[BILL 203.] SECOND READING. (Hansard, 25 June 1880)

§ MR. SOTHERON ESTCOURT,

in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, he did not propose by the measure which he now had the honour to submit to the House to disturb any present arrangements with respect to the funds by which highways were now maintained. His Bill was simply based upon the principle that those who used the roads should pay for their maintenance; whereas, under the present system, many people by reason of not being rated at all, or not being sufficiently rated, were able to use the highways far more frequently than they were entitled to do. It was proposed by this Bill, which he hoped the House would approve, that Highway Boards should be able to levy a rate of 10s. on every horse within their district, and the amount so raised was to be expended by them on the highways of the district. This rate was not at all intended as an interference with the present system, but merely as a rate in aid of it. He believed it would be very much preferable to any Imperial tax, because, if subventions were given by the Government to the rates, that necessitated Government control and inspection; and, for his part, he believed that it was very much to the public advantage that that sort of control should be as limited as possible. There had been, however, large additions to the rates of late years, and he might mention particularly three as weighing very considerably on the local taxpayers—namely, sanitary matters, education, and roads. Of all these, he believed the highway rate was that which was most particularly felt by all classes of the unfortunate ratepayers. His Bill would not, of course, be necessary if turnpikes had not been done away with; but as those modes of raising funds had now been nearly abolished, this Bill was proposed in order to some extent to take their places. The system of turnpikes had many drawbacks, because a large sum was always wasted in establishment charges; but it also had this merit, that it did carry out the fair and equal principle that those who used 936 roads should pay for them in proportion as they used them. When that system disappeared, extra rates and burdens were thrown upon the agricultural interest; while many, who for trade or for pleasure used the roads, escaped money payment at all through not being rated, or, at any rate, did not pay anything like a fair amount. The late Government in 1874 abolished the horse tax, and then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in explaining his statement on the subject, gave the House the figures of the duty at that time. It appeared that the horse tax brought in £410,000 a-year, and the horse dealers' duty and the race-horse duty £70,000 in addition, or, in all, £480,000. The hon. Baronet who had been his (Mr. Estcourt's) Colleague in the last Parliament, commenting at the time on the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech, said— With regard to the remission of the horse duty, he thought some of those who benefited most would he among the richer classes. Local taxation was very heavy, and in danger of being-increased, and this was one item which might have helped in its reduction by providing for the expenses of turnpike roads after the trusts had expired. His own proposal by this Bill was to attain somewhat of the same end. If the Bill he now proposed were passed, and the tax re-imposed in the shape of a local rate, the sum raised from it, whatever it was, would be expended in the local districts, and would be a real relief of a burden which of late had become almost too heavy for some of the ratepayers. It did not, of course, rest with him to meet by anticipation the objections of the opponents of this Bill; but still he did feel himself bound to look at it fairly, and it certainly was an objction to it that in some respects inequality would result. His proposal was that each Highway Board should have the power of levying this rate. Money should be expended in each highway district. There was, then, this difficulty—namely, that towns having a mayor and corporation, or a local board of their own, were a highway district of themselves. It might happen, of course, in that way, that where horses were kept, for instance, in a hunting town, the money would not go to the relief of the rates of the extended district around, but to the relief of the rates in that town and in that town only. 937 That was an inequality, he admitted, which he regretted very much. He should have liked to omit such towns altogether from his Bill, and to allow the rate to apply to the main roads only, paid for out of the county rates; but then there were some towns which had their own quarter sessions, and for which no contribution was made to the county rates, so that would have raised another difficulty. He thought, therefore, there was no alternative but to leave the Bill as drawn; and though the rural districts would not, for the reasons stated, benefit under the Bill in equal proportion with such towns, still they would not be injured by the extra advantage which those towns would get. They would, at any rate, gather a large amount of money into the fund for the maintenance of the roads, and be able to use it in their own districts in a way in which they were not now able or empowered to use it. He believed that the principle of the Bill was sound. It was simply that a rate should be levied locally and expended locally in the maintenance of the roads, taking the place of the old horse duty. He believed that the application of that principle, as provided in the Bill, would injure no one, while, in his opinion, those who kept horses were perfectly willing and able to pay for the advantage or amusement which they derived from them.

§ MR. MAGNIAC

said, he could entirely sympathize with the hon. Member who had moved the second reading of this Bill, because it was, he thought, generally admitted not only in that House, but throughout the country, that the highway system was in a most unsatisfactory condition. Everybody knew and acknowledged that the increase of charge upon those who had to pay the cost of the highways had become intolerable. He could cordially support any measure which might be brought in for dealing with that matter, and had himself endeavoured to get a Committee appointed for the purpose, because he believed it would be impossible to deal with it satisfactorily without a full knowledge of facts. The hon. Member had said that the principle of the Bill was that those who used the roads should pay for them; and if the Bill were likely 938 to obtain that object he should certainly have approved it. But, practically, that would not be the case. The 12th section of the Bill provided that the highway authority were to have power to apply the tax or charge which it was contemplated they should levy to their own purposes. But, in many cases, for instance, where a large number of horses or packs of hounds were kept, the district rates would not obtain any advantage from the tax which the highway authorities imposed. The whole levy might be collected for the sole advantage of one parish. The object was that the tax should take the place of the old turnpike tolls; but there was no reason why they should again recur to the old system of obstructing communications. The country had made a great sacrifice for the purpose of facilitating communications throughout the country; and, having freed the roads, they were now about to charge a tax upon their means of locomotion upon the roads. That, he thought, was not a system which the House would approve. It was impossible to deal with the question except by a much more general system than was proposed in the Bill. The subject was one which, he thought, could not be discussed at that hour of the morning (5 minutes past 1 o'clock), unless in a very perfunctory manner; and he, therefore, begged to move the adjournment of the debate.