§ On the Motion for going into Committee of Supply being put,
COLONEL HARCOURTsaid, he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the mode in which the tax of 10s. 6d. per annum on under-gardeners was assessed and levied. The following was the opinion of Professor Lindley, as given in the columns of The Gardeners' Chronicle, as to the meaning of the term "under-gardener." That eminent authority regarded an under-gardener as being a person possessed of more skill in horticulture than an ordinary day labourer, and as receiving a higher rate of wages; but he said that the existing Act did not explain what was meant by the term "under-gardeners." In September last, he (Colonel Harcourt) had determined to appeal against the assessment for under-gardeners, and a solicitor from Somerset House was sent down to advise the local Commissioners. He put to him (the solicitor) the question whether, if he employed men in his garden for a few days at Christmas, as a matter of charity, he was assessable for them as under-gardeners, and the solicitor answered that he was. The solicitor also told him that, if he employed men to carry gravel from one part of his park to another for the purpose of making walks, or for weeding, he was assessable for them as under-gardeners; now, he considered such a rigorous mode of applying the Act was most impolitic and unwise, and one that certainly could not have been contemplated by the 1711 Legislature. It was true that the view of the Commissioners was upheld by the decisions of the courts of law; but then a most eminent lawyer (Lord St. Leonards) was among the number of those who had appealed against their interpretation, and, even if the exaction were legal, the case was one of such grievous hardship as to justify an appeal for redress to that House, the source of all power of taxation. The operation of the tax must tend to check the occasional employment given by many persons to agricultural labourers in the winter from considerations of charity.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the question raised by the hon. and gallant Member turned upon the construction of a clause in an Act relating to the assessed taxes which was passed in 1853. That Act imposed a tax of a guinea a year upon gardeners, and of half a guinea upon under-gardeners; but, although it defined what class of persons should be considered as gardeners, it did not give any definition of under-gardeners. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) fully admitted the right of that House to consider and to decide upon all questions relating to taxation when the subject was brought before them in a legislative form, but he could not agree that it was the province of that House, after a measure relative to texation had received the Royal Assent and had become law, to interpret the language of that Act. He imagined that the interpretation of Acts of Parliament, whether relating to taxation or to other matters, was vested in the legal tribunals of the country, and all that the House could do was to watch the operation of such Acts, to comment, if necessary, upon the construction that might be put upon them, but to leave their enforcement to the ordinary tribunals. He understood that the construction which had been adopted by the Revenue Department was this—that persons who were regularly employed for a whole year, and who were under the direction of a head-gardener, should be regarded as under-gardeners, but that persons who were only casually employed, and who were engaged in such duties as might he performed by common labourers—as, for instance, in mowing grass, or in keeping gravel walks in order, were not to be deemed under-gardeners. It appeared to him that that was a fair construction of the words of the Act, so far as their meaning could be collected. He certainly could not agree with the hon. and gallant Member in thinking that any 1712 hardship was inflicted upon the labouring class by this tax, which did not lead to any deduction from wages, but fell entirely upon masters. He thought, therefore, that no ground had been shown for the interference of Parliament.