, he thought that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer was called upon to make a large addition to the taxation of the country it was right that the whole of that additional sum should not be raised by direct taxation. Perhaps it was more important at this juncture than it had ever been before that that principle should be established. Looking at the wide electorate to whom the destinies of the country were now committed, it was all important that the voters should understand that if they were in favour of an overbearing policy towards foreign nations the first thing they had to do was to find the means to pay for it. Therefore, he was in favour of increasing indirect taxation at the time that direct taxation was increased. What he regretted, however, about the Budget, especially in its original form, was that the increase of direct taxation was not made openly and palpably fair to all classes. He had never in that House been disposed—except within very moderate limits—to press the interests or to illustrate the grievances of the trade with which he was connected; and he did not desire to set one class of men in this country against another. In this matter of taxation he did not own to any preference for the Radical teetotaller, whom the right hon. Baronet who introduced this Motion called the particular friend of the Government, or for the pothouse politician, who, according to the President of the Local Government Board, 1470 was the supporter of the Party opposite. In his opinion, it was the duty of that House in the matter of taxation to mete out even-handed justice to both. With regard to the Wine Duties, he was ready to admit that this Budget did not unduly favour the rich at the expense of the poor. He wished, however, that this fact had been made more palpable, and he was afraid that it would take many speeches and many leaflets to be circulated among the electorate before they would be persuaded that the drink of the rich had not been favoured at the expense of the drink of the poor. When a trade had been accustomed to a particular tax all its arrangements were made to meet that tax. When a new tax was imposed those arrangements could not be suddenly altered to meet it. It was impossible for a brewer to relieve himself of this extra 1s. per gallon on beer by an increase of price. How, then, could the brewer meet this increase in the tax? He must either bear the increased tax himself, or he must relieve himself of the burden by deteriorating the quality of his article. Of course, if the tax was to be only of a temporary character, it ought to be taken off when the emergency passed. When the Prime Minister substituted the Beer Tax for the Malt Tax, he used as an argument that when an emergency arose an easy means was provided of raising additional taxation. But the sting of the present grievance had been this—that a call to meet an emergency was being made an opportunity to place a tax that might be permanent. Speaking for himself, however, and for others with whom he had been in immediate communication, he would say that as he had never set up the contention that in time of war or other emergency in the interests of the country indirect taxation should not be resorted to, so now that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had pledged himself to limit the taxation on beer to 13 months, he accepted that concession, and would withdraw the opposition which he had intended to offer to the right hon. Gentleman's proposals.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he did not propose to make many observations upon the Bill; but as he had placed an Amendment upon the Paper directed against every principle of the Bill, he should be sorry not to avail himself of 1471 the opportunity of saying a word upon the measure. The Amendment was to the effect that no alteration in the existing fiscal arrangements could be satisfactory which tended to benefit the foreign producer at the expense of the home producer. He did not suppose that there ever was a time when anything which had that tendency would be more undesirable than at the present moment. When the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was laying his financial proposals before the House he made use of these words—
On the other hand, pauperism appears to me to be beginning to increase; and there is an increasing desire to emigrate by no means confined to Ireland. I am sorry to say that I do not agree with Prince Bismarck in concluding that this is evidence of the prosperity of the country. Since last year there has been a still more serious fall in Railway Receipts; and these are, to my mind, an unfailing barometer of the condition of the country. Having, then, last year framed my Estimate on evidence of a not altogether unfavourable state of matters, as affecting both the consumer and the payer of Income Tax, and that Estimate having been entirely justified, this year I shall not take quite so hopeful a view. I shall estimate on the basis of a moderately decreased consumption, a slight fall in the average of wages, and a stationary income for the middle and higher classes."—(3 Hansard, [297] 1141.)The Chancellor of the Exchequer might well anticipate such a disadvantageous state of things. Any hon. Member who took the trouble to examine, with the care they deserved, the Board of Trade Returns for trade and navigation for each succeeding month since the beginning of the year would find that there had never been, at least for a great number of years, such a serious state of manufactures and of exports as these figures revealed. He would only refer to one of them, which was the last issued—namely, the Return for the month of April, 1885. From that Return it would be found that although the imports had increased in all but two of the nine classes in which they were set forth, the exports showed a decrease in every single one of the classes. Moreover, the imports showed an increase in the very things which the industries of this country might naturally wish that an increase should not be shown—that was to say, in manufactured articles. Nothing could be more striking, and nothing could be more convincing, than those figures, given forth as they were by the Government 1472 month after month, of the decrease in the manufacturing industries of the country, and the rapid strides with which foreign countries were overtaking the home industries of this country. He would not enter at length into particulars; but in order to show how, in detail, this matter worked, he would ask the House for a few moments to consider the condition of one industry with which France was competing with England. In The Economist—a newspaper which the right hon. Gentleman had thought fit to criticize that afternoon—he found in the monthly trade supplement for February these words with regard to the silk trade—In Coventry during the best period of the ribbon trade about 40,000 persons were dependent upon it, whereas now not more than one-fourth of that number derive their living from that source. In London, including Spitalfields, 6,000 persons used to be engaged in that industry, where there are now only about 4,000; and in other districts a similar, although not so great, falling off has taken place. In regard to imports, in 1860 we imported £9,200,000 of raw silk, while in 1883 the imports amounted only to £3,200,000; while, on the other hand, the imports of silk manufactured goods increased in the same period from £3,344,000 to £10,500,000.That was the commercial relation between this country and France in regard to an important branch of industry. The other country he wished to refer to was Germany, and the branch of trade which set forth the commercial relations between the United Kingdom and Germany was best exemplified in the case of the iron and steel wire trade. A trade circular from an important London and Liverpool firm contained this statement—We foreshadowed, in our last yearly Report, that there must be a reduction made in the wages of the wire drawers. If we are to retain an important share of this trade—the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself admitted that he looked forward to a reduction of wages generally throughout the country—a reduction of 25 per cent might enable our manufacturers to meet the foreign competition to some extent. Even now the prices in Germany are below ours, and even in the Liverpool delivery the German manufacturers can compete with us successfully, seeing that their prices are not higher, but in some cases considerably below ours. The falling off in shipments is very noticeable, and it will be seen that Germany has taken one-half of our Colonial trade.1473 He asked the House to give attention to a short series of figures, which showed how the trade had been affected during the last five years. In 1881 we imported into the Australian Colonies 38,000 tons of wire; in 1882 the amount rose to 50,000 tons; in 1883 it fell to 26,000 tons; and in 1884 to 22,000 tons. What were the Germans doing during the same period? How were they competing with the English manufacturer in those markets which, previously, this country had almost entirely to itself. In the case of iron wire, Germany exported in 1881, 188,000 tons; 222,000 tons in 1882; 233,000 tons in 1883; and 254,000 tons last year. In steel wire the increase was still more remarkable. In the four years the figures were—in 1881, 4,000 tons; 1882, 10,000 tons; 1883, 58,000 tons; and in 1884, 124,000 tons. Germany, therefore, had beaten us entirely out of the field so far as a large portion of the trade was concerned. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had decided, in spite of the increase of pauperism, in spite of the stationary incomes of the middle and richer classes, and in spite of the falling off which he himself anticipated in wages throughout the country, to place before the House proposals which involved the favouring of the foreign producer at the expense of the home producer. The branches of the trade which the right hon. Gentleman selected for his attack were the beer and the spirit industries. He (Mr. O'Connor) thought the beer industry had a very fair ground of complaint against the present Government in this respect, because in the year 1880, in the month of June, the Prime Minister, in explaining his proposal to change the tax upon malt into a Beer Duty, said—As I estimated the change, it will be in favour of the public, and with an outlay of £1,100,000 we shall obtain, after defraying some temporary charges, between £300,000 and £400,000 a-year solid Revenue, perfectly unexceptionable in its character, and which is due from laying the duty on a manufactured article instead of upon raw material. The brewing trade represented to us that we should make a much larger sum of money than we supposed, and it is with the view of testing that operation that I wish to reserve any judgment on details; because I admit we are not entitled to make any such addition to the Revenue as they presume we should be making by levying on the same quantity of material a 1474 very considerably higher tax, while we profess to be levying a tax which it is worth their while to pay in consideration of their relief from the Malt Duty and its accompaniments—the only exception to that being that the turn in cases of this kind is very properly given in favour of the Revenue."—(3 Hansard, [253] 732–3.)What had been the effect of the change? The effect had been this—that whereas the original charge upon beer was the Malt Tax of £1 1s. 8½d. a-quarter, and the Hop Duty, afterwards commuted by the payment of 1s. a-quarter upon malt, making the total charge £1 2s. 8½d., it had since been increased to what was equivalent to £1 4s. 6½d. The Government, therefore, obtained more than they bargained for to the extent of 2s. a-quarter on malt. If, therefore, any change were to be made in respect of the Beer Duty, such change ought to be in accordance with the half-promise made by the present Prime Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1880, and such change should be a reduction rather than an increase. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer now proposed to increase the Beer Duty to £1 8s. 5½d. That proposal appeared to him (Mr. O'Connor) to involve something which amounted, he would not say to a breach of faith, but, at any rate, something which furnished a very fair and reasonable ground of complaint on the part of the beer industry. If that were so in the case of beer, he thought the complaint of the spirit producers was even better founded. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House that he would put such words into his Bill as would make it appear that the Beer Duty was not intended to last beyond next year; but the right hon. Gentleman had not held out the same comforting assurance to the spirit producers, and he thought they might rest satisfied that when once this tax was imposed it was not at all likely that it would be easily removed. Therefore, if they wanted to prevent a permanent increase, now was the time for taking a determined stand against it. It appeared to him that, even as things were at present, the producers of the country had very good ground of complaint against the unfair competition of the foreign producers. He would say nothing of the degree of alcoholic strength at which wine was to be ad- 1475 mitted from Spain; but if things remained as they were, and 42 degrees of alcoholic strength were to be taxed to the amount, of 2s. 6d., while the same amount of alcoholic strength in the productions of our home industry was to be taxed at 5s., it was perfectly clear that up to the strength of 42 degrees the British or home producer was handicapped to the extent of 2s. 6d. for the benefit of the foreigner. It was all very well to talk about Free Trade—and he was quite as prepared to support Free Trade as any hon. Member in that House, and he should be glad to see our Customs and Excise Duties abolished altogether—but to talk of Free Trade, and then to handicap our own producers in favour of the foreigner, appeared to him to be Free Trade in a wrong direction—Free Trade, as a matter of fact, in ruin. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had indulged in a criticism of certain articles in The Economist newspaper.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, that he had not discussed any arguments or articles in The Economist, but had corrected a table of calculations as to the Beer and Spirit Duties set out in that paper.