§ (Mr. Dodson, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Ayrton.)
§ Order for Committee read.
§ MR. HUNTsaid, they had previously had no opportunity of considering that important measure, and they had then to discuss it at a comparatively late period of the Session. The delay had no doubt been unavoidable in consequence of the state of the Public Business, and he had no reproach to address to the Government upon that point. They had already discussed certain portions of the financial proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Committee of Ways and Means; but he hoped the House would then allow him to enter into an examination of the general plan of the right hon. Gentleman, as far as it regarded the time for the collection of the taxes, the effect which it would have on the payments into the Exchequer and out of the Exchequer, the means which it would leave at the disposal of the Government for meeting the demands of the public service, and the influence which it would probably exercise on the state of the money market. The scheme of the right hon. Gentleman was, no doubt, in many respects popular, because it proposed very great remissions of taxation: and he (Mr. Hunt) was not prepared to complain of the particular articles which had been selected for those remissions, because he believed that, assuming the necessary funds were available, that selection was exceedingly judicious. Those remissions amounted in the whole to £3,480,000, of which sum there would be gained in the present 813 year £2,940.000. The right hon. Gentleman commenced his Financial Statement by informing them that the expenses of the Abyssinian War would swallow up the whole of the surplus, with the exception of a small sum of £30,000. and, of course, under ordinary circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman would have no remission of taxation to propose. But he was not content with so unsatisfactory an announcement, and he proceeded to show them how ingeniously he could make a surplus out of nothing, and how he could diminish the taxation of the year by a sum of £2,940,000. It was obvious, however, that if that remission of taxation were made, a proportionate sum of money must be found somehow. For that purpose the right hon. Gentleman proposed to alter the time at. which the payments were to be made under Schedules A. B. and D of the income tax, as well as for the land tax, the house duty, and the license duties. Now, what would be the effect of that proposal as far as the income tax was concerned? The right hon. Gentleman, in point of fact called, not upon all income tax-payers, but upon certain classes of income tax payers, to pay the charge for five quarters within the year. He postponed the payment of the income tax until the January quarter, and then he accelerated the payment which had hitherto been made in April, and provided that the whole sum should be payable in the January quarter. Persons contributing to the income tax under Schedules A, B, and D would thus have to pay for five quarters within the year; and the total charge to which they would become liable during the twelve months would be 6½d. in the pound; that was to say ad. for the year itself, and 1½d. for the quarter of the preceding year. The right hon. Gentleman might say that, although that sum would be paid within the year, it would not be paid in respect of the year. That was, no doubt, true, but the payment would still be made within the year; and an additional charge would thus have to be met. But there was to be an inequality between different classes of income tax payers, because those who paid under Schedules C and E would have to pay during the year only for four quarters; and it appeared to him (Mr. Hunt) that that would not be a perfectly fair mode of proceeding. He should next endea- 814 vour to show that the time in which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to collect the taxes would render them peculiarly burdensome. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury had moved for a Return which showed at what time of the year these taxes would be payable. In the month of January, 1870, people would have to pay the income tax for the whole of the financial year, as well as the land tax. the house duty, and the license duties; and when the April quarter came they would be called upon to pay up a second moiety of the assessed taxes for the year 1868–9. The right hon. Gentleman stated that by the proposed alteration in the time of collecting the taxes a saving of £100,000 would be effected. No doubt, a great saving would result, and as he had no means of testing the accuracy of the right hon. Gentleman's figures, he would assume it at the sum stated. But he could not help apprehending that the inconvenience and pressure which would be created by making such a demand on the tax-payer in one quarter of the year might counterbalance the advantage of that saving of £100,000. No doubt too, the principle of collecting the whole of a tax at one time was a good one; but the really sound principle on which to act was, in his belief, to collect the taxes in the mode and at the time which would be most convenient to the tax-payer. But the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman seriously offended against this wholesome canon. He should be glad to know whether the right hon. Gentleman, in making his calculations, had taken into account the defalcation which might arise from the fact that many persons would perhaps find themselves unable to meet the heavy demand which he made upon them. It was well known that householders in general were never more pressed for money than when they had to pay their Christmas bills, and that was the period which the right hon. Gentleman had selected for overwhelming them by calling upon them to make that unusual contribution to the public Exchequer. He (Mr. Hunt) would next deal with the second part of the subject—namely, the effect of the scheme on the Exchequer balances. When this subject was before the House on a previous occasion he had called the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the inconvenience which would be caused by leaving the 815 Exchequer dry at some periods of the year and having it full at others. The right hon. Gentleman had granted him a Return on this point (Parliamentary Paper 164). The Return, as granted by the right hon. Gentleman, was not, however, in the shape in which he had asked for it. Had it been granted in the form in which, he had asked for it. it would, he believed, have made the defects of the right hon. Gentleman's plan more apparent, because by taking the average of seven instead of three years, as the right hon. Gentleman had done, the right hon. Gentleman obtained a great advantage, for until the Abyssinian War occurred the balances in the Exchequer were greater than at present. On that account he believed the average of the last three years would have shown a more, unfavourable result. According to this Return the average amount of the balances at. the close of the different quarters during the last seven years was on the 30th of June, £6,190,443; on the 30th of September, £4,140,574; on the 31st of December, £5,708,366; and on the 31st of March, £6,420,268. By the proposed change the balance on the 30th of June would be reduced by £1,850,000; on the 30th of September, £2,450,000; and on the 31st of December, £4,620,000, while there would be no effect on the fourth quarter in ordinary years, although a material effect would be produced during the present year in consequence of the payments of different taxes being made into the Exchequer at different times. But he wished particularly to call attention to the state of the balance? in the Exchequer on the 31st of December, which according to that Return would only just be over £1,000,000. The House would recollect that the charges to be then met would not be altered by the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman. He found that in the two quarters following the December quarter, when the balance would be so greatly reduced, there would have to be paid, for interest to the public creditor and other charges on the Consolidated Fund, a sum, in round numbers, of £7,500,000. while in the two subsequent quarters there would have to be paid £6,500,000; so that, according to the financial scheme submitted to the House, the right hon. Gentleman proposed to wind up the December quarter with a balance of 816 £1,000,000, when he had to make a payment of £7,500,000 out of the Exchequer. He (Mr. Hunt) could not but think that such an arrangement would be attended with considerable inconvenience to some future Chancellor of the Exchequer, for he really could hardly suppose that the right hon. Gentleman, after such a proposal, expected to remain in Office for another year. The Exchequer would thus be left so dry that it would be necessary to borrow money from the Bank of England or some other quarter to pay nearly the whole of the sum due to the public creditor; and that was a state of things which it would be impossible to justify. If the right hon. Gentleman should have to borrow to that extent, might not the interest on the loan absorb a great portion of the saving he expected to effect in the cost of collection? He might think he could borrow at a low rate of interest; but when the sum was so very large, and the resources of the Bank of England were to be diminished by the operations of the right hon. Gentleman himself, he might find that the sum he had to pay in the shape of interest was very considerable indeed. In the year 1844 a financial operation was proposed by Mr. Goulburn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Sir Robert Peel's last Administration, which was the very reverse of the scheme at present put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. Mr. Goulburn in that year proposed a change in the time at which the dividends in the public funds were to be paid, and he did so for the express purpose that the payments into the Exchequer and out of the Exchequer should correspond in point of time. The payments that had previously been made in January and July, as compared with April and October, were in the proportion of five to two. That arrangement was found very inconvenient, and means were taken to alter it and to equalize the payment of the dividends as nearly as possible in the different quarters of the year. That measure had answered its purpose; but the right hon. Gentleman at present proposed to reverse that policy. He did not say he would alter the time for the payment of the dividends; but he sought to alter the time for making the payments into the Exchequer, out of which the amount of the dividends was to come, and that was a matter which deserved the serious 817 consideration of the House. This evil might to a great extent have been avoided without sacrificing the main part of the plan of the right hon. Gentleman. He might still have collected each tax at one period of the year; but there was not the slightest necessity for him accumulating the payment of all these taxes in one quarter. He might have made the income tax payable in the January quarter, and the land tax, house duty, and assessed taxes payable in the July quarter; or he might have made other arrangements by which the money should have been drawn into the Exchequer at two different periods of the year. If he had done so. he would have avoided one of the great evils of this plan, both as regards inconvenience to the tax-payer and inconvenience to the Exchequer. He (Mr. Hunt) had the other day alluded to the effect which the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman might be expected to produce on the money market. He had endeavoured to point out that, by leaving the Bank without the usual Government deposits during the last half-year, and enabling them to reap the benefit of accumulations in the January quarter, great fluctuations might be caused in the rate of interest, the Bank being extremely weak during one period of the year, and extremely strong during another. Having dwelt upon this point before, he did not wish to go over the ground again; but he could not help adverting to a remark which fell from the right hon. Gentleman. In answer to the observations made, he said—"What have I to do with the money market? That must take care of itself." Had the right hon. Gentleman been Chancellor of the Exchequer for four years instead of four months he would scarcely have made use of such a remark. It was certainly surprising to hear such words falling from official lips. The right hon. Gentleman must have forgotten how much his revenue depended upon the state of the money market, and how much his power of borrowing depended upon it; and it was to be feared he would stand much in need of what he could borrow. The right hon. Gentleman might depend upon it that it behaved the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have some thought for the money market, for in the artificial state in which we lived, the money market could not be left to take care of 818 itself in the way proposed. We were living in an artificial state as regarded the relation of the Bank of England to the money market, and also as regarded the relation of the Government to the Bank of England, and, therefore, he thought the observation of the right hon. Gentleman was, to say the least, unfortunate. He had endeavoured to point out what he thought was evil in the propositions of the right hon. Gentleman; but that they were not unalloyed with good he was free to admit. He accepted the plea for collecting the taxes at one part of the year instead of at several, and he approved the proposed change of assessed taxes into license duties; but we might have had all the good of the right hon. Gentleman's proposals without the evil if he had not accumulated the payment of all these taxes into one quarter of the year.