CONSIDERATION. (Hansard, 1 June 1863)

§ MR. HUNT
said, he would propose the omission of Clause 21, and the substitution of the following clause:— Whereas it is expedient to alter and amend the conditions and restrictions upon and under which occasional licences to sell beer, spirits, or wine, may be granted and used, as provided by the 13th section of the Act passed in the 25th and 26th years of her Majesty's reign, chapter 22: Be it enacted as follows:—1. That the consent of one justice of the peace, as in the said section mentioned, only shall be necessary. 2. That the hours during which such occasional licence shall authorize the sale of any beer, spirits, or wine, shall extend from sunrise to one hour after sunset. 3. That upon the occasion of any public dinner or ball it shall be lawful for the person who shall have obtained an occasional licence under the provisions of the said act, to sell the said liquors during such hours before or after sunrise or sunset as shall be allowed and specified in that behalf in the consent to be given by the justice of the peace for the granting of such occasional licence. Under the operation of the act of last year a licensed victualler was obliged to procure the consent of two justices, acting for the petty sessional division in which his house was situated, in order to enable him to sell his liquors elsewhere. Now, although there might be no objection whatever to granting the occasional licence which he sought for that purpose, yet there was often very great difficulty in procuring the assent of two justices, as prescribed by the law. A case had come within his own knowledge in which a man had travelled about fur two days without being able to find two justices. An unnecessary hardship was therefore, he thought, in that respect inflicted, and 181 he proposed that the law should be so far relaxed as that the consent of only one justice should in these eases be required The other relaxation which he desired to have introduced referred to the hours a which liquors might be sold under the operation of occasional licences. When a cricket match took place, for instance, it very often happened that a meal was post poned until after dusk in order that play might be continued and the match concluded. Now, he found that one minute past nine was the latest hour of sunset, and he wished to have the time extended one hour beyond that, instead of being confined within the present limit.

§ MR. AYRTON
said, he thought no good case had been made out in favour of the proposed relaxations. When the existing Act was passed, it was pointed out that occasional licences might be extremely mischievous in their consequences, inasmuch as their effect would be virtually to bring the public-houses, from which it was the object of clergymen and others to withdraw the people, by providing for them amusement elsewhere, to those very places of recreation. He thought it was therefore a wise provision of the law that the assent of two justices should be obtained before a man could obtain such a licence; otherwise there would be no sufficient guarantee that they would be granted with due caution, One justice, for instance, might be a brewer, or a maker of gin, and would naturally give a licence with delight and as a matter of course. It was desirable, therefore, in his opinion, that the privilege of obtaining occasional licences should be hedged round with the safeguard of rendering the sanction of a second justice indispensable.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he was sorry to find that the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets objected to the clause, which appeared to him to be a rational Amendment of the law. When these occasional licenses were proposed last year, they were an experiment, and there was a strong feeling in the House that they ought, on moral and social grounds, to guard the experiment with an amount of restriction which would prevent its being liable to abuse. The Act in which the proposal was embodied had been in operation twelve months, and had been acted upon very extensively, no less than 10,000 licences having been taken out under it, and in no single instance had any mischievous consequences resulted, to his 182 knowledge. The effect of the Act, he might add, was not so much to introduce a new practice as to place under restriction a practice, founded on necessity, which had grown up without the law, and in a certain sense in spite of the law. He certainly thought a considerable restriction was imposed with reference to a licence which could not last more than three (lays, and might only last one. He thought they ought not to impose restrictions which were not necessary for the purposes of revenue and police. Neither for one purpose nor the other was it necessary to have the signature of more than one magistrate, and on those grounds he entirely assented to the proposal of the hon. Member.

§ MR. DODSON
said, he would move the addition of words reducing the duty to be paid for those licences from 5s. to 2s. 6d. Such a reduction would cause the number of such licences to be largely increased. He knew an instance of a cricket club, which was in danger of being destroyed, because the publican who supplied it with refreshments thought that 5s. was too large a sum to pay for a licence every time the members assembled.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he could not see that his hon. Friend had made out any case. If the club to which he referred suffered so much from the high price of this licence, how did it manage before the occasional licences were introduced last year? The usual principle was to make the payment for an occasional licence rather heavier than the charge for one for the whole year. The charge for the ordinary public-house licence was £17, or about 1s. a day. The charge for these occasional licences, which were good for three days, amounted to 1s. 8d. a day, or only 8d. more than that for the yearly licence; while the proposal of his hon. Friend would reduce it to 10d. a day, or less than that paid for the annual licence. Although he could not assent to the proposal, he should not, when the 183 House had more information before it, refuse to re-consider the Question.