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that he would not say, then, that the right hon. Gentleman had criticized the articles, but that he had corrected the figures. He would be glad, however, if somebody would elucidate the figures of the right hon. Gentleman himself, because they were certainly somewhat remarkable, and he, for one, confessed that he was not able to understand how the right hon. Gentleman arrived at them. According to the right hon. Gentleman, the increase of 2s. in the Spirit Duty would yield only £900,000; while the increase of 1s. would yield £600,000. Now, an increase of 2s. on the present consumption of 36,000,000 gallons ought to give £3,600,000; and an increase of 1s. ought to give £1,800,000, whereas it was to give only one third of that sum. There was only one explanation of the Estimate of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it was this—that he anticipated a diminished consumption and a diminished production. Very well; it followed that he was deliberately aiming a blow at the home 1476 industry at the same time that he was proposing to benefit the foreign producer. According to the right hon. Gentleman's figures, and assuming that there was a diminution of production which was to account for them, the House could only arrive at the conclusion that the right hon. Gentleman anticipated a diminution of no less than 12 or 13 per cent in the production of this particular branch of industry. He (Mr. O'Connor) did not wonder that that was so, because the Commission which sat upon the Revenue as far back as 1860 reported that an increase of 1s. 11d. per gallon had resulted in a decrease to the Revenue of £500,000. The Commissioners further reported that the rate of duty charged had, in all probability, reached a point which it would not be found desirable to go beyond for the purposes of Revenue. He thought it was a pity that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, before deciding upon the present increase, had not carefully considered the grounds for that opinion, and the force of the Report presented 25 years ago by the Commission. Well, then, the result of the fiscal arrangements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was that the poor man was taxed in his drink, as had been stated by several hon. Members, much more heavily than the rich man already. Take spirits at 30 or 26 degrees of alcoholic strength. A duty of 1s. only was charged upon sherry of the same amount of strength as whisky and water, whereas the latter was charged 3s. Then, again, if they looked at the tax from an ad valorem point of view, it would be found that the home production was taxed 200 per cent, while sherry of 30 degrees alcoholic strength was only taxed 6⅔per cent, and champagne only 3⅓ per cent. Could anything be more monstrous? The poor man's drink was beer and spirits, the rich man's was claret and champagne. Claret and champagne were taxed 3 per cent, or 6 per cent ad valorem, while the poor man's drink—spirits—was taxed at 200 per cent. And what did the Chancellor of the Exchequer propose? He proposed to increase the tax on the already excessively-taxed poor man's drink, and to reduce the taxation on the rich man's beverage. The worst of it, however, was that the rich man's beverage was produced abroad by the foreign producer, whereas 1477 the poor man's beverage was a home production. He had already said that he was prepared to substantiate his statement by the quotation of figures that the home producer was handicapped to the extent of some 2s. 1d. per gallon. He quite agreed that the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would tend, if carried out fully, to the importation of inferior foreign spirits, which, fortified in this country, would unquestionably be used to undersell the honest home production; and the articles which would come into greater consumption than they had yet reached would be inferior articles made of deleterious materials, and which, while not tending properly to bring about any increase of Revenue, would certainly not tend to diminish drunkenness. But the fall in the consumption the Chancellor of the Exchequer looked forward to was not limited to the manufactured article. A fall in the consumption of whisky meant a fall in the consumption of the raw material of which whisky was made, and the agricultural interests of the Three Kingdoms were consequently directly affected by this attack of the Government on an important branch of manufacturing industry. The agricultural interests of Ireland were particularly affected, and not only would the farmers of Ireland suffer, but also those who looked to the farmers for their rent. The area of barley in Ireland was a very important item in the agricultural economy of the country. That area had been for years steadily diminishing. In 1880 the area under barley in Ireland was 213,000 acres; in 1881 it was 210,000 acres; in 1882 it was 187,000 acres; in 1883 it was 183,000 acres; and in 1884 it fell to 166,000 acres. It was, therefore, a languishing industry; it was a crop which was getting less and less every year; and he had heard only that day that this very proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer had already had the effect of diminishing the marketable value of barley, in certain parts of Ireland, to the extent of 1s. That was a very serious thing for a struggling community like the people of Ireland, and he found that a number of the best informed of the farmers in his county and the borders had agreed that the blow to the manufacturing industry was nothing like so serious as it was likely to prove to many of the small farmers of the 1478 district. He might say this—that in Queen's County, or, at any rate, in parts of Queen's County, and in many other parts of Ireland, the small farmer looked to his barley crop for the means of paying his rent; and if the barley crop was to be depreciated in value, and if the market it now found was to be restricted, all the judicial rents in Ireland would have to be revised, because it would be perfectly impossible for the farmers of Ireland to continue to pay the rents they were now saddled with by the Land Courts if the value of their output—associated with foreign competition and all the other adverse circumstances they had to contend with—was diminished. He thought he had said enough to show—["Hear, hear!" from the Ministerial Benches]—he dared say he had said too much for those who were prepared to support the Government, in season or out of season, whether they were right or whether they were wrong—but he thought he had said enough to show that he had good grounds for placing on the Paper an Amendment to protest against the proposals of the Government, which unquestionably tended to benefit the foreign producer at the expense of the home manufacturer.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)I do not at all complain of the speech of the hon. Member who has just sat down. On the contrary, I listened to him with interest. But there was one point in the speech of the lion. Member on which I will make an observation. He said that the duty on spirits at 10s. would produce so much, and he then went on to say that the duty at 12s. ought to produce proportionally so much more, and that the increase estimated in the Budget on the Revenue from spirits ought to have been £1,000,000 or £2,000.000 more than I had stated. Now, the hon. Member must know that in any calculation of this kind, unless disappointment is courted, considerable allowance must always be made for the falling off of consumption when an increase of duty is proposed; and it has been more than once made a matter of complaint against some of my Predecessors that the allowance in this respect which they have made has not been sufficient. All I can say is, that in framing the present Budget I took great care, with the 1479 officers of the Revenue, to consider what would be the falling off in consumption due to higher rates of duty; and the figures which we arrived at, in respect both of the Spirit Duty and the Beer Duty, were not arrived at carelessly, but after the fullest consideration of what the probable outcome of the duty would be. I only make that remark now upon what has fallen from the hon. Gentleman, because I do not think I heard it from any other speaker, or, at any rate, in such plain terms. In fact, from other quarters exactly an opposite objection was made. I could name several hon. Gentlemen who have told us that I should get no increase of Revenue whatever from the increase of duty; and therefore I will pair off those hon. Gentlemen who take gloomy views against the too sanguine views of the hon. Member who has just addressed the House. Now, let me come to the Motion and the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach). When I read the Motion, the first part of which is—
That the House regards the increased duty on beer and spirits as inequitable in the absence of a corresponding addition to the duties on wine,I concluded that what the right hon. Gentleman would tell the House was that he did not object to the increase of the duty on spirits and beer in itself; that he thought such a method of obtaining more Revenue at the present time was fair and reasonable; but that it was inequitable because there was not a corresponding addition to the duty on wine. I fully expected, as anyone who had read the Notice would be entitled to expect, that the right hon. Gentleman would have addressed himself to the proposition he had laid down in his Motion, and that it would be to the absence of the additional duty on wine, and to that question alone, that he would have specially referred in objecting to the increase of the duty on spirits and beer. But the House must have been surprised to hear that, though the right hon. Gentleman did allude, after he had spoken for some time, to the absence of any increase of the duty on wine, he addressed himself, in the early part of his speech, exclusively to the increase of the duties on spirits and beer as wrong in themselves; and he urged all the stock ob- 1480 jections to the increase of duty on either of those articles—such as that we should get no additional Revenue from the additional duty on spirits; that the brewers would water the beer or use sugar in its manufacture; and that the makers of spirits would give us an unwholesome liquor, and in other ways injure the consumer for the sake of making up for the increased duty. But until the right hon. Gentleman had gone some way in his speech he did not enter at all upon the proposition contained in the beginning of his Motion—namely, the unfairness of not dealing with wine at the same time as with spirits and beer. But I am happy to say that he did not stop here; because he put before the House a proposal which assumed the shape of an alternative Budget. He admitted that we were right in proposing to raise a considerable part of the Revenue by duties upon articles of consumption; but he said—"Why increase at all the duties on beer and spirits; why do you not go to tea?" And he set up tea as a proper article on which the duty should be increased. The right hon. Gentleman said that the present duty of 6d. in the 1lb. on tea was a very moderate rate of duty. But my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) conclusively answered that argument, showing that the duty on tea, instead of being moderate, was between twice and three times as heavy, in proportion to the value of the article, as the duty on beer. I may at once join issue with the right hon. Gentleman on this question of the Tea Duty. I said, in my Financial Statement, on the 30th of April, and I distinctly repeat now, that duties upon articles of liquor, such as spirits and beer, are preferable to duties upon such, articles as tea or sugar, or upon any of those articles of necessary consumption, upon which the duty has been reduced of late years or repealed altogether. I adhere to that statement, and to every word which fell from my right hon. Friend sitting beside me (Sir Charles W. Dilke), and I hope that the House will clearly understand that the contest between us and the other side is one of Tea Duty versus Liquor Duty. But the right hon. Gentleman, having disposed of the first part of the Amendment, went on to complain that at the present time we propose to impose 1481 taxation upon property passing from one person to another by death, instead of waiting until the question of local government and local burdens shall have been finally dealt with. The right hon. Gentleman vigorously upbraided me for my inconsistency in having in April, 1884, in the Financial Statement, made use of expressions in regard to changes in the Death Duties which implied that I was opposed to raising additional duties on real property at death, unless, at the same time, the House adopted a plan of local government; and I think he said that I almost gave a pledge not to propose such duties. Now, Sir, it is perfectly true that in 1884 I was of opinion that, as there seemed to be no prospect of carrying through Parliament a plan for the relief of local burdens and the arrangement of local government, it was not necessary, there being no want of Revenue at the time, to bring in then a Bill for increasing the Death Duties on real property. But the measure which I had then to consider was a very different one from that which is now before the House. If the relief of local burdens were to be simultaneous with the imposition of commensurate Death Duties on real estate, a far more radical and complete plan than the one which I now propose would have to be carried. Let me point out to the House what the nature and scope of that measure would be. Real property would then have to be subject to Probate Duty, levied in the same manner as it is levied in the case of personal property; that is to say, instead of waiting, as we propose, for four or five years before the burden on real property has reached its full height, we should have at once to place upon real property a charge in respect to Probate Duty analogous to that which is now placed upon personal property, and, instead of the mere trifle which under our plan will be derived from real estate during the present year, we should have had to impose on real property, in the first year, a charge of something like £1,000,000. It is manifestly far better, in the interests of the owner of land, to propose a substitute for Probate Duty, in the shape of a Succession Duty spread over four years, than to adopt the more drastic arrangement of placing at once real property in respect of Probate Duty on the same 1482 basis as personal property. When I said last year, in the circumstances that then existed, that I did not then propose to introduce an immediate assimilation of the duties on real and personal property, I did not debar myself from adopting, at a future time, this very gradual and moderate plan, for choosing which, instead of the more drastic alternative, those who are interested in the transmission of real property ought to thank me. I will now pass to the other speakers. The noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) was very indignant at the line which we have taken in respect of the Wine Duties, because, in refusing to place an additional tax upon wine, we have had regard not only to the commercial interests of our exporters to foreign wine-growing countries, but also to the interests of our wine-growing Colonies. My right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board alluded, among these, specially to New South Wales? What did the noble Lord say? "What is to us this regard for the Colony of New South Wales? The Radical Party are the friends of every country except their own." I hope the Colonies will remember that that is the way in which they are spoken of by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Our Colonies are part of our own country, and it is our duty, so far as it is in our power, to cultivate, as I have always endeavoured to do, their interests. They are not foreign countries to us. ["Oh!"] Yes; the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex contemptuously spoke of the Radical Party as caring for the interests of New South Wales. [Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH dissented.] I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. The noble Lord quoted my right hon. Friend's reference to the Colony of New South Wales, and said that the Radical Party were the