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERAs no one wishes to address the House, I will briefly reply to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman. Before I do so, it may be convenient that I should make one announcement, and that is that, owing to representations which have reached the Government from many different quarters, it is our intention to propose an exemption with regard to brood mares. The right hon. Gentleman began by saying we propose to make people pay five quarters of the income tax in the same financial year. It is quite true; but then it is also true, if you drop the word "financial." that we always made them pay five quarters within the year. ["No. no!"] Take the instance of the income tax. One quarter is collected on the 20th of April, two quarters are collected in October, and one quarter in January—that makes four quarters— and then another quarter, the first of the second year, is collected on the 20th of April; and that makes five quarters. [Mr. HUNT: But that is not in the same year,] The gist of the light hon. Gentleman's charge is that there is hardship in making the tax-payer pay five quarters, not in the same financial year, but in the same year, within the twelve months; and so he always does; and if he does not he will not do it in this case. You take the 20th of April in two successive years and count them both; by the same reckoning you always pay five quarters, and if it is not so, you will not do it in 819 this case. [Mr. CRAWFORD: How many do you pay in two years?] Nine, by the same rule. But I now come to something a little more serious. The right hon. Gentleman says that we oppress the income tax-payer, and make him pay a quarter more than he otherwise would. But does the system we propose to introduce inflict any hardship? We may put out of sight the first April instalment, because that will be payable under either system; bur at present two quarters are payable in October, one in January, and then one in April. Under the new system we propose to ask for nothing in October, but we take the whole in January; that is— we give the tax-payer credit for three months on two quarters' tax, and we accelerate the payment of one quarter's, so that he gains by the change the interest upon one quarter's tax. With regard to land tax and inhabited house duty, the right hon. Gentleman says there is hardship in calling for the payment of them in January. But now they are paid in October, three months before, and in April, three months after. We forbear the three months before, and accelerate the three months after, so that the tax-payers are precisely in the same position. They gain forbearance for three months; they lose acceleration for three months. As regards the assessed taxes, no doubt the right hon. Gentleman has something to say. If we take the calendar year, there will be paid £1,000,000 of assessed taxes in new license duties, and there will be paid, besides. £600,000 of the old assessed taxes which fall due in April; so instead of paying, as they would under the old system, in the next financial year £1,200,000, the payers of assessed taxes will be called on to pay £1,600,000, and there is a loss to them of £100,000. That loss, however, will be recouped in this way—the assessed taxes are reduced by £200,000. and, therefore, half of the £400,000 will be gained in the first year, and the other half in the next year, so that by the third year the loss will have been restored by the reduction of taxes. That is the whole amount of loss or injury in the shape of ready money, and that is a change by which we shall be enabled to raise £3,000,000 of money. As I have explained, although we do anticipate the resources of the coming year, yet we lose nothing by 820 that, because we are able to anticipate the resources of the following year, and so on ad infinitum. The right hon. Gentleman wanted me to conjecture the balances there would be for the present year and to stake my financial scheme upon that estimate, and he says that I have a great advantage in taking the average of the last seven years instead of the present year. But does the right hon. Gentleman consider the state in which he left the balances? I thought it much better to take the balances of the last seven years, which have been under different hands from those of the right hon. Gentleman, and which, probably, afforded a fairer way of stating the case. I do not wish to state the case in my favour; at the same time I do not wish to state it so much against myself as I should if I argued upon the right hon. Gentleman's figures. He says we shall be in want of money and must borrow. I have given much attention to the subject, and, fortified by very good authority. I am satisfied that there will be no real difficulty. Two expedients have been suggested besides the ordinary ones of borrowing and issuing Exchequer bills; they are not matured yet, but they will enable us to do something towards re-producing something like equality in the payment of dividends. I think Mr. Goulburn was quite right, and I shall be glad to pursue equality, unless deterred by some accident. Now, with reference to another point. It is very curious we should be so afraid of borrowing money on too easy terms that we are determined to enter into no competition in the way of lending. With every respect to the Bank of England, it would be an improvement if we were to go ourselves into the field. We are ourselves very large bankers; we receive large sums of money, and I would suggest, in the next Money Bill brought before the House, the propriety of allowing the Chancellor of the Exchequer to borrow on Ways and Means any temporary deficiency from the trustees for the payment of the National Debt out of funds they may have in their possession to invest. Although I do not propose to go into detail upon this matter at present, the calculations I have made lead me to believe that such an arrangement would enable me very much to equalize the quarters at an expense very trifling as 821 compared with that incurred by borrowing from the Bank of England. I may have to suggest another expedient, which, however, has not yet assumed a very definite form. We are continually paying large sums of money as instalments in the case of terminable annuities issued in connection with the payment of the National Debt, and the payment of these sums is distributed pretty equally all over the year. I think it quite possible —indeed, I believe there is no substantial reason against it—to make the whole of these payments in the two quarters when money will be most abundant, and thus relieve the two quarters when it will be least abundant. These two expedients, and the plan of requiring taxes, the payment of which is now optional, to be paid at the time when the Exchequer is least full, will enable us to equalize the quarters sufficiently for all practical purposes, and to prevent any real disturbance of the money market. We have heard a great deal of this disturbance of the money market, and I think the real meaning of the phrase has scarcely been considered. It is said if we drain our account with the Bank of England every day we shall cripple the Bank for the purposes of discount, and so embarrass the money market. Now, what is the real nature of such transactions as that? If the Government has a large balance at the Bank of England, that balance must have come from somewhere. It has come from the taxes, and has been drawn from all parts of the country, and a great deal of it has come from country banks, which keep their accounts with the Bank of England, or with London banks, which, without exception, keep an account with the Bank of England. So if the Government balance at the Bank of England is very large, that balance has been obtained by reducing the reserves the Bank of England holds for the purposes of other banks; and, conversely, if we lower the Government balance in the Bank very considerably by expending money, that money finds its way all over the country into the country banks, and from them returns through the London banks to the Bank of England. Therefore, what is called draining the Bank of 'England is little more than transferring the money from one part of the Bank to another by a circuitous course. That this is not a mere hypothesis is curi- 822 ously evinced by a statement I have had prepared, showing the state of the Bank's reserve before and after the payment of the quarterly dividends. On the 1st of July, 1868, the Exchequer balances at the Bank of England were £3,110,000, but by the payment of the dividends on the 15th of July they were reduced to £689,000—that is to say, they were reduced by no less than £2,421,000. Now, what was the state of the reserve of the Bank of England at these two periods? When the Government had these £3,110,000 standing to its account the reserve was£12,979,000; on the 15th July, after the Government account had been reduced to £689,000, the reserve was £12,309,000 —that is to say, the reduction of the Government balance by £2,421,000 reduced the Bank of England's reserve by ' only £670,000. The same state of things is shown in all the quarters of the year, with slight variations. What does that mean? It means that the money had left the Bank of England by payment of dividends, and had returned in the shape of deposits, the difference in the end being very small; and I apprehend that would be the state of things even if the Government deposits were very considerably diminished from any cause. I do not think the reduction of the Government balance would injure the operations of the Bank in any way. That is a sufficient answer on the point raised; but I am bound to say if it is not a sufficient answer I cannot subscribe to the theory put forward by the right hon. Gentleman and a weekly newspaper of deservedly high authority as to the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to the Bank of England. It has been argued in this way: It is said that it is necessary the public should be preserved from panic, and that preservation from panic consists in the raising of the rates of discount by the Bank of England: that the raising of the discount rate can only effectually check panics when the Bank is in a condition to rale the money market—that is, when it is strong in funds and is able to make advances, or to refuse to make them, except on high rates: and, therefore, it is argued that it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to keep a large balance in the Bank of England in order that the Bank maybe able to exercise control over the market. Now, Sir, I repeat 823 what I said before. I think a man is happy if he is able to do his duty, and does his duty by one set of people. It is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take care of the tax-payer and the revenues intrusted to his charge; and it is not his duty to put money into the Bank merely for the benefit of the shareholders of the Bank of England—which, after all, is really a private banking institution—or to enable the Bank to assist, trades, or to set up storm signals announcing the coming of panics. If it be the pleasure; of merchants to set up a sort of monarch over them, to whom they pay deference as the keeper of their monies, and as dictator in matters of exchange and discount, we have not the least desire to quarrel with them. But I entirely deny that it is the duty of those charged with the conduct of the business of the country to regulate their proceedings by a desire to give greater or less privileges for the conduct of any particular business. Government does not interfere with the conduct of any business other than banking. There is no monarch set up by any other department of business to warn those engaged in it of dangers to come; they must look out for themselves; and I do not see that Government should go out of its way merely to strengthen a great institution like the Bank of England. It is the business of speculators not only to see that their speculation is in itself sound; but, if they should require assistance in the way of accommodation, that there is a reasonable probability they will be able to find it. It is no part of the duty of the Government to set up artificial means of insuring that for them; it must be, left to every speculator's judgment. I am bound to protect the tax-payer from inconvenience and expense; and I am bound not to put him to inconvenience and expense merely for the purpose of strengthening the balances of the Bank of England, in order that they may be available for accommodating the mercantile community. These are the points the right hon. Gentleman touched upon, and I hope the answer I have given is satisfactory.
