§ MR. HICKSsaid, he wished to refer to a subject which affected a large number 484 of the labourers in the Eastern Counties—namely, licences to private persons for permission to brew. Since the alteration of the Malt Tax in 1880—an alteration made avowedly for the purpose of benefiting the agricultural interest—the labourers had been charged 6s. for these licences to brew. But the average quantity of malt brewed by these men did not, he believed, exceed three bushels; in many cases he did not suppose it exceeded two; and the charge of 6s. for a licence was therefore some few pence more than the duty under the old Act, which, for two bushels of malt, would have been about 5s. 8d. The average assessment of agricultural houses in the country did not exceed £3, and this licence for being permitted to brew was accordingly equal to an Income Tax of 2s. in the pound upon the houses occupied by these labourers. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to see his way to reduce the cost of the licence, although he was perfectly well aware of the impossibility of doing away with it altogether. Without licence or registration, no doubt there would be a good deal of evasion of the law and fraudulent brewing; but he could see no reason why the 6s. licence should not be reduced to 1s., or, at any rate, to considerably less than the figure at which it stood at present. This suggestion he earnestly commended to the serious attention of the right hon. Gentleman in the hope that, at some future time, he would afford the desired relief.
§ MR. CLARE READsaid, he hoped that if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not acquiesce in the suggestion of his hon. Friend (Mr. Hicks), he would, at least, say whether it was not in his power to order that this tax of 6s. upon brewing might not be collected, say, in two half-yearly instalments of 3s. each, instead of in one lump sum for the twelvemonth; or whether a man might not be permitted to take out a licence for six months instead of for twelve. On the Budget night he ventured to place before the right hon. Gentleman an idea of the extreme hardships inflicted on the agricultural labourers who had to pay 6s. before they could brew a drop of beer. Although the total amount might appear to some to be comparatively small, still, at the same time, it came to be a very 485 considerable amount to the labourer to find, when they came to consider that, in addition to the tax on brewing, he had also to find his materials wherewith to brew, and which would amount to 12s. or 13s. He might instance a parallel case in which the right hon. Gentleman, as he had himself admitted, had attained considerable success, and that was with regard to the 14 days' game licence for £1. No doubt it was an extremely useful privilege for a lawyer to be able to have the great pleasure of shooting a grouse or a partridge during the early days of August and September during the Long Vacation. It was also equally pleasant for a boy come home for the Christmas holidays to have a shot at a cock pheasant. But he submitted that the relaxation for which, he asked was of much greater practical benefit; and he certainly thought that, considering the advantage it would be to the labouring man, the suggestion was one which ought to commend itself to the serious consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. During the Budget debate, the right hon. Gentleman said there were some people who would prefer paying the 6s. in one sum; and, of course, he (Mr. Clare Read) was not prepared to assert that everyone would take half-yearly licences. If people wanted to pay the whole of the money at once, by all means let them do so; but he fully believed the right hon. Gentleman would not find a cottager in the United Kingdom that would not prefer half-yearly payments. In fact, he was almost certain it would be found that many cottagers would be glad and only too willing to pay the half-yearly instalment of the tax, who could not pay that for the 12 months. The transfer of the tax from malt to beer had been most profitable to the Revenue, for whereas the duty upon the malt had been 5s. 1½d. per barrel upon the beer, now the duty was upon the manufactured article it paid 6s. 3d.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, that he was much obliged to hon. Members who had given him such valuable suggestions for a fancy Budget. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver) had made an interesting speech in favour of protective duties, and had enumerated seven articles which might be so taxed as to produce a revenue of £3,500,000. He (the 486 Chancellor of the Exchequer) was, however, afraid that that was not the time to re-introduce the policy of Protection into this country. He, therefore, could not accept the hon. Member's suggestions. The hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) had spoken of additional revenue to be derived from what he was pleased to term that popular tax, the Income Tax. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had never heard it called a popular tax before; but the hon. Member had judiciously explained that it was popular with those who had not to pay it. The hon. Gentleman had proposed to raise £2,000,000 a-year by taxing ground rents; but he did not seem to be aware that, although ground rents were not subject to local rates, they were already subject to the Income Tax; so that they would have to be subject to a special rate of Income Tax, if more was to be got from them in this way. The hon. Member thought that the duty on gin ought to be reduced, and that the tax on certain wines, such as Champagne and Madeira, might be increased. But it would be difficult to make much out of that proposal, as the duties on spirits amounted to£l8,000,000or £20,000,000, while those on wines brought less than £2,000,000. It was not easy, therefore, to see how any sensible relief could be afforded in that way to spirits; for the increase of revenue from wine would be far from, meeting the decrease from spirits. With respect to the taxation of clubs, he did not think that much could be made out of them. He would admit that there were in the country many spurious clubs; but the police had, during the past year, brought prosecutions against several of them with considerable success. While, therefore, he was anxious to do all he could to deal sharply with sham clubs, he should be very reluctant to discourage real working men's clubs by taxing them, and it was undesirable to do so. For his part, he was not prepared to say that the working men's genuine club, of which there were many, should be subject to taxation any more than the clubs of those who were in a better position in life. His hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) had made a suggestion which, he imagined, could not but be palatable to him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), inasmuch as he proposed a new tax on people who were ready to 487 pay. But when he detailed his plan, it turned out to be only a proposal to tax agreements for letting houses in Scotland 1d., instead of the much higher rate to which they were now liable, but which was sometimes evaded. He was not prepared to do this. He desired to treat the remarks of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) with great respect. The hon. Member had been for a long time past a consistent advocate of the reduction of Public Expenditure, and the Motion he had made last year had not been unproductive. The question of economy in connection with the permanent officials of Departments had not escaped his (the Chancellor of the Exchequer's) attention, as he had shown in his Budget speech, and good results had already been achieved, and better were hoped for in the future. The hon. Member for Burnley had said he could not see, on the face of the Estimates, where economies had been effected. But, in dealing with the expenditure of a large number of Public Departments, whose expenditure ramified in many directions, and was under the direction of many persons, they could not, without great patience and a considerable interval of time, largely reduce establishments. The process must be gradual, and the result of the most careful deliberation. At the same time, with the assistance of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and of the permanent Heads of the Departments, he had initiated and carried out an exhaustive examination of a portion of the Estimates submitted to the House. When the Votes were taken, his hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney) would be able to show what improvements had been effected, and also what prospective economies it had been decided to carry out. In the speech he had referred to, he had stated the general effect of what the Government was doing and what they proposed to do; and he could only say he should not shrink, so long as he continued in his present Office, from going on in the course he had taken during the past year of pressing on and enforcing economies in this, as in other matters, gradually where opportunity presented itself, and where it could be done without detriment to the Public Service. He did not wish to overrate the amount they 488 had done; but, comparing the present with the Estimates for 1873–4, he had already shown that, excluding the Post Office, the grants-in-aid of the local taxpayer, and education, great economies had been effected. But the real offender was the House of Commons. For one proposal to reduce expenditure, there were 20 or 30 to increase it. This tendency was not limited to the Army and Navy; there was hardly any Department with respect to which the Treasury had not to meet proposals for additional charges. For instance, he had been asked that day to approve a great additional charge for the Inland Revenue Department, which he did not think necessary; and he would, therefore, ask his hon. Friend and those who thought with him to join in assisting the Government in resisting the pressure for increased expenditure in that House, which was far stronger and far more difficult to meet than any pressure on the part of public servants. With regard to what fell from the hon. Member for West Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) on the subject of brewing licences, he must admit that it was by no means an easy question; it was one, moreover, which concerned not only the small brewers to whom he had referred, but those who contributed much larger sums to the Revenue. He believed he had answered all the questions which had been put to him, and he trusted he had satisfied hon. Members. He hoped the House would now resolve itself into Committee.