friends of every country except their own. I think it will be a great disappointment to the Colonies to find that they are not to number hon. Gentlemen opposite among their friends, after all the professions which have been of late so lavishly made. The noble Lord also referred, in supporting the present Amendment, to questions of financial policy which are hardly within its scope. He repeated, what he has more than once said, both in and out of this House, about the increase in (he Expenditure of the present Government, and about ex- 1483 cessive Supplementary Estimates. To a certain extent I sympathize on this subject with the noble Lord, for there is nothing that a Chancellor of the Exchequer is so anxious to keep down as Supplementary Estimates. There is nothing he more desires than to prevent the growth of this most inconvenient form of Estimates. But I am bound to say that the noble Lord was not happy in the illustrations which he gave of Supplementary Estimates, and he gave them at some length. He spoke of the Supplementary Estimates of 1882 and 1884 as excessive. But the "excessive" Supplementary Estimates of 1882 and 1884 were not Supplementary Estimates at all, in the common acceptation of the term, but were analogous to Votes of Credit for special wars. Although they were called Supplementary Estimates, as a matter of form, they were really sudden and unexpected demands made upon the country for expenditure connected with war; and I have never before heard such Votes classed, with Supplementary Estimates properly so called. The noble Lord then went through our general financial arrangements, and he said that since 1880, excluding the demands made in connection with war, we have raised the ordinary Expenditure of the country by some £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 a-year—I did not catch the exact figure. Now, this question was discussed at length last year, and in 1883; and it was shown unmistakably that part of the additional expenditure had reference to the Debt arrangements, not of ourselves, but of our Predecessors, that part of it had reference to education, the charge for which had steadily increased of late years, and that the largest part of the expenditure had reference to military and naval charges urgently pressed upon us by right hon. and hon. Members opposite. Much of the expenditure was rendered necessary by the extraordinarily low Estimates of 1879 and 1880, which provided most insufficiently for the construction of our armour-clad Fleet and guns. ["Oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen may say "Oh!" but that is no answer. We have shown that we have been obliged to increase our ordinary military and naval charges for ships and guns during the last three or four years in consequence of the insufficient Estimates of the last two years of the 1484 late Government; and no one will, I conceive, dispute the fact of the constant pressure put upon us by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), and hon. Members opposite, to increase that class of expenditure in order to strengthen our Fleet. I have always wished to steer clear of politics in this matter; but it is hard upon us that a noble Lord sitting on that Bench should throw in our teeth this additional expenditure, of which he and his Party were the cause, first, through their unwise economy in 1879 and 1880, and since then through their constant pressure for extravagant Estimates. The hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) has questioned the accuracy of certain figures which I have given the House in correction of an utterly erroneous statement which has been widely circulated. I can only say that those figures are perfectly accurate. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, who takes so much interest in finance, will criticize thorn carefully; and I shall be happy to hear from him the result of his investigations. I think, however, the hon. Gentleman was rather hard upon me when he said that the object of the Budget was to crush Scotch and Irish trade for the benefit of foreign trade. We have no object of the kind; our one object is to obtain a sufficient amount of Revenue from the consumer for his share of the large charge which falls upon us this year. So far from wishing to crush or injure Scotch, Irish, or English trade, I can only say that no one regrets interference with trade more than any Chancellor of the Exchequer must do. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) has told us we should do well to take warning by the declaration of the Inland Revenue Authorities in 1860 as to the limit beyond which the Spirit Duties could not be raised. It is 25 years since that opinion was given by those gentlemen; and the very large experience they have had since places them in a position to say that the warnings of 1860 do not now apply, and that we may raise the duty in the way we propose with perfect safety to the Revenue, and without risk of encouraging smuggling or illicit distillation. I am much obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) 1485 for the assistance he has given us in this debate, and for the very fair and temperate way in which he has stated the objections of the brewers to anything like a permanent increase in the duty on beer. I may also add that what he said about myself—that I did not express myself with sufficient clearness on the 30th of April—may not be without some foundation, although I was not conscious of the fact. I was asked, quite at the end of the Sitting, whether I intended to treat the new duty as a war lax. What I intended to say was that we should in the present Bill treat it as any other proposal involving increased taxation, and that I wished to put the increased Beer Duty on the same footing as that on which the right hon. Gentleman opposite placed the increased Tobacco Duty. Some years since the right hon. Gentleman increased the Tobacco Duty; and he said, at the time, that he hoped the increased duty would not be required long. A year or two afterwards he expressed the same opinion in reply to a written question. He said that he hoped that the additional 4d. would be required for a short time only; but he could not put any actual limit to the time during which it would be levied. When I was asked the question as to the Beer Duty, I had in view the careful statement of the right hon. Gentleman opposite as to the Tobacco Duty, and I tried to express myself in as nearly as possible the same terms. I wish it to be clearly understood that I perfectly recognize the accuracy and propriety of the reservation made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when the Beer Duty was substituted for the Malt Tax—that was to say, that the Beer Duty might become, what the Malt Duty could not well be, a second special instrument to be used when a large increase of Revenue was required to meet an emergency. Making so large an addition as we do to the Income Tax, I think we may fairly have recourse also to the Beer Duty merely as a mode of raising the Revenue required for an emergency. I have done my best to answer the questions put to me; but before I sit down I should like to say a few words with regard to the character of the Budget, in so far as it has been impugned, in order that the House can have no doubt what-over as to the object and the intentions 1486 of the changes which we propose. When it became necessary to raise a large sum for an emergency, not of actual war, but of preparation for war, such as we have had during the present year, we considered that it was right to have resort, for a part of that Revenue, to articles of consumption. Whether we were right or not to go to spirits and beer, or whether we might have gone to tea or sugar, or some other article of general consumption, is not the main question. My first object was the paramount duty of enforcing that principle, and especially of enforcing it at the present time. Now, I am very glad to recognize, whatever may be the cause, that neither on the 30th of April, nor in any remarks since then, has anyone in this House come forward to dispute the propriety of that principle. In that I think that a great deal has been gained. I think that this year we have laid down that principle with precision; and, therefore, I hope that, whatever may be the controversy as to the particular articles to be selected for taxation, the principle is admitted that, where a considerable amount of additional taxation is required, the whole of the charge should not fall upon property, but that some portion of it should fall upon articles of consumption. Why, then, did we have recourse to spirits and beer? I might name several reasons, but I will give only two. In the first place, when we consider the large expenditure which is annually entailed upon the country by drink, I think it is logically undeniable that it should be a special subject of taxation. I am not one of those who have ever used violent language on the subject of liquor; but who can fail to recognize that intoxicating liquor does cause a large part of the expenditure of the country? It is therefore fair to go to it for additional taxation. But there is another reason why, on this occasion, beer and spirits should be the source of increased taxation instead of any other articles. Not many years ago the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote), when Chancellor of the Exchequer, found it necessary to raise more Revenue from articles of consumption, and he had recourse to tobacco, the duty on which he raised. The increase in the Revenue which he expected may not have been entirely fulfilled; but, whether that is the case or not, he had recourse 1487 to tobacco to the extent of what is now nearly £1,000,000 a-year, and did not increase the tax upon liquor. It seems to me that the turn of liquor has now come. What we have proposed is a moderate increase; the amount we have asked the public to contribute through this channel, compared with the amount of taxation upon property, is not excessive; and, therefore, I hope that the House will look favourably at the principle of our proposal. Mr. Speaker, I have endeavoured to answer the questions which have been put to me, and to state in a brief manner the reasons why we adopted this particular method of adding to the amount of indirect taxation. I have answered also the personal objection raised against my being the proposer of the increased Death Duties; and I now sit down in the hope that the House will receive these statements favourably, and will affirm the proposals we have made.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEI am sure that the House will have listened with interest to the closing remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, in which he has explained to the House what he considers to be the principle and character of the Budget. He has said that the characteristic of the Budget was that, when it should become necessary to raise a large sum for purposes such as those which have rendered it necessary to raise a large sum now, the Government of the day should have recourse for the ways and means to meet the Expenditure, not only to taxes upon property, but partly to taxes upon articles of consumption. He has given us, in brief, some of the reasons—I can hardly think that he has given the whole of the reasons—for choosing, as the article of consumption upon which such taxation is now to be imposed, the article of liquor. Now, I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has put the matter upon that footing, because I hope that when we come to a decision upon the Vote presently, we may find ourselves able to decide upon mature and, if I may so say, scientific fiscal grounds, and not upon other considerations which are foreign to the matter. I confess that I listened with very great satisfaction to a part, at all events, of the observations of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron). It seemed to me that the hon. Member, who addressed 1488 the House some time ago, spoke very sensibly and well as to the propriety of treating this question as a fiscal one. I think that that is the ground—namely, that it is a fiscal question—upon which we should deal with it. I am bound to say that, taking fiscal considerations as being the first to which weight should be given by us, the explanations given by the right hon. Gentleman in answer to the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor) are a little surprising to me. He has given as one of the reasons, and as a main reason, for selecting liquor, beer, and spirits as the particular articles of consumption on which taxation should be raised, that the Revenue derived from those articles has fallen, while the Revenue from other articles has advanced. Now, I have always thought, in my innocence, that it was a canon—a fiscal canon—that you ought not to lay taxes, as a fiscal measure, on a falling Revenue, and that that, as a general rule, is not an operation that is likely to be successful; and, undoubtedly, I listened with great surprise to the right hon. Gentleman when, instead of apologizing, as I thought he ought to have done, for committing such a solecism in finance as laying further taxation on articles which have fallen in their productiveness within the last eight years to an extent of no less than £3,000,000, he actually took credit for it, and gave it, as a reason for selecting these particular articles.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)I hope the right hon. Gentleman will excuse me if I did not make my meaning sufficiently clear. What I meant to say was, that the effect of putting additional duties on articles of consumption would be to diminish the amount of their consumption.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEI perfectly understand that. That was the answer which the right hon. Gentleman gave to the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor), who had made a somewhat exaggerated estimate of what the result of the new duties would be. The right hon. Gentleman answered, with perfect truth, that the effect of new taxation was not to produce an equivalent amount of increased Revenue, but that, on the contrary, taxing a falling Revenue would not be a productive operation. That, I have no 1489 doubt, would be the case; but I was going to observe that it was very curious that, although the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave as a reason why he should lay a further duty on beer and spirits that the Revenue had fallen within the last few years, he said nothing about wine, as to which the same thing, I believe, is true. According to his doctrine, it would be only a reasonable and a fair thing that he should add to the duties on wine as well as to the duties on beer and spirits. And that was the particular point of the argument of my right lion. Friend, who used the word "inequitable" on this ground—that if you have now a tolerably fair and equal apportionment of duties on the different kinds of liquor, beer, and spirits, if you are going to raise the duties on some of those articles without raising them on the others, you disturb what now, according to that hypothesis, is a fair and reasonable balance, and disturb it by making an inequitable arrangement. That is a proceeding which, I think, requires considerable explanation; and I am not satisfied with the explanation which the Chancellor of the Exchequer offers when he represents this proceeding as one of a purely fiscal character. My right hon. Friend argued that if you were dealing with this matter purely on fiscal principles, you would not select those particular articles on which the Revenue is falling, as they are not the articles best fitted to effect the object that you say you have in view in laying taxation on articles of consumption. And when my right hon. Friend mentioned the Tea Duty, he mentioned it as an illustration of his argument—namely, that if you have before you for consideration how you will best lay on a duty which will apply to all classes of consumers, you would not lay it on the articles of wine, beer, and spirits, and certainly not on beer and spirits without wine, but on some article of more general consumption. My right hon. Friend instanced tea, not as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Local Government Board eagerly supposed, for the sake of pitting tea against beer. I, myself, had a sharp argument with the right hon. Gentleman opposite when I argued for a reduction of the duty on tea, and he withstood me some 20 years ago with some favoured theories as to the mode in which we should deal 1490 with such taxation. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Local Government Board fastened on that illustration the false issue which they themselves chose to raise out of my right hon. Friend's speech, and they say—"You are pitting tea against beer." That is an entire misrepresentation of my right hon. Friend's argument. No, Sir; my right hon. Friend put that as a part of an argument, the second part of which has also been considerably twisted, or, at all events, misrepresented. My right hon. Friend said, and I repeat the argument—"Your object, your intention, and your motive in selecting the articles of beer and spirits as the subjects of increased taxation is not a purely fiscal object. Your reason is that you may produce another impression—an impression on the public mind that you are in some way or other forwarding the cause of temperance and adopting a measure that is to punish or put some kind of penalty upon those whom you regard as the authors of what you call a warlike or a Jingo policy." If that is so, it is one of the greatest fallacies that can well be put forward. It is one which we have heard coming from time to time from the Bench opposite, and from the Prime Minister. It is a very plausible and a very captivating theory that there are certain persons or classes in this country who have it in their power and in their wicked will to be continually plunging the country into warlike expenditure and all sorts of mischief. It is said that the only way to keep the people down is to make them feel the burdens borne by the country, and to make them pay, in fact, for their wicked proceedings. Now, I say that that is an illegitimate mode of dealing with the question as a fiscal question; and, moreover, it is a foolish mode, because who are they that have the power to bring about all these wicked things? It is the Ministry of the day, who must be supported by somebody. Now, by whom is it that they are supported? The hypothesis is that they must be supported by these wicked people. My right hon. Friend says in the present instance—"You have this war expenditure brought upon you by the Government; they are the persons responsible; and if anybody is to be punished, it is the persons who put them in power." Who are those people? 1491 Are they the Jingoes, or are they what my right hon. Friend playfully called the "Radical teetotallers?" It is really perfectly ridiculous to suppose that any argument can be founded on such a doctrine. I would also like to point out how absurd it is with reference to the immediately coming future. You are going to have a new Parliament, which is to be elected very largely by the lower classes of the people. Those are the persons who are exempt from direct taxation; and the right hon. Gentleman says that it is desirable that there should be some check placed on those people, in order that they may be made to feel the burden which they place upon the country if they pursue any wild or extravagant foreign policy. Very good; but who is to press them? It is they themselves who will have the power, according to your doctrine, in their own hands; and do you expect that they are going, in the first place, to call for an extravagant policy, and then to say, in order to punish themselves—"We are going to propose that duties should be imposed on articles of consumption rather than on property?" It is very like telling a soldier to give himself 1,000 lashes. He would take very good care that the punishment was administered very lightly. I trust I may be allowed to say, without offence, that it does seem to mo that this was a year in which we had a right to expect a very careful and a very well-conceived Budget. There were many reasons why this should be so. It is a year long marked out as an important one on account of the falling in of certain great annuities, which would completely alter a certain portion of the finances of the country. It was a time when the great question of Local and Imperial Taxation appeared to be ready for discussion and settlement; it was a time, too, when we observed that the Expenditure, on the one hand, was increasing, and, on the other hand, that the number of taxes upon which it depended was diminishing; and it was a time when it seemed that it would be only reasonable that the House or the Government should, by some means or other, make an investigation very carefully, by proper inquiry, into the real position and relative bearings of different portions of our fiscal system. I am bound to say that the condition of the country, the condi- 1492 tion of trade, and the condition of agriculture, all tended to increase the importance of making such arrangements, by looking carefully into the condition of the country, by having, as it were, a diagnosis of the condition of the country, in order that we might say what is the real bearing on one part of our system, and what on another, and what are the proper relations between the different parts of the system upon which the burdens of taxation are thrown. I undertake to say, when we come fairly to examine, if we ever do, the question of the relative burdens on land and houses, and upon personal property, the balance will be against land and houses even to a greater extent than is now supposed. In all the calculations which are made, we hear about the local taxation which is thrown upon land and houses; but we do not hear of the exceptional burdens they have to bear. We hear nothing of the Land Tax, the House Tax, and other burdens. These ought to be taken into consideration; and if they are, I believe it will appear that land and houses fully bear already their equal share of the burdens of taxation, without looking into the question of local burdens at all. That is a reason why we should look into this question, and all the more because we are at the end of the old Parliament. We are now approaching an entirely new system, under which we are to have a new Parliament, which will have to take up these matters without guidance and without assistance; but I am bound to say that we not only ought to have had a full, careful, and important financial rearrangement this year, or at least within the last two or three years, but we had every reason to expect from the character of the Government, from the language used by them before coming into Office and afterwards, and by the energy with which the Prime Minister, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, holding the double Office because there was important work to be done, and throwing himself into the making of a now Budget before he was a month in Office—I say we had every reason to suppose that this was going to be a time of very important, serious, and good financial work. Well, Sir, I think the right hon. Gentleman had not much to rejoice over in the first Budget which he so hastily undertook. There is a curious similarity or parallel 1493 between the first Budget of the Prime Minister in 1880 and the present Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Both began upon the question of the Wine Duties. Both began 'with the question of a Commercial Treaty. Both have failed to secure that Treaty. The Government are not fortunate in their Commercial Treaties; unhappily, they are, in fact, most unfortunate in their Commercial Treaties, and it would be not uninteresting if an inquiry were held as to the reason why their attempts to conclude Commercial Treaties are so unsatisfactory. With regard to wine, they attempted to conclude a Treaty with Spain, and have been unable to complete it. They seem now to desire to keep wine as an equivalent for something else they cannot get, and to tax other articles of strong drink—spirits and beer. They are now proposing to raise the additional Revenue they require by placing additional taxation upon those articles, and leaving wine untouched. We have been disappointed by the whole financial career of the Government, and I do not think that it is at all out of place at the present moment to cast a glance back over that career, having regard to the fact that this must be the last Budget of this Parliament, and having regard to the failures of the Government which have occurred for some time. The Government have never proceeded on broad principles; they have all along been fidgetting, and their fidgetting has generally resulted in failure. I will not go into detail; their plans with regard to the Wine Duties, the Silver Plate Duty, the Carriage Tax, and their attempt at the conversion of the Debt are all instances of their fidgetiness, and of their failure upon failure. The result of all these different policies has been to cause great uneasiness and uncertainty as to what the Government are doing, and are going to do, and what the result will be. At the present moment we have an illustration of the extremely unsatisfactory character of the finance of the year in the means which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken to reconcile the taxpayers to the fate he has prepared for them. In the first place, he was unfortunate in the very bringing forward of the Budget. It was brought forward very late, and it is being dis- 1494 cussed at an unprecedentedly late date—the 8th of June. In the second place, there have been, in the interval of six weeks since the Financial Statement was made, a large amount of spirits taken out of bond, and consumers have been charged on account of the extra duties that were to have been imposed. I do not know how much spirits have been taken out of bond; but we now find that at the last moment some awkward arrangement is being made to rectify the mistake that has occurred; and that fact alone is condemnatory of the system that has been pursued. It is practically introducing a new principle into the Budget Bill with regard to the Beer Duty. Is it intended that the Beer Duty shall become an annual tax like the Income Tax, to be settled each year according to the necessities of the Government? If so, I say that nothing can be more distressing, nothing more injurious to the agricultural interest and to the interests of the country. It is all very well to say that the people must be taught temperance; but if the Beer Duty is intended, as has been suggested, to be an Educational Tax in that sense, I say you are going on entirely wrong lines, and you will not make it in that way the means of educating the people to temperance. But if you do intend it for that purpose, why do you go back from what you proposed? Even if the reason is that you have need of less money, or that you want to extract a little less money, I still ask, why do you lay aside your morality, and make the Beer Tax an annual tax? I believe that the real meaning of this is an attempt on the part of the Government to get rid of a difficulty for a moment, at all events, and to carry it on to the next Parliament, just as some persons have suggested that the Prevention of Crime Act may be carried over. That is a course which, I must say, will not redound very much to the credit of Her Majesty's Government. We have been asked—"What are the principles which you recommend with regard to the taxation of the country?" Sir, I do not know that there is anything very novel or magnificent in the principles which I should venture to recommend, but they are principles which I have always put forward and always adhered to. My principles with regard to taxa- 1495 tion are that you ought to raise the money which you have to raise in a form that is most for the advantage and least for the disadvantage of the country; and that you ought, as far as possible, to keep your taxation steady. I am quite convinced that, especially in circumstances as the country is placed in at the present time, there is nothing so important as steadiness in taxation if you can attain to it. I shall be asked the question—"How can you attain to it? I am not prepared to say that you can do so absolutely; of course, that is impossible; but I am perfectly convinced that if you, in the first place, begin by getting a fair arrangement of taxation, if you begin by establishing a fair balance between the taxation of property and the taxation of consumption and other sources of Revenue, if you can place the amount at a sufficient sum beyond the amount of your ordinary Revenue to allow of your applying every year a considerable amount, as we now do, to the reduction of Debt, you have then a principle to go upon when any sudden emergency arises, without being obliged to have recourse to any painful and sudden or dislocating mode of taxation. Of course, there must be cases from time to time—and the Government have, to a certain extent, acknowledged that there will be cases—in which large exceptional sums are required, and when, if you have your system of taxation fairly adjusted beforehand, it is impossible to raise the money without throwing that system of taxation out of gear. In the late Government we raised a largo sum of money for the purposes for which it was required, and we met that sum by an annuity of £800,000 for a certain number of years. The Members of the present Government, and especially the Prime Minister, were extremely contemptuous at the proposal, and said it was not the way in which we should pay off Debt, and that we should proceed in the only safe way by establishing Terminable Annuities. That was the line of argument adopted. [Mr. GLADSTONE: What did I say?] I do not pretend to quote the precise words of the right hon. Gentleman, but that was the tenour of his argument. I have ventured to make these remarks, and I am aware that, in doing so, I have travelled somewhat beyond the limits 1496 of the Motion of my right hon. Friend; but we are discussing the question of the second reading of the Bill, and although my observations have been mainly directed to the Amendment of my right hon. Friend, I think it right that I should have gone somewhat beyond it in considering the finance of the year. I hope the House will accept my right hon. Friend's proposal, and I believe there will be no difficulty in re-adjusting the Budget to meet the claim which he makes, especially if attention is paid to one point in his Motion—I mean the question of the Wine Duties. But, whether in that way, or in any other way, the House will look at the matter fairly; and I am convinced there will be no difficulty in the way of the Government carrying out an arrangement with regard to it.