§ MR. CRAWFORDsaid, he thought it fortunate for the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he had not to go through a Civil Service examination before being appointed to his present Office. He, for 824 one, was quite unable to understand the calculations which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had submitted to the House. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that if a man paid his quarter's taxes five times in the course of the year he did not pay more than if he paid only four times. That was practically the sum total of the argument—if a man paid on the 20th of April in this year and on the 20th of April in next year, he would not pay more in the five payments than he would have done in the four. He had put a question to his right hon. Friend, which he was unable to answer—namely, how many quarters would a man have to pay in two years? It stood to reason that he ought only to have to pay eight. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: He would pay nine.] How many then would he have to pay in three years? Surely twelve quarters; but according to his right hon. Friend it would be fifteen, and so on in progression to the end of time. He had listened with great attention to what fell from his right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Hunt), and was bound to say his criticisms in many respects were very just. On the other hand, speaking as a member of a large commercial community, he had heard with very great regret the remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the money market must take care of itself. Those words had created a considerable amount of consternation in the City. He was distinctly of opinion that the Government ought not to be expected to assist the public, or that the public should look to the Government for assistance, in times of commercial distress. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said he would meet the difficulties stated by the right hon. Gentleman opposite by two expedients. That was the proper word to use—they were expedients. As to the use the right hon. Gentleman might make of those expedients, that was not the time to enter into a debate upon the subject. But he was not prepared to say that inconveniences would not arise, and disturbances in the money market be created by the way in which it was pro-posed to collect the taxes. In ordinary times, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer found himself unable to meet his charges he would not experience difficulty in obtaining money either from the Bank of England, should he come to it 825 for assistance, or from some other quarter. But we were not always to expect serene skies over our heads, and it was quite possible that great derangement might be created in the money market, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer might need assistance. The question must be regarded from this point of view. The money, whatever it might be, was within the four corners of the kingdom. The question was one merely of distribution. If the Bank had not the money in its coffers as part of the Government, balances the public outside had it. The public having the use of the money in the bands of the country bankers would not require to come to the Bank of England for assistance; but if the Government in a time of great difficulty came to the Bank of England, when the Bank had not the money in its hands, there might be an action in the money market which would be attended with great inconvenience. Suppose this action were to occur at a time when there was a drain of bullion, and the precious metals were leaving the country, how could the Bank of England exercise that control over the money market which enabled it, by raising the rate of discount, to restore things to their proper state? The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that these were things with which the Government had nothing to do; but that was an opinion which, he ventured to say, would in some respects be regarded as unfortunate. The public, hitherto, at least, had looked to the Government, and would continue to look to the Government to conduct its financial operations with a due regard to the public interests as centred in the City of London. The City of London was the centre of the commercial interests of the country, and as the Government acted upon that centre so would the public interests throughout the country be more or less affected. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was taking a different view from his predecessors of this question; but if that view were carried out, and if the public interests were not regarded, a state of things would arise not altogether favourable to the existence of public credit. As to the general argument, he would not follow the Chancellor of the Exchequer into the very wide field he had gone over; but he (Mr. Crawford) must say that the right hon. Gentleman 826 had hardly done the Bank of England justice in some respects. It was not the business of the Bank of England to find funds for the commercial community, nor had it been at any time. The business of the Bank of England was to take care of the funds intrusted to it, and to employ the money for the benefit of the proprietors. As to the "storm signals" to which his right hon. Friend had referred, the Bank of England did hoist "storm signals." and, more than that, having the power, it used it in rectifying what otherwise might at the time be an unfortunate state of things. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hunt) had alluded to the observations made by Mr. Goulbourn. when he moved in that House for the reduction of that part of the debt which in the first instance bore interest at 3½ per cent. and afterwards at 3¼. The view of Mr. Goulbourn on that occasion appeared to be this—that we should use the opportunity for bringing the charge, so far as it depended on the payment of the interest for the quarter, as nearly as possible to an equilibrium with the receipts. Therefore the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hunt) was quite correct when he said that the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was distinctly at variance with the policy of Mr. Goulbourn. His right hon. Friend justified what he proposed to do on the ground of the great advantages that would be derived by the public. He hoped they should live to see whether those great advantages would be derived. He felt bound to say that the Budget in its general outlines was popular, and was entitled to the sanction of the House. But there was one point in connection with it to which he was anxious to draw attention. There was one provision in the 8th clause of the Bill which seemed entirely inconsistent with the statement of his right hon. Friend as interpreted by a Paper laid upon the table by the Secretary to the Treasury. According to that Paper the income tax for the financial year 1869–70 was to be collected after the 1st of January, 1870. and that was in strict accordance with the declaration, as he understood it. of the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he made his Financial Statement. But on referring to the 8th clause of the Bill he found this language used—"the land tax, and the duties on inhabited houses, and the 827 duties of income tax"—with some exceptions—"shall be payable on or before the 1st day of January in each year." Now, here was an apparent inconsistency. He confessed when he read the clause it appeared to him to furnish an easy way of getting out of the difficulty into which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had fallen in this matter. But they would have an opportunity of discussing this point when they came in Committee to the clause itself. As to the effect that would be produced upon the public balances, he felt that, occupying as he did the position of representative before the public of the Bank of England, and having by mere accident, as it were, the privilege of being in the House of Commons in that capacity, it was not competent for him to go into questions of a particular nature upon information derived solely from the fact of his being the confidential channel of the Government in these matters. He did not feel justified on that account in doing more than referring to what appeared in public papers as to the effect which would be produced on the public balances by the schemes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Before sitting down he would merely repeat the expression of his regret at the indifference which his right hon. Friend showed to the value of the functions exercised by the Bank of England towards the public. He held that the Bank of England in past times had exercised the vast power which it held with great benefit to the public; and, as long as he was in the position which he happened to fill, he would do all in his power not to disparage but to make effective the services which the Bank of England had always rendered.
§ MR. BARNETTsaid, that no one was more competent than his hon. Friend who had just sat down to set the House right as to the relative positions of the Government and the Bank of England. He only regretted that, from the delicate position which his hon. Friend occupied at present, he very properly considered his mouth stopped with respect to many matters on which the House would hear his opinion with great interest. The position of the Bank of England with respect to the balances of the Government, and the relations it held towards the public at large, were undoubtedly of a complicated nature. He quite agreed 828 with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was not the business of the Government, by any manipulation of the Revenue of the country, to interfere with the ordinary course of the money market, or, as he had said, in any way "to bolster up" the Bank of England. At the same time they must all remember that the important position in which the Bank of England stood in times of commercial crisis had been most fully recognized, by the fact that within a limited period the Government had absolutely stepped in and interfered with the laws under which the business of the Bank was ordinarily carried on. That was in times of commercial panic; but then they all knew the tendency of the monetary transactions of the country to gravitate more and more towards London, and as that became the case, more and more money, as his right hon. Friend had stated, would find its way into the Bank of England. The vast balances with which the Bank of England had to deal in assisting the commercial interests by means of loans upon securities were of a two-fold nature. The balances which found their way there through the hands of the large joint-stock banks might, undoubtedly, be called for at any moment. With regard to the Government balances, there were, he presumed, periods at which, from the ordinary course of the business of the country, considerable sums might be expected to lie in the Bank of England for some little time. He had been somewhat mystified by the explanations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to those five quarters in one year that he had spoken of. It appeared to him that if they took the financial or the ordinary year, it consisted of 365 days; and if they reckoned it as including the 1st of January in one year and the 1st of January in another year, they would make their year to consist of 366 days. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: That is exactly it.] But if they went on calculating in that way they would not only make people pay for more than eight quarters in two years, and twelve quarters in three years, but would also alarm and mystify the tax-payer, and lead him to believe that he had to pay more than he previously did. With regard to the assessed taxes, as he had briefly stated some time ago, some misapprehension existed as to the mode in which 829 they were to be collected. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had used the word "levied," which caused people to be puzzled as between the collection and the mere demand for a tax. From some communications which he had had, he thought the public were now generally quite aware that, in point of fact, they would practically have to pay two years' assessed taxes in six months. They made a Return now for the taxes which belonged to last year. The first payment had to be made in October, then they had to take out licenses on the 1st of January for the whole of the taxes for next year; and in the course of the following April they would have again to pay the taxes for the half-year still outstanding. So that, in fact, two years' taxes would be levied in a very short time —an arrangement which, he believed, would be found exceedingly distasteful to a large part of the community. It appeared, however, that there was no possibility now of making any alteration in that proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. For himself, he wished that the right hon. Gentleman had staved off for a certain period the reduction of some duties which he thought might in due time have properly been remitted; and that by that means he had found an opportunity of making the change in their system more gradual, in order eventually to get the taxes paid during the year in which they were levied.