§ MR. KER SEYMER
said, that without knowing anything of the cricket-club referred to, he had no doubt that the way it managed before the introduction of the system of occasional licences was by the regular infraction of the law: At the same time, he would recommend his right hon. Friend to make the small concession asked by the hon. Member for Sussex. When there were but small gatherings of people, the publican could not afford to pay so much for the licence.

§ SIR JOHN SHELLEY
said, he thought the observations of the hon. Member had great weight in them. He had been a cricketer all his life, and he never knew a case where they were not supplied with beer. It was illegal, but it was done.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, that he had not heard a Single complaint of the injurious operation of the law, and he therefore thought it desirable to wait a little before making any alteration.

§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITH
said, that if a reduction was to be made, it would, in his opinion, be better for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to exercise his generosity at once.

MR. HENLEY
said, he thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would he wise to consent to the Amendment, because in such, small matters there Was more worry than the revenue obtained was worth. Unless the amount charged for a licence to sell at small cricket matches was reduced, people would get some dodge to evade the law, and no revenue would be obtained. People would have beer, and all the Chancellors of the Exchequers in the world would not stop them. They had been accustomed to have their beer, they ought to have it, and they would do so. Not more than half a barrel of beer probably was consumed at a village cricket match, and the tax proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would run away with all the profits. Everybody obeyed the law as long as compliance was not very inconvenient; when it became so, means were somehow found of evading it.

§ MR. HUNT
said, he would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should put the licence at 2s. 6d. a day for each day that it was used.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
expressed his readiness to adopt that suggestion, and added that he would, 184 at a future stage, introduce a provision for the purpose of carrying it into effect.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
moved to insert Clause (Commissioners of Taxes for any Division of a County may hold their Meetings within an adjoining City or other Place of exclusive Jurisdiction).

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, the income tax hitherto had not been deducted from dividends in the funds where these were less in amount than 50s., oh account of the smallness of the recipient's interest. That principle, however, had been entirely altered by the passing of the Stock Certificates Bill, for even the largest holder in the funds might now receive his dividends in very small amounts. With regard to so much of the dividends, therefore, as were paid in the shape of coupons attached to the certificates, it was obviously necessary to repeal the provision. He therefore begged to move that— Whereas by an Act passed in the present Session of Parliament, c., certificates of title to shares in the public stocks are authorized to be issued having annexed coupons entitling the bearer to the dividends payable in respect thereof, and by section 11 of the same Act it is enacted that the income tax shall be deducted from any coupons payable under the said Act in like manner as it may be deducted from the dividends payable at the Bank in respect of the stock of proprietors inscribed in the books of the Bank, be it enacted, that the income tax shall be deducted from any such coupons as aforesaid, although the half-yearly payment thereon shall; not amount to 50s., anything in any former Act to the contrary notwithstanding.

§ MR. HUNT
said, there was an accidental omission in the Highways Act of last Session which he desired to remedy. That Act, in necessitating an immense number of instruments liable to stamp duty, virtually imposed a new tax upon the ratepayers. That was an indirect consequence of the General Stamp Act, and was not foreseen last Session when the Bill was passing; and he thought that both upon principle and according to precedent he could justify the exemption for which he contended. This was, that when the Legislature superseded the old system of discharging functions by introducing a new system of paid agency, stamp duty ought not to be imposed for the first time. 185 The Now Poor Law Act expressly exempted from stamp duty every kind of instrument required to carry out its provisions, and the principle of that Act was on all fours with the Highway Act of last Session. Under the old Highway Act parishes were empowered, if they chose, to appoint paid surveyors, and the appointment was exempt from the stamp duty. It was true that under another Act parishes might form themselves into districts, and appoint a paid surveyor, and in that case the appointments might he subject to stamp duty; but that enactment was a dead letter, there being no case in which such a district had been formed, and there fore the question of liability had never arisen. The 23 & 24 Vict., c. 68, the Act for the formation of highway districts in South Wales, upon which the English Act of last year was modelled, contained exemptions in express terms; and he did not see why the law for the two countries should differ upon this point, lie there fore begged to move— That no mortgage, bond, instrument, or any assignment thereof, given by Way of security, in pursuance of the provisions of the 12th section of an Act passed in the last Session of Parliament, intituled 'An Act for the Better Management of Highways in England,' nor any contract or agreement or appointment of any officer, made or entered into in pursuance of any of the provisions of such last-mentioned Act, shall be charged or chargeable with any stamp duty whatever.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he trusted the House would not accede to the Motion of the hon. Member, and thereby encourage the pernicious practice of creating exemptions under the general law. He thought it very inconvenient that the House, without having the general subject before it, should be asked, almost at the last stage of a revenue Bill, to affirm such a proposition. He did not hesitate to say, that if the exemption were one which ought to be entertained, a Bill calling attention to the subject should have been introduced. The discussion with reference to exemptions was mainly carried on in that House by the Members who had a special interest in the subject, and there was no regulation that the opinion of the finance department or of Her Majesty's Government should be taken on proposals of the kind; and therefore he was not 186 prepared to admit as precedents exemptions which might have been hastily or inconsiderately sanctioned. The hon. Member stated that the Poor Law established an exemption from the payment of stamp duties; but that law was passed at a period when the burdens on land were pressing with extreme severity. It was necessary at that time to unite the judgments of men in favour of a great measure of reform, and there were therefore particular reasons for permitting such an anomaly to be introduced. The General Highways Act, 5 & 6 Will. IV., united parishes into districts, and sanctioned the appointment of paid officers, but did not free those appointments from stamp duty.