MR. GLADSTONESir, I think it must have struck hon. Gentlemen opposite, as it has undoubtedly struck some hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, that there is a very moderate degree of connection between the speech which we have just heard from the Leader of the Opposition and the Motion which he invites the House to accept. Of what does the speech of the right hon. Baronet consist? He seems to apologize for having made the main part of it with reference to the Motion of his right hon. Friend; but I should say that the Motion of his right hon. Friend only appeared by fits and starts in his speech. His speech consists of a severe criticism of the finance of the present Government; of a review—a highly laudatory review—of the finance which he himself conducted; and an exposition of general principles which some might call truisms and others platitudes, with only a moderate reference to the Motion of the right hon. Baronet near him. The principal part of that speech has been a determined attempt on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to destroy or reduce to nothing the most important and, I must say, the most ingenuous and honourable portion of the speech of the right hon. Baronet who moved the Amendment. Now, the right hon. Gentleman says that he finds nothing in the finance of the Government except a miserable series of failures; and he thinks that the present year is most eminently favourable for a generally searching review and exposition of all 1497 matters connected with the financial state, powers, and prospects of the country, so as to prepare the way and get a good body of instructions for the new Parliament. That is the doctrine which is laid down by the right hon. Gentleman to-night. But, Sir, there is one portion of that work which we could not induce the House to undertake. We have used our best efforts to induce the House to act upon the Resolution of last year, and to establish Committees for the purpose of examining into the state of the Expenditure with a view to retrenchment, and those efforts have been baffled and intercepted by the opposition offered to them by the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends, and by the determination expressed on their part that although those Committees had been decided upon, yet they should not be appointed without the devotion of a considerable time to the discussion of the subject. Hon. Gentlemen who hear me know perfectly well that in the present state of Business that is equivalent to saying that these Committees should not be appointed at all. And yet, in that state of things, the right hon. Gentleman tells us that this is the year in which you ought to have undertaken an investigation of the finance of the country with the view of preparing useful material for a future Parliament to deal with. Then the right hon. Gentleman says that there has been nothing but a series of failures on the part of the Government. Sir, I must venture to make a comparison as regards the finance upon which he looks back with so much complacency. He came into Office in 1874 with a surplus of £6,000,000; he presented six Budgets to the House, and out of that number four were in deficiency. I think I am strictly correct in that statement. His habitual finance when he got rid of the surplus with which he was originally provided was a finance of annual deficits. What has been the finance of my right hon. Friend and the present Government? For four years, although we have had great emergencies to meet—emergencies the responsibility for which I will not now enter upon—and for these four years, with their series of failures spoken of by the right hon. Gentleman, the author of habitual deficit, down to the present year, we have presented a surplus of Revenue over Expenditure. Then the 1498 right hon. Gentleman, with these ideas of what constitutes failure and what constitutes sound finance, proceeds to criticize our finance, and I must say that I cannot feel the smallest objection to its being made the subject of his criticism. I have been obliged to follow the right hon. Gentleman so far in matters which hardly belong to the discussion of to-night. Let us glorify ourselves as much as we can on these occasions, but do not let us occupy the time of the House with the effect of withdrawing our attention from the really important matters which are to-night before us for debate. Now, Sir, the right hon. Baronet who moved this Amendment did it in a perfectly manly and candid as well as straightforward speech, in the course of which he found fault with me for having, on a former occasion, described this Motion as a Vote of Censure. I admit my error; it is not a Vote of Censure; it is simply for the Government a question of life or death. My error was, however, rather of form than of substance, and we feel that the Motion is one aimed at the life of the Government; and, Sir, under these circumstances, the right hon. Baronet quite fairly and frankly accepted the consequence which attaches to such a Motion, and did not attack our finance without propounding his own. That I propose to deal with later on; but, in the meantime, let us consider a little how we stand. I shall decline to discuss, at this moment, the causes of the extraordinary Expenditure of the present year. Whether that Expenditure is such as the country ought to incur, and we are responsible for its having been incurred, and all matters connected with that chapter of politics, I shall omit from the present debate, though the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) very naturally went upon it, finding that, in point of fact, the subject of debate afforded him, from his point of view, no consolation or resource in the difficulty in which it placed him. Sir, this is a most important matter; and, for my part, while I agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that it is a very bad thing to have an unsteady and fluctuating taxation, yet I am very glad that my right hon. Friend proposes to make the Beer Duty terminable next year, very much on this ground—that it 1499 cannot fail of having an effect in assisting materially and almost inducing the new Parliament to consider seriously what I hope it may be inclined to consider on many other grounds—namely, the general scale of the Expenditure of the country, and the tendency which prevails in that respect. The arrangement will have the effect of assisting the views of those in the new Parliament who may wish to have an effective review of our own Expenditure. But that is not the subject to-night. A certain amount of charge has been sanctioned by the House of Commons. That amount of charge presents the sum of £13,000,000, which has to be provided for. It has been the duty of the Government to make propositions upon that subject. Has the general structure of their Budget been extravagant in any particular, or regardless of any of the main considerations which it ought to have embraced? The first question which, of course, arises in a case whore there is so vast a sum to be provided is whether that sum ought to be provided by taxation, by borrowing money, or by arresting the prepayment of Debt, or in what proportions those different methods of proceeding ought to be applied to meet the exigencies of the case. Well, Sir, have we submitted to the House an extraordinary or unreasonable plan in that respect? When my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer first proposed his Budget, with the Expenditure as it then stood, he proposed to take one full moiety by taxation; he proposed to make no provision for the other, but to allow it to be taken out of the sums which are applied to the reduction of Debt. It is quite true that he did not propose to take the entire sum away from the reduction of Debt this year, and, technically, he said he would leave a portion of it to stand against the Debt—to be taken out of the Debt of the following year. That is really a mere question of account and of practical convenience. My right hon. Friend did not disguise the fact at all by saying he was going to spread it over so many years; he simply said this—"Having this great deficit to provide, I propose to take £7,500,000 by taxation; I propose to leave about £7,000,000 more not to be provided by taxation, and therefore to be withdrawn in some way or other from the repayment of 1500 Debt, or else added to Debt." I do not think that was an unreasonable proposition. It certainly was not an extravagant amount that he asked in the shape of taxation; at least, if the House does think it an extravagant amount, it is very desirable that the doctrines of those who so think should be plainly and unequivocally stated and brought to the front that they may be examined, and that it may be considered how far those doctrines are compatible with a safe and prudent system of finance. I presume there was nothing very improper in the first and capital proceeding—as to the general outline of choice between taxation and non-taxation—between taxation and the arrest of the repayment of Debt for meeting the wants of the year. Well, Sir, if that was so, the next question was the apportionment of taxation between direct and indirect taxation. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote) has been good enough to praise faintly my right hon. Friend for having recognized and adopted as his own principle of action that the entire burden should not be laid upon property, but that a portion should be raised upon articles of consumption—a division in that way being made in the incidence of the burden upon the several classes. Well, Sir, my right hon. Friend has so far been fortunate in attracting the approval of right hon. Gentlemen opposite; but, I must own, I cannot compliment them upon the prudence of the course they are now pursuing. In my opinion, the Motion which they have made, however it may be accompanied with compliments of my right hon. Friend for recognizing the principle of indirect taxation, is a very heavy blow at the proceedings of Chancellors of the Exchequer who shall attempt to act upon that principle. My right hon. Friend has made a bonâ fide attempt to assert, against many popular opinions, this great view—that taxation ought to be divided between direct and indirect taxation when an occasion such as that of the present year has arisen. But, instead of being met by a mild criticism—instead of being met by a Motion for refusing some one of the taxes that he offers, and substituting some other-he is met by the most obstructive of all proceedings—a proceeding most of all calculated to damage his method of proceeding, and the basis which he has 1501 chosen for himself and of which they approve—he is met by an adverse Motion on the second reading of his Customs and Inland Revenue Bill. Sir, I am very much mistaken, if the day comes—it probably will come—when an Administration is formed from the ranks of those who sit opposite, if they do not come to repent of the step they are taking to-night, as well as of many more that they have taken while they have been in Opposition. That is the principle of my right hon. Friend, and that is the principle upon which we stand. It has been said that I have laid down the doctrine that we should always pay our way, and that consequently it is most inconsistent on my part not to ask for the whole of this sum from taxation. I have laid down the doctrine of "Pay your way," in opposition to the finance of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote), in opposition to the system of habitual deficit under circumstances comparatively easy. That is the basis of the right hon. Gentleman's finance, and it is against that finance that I put up the principle "Pay your way." I have often said, and I say it now, that in a country like this which is self-governing, and where the prevailing ideas of the nation as to the scale of the Expenditure will and must determine what that scale shall be, it is not so very important whether £1,000,000 or £2,000,000, more or less, are spent by the nation in its own free will and judgment, even if in error—that is much less important than that the principle "Pay your way" should be adhered to. But when we come to a year of extraordinary demands—to a year when £15,000,000 or £13,000,000 are wanted for some special Imperial service—it would be a pedantic strain of a sound financial principle to hold that the whole of that sum ought to be paid by taxation. So much for the general structure of the Budget as far as the Government are concerned. Now, what is the position in which we stand to-night? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), with great honour to himself, makes counter proposals. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) does not like the counter Budget; he will have nothing to do with the counter 1502 proposition; he says that the tax upon tea is a mere illustration, and that one illustration is as good as another. Well, Sir, we shall come to that by-and-bye. I will now ask myself what is the cause of this tremendous opposition to the Budget of my right hon. Friend, which will not allow hon. Gentlemen opposite to raise their points in Committee, but compels them to do what I have very rarely known—namely, to make an adverse Motion on the second reading of the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill? Well, Sir, I own my belief is the secret of it all is not in the omission to tax wine, it is not in the compassion for the drinker of beer, it is not in the anomaly—if there is an anomaly—of the taxation of spirits; it is in the Death Duties. It is because in the Death Duties my right hon. Friend has invaded the sanctuary of landed property. So sensitive are they with regard to anything that looks like public burden that it has to be defended by most extraordinary measures. Therefore, Sir, the Death Duties, though modestly retiring to the second place, do in reality, if I am able to comprehend the case, constitute the ground and basis of the whole of these proceedings to-night; and if my right hon. Friend had taxed wine, and if he had forborne to tax spirits and beer, there would have been no modification of the opposition of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) and those who feel with him, because of this fatal blot in the profane attempt to modify the Death Duties to the disadvantage of landed property. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) who moved the Amendment, quoted expressions used by me in the year 1853, showing a disposition to deal tenderly with landed property on account of special burdens. He was quite justified in making the quotation; but I am astonished at the antiquarian taste of hon. Gentlemen in going back to remote speeches without considering what has occurred during the interval. Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to quote what I have said during the interval—during the last 30 years. [Ironical cheers.] I could understand the disinclination to hear quotations from my speeches if that disinclination were impartial; but it appears to me that there is nothing in this House so popular as quota- 1503 tions from my speeches which are selected by speakers on the opposite side of the House for their own convenience—there is nothing which draws such ringing cheers as a quotation from my speeches made for a purpose. I am entled to say that if my speeches are to be quoted, they must be quoted not fragmentarily, but with reference to the continuity. In short, I may say this—that in 1853 the grand crusade against the Consolidated Fund availing itself of the heavy and grievous taxation of towns for local purposes, under cover of the pretext to obtain large relief for the land, had not begun. When that crusade began, I gave immediate notice to hon. Gentlemen opposite that their course must inevitably lead to a re-adjustment of taxation on realty and other taxation, and that the re-adjustment might not ultimately be agreeable to hon. Gentlemen opposite. That is my answer to the quotation made by the right hon. Gentleman. I am very sorry to find hon. Gentlemen follow such an intemperate policy, but they have done so with their eyes open. But now we come to this, that my right hon. Friend has proposed a plan under which a nominal equality is to be established in a form, as I shall show, of extraordinary mildness between the taxation on land through the Death Duties as compared with taxation on personal property. My right hon. Friend has explained that what he proposes is a much milder arrangement, because of its gradual operation, than it would have been if he had waited, say, until next year, when the whole subject of the re-adjustment of local taxation may be undertaken; the right hon. Gentleman has urged that the proposal he now makes is a much milder proposal, extending, as it does, over a long series of years, than would have been a proposal to give a sweeping and summary application to the principle. But it is not true that equality will be really established by the plan of my right hon. Friend. Nor is it true that the whole of this £200,000, which is to come in this year and which is to increase in future years, is to be drawn from realty; a considerable portion of it is to be drawn from personalty. It is a tax upon property, and undoubtedly it does go to the removal of one anomaly as regards the incidence of the Death Duties upon real property. But there are 1504 a great many points in which it is quite plain that equality will not be established by the adoption of this proposition. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) indicated one of them when he said that realty is generally left for lives and personalty is generally left in fee; consequently, the advantage of having realty taxed upon the life will prevent it from being taxed, upon passage by death, at the same rate as personalty. But that is by far from being the only important point in our law which is studiously and, I must say, almost artfully constructed in favour of realty. There is the mysterious subject of the consanguinity scale. That scale was devised in favour of realty and to secure the passing of the great mass of real property on death at the 1 per cent duty. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) fell into a complete error on this subject. He said truly that the proceeds of the Succession Duties were estimated at £2,000,000 a-year; but an error has been made in the calculation, although the calculation was made in a Department as efficient and as honourable and as distinguished as any Department ever intrusted with the financial concerns of the country. The error was gross. At this moment the tax, which I estimated in 1853 at £2,000,000 a-year, and which I was laughed at and scoffed at by hon. Gentlemen on the opposite Benches for not estimating at £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 a-year, has not, down to this date, produced £1,000,000 a-year, and what is the reason? The reason is this—that when the Estimate was made the incidence of the consanguinity scale upon land was assumed and believed to be the same as upon personalty, whereas a very much larger percentage of the land goes into the 1 per cent list than goes into the higher list. That was the explanation of it; and as long as the consanguinity scale subsists, you need not be afraid you will have no equality in the taxation upon death between land and personalty. There are many other points on which I will not detain the House now. The House is aware that about five years are allowed for the payment of the Succession Duty. Is that no boon to land as compared with per- 1505 sonalty? Not only so, but suppose another death occurs during the five years, then the duty falls altogether, and the new life begins to run. This is a subject upon which it is not possible now to enter in full. It is a total mistake to suppose that the very mild proposal made by my right hon. Friend goes anywhere near to the point, although it makes an approximation to the point of equality between the Death Duties and the duties on personalty. Well, Sir, objection is taken with respect to the non-taxation of wine, and I do not deny that, upon the surface of the case, that is a very tempting object and a very fair object for criticism. But what is the real state of the case now with respect to the taxation upon wines? Would it have been prudent to tax wines? Hon. Gentlemen have said repeatedly, and amidst great and cordial cheering from the other side of the House, that this is an attempt to favour the foreigner. Allow me to say that there is no article in our tariff which has done so much to promote the interests not of the foreigner, but of the trade and industry at home, as the article of wine. It stands in that respect in a different category from every other article. There has not been another case of duty with respect to which it would have been possible to attain such results; and I have not the least hesitation in saying that the reduction of the Wine Duties effected principally in 1860 has not only had the effect of enormously cheapening the wine at home, has not only had the effect of putting an end to all the worst kinds of adulteration at home, and enabling people all over the country to obtain fair wines at moderate prices, but especially it has had the effect of securing an opening for British industry of many millions of trade per annum. The result must depend upon very delicate machinery, and therefore it is a serious matter to touch the trade in wine in that view. I do not say it ought never to be touched. If a great necessity came on the country, it is quite clear it ought to be touched; but the question is whether in an arrangement of this kind, in which, with regard to spirits, my right hon. Friend does not make his proposition too extreme, and with regard to beer he has impressed upon it a temporary character—the question is, 1506 would it have been wise to touch the Wine Duties? I am astonished to hear some Gentlemen say that the taxation upon wines would have afforded easy means of re-adjusting the Budget. Have those Gentlemen considered what the taxation upon wine is, and what the value of the commodity is? The value of the commodity is not first rate. In volume it is not one of those commodities on which you raise Revenue by fives and tens of millions, and of which you consume many hundreds of millions of gallons. It is a commodity of limited consumption and of limited capacity as to taxation; and if my right hon. Friend had taxed it in the proportion that he has taxed beer, he would have had a very insignificant return—in fact, if he had gone considerably beyond that proportion, he would only have got a return of £200,000 or £300,000 a-year, having no important bearing on the balance of this Budget, but at the same time raising serious risks with regard to our foreign trade, which risks may be necessary, may even be expedient in some future generation, but which, at the present moment and for so small an object, it would not have been well to run. There is another very curious circumstance with regard to wine which is really worth the attention of the House—the figures are few and simple, but they are interesting. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) seemed to impute to my right hon. Friend the doctrine that when the Revenue from an article is falling it is a good time to catch it. My right hon. Friend had no intention of giving utterance to such a doctrine as that. Let us observe how the matter stands in the case of wine. Now, in the case of spirits and beer, the retardation of the upward movement or backward movement, if there has been one, has really been, in the main, owing not to diminished means of consumption on the part of the masses of the people, but to the progress of the temperance movement. There is something very singular indeed in the case of wine. I doubt if the falling Revenue from wine has been so much affected by the temperance movement. In 1859, the year before the change of duty, the Revenue from wine was £1,761,000. Under the operation of the changed duty, the Revenue fell to about 1507 £1,100,000. After that it went on increasing steadily and most satisfactorily until 1874, when the reduced duty yielded £1,789,000. From that time there has been a continuous decline. One cannot say that the decrease began in 1874, or for some time afterwards; but here is a remarkable fact—that the decline of the Wine Duty has been constant, and has been far greater than the decline in the case either of spirits or of beer, although the Revenue from that source is likely to have been less affected by the temperance movement. In 1879 the Revenue from wine amounted to £1,466,000; since that year it has gone down year by year, and it is now £1,213,000, I think. What resource is there here? It is extremely doubtful whether, in such a case, you could dare safely to propose a sensible addition; and as I have pointed out, there are reasons, not in the interest of the foreigner, but of British trade, which forms a considerable element in the matter, and which should cause us to act in the matter with a great deal of caution. At this moment the tax which is levied upon wine is considerably heavier than the tax which is levied, under our present law, on beer, the tax on beer amounting to 20 per cent, and that on wine to 25 per cent. These are two of the objections which are taken to the Budget—one with regard to the Death Duties, and the other with regard to the non-taxation of wines. But there remains a third, because the House is asked to refuse to us the taxes which we ask for upon spirits at the rate of 1s. a-gallon, and upon beer at the rate of 1s. upon 36 gallons for a little more than one year, but not quite for one year from the date at which I speak. I am bound to say that, although this Motion is made by the Conservative Opposition, and though rash and daring proposals—unprecedented proposals—are sometimes supposed to proceed from moving and advanced Parties, I do not think that it has been well considered how very strong, I might say how very violent, certainly how very unusual, a proposal this is. A great necessity has come upon the country. With the question who is responsible we have now nothing to do. There has been urgent necessity for great military preparations, which have had it in view to ward off a 1508 great and serious danger impending over the Empire. We now hope that that danger may pass away; but we are not, at this moment, able to say that it has passed away. It would be premature to say it, and we are still asking you to grant us the pecuniary means for bearing the cost of preparations required, in the main, by a great danger that has been impending over the Empire, and the absolute cessation of which we are not yet in a condition to affirm. On the very first day we are in a condition to affirm it we shall only be too happy to do so. Now, Sir, what has happened? The preparations have been sanctioned; the charge has received the unanimous approbation and support of the House; we ask you for one moiety of it—for it is little more than a moiety—by taxation to provide £7,000,000 by resorting to taxation, as against £6,000,000 that are to be found without resort to taxation—and the regular Opposition, the loyal Opposition, the National Opposition, the patriotic Opposition, the Constitutional Opposition, refuse us the money. I say that is a strong—I believe it is an unprecedented—proceeding. I want to know where the precedents are to be found? I know them not. So far as my recollection goes, I do not believe that the pages of Parliamentary history exhibit a single one. I have known the Conservative Opposition assume a very different attitude. When, in the early part of 1860, we proposed to repeal the Paper Duty, and when later in the year it was evident that there were to be hostilities in China, and we had to make provision for those hostilities, we did not feel that we could withdraw the virtual pledge which we had given to the trade with respect to the repeal of the duty. But the Opposition denounced us for taking away the resources of the country in the face of war, and the patriotism of the House of Lords took the unhappy direction of inducing it to reject the Bill for the repeal of the Paper Duty. But that was, however, a line which, if an excess, was an excess in the right direction. The Opposition in those days shrank from war: but, at the same time, I may almost say it abhorred the idea of withholding the means necessary for military preparations, those military preparations having been recognized as required by the honour of the country. 1509 What does the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down do now? He refuses us those means, and he suggests no others. He says that any others which may have been suggested have only been suggested by way of illustration. The virtual meaning of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), in referring to a tax upon tea, was only "an illustration." There was no real intention of suggesting an additional tax upon tea. Consequently, the right hon. Gentleman does this—he recognizes and supports the Vote of Credit of £11,000,000 for warlike preparations, mainly and partly for warlike expenditure; and having done that, as Leader of the Opposition, he comes down to this House and refuses to the Government the means which they ask for meeting the charge, and he proposes no substitute for those means. He says that the Budget will be "easily re-adjusted." Is that a course worthy of the position held by those Gentlemen who claim still to discharge the functions which in other times were performed by men like Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, and Sir James Graham? I know of no case in the slightest degree approaching this, and I wish to hold it up to the country that there may be judgment passed upon it. Are all the intelligent and approved modes of Parliamentary Opposition to be abandoned, and to be abandoned by the Party which calls itself sometimes "Conservative" and sometimes "the Tory Democracy." So much, Sir, for the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. But such was not the conduct of the Mover of the Amendment. He was deliberate and perfectly intelligible in his arguments. He used expressions again and again which had but one meaning—"You ought," he said, "to cast your net wider—you ought to cover a broader circle," and he showed his meaning when he said—"You ought to lay a tax upon tea; the tax upon tea is so moderate, surely it will bear increasing." Twenty per cent upon beer he looks upon as enormous, and the addition of 3 per cent which my right hon. Friend proposes he looks upon as intolerable. What is the tax upon tea? It is not less—I believe it is more—than 48 per cent at this moment—48 per cent at the least. And what is proposed? It is 1510 proposed to sweep away the tax upon spirits and the tax upon beer—["No!"]—the additional tax upon spirits and the increment upon beer. But these two increments together are estimated to bring in £1,350,000 a-year. In order to obtain that sum from tea, as proposed by the right hon. Baronet the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), you must lay a tax upon it of not less than 3d. a-pound, in addition to the present tax of 6d.—that is to say, you must raise the tax of 48 or 50 per cent to 75 per cent upon a useful beverage of universal consumption by the people, because you will not allow us to lay an additional tax of 3 per cent, in addition to an existing 20 per cent, upon beer.