§ MR. SAMUDAsaid, he thought the change proposed was somewhat analogous to that which would occur if householders in this country, instead of being called upon to pay their rent at the end of the quarter, were to be suddenly called upon, as was done in France, to pay it at the beginning of the quarter, in which case they would for the rest of their lives lose one quarter. With regard to the claim to total freedom from responsibility put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in respect to the state of the money market, he did not think the Government were quite entitled to make such a claim, and for this simple reason—there was a considerable; degree of connection between the Government and the Bank of England, which gave the public a strong interest in seeing that it was not disturbed by sudden changes in the money market. The Bank of England had lent the whole of its capital to the Govern- 830 ment, and the Government had allowed the Bank in return to issue £14,000,000 of notes to the public. The Bank also had authority to issue as many additional notes as it had gold in its coffers to meet, because the theory was that every Bank note that was afloat should be payable in cash on demand; but when money was scarce there was an enormous rise in discount at the Bank, and much inconvenience was caused to the commercial community. The Bank, in fact, had to operate to prevent the last of its notes issued against gold being presented for payment, for it was clear that when this point was reached the £14,000,000 issued on the credit of the Government could not be met in gold; and however certain the ultimate redemption of these notes would be—for they might be given in payment for taxes or duties—yet the actual and immediate controvertability of the note would have been endangered or lost, and immense panic and loss would follow. If the Government discharged their debt of £14,000,000 to the Bank by placing that amount of gold in the Bank, to enable it to meet an equivalent amount in notes, then the independence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the one side, and the independence of the Bank on the other, would be complete, and the latter body would not have to raise its rate of discount in order to check the drain upon its stock of gold, for so long as a single Bank note remained in the hands of the public, so long its equivalent in gold would be in the cellars of the Bank.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he would not pretend to say anything about the question as to the Bank of England, which had been so well discussed by those who were competent to do it, but he wished to go to the simple question as to the payment by the rate-payers and the time at which they would pay. A Paper had been put forth early last April by the Secretary of the Treasury, upon the authority of the Government, stating the time according to what was called the scheme of the taxes. What he wished, therefore, to know from the Chancellor of the Exchequer was whether the right hon. Gentleman thought that Bill been drawn in conformity with the Paper so put forth, and whether, if there was any doubt left as to the period at which the several taxes would be paid, he would 831 undertake that the clauses should be so altered as to be made consistent with the Paper to which he referred. He confessed he did not think the clauses were as clear as in a matter of taxation they ought to be. The 5th clause imported into the Bill a somewhat curious provision—namely—
And for the purposes of this Act the year eighteeen hundred and sixty-two, mentioned in the forty-third section of the Act passed in the twenty-fifth year of Her Majesty's reign, chapter twenty-two, shall be read as deemed to mean the year eighteen hundred and sixty-nine.That was a very obscure provision, and when they came to the clause it would be due to the House that the Government should give a full explanation of what the effect of that provision would be, for he owned that he could not exactly realize it. Then, again, the provisions of the 8th clause as to the payments were somewhat doubtful, and might, be read either in consonance with the Paper issued by the Secretary of the Treasury or otherwise. He hoped the Government would take care to remove all ambiguity on that point, for, as far as he had gathered from the Budget Speech, it seemed to him that the payments were not to be made precisely in accordance with the Paper of the Secretary of the Treasury.
§ MR. W. FOWLERsaid, that on the 12th of April he had ventured to express considerable doubt as to the effect of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's scheme on the money market, stating that he feared the right hon. Gentleman hardly appreciated the delicacy, if he might so speak, of the money market. On the 7th of May he was informed, on very high authority, that it was extremely difficult to sell Consuls for money, or to raise money on Consols in the market. That only showed what oscillations and fluctuations occurred independently of the action of Chancellors of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman said he was not going out of his way "to cocker up the Bank of England or any other institution." Now. he (Mr. W. Fowler) did not ask him to do anything of that kind, but he did ask him not to go out of his way to disturb the natural action of the money market. The figures showed that the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, as set before them, would most seriously disturb the natural action of the money market in two ways, which he had indicated before, 832 and which he would shortly refer to again. As he read the figures, nominally in January every year there would be collected £8,192,000; £4,743,000 on account of income tax, and £3,449,000 on account of land tax, house duty, and assessed taxes. He believed that was very nearly £5,000,000 more than was usually collected at that period on account of these taxes. A short time after the occurrence of this difficulty in the City, a million of money was paid out of the Bank of England into the open market, and it suddenly created a feeling of great ease, and it was very soon difficult to lend money at anything like the Bank rate from day to day; thus showing what was the effect of a single million on the money-market. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was going to draw from the country about £5,000,000 more than they had been accustomed to pay at a particular month in the year. In the present state of monetary affairs that would be a most inconvenient, and, he ventured to add, an improper arrangement. The right hon. Gentleman said the money market must take care of itself; and he told them they had set up the Bank of England as a kind of presiding deity, and they must take the consequences. He maintained that this was contrary to the fact, and that the Bank of England had attained and kept its high position because it was the bank of the Government, and had, consequently, obtained a great amount of prestige. Not that he in any way complained of this circumstance, for he was of opinion that some such institution as the Bank of England was, if not absolutely necessary, at all events extremely convenient. The Bank of England had the duty imposed upon it by its position of maintaining an adequate reserve; and in order to do so it must necessarily have at times full control over the money market. It raised the rate of discount, attracted money from abroad, and adjusted the financial condition of the country by that action which it alone could Tiring to bear on the market. Although the Governor of the Bank of England had stated that he did not feel bound to find money for everybody, yet it was well known that in times of difficulty the Bank did its best to support the credit of the country, and prevent disaster resulting from foolish and ignorant panic. But the right hon. Gentle- 833 man the Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown by means of the figures he had laid before the House, that the position of the Bank of England would be seriously affected at that particular period of the year when its influence was most important. The Return he was referring to showed that the Government balances would not be more than £1,500,000 at the end of September, just before the October dividends were about to be paid. Now, if a drain of bullion happened to be going on at that period, and the Government asked for £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 from the Bank, at the same time that the public were also demanding large sums, the Government would be in the position of competing with the public for the money which the Bank was able to give. That would be a most unnatural position for the Government to be placed in. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was, he thought, in error when he said that, if the money were not in the Bank of England as Government deposits, it would, nevertheless, be in the hands of the Bank of England in the shape of deposits from various bankers. If, however, the money had once left the Bank of England, no one could be at all sure that it would return, because in times of difficulty it would probably be retained by the country bankers. Times might come when the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find it not quite so easy to raise money as he seemed to anticipate. If the action of the Government were such as to create a feeling of alarm in the public mind, both the Government and the public might find it difficult to procure the money required for the purposes of the State or of trade. Under the present state of things the oscillations in the money market were rapid, peculiar, and difficult to account for, and it would be highly undesirable to pass an Act of Parliament which would have the effect of aggravating those oscillations. The natural result of this Bill would be to materially increase them, and to render them more dangerous and less easy to adjust. The Bank of England was the only bank in the country which kept a very large reserve. It appeared from the Returns, that on the 31st of December last the reserve of the Bank of England was at least treble that of the best conducted bank, the Returns of which are published. This 834 was due to the peculiar position of the Bank as having a control over the credit of the whole country, and it would be absurd for the Government or anyone else to ignore this fact. He trusted the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give this subject very anxious consideration, for he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that his somewhat airy way of treating it had not been regarded as altogether worthy of that very high position he held in the opinion of that House and of all intelligent men. There would, he hoped, be some change introduced into the scheme of the Government with the view of preventing any aggravation of those dangerous oscillations which now occurred in the money market.
MR. SCOURFIELDregarded, not without alarm, the fact that this debate turned so much upon borrowing. In reference to borrowing, nothing that could be done would get over the fact of the proportion between the number of those who had money to lend, and those who wanted to borrow it. In his opinion, the Government ought not to abandon sources of Revenue rashly; and he thought that some of the Revenue proposed to be abandoned by this Budget might have been wisely retained, at least for the year. He could not help thinking that the duty of £900,000 a year had been given up in deference to a sentimental feeling on the subject. Then again, a sentimental feeling had a great deal to do with the abolition of the duty on fire insurances. That duty had been described as a "tax on providence"; but if the hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. B. Sheridan), who so long and so ably advocated its reduction, had stated in the first instance, what he did subsequently, the feeling on the subject might have been very different, for on one occasion the hon. Gentleman had actually asserted that the plan of fire insurance was simply a system of betting, the office betting that the property insured would not be burned down. In his opinion it would have been expedient to adjust the house duty when it was determined to surrender the duty on fire insurances. No one could examine the Return which had been presented to the House without being struck with the small amount of Revenue produced by the duty on houses in England; and he for one could see no reason why the sum lost by the abolition of the fire 835 insurance duty might not have been recovered by some adjustment of the house duty. Indeed he bad always been of opinion that the franchise had better have been based on the inhabited house duty instead of the rates; but, of course this was not a matter to be discussed on the present occasion. In conclusion, he expressed his belief that there was no effectual method of adjusting the difficulty which was looming on the horizon, except by having an amount of Revenue derived from Customs or taxes equal to our expenditure. If that balance were not maintained, he had no faith what ever in any contrivance for extending the area of borrowing.