§ MR. HUNT
said, he begged the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. By section 9, those appointments were expressly exempted from stamp duty, and by another section, the bond given by the collector to the surveyor was also free from stamp duty.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he had not been aware of these exemptions. The hon. Member had also referred to the exemptions under the South Wales Act. That Act was passed under peculiar circumstances, which made such an exemption popular and desirable. The question, however, was settled last Session, when the House passed a Highways Act for the whole country without the exemption. There was an immense multitude of agencies of local government and authority, for counties, parishes, cities, and municipal bodies of different kinds, and the House ought to determine whether it was right that all those subalterns of local government should be discharged from all obligations to the revenue. If not, there was no special gound for exemption in the case of the Highways Act. The question was rather as to the time and manner of abolishing these anomalous exemptions than of extending them, for they were attended with great inconvenience, and caused great dissatisfaction. If the House thought that all these local authorities ought to be exempt from payment to the Imperial exchequer, it would be most unjust to confine the exemption to particular persons employed under the Act.

§ MR. HUNT
said, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had failed to show why the principle of the exemptions established by the South Wales Act should not equally apply to appointments under the Highways Act. It was thought right to free the appointments under the Poor Law and 187 in the Highways Act of William IV. from stamp duty, because the burden really fell on the ratepayers. He trusted that the House would divide with him.

§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBY
said, he should support his hon. Friend (Mr. Hunt), because he did not think it fair to impose additional fiscal burdens upon the class who paid highway rate. The area of property liable to maintain the roads and similar burdens was very restricted, ranging between £80,000,000 and £90,000,000, while personal property was exempt. He, for one, would do nothing to increase the burdens on that property; nor was it fair to say that any officer appointed under the Highways Act should pay a new tax as stamp duty on his appointment.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, that the exemption in the South Wales Act was not even referred to in the Committee which sat on the Act of last Session. No one at that time seemed to have thought for one moment that it ought to be extended any further.

§ MR. GATHORNE HARDY
observed, that the reason why that had been the case was because the question never arose. The Members of the Committee thought that the Inspectors would be no more liable to the tax than they were under the old law; otherwise the point would certainly have been mooted. There was no reason why an English surveyor should be called on to pay a stamp duty of £25, when a Welsh one, with exactly the same salary, paid nothing.

§ Sir WILLIAM HEATHCOTE
said, his right hon. Friend (Sir George Grey), in answering the appeal made to him by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had conclusively given his authority in favour of the proposition of the hon. Member for Northampton, because, though the right hon. Baronet had said that the question had not been raised in the Committee, he was not able to say that the Home Office by his direction had left out that particular exemption on purpose. He quite agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it might be right to revise the whole system of these exemptions, but it was hardly right to lay upon one part of the community a burden not borne by another.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, his late right hon. Friend (Sir George Cornewall Lewis), who held the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department before his right hon. Friend (Sir George Grey), was the person 188 under whose authority the Bill referred to was revised; and as he never made the proposal to the Treasury to agree to that exemption, he was justified in saying that it was not thought by the Government that the exemption was right. He never said that there were good reasons why the exemption should be made in the case of South Wales, but that there might have been reasons of a local nature. Now, he entreated the House—

MR. LYGON
rose to order. The right hon. Gentleman had already addressed the House; and the practice of the House was; that a Member should be heard only once on the same Motion.

§ MR. SPEAKER
The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to speak on the Question now before the House, which is, that the clause be read a second time.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, the hon. Member (Mr. Lygon) had listened with great satisfaction to the second speech of the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt), but his impartial mind could not bear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be allowed to speak a second time. If an exemption of the kind were to be given, it ought not to be introduced upon the Report of the Inland Revenue Bill, and sanctioned by a single vote of the House. It was an anomaly of a kind which essentially required to be considered in conjunction with other collateral subjects bearing upon it, and it was impossible to give it that consideration in the shape in which it was now proposed.

