§ SIR JAMES LAWRENCEasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he has authorised the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to require licences to be taken out for attendants upon lunatics in hospitals, and under what Act of Parliament this tax is now for the first 806 time attempted to be exacted from charitable institutions?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERreplied that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue had received no special instructions on the subject alluded to. They were simply to give effect to the existing law as heretofore. The law had not been changed by the substitution of a licence for the old assessed tax. The authority under which they acted would be found in the Assessed Taxes Act. The rule was this—in the case of lunatics placed in public institutions, and who were supported at the expense of those institutions, the attendant upon them were not required to have a licence; but wherever a patient had a special attendant waiting upon him—whether in a public or a private institution—a licence must be taken out for such attendant.