§ MR. MORLEYsaid, he should support the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his determination to be independent of the Bank of England. The Bank was nothing more than a very large and admirable joint-stock company, its object being to provide for its proprietors their regular half-yearly dividend. On behalf, not of the banking interest, but of the trading interest, he ventured to express the opinion that the trade of the country was exposed, by the present system, to such oscillations and variations, not only of the rate of discount, but in the pressure of the money market, as to deserve the attention of the House. Sir John Lubbock, the honorary secretary of the London Banters' Association, inserted in The Times of the 8th of May a letter in which he stated that the amount, which passed through the Clearing House during the year ending in that week was £3,534,000,000 sterling. Again, Lord Overstone had stated that we were adding £ 1,50,000,000 to our capital every year. Yet we are told by hon. Members that the withholding or withdrawal of a very few millions from the Bank of England by the Government would put the trade of the country into a state of paralysis. His hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler) had stated that on the 7th of May Consols could not be sold in the market. Money on that day was. nearly double the price it was a month or six weeks before, and orders were cancelled by post, owing, he believed, to the fear of impending panic, which led to thousands of operatives being placed on short work. No commodity, in fact, changed in value more rapidly than money, but although the Bank of 836 France had discounted to the extent of £7,000,000 in a single week, no confusion had, as a consequence, been created in the money market. He felt sure, however, his hon. Friend the Member for London (Mr. Crawford) would admit that if a demand for £7,000,000 were made on the Bank of England a rise in the rate of discount probably to the extent of 1 or 2 per cent would be the immediate result, to the great embarrassment of the trading and manufacturing classes. The subject was, in his opinion, a far larger one than was indicated by the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Our present monetary system was, he believed, the laughing stock of every money market in Europe, and ought to be grappled with. As one who had for years watched the course of trade in this country, he must say that he looked upon the whole tendency of our money system as being to throw trade into fewer hands. The small traders were every year being absorbed, and he was glad that attention had been directed to the subject, because he felt satisfied that in the existing state of things there was something essentially wrong. He would, if he might be allowed to do so, advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer to look to the general money-market, and not to the Bank of England only, when he might have occasion to borrow.
§ MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSsaid, the natural result of discussions such as the present must be the creation of a feeling out-of-doors that differences of some importance existed between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Bank of England. He hoped, however, that such was not the case, and he rose mainly for the purpose of seeking to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman the expediency of acting in accordance with the familiar notion, that those who had been so long associated together to each other's mutual advantage and support ought not to be very suddenly divorced. Whatever differences therefore there might be between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Bank would, he trusted, speedily disappear. [Mr. CRAWFORD: There are no differences.] He was glad to hear it, because, as two independent bodies working harmoniously together, their joint action had hitherto been of great service to the public interests. In reply to the observations of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler) he 837 would say that a considerable portion of the reserve of the Bank of England may be considered as the reserve of other bankers, who kept it there for the ready use of their depositors when they required it rather than keep it locked up in their own safes, while as to the £7,000,000 which was spoken of by his hon. Friend the Member for Bristol (Mr. Morley) as having been discounted by the Bank of France in one week, he would simply say that that amount had never gone out of the Bank at all, the whole transaction being one connected with the subscriptions to the loan for the City of Paris, for which a deposit had to be made by the subscribers to that loan, and might be described as a simple transference from one side of their ledger to the other. As to the London money market, he did not, he might add, think there was any good ground for apprehending any sinister results from the change in the mode of collecting the taxes which the Government proposed. The manner in which the change would operate would be anticipated, and there need be no fear of a panic; because arrangements could be made just in the same way as they were made by large commercial firms for the payment of their bills in succession, without any apprehension that they would not have the means of providing for them. Much, however, must, under the circumstances, depend on the maintenance of a good understanding between the Bank and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the absence of any feeling on either side as to not caring what the other might do. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had, he thought, not explained as fully as he might that, in the payment of the dividends by the Bank, there was merely a transference from the account of the Government to private deposits. Those who watched the accounts of the Bank of England during the week succeeding the payment of the dividends must have observed that, although the public deposits had undergone a considerable diminution, the private deposits, on the other hand, increased.
§ MR. POLLARD-URQUHARTsaid, he was of opinion that although those who possessed largo fixed incomes, as well as professional men whose business brought them in considerable amounts, might not feel that the collection of the 838 whole of the income tax on the 1st of January pressed very heavily upon them, it would be found to be otherwise with struggling professional men, and those who owed their salaries before they received them, or were in the habit of paying away their money as fast as they got it. The latter class, indeed, would be in a somewhat similar position to the compound-householders, in whose case it had been so strongly urged in the discussions on the Reform Bill that they would not find it easy to pay their rates otherwise than in weekly or monthly instalments. He was afraid therefore that the new mode of collecting the income tax would become so unpopular with the class of persons to whom he was referring that it would render the continuance of the tax itself a matter of much greater difficulty than it was desirable to make it. As to the effect of the change proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the money market, he must say, it appeared to him that panics in that quarter were caused not so much by expected as by unexpected payments, and that that disarrangement, which some hon. Gentlemen seemed to apprehend, would not ensue when the whole of the operations which it was thought would lead to it were foreseen, and matters were adjusted in accordance with the new state of things. He was also of opinion that there was much weight in the argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that if the deposits of the Government were high at the beginning of the year, and low in the last quarter of the year, the deposits of bankers with the Bank of England—seeing that their customers would draw from their balances at the former period to pay the income tax, and let them accumulate at the latter period to meet the approaching demands of the tax-gatherer—would be exactly the contrary. Putting these two considerations aside he did not apprehend much derangement of the money market; and, on the whole, he thought that the country had much reason to be grateful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
§ MR. ALDERMAN LUSKapproved of the course which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had pursued; but he should have been better pleased if that discussion had turned more upon the Budget itself and less upon the Bank of England. They should look rather to the 839 improvement in the mode of collecting taxes than to the effect it would produce upon the Bank of England. Let the people knew what they had to pay and pay it at once. The plan proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would put an end, to the public advantage, of the credit system in respect to the payment of taxes—a system which he (Mr. Lusk) considered was bad in principle. It was said that the new mode of collection would not be a convenient one. He never knew a system of tax-paying which was convenient. In his opinion there would be no difficulty in the plan proposed, and there need be no alarm at deranging the money market in consequence. Why should the Government keep a large balance at the Bank of England any more than anybody else? He had not the least sympathy with the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange and money market; they were all sharp, clever men and might be left to take care of themselves, which they would do, and let the Government take care of itself.
§ MR. NORWOODsaid, he entirely concurred with what had fallen from his hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, and although he did not like the Budget as a whole, still he approved the independent position which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had assumed in reference to the Bank of England. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman had done good service by putting before the public in its true light the position of the Bank of England in relation to the Government. There seemed to be a strange superstition—among even those whom one might expect to find better informed—with respect to the functions, the power, and influence of the Bank of England. The fact was, it was simply a large joint-stock bank, enjoying the privilege of keeping the Government accounts. He thought it was the duty of the Bank to manage its affairs solely on business principles. The commercial public had no right to look to the Bank for any special facilities, and when asked to assist this or that firm, or the Government, it must be expected to do so with regard to its own interest, and not for any other object. As to the position of the British money market, it was a disgrace to the country. In France there was a moderate and equable rate of discount, but here 840 the rate was subject to great fluctuations, which occasioned much inconvenience and injury to the public generally. He trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be in Office during the next great panic, and would then be firm enough to withstand the pressure put upon him by the larger banking institutions. Every six or seven years there was a collapse of credit in this country. Small firms had to succumb by hundreds, but when the larger ones became in jeopardy application is made to Government, and under pressure from the large monied interests, which by their operations had probably contributed largely to bring about this collapse, the Bank Charter Act of 1844 had three times been suspended. Now if it was worth being the law at all this Act should remain the law at all times, and he repeated his hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be in Office in 1874 and 1875, and would have sufficient firmness to tell the large banking and financial firms that it was their business to husband their resources and provide sufficient means with which to meet their liabilities, and that the law which pressed upon the smaller traders should apply equally to the larger ones.
§ MR. J. B. SMITHsaid, he thought the system of Government borrowing money at the Bank ought to be discontinued. The right hon. Gentleman, in order to obviate borrowing, proposed to manipulate the funds of the savings banks. Now, that appeared to him a most objectionable principle. The duty of the Government, when these funds were placed in its hands, was to invest them, and not job with them, which, in past times, had resulted in the loss of millions. He should support the right hon. Gentleman in his Budget, and he agreed with him in his remark that the money market might take care of itself, at the same time he was disposed to think that the plan proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer of collecting the Revenue might cause some inconvenience, so long as the system existed by which the export of a million or two of gold caused a derangement of the money market; but, if such inconvenience occurred, it might serve to solve a problem which rather puzzled them at present, and that was why the London money market should be the most sensitive money-market in the world. The hon. 841 Member for Bristol (Mr. Morley) had told them that the monetary transactions of London amounted last year to £3,534,000,000. They all knew that not a farthing of these enormous payments were made in money, but by transfers. But when they considered that at that time the whole amount of cash on hand in the Bank of England was only about £8,000,000, that this sum included the reserves of all the banks in London holding deposits, in the aggregate, amounting probably to £100,000,000, and that this was the narrow basis on which these enormous transactions rested, the reason for the constant fluctuations in the money market was apparent. Neither the Bank of England nor the joint-stock banks kept adequate reserves, and there could be no safety for merchants and traders till this practice was reversed. The present system was somewhat analogous to a pyramid resting on its apex instead of its base. He should support the Chancellor of the Exchequer with all his heart, because he thought his measures calculated to solve the problem to which he had referred, and to lead to a remedy for the evils so generally complained of.
§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ Clause 1 (Grants of duties of customs in Schedule (A).
§ MR. VANCEasked, on behalf of certain dealers, that foreign spirits might be removed from Customs' to Excise warehouses or to private bonded warehouses, just as British spirits might now be removed under bond from Excise to Customs' warehouses. He (Mr. Vance) understood that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue had recommended such a course.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the matter was under the consideration of the Government, and he did not think there would be any difficulty in complying with this request.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clauses 2 and 3 agreed in.
§ Clause 4(Repeal of duties on corn, &c).
§ MR. BARNETTobserved that large consignments of grain, which probably would not be landed or interfered with before the 1st of June, were daily expected to arrive in this country, and the 842 importers were anxious that some words should be introduced into the clause making those cargoes not chargeable with duty if they were not landed before that date. It would be a great benefit to them without any loss to the Revenue.
§ MR. CRAWFORDsaid, there was a strong feeling throughout the country on this point. Cargoes of grain were arriving earlier than had been anticipated, owing to the prevalence of favourable winds, and he thought it was not unreasonable to ask that all cargoes imported after to-day should not be subject to the 1s. duty. It had been the practice for the remission of duties to take effect on the Resolutions relating to them being reported; but in the present instance that custom had been departed from, because, if the scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were not accepted in its entirety, the duty on corn must remain unrepealed. As there was no fear that the financial scheme would not be accepted in its entirety, he would ask whether there could be any difficulty in allowing corn imported tomorrow to be entered free of duty? He had received a great many of the principal representations on this subject from dealers in Mark Lane, and in order to bring the matter to a practical test, he, would move, as an Amendment, that the date of the 28th of May be substituted for that of the 1st of June, as the period when the collection of the corn duty-should cease.
§ MR. ALDERMAN LUSKthought that such an Amendment was unnecessary, inasmuch as the object sought for by the hon. Member for London, if it was worth the trouble, could be easily attained by keeping the ships outside the port of London, and postponing the entering of those cargoes until the 1st of June.
§ MR. CRAWFORDreferred to the reply of the Commissioners of Customs to an application for the remission of those duties, for the purpose of showing that, even though the cargoes were not discharged before the 1st of June, they would be still liable to duty.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, there must be a hard and fast line somewhere, and the Government made it the 1st of June. He had not heard any good argument in favour of the proposed Amendment. It hardly seemed a sufficient reason for its adoption that a certain number of 843 owners of cargoes of grain might be enabled to make a profit by the change of the date.
§ MR. PIMsaid, the difficulty was this— One vessel might arrive on the 31st of May and the other on the 1st of June, and they might be both discharging at the same time, and yet the cargo of one might be subject to duty and the other not. He suggested that words might be introduced into the clause making corn discharged after the 1st of June free of duty.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he gave an undertaking to the hon. Member for London that all corn imported on and after the 1st of June should be free. The question was what those words meant. They must be interpreted according to the subject matter. What was the meaning, then, of "imported?" It must be entering the port. He declined to accede to the Amendment.
§ MR. RATHBONEappealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to levy the duty on cargoes which arrived, but were not delivered, as the clause would operate hardly on those cargoes arrived just before, but whose owners were not able to land them until after the 1st of June. He hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not spoil his liberal proposition by refusing to grant this small favour.
§ MR. CANDLISHsaid, the line must be drawn somewhere, and the whole trade had been adapting itself to the 1st of June. The reason given for the Amendment, was because a favourable wind brought a ship unexpectedly early the duty should be remitted; but that early arrival brought the corn to market and realized its proceeds at an earlier date, and therefore the owners got compensation for any small amount of duty: they might have to pay. No case had been made out for the Amendment, so he should support the Bill.
§ MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, he had visited Mark Lane recently, and the people there seemed to be perfectly satisfied with the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was often astonished to hear things mentioned in the House which were never heard of out of the House.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
844§ Clause 5 (Grant of duties of income tax specified in Schedule (B).
§ MR. STANSFELDstated, in reply to a question put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley), in the early part of the evening, as to the meaning of the words at the conclusion of the clause, that for the purposes of this Act 1862 should be read as 1869, that the object was to rectify a defect that had arisen in consequence of the income Tax Act having expired on the 5th April last. Between that date and the enactment of this Bill certain dividends would become due and payable, from which it would be impossible to make the income tax deductions, and the insertion of the above words would enable the deductions to be made at a subsequent period.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he understood the effect would be to incorporate the clause referred to in the Act 25 Vict., c. 22, into this Act. That certainly might have been done in a more simple way.
§ Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clauses 6 and 7 agreed to.
§ Clause 8, (Repeal of provisions requiring land tax, inhabited house duty, and certain duties of income tax to be paid quarterly).
§ MR. CRAWFORDcalled attention to the wording of the clause—
And the duties of income tax except such as are payable by way of deduction, or are assessable as aforesaid, assessed in England or Ireland for the year commencing and ending as last mentioned, shall be payable on or before the first day of January,which was inconsistent with the right hon. Gentleman's statement, and the Paper issued by the Secretary to the Treasury, that the payments should be after the 1st of January. The next clause provided that the collectors should pay over their receipts on a day named after the 1st of January.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, the inconsistency was apparent. The wording of the clause was the usual one adopted in such cases, and was quite in accordance with the statement of his right hon. Friend. The payments must be made "on or before," and not "on and after." The payments would be obligatory on the day, but optional before it. With regard to the payment of the collections, 845 the officers could not be called upon to pay them over until a day after that appointed for receiving them.
MR. HENLEYput the case of the assessment for 1870–1, and asked on what 1st of January it would be payable. According to the Paper put forward by the Secretary of the Treasury, it would be payable on the 1st of January, 1871. He thought some words might be introduced to remove all doubt.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, the income tax of 1870–1 would be payable on the 1st of January, 1871.
§ Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clauses 9 and 10 agreed to.
§ Clause 11 (Repeal of the percentage duty on fire insurances).
§ MR. READsaid, he entirely approved the clause, but called attention to the great hardship of a number of trifling and insignificant taxes levied in the shape of stamps on insurances of crops and cattle. There were four associations for the insurance of crops against hailstorms, and the duties paid on these insurances in 1867 produced £296, and in 1868, £244. Three of the associations were in the country and one in London. It was found necessary to keep an immense number of stamps, which varied in value from 3d. to £2 and £3; and one policy sometimes bore six or eight stamps. On the policy he took up to-day the duty was only 1s. 9d., and yet three stamps were put on it. In case of any mistake of the clerk arising from affixing an insufficient stamp there was a penalty of £20 on the secretary and a like sum on the three directors who signed the policy. There was another trifling tax levied on cattle insurance. The only solvent society which existed in East Anglia that granted policies of insurance on cattle was in Norwich, and it paid the year before last £58 in the shape of small stamps, and in 1868, only £33. He thought this a most vexatious system, which he respectfully suggested to the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be abolished, and some universal policy stamp, such as he believed they were going to have for fire insurances, adopted in its stead.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he thought the subject which the hon. Gentleman had intro- 846 duced was very well worth consideration. He hoped he would be content with having brought it forward. He would make inquiries respecting it.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clauses 12 to 17, inclusive, agreed to.
§ Clause 18 (Provisions and regulations to be observed).
§ MR. READ moved an Amendment to exempt boys under sixteen years of age from the male servant duty. They had a very pleasant discussion on the point before the Recess, but he thought the decision of the House upon it rather arbitrary. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have compassion on these boys and exempt them from the tax; if not he felt convinced that it would have a prejudicial effect on their industrial training. It was a tax that ought only to apply to skilled labour, and it could not be said that skilled labour could be had from a boy of sixteen. This was a tax of the worst kind that could be placed on technical education. It was unusual to tax a horse until he was broken into work, and as a boy was about as troublesome and mischievous a thing as they could have on their premises, nothing further ought to be done to induce people to get rid of them.
§ Amendment proposed, in Hue 31, after the word "viz.," to insert the words "for any male servant under sixteen years of age."—(Mr. Clare Sewell Read.)