MR. LYGON
said, as he had always understood the rules of the House, they were, that a Member could address the House only once upon any Motion, but that a Member who proposed a Resolution had a right to reply. The hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt), having brought forward a Motion, was entitled to speak in reply; but he was surprised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have been permitted to make a second speech. He ventured to think that the rules for the conduct of business had been well and wisely framed, and that they should carry on their business better by adhering to them. The right hon. Gentleman said that such a proposal as that made by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire ought not to be introduced upon the Report of the Bill; but that objection came with a singularly ill grace from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, during 189 the whole of the financial proceedings of the Session, had been begging hon. Members at each stage to take that stage pro formâ, as they should have another opportunity of discussing the matter on the Re-port. He sincerely hoped, after what had occurred, that on future occasions the House would see the inconvenience of taking stages pro formâ, and would insist in each case upon having the subject fully discussed.

§ MR. SPEAKER
The hon. Gentleman is not correct in saying that an hon. Member, having moved a clause, has a right to reply. The hon. Member for Northamptonshire moved a clause, and, having spoken upon it, a Motion was afterwards made that the clause be read a second time. That was a distinct Motion, upon which the hon. Member and the right hon. Gentleman had the power of speaking a second time.

§ SIR WILLIAM JOLLIFFE
said, the right hon. Gentleman (Sir G. Grey) had quite properly stated that the case of exemption had not been raised before the Committee. The Bill that was passed left unrepealed a very large number of clauses in the General Highways Act, which still continued in force. It was quite in the mind of the Committee that no taxation would attach to the appointment of paid surveyors. He was perfectly certain, had there not been such an impression, the exemption would have been proposed.

§ MR. KNIGHTLEY
said, with respect to the remark made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that £300 a year was a very large salary for a surveyor, he believed that it was not an unusually high one. It should be remembered that the surveyor in many cases was obliged to pay two or three sub-surveyors. He thought it was very hard on such men to have a further reduction of £20 or £25 made from their salaries.

MR. HENLEY
said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had placed the House in a difficulty. In the first place, he said that the clause was not a proper thing to be introduced into the Bill; and when his hon. Friend quoted precedent after precedent, the right hon. Gentleman said, "Oh, these precedents are not in point." The right hon. Gentleman, however, had shown no ground whatever why, if Wales were exempt, England should be taxed. The question of those exemptions was a very large one; but while things were left as they were, he did not see why England 190 should be taxed when Wales did not pay. He should, therefore, support the clause of the hon. Member.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he would then move the re-committal of the Bill, for the purpose of inserting the clause passed in Committee of Ways and Means on the previous Friday, settling the duty on excursion trains. At the same time, he proposed to make another alteration of a technical character with reference to the time of taking out tobacco licences. It was generally very convenient that all persons who took out licences should take them out at the same time. Tobacco licences were chiefly taken out by teadealers and publicans, The teadealers' licences expired on the 5th of July, those of the publicans on the 10th of October. Now, although the teadealer could take out his tobacco licence at the same time as his other licences, the publican could not do so, and be proposed to enable the publican to take out his tobacco licence on the 10th of October, along with his other licences.

§ LORD ROBERT CECIL
said, he thought that the proceeding of the Chancellor of the Exchequer furnished occasion for another of those protests which hon. Members had been obliged to address to the right hon. Gentleman so frequently during the Session. The right, hon. Gentleman had got the Resolution relating to excursion trains passed through Committee of Ways and Means the other evening, and he wished to thrust it into a Bill which had already passed a second reading. That proceeding might be orderly, but it was very inconvenient. He had given the House no notice, too, of his intention, and thus had taken hon. Members by surprise. It seemed to him that it would have been fairer to the opponents of taxes upon excursion trains if the right hon. Gentleman had given notice of this measure.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he had no desire to proceed against the general feeling of the House; but the proceeding was strictly regular, and it would be very convenient not to delay bringing into operation the new arrangement.

§ LORD ROBERT CECIL
said, that if the right hon. Gentleman had made that statement at first; he should not have said a word.

§ SIR JAMES FERGUSSON
said, the parties interested in the change of duties on railway passengers had not been taken by surprise. They had been received with the greatest courtesy by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and their suggestions had been fully considered.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, that in moving the insertion of the clause as to railways he might mention that the very judicious arrangement suggested by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt), as to occasional licences, could not be carried into effect, because, although on the whole there would be a reduction in some cases, there would be an addition of taxation; and therefore a Resolution in Committee of the Whole House was necessary.

§ MR. AYRTON
said, he did not know whether the clause as to excursion trains would in any way affect the 56 lb. of luggage allowed to third-class passengers by Act of Parliament.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, the law would be unaltered, as the clause had no bearing whatever upon the 56 lb. of luggage allowed to third class passengers.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, he would then move the insertion of the clause as to tobacco duties.

MR. LYGON
remarked that the clauses ought to have been printed.

§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
said, that the first clause had been printed. The other clause would be printed before the next stage, and the reason it had not been printed before was, that it was only suggested by an independent person on Saturday, and the Excise had to be consulted before the clause could be drawn.