§ MR. O'SULLIVANAnd 400 per cent upon whisky.
§ MR. O'SULLIVANI spoke of whisky.
MR. GLADSTONEMy speaking was orderly, and the hon. Gentleman's speaking, I am sorry to say, is disorderly. I am perfectly ready to speak with the hon. Gentleman on whisky if he desires it. I was going to say this when he interrupted me—that so long as I can recollect, on every occasion when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, at all times that the subject had been touched upon, it has been universally held and admitted in this House that with regard to the article of spirits they did differ somewhat from other articles of taxation, inasmuch as it was desirable, in point of reason, to lay upon it as much taxation as was reasonably possible. I think my right hon. Friend's figures completely disproved the allegation that any injustice will be brought about in Scotland and Ireland by the proposal now made. I have now done. I have no occasion to detain the House longer—I have, I think, shown that fundamental objections exist to the idea of laying this tax on tea. I have only one word more. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is easy to readjust the Budget. If it is, why did he not tell us how? Why was he so absolutely silent? Why was he reduced to an illustration in order to get rid of what he felt to be inconvenient? If it is so easy to re-adjust it, why did he not tell us how the re-adjustment was to be made? It is idle to talk of re-ad- 1511 justment. What are you going to tax? Are you to tax the raw materials of industry? Are you to impose protective duties? If you are not going to do either of those things—and I believe you have not yet reached that point of retrogression—what are you to tax? You may tax alcoholic liquors if you want a considerable amount of money, or you may tax tea, or you may impose a tax upon sugar. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Hear, hear!] I rejoice, Sir, when I come across these frank antagonists who, when you discuss their proposals, do not shrink and cover themselves behind the assurance that it would be quite easy to re-adjust the Budget, but meet you in the light of day. Let them show us what other subjects there are that can be taxed, or that we are unreasonable in asking for this taxation. If you will not have protective duties, if you will not have a tax on raw materials, am I not right in saying that you have nothing to choose between laying the tax for the considerable sum required on alcoholic liquors, tea, or sugar? That is the issue before us. That is the issue before the country. That is the issue upon which we have made up our minds; it is the issue on which we are attacked. It is a question of life or death. As such we accept it, and as such we do not envy those who if they gain the victory will have to bear the consequences.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 252; Noes 264: Majority 12.
1515| AYES. | |
| Acland,rt.hn. SirT.D. | Borlase, W. C. |
| Acland, C. T. D. | Brand, hon. H. R. |
| Agnew, W. | Brassey, Sir T. |
| Ainsworth, D. | Brassey, H. A. |
| Allen, H. G. | Brett, R. B. |
| Allen, W. S. | Bright, right hon. J. |
| Amory, Sir J. H. | Bright, J. |
| Armitage, B. | Broadhurst, H. |
| Armitstead, G. | Bruce, rt. hon. Lord C. |
| Arnold, A. | Bruce, hon. R. P. |
| Asher, A. | Bryce, J. |
| Ashley, hon. E. M. | Buchanan, T. R. |
| Balfour, Sir G. | Burt, T. |
| Balfour, rt. hon. J. B. | Buxton, F. W. |
| Balfour, J. S. | Buxton, S. C. |
| Barclay, J. W. | Caine, W. S. |
| Baring, Viscount | Cameron, C. |
| Barnes, A. | Campbell, Lord C. |
| Bass, Sir A. | Campbell, Sir G. |
| Bass H. | Campbell, R. F. F. |
| Baxter, rt. hon. W. E. | Campbell-Bannerman, right hon. H. |
| Blennerhassett, R. P. | |
| Bolton, J. C. | Carbutt, E. H. |
| Carington, hon. R. | Hibbert, J. T. |
| Causton, R. K. | Hill, T. R. |
| Cavendish, Lord E. | Holden, I. |
| Chamberlain, rt. hn. J. | Holms, J. |
| Chambers, Sir T. | Hopwood, C. H. |
| Cheetham, J. F. | Howard, E. S. |
| Childers, right hon. H.C. E. | Howard, G. J. |
| Illingworth, A. | |
| Clarke, J. C. | Ince, H. B. |
| Clifford, C. C. | James, Sir H. |
| Cohen, A. | James, hon. W. H. |
| Colebrooke, Sir T. E. | Jardine, R. |
| Collings, J. | Jenkins, Sir J. J. |
| Colman, J. J. | Jenkins, D. J. |
| Corbett, J. | Jerningham, H. E. H. |
| Courtauld, G. | Johnson, E. |
| Courtney, L. H. | Jones-Parry, L. |
| Cropper, J. | Labouchere, H. |
| Cross, J. K. | Laing, S. |
| Cunliffe, Sir R. A. | Lambton, hon. F. W. |
| Currie, Sir D. | Lawrence, W. |
| Davey, H. | Lea, T. |
| Davies, D. | Leake, R. |
| Davies, R. | Leatham, E. A. |
| De Ferrieres, Baron | Leatham, W. H. |
| Dickson, T. A. | Lee, H. |
| Dilke, rt. hn. Sir C. W. | Lefevre, rt. hn. G. J. S. |
| Dillwyn, L. L. | Lloyd, M. |
| Dodds, J. | Lyons, R. D. |
| Duff, R. W. | Mackie, R. B. |
| Edwards, P. | Mackintosh, C. F. |
| Egerton, Admiral hon. F. | Macliver, P. S. |
| M'Arthur, Sir W. | |
| Elliot, hon. A. R. D. | M'Arthur, A. |
| Errington, G. | M'Coan, J. C. |
| Fairbairn, Sir A. | M'Lagan, P. |
| Farquharson, Dr. R. | M'Minnies, J. G. |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro- | Maitland, W. F. |
| Ffolkes, Sir W. H. B. | Mappin, F. T. |
| Firth, J. F. B. | Marjoribanks, hon. E. |
| Fitzmaurice, Lord E. | Martin, R. B. |
| Fitzwilliam, hon.H.W. | Maskelyne, M. H. N. Story- |
| Flower, C. | |
| Foljambe, F. J. S. | Mason, H. |
| Forster, Sir C. | Maxwell-Heron, Capt. J. M. |
| Forster, rt. hn. W. E. | |
| Fowler, H. H. | Meldon, C. H. |
| Fowler, W. | Mellor, J. W. |
| Fry, L. | Monk, C. J. |
| Fry, T. | Moreton, Lord |
| Gladstone, rt.hn. W.E. | Morgan, rt. hon. G. O. |
| Gladstone, H. J. | Morley, A. |
| Gladstone, W. H. | Morley, J. |
| Glyn, hon. S. C. | Morley, S. |
| Goschen, rt. hon. G. J. | Mundella, rt. hn. A. J. |
| Gower, hon. E. F. L. | Noel, E. |
| Grafton, F. W. | Norwood, C. M. |
| Grant, Sir G. M. | O'Donoghue, The |
| Grant, A. | Otway, Sir A. J. |
| Grant, D. | Paget, T. T. |
| Grey, A. H. G. | Palmer, G. |
| Gurdon, R. T. | Parker, C. S. |
| Hamilton, J. G. C. | Pease, Sir J. W. |
| Harcourt, rt.hn. SirW. G. V. V. | Pease, A. |
| Peddie, J. D. | |
| Hardcastle, J. A. | Pennington, F. |
| Hartington, Marq. of | Philips, R. N. |
| Hastings, G. W. | Picton, J. A. |
| Hayter, Sir A. D. | Playfair, rt. hn. Sir L. |
| Henderson, F. | Powell, W. R. H. |
| Heneage, E. | Power, J. O'C. |
| Henry, M. | Pulley, J. |
| Herschell, Sir F. | Ralli, P. |
| Ramsay, J. | Steble, Lieut-Col, R.F. |
| Rathbone, W. | Stevenson, J. C. |
| Reed, Sir E. J. | Stuart, J. |
| Reid, R. T. | Summers, W. |
| Rendel, S. | Sutherland, T. |
| Richard. H. | Talbot, C. R. M. |
| Richardson, T. | Tavistock, Marquess of |
| Roberts, J. | Tennant, C. |
| Robertson, H. | Thomasson, J. P. |
| Roe, T. | Thompson, T. C. |
| Rogers, C. C. | Torrens, W. T. M. |
| Rogers, J. E. T. | Tracy, hon. F. S. A. Hanbury- |
| Rothschild, SirN.M. de | |
| Roundell, C. S. | Trevelyan, rt. hn. G.O. |
| Russell, Lord A. | Villiers, rt. hon. C. P. |
| Russell, C. | Vivian, Sir H. H. |