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, that the question lay in a small compass, and the House had declared in favour of a policy of simplicity and uniformity of charge, which could be accomplished without unfairness. The charge for male servants had been reduced, and, so far from causing a failure in the supply of servants, he believed the result would be to make the charge for the employment of servants less onerous than before.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he wished that the Government had been able to accede to the proposal of his hon. Friend,. He was old enough to recollect the state of the law under the old system, when people almost in the situation of costermongers, who kept a horse for the purposes of their trade, were brought before the Commissioners upon sin-charges, because some boy took the horse out and put him in the stable, and thus became liable to the duty. This was not now a 847 question of an appeal to the Commissioners, but the Bill laid down a hard and fast Excise penalty of £20, to be recovered before the magistrates, who must convict. In many cases women were obliged to keep a pony for the purposes of their trade, and if a son took the pony out of the trap or put him back into the stable he might be called a servant. The magistrates must convict in the penalty of £20, without exercising any discretion as to the amount. He remembered the misery ad trouble which these cases used to cause when they were brought before the Commissioners. He should have been glad if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had seen fit to relieve all trade horses from duty, because then these cases would not arise. The right hon. Gentleman said that this license would not apply unless the relation of master and servant existed; but the wording of the old Act had been preserved, and if a lad were employed wholly or partially he was to be taxed. In cases when the parties used to be brought before the Commissioners no costs were incurred, but now there must be a complaint and summons; the parties would be. brought from their businesses, and the clerks to the magistrates must be paid their costs, amounting to 8s. or 10s. The clause, as it stood, was certain to create much dissatisfaction and inconvenience.
§ MR. CRAWFORDsaid, the real definition of a servant was a person who received wages, either in money, clothes, or victuals, or all of them. A son occasionally assisting a parent—such as the son of a gentleman's coachman doing any act to assist his father—would not constitute him a servant liable to this tax.
§ MR. HAMBRObelieved that the proposal to levy a tax on lads employed as servants would be severally felt by the agricultural class. Farmers now employed the sons of their carters and other labourers almost out of charity; but if they had to pay 15s. a year tax for each of those boys, they would cease to employ them to the same extent.
§ MR. DENTsaid that a good deal of the hardship would be got rid of if the charge for all male servants were reduced to 10s. 6d. There was a precedent for! making the reduction, as horses and. mules, now taxed at 10s. 6d., were formerly charged £1 1s.
§ MR. ALDERMAN LUSKdeprecated any attempt to throw temptation in the way of the poor by offering them inducements to understate the ages of young lads. He did not consider that persons, once they were able to keep horses and stable boys, could properly fall under the denomination of the poor, and the additional taxation could make really little difference to them.
§ MR. STANSFELDreminded the Committee that there was not at present any exemption from taxation in favour of servants under a certain age, and that the proposition was therefore novel in its character. He pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Henley) that the wording of the clause was dominated by the words "male servant," which conveyed that there should be something to establish the relation of master and servant before liability to the charge would accrue.
MR. HENLEYAre we to understand that the relation of master and servant is to exist? [Mr. STANSFELD: Yes.] Because the words were similar to those in the old tax Acts, and the words had been so construed. A boy was employed once a week to take a horse out of a cart, for which he was paid 6d., and this was held to constitute the taxable relation of master and servant. If, as the hon. Gentleman said, the relation of master and servant must antecedently exist, he was afraid that the difficulty would increase. Great difficulty often occurred in the courts of law in determining the relation of master and servant in charges of embezzlement. He admitted the pleasure to the eye of uniformity; but he appealed to the Government not to persist in proposals which must be productive of dissatisfaction, heart burnings, and oppression, for the sake merely of obtaining a revenue which, he believed, would turn out to be worthless. He hoped that the tax at all events would not be imposed in the case of the poor boys occasionally employed about a horse and cart.
§ MR. READsaid, that in all schemes of taxation there were exemptions. Such was the case with dogs, carriages, and horses; and, unless exemptions were adopted in the case of servants, there would be great difficulty in young lads finding masters who would be bothered with them. There were boys employed in farm stables receiving training for 849 better situations, but who would not be retained under a charge of 15s.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 28; Noes 57: Majority 29.
§ On Motion of Mr. STANSFELD, an Amendment was inserted, taking away the exemption of persons letting carriages and horses from taking out licenses for any servant "employed to drive a carriage with any horse, let to hire for any period exceeding twenty-eight days."
§ MR. BONHAM-CARTERasked whether the words "used solely" would have the same signification as "kept for use" in the enactments exempting from duty carriages employed only in trade or husbandry; and whether the occasional use of such carriages in drawing coals would prevent the exemption from operating?
§ MR. STANSFELDreplied that waggons used for purposes of husbandry would not become liable for duty if employed in drawing coals.
§ MR. W. H. SMITHpointed out that the payment of the duty was slutted from persons hiring horses to those who let them for hire, which he thought would create some difficulty; because a jobber might have several horses standing in his stable belonging to other persons, and he would be continually called upon to account for the difference between the Return he made and the number he had in the stables. Formerly the practice was to charge the person who hired them with the duty, and not the jobber.
§ MR. HUNTasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would have any objection to issue licenses for three or six months, instead of compelling them to be taken out for the whole year?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was totally at variance with the spirit of the Bill, and therefore he could not assent to it.
§ MR. STANSFELDfailed to see the force of the objection made by the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. Smith) to charging persons who let horses for hire with the duty.
MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEsaid, the proposed uniform tax of 10s. 6d. for keeping a horse while it would benefit 850 the rich man, who now paid £1 1s, and would not add anything to the tax now paid by a farmer, would operate harshly towards that large class of persons who kept ponies not for pleasure, but for the purpose of carrying on their business. At present they paid a tax of 5s. 3d., but under the proposed uniform system they would have to pay 10s. 6d. They felt it difficult to pay even 5s. 3d. A clause had been inserted to continue the exemption in favour of the horses employed by market gardeners, but no fewer than 24,300 horses, each one of which, he presumed, had a separate owner, would be charged with the increase to which he had referred. As these horses were generally under 13 hands high, and were employed by poor persons who could barely make a living, he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would exempt them altogether by remitting the duty on horses under 13 hands high. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the omission of the words "or pony."
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he could not assent to the Amendment. The matter had already been fully discussed, and a decision had been come to on it before the hon. Gentleman moved his Amendment.
§ MR. HUNTsaid, he thought that even if the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman were adopted the animals to which he had referred would be included in the term "horses." He regretted, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not exempted all horses engaged in trade and charged £1 1s. on all horses used for pleasure.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. WELBYthanked the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the concession which he had made in an earlier part of the evening respecting brood mares. He wished, however, to state why he thought it desirable that, so far from imposing additional taxation upon brood mares, it was well worthy the consideration of the Government whether they should not afford some direct encouragement in this quarter. It was only recently that he had some conversation with perhaps the best authority on this subject—Mr. Phillips, the well-known 851 horse-dealer of Knightsbridge. Of late years, many thousands of our most serviceable mures had been sent abroad, and the consequence was. that whereas formerly all our cavalry regiments were mounted on English horses, at present that was not the case, even with a single regiment. We were obliged to go to Ireland in order to obtain them, and, as the supply there was necessarily limited, the cavalry horses, instead of being 4-yr-olds, as required by the regulations of the service, were frequently 3-yr-olds, and in some oases, oven 2-yr-olds. Mr. Phillips, as a proof of the injury which this constant exportation had caused, stated that, having to purchase thirty detachment horses, he visited Northallerton Fair, where he could easily have procured, some years ago, sixty or seventy such horses as those he required, but he was only able to purchase three. Ten years ago he executed a contract to send eighty post mares to Italy, at £45 a-piece for Prince Humbert, but he found himself utterly unable to get twenty of the same class this year for the King of the Belgians at £60 a-piece. in the same manner, he believed that three-fourths of the carriage horses of London were no longer bred in ling-land, but were imported from Germany. Such a state of things was highly unsatisfactory, and it was perfectly concervable. and under some circumstances, might become injurious to the interests of the country. He was inclined to think that the £1,200 annually given in Queen's Plates might be better employed if devoted to premiums on breeding horses in the country, or to subsidies such as those given in France. If at any time, too, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should be in want of money he would venture to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should institute an inquiry into the subject and, if the exportation of horses were carried on to anything like the extent that it had been represented to him, he should place an export duty of, say, £5 on each horse sent abroad. The result would be, either that a large sum of money would be brought into the Exchequer, or that many horses which would otherwise have gone abroad would be kept at home. He proposed the insertion of words exempting from taxation, under this clause, horses kept for the purpose of breeding.
§ Amendment agreed to.
852§ MR. CHARLEYexpressed a hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would still further extend his concessions to London cab-drivers, and not impose the tax inserted in the Bill—a tax which was now, for the first time for many years, imposed upon that body.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERremarked that, although the tax was new as regarded its form, the cab-drivers had no reason to complain, as by the removal of the duty on their licenses they had already been enormously relieved.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER£3 17s.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 19 (Notice to be affixed on or near the church door as to duties and ' declarations under this Act).
MR. HENLEYcomplained of the hardship which would frequently be imposed upon people in consequence of their having to send for the forms in which they were to make these declarations, especially when it was remembered that a neglect in so doing rendered the person failing to fill up the forms liable to a penalty of £20. Looking at the carelessness of people generally, and the fact that notices posted on church doors very often failed to come to the knowledge of those whom they concerned, it would be much better that these forms should be distributed as they were at present, by the officers of the Revenue.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERreplied, that these duties now becoming licenses of the Excise would henceforth be treated as all other licenses of the Excise were treated; and the experience of those concerned in this subject led them to believe that the mode suggested in the Bill was the best one. There would be no difficulty in obtaining the forms, and it was not the practice to proceed with severity against those who were remiss, the general practice being to warn instead of prosecuting those who were inattentive. It was, moreover, in the power of the magistrates to remit three-fourths of the fine inflicted, while the Excise also had power, when it was thought fit to do so, to remit the whole of the penalty. There was no occasion to apprehend any vexa- 853 tion. The Inland Revenue acted favourably; they paid costs if defeated, and did not got them if they succeeded.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clauses 20 and 21 agreed to.
§ Clause 22 (Additional declaration to be made, and further duties paid when required).
MR. SCOURFIELDsaid, that it would require a person to make a declaration of the weight of a carriage of which he might become possessed, and it was a point on which it was difficult to get accurate information, because a coach-builder was hardly to be relied upon in such a matter, and in the part of the country where he lived weighing machines by which you could test the weight of a carriage were far removed from each other.
MR. NEVILLE-GRENVILLEsaid, the difficulty was easily got over by declaring that a. carriage did not weigh less than 4 cwt., and he did not believe that any four-wheeled carriage did.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 28 agreed to.
§ Clause 24 (Penalty for neglect to deliver declaration, or for delivering an untrue declaration).
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, they had power to do so now.
§ MR. MUNTZurged that it would be better to introduce the words "not exceeding" before £20, to save the trouble and delay there must be in obtaining a mitigation of the penalty, and that the vindication of the law and the interests of the Revenue would be best promoted by giving magistrates discretion to impose a lower penalty in the first instance.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 25 agreed to.
§ Clause 26 (Penalty for not taking out licenses).
MR. HENLEYsaid, he thought the wording of the clause was liable to misconstruction. It required that a person should take out a license before he engaged a servant. He apprehended this could not be intended, and hoped some alterations would be made, so that a person would not be liable to penalties if 854 he happened to engage a servant before taking out a license.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, he believed the case was met by Clause 23, which provided that a special notice should be served, and if the law was not complied with within fourteen days from the serving of the notice, then the penalties would follow.
MR. HENLEYthought the two courses would be open to the Commissioners if the clause were left un-amended.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERpromised to consider the matter, and state the conclusion he had come to on bringing up the Report.
§ MR. GOURLEYthought that the whole subject of penalties should be reconsidered. He recommended that the magistrates should have discretion given them as to the amount of the fine to be imposed; it would work inconveniently if they were obliged to inflict a high penalty or nothing.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the magistrates had a discretion, and could mitigate the penalty to three-fourths.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERreplied that in such a case the Exchequer could remit the rest.
MR. HENLEYsaid, experience proved that with high penalties convictions were with difficulty obtained, because in such cases persons took peculiar views of the weight of evidence.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the question was a proper one for consideration as a whole, but it would be most inconvenient to have two systems in work at the same time, one dealing with one sort of tax and the other with another.
§ MR. MUNTZobserved, with reference to the remission of fines, that the other day he was compelled to fine a man £20, and the Excise officer assured him that it was impossible to remit more than three-fourths of the penalty; the offender had consequently to pay the £5.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clauses 28 to 35, inclusive, agreed to.
§ Clause 36 (Provision as to certain shepherds' dogs with reference to 30 Vict. c. 5.).
855§ MR. READproposed the omission of the proviso with a view to insure that a license for a shepherd's dog should be paid by the master and not by the shopherd. It was unreasonable to oblige the shepherd's name and not the master's to appear on the license. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer had described this as a tax upon the land, and he wished The fax to fall in that direction rather than on the servant.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer had placed the tax upon the shepherd, while this Act proposed to place it on the master. The proviso was necessary for this purpose.
MR. HENLEYsaid, it appeared to him that, if the master paid the duty for the dog, it ought to stand in his name; otherwise the master might have to pay two duties for one service. Suppose a shepherd hanged himself, or enlisted for a soldier, the master would have to get another shepherd, who would bring another dog, and the master, who had already paid for Jack Smith's dog, would have to pay over again for Tom Jones's to a dead certainty.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, that the dog belonged to the shepherd, and the object was to relieve the shepherd from a liability to which he would otherwise be subject. The master, on hiring a shepherd, would inquire whether he had already obtained a licence; if not, the master would have to pay for it.
MR. HENLEYsaid, the consequence would be that a master would have to pay for a dog whether his shepherd needed one or not. [''Oh, oh!"] The right hon. Gentlemen shook his head; but, whatever might be the ease in wide and unenclosed lands, yet in districts where the enclosures were numerous the masters preferred that the shepherd should do his work without a dog.
§ COLONEL SYKESsaid, that in Scotland, where the sheep were kept in the hills and great open spaces, it would be impossible to do without the aid of a dog, and it would be intolerable to make the shepherds pay for it while doing the work of their master.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that if this proviso were struck out and the dog entered in the master's name, then if the master turned the shepherd away he would keep the license, and the shepherd would have 856 to pay the duty again for the same dog.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 37 agreed to.
§ New clauses brought up.
§ MR. CHARLEYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he had kindly considered the Memorial which he had communicated to him from the six-day cabmen in London. There were about 40,000 persons interested in cabs in London, of whom about 10,000 were cabmen. Six-day cabs now numbered from one-third to one-half of all the cabs that were employed in London. The cab-masters and men were very grateful for what the right hon. Gentleman had done for them, but they thought that the conferring of one benefit upon them was no reason for depriving them of another great benefit which they enjoyed at present. In 1853 an Act was passed which reduced the uniform weekly duty of 10s. upon all cabs to 7s. a week upon seven-day cabs and 6s. a week upon six-day cabs. As recently as 1866 the Legislature imposed a fine of £5 upon every driver not being the owner, and of £10 upon every driver being the owner of a six-day cab who plyed for hire with it on Sunday. The Legislature had thrown a protection around the six-day cabman, which the right hon. Gentleman by the 37th clause would deprive him of, and then the six-day cabman could not be sure that he would have the Sunday rest. His master might say that if he rested on Sunday he would not have him on Monday, or that he must pay as much as if he had gone out on that day. Let the right hon. Gentleman consider the condition of the cabman, exposed to all kinds of weathers on the box of his cab, sitting for hours in a damp great coat, obliged to snatch a hasty and unwholesome meal, subject to cold and fever, his home little bettor than a sleeping berth, and then he could appreciate the value which the cabman set upon the Sunday rest. On Sunday he could enjoy a comfortable meal at home, waited upon by an affectionate wife and listening to the innocent prattle of his children, and he had an opportunity of improving his mind, and of attending the worship of Almighty God. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would accede to the prayer of the Memorial for the maintenance of the 857 present distinction between six-day and seven-day cabs, and that a reduction of one-seventh should continue to be allowed in the case of the former.
§ MR. AYRTONsaid, the hon. Member for Salford appeared quite to misunderstand the question at issue between the cabmen and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Their request had always been that no distinction should be made between them and other persons who kept carriages and horses in levying the duties for the benefit of the Exchequer. That request had been acceded to, and the hon. Gentleman now asked that the old distinction should be kept up. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had conceded what the cabmen had been seeking for many years, and what a Select Committee of that House had recommended; and it was no grievance to cabmen, who used their vehicles on six days of the week, that they should have to pay the same as other people who might or might not use their carriages and horses on Sundays.
§ MR. CHARLEYadmitted that there was much truth in what the hon. and learned Gentleman stated; but what the memorialists complained of was that the protection which the Legislature had hitherto thrown round the six-day cabmen was now to be withdrawn.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he had considered the Memorial which had been referred to. and was sorry that he could not accede to it. That Bill did away with all exceptional legislation on that subject; but if the cabmen were so anxious to maintain the distinction which the hon. Member spoke of, there was doubtless a way in which it could be easily done—namely, by a return to the old plan of levying 1s. per day on cabs.
§ Clause ordered to be added to the Bill.
§ MR. VANCEsaid, a heavy scale of duties was now imposed on the cabs of the City of Dublin, which that Bill as it stood, although it professed to do away with all exceptional legislation in regard to locomotion, would allow to continue. He understood that the only reason why the cabmen of Dublin were not to be placed on the same footing as their London brethren was that the enormous duties to which they were subject went towards the support of the police of the city. But if it was thought that the 858 citizens of Dublin ought to pay for the support of its police, a direct police tax ought to be levied from them, instead of continuing in operation an oppressive scale of duties on hackney carriages, job horses. &c. The hon. Member concluded by moving the following clause:—
That on the 1st of January, 1870, all duties shall cease to be payable on licenses for job carriages, stage carriages, hackney carriages, cabrioles, job horses, and carts or drays used or let to hire in the City of Dublin, within the limits of the Act 17th and 18th Victoria, chapter 15.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, it was impossible to accede to the proposal of the hon. Gentleman, because it dealt with purely municipal duties, whereas the Bill before them was entirely confined to duties payable into the Imperial Exchequer.
§ Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Schedules and Preamble agreed to,
§ House resumed.
§ Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 132.]