| Russell, G. W. E. | Waddy, S. D. |
| Russell, T. | Walker, S. |
| Ruston, J. | Walter, J. |
| Rylands, P. | Waugh, E. |
| St. Aubyn, Sir J. | Webster, J. |
| Samuelson, Sir B. | West, H. W. |
| Seely, C. (Lincoln) | Whitbread, S. |
| Seely, C. (Nottingham) | Whitworth, B. |
| Sellar, A. C. | Williamson, S. |
| Shaw, T. | Wills, W. H. |
| Sheridan, H. B. | Wilson, Sir M. |
| Shield, H. | Wilson, I. |
| Sinclair, Sir J. G. T. | Wodehouse, E. R. |
| Sinclair, W. P. | Woodall, W. |
| Slagg, J. | |
| Smith, Lieut-Col. G. | TELLERS. |
| Smith, E. | Grosvenor, right hon. Lord R. |
| Smith, S. | |
| Stanley, hon. E. L. | Kensington, rt. hn. Lord |
| Stansfeld, rt. hon. J. | |
| Stanton, W. J. |
| Noes. | |
| Ackers, B. St. J. | Callan, P. |
| Allsopp, C. | Cameron, D. |
| Amherst, W. A. T. | Campbell, J. A. |
| Ashmead-Bartlett, E. | Carden, Sir R. W. |
| Aylmer, J. E. F. | Chaplin, H. |
| Bailey, Sir J. R. | Christie, W. L. |
| Balfour, A. J. | Churchill, Lord R. |
| Barry, J. | Clarke, E. |
| Barttelot, Sir W. B. | Coddington, W. |
| Bateson, Sir T. | Cole, Viscount |
| Beach, right hon. Sir M. E. Hicks- | Commins, A. |
| Compton, F. | |
| Beach, W. W. B. | Coope, O.E. |
| Bective, Earl of | Corbet, W. J. |
| Bentinck, rt. hn. G. C. | Cotton, W. J. R. |
| Beresford, G. De la P. | Crichton, Viscount |
| Biddell, W. | Cross, rt. hon. Sir R. A. |
| Biggar, J. G. | Cubitt, right hon. G. |
| Birkbeck, E. | Curzon, Major hon. M. |
| Blackburne, Col. J. I. | Dalrymple, C. |
| Boord, T. W. | Davenport, H. T. |
| Bourke, right hon. R. | Dawnay,Col.hon.L.P. |
| Broadley, W. H. H. | Dawnay, hon. G. C. |
| Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F. | Dawson, C. |
| Deasy, J. | |
| Brooke, Lord | De Worms, Baron H. |
| Brooks, M. | Dickson, Major A. G. |
| Brooks, W. C. | Digby, Colonel hon. E. |
| Bruce, Sir H. H. | Digby, J. K. D. W. |
| Bruce, hon. T. C. | Dixon-Hartland, F. D. |
| Brymer, W. E. | Douglas, A. Akers- |
| Bulwer, J. R. | Dyke, rt. hn. Sir W. H. |
| Burghley, Lord | |
| Buxton, Sir R. J. | Eaton, H. W. |
| Eckersley, N. | Knight, F. W. |
| Ecroyd, W. F. | Knightley, Sir R. |
| Egerton, hon. A. de T. | Lacon, Sir E. H. K. |
| Egerton, hon. A. F. | Lalor, R. |
| Elcho, Lord | Lawrance, J. C. |
| Elliot, G. W. | Lawrence, Sir T. |
| Ellis, Sir J. W. | Leahy, J. |
| Elton, C. I. | Lechmere, Sir E. A. H. |
| Emlyn, Viscount | Legh, W. J. |
| Estcourt, G. S. | Leigh, R. |
| Ewart, W. | Leighton, Sir B. |
| Ewing, A. O. | Leighton, S. |
| Feilden, Lt.-Gen. R. J. | Lennox,right hn. Lord H. G. C. G. |
| Fellowes, W. H. | |
| Finch, G. H. | Lever, J. O. |
| Finch-Hatton, hon. M. E. G. | Levett, T. J. |
| Lewisham, Viscount | |
| Findlater, W. | Lindsay, Sir R. L. |
| Fitz-Wygram, Sir F. | Lloyd, S. S. |
| Fletcher, Sir H. | Loder, R. |
| Floyer, J. | Long, W. H. |
| Folkestone, Viscount | Lopes, Sir M. |
| Forester, C. T. W. | Lowther, rt. hon. J. |
| Fort, R. | Lowther, hon. W. |
| Foster, W. H. | Lowther, J. W. |
| Fowler, R. N. | Lynch, N. |
| Fremantle, hon. T. F. | Macnaghten, E. |
| French-Brewster, R. A. B. | M'Carthy, J. |
| M'Carthy, J. H. | |
| Galway, Viscount | M'Garel-Hogg, Sir J. |
| Gardner, R. Richardson- | M'Kenna, Sir J. N. |
| M'Mahon, E. | |
| Gathorne-Hardy, hon. J. S. | Makins, Colonel W. T. |
| Manners, rt. hon. Lord J. J. R. | |
| Gibson, right hon. E. | |
| Giffard. Sir H. S. | March, Earl of |
| Giles, A. | Marriott, W. T. |
| Goldney, Sir G. | Martin, P. |
| Gordon, Lord D. | Marum, E. M. |
| Gorst, J. E. | Master, T. W. C. |
| Grantham, W. | Maxwell, Sir H. E. |
| Gray, E. D. | Mayne, T. |
| Greene, E. | Meagher, W. |
| Gregory, G. B. | Miles, Sir P. J. W. |
| Gunter, Col. R. | Miles, C. W. |
| Halsey, T. F. | Mills, Sir C. H. |
| Hamilton, right hon. Lord G. | Milner, Sir F. |
| Molloy, B. C. | |
| Hamilton, Lord C. J. | Monckton, F. |
| Hamilton, I. T. | Morgan, hon. F. |
| Harris, W. J. | Moss, R. |
| Harvey, Sir R. B. | Mowbray, rt. hon. Sir J. R. |
| Hay, rt. hon. Admiral Sir J. C. D. | |
| Mulholland, J. | |
| Healy, T. M. | Muntz, P. A. |
| Herbert, hon. S. | Newdegate, C. N. |
| Hicks, E. | Newport, Viscount |
| Hildyard, T. B. T. | Nicholson, W. |
| Hill, Lord A. W. | Nicholson, W. N. |
| Hill, A. S. | Nolan, Colonel J. P. |
| Holland, Sir H. T. | Northcote, rt. hon. Sir S. H. |
| Home, Lt.-Col. D. M. | |
| Hope, right hon. A. J. B. B. | Northcote, H. S. |
| O'Beirne, Colonel F. | |
| Houldsworth, W. H. | O'Brien Sir P. |
| Jackson, W. L. | O'Brien, W. |
| Johnstone, Sir F. | O'Connor, A. |
| Kennard, C. J. | O'Connor, J. |
| Kennaway, Sir J. H. | O'Connor, T. P. |
| Kenny, M. J. | O'Donnell, F. H. |
| Ker, R. W. B. | O'Kelly, J. |
| King-Harman, Colonel E. R. | Onslow, D. R. |
| O'Sullivan, W. H. |
| Paget, R. H. | Smith, rt. hon. W. H. |
| Parnell, C. S. | Smith, A. |
| Patrick, R. W. Cochran- | Smithwick, J. F. |
| Stanhope, hon. E. | |
| Peel, rt. hon. Sir R. | Stanley, rt. hon. Col. P. |
| Pell, A. | Stanley, E. J. |
| Pemberton, E. L. | Storer, G. |
| Percy, rt. hon. Earl | Strutt, hon. C. H. |
| Percy, Lord A. M. | Sullivan, T. D. |
| Phipps, C. N. P. | Sykes, C. |
| Phipps, P. | Synan, E. J. |
| Plunket, rt. hon. D. R. | Talbot, J. G. |
| Power, P. J. | Thomson, H. |
| Power, R. | Thornhill, A. J. |
| Price, Captain G. E. | Tollemache,hon.W. F. |
| Puleston, J. H. | Tollemache, H. J. |
| Raikes, rt. hon. H. C. | Tomlinson, W. E. M. |
| Rankin, J. | Tremayne, J. |
| Read, C. S. | Wallace, Sir R. |
| Redmond, J. E. | Walrond, Col. W. H. |
| Rendlesham, Lord | Warton, C. N. |
| Ridley, Sir M. W. | Watney, J. |
| Ritchie, C. T. | Whitley, E. |
| Rolls, J. A. | Williams, General O. |
| Ross, A. H. | Wilmot, Sir H. |
| Ross, C. C. | Wolff, Sir H. D. |
| Round, J. | Wortley, C. B. Stuart- |
| St. Aubyn, W. M. | Wroughton, P. |
| Salt, T. | Wyndham, hon. P. |
| Sclater-Booth,rt.hn.G. | Wynn, Sir H. W. |
| Scott, M. D. | Yorke, J. R. |
| Selwin-Ibbetson, Sir H. J. | |
| TELLERS. | |
| Severne, J. E. | Thornhill, T. |
| Sexton, T. | Winn, R. |
| Sheil, E. |
§ Words added.
§
Main Question, as amended, put.
Resolved, That this House regards the increase proposed by this Bill in the Duties levied on Beer and Spirits as inequitable in the absence of a corresponding addition to the Duties on "Wine, and declines to impose fresh Taxation on Real Property until effect has been given to its Resolution of 17th April 1883 and of 28th March 1884, by which it has acknowledged further measures of relief to be due to ratepayers in counties and boroughs in respect of local charges imposed on them for National services.
MR. GLADSTONESir, going through the Orders of the Day, if we went through them now, would be merely nominal. No real Business could be taken to-night, although I could not absolutely pledge myself to say that of every description of Business without looking over the list. The best thing, therefore, is that I should now move the adjournment of the House.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
§ Motion agreed to.
§ House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock.