COUNTY COUNCILS.

HC Deb 03 July 1888 vol 328 cc206-314

Powers of County Council.

Clause 17 (Power of county council to make bye-laws).

MR. SEALE-HAYNE (Devon, Ashburton)

, in moving, in page 13, line 25, after the word "county," to insert the words "and a district," the object being to empower District Councils as well as County Councils to make bye-laws in the same way as boroughs under Section 23 of the Municipal Corporations Act and Section 107 of the Public Health Act, said, that unless some such words as were proposed in the Amendment were inserted, the District Councils would have no power to make bye-laws. Surely it would be thought advisable that the District Councils should have some power of making bye-laws in sanitary matters, for instance; but they would not have the power as the clause now stood.

Amendment proposed, in page 13, line 25, after the word "county," to insert the words "and a district."—(Mr. Seale-Hayne.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)

said, the object of the clause was to empower the County Councils to make bye-laws. The Committee would probably be aware that, as far as the boroughs were concerned, they had the power of making bye-laws under the Municipal Corporations Act; and without some such clause as this were inserted, the County Councils would not possess a similar power. He did not think, however, that it was desirable to extend the power of the District Councils.

MR. SEALE-HAYNE

asked if the right hon. Gentleman did not propose to give the District Councils the power of making bye-laws at all?

MR. RITCHIE

said, he proposed to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hanley (Mr. Woodall) to provide that bye-laws made under the powers of this section should not have any force or effect within any borough. The consequence would be that the boroughs would be left to make their own bye-laws, as they did now. At present, none of the Suburban authorities, had the power of making bye-laws, and it was not proposed to make that power except in the case of boroughs.

MR. SEALE-HAYNE

said, there were Local Boards and other authorities who were able to make bye-laws, whose powers were transferred to the District Councils; but it was only proposed to empower the County Councils to make bye-laws. As the powers of these authorities were to be transferred under the Bill, it was only right and proper that the District Councils, to whom they were transferred, should have similar powers of making bye-laws.

MR. RITCHIE

said, the powers of boroughs to make bye-laws were powers of a very extensive character, creating offences which, in many cases, were severely punishable. Those powers were not at present possessed by the Local Boards.

MR. SEALE-HAYNE

said, the Sanitary Authorities had the power of making bye-laws.

MR. RITCHIE

said, that was not the case, unless the Sanitary Authority represented a borough.

MR. BRUNNER (Cheshire, Northwich)

said, he thought it would be better to allow the consideration of this matter to stand over until another year. The power given in the clause to the County Council to make bye-laws in the same way as the Town Councils of boroughs did not exactly meet the case. The Council of a borough was the only legislative authority in a borough district, but in the county there were other legislative authorities. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Sanitary Authority in an urban district had no power to make bye-laws; but his hon. Friend (Mr. Seale-Hayne) had pointed out that those authorities did make bye-laws; and to give to two authorities concurrent power to make bye-laws was not at all analogous to the constitution that now existed in the boroughs. It was very difficult at present for any hon. Member to make up his mind as to how far the Rural and Urban Authorities ought to have this power, and to what points the power to be given to the County Councils was directed. He doubted whether the draftsman of the Bill had a clear idea in his head when he drew up the clause. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would not accept any of the Amendments which appeared on the Paper in reference to this clause, or, indeed, press the clause at all. If he would run his eye down those Amendments, he would see the difficulty in which the Government were placed. One Amendment which he understood the Government proposed to accept provided that bye-laws made under the powers of this section should not be of any force or effect within any borough. He wished to know if the bye-laws of the County Council were to override those of the Urban Authorities, or whether those of the Urban Authorities were to override those of the County Councils?

MR. RITCHIE

said, the object of the clause was to give power to the County Council to make bye-laws for the good government of the country; and to carry out that object the Government had adopted the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act, which gave the boroughs the power of making bye-laws within their own area. It was considered desirable that the counties should have similar powers within their own area to those possessed by the boroughs; but no other locality, except the boroughs, had this power under the Municipal Corporations Act. It was simply proposed now to extend the power to all parts of the county, except the boroughs. He trusted that the hon. Member would see the advantage of the Amendment.

MR. BRUNNER

said, he was sorry to say that he did not see it at all. It seemed to him that the Government would be creating a considerable amount of confusion if they gave to two authorities within the same area concurrent powers to make bye-laws. Surely, the state of things in the counties was not so bad that the matter could not possibly stand over. If they waited until another year they would know very much more about it, and they would know whether it was desirable to restrict the County Councils, or to give them the power of making bye-laws that would override and supersede bye-laws now existing. He hoped that later on the right hon. Gentleman might be induced to extend the powers of the District Councils of making bye-laws, rather than to override those which already existed, by giving increased power to the County Councils. It was only in the interests of good government that he made those remarks; but he hoped that the Committee would not be persuaded by the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. STANSFELD (Halifax)

said, he quite understood the view of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the boroughs, and he understood him to accept the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Hanley; but be did not know how far that might clash with the arrangements of the District Councils. He asked if it were not possible to insert words in the clause to prevent any difficulty?

MR. RITCHIE

said, the bye-laws made under the section would have to be approved by the Local Government Board, and he thought that would be a sufficient protection in reference to the point alluded to by the right hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld). The right hon. Gentleman would see that it was essential the County Councils should have the power of making bye-laws, and it was not likely that they would make bye-laws which would in any way clash with the duties of the District Councils. Looking at the fact that many of the bye-laws of a limited character were made by others than Town Councils, and were operative within a very small area, it was rather difficult to prevent the possibility of clashing if they gave the County Councils the power of making bye-laws at all.

MR. SEALE-HAYNE

said, he thought the District Authorities were the proper authorities to make bye-laws in the counties. In many of those districts there were large and varied interests. For instance, in his own county, watering places like Torquay, Teignmouth, and Dawlish, would require different bye-laws from Kingsbridge, Okehampton, and other purely agricultural places, that had no pleasure population. He would, however, introduce another Amendment when they came to the District Clauses, and with the permission of the Committee he would withdraw the present Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

COMMANDER BETHELL (York, E.R., Holderness)

, in moving an Amendment which stood in the name of the hon. Member for the Nuneaton Division of Warwickshire (Mr. Dugdale) the object of which was to provide that the County Councils should have the power of making bye-laws, not only in relation to the county, but to any specified part or parts thereof, asked whether the President of the Local Government Board would accept the Amendment, which he thought would be a very convenient one?

MR. RITCHIE

said, he was inclined to think that the County Councils ought to have power to make bye-laws within a specified portion of a district, and if his hon. Friend was prepared to move the Amendment he had no objection to accept it.

Amendment proposed, in page 13, line 26, after the word "county," to insert the words "or to any specified part or parts thereof."—(Commander Bethell.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. STANSFELD

said, that before the Amendment was agreed to, he had another question to put to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie). He had been somewhat startled by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the Local Government Board's approval would be required for the bye-laws before they could become effective.

MR. RITCHIE

said, he ought to have said the bye-laws framed under the provisions of the Public Health Act.

MR. STANSFELD

said, the bye-laws framed by the County Councils would be practically bye-laws of that description, and, therefore, would require the approval of the Local Government Board.

MR. RITCHIE

said, that bye-laws made under the Municipal Corporations Act would not require the confirmation of the Local Government Board, but of the Secretary of State.

MR. BRUNNER

asked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would put in words to make it clear that the bye-laws would be subject to the confirmation of the Government Departments?

MR. RITCHIE

said, there were two matters in regard to which bye-laws might be made; one of which would require the confirmation of the Local Government Board, and the other of the Secretary of State. Considering, however, that two Acts of Parliament already remained in existence, it was quite unnecessary to enact further powers.

MR. BRUNNER

asked, if he was to take it that the right hon. Gentleman assured the Committee that in both of the cases mentioned the bye-laws would be subjected to the approval of the Government Departments so as to prevent clashing?

MR. RITCHIE

said, that was his belief.

MR. BRUNNER

asked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would make it certain that that should be so?

MR. RITCHIE

replied in the affirmative.

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

asked, if it was not desirable that the County Councils, if they preferred, should go to the Secretary of State alone, or to the Local Government Board alone? He did not see the object of distributing the power of confirmation between two Departments?

MR. RITCHIE

said, that without committing himself positively to any declaration he thought the distinction was this—that under the Municipal Corporations Act bye-laws might be framed creating offences with severe consequences; whereas, under the Public Health Act, that was not the case. The bye-laws framed under the Public Health Act were simply bye-laws for the benefit of the health of the inhabitants in the locality.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. SEALE-HAYNE

, in moving an Amendment in line 28, after "1882," to insert— And also for the purpose of regulating the traffic in streets and roads, and of compelling owners of land at the side thereof to maintain their fences, said, the Amendment would remedy a defect in the clause as it stood, and its object was to empower the County Councils to make bye-laws for the regulation of street and road traffic, and for compelling the owners of land at the side of streets and roads to maintain their fences. The want of such power as this had given rise to more litigation than almost anything else. There was no direct power of compelling an owner to keep his fences in order, and he thought the County Councils might be properly intrusted with the duty of making bye-laws, subject to the control of the Local Government Board, for compelling owners to keep their fences in repair. He trusted that in the interests of the country districts the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out that the words proposed to be inserted would come in better at the end of the clause.

MR. SEALE-HAYNE

said, he had no objection, if they were accepted, to move their insertion at the end of the clause.

Amendment proposed, In page 13, line 28, after "1882," to insert the words "and also for the purpose of regulating the traffic in streets and roads, and of compelling owners of land at the side thereof to maintain their fences."—(Mr. Seale-Mayne.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. RITCHIE

said, the Amendment would give a very wide and extensive power of making bye-laws, and the Government could not possibly accept it, seeing that it dealt with matters treated of in several Acts of Parliament, however desirable it was that the law should be altered. In respect of the matters mentioned in the Amendment the question ought not to be dealt with in an incidental way in a provision giving a general power to make bye-laws for the good government of the country. It was not, therefore, possible that the Government could accept the Amendment.

MR. CONYBEARE

said, he wanted to know what power was possessed by the Quarter Sessions to regulate the maintenance of roads? For example, could the Quarter Sessions provide a pasturage for cattle on the sides of the roads? In some localities he believed that considerable difficulty had been raised upon that question. He under- stood that the Quarter Sessions had the power of prohibiting such pasturing, and if that was so it would come under the Amendment moved by his hon. Friend. He thought it was very desirable that the counties should have the power of regulating these matters.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)

said, he thought that was a question which could be more properly raised when they came to the powers of the District Council. He apprehended that there were sufficient powers with regard to the maintenance of fences at present in existence. If it were desirable to give further powers, they must be entrusted to the District Councils.

MR. F. S. POWELL (Wigan)

said, he thought the Committee should be slow in conferring powers upon the County Councils which might be exercised in a way which was inimical to public liberty. He did not see why they should give powers all over the country in the rural districts which they would not be inclined to give in the towns.

Question put, and negatived.

MR. WOODALL (Hanley)

, in moving at the end of the Clause to add— Provided that bye-laws made under the powers of this section shall not be of any force or effect within any borough. said, that after what had already fallen from the right hon. Gentleman he had nothing to urge upon the Committee in proposing the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, In page 13, at end, to add the words,—"Provided that bye-laws made under the powers of this section shall not be of any force or effect within any borough,"—(Mr. Woodall.)

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the next Amendment which stood in the name of the hon. Member for the St. Austell Division of Cornwall (Mr. W. M'Arthur), the object of which was to provide that a County Council should have power to promote or to oppose Bills in Parliament, and to employ county funds for such purposes, was not properly an addition to the clause.

Question, "That the Clause as amended, stand part of the Bill" put, and agreed to.

Financial Relations between Exchequer and County, and Contributions by County for Indoor Paupers.

Clause 18 (Transfer to County Councils of certain licences (transferred licences).

MR. WOODALL (Hanley)

said, the first Amendment stood in his name, and it was to insert these words at the beginning of the clause,—"Subject to the provisions of this Act with respect to boroughs." He would not press the Amendment if the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill had any objection to it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)

said, he thought he had better explain to the Committee the position in which the matter stood. The Committee would be aware that in the original Bill, as proposed by the Government, the County Councils would have had the power to grant licences. That proposal had been abandoned, and therefore he did not see any reason why the County Councils should be put to the trouble of levying the duties any more than the other duties provided in the Bill. Later on they propose to move an Amendment giving the Inland Revenue the duty of collecting these as well as other licences.

Amendment proposed in page 13, line 35, to leave out the words "The power to levy."—(Mr. Ritchie.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)

said, it seemed to him that if the right hon. Gentleman gave up those words, the County Councils would simply have transferred to them the duties in force at the time of the passing of the Bill. He thought it would be better that they should receive the money direct from the Treasury, instead of having this clause at all. If the County Councils had been able to propose high licence duties and stop the monopoly of licences which now existed, he should have felt inclined to support the clause. It seemed to him that nothing was to be gained from an administrative point of view; and, therefore, there was no necessity for disturb- ing the arrangements which had hitherto existed. He, for one, protested against the Amendment on the ground that it was a further emasculation of the Bill.

MR. WADDY (Lincolnshire, Brigg)

said, he had not quite understood the extent to which the observations of the President of the Local Government Board went. Was he to understand that the right hon. Gentleman proposed now to make such alterations in the Bill as to provide that the money to be raised should not be at the disposal of the County Councils? He apprehended that it would be exceedingly desirable that it should be so. To put into the hands of the County Councils money to be disposed of, and yet to take away all Amendments in regard to obtaining it, looked very much like offering to them a bribe.

MR. RITCHIE

said, the only difference the Amendment would make was that the County Councils would not levy the licence duties, and they would be in the same position with regard to them as they were with regard to the other duties which were to be transferred. It was proposed to substitute for the grants now given certain licence duties, and it was intended to provide by the Amendment that all the licence duties should be collected by the Board of Inland Revenue and paid over to the County Councils.

MR. WADDY

asked, if the County Councils would have any power of increasing the duties?

MR. RITCHIE

No.

MR. HOBHOUSE (Somerset, E.)

said, he thought it would be a shorter and simpler course to strike out the clause, and add a provision to Clause 20, which would provide for the payment to County Councils of the proceeds of duties on certain licences (local taxation licences). That would remove a distinction which had now become meaningless.

MR. RITCHIE

said, he quite agreed with the force of the hon. Gentleman's observations. Some difficulty had been experienced in connection with putting everything into one clause, which undoubtedly, if they had been free, they would have preferred to do; if any inconvenience should be found to exist, he would take care, in a subsequent stage, that it was remedied.

Question, put, and negatived.

MR. CAINE (Barrow-in-Furness)

, in moving to omit in page 13, line 37, the words— (a) On licences for the sale of any intoxicating liquor for the grant of which a licence or certificate or consent of a justice or justices of the county is necessary, that is to say, the licences specified in the Second Schedule to this Act, and to insert "on inhabited houses," said, he proposed to move the first Amendment, which stood in his name on the Paper, and then to move to leave out sub-section (a) altogether. He took it for granted that the Government proposed to strike out Clause 19. [Mr. RITCHIE assented.] His right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board nodded his head. Therefore, he did not see why the Government should not withdraw this clause and meet the grants that were to be given for local purposes from the Imperial Exchequer. It seemed to him that Clauses 18 and 19 went together. The Licence Tax was transferred with the view, as he understood the matter, of giving the 20 per cent increase. But the compensation was no longer required, and, therefore, he might fairly ask the Government to find some tax to transfer to Local Bodies which was not so offensive as this to a largo section of the community. If the Government denied that this clause was part of the licensing scheme then he proposed to discuss it on its merits. This proposed transfer of the licence revenue was strongly objected to by the Temperance Party throughout the Kingdom. There was no difference of opinion whatever on this matter. They viewed with dismay the mixing up of the revenues from liquor with the administration of local affairs. It was quite bad enough to have the loss of taxes thrown up continually as an obstacle to temperance reform; but if they had to face the loss of rates as well they would be handicapped severely in the fight in which they were engaged, and they could not consent to this altogether unnecessary hindrance to the progress of temperance. They protested against the proposal as vicious in principle by making the revenue of Corporate Bodies dependent, even in part, upon a traffic which had everywhere and at all times proved injurious to the moral and social well- being of the people. But he had no need to appeal to Members of that House who belonged to the Temperance Party. They were altogether convinced of the undesirability of the proposal of the Government; and as the evidence of the feeling of their friends throughout the country was unmistakable and clear, there was no need for taking up the time of the Committee in expounding it. The Government had not been left in the dark with regard to the feeling of the Temperance Party. A Memorial was presented to the Prime Minister in March last, protesting against this transfer of revenue, and it received the endorsement of 32 national and provincial temperance organizations—practically the whole of the temperance organizations in the United Kingdom. The widely representative deputation waited shortly afterwards upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the right hon. Gentleman told the deputation that the question must be decided in the House of Commons, where the Memorialists were well represented. A recent Memorial, signed by many hundreds of the clergy and dignitaries of the Church of England, addressed to the Prime Minister, said— Your Memorialists regard with alarm the suggested transference to Local Authorities of a revenue from a traffic, the acknowledged and inevitable results of which are disastrous to man and dishonouring to God, thereby making the people unwilling accomplices in that evil business, which is the most prolific source of vice, poverty, and crime, and the well-known cause of distress, disease, and death. He would turn from the aspect of his Amendment to the consideration of the proposal on its general merits. This licensing revenue was likely to be a steadily decreasing one. If Clause 9 had been included in the Bill, there would have been a loss at once to any county adopting it of 15 per cent. If Clauses 10 and 11 were included, every County Council anxious to reduce the facilities for drinking would be punished for their public-spirited action by a loss of revenue. It was impossible that such loss should hot bias the judgment of Corporate Bodies in their efforts to promote sobriety, especially under such circumstances as were rendered more probable by the action of the Front Opposition Bench, who had committed themselves to the principle of these clauses. It was exactly the sort of tax which a wise far seeing Chancellor of the Exchequer was glad to get rid of whenever the opportunity occurred. The revenue from licences was not only decreasing, but very unequal in its incidence. Those counties where the Justices cautioned the publicans and kept down the facilities for drinking, would have a very small proportion of income, while others, where licences had been given lavishly, would get a largely disproportionate income. Ministerial indiscretion would be rewarded, and wisdom punished. A Return had been sent to Members showing the income derivable from each county from the liquor licences. From this Return he had worked out the proportion payable to each county per head of population. Cardiganshire would receive 7d. per head of the licence revenue; Cornwall, 7¼d.; Anglesea, 8½d.; Merionethshire, 9½d.; Wilts, 11d.; Somerset, 1l¾d.; Yorkshire, 11¾d.; Carmarthen, 12d.; Devonshire, 12d.; Lincolnshire, 12½d.; Kent, 13d.; Durham, 13¼d.; Cheshire, 13½d.; Derby, 13¾d.; the Metropolis, 14d.; Lancashire, 15d.; Cumberland, 15½d.; Norfolk, 16d.; Warwick, l6½d.; Southampton, 17d.; Worcester, 17½d.; Sussex, 18½d., and Brecon 19d. Thus, 7d. per head would be received in Cornwall, as against 14d. in the Metropolis; 7d. in Cardigan, one Welsh county, as against 19d. in Brecon, another Welsh county; 11¾d. in Yorkshire, as against 15d. in Lancashire, and 11d. in Wilts as against 18½d. in Sussex. He would take two sets of 10 counties. In the first place, Yorkshire, Cornwall, Wilts, Anglesea, Cardigan, Monmouth, Carmarthen, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, and Somerset, with a gross population of 5,036,000, the average income per head from licence revenues would be 11.4d. He would compare this with another 10 counties—Lancashire, Glamorgan, Hampshire, Brecon, Worcester, Nottingham, Warwick, Norfolk, Bucks, and Cumberland, with a population of 11,000,000. In that case the average per head from licence revenues would be 16d. Why on earth should this group of counties enjoy 40 per cent more revenue from this proposed relief from the Exchequer than the other 10 counties? It was clear, therefore, that the incidence of this proposed tax was very unequal, and would become more unequal now that the Licensing Authorities knew by the recent decision of the Court of Queen's Bench that they could refuse to renew licences for causes other than offences against the law. He asked the Government to withdraw this sub-section and substitute some other source of revenue. First, because no one had asked for this particular tax to be transferred. Secondly, because there was a great consensus of opinion against it—from the Temperance Party without exception, and from the Local Bodies to whom it was proposed to transfer it. A Memorial had been presented to the President of the Local Government Board signed by nine Aldermen and 14 Councillors of the Birmingham Corporation, besides many protests from other Corporate Bodies and Quarter Sessions. Thirdly, he asked the Government to withdraw the tax on account of its unequal incidence; and, lastly, on account of its certain diminution. He had ventured to suggest an alternative. He had a certain amount of diffidence in doing so to such a master of finance as the present Chancellor of the Exchequer; but as it was a proposal made by the right hon. Gentleman himself under similar circumstances as the present, when he was President of the Local Government Board in 1871, his diffidence was somewhat abated. He suggested to the Government the alternative of the Inhabited House Duty, which was the exact opposite of the Licence Tax in all its attributes in respect of incidence. It was the increasing tax which he should be glad to see increased; it was not threatened by any section of the community, and it was not in any way affected by public opinion. He granted that it was unequal so far as the revenue derivable in various counties was concerned, but nothing like so unequal as the Licence Tax would become in the course of a very few years. Why should they not be distributed in exactly the same way as the contribution from personalty was to be distributed, or, if that was thought objectionable, either in proportion to rateable value or population? The Inhabited House Duty was £200,000 more than the licence revenue. Let the precedent of the contribution from personalty be followed, and a lump sum equivalent to the average income from licences in the last five years be set apart and fairly distributed to the various Local Bodies. In conclusion, he hoped they should hear nothing from the Government about this proposal showing distrust of the new County Councils. He had no distrust at all of them. But in the face of the indication on both sides of the House of a disposition eventually to transfer the licensing authority from the Justices to these Bodies, he desired that this Bill should contain nothing but what made it easy for them to do right, and difficult to do wrong, and he did not want them to find themselves unable to reduce the facilities for drinking without incurring a serious loss of revenue. He begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name.

Amendment proposed, in page 13, to leave out Sub-section (a).—(Mr. Caine.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'on licences for the sale of any intoxicating liquors' stand part of the Clause."

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN) (St. George's, Hanover Square)

said, his hon. Friend opposite had concluded his remarks by suggesting that he (Mr. Goschen) had himself proposed an alternative to the present plan of the Government. The hon. Gentleman suggested that this contribution to local funds should be omitted from the Bill, and in place of it the greater portion of the Inhabited House Duty should be applied. That suggestion would, if adopted, leave but a small remnant of the House Duty to the Imperial Exchequer, while about seven-eighths would be applied in the way proposed. It would be in every respect a most inconvenient plan. But, further than this, if those licences were parted with, they would part with them once for all; they would disappear entirely from the Imperial Budget. He was not, however, prepared to give up the House Duty in the same way, keeping the collection of it as suggested by the hon. Member, and therefore retaining just sufficient to put the whole of the inconvenience of collecting it on the Imperial Exchequer. It was true that he once proposed to transfer the whole of the House Duty to the Local Authorities, but he was met with an objection which had rendered it impossible to resume the plan. It was that, while the intention was to give general relief to the ratepayers of the country, the surrender of the House Tax for that purpose would lead to such inequalities and such a favouring of the towns at the expense of the rural communities that Parliament could not in justice adopt it. The hon. Member had stated that there were as great anomalies in this case as in the Licence Duties themselves. That was so, and the anomalies pointed out were reproduced in an aggravated form by the House Duty. The Metropolis under the system of transfer of licences would receive £246,000, whereas under the House Duty system recommended by the hon. Member it would receive £757,000—that was to say, by the change which the hon. Member recommended, London would receive an addition of £500,000 at the expense of the rest of the community. The hon. Member drew a contrast between poor Wales and the rich parts of the country where the licences were collected. But the contrast was just as great under the system advocated by the hon. Member. Cornwall, for instance, which was also a poor county, would under that system receive assistance to the extent of 7¼d. in the pound, while London would receive 14d. As to the anomalies which were created by the transfer of licences, he was sure there was no possible distribution either by population or by rateable value, or by the continuation of the grants which were at present made, which did not lead to a great number of anomalies. The Government had failed, and he was sure any hon. Member would fail, to discover any method of distributing those grants or licences, or the money which was placed at the disposal of the Local Authorities from the Imperial Exchequer, which would not lead to a great many anomalies, especially if they were considered side by side with the present distribution of the grants. The fact was that, if the present distribution of grants was examined, it would be found to be full of the greatest anomalies. Under the Government proposal there were two or three different sources whence relief would come. There was the Probate Duty, which was to be distributed in relation to indoor pauperism; there were the licences which were to be distributed locally; on the other hand, the Local Budgets would suffer by the discontinuance of grants. All those proposals must be taken as a whole, and it must be seen what the general result was. Now, London might gain if they took indoor pauperism, for instance; but, on the other hand, London lost greatly by the discontinuance of the grants. Therefore, hon. Gentlemen must consider what was lost by the discontinuance of grants, as well as what was gained by the Probate Duty and by the transfer of the Licence Duties. The Committee would find more anomalies if they took any one of those three proposals than if they took the whole of them together. The plan of the Government must, therefore, be considered as a whole. The hon. Gentleman suggested, as a moral argument, that the transfer of licences to the Local Authorities would have a baneful effect in the direction of counteracting any tendency towards the promotion of temperance. He thought it showed a weak confidence in the general spread of their cause if hon. Members thought that that small temptation, that infinitesimal part of the revenue, would have the effect of checking the great temperance movement in the country which had been making such progress. The proposal to deal with the drink licences was part of a proposal to deal with the duties on servants, carriages, and all other licences. The Government thought that the transfer of a tax which could be locally collected was a move in the right direction, as giving the localities a share in the direction of their own finance; and they did not believe that it would have such an effect as the hon. Gentleman suggested. He would put this argument to the extreme advocates of temperance. His hon. Friend thought that they might go back again to Local Option, and that the time might come when the Local Bodies would be intrusted with the collection of those licences. But would it not be difficult to grant Local Option, if the revenue derived from the drink licences was not to be distributed, and any particular county which discontinued this revenue was to continue to receive its share of the benefit of the licences granted elsewhere? The Government considered that it was infinitely more fair that the temperance cause should stand upon its own legs in every separate county, if the question of finance was to enter into the subject at all. The immediate proposal before the Committee was that the section dealing with the money to be transferred through the system of licences to the Local Autho- rities should be omitted. He thought it was an extremely dangerous thing for the Committee to approve the omission of this contribution of £1,500,000, because, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he must say that he would not be able readily to find another tax to take its place. Serious responsibility would, therefore, rest upon the Committee if the omission of this contribution in aid of local rates was approved, without their at the same time, providing a substitute. The proposal of the hon. Baronet the Member for Cockermouth (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) raised an entirely different question. It touched the distribution of the money derived from licences, and not the question of the transfer of the licences. The Motion of the hon. Member was to omit the drink licences altogether from the contribution in aid of rates, and the Government could not accept such a proposal. He trusted the Committee would negative the Motion.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)

said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted that all these transfers would be attended with inequality and anomaly. The result of the anomaly, he thought, would be that rich districts would become richer, and poor districts poorer. He could not see why they should not be left as they were. If anomalies existed at present, at all events, they were anomalies and inequalities to which the country was accustomed, and he believed they were not as great as those which would be occasioned by the proposed transfer of revenue to the Local Authorities, without any administrative power whatever. All the disadvantages of a transfer would be realized without any corresponding advantages whatever. Therefore, he was opposed to these transfers until the Local Authorities were granted power to deal with them. As to this special transfer, he thought it was open to the greatest objection. What would be the state of things in regard to the counties as they were now proposed to be governed? They were to have power to reduce the number of licences, and so to diminish the revenue; but they had no power of increasing the amount of the licences. He maintained that by far the best means of checking the consumption of drink was the system of high licences. He had been a good deal in America of recent years, and he found that the tendency there in regard to the drink question was in the direction of extending the high licence system. The present proposal placed the counties in this position—if they were virtuous and sacrificed the licences they would increase their rates, and they were wholly prohibited, in making up the loss, from increasing the amount of the licences. The result would probably be that by diminishing the licences they would lead to an increase of drink. He wanted to tie the hands of the Justices in that respect, and, therefore, upon that ground he would support the Amendment.

SIR WILFRID LAWSON (Cumberland, Cockermouth)

wished to give his support to the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Caine). He considered the moral argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not thoroughly satisfactory, and he thought that the Local Authorities were likely to be tempted by the revenue they would receive from licences. He also believed the right hon. Gentleman somewhat underrated the qualities of human nature. It was not that he distrusted Local Bodies, but he believed that if temptation were put in the way of any man it was likely to make him fall. They were told that the love of money was the root of all evil; and they ought to make it easy for men to do right, and difficult for them to do wrong. He thought that the present proposal would make it easy to do wrong, and very difficult to do right.

MR. HANDEL COSSHAM (Bristol, E.)

said, he strongly objected to the transfer of revenue to the Local Bodies, because he thought it would lead to extravagant and wasteful expenditure. His particular objection to this grant had been ably set forth by his hon. Friend the Member for Cockermouth (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), who had put it very clearly that it would have a demoralizing effect upon the Local Bodies they were about to create. He thought it was undesirable to put any temptation in their way. One of the greatest evils of the present day was the number of the public-houses. All agreed that they ought to be diminished very considerably, and it was highly improper to place an additional difficulty in the way of that reform.

SIR WILLIAM HOULDSWORTH (Manchester, N.W.)

, said, he had no doubt that the transfer of these duties to the County Councils would prejudice the Justices against refusing to renew licences, though such power was now pretty well understood to be within their right. It would raise a very difficult question between the Justices and the County Councils, as when they wished to exercise the power of reducing the number of public-houses they would be met with the strong objection that they were seriously interfering with the revenue which came in from the licences. He felt considerable difficulty in deciding how he should vote on that occasion, because he had a very strong feeling that it would prejudice the cause of temperance if these licences were transferred, and would make it more difficult to deal with the question in future. He was bound to admit that there ought to be some relief given to local taxation, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that he was unable to find any other source from which he could give the relief required. He, under those circumstances, felt reluctantly compelled to vote in a way he had not originally intended. As no practical suggestion had been made, as he expected would have been made from the other side for removing the difficulty, he felt obliged to support the Government.

MR. ROWNTREE (Scarborough)

said, that it had been properly pointed out that this proposal would in a small town seriously affect the judicial administration of the law as it existed at present. Everyone knew that the value of licensed premises was a most important question in the administration of the law with regard to the charges brought against the holders of such premises. In some towns these premises formed no inconsiderable portion of the revenue. In certain small towns he believed they amounted to 2s. per head. He, therefore, thought it impossible when the Justices were called on to decide upon the renewal of licences not to find themselves exposed to the temptation of having the make-weight drawn in. It was much to be regretted, in regard to the question of temperance reform, that this money interest should be so constantly brought up; and be, therefore, regretted to find a further hindrance likely to be placed in their way. Among other reasons assigned by the President of the Local Government Board, he had said that he did not wish the first election of County Councils to be at all prejudiced by the licensing question. Then why should the allocation of income to the County Councils be made to rest on the licensing question? He thought the arguments which had been used for the withdrawal of the Sunday Closing Clause applied still more strongly to the withdrawal of this proposition. He was afraid that the proposal itself would create a powerful obstacle to Sunday closing in future, because it would be said, in future, that the ratepayers, although in favour of Sunday closing, were more in favour of the reduction of rates in their own towns. He trusted that the Committee would adopt the Amendment of the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 192; Noes 165: Majority 27.—(Div. List, No. 185.)

On the Motion of Mr. RITCHIE, Amendment made, in page 13, line 41, at the end, by adding— And for the purpose of this section all penalties and forfeitures recovered in respect of the said duties (in this Act referred to as duties on transferred licences) shall be considered as part of the proceeds of the duties,

Amendment proposed, At the end of the clause, to add the words—"(2). The Commissioners of Inland Revenue shall from time to time, in such manner and under such regulations as the Treasury may from time to time make, pay into the Bank of England, to the local taxation account hereinafter mentioned, such sums as may be ascertained, in manner provided by the regulations, to be the proceeds of the said duties collected by those Commissioners in each county in England."—(Mr. Ritchie.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

SIR WILFRID LAWSON

said, that he had an Amendment to propose to that of the right hon. Gentleman's which had just been moved. He would not detain the Committee at any length, but simply state that the argument in support of this Amendment was very much on the same lines as that of the hon. Member for Barrow (Mr. Caine) which had just been disposed of. He admitted, what the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had just pointed out, that it would not be a perfect plan to distribute the money according to population; but it seemed to him that to put all the money into hotchpot, and then to distribute it according to population, would be much better than the plan proposed by the Government. At any rate, on the ground of the desirability of preventing temptations being placed before the new Local Authorities, he thought his Amendment preferable.

Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment, To leave out, in line 6, the words "in each county," and add—"(3.) The amount ascertained as aforesaid to have been collected shall from time to time be certified by the said Commissioners, and shall be distributed by the Local Government Board out of the local taxation account to each county council in England in proportion to the population for the time being of its county or county borough respectively."—(Sir Wilfrid Lawson.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'in each county' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

MR. RITCHIE

said, the question which he believed was involved in the proposal of the hon. Baronet had a wider significance than that which the Amendment seemed to imply. As the Committee was aware, the Government proposed that the Licence Duties to be collected by the Inland Revenue were to be paid over, not according to population, but according to the needs of the county in which they were to be collected. As his right hon. Friend had stated, the Government did not look on this proposal as one which could be defended on the ground that it was altogether free from anomaly; they recognized that so far as the grants to be received by the different counties were concerned they might show some difference. His right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had proved that the grants were not given in accordance with population, but in accordance with the necessities of localities and in accordance with the services which were performed by those localities; and that being so, it was quite clear that if they took the population of a county and the grants that were given, it would be found that enormous anomalies resulted with reference to the existing grants. He would give the Committee some figures which would show some of those anomalies. Surrey, with a population of 420,000, received £65,000, whereas Durham, with a population of 867,000, received £60,000. Stafford, with a population of 981,000, received £68,000, while Warwick, with a population of 730,000, received £70,000. But the greatest anomaly of all was Lancashire, which, with a population of 3,500,000, received £320,000, while London, with 4,000,000 of population, received £624,000 in grants, or 100 per cent more. All this showed that the grants were given at present, not with reference to population, but with reference to the needs of the localities so far as the services rendered were concerned. If they were to distribute the Licence Duty in accordance with the proposal suggested by the hon. Baronet, they would not be making allowance for the needs of the locality. The proportion of increase throughout the country would be very anomalous indeed, if they were to do away with that basis and substitute the basis of population. As he had said, the Government did not contend that the basis of each county receiving the amount of Licence Duty collected within its area was free from anomaly; but they said it was much more free from anomaly than the proposal of the hon. Baronet, and that was the reason why they could not recommend the Committee to accept that proposal. They believed that the proposal of the hon. Baronet would greatly increase any anomaly which existed at present, and therefore he was compelled to oppose it.

MR. CAINE

said, it appeared to him that the purpose of the hon. Baronet would be met if the Government would undertake to consider the matter before the Report and alter their proposal according to the needs of the locality. He did not suppose that his hon. Friend wished to present any particular method of distribution. What they wanted to avoid was that the localities should set up public-houses with the proceeds of the liquor traffic. He supposed his hon. Friend would be content with that, and he trusted that, after the expression of opinion coming from a very large minority in that House, the Government would seriously consider whether they could not meet the wishes expressed by so many Members.

SIR WILFRID LAWSON

What would be the test of allocating the money according to the needs?

MR. RITCHIE

said, if the hon. Baronet would give him some information as to what he believed the needs of the localities to be, he would be able to express some opinion upon the matter. The Government were not able to arrive at any satisfactory notion of the needs of the localities; they assumed that these were indicated by the amounts of the existing grants. They took the grants as a whole; but they would be very sorry to recommend the Committee to stereotype them and say that all the money received should be divided in the same proportions. If that were done, the particular county which might be extravagant would get a larger proportion than a county which had been economical with reference to this particular expenditure. Therefore, the Government would not recommend expenditure as an indication of the needs of a locality. Where, however, there was cause for heavy expenditure of money, the subject was within the area of discussion. The Government said that the amount available in a county should be available for the relief of the county with reference to its wants.

SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH (Lancashire, Clitheroe)

said, that he thought the best criterion of need was not the number of public-houses which existed in a district. He ventured to argue that population, as a whole, was a very fair criterion of the wants of a population, and very much fairer than that of the number of public-houses. The right hon. Gentleman had set up a very extraordinary defence for this clause; he said there were great anomalies in the distribution of the present Parliamentary grant. He asked whether that was any reason for setting up other anomalies?

MR. RITCHIE

I said that the anomaly was in taking population as a basis.

SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH

said, he challenged the right hon. Gentleman to say in what way population was not a fair basis for judging of the needs of a locality. It would be found on examination that, under the system proposed by the Government, there were many instances in which places having a larger population would receive smaller grants and places with small populations would receive larger grants. There were two places in Lancashire, for instance, one, Bolton, having a population of 104,000, and the other, Blackburn, having a population of 105,000; Blackburn would receive £160,000, whereas Bolton would only receive £65,000. Then in the case of Liverpool and Manchester, the former had a population of 552,000 and Manchester a population of 360,000, and yet Manchester would receive considerably less than half what Liverpool would get. He could give many instances to show that the anomalies were enormous that would result from this clause. He wished to call attention to another point, and that was the anomaly as between the county and the boroughs. Under the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the counties would be heavy losers, because they would receive very much less than the boroughs with equal populations. The population of Lancashire outside the 12 county boroughs was about the same as the population of the county boroughs themselves, but under the Government scheme they would receive £52,000 less. He asked if that was justice, and whether such a system should be stereotyped? Why should the right hon. Gentleman, having altered his views with regard to the Licensing Clauses, not consider the number of the population and put this matter on some basis that would be free from these extraordinary anomalies?

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH) (Bristol, W.)

said, he thought the whole argument of the right hon. Baronet was founded on a false basis, that was to say, on the idea that the Government were proposing to give a grant in aid of the localities. He ventured to submit to the Committee that it was nothing of the kind. The proposal was the allocation to the localities of local taxation; but there was no reason why one locality should take the produce of the taxes levied on another. The Committee would be aware that the feeling on the subject of temperance was stronger in the North of England than in the South, and it was possible that the hon. Baronet the Member for Cumberland (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) might have such influence in his county that he might materially lessen the number of public-houses, and, perhaps, abolish them altogether; but under his proposal Cumberland would, nevertheless, receive a share of the Licence Duty based upon the number of its population. Why should that be so; why should the taxes raised in his own county of Wiltshire be taken away and transferred to the county of Cumberland? He could see no justice at all in the proposal. He asked the Committee to look at this as a matter of purely local taxation. It had nothing to do with grants in aid, and yet, as he had pointed out, the whole argument of the right hon. Baronet was based on the idea that there was to be a grant from the Treasury for local purposes. It was merely for the convenience of collection that the money went into the Treasury, and he confessed that he should object to its distribution on any other basis than that proposed in the Bill, because that would be to risk doing a very great injustice to the taxpayers.

MR. E. ROBERTSON (Dundee)

said, he hoped the Government would adhere to the proposal as originally drawn, because, as it seemed to him, there was the principle of equity in each county receiving the amount raised within its own area, and it would, besides, have the moral effect of inducing the authorities to remove that which was a great blot on the present system—namely, the low rate at which these licences were granted. Everything seemed to point to the time when the County Councils would have full power of fixing the amount which should be paid for licences; and it was because he hoped that a high rate for licences might be established throughout the country that he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would stand by his proposal.

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT (Sussex, N.W.)

said, that when he saw the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for Cumberland on the Paper, he thought it was solely intended for the purpose of dividing equitably within the counties the proceeds of the tax to be handed over as between the urban and rural districts. So far as that was concerned, he thought there might be a good deal to be said in reply to many of the remarks which had been made in the course of the discussion by hon. Gentlemen opposite. They knew that in many towns public-houses were used by people who came in from the outside parts; but to say that a tax levied in any particular county should be handed over for the benefit of another was a proposal which he, for one, could not support for a moment. He had supposed that the view of hon. Gentlemen opposite was that the proceeds of these duties should be allocated to the districts in which they were collected, because, when the Conservative Party gave grants in aid to local taxation, those Gentlemen were all against them, and said the principle was unsound, and that taxes raised in a locality ought to be handed over for the benefit of that county, but now he found that they were in favour of their being given in the same way as before. Therefore, he thought the counties were justified in taking all they could get, and thinking that the proposal of the Government was not an unwise one, he was now as much in favour of holding tightly to all they could get, as he was for distributing the proceeds of the tax within the county itself.

MR. R. CHAMBERLAIN (Islington, W.)

said, the object of the hon. Baronet was to do away with the temptation to increase revenue by increase of licences, and he proposed to do this by throwing the licence duties into hotchpot. He rose to express his own opinion that the view of the hon. Baronet and of the hon. Member for Barrow was a mistaken one, and that the County Councils were not likely to be at all swayed by those considerations. He thought those hon. Members underrated the effect of the teachings and influence of the great Temperance Body. Although they had in Birmingham no experience of the working of this particular provision, yet they had been exposed to even greater temptation than would be likely to be raised in the present case. Under an improvement scheme passed in Birmingham four or five years ago, a large amount of property had been cleared by the Corporation, on which there were 90 licensed public-houses. The Corporation was under a very great temptation to maintain every one of those public-houses, because they had at the time a large amount of valuable property to be let, and there was no difficulty in getting a very considerable rental from licensed houses which might have been erected on their property. But the Corporation actually cancelled some 30 out of 90 licences. Now, he thought that the County Councils would not be any less considerate of the morality of the people than had been the Birmingham Corpo- ration. He was always pleased to hear it said that the Corporation of Birmingham was a spirited body, and that it took more enlarged views on various subjects than was the case in other towns throughout the country, but he did not think that the Temperance Party were any stronger in Birmingham than they were in other parts of the country. He thought that it was a groundless fear to suppose that for the sake of a small increase in the amount of Licence Duty the County Councils would wish to increase the amount of drinking in the localities.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)

said, that under the Bill for all substantial purposes the spirit revenue would always remain an Imperial Revenue, and be distributed by Imperial authority. The right hon. Gentleman told the Committee that under the present system an attempt was made to distribute money according to the needs of the localities. If that were so, why did the Government depart from that system? He could not understand why they should do this, unless they could show that they were going to introduce a better system. There was nothing whatever to show that their system would be equitable or free from anomalies. It seemed to him that the system now proposed was that the drunken localities should get more, and the sober localities loss, of the grant.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)

said, if the Government were going for the first time to impose these Licence Duties on the boroughs they might say that each locality was entitled to receive the produce of its own taxes, but up to this hour these taxes had always gone into the Imperial Exchequer. They were now going to give a contribution to the localities, and to distribute it on the principle that the largest amount should be granted to those localities where most drinking prevailed. He pointed out that the population of Leeds was 340,000, and greatly in excess of the population of Sheffield, which numbered 285,000, and that the Government were going to give to Sheffield £16,000 of revenue, while the revenue to be given to Leeds was only £11,000. He should support his hon. Friend the Member for Cockermouth in his attempt to make something good out of this unfortunate clause, the principle of which had only been carried by a majority of 27. He deeply regretted that the House had carried out and had linked together the principle of local taxation with the revenue drawn from this source. The reasons on which he should support the hon. Baronet were not those given by his hon. Friend behind him, who had just spoken; he supported the hon. Baronet on the ground that this was an unfair method of re-allocating Imperial Revenue. They were not discussing that matter now; but he said that they could not adopt a more unsatistactory and unjustifiable principle than that of giving this amount to the localities in proportion to the quantity of drink which they consumed.

MR. GOSCHEN

said, the Government differed entirely from the view of the right hon. Gentleman when he said that this was practically a grant in aid. His right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) had pointed out that the Government had handed over this licence duty precisely as they had handed over other licence duties in aid of local taxation. The right hon. Gentleman was anxious that those parts of the United Kingdom where less was derived from drink licences should receive the surplus from other places where more was received from that source. But, as his right hon. Friend had pointed out, the places where there was much drinking were precisely those where the poor rates and other rates were high. He admitted that was the case, and, therefore, that they had to pay heavily for their own misfortunes or misdoings. But hon. Gentlemen opposite wished to fine the localities where there was much drinking for the benefit of the more sober localities. The Government could not abandon the general principle of the Bill which was to establish this as a local tax, and they did not believe, any more than the hon. Member for Islington (Mr. R. Chamberlain), that that would have the effect of stimulating the authorities to grant a larger number of licences.

MR. BRUNNER (Cheshire, Northwich)

asked if the Government would not adopt the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for North-West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), which he thought would meet almost entirely the objections of the hon. Baronet the Member for Cockermouth.

MR. RITCHIE

pointed out that he had put down Amendments on Clause 30 by which the question of financial re-adjustment between the boroughs and the county into which they were taken would be referred to a commission, the instruction to which commission being that in adjusting financial relations due regard should be had to the amount of licence duty derived by the boroughs and the county.

MR. BRUNNER

said, that would have an effect precisely opposite to that which the hon. Baronet the Member for Cockermouth and himself wished. It would perpetuate and increase the temptation to increase drinking for the purpose of augmenting the revenue.

MR. HENEAGE (Great Grimsby)

said, he hoped the Government would not accept the Amendment. The Local Government Board had advocated for years that Imperial and local obligations and taxation should, as far as possible, be kept separate. He was aware that the Government had not been able to hand over the collection of all local taxation to the different counties; he hoped, however, that the time was not far distant when every county would have its own budget, and collect all its own revenue. He was opposed to the Amendment, because it would be a step back in the direction of centralization, from which they all desired to got as far away as possible.

MR. HANDEL COSSHAM (Bristol, E.)

said, that that only confirmed what had been said—that the principle for which the Government were contending was going to be given over by the Amendment. The principle of his hon. Friend's Amendment was that the whole of the licensing money should go into one fund, and then be distributed according to the basis of population, or rating, or any other basis which might be fairly suggested. The object they wanted to obtain was that the locality should have no interest in this jurisdiction.

MR. RITCHIE

said, that the Scheduled boroughs were, of course, already in a county, they were to be taken out of the county. When they spoke about local revenue they spoke about the local county revenue, and the Amendment, therefore, which was placed on the Paper simply amounted to this, that in making an adjustment between boroughs which were to be taken out of the county and the rest of the county, due regard was to be had to the relative shares of the licence duties that would be collected by the county and the boroughs.

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

said, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a remark under which there lay a very great fallacy indeed. They were not now dealing with the question of local taxation. They had taken out of the Imperial taxation a very large and valuable source of revenue. That the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been fortunate enough with his Budget not to be obliged to replace it this year; but for all practical purposes it was replaced at this moment. That was to say, because they had surrendered from the Imperial Revenue the Licence Duties for that reason they were charged all round with what might be roughly called a penny in the Income Tax. Just observe how this worked, and he maintained this was about as monstrous a financial injustice as could take place. He had the singular good fortune to live in a very large district in which there were no licences at all. This was not the occasion to describe to the Committee the moral and social and economic condition of that district, but he had the advantage of living in that district. The people of that district not only paid the penny on the Income Tax, which was required to be paid in order to enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer to transfer the Licence Duties to the different Local Bodies—they not only paid their share, but they paid more than their share, because owing to their not having these licences they were more prosperous than any other district, and the average incomes in the district were larger in consequence. What was the case in a marked manner with them was also the case to a certain extent in other places. Leeds, for instance, paid its full share of the Imperial taxation, which went to compensate the revenue for losing these Licence Duties; it paid its full share, but it had not got its share of these Licence Duties which were given over. It was a mere sham to talk of these as local taxes; they were not local taxes, they were a surrendered portion of the Imperial taxation. He felt very strongly the broad justice on financial grounds of the proposal of his hon. Friend. The Government had with reference to the distribution of the Probate Duty been obliged to take some other principle than the principle of distributing the duty in the place where it was raised. The Government had not taken the principle of population, but had taken the principle of out-door pauperism. Now, he did not wish to anticipate the debate upon that proposal; but if there was good reason for taking that principle in preference to the principle of population—and he was not arguing for or against it—it must be for the purpose of discouraging out door relief on moral and material and economical grounds. He maintained that if the Government were going to break through the principle of population in that direction for the purpose of discouraging out-door pauperism, and if they were to introduce these arguments, he and his hon. Friends had a perfect right to say they should not break through it in what was undoubtedly a wrong direction, with the result, though not of course, he allowed, for the purpose of encouraging public-houses.

MR. GOSCHEN

said, he presumed the right hon. Gentleman had spoken of that portion of the county of Northumberland, which was favoured by his residence—[Sir GEORGE TREVELYAN: I spoke of a portion.]—but taking the county as a whole the revenue collected in Northumberland at present from Licence Duties amounted to £28,300. Upon the basis of population Northumberland would only get £26,000, so that hon. Gentlemen would see that that particular county would be a loser by the proposed arrangement.

MR. WOODALL

said, he could not see the objection to putting the revenue derived from the county and from the boroughs in the county in one general pocket as now suggested, and allocating it among the different authorities upon some sound and equitable principle. Therefore, if his hon. Friend the Member for the Cockermouth Division (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) went to a Division he should certainly support his Amendment.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 240; Noes 187: Majority 53.—(Div. List, No. 186.)

Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 19 (Power to levy to a limited amount additional duties on certain transferred licences).

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)

said, that as it was his intention to move the omission of the clause, he had no doubt hon. Members who had Amendments on the Paper to the clause would not think it necessary to proceed with them.

MR. E. ROBERTSON (Dundee)

asked if they were at liberty to discuss the principle of the Amendment upon the Paper?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, that the principle of the clause only could be discussed on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clause 19 stand part of the Bill."

MR. FIRTH (Dundee)

said, that the principle of this clause was to give to the County Council control over the licensing with the power of increasing it, but that the increase should not exceed 20 per cent. He had put down an Amendment to the effect that the increase or the alteration might be altogether under the control and jurisdiction of the County Council. He was very sorry that it was proposed to leave out the clause. He thought it would have been wise and well to have given to the County Councils, along with the income from the liquor licences, which he thought had been very properly given to them, full control over the income in that respect, including the power of increasing licensing duties and dealing with them as they thought fit. If the matter had come up for serious discussion, he should have pointed out that the system of varying licences had been tried in the United States, and it had always failed when tried by States, but had always succeeded when tried by counties. He thought it would probably prove a failure here if tried Imperially, but that it would succeed if tried by counties. As, however, it was proposed to leave out the clause, as this was going among the other good things of the Bill which he and other hon. Members were prepared to support the Government in effecting, he did not propose to illustrate the proposition further. All he would do would be simply to express regret once more at the loss of the clause, because he saw in the clause powers which might have been wielded for the general good and the advancement of true temperance.

MR. E. ROBERTSON (Dundee)

said, he rose to support his hon. Friend and Colleague (Mr. Firth) in the protest he had made against the abandonment of this clause. He was more encouraged to do so by the reference made to-night by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the principle of high licences for which his hon. Friend and himself contended. If there was any sincerity, as he had no doubt there was, in the use the Chancellor of the Exchequer made of that argument for the purpose of carrying the last clause, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would assist them in the object they had in view in protesting against the abandonment of this clause. The only thing in the clause which induced him to support it as it stood was that it was a beginning of high licences. The clause did initiate the principle of charging more than was now charged for licences. Let him recall to the House an extraordinary example of the present system which was given sometime ago by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone). The example was one which came within the right hon. Gentleman's own experience. The right hon. Gentleman told them how a friend of his own had purchased and equipped a house at a total cost of something like £4,000; but that, after he had obtained a licence, the value of the house became something like £14,000 or £15,000. In other words, the licence itself was worth £10,000 or £11,000, which made the difference between the initial value of the house and the house as licensed. Now, that was what they wished to attack by what was called the high licence system; it was in order to give to the public, and more particularly to the country, the benefit of this difference, instead of leaving it in the hands of the publican or the brewer, that they supported the high licence system. If the Committee would permit him, he would refer to a very valuable Report which had been obtained by Her Majesty's present Government from their Consular Agent in the United States, on the effect of the high licence system. He wished particularly to ask the attention of his hon. Friends who were specially interested in the temperance movement, to the Report this Consular Agent had made as to the effect of high licences on the temperance movement in the United States. The Consular Agent in the United States reported that it was maintained, and with evident reason, that the high licence system really advanced the cause of temperance as much as, and to a greater extent than, prohibition, and, at the same time, brought about a large increase of revenue. He, however, added that so far as that went, statistics showed that the high licence system had certainly reduced the number of drinking saloons, and that naturally, therefore, the opportunity for intemperance was lessened by the reduction. The Report went on to give extraordinary examples of the effect of the system in reducing the number of public-houses, in promoting temperance, and in increasing the local revenue. He (Mr. E. Robertson) would only allude to one example, and that was the example afforded by the great City of Chicago. The high licence system was introduced in the year 1882, and in the year 1887, although the City had increased in population very nearly two-fold, the number of licences had not increased, but had diminished, and fallen below the number at which it stood in 1882. While, owing to the adoption of the high licence system in Chicago, the licences had been reduced by one-half, the local revenue derived from licences had been increased ten-fold. He believed a similar result, or something like it, would be attained if the principle of this clause were extended to the whole country, and it was because the Government had abandoned that principle that he proposed to resist the withdrawal of the clause. He specially appealed to those with whom he had differed on the last clause. He had not been able to see eye to eye with his temperance friends in the House upon the last clause, but he hoped they would be with him upon this part of the Bill. There could be no doubt at all that, so far as this clause went, it did introduce, to some extent, the system of high licences, and the system of high licences was, at all events, one way, and, he believed, a good way, of working out the temperance problem. Therefore, if his hon. Friends would join with him, he should certainly divide against the withdrawal of the clauses.

SIR WILFRID LAWSON (Cumberland, Cockermouth)

said, that this discussion had been sprung upon him; he had no idea that they were to have a discussion to-night upon the high licensing system. The hon. Gentleman had made a very interesting statement, but he (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) had read something about Chicago also. The hon. Gentleman had asserted that while the number of licences in Chicago had been decreased, the revenue had been increased ten-fold. He (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) had seen statistics concerning Chicago, and they went to show that since the adoption of high licences the amount of beer consumed had been much larger than it was before, and that the number of people taken up for drunkenness had very largely increased. If he had only known the debate was coming on, he would have brought the figures down with him. He did not exactly know how the question of high licences arose upon this clause.

MR. C. T. DYKE ACLAND (Cornwall, Launceston)

said, that although he did not wish to confine the debate solely to the subject raised by the hon. Member for Dundee, he thought there was a great deal to be said for the clause, and he was most anxious it should be preserved. There were several other duties, as he understood the clause, which would be handed over to the counties as well as the Licence Duties on intoxicating liquors. If he read the clause aright, it would extend to the duties of which there was a list on the opposite page of the Bill. If that was the case, there would then be power in the hands of the County Councils to increase licences on horses, tobacco dealers, refreshment-house keepers, male servants, dogs, killing game, and guns. Why County Authorities should not be entrusted with that kind of power he could not really understand; it seemed that the County Council was exactly the right Authority to exercise such power. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken of these as local taxation licences, and they were called so, he believed, in the Bill. How could they justify so speaking of them or call them local taxation licences, if they by Imperial regulations told the County Councils what they were to levy? Under such circumstances it became not local taxation, but Imperial taxation. The whole point of the matter was that the Authority of the county, elected by the people of the county, and acquainted with the peculiar circumstances and needs of the county and of the customs of the county, were to be able to say what, in their opinion, was the right amount of duty to be paid in the different cases. There were some counties which differed very much from the rest in respect to the question of preserving game. He could imagine nothing more legitimate than that, where the County Council believed a strong desire for game to exist, the County Council should take advantage of this desire and increase the game licences accordingly; the same remarks applied to horses, carriages, dogs, and guns, and so on. Each county knew its own circumstances best, and the object of this Bill as it stood was to intrust to those who knew the districts best the charge of meeting the circumstances and requirements of their own districts. What counties wanted was to get as much as possible of the local revenue for their own purposes, and it appeared the right way to bring that about was to entrust County Councils with the right of varying the amount of licences levied within their own district.

MR. RITCHIE

said, that the hon. Gentleman had misinterpreted the powers to be conferred by Clause 19. Clause 19 was never intended to refer to the duties which the hon. Gentleman had alluded to at all. If the hon. Gentleman would look at the clause he would see that— The county council may, if they think fit, from time to time impose and levy additional duties on the transferred licences for the sale of any intoxicating liquor. and so forth. That would give no power whatever to the County Councils to increase the Licence Duties upon the licences referred to in Clause 20. The answer was perfectly obvious. The intoxicating liquor licences were licences for the sale of drink in the locality, but the licences referred to in Clause 20 were licences which ran throughout the whole Kingdom, and, therefore, it was perfectly obvious that it would be highly inconvenient to have a different scale of Licence Duties in one county to what existed in another. If power to vary licences were given, it might happen that a county might be extremely desirous to concentrate the taking out of these licences within its own area, and to achieve its object might lower the Licence Duties, and thus attract all the people who wanted licences from other counties. It was quite clear that competition would arise between the various counties as to the scale on which they were prepared to do business, and the result might not be altogether satisfactory. The hon. Gentleman would see there was good reason for dealing with liquor licences locally, but that it would be extremely inconvenient and impolitic for other licences to be dealt with in the way proposed. The Government did not propose even to enact that limited power which was referred to in Clause 19, and for a very obvious reason. Originally they proposed to deal with the whole question of licensing, they proposed that licensing should be transferred to the County Councils, and they also proposed that certain compensation should be paid in the event of licences not being renewed. They believed that by giving the Licensing Authority the power of increasing the cost of licences the Authority might have raised a fund which would have materially assisted in the reduction of the number of licences which some hon. Gentlemen so much desired. But his main contention was that, having struck out of the Bill all reference to licensing for the sale of intoxicating liquor so far as the County Councils were concerned, it would obviously not be right or proper that they should give the County Councils the power of increasing the Licence Duties as would be given by this clause.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL, &c.) (Kirkcaldy

said, he had some Amendments upon the Paper which went in the same direction as the observations of his hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. E. Robertson). He had alluded to the subject in previous observations he had made in the House, and he only wished to say now that his view in favour of high licences was founded upon the belief that the present system under which Local Authorities were enabled to restrict the number of licences without being able to put any additional taxation on the remaining licences, had done enormous harm. In order to achieve a diminution in the number of licences there had been a combination between the temperance people and the publicans. He, as a magistrate of Middlesex, had had to deal with the granting of new licences, and he had found that the people who opposed new licences were not the inhabitants of the locality, but other publicans, and they combined with the temperance reformers in order to stop the issue of new licences. The result had been that the number of licences had been very much restricted; but there had been no power on the part of the magistrates to put on the remaining licences a taxation commensurate with the additional value of the houses. The result was that a vested interest had been created greater than the Church or anything else, and that that now stood in the way of reform and pestered Parliament with enormous claims for compensation. He certainly thought that there ought to be the power of increasing licences on the remaining public-houses.

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT (Sussex, N.W.)

asked to be allowed to say one or two words upon this really important question. The question they really had to consider was, would it be right now that they had struck out all the clauses in the Bill relating to licensing generally that this clause should remain in the Bill? Besides dropping all the Licensing Clauses they had taken away the power of County Councils to levy the duties which at one time it was intended they should have. They had, therefore, left in the hands of the Government officers the power of raising the duties, and they had left in the hands of the magistrates the matter of licensing as it had been up to this time. Until they arranged some other system it would be unwise and unjust to give the County Councils the power conferred by this clause.

MR. STANSFELD (Halifax)

said, he could not quite understand the argument of the right hon. Gentleman that it would be obviously wrong to retain Clause 19 after the withdrawal of the Licensing Clauses. He, however, desired to point out that when this clause was withdrawn there would be hardly any excuse or pretence for repeating the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen) that they were handing over certain taxes to the locality, and that those taxes were not in the nature of Imperial grants. They were simply Imperial grants, and it was impossible to argue that they were anything else. They were not to be handed over as local taxes over which the district would have any power; the County Council would not have the power of repealing them, or of increasing them, or of diminishing them. He entirely understood the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) that it was necessary that there should be a certain amount of uniformity in these so-called local taxes. But they had not only not given to the localities any power over these taxes, if they were to be called taxes, but they were taking away all power from themselves. He did not know whether hon. Members had realized the fact that when the Bill passed with this clause and the 20th clause in it, all these taxes which were Imperial, and which were to be called local, would be stereotyped at their present amount. It would be almost impossible even for Parliament to modify, to increase, diminish, or to repeal, because they could not modify any one of the taxes which they had allocated to the localities without finding a substitute for it. That would complicate the question of taxation extremely. That was not the whole question, because when they came to Clause 23 they found that they not only fixed the Imperial grants, which were called local taxes—fixed the amount without the localities having any power—but they absolutely fixed a large portion of the expenditure which the taxes were to meet under Clause 23. In lieu of the Parliamentary grants which were to be discontinued, those grants, practically speaking, or a great number of them, were in another form to be paid by the County Councils. Therefore, when the 19th clause went they would find themselves in this position, that they were handing over to the localities taxes, but were not giving them any power over the taxation. The statement, therefore, that these were taxes assigned to localities in any sense in which Parliament had been accustomed to consider taxes ought to be assigned, had no foundation whatever.

MR. WOODALL (Hanley)

said, he could not but regret the decision at which the Government had arrived in regard to this clause. The income from licences was to be allocated not to any particular district, but in the county the licensing was to be continued in the hands of the magistrates as heretofore, and under the present conditions of the Bill the representatives of the rate-payers would have no voice in regard to licensing. He desired to offer his small tribute of testimony to the argument of his hon. and learned Friend the senior Member for Dundee (Mr. E. Robertson). He was in Philadelphia the other day, and there he found that the Local Authority had largely increased the cost of licences for public-houses. The effect of that increase was that not more than one-half of those who hitherto held licences applied for a renewal of their licences. There still remained power to refuse licences to those who were applicants; but the effect of the change was to bring about, consistently with the public opinion of the place, a very large diminution of the number of public-houses; and it appeared to him that it was very unfortunate that they were not to avail themselves of this opportunity to enable the public opinion of a county or of a county borough to assert itself in the same way, and, if it chose, to bring about an important diminution in the number of public-houses.

MR. LAWSON (St. Pancras, W.)

said, the Government proposed to omit Clause 19 because the Committee had before been forced to agree to the omission of the other clauses transferring the licensing powers of the magistrates to the County Councils. But it seemed to him this clause was good in itself, as it stood by itself. The Committee must recollect what a difference had come over the spirit of the conduct of magistrates all over the country, and particularly in the Metropolis, with regard to the granting of licences. A Metropolitan stipendiary said the other day that a few years ago licences were scattered like pepper from a pepper box. That was no longer the case. In most districts of London the magistrates were most unwilling to grant new licences, they put every obstacle in the way, and, therefore, the value of the goodwill of the existing licensed premises had enormously increased. Did not the Committee believe that under these circumstances it would be a great advantage if the publicans holding these licences had to contribute a larger amount than formerly to the local exchequer. By this clause the County Councils would be enabled to levy extra duty up to 20 per cent. and he could not help thinking, without reference to the other Licensing Clauses, that this would be a most valuable provision to retain in the Bill.

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

said, that it had been assumed very hastily that in discussing this clause they were flogging a dead horse. Certainly the discussion had shown that the clause was not as yet dead. There was a general consensus of opinion on both sides of the House in favour of higher licensing duties. [Cries of"No, No!"] If certain hon. Gentlemen opposite dissented from that view, it was only what he supposed they would do. Personally he thought that considerable advantage might be expected from increasing the Licence Duties. He did not think that anyone would dispute this proposition, that as the value of licences and licensed property had enormously increased of late years, this would be a good opportunity for doing that which was only just to the public generally, raising more revenue out of the licences which were still granted. It appeared to him that the right of increasing the cost of licences was not at all depending upon the question of licensing and the transference of licensing generally. If the County Council or the Local Authority in any part were determined that the raising of local revenue in the shape of increasing the Licence Duties was a desirable mode of raising revenue, it seemed to him that that was a power which might fairly be given to the County Council or any other Local Authority quite independently of the general question of granting new licences or revoking the old licences. Therefore, he contended, they were justified in discussing this question upon this clause, even although the Committee had already decided that the right to grant licences, or to renew them, or revoke them, should not be put in the hands of the County Councils. He quite understood the arguments of the right hon. Gentlemen the President of the Local Government Board, which was that, having decided against transferring the powers of licensing to Local Authorities, they should not in any way give any control to the County Councils over any portion of the question of licensing. But he had a slight Amendment to this clause, to suggest which might meet with the approval of the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. RITCHIE

It is impossible to amend the clause.

MR. CONYBEARE

said, that, at any rate, he had a suggestion to make to the right hon. Gentleman, which, though it did not find favour in his eyes, might in the eyes of other people. He assumed the right hon. Gentleman had no intrinsic objection to the principle of raising the price of licences. He had a right to assume that because the right hon. Gentleman had embodied the principle in his own Bill, and what he put to the right hon. Gentlemen was, that as long as he did not propose to take away the power of licensing from those who at present possessed it—namely, the magistrates, but agreed that in certain cases it was desirable to increase the Licence Duties, what possible objection could there be to conferring the power of increasing the scale of licences upon the Quarter Sessions, the authority who at present exercised licensing powers? That would be merely an extension of the powers of the magistrates; it would be introducing no new principle which the right hon. Gentleman could possibly object to. As fas as he could make out, the only alteration which it would be necessary to make in the clause would be to substitute for "County Council" the words "the magistrates" or "the licensing magistrates."

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 137; Noes 199: Majority 62.—(Div. List, No. 187.)

Clause 20 (Payment to county council of proceeds of duties on certain licences (local taxation licences)).

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)

, in moving the Amendment which stood in his name, which was to leave out Sub-section (1), said, he only moved the Amendment pro formâ as a matter of protest, knowing very well, after what had been said, that he had no chance of carrying the Amendment. He wished again to say that, in his opinion, this local taxation was an utter sham. It was not a real mode of taxation at all; it was, as had been frequently said, nothing but an Imperial subvention under another form. The only difference was to be found in the manner of distribution. They were departing from the old system of distribution; they were taking a leap in the dark to another system of distribution which had no regard whatever to the needs of the localities. He was quite aware the Bill did not apply to Scotland, but perhaps he might, as an illustration, cite the case of the county of Inverness. In that county there were very few carriages and horses except within the towns. Now a great county of that kind, which had a great many roads, would get very little revenue from horses and carriages and the other specified sources of taxation, whilst its needs would be very great. On that ground, and merely by way of protest, he begged to move to leave out Sub-section (1). There was only one other word he should like to say. They were told to-day that if they did not make over this revenue to the localities, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not have any other money to make over to them. He (Sir George Campbell) denied that altogether. The result of leaving out the 1st sub-section would be that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have this Imperial Revenue in his own pocket, and he would be able to distribute it to the localities with some regard to the needs of the localities.

Amendment proposed, in pages 14 and 15, to leave out Sub-section (1).—(Sir George Campbell.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'after the financial year' stand part of the Clause," put, and agreed to.

Amendment proposed, in page 15, line 15, after "auctioneers," insert "hawkers."—(Mr. Ritchie.)

Question, "That the word 'hawkers' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Amendment proposed, In page 15, line 22, after the word "county," insert the words "in respect of the duties on transferred licences or the duties on local taxation licences."—(Mr. Ritchie.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

said, he could not quite appreciate the attitude which the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had taken up. When he (Mr. Conybeare) had the honour of submitting a suggestion to him, the right hon. Gentleman refused to make any reply even by nodding his head. He did not complain of that; but he thought that when the right hon. Gentleman was submitting an Amendment of his own, they were entitled to ask him why he saw a necessity for it. [Mr. RITCHIE: Certainly.] He had not done yet. He wished to give another reason why he asked the right hon. Gentleman to give them an explanation of his Amendments. At an earlier stage of the proceedings in Committee, he (Mr. Conybeare) ventured to move an Amendment without explaining his reasons for doing so. The right hon. Gentleman pretty nearly jumped down his throat and lectured him for having the assurance to propose an Amendment without assigning a reason for doing so. What was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, and he submitted that in pursuance of the ordinary rules of debate, the right hon. Gentleman ought to give them some reason for the Amendment he now proposed.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)

said, he had so high an opinion of the hon. Gentleman's intelligence, that he thought he would be able to see the reasons for this Amendment. The Amendment was purely consequential upon one to which the Committee had already agreed.

Question put, and agreed to.

SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH (Lancashire, Clitheroe)

said, that in consequence of the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for the Cockermouth Division of Cumberland (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) not being carried, and also in consequence of what was said by the Government and by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North-West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), he thought it would be worth while to raise the question of distribution at that point. He therefore begged to move to insert in page 15, after the words "county," in line 25, the words— Provided, that in the case of any county containing any county borough or county boroughs, the amount ascertained as aforesaid shall be distributed by the Local Government Board between the said borough or boroughs, and the residue of the county in proportion to their respective populations for the time being as ascertained by the said Board. That Amendment would carry out what the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) just now hinted the Commissioners would have the power to do under the Amendment to Clause 30. He was very doubtful indeed whether the Amendment of which the right hon. Gentleman had given notice gave all the powers he desired to give the Commissioners. Very large powers had been entrusted to the Commissioners; but he thought they would require some more directions than the right hon. Gentleman gave them in order to feel themselves called upon to consider all the inequalities and to distribute the Licence Duties. What he proposed was that in this clause they should provide that the money should go from Somerset House to each county, and be distributed by the County Council to the various county boroughs according to their respective populations. Take, for instance, the case of Lancashire. The amount received by the 11 county boroughs in Lancashire would be £52,000 more than the amount received by the rest of the county, although the population of the county boroughs was about equal to that of the residue of the county. If the words he proposed were adopted, the right hon. Gentleman would see that he would achieve his object directly through the Bill instead of leaving it to the judgment of the Commissioners.

Amendment proposed, In page 15, line 25, after the word "county," to insert the words "Provided, that in the case of any county containing any county borough or county boroughs, the amount ascertained as aforesaid shall be distributed by the Local Government Board between the said borough or boroughs, and the residue of the county in proportion to their respective populations for the time being as ascertained by the said Board."—(Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth).

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. RITCHIE

said, he recognised that the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Baronet was very much in the direction of everything he (Mr. Ritchie) had said, and intended in connection with this matter. But it was right he should point out to the right hon. Baronet that it would be hardly fair to those who were interested in the subject, perhaps in a different way from that in which the right hon. Baronet was interested in it—of course, he was quite sure that the right hon. Baronet did not wish to do anything which was not fair—if they accepted an Amendment of that great importance, which was not on the Paper, and which might come with some surprise to a considerable number of Members of the House of Commons who were concerned in the proper distribution of the Licence Duties. He, therefore, suggested, without the least prejudice, that the Amendment should not be moved at that particular part of the Bill. He did not know whether what the right bon. Baronet desired to obtain could be more properly obtained by an Amendment to Clause 30; but he had no doubt that an equally appropriate place to this could be found for the moving of the Amendment. The Government were not disposed at present to object to the spirit of the Amendment; but the acceptance of the Amendment now might be very properly complained of by hon. Gentlemen who were not present.

SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH

said, no doubt there was a great deal of force in what the right hon. Gentleman had said, and he would be the last to wish to take any hon. Members who were not prepared for the Amendment by surprise. Although the Amendment was drafted some days ago, he did not put it on the Paper, because he preferred that the question should be raised in the wider form in which it had been raised by the hon. Member for the Cockermouth Division of Cumberland (Sir Wilfrid Lawson). If he was to understand that the object of the Amendment was that at which the right hon. Gentleman aimed, that the right hon. Gentleman was with him (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) in principle, that he desired there should be distribution in each county according to some such basis as population, he should feel very much encouraged, and would be perfectly willing to withdraw the Amendment now, hoping for the support of the right hon. Gentleman when proposing something of the same kind in some other part of the Bill. What he would prefer would be that the right hon. Gentleman would himself put down his Amendment to Clause 30 in more precise words, so as to carry out the object in view. There would be some danger in pressing the clause in its present form without some assurance from the right hon. Gentleman. By the clause the Commissioners of Inland Revenue were, under the direction of the Local Government Board, to pay out of the local taxation to the Council in each county, which included the Council in each county borough, the amount raised by licences within that county borough. That might be held to preclude such an Amendment as he contemplated. It was only by introducing words here that it could be made possible to pay the money to the county as a whole, and then distribute it. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would give him some further assurance which might enable him not to press the Amendment.

MR. RITCHIE

said, he did not wish his words to be accepted as going further than he really intended them to go. The principle he had always advocated was that care should be taken that there should be such an adjustment between the boroughs named in the Schedule and the county that the county should not lose financially by the boroughs being taken out of it. He assured the right hon. Baronet that that was the result the Government desired to obtain. But he would not like to commit himself to any specific proposal such as that the right hon. Baronet had made. He would like to have time to consider the suggestion; he certainly could not now commit the Government to any absolute scheme. Their intention in putting down the Amendment to Clause 30 was that such a financial adjustment should be made that neither the boroughs nor the county should lose. If an Amendment to their Amendment was necessary, in order to secure that which they desired, the Government would be very happy to consider it.

MR. STANSFELD (Halifax)

said, he thought that some further explanation from the right hon. Gentleman was necessary. Originally he found it almost impossible, and it was now still more impossible, to understand the proposal with reference to the Commissioners who were to arrange the financial terms between the counties and boroughs. As he understood the right hon. Gentleman, the principle by which the Commissioners were to be guided was that the county was not to lose by the boroughs being taken out of it. That was an intelligible principle; but he did not see how it was to be carried out. Liverpool, for instance, would produce an undue share of income arising from licences, and some portion of the income from licences accruing in Liverpool was to be allocated to the county of Lancashire.

MR. RITCHIE

(interposing) said, that having formed county boroughs, the Government desired that so far as it was possible the county boroughs should have the same control over the Licence Duties as the county, that they should have the same interests, that they should form communities by themselves like an ordinary county. But they felt it was quite possible that that principle might sometimes act adversely to the county, and, therefore, they thought it was right, whilst still allowing the county boroughs to be a county in the same sense as an ordinary county, to make some proposal by which in respect to the Licence Duties and the Probate Duty an adjustment should be made between the county and the borough. They considered that the best plan was to appoint a Commission which should take the whole circumstances as between the county and county boroughs into consideration, which should, amongst other things, take into consideration the relative amount obtained by the county and boroughs from the Licence Duties, and which, having done that, should make some financial adjustment which would be fair to the county and the boroughs. It was quite possible that the Amendment the Government had put on the Paper might not carry out fully what they desired, but they would be willing to consider any Amendment in the sense they had expressed.

SIR WILLIAM PLOWDEN (Wolverhampton, W.)

said, the object of the right hon. Gentleman, as far as he had been able to understand it, was that neither the county nor the county boroughs should suffer in any adjustment that was made. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be fortunate enough to attain such an object. What hon. Members were anxious to ascertain was whether the distribution was to be made on the basis of population. If the right hon. Gentleman accepted the principle of population, he admitted the claim made by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Clitheroe (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth).

MR. RITCHIE

said, he had not accepted the principle of population; that was a matter which must be considered on its merits when it arose. The hon. Gentleman must remember that there was not only the question of these transferred licences, but also the question of the amount to be obtained by the county and the county boroughs on account of the Probate Duty, and the Probate Duty the Government did not propose to distribute either on the basis of population or rateable value, but on the basis of indoor pauperism.

MR. HANDEL COSSHAM (Bristol, E.)

asked whether, in the distribution of the Probate Duty, consideration would be given to the fact that towns contributed larger quantities of the duty than the country districts?

MR. RITCHIE

said, he was afraid it would be out of Order to enter into a discussion of such a question; but he might say they did not intend to take into account the amount of Probate Duty paid in any particular locality.

MR. ROWNTREE (Scarborough)

asked whether the adjustment by the Commissioners would be absolute and final, because, if so, did not this follow, that whilst an adjustment might be perfectly equitable at the time it was made, in five or 10 years' time the relative conditions of the county and county boroughs might have altered so much that the adjustment would be no longer equitable?

MR. RITCHIE

said, that now they were proceeding to discuss the Amendment to Clause 30. It would be much more convenient if they were to refrain from discussing that Amendment until they reached it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, in page 15, line 31, after the word "levy," insert the words "the duties on transferred licences or."—(Mr. Ritchie.)

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

MR. C. T. DYKE ACLAND (Cornwall, Launceston)

said, that, in pursuance of the principle he had to explain on Clause 19, he desired to ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board whether he could not accept this Amendment to add, after "licences," in line 32— Or to increase within the limits specified in such order any of such duties or licences except the duties upon carriages or other vehicles, horses, armorial bearings, male servants, dogs, killing game, or guns. The right hon. Gentleman would see he had taken out of the list on page 15 all those licences which really ran over the whole Kingdom. With respect to beer dealers, spirit dealers, wine dealers, refreshment house keepers, tobacco dealers, appraisers, auctioneers, house agents, pawnbrokers, and plate dealers, he could see no reason why the County Council should not be allowed to increase or vary the duties or licences within certain limits. He admitted that the limits ought to be prescribed, but when that was done he could see no reason why the power to increase the duties should not be given to the County Council.

Amendment proposed, In page 15, line 32, after "licences," insert "or to increase within the limits specified in such order any of such duties or licences, except the duties upon carriages or other vehicles, horses, armorial bearings, male servants, dogs, killing game, or guns."—(Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN) (St. Georges, Hanover Square)

said, that if the hon. Gentleman would look at the clause he would find that the words which preceded his Amendment were these— It shall be lawful for Her Majesty the Queen, from time to time, by Order in Council, made on the recommendation of the Treasury, to transfer to county councils, from the date specified in the Order, the power to levy the duties on all or any of the local taxation licences. The hon. Gentleman's suggestion was that it should be lawful for the Queen, by Order in Council, made on the recommendation of the Treasury, to give County Councils the power to increase duties. Surely that would be uncon- stitutional. Such power could not be given by Order in Council, on the recommendation of the Treasury. That was a fatal objection to the hon. Gentleman's proposal to insert these words here, because, as he (Mr. Goschen) presumed, he did not see anywhere else where the words could be inserted. Besides, the hon. Gentleman did not exempt the licences for appraisers, auctioneers, house agents, pawnbrokers, and plate dealers; he left them in, and gave the different councils power to raise or diminish these licences. Some of these people—auctioneers, for instance—carried on business in several counties. He did not think it would be well that one county should put a higher duty on auctioneers than was put on them by another county. But the hon. Gentleman would see that the first objection he (Mr. Goschen) had taken to the Amendment was fatal to it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, In page 15, line 35, leave out from "duties," to end of line 42, and insert "transferred the same powers, duties, and liabilities as the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and their officers have with respect to the duties transferred, and to the issue and cancellation of licences on which the duties are imposed, and other matters under the Acts relating to those duties and licences, and all enactments relating to those duties and licences, and to punishments and penalties connected therewith, shall apply accordingly. (4.) Provided as follows:—

1. (i.) All penalties and forfeitures recovered by a county council in pursuance of this section shall, instead of being paid to the Exchequer, be paid to the county fund, and carried to the same account as the duties;
2. (ii.) The county council shall have, as respects the said duties and licences, the power given by the said Acts to the Treasury for the restoration of any forfeiture, and the mitigation or remission of any penalty or any part thereof;
3. (iii.) Nothing in this section shall confer on the county council any special privileges of the Crown as respects legal proceedings."—(Mr. Ritchie.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

MR. STANSFELD

said, he wished to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman. The Government had determined that the County Councils should not levy the Licence Duties; but the right hon. Gentleman was now taking power to transfer, by Order in Council, the power to levy these duties. He would like a statement from the right hon. Gentleman as to what was the object and policy of the Government in introducing this provision. Under what circumstances did the right hon. Gentleman anticipate a change of policy on the part of the Government, and a disposition to issue an Order in Council transferring to the County Councils powers which he had not determined at the present moment to give them?

MR. RITCHIE

said, there was no immediate prospect of this power being transferred to the County Councils, but at some future time, when the County Councils had acquired experience, it might be desirable to invest them with the power, and this Amendment was simply proposed with the object of providing machinery by which the transference could be made.

MR. HANDEL COSSHAM

asked, whether, if what the right hon. Gentleman contemplated were done, it would not be a distinct violation of the doctrine laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had said that no tax could be levied without the assent of Parliament?

MR. RITCHIE

said, the difference was this. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) proposed that by an Order in Council power might be given to increase these duties. That would be, to some extent, unconstitutional. This Amendment simply related to the power of collecting; instead of the Inland Revenue collecting the duties, the County Councils might collect them.

Question put, and negatived.

Question, "That the words proposed to be inserted be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

MR. T. E. ELLIS (Merionethshire)

said, he desired to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to a point which he raised before in connection with the allocation of these grants. In the county he had the honour to represent eight of the chief landowners were absentees—they lived in other counties—and he would like to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether any of the eight would contribute towards the expenses of the county any of the charges for carriages, horses, armorial bearings, male servants, dogs, killing game, or guns. If they did not, it seemed to him that a very great and glaring injustice would be done to the county. The county would have to maintain its main roads and so forth, and perhaps it might be represented by some of these gentlemen, because the Committee had given them the right to become members of the County Council although they were absentees. The result might be that the majority of the large landowners in the county might not contribute 1d. to the expenses of the county.

MR. RITCHIE

said, he imagined that if the eight landed proprietors in the county to which the hon. Gentleman referred felt they had a large interest in the county, they would be only too anxious to take out their licences in the county. Although these gentlemen resided outside the county, if their interests lay in the county clearly it would be to their advantage to take out their licences within the county. He was afraid that was all that could be said; they could not go further than that.

MR. T. E. ELLIS

said, he thought that to make the finance of a county dependent upon the caprice of landowners was very inequitable. The eight gentlemen he had in mind owned so much land in Merionethshire that the amounts they would pay would be very appreciable; but, as the Bill at present stood, they need not contribute 1d. to the revenue of the county. This was a very vital question, and if the right hon. Gentleman could not give him an answer now, would he undertake to look into the matter with the object of making some more equitable arrangement?

MR. GOSCHEN

assured the hon. Gentleman that the question had been seriously considered. The hon. Member himself did not suggest any way in which the difficulty he spoke of could be remedied. On the whole, it was thought best to leave the matter one of choice. Wherever a man's interests were largest it would be to his advantage to take out his licences. He did not think it would be possible to distribute the licences in any other way.

MR. RITCHIE

said, that perhaps it might be interesting to the hon. Member to know that the licence duties which were now collected in Merionethshire exceeded by 30 per cent the amount of the grants now paid to that county.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 21 (Grant to county council of portion of probate duty).

SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH (Lancashire, Clitheroe)

, in moving to leave out from "the several," in line 27, to end of clause, and insert— All the county boroughs and counties (exclusive of the county boroughs, if any, situate therein) in England, in proportion to their respective populations for the time being, as estimated by the Local Government Board, said, the object of the Amendment was that the Probate Duty granted to the counties should not be based upon the indoor pauperism of each county, but upon the population. There was something very taking in the proposal of the Government to any strict administrators of the Poor Law; there was something very taking in the idea that they should encourage strict administration by means of this Probate Duty grant. He took it that one of the main objects aimed at by the Government, in basing the distribution of the Probate Duty grant upon the indoor pauperism in the various counties, was that there should be discouragement given to outdoor relief and encouragement given to indoor relief. He sympathized very much with those who desired within reasonable bounds to see strict administration of the Poor Law; but he must say that, as one who desired to see such strict administration, he viewed with considerable fear and apprehension any such proposition. He thought that proposal would tend to something more than a strict administration of the Poor Law; he thought it might tend to harshness; and, even if that were not the case, he should be very much afraid it would tend to produce a re-action in the minds of the public against such administration of the Poor Law as he desired to see, and end in a far more lax administration of the Poor Law than at present existed. A great improvement had taken place in recent years, and there was not nearly so much ground for complaint as there was some time ago. He had, however, no doubt that there were Unions in which there was far too much outdoor relief; but he thought the effect of this provision upon committees of Boards of Guardians, sitting to consider particular applications for relief, would be something of this kind. They would say, that if they refused to give outdoor relief, they would get the fourpence a-day, which would be easily multiplied by seven days in the week, and by 365 days in the year, and that would be a great argument with Poor Law Guardians in favour of placing persons in the house whom, otherwise, they would have relieved as outdoor paupers. He did not think it was desirable to import a provision of that kind into the Bill; he did not think it was wise or prudent from the point of view of those who proposed it; but he supposed they had an object in proposing it—namely, the desire to promote strict administration of the Poor Law. He would not dwell at any length upon that subject, a subject with which all Members of the Committee were perfectly familiar. He sympathized with those who desired to encourage indoor as compared with outdoor relief; but he said that from their point of view he did not desire to see legislation in this direction. He was confident that such legislation would only intensify the tendency there was to a re-action in some counties in favour of a more profuse system of outdoor relief.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! I should like to make an observation in reference to the way in which the right hon. Baronet moves the Amendment. He proposes to leave out from "the several" to the end of the clause, in order to insert— All the county boroughs and counties (exclusive of the county boroughs, if any, situate therein) in England, in proportion to their respective populations for the time being, as estimated by the Local Government Board. There is really no alteration of the earlier part, and the argument of the right hon. Baronet shows that the whole scope of the Amendment is to leave out the words "indoor pauperism," in order to insert "their respective populations." I think the Amendment should be moved in that shape, and then the question of the indoor test will be properly raised.

SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH

said, he had no objection to the alteration in the Amendment suggested by the Chairman. Now, whatever might have been said with respect to the other proposals of the Government, the proposal as to the Licensing Duties, this was distinctly a grant in aid. That would not be denied; it was a grant in aid from personal property, a grant coming in aid of the rates of the various localities. It was proposed that this should be distributed according to indoor pauperism. Now, one naturally examined the statistics which had been laid upon the Table by the right hon. Gentleman, to see how this worked out in respect to the various counties and county boroughs in England. Let him first of all give to the Committee one or two facts as to how it worked out, comparing one borough with another. Leeds and Sheffield had been mentioned in respect to another clause. What would happen under this clause? Leeds had a population of 339,000, and Sheffield had a population of 284,000. Leeds, with a much larger population, would receive, according to the statement on page 39 of the Blue Book presented by the right hon. Gentleman, close upon £14,000, while Sheffield, with its much smaller population, would receive £3,500 more. Take the case of boroughs in the county which he had the honour to represent. Blackburn and Bolton had almost the same population. Blackburn would get £4,600 and Bolton £3,800, or £800 less. Bury and Burnley, again, had respectively a population of 53,000 and 74,000, and yet Burnley, with its larger population, would receive £1,300, and Bury, with a smaller population, £1,900. Oldham and Preston were of almost exactly the same size, and Oldham would get £7,700 and Preston £4,000. These were anomalies of such striking magnitude, especially when in some cases they were added to the anomalies under Clauses 18 and 20, that they seemed to him almost in themselves to condemn the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman. He would not weary the Committee by giving many instances; he would, however, just take one case more of boroughs. He would take three boroughs of about the same size in different parts of the Kingdom—Northampton, Bath, and Ipswich. North- ampton would receive £2 170, Bath £4,160, and Ipswich £3,580. So that Bath, although having practically the same number of inhabitants, would receive nearly double the amount Northampton got, and Ipswich stood, as regards the amount to be received, rather more than half way between Bath and Northampton. He passed on now to the case of boroughs as compared with counties. First of all, let them take again the case of Lancashire. The population of the boroughs was about equal to the population of the county. The boroughs would receive £138,000 of the Probate Duty, while the county without the boroughs, the residue of the county, would receive £83,000 or 40 per Dent less. Take the case of Nottinghamshire. The population of the county was about 10 per cent larger than that of the borough of Nottingham. The county would receive 21 per cent less of the Probate Duty grant than the town of Nottingham. The figures were very striking in the case of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The county had a population 33 per cent greater than the population of the county boroughs, but it would receive 8 per cent less of the Probate Duty grant. In face of these anomalies it was impossible to contend that the proposal of the Government provided for the fair distribution of the Probate Duty grant. In fact, the grant was to be distributed according to the accident of certain circumstances of the places, and also according to the administration of particular Boards of Guardians, whether a large proportion of people were relieved by means of the workhouse, or whether a large proportion were relieved by means of outdoor relief. No doubt there were other circumstances; but, on the whole, he was prepared to argue that the population test would work out very much more fairly, and that it would also correct, to some extent, the anomalies produced by the allocation of the licence duties upon the basis already decided upon by the Committee. Therefore, without further troubling the Committee with illustrations, which might be multiplied to almost any extent, he moved the Amendment which stood in his name, and hoped the Committee and the Government would give it careful attention.

Amendment proposed, In page 16, line 28, to leave out from the words "proportion to" to the end of the clause, and add the words "their respective populations for the time being, as estimated by the Local Government Board."—(Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'their indoor pauperism' stand part of the clause."

MR. RANKIN (Herefordshire, Leominster)

said, he rose to support the proposal of the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) because he thought it was more consistent with justice and fairness than those contained in the clause. With regard to the Distribution of Probate Duty, he did not desire that the administration of the Poor Law should in any way be relaxed; but he did not wish to see what he might call a tremendous bribe given to the Boards of Guardians to administer that law in one particular direction. He was certain that if the distribution of the Probate Duty took place in the manner proposed in the clause it would have a great influence in sending large numbers of persons into the workhouses, who were not treated in that way at the present time, and it was for that reason that he desired the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman to be carried. It must not be forgotten that the Poor Law existed for the poor as well as for the ratepayers, and although it was desirable that the undeserving poor should have a severe test applied to them, yet there were many cases in which the deserving poor ought to be maintained outside the workhouse. He was quite sure that if the proposal in the clause stood, a great amount of hardship would be inflicted upon these persons. He knew that the clause had already met with a great deal of hostility among the agricultural labourers of the country, who imagined, rightly or wrongly, that they might be compelled to have recourse to the Poor Law system for relief. It was necessary to take account of that feeling, as it would very probably give rise to great class hostility between the labourers and that class by whom the Poor Law was administered. He also ventured to point out that the proposal, as it stood, was very unfair to the rural counties which had no large centres of population, and fewer indoor poor in proportion to population; he found in almost every case that that would be so, and that a distribution on the basis of population would be a very much fairer method of procedure. He would, therefore, ask the Committee to support the proposal of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth), so that the distribution of the grant might be fairer than it was at present to the rural districts. He admitted that the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) had placed on the Paper would remove some of the objections to the clause, and that it would settle at all events for a time, the basis upon which the duty was to be distributed. But he did not think that the proposal offered the best basis for settlement. He contended that the Poor Law should be administered according to present principles, and that there ought not to be this great bribe offered for sending paupers to the workhouses. For those reasons, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to accept the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. ELTON (Somerset, Wellington)

said, that nothing whatever would have induced him to accept the clause as it originally stood, because it would have had the effect of forcing the aged and deserving poor into the workhouses. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie), would, however, remove that objection. The Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman would propose made all the difference to him, and he should not now feel that the poor would be forced into the workhouses for the sake of the rates being assisted to the extent of 4d. for every pauper. He was convinced that the Government had made a loyal and straightforward effort to prevent the poor and aged paupers being brought into the workhouses, and for that reason he should support the right hon. Gentleman when his Amendment was brought forward.

MR. BROADHURST (Nottingham, W.)

said, he had been urged by his constituents to put down an Amendment to the clause of the same nature as that of his right hon. Friend (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth). But, seeing that the matter was already under considera- tion, he had not taken that course. He had, however, promised to support the views of his constituents, and he believed the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board would remember that he had spoken strongly against that portion of the Bill which applied to indoor paupers. His objection to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman was that it did not meet the case. He would have preferred to take a Division on the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Launceston Division of Cornwall (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland), which seemed to him to be much simpler and likely to afford more practical method of obtaining the object in view. The objection to the clause as it stood, and even to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie), was that it appealed to the selfishness of the ratepayers to drive poor and deserving persons to the workhouses, instead of giving them aid outside, and thereby affording them an opportunity of recovering themselves and becoming again independent and self-supporting citizens. He strongly objected to any measure which was in the least calculated to break up a home, however poor and humble it might be, and scatter the members of the family by driving them into the workhouse. He considered that outdoor relief wisely and judiciously administered was a principle which they should encourage in every way. There was no more cruel and merciless course that could be pursued by Boards of Guardians than to break up the home of a working man and drive him into the workhouse. The family of a man in that way became scattered, and the only chance of their re-assembling under one roof was when they met under the roof of a workhouse. By that means, fathers, mothers, and children were injured, and generations of paupers created; whereas, by a little consideration and a little assistance, they might have been saved from that degradation, and the ratepayers also saved from contributing to the support of people who would otherwise have been an assistance to the rates. The Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) had put down would create the very thing which they were seeking to avoid. He had before expressed his opinion that thousands of cases which were relieved by the Poor Law system called for careful consideration on the part of the ratepayers and on the part of all good citizens; they were the cases of people who had come to that position through no fault of their own, and nothing could be more cruel than to treat them in the manner described. Then, again, there was the case of aged people—men and women who had brought up large families respectably, and given them such a start in the world as their means would allow, who had exhausted life and labour, and were left in their old ago without the means of maintenance. Such cases as those, he contended, should not be treated in the criminal manner in which they were unfortunately too often treated by Boards of Guardians. He entered his strong protest against the object aimed at, and however desirous the right hon. Gentleman might be to meet the objections which had been used against that clause, he was bound to say that his Amendment would not have that effect; it would not remove in the slightest degree their strong and determined opposition to the clause in its present form. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would listen to hon. Members on that point, and that he would agree to some efficient alteration in the clause in favour of the people whose views were the least heard, and whose interests were the least represented in that House. The right hon. Gentleman had not accepted many Amendments, and certainly very few which would tend to relieve the very poorest of their fellow-countrymen from the stigma of the workhouse. He implored him to consider the appeal now made not only from those Benches, but from hon. Members in all parts of the Committee, and to make it clear that there should be no premium or advantage whatever to Boards of Guardians for driving people away from their humble homes into the vortex of pauperism and the misery which followed upon admission to the workhouse.

SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGE (Kensington, N.)

said, he thought it must be quite obvious to the Committee that the speeches to which they had listened had been largely founded upon the state of the case as it existed before the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill put down the Amendment, which at that moment it was not competent for the Committee to discuss. If the state of things were such as had been described by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Broadhurst) and those behind him, he would have been the very last to support that proposal of the Government. If there were any truth in the belief that the proposals of the Government did tend to encourage indoor pauperism to a large extent, or that they would in any way drive the deserving poor into the workhouses of the country, he would not have supported the Government proposal, nor would he have supported it from whomsoever it might have come. But he thought that the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to bring forward entirely did away with the idea that indoor pauperism would be encouraged. Therefore, he hoped the Committee would not support the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) and would reserve its decision on this matter for the time when the Amendment proposed by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Ritchie) could be discussed.

MR. COBB (Warwick, S.E., Rugby)

said, he had no idea that the Amendment before the Committee would come forward that evening. Hon. Gentlemen had been asked by those on the opposite Benches to discuss this question on an Amendment which would come forward at a future time; but it seemed to him that the Amendment in question did not raise any new point at all, and that it would, therefore, be better to take the discussion on the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth). The question was whether indoor pauperism was likely to be increased by the division of certain sums of money among the various Unions in proportion to the number of indoor paupers whom they relieved. It had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman opposite that there was no inducement whatever to the administrators of the Poor Law to increase the number of indoor paupers in order to get a high grant. Let them ask themselves, however, who were the people upon whom it depended to decide what the proportion of indoor paupers should be? The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, unwillingly he was quite sure, had refused to deal with the powers of Boards of Guardians in the Bill, but they knew very well that the Boards of Guardians had not the confidence of the poor in the country; the Boards were composed especially of men who, of all things, desired to keep down the rates, and who, if they thought they could reduce the rates by one penny by putting the men in the workhouse, rather than grant outdoor relief, would, in his (Mr. Cobb's) opinion, do it. With regard to the administration of the Poor Law, he was of the opinion, shared by a great number of the poor people of the country, that it would be better to do away with workhouses altogether and have nothing but outdoor relief. The evils of the old system, than which nothing could be worse, were well known. But did these evils entirely arise from what he might call the system itself, or from the way in which the Poor Law was administered? In his opinion they arose from the fact that the law was in the hands of those who did not administer it properly. The Committee had been told that the right hon. Gentleman opposite was in favour of trusting the people. He was glad to hear that; but, for his own part, he would trust them in a manner different from that which the right hon. Gentleman proposed. If the right hon. Gentleman would trust the people to the extent of handing over the Poor Law administration to smaller communities, he was confident that there would be established in every village and parish in England and Wales, vigilance committees, and that it would be to the interest of every man upon those committees to do his duty in keeping down the rates. There could be no question that the men who would be elected upon those committees would be acquainted with the circumstances of all persons in the community, and they would take care that no fraud should be committed upon the public purse by undue administration of outdoor relief. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to remove the objections made to the mode of dividing the Probate Duties, and he would conclude the few observations which he thought it his duty to make on the subject, by expressing his belief that they were gradually approaching the time when there would be no workhouses and when outdoor relief alone would be given.

MR. GRAY (Essex, Maldon)

said, he had admitted that he should decidedly object to any legislation which would have the effect of inducing Boards of Guardians to drive worthy and poor people into the Union; and he agreed with all which had fallen from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite on that subject, although he thought that their objections had been stated in rather exaggerated terms. There was, no doubt, a good deal in the argument that it was cruel to drive people who had become poor through no fault of their own, and who were, through hardship and old age, unable to support themselves, into the workhouse. Loyal supporter of the Government as he was, he would not vote with them either on that Bill or on any other, if he thought that his doing so would have such a consequence. But although the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Cobb) began by saying that to vote for the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment would have the effect of driving these poor persons into the workhouse, he thought he had entirely failed to show that that would be the case. As he understood the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman, the test would not be as to how many indoor paupers there would be in future, it would be a retrospective test dating from the 25th of March previous to the passing of the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] That was how he read the Amendment, and he was glad hon. Gentlemen opposite assented. Then, if that were so, it was surely unfair to resist an Amendment which would take away all the force of the arguments that had been urged against the clause. For those reasons he hoped that hon. Gentlemen opposite would not weaken the effect of the thoroughly good principle which the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment embodied.

MR. WINTERBOTHAM (Gloucester, Cirencester)

said, the hon. Member (Mr. Gray) had just stated, and not for the first time, his sympathy with the agricultural poor, and he (Mr. Winterbotham) was glad to hear Members on those Benches say that if the Government measure would drive the deserving poor into the workhouses, it would receive no support from them. He wished to point out that although the distribution of Probate was to be based by the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) on the indoor pauperism of the last five years, yet it would go on gradually increasing or decreasing according as the indoor pauperism of the next five years increased or decreased in a particular Union. Having lived all his life in the country, knowing the working of the indoor pauper system and the way in which some Guardians applied the workhouse test, and knowing also the terrible straits to which the poor of the country would submit rather than be forced into the workhouse, he trembled to think what the operation of the proposal would be in the case of certain Boards of Guardians, in view of what was in effect a tremendous bribe offered to those who were anxious to keep down rates. In the case of a village with 12 old men and 12 old women receiving half-a-crown each for outdoor relief, there would be a saving to the Guardians of £74, as between giving relief out of the workhouse and in it. The outdoor allowance saved would be £156—the 4d. per day received would be 24 times £6 1s. 8d.—altogether £302, while the cost for indoor maintenance of the 24 old people would be £228, a distinct saving on one village of £74. The point, however, which he wished to impress on the Committee was that these old people, when out of the workhouse, were surrounded by their own friends, and had the assistance of the charitable people of the parish; whereas, and the Government proposal, they would be taken away from those surroundings and conditions, in the midst of which, as was well known, they lived to a good old age. They would be placed in the workhouse, where they would be subject to conditions which must necessarily cast a shadow over their existence, and produce a marked effect upon the duration of their lives. He, for one, hoped that the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) would be defeated, unless the Government would furnish them with some fresh standard of allowance other than to indoor pauperism. The system of forcing aged people into the workhouses to accept indoor relief was an abominable one. The Government said that according to the indoor pauperism of a district, such and such an allowance was to be given. Why did they make the allowance payable on the number of indoor paupers; why did they take no account of that large number of deserving people who had paid rates all their lives, and who had had no chance of laying by any by any money out of their miserable earnings? Why did they adopt a system which must drive those poor people into the workhouse, and tell the Guardians that unless they administered indoor relief alone, they should be excluded from the benefit of receiving a contribution from the Imperial funds? He hoped hon. Gentlemen on all sides would understand that there was no question which more keenly touched the agricultural population of the country than this, and he wished it to be understood that Members on those Benches would resist every Amendment put forward on the part of the Government, until they got rid of this terrible temptation offered to selfish Boards of Guardians.

THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. LONG) (Wilts, Devizes)

said, he thought the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Winterbotham) had been addressing himself rather to the Amendment on the Paper than that which occupied the attention of the Committee. If the Government thought that their proposal would really have the effect of driving into the workhouses those poor people to whom the hon. Gentleman had so touchingly alluded, they would never have made that proposal. The Amendment of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth), and the speeches addressed to the Committee in support of it, were not, in his opinion, on all fours. The Amendment of the right hon. Baronet opposed the proposal of the Government, and offered an alternative; but the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite had been mainly directed against Boards of Guardians, and it was alleged that an inducement was held out to them to drive the deserving poor into the workhouse. He (Mr. Long) must make his protest againat a remark of the hon. Member for the Rugby Division of Warwickshire (Mr. Cobb), who stated from his experience of Boards of Guardians, that if they found they could put 1d. in their pockets, even at the risk of driving deserving people into the workhouses they would do so.

MR. COBB

said, he had stated that the Boards of Guardians came from a class of society who were interested in reducing the rates.

MR. LONG

said, he did not perceive any difference between the explanation of the hon. Member, and what he had stated. The hon. Gentleman not having sat on a Board of Guardians, it could not be considered that his experience had been very great. He (Mr. Long) had no hesitation in saying that whatever might be the reasons which guided Boards of Guardians in the execution of their duties, they were not those mentioned by the hon. Member. He thought it had been generally admitted that the administration of the Poor Law by the Boards of Guardians in recent years had shown that they had endeavoured to realize what a wise application of the Poor Law really meant, and that while having endeavoured to be just to the deserving poor, they had realized that they were not to administer the rates as if they were charitable funds to meet the wants of the poor, but as money that came out of the pockets of the people. He asked whether the deserving poor who occupied a position just above the line of pauperism did not feel the cost of outdoor relief? It seemed to him remarkable that hon. Gentlemen opposite had addressed themselves to the question as if the proposal of the Government was enunciated for the first time. The proposal was not a new one; it had been recommended by many of the highest authorities, including Royal Commissions and Poor Law Reformers who had devoted themselves to reviewing the Poor Law system. He wanted to call the attention of the hon. Member for the Cirencester Division of Gloucestershire (Mr. Winterbotham) who spoke last, and who had indulged in a somewhat inaccurate calculation in respect of 12 old persons driven into the workhouse, to the fact that one of the first results of making a contribution from the Probate Duty to the relief of the indoor poor would be that the Local Government Board would take steps to see that the workhouses of the country were carefully inspected, allocating to the workhouses the number of indoor poor that could be properly maintained in them, and seeing generally that the provision for the inmates was satisfactory in every sense. Such a course would at once reduce the power of workhouses to receive any considerable additional number of indoor poor; and, surely, hon. Gentlemen opposite would not pretend that Guardians would resort to the heavy expense of adding to their workhouse accommodation in order to be able to take an additional number of indoor paupers. It seemed to him ludicrous to conceive anything of the kind. The Government, in making that proposal, had followed the recommendations repeatedly made, that indoor pauper maintenance should receive relief from Imperial sources. They had made that proposal because they were confident that, so far from its result being what was anticipated by hon. Gentlemen opposite, it would lead to a better test of the accommodation in workhouses, and that while it relieved the ratepayer it would inflict no hardship on the deserving poor. For those reasons the Government would adhere to the proposal they had made.

MR. A. W. HALL (Oxford)

said, he regretted to have heard the speech which had just been delivered. It appeared to him that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Long) had abandoned the only valid ground on which the proposal could be defended. If he understood the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) rightly, it came to this—that Her Majesty's Government had not taken the number of the indoor poor in a district as a test of the needs of that district, in obedience to the recommendations of certain authorities, who told them that that should be made the test in the interest of keeping down pauperism. Now, that was exactly the fault he found with the Bill; and the Government must not be surprised if, on this matter, they were judged upon the lines of the Bill as it was introduced. He was anxious to avoid doing the smallest injustice in this matter. He accepted the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman as far as it went, but it did not go far enough, and the old principle remained exactly as it was before. The complaint was that the Boards of Guardians would be driven to the adoption of a certain line of policy, and that policy was one which he and those who agreed with him would oppose with all their ability. The hon. Gentleman had talked about that being looked upon as a matter of Party politics, but it was in no sense a Party question. There were Members on that side of the House, as well as on the other, who were opposed to the system of indoor relief. He was perfectly confident that the Go- vernment could do nothing more suicidal than to proceed with the matter. The grant would be regarded and would be used as a premium and a bribe for bringing people into the workhouse. It was not a local tax to be gathered by the localities; it was a contribution from Imperial resources for a certain definite object, and, therefore, they asked that the test applied should not be the number of indoor poor. The feeling of the Committee had been very strongly shown to be against the proposal; so strong, indeed, that the right hon. Gentleman had brought in an Amendment, which, unfortunately however, did not commend itself to the majority of those who took exception to the original proposal of the Bill, whose views, he thought, might be very easily met by bringing up some other Amendment on Report. Nothing would convince them that, if the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman were carried, outdoor relief would not be discouraged, and that was exactly the opposite to what they wanted. The question was, whether the poor man who had done his life's work and paid rates as long as he was able, should be told when be came before the Board of Guardians for that relief to which he was entitled, that his home must be broken up and that he must come into the workhouse. It was there that the proposal of the Government came in, to tell the Guardians that if they brought this man into the workhouse they would get this grant. The Secretary to the Local Government Board (Mr. Long) had been very strong in his recommendations of those doctrinaires in whom he (Mr. Hall) and his hon. Friends did not believe. [Mr. LONG: I spoke of the Royal Commission.] He was certain that the hon. Gentleman also spoke of other authorities, and they knew perfectly well who those men were who assumed to themselves the title of authorities. They were doctrinaires pure and simple, who knew nothing whatever about the poor, who had never faced poverty themselves, and who imagined they could stamp it out. Those were the authorities of the hon. Gentleman, and he did not believe in them. The authority in this matter was the House of Commons and the Act passed in 1834. So great was the fear that the Boards of Guardians would carry out the law harshly that they gave a right of appeal to the poor man against the decision of the Guardians requiring him to go into the workhouse. Parliament had made up its mind that the man should have a choice, and he (Mr. Hall) was anxious that the wishes of Parliament should not be upset by the present Bill. There was no subject connected with politics that the working classes, particularly those in the agricultural districts, understood so thoroughly or cared about so keenly as the administration of the Poor Law, and he believed that if they had their way they would burn every workhouse in the country. Workhouses did not exist in Scotland to anything like the extent they did in England, where they were used as hotels for tramps and Bastilles for honest men. The Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Long) had accused the hon. Member for the Rugby Division of Warwickshire (Mr. Cobb) of not having sat as a Guardian; but he (Mr. Hall) had done so for many years. He had seen a poor woman who had done a long life's work and brought up a large family come before his Board, one of the hardest, and ask for outdoor relief which was refused, although, in his judgment, she was entitled to it. She, in her turn, refused indoor relief; and then he had seen two women of bad character come before them and accept it. It was a shame that decent persons should be compelled to herd with people of that sort. The hon. Gentleman spoke in praise of the Boards of Guardians; but did he know what was the policy of the London Boards? Did he know that in St. George's-in-the-East and Whitechapel outdoor relief, as he (Mr. Hall) was informed, was never given in any case? He saw the President of the Local Government Board taking a note of that; he hoped it was not true, and should be only too glad if the right hon. Gentleman could contradict his statement. He did not think that these things were known or understood by Parliament as they ought to be, and he was certain that that was not the last that they would hear on the subject. The subject would have to be brought before the House in a proper business-like way, and it would have to be clearly fought out whether the respectable poor were to be brought into the workhouse in obedience to the learned notions of doctrinaires. He earnestly appealed to Her Majesty's Government for help in the matter, which, if they would, they could afford. It was no pleasure to Members on those Benches to say a single word against the proposal of the Government, far less so to go into the Lobby with the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, who had met his political opponents with so much candour and firmness, and was conducting the measure with such ability and courtesy. He would almost go into the workhouse himself to please the right hon. Gentleman; but there was one thing he could not do, and that was to give a vote which would directly or indirectly have the effect of sending a fellow-creature into that abominable place.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE) (Tower Hamlets, St. George's)

I do not complain of the speech of my hon. Friend. Many of us know that he has for some time past felt strongly on this question, and although I do not agree with him I entirely respect his feelings and understand the position which he has taken up and the warmth he has displayed in connection with the proposal before the Committee. But my hon. Friend has made one or two observations which I cannot allow to pass without some comment. He has spoken of many gentlemen who have written much that is regarded as a correct and sound exposition of the Poor Law, and who have, during many years of their lives, been endeavouring to do good to the poor, as being doctrinaires, who should be condemned for the views which they hold on this particular question. I do not know whether my hon. Friend includes under that term Gentlemen so well known and for so many years in this House as Mr. Pell, or as the hon. Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone), who, as everyone who has inquired into the subject knows, has devoted a large number of years of his life and a large amount of his funds in endeavouring to prevent the poor from going into the workhouse. I do not know whether he includes Mr. Crowther, who, for a long period, has devoted a great part of his time and attention to the administration of Poor Law relief in the East of London, and has given enormous contributions from his means towards those charitable objects and to all undertakings which have the object of relieving the poor. All those gentlemen have written and spoken on this question in the direction of the observations of my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Local Government Board (Mr. Long). I entirely, on their part, repudiate any such word as doctrinaire, if by the word the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. A. W. Hall) means to indicate gentlemen who, from hard and fast lines, have taken up a certain line of policy altogether apart from the humane course he advocates. I mean to say that these gentlemen, whom he speaks of as doctrinaires, have been amongst the most humane men of their time, and that there have been none who have done more for the poor than they have. The hon. Member speaks of St. George's-in-the-East and Whitechapel, and says that practically there is no outdoor relief in those districts. That is true, and I venture to say at the same time that there are no Boards of Guardians in the country more humane than those of St. George's-in-the-East and Whitechapel. The hon. Gentleman knows, perhaps, that one of the most prominent members of the Whitechapel Board is Mr. Barnett, a gentleman who for years past has spent his life in the East End of London in the very midst of the poor. On behalf of these gentlemen I utterly repudiate the charge of inhumanity brought against them.

MR. A. W. HALL

I really made no charge of inhumanity against them. I said that the authorities quoted against us were really doctrinaires, and that they carried out their doctrines in the two parishes of St. George's-in-the-East and Whitechapel to such a degree as to abolish outdoor relief altogether.

MR. RITCHIE

Yes; that is to say, this doctrine, as laid down to the Committee by the hon. Gentleman, is inhuman, and if that be so these gentlemen, Mr. Barnett, Mr. Crowther, Mr. Pell, and others who form the Boards of Guardians of these places, are carrying out an inhuman policy. ["No, no!"] Well, I will withdraw the phrase if my hon. Friend only means that they are mistaken. At any rate, if he does not charge them with being inhuman, he charges their policy with being a policy of inhumanity. Now, I venture to say that there is no workhouse in the Kingdom where the poor are better cared for than in those of St. George's-in-the-East and Whitechapel; and I venture to say this also, that there is no really deserving case that comes up in those districts for relief which does not get relief. They are not nearly all of them relieved in the workhouse; but what is the doctrine practised by these Boards of Guardians? What do they say? They say this, "There is such a thing as relief from the rates, and such a thing as relief from private charity;" and they say also, "There are many cases that come to us as Boards of Guardians that should be relieved more properly from charitable sources;" and I am informed that they have funds and other charitable arrangements in these parishes by which private relief is given, so that no poor person is ever turned away through there being no funds from which to relieve him. The hon. Gentleman speaks about the Boards of Guardians of St. George's-in-the-East and Whitechapel. Does he know the kind of population that inhabits those parishes? Does he know that the immense masses who live there are better off than the people in the workhouses themselves? Does he know that a lax administration of the Poor Law would drag down into pauperism hundreds and thousands of those who now, by dint of the greatest exertion, manage to maintain themselves, and pride themselves on being able to maintain themselves, without any resource to the rates; and I say emphatically, that—although I would repudiate with scorn and indignation any charge that I am insensible to the miseries of the poor—a lax administration of the Poor Law would have a tenfold worse effect than any effects of the policy which has been, however rightly administered, criticized as inhuman. I am bound to say that I am somewhat struck by many arguments which have been used with reference to this particular Amendment, and also with reference to other Amendments, in the course of this discussion to-night. I am amazed at the attitude which has been taken up by hon. Gentlemen opposite with reference to the County Councils and Boards of Guardians. I am amazed that they should think, on the one hand, that the County Councils will, for the sake of pounds, shillings, and pence, which they will receive in the shape of Licence Duty, endeavour to fasten on the ratepayers of any locality the demoralization which they seem to think is brought about by the liquor traffic—that for the sake of a few more licences, or a few more pounds, shillings, and pence, from the Licence Duties, they are prepared to sacrifice the good of their locality, and, on the other hand, that hon. Gentlemen opposite have so little confidence in the Boards of Guardians as to suppose they will forsake the duty that lies on them of doing their best for the poor under their charge, and that they will endeavour, for the sake of the money they will get under this grant, to force people into the workhouses who ought not to go, and who otherwise would not go there. I do not believe for a moment that there is any justification for supposing that Boards of Guardians would act in that way. Even if there is any ground for it, I say that there is no inducement in the proposal we make for them to do it. We have placed an Amendment on the Paper which I know is accepted by a large number of Gentlemen who were afraid of the proposal originally contained in the Bill as a satifactory solution of the question. And what is that solution? It is this: That the grant is to be given, not for indoor paupers who are taken into the workhouse after the passing of this Bill, but it is to be given for those indoor paupers who have been in the workhouse during the year previous to the passing of the Act. I understand that, so far as that proposal is concerned, if it stood alone, hon. Gentlemen would see in it a solution of the difficulty which would have the result they anticipate. I understood, from the observation of an hon. Gentleman opposite, that it was the five years he objected to, and not the past period with which we deal in the Amendment. With regard to the allotment of the grant to be made in the succeeding five years, it cannot be contended by anyone, I imagine, that there is in that any inducement to force people into the workhouse, because the Boards of Guardians are going to got a payment for every indoor pauper who is in the workhouse at the time of the passing of the Bill. Then, as to the revision at the end of the first five years. What we say in the Amendment on the Paper is this, that if a representation be made to the Local Government Board by any County Council which leads them to believe that the existing dis- tribution is manifestly unfair in consequence of a change in the number of indoor poor, that the Board may, if so convinced, fix a new basis for the succeeding five years, to be based upon an average of the number of indoor poor in the previous five years.

An Hon. MEMBER

They shall do this?

MR. RITCHIE

Yes; if they are convinced that it is equitable to do so. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford seems to think that we should be forcing people into the workhouse who ought not properly to go there. That I entirely deny. What is the inducement which the hon. Gentleman says would be held out to Guardians to force people into the workhouses who ought not to go there? The Guardians are to commence immediately the Bill is passed, and are to argue with themselves thus: If we force these people into the work-house, instead of giving them outdoor relief, at the end of five years we shall get a higher amount according to average than we otherwise should receive, and we must keep them in during the five years. Can anyone imagine for a moment that because of some possible advantage to be derived five years hence these Guardians are going to force people into the workhouses immediately after the passing of this Bill? I say that such a thing is too preposterous for belief. I do not think a milder word than preposterous would be strong enough to show the character of such an argument. It is too preposterous to think that Guardians would ever be guided by such an inducement. There is another way of looking at it. Do hon. Gentlemen suppose that if the Guardians received this 4d. per day per head for indoor poor, they will make as much profit out of indoor poor as they would if they had been relieved outside the workhouse? In the first place the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Local Government Board (Mr. Long) has pointed out that one of the effects of the supervision of the Local Government Board would be that the number which the workhouse would be certified for would be in many instances a great deal less than the Guardians would feel justified in placing in the workhouse, and the arrangements which would have to be made under the supervisions of the Local Government Board would add enormously to the comfort of the inmates. Well, that being so, it is evident that, at any rate, the workhouse would have only a limited capacity for receiving indoor poor. It is quite certain that under no circumstances whatever would it pay Boards of Guardians to erect workhouses for the purpose of putting in paupers for whom they would receive 4d. per day. But I maintain also that it would not even pay them to put those paupers into the workhouse even if they had room. What is it the Guardians are going to receive? Four-pence per day, or 2s. 4d. per week. I find from statistics in the possession of the Local Government Board—I do not say they are absolutely correct, but we have done our best to obtain accurate information—and, I believe, that the average cost of an indoor pauper is between 5½d. and 6d. per day. Supposing it were 6d. a-day, that would be 3s. 6d. a-week as against 2s. 4d., which the Guardians would receive. That would mean, that the Guardians would be out of pocket on the cost of maintenance 1s. 2d. per head per week. Now, I am told—and I state this subject to such correction as may be advanced by hon. Gentlemen who may have better experience, and it is rather a difficult figure to arrive at—that it is not at all uncommon, in giving outdoor relief, to limit it to 1s. a-week.

MR. WINTERBOTHAM

What? to the head of a family?

MR. RITCHIE

A shilling a-week per head. Then, putting aside the question of humanity, and supposing that the Guardians were absolutely brutal, the question arises how would it pay them to do this? I say that even from that point of view it would not pay them, and if they had to build, it is quite evident that the loss they would suffer would be very great.

MR. HALLEY STEWART (Lincolnshire, Spalding)

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that 1s. a-head is the average?

MR. RITCHIE

I am told that that is about the sum per head.

MR. WINTERBOTHAM

I should like the Committee to understand what the right hon. Gentleman really does mean. Does he mean that 1s. per head per week for the aged worn out poor is anything like the average? In my neighbourhood 2s. 6d. is the average, either in money alone, or in money and bread.

MR. RITCHIE

All I can say is that the average the hon. Member speaks of is uncommonly high.

MR. HENRY H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)

I may point out that the Report of the Local Government Board, on the average cost of outdoor paupers, gives it at over £4 per head per annum.

MR. RITCHIE

That is about 1s. 6d. per week. Even taking it at that it is quite clear that if there was any profit at all made it would only be 1d. or 2d per head, and we are asked to believe that for that sum the Guardians would be so brutal in their administration of the Poor Law as to force into the workhouse poor people who ought to be kept out. I utterly repudiate any such charge against the Boards of Guardians of this country. I am not here to defend everything the Boards of Guardians have done, but I say that for years past the way the Guardians have administered the Poor Law has been to their honour and credit. To go away from that point, I would refer for a moment to the alternative which has been suggested by the right hon. Baronet (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) as to population. The right hon. Baronet says that according to our proposals the towns will gain largely. Well, but I think the towns ought to gain largely, and I will tell the House why. It is because there is a large influx of extremely poor people into the towns which have to be provided for by the ratepayers of the towns, and I do not believe that Members for agricultural parts of the country will at all grudge the towns having a greater share of this Probate Duty on account of the fact I have referred to—namely, that the towns have to take charge of large numbers of the poor from the agricultural districts. I do not think that hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House, or hon. Gentlemen representing counties on the other side, will for a moment believe that the towns derive an unfair advantage over the rural districts. But this is a matter which will be regulated according to the needs of the localities. There can be no question that a locality which has to maintain a large number of poor is in need of a considerable amount of this grant. Very often it so happens that those communities who have to maintain the largest number of poor are the poorest communities, and the least able to maintain them. Therefore, I say, that though many of the large towns of the country have large numbers of poor people, and though they will receive more than the rural parts of the country, they will not receive more than they will actually need. But what would be the case in reference to the proposal of the right hon. Baronet? Does he maintain that if this grant were to be distributed according to the population that it would not inflict the grossest injustice upon large communities who have great burdens cast upon them in connection with the administration of the Poor Law? Does the right hon. Baronet know what would be the effect of division according to the population in the Metropolis? I do not know whether he has looked into the question of the Metropolis, and I would ask bon. Gentlemen who have an interest in London to consider for a moment what the result would be in London, if the basis of the right hon. Gentleman were taken. If this grant were distributed according to pauperism, the Metropolis would obtain £536,000. Now, even with that the relief to the ratepayers of the Metropolis under the proposals of this Bill—exclusive of the Horse and Wheel Tax, of which we cannot form an accurate estimate—would be 2½d. in the pound, whereas the average relief to the average ratepayers throughout the country would be 3½d. in the pound, so that the Metropolis would lose, on the whole, 1d. in the pound. But if the Amendment of the right hon. Baronet were accepted, what would be the condition of things? The Metropolis would get £265,000 from the Probate Duty instead of £536,000, and the amount the Metropolis would gain from all sources through the provisions of this Bill under that arrangement would be £68,000, or equal to ½d. in the pound; so that while the whole country generally was receiving benefit to the extent of from 3½d. to 4d. in the pound, the Metropolis would receive relief to the extent of ½d. I think that alone is sufficient to show the objections to this proposal. Sir, we believe that the basis which we have fixed in this Bill is a basis which is a right and just one. It is a basis which the Government of this country have frequently been invited to adopt by great authorities. The Duke of Richmond's Commission, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) knows, recommended that the maintenance, or a share of the maintenance, of indoor pauperism should come from the Consolidated Fund or from some other source which would secure a proper contribution from personal property. But, further than that, I maintain that the right hon. Gentleman himself asserted the same principle in the recommendation he made on the Commission. It is quite true that he did not agree with the recommendations of the Commissioners—that he did not adopt the exact words of the Report signed by the great majority of the Commissioners. He said that the cost of the maintenance of indoor paupers, instead of being paid out of a Union rate on real property alone, should come from the Consolidated Fund or some tax equitably adjusted on means and substance—in other words, should be put upon counties or areas wider than the existing Unions. Well, that is the proposal of the Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax says he approves of the proposal. My point is that the right hon. Gentleman recommended that the cost of the maintenance of indoor poor should come from other sources than the mere rates; and if that is not the right reading of his statement, I fail to see what meaning it can have. I have endeavoured to explain to the Committee why it is that we have adopted the proposal we have recommended to the Committee. We believe that it is the fairest mode of distributing this fund which could by any possibility be fixed upon. We do not believe for a moment that it is open to the objections which have been raised. We do not believe that the effect would have been, even if the Bill had remained as it was drawn, what some of our friends feared; but with the Amendment we have placed upon the Paper, all abuse such as they dreaded will be impossible. It is with the utmost confidence that our proposal will operate for the good of the community, and of the poor themselves, and certainly for the good of the ratepayers, that we recommend it to the acceptance of the Committee.

MR. STANSFELD (Halifax)

I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Ritchie) appreciates either the character or the gravity of the questions end the situation with which he is dealing. The right hon. Gentleman has delivered an extremely animated speech against the accusations or attacks which were made, or which he imagined were made, against the Government scheme; but there was one thing which he failed to do, in my opinion, and that was to give a reason for having adopted that scheme and for having thought of no other method of solving the difficulty. The right hon. Gentleman has compared his scheme to the proposal of my right hon. Friend (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) for a distribution according to population. But the Government wore not bound to accept one or other of these alternatives, and it is unnecessary to discuss them. What they are bound to do in coming before us as the Government of the country and proposing a scheme of this kind is, to justify their own scheme and show a reason for it. The right hon. Gentleman has not done that. With great labour and difficulty I tried to discover a reason in the course of his speech, and I think that at last I arrived at it, and it was a reason entirely outside the object and principle of this measure—which is a measure intended to be, so far as its finances are concerned, in relief of local rates which are levied on one class of property alone. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to a Supplementary Memorandum of mine to the Report of the Royal Agricultural Commission, and he cites that as if it were evidence that I, at that time, was in favour of some such measure as this, as if I were in favour at the time of indoor relief as opposed to outdoor relief being paid for out of some larger fund—being drawn from some wider area than the area by which it was then paid. Well, what were the words I wrote? They were these— I approve of the suggestion that the cost of maintenance should be placed on the rates or local taxes equitably adjusted according to means and substance. Therefore, what I approved of was this, that the cost of the Poor Law administration so far as in maintenance was concerned—because that was the only subject discussed in the Report of the majority of the Commission—should be paid for out of the local rates or local taxes equitably adjusted according to the means and substance. That is the object of this Bill, and if this Bill properly ful- filled its object it would be consistent with my view. In accordance with that view I should be in favour of the in-maintenance of the poor being paid for out of the funds at the disposal of the County Authorities, and not out of the funds drawn from Imperial taxation and levied specifically for the purpose of contribution to that particular expenditure. I objected to that, because I said to defray that expenditure out of the Consolidated Fund, which is what the right hon. Gentleman is practically doing, would lead to an increase of centralization and also to an increase of extravagance. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to say that I am bound by what I then said to approve of this proposal. The right hon. Gentleman is bound to show a definite and sufficient reason, and that he has not done; but he has made certain statements which make it evident to the House that the reason he and his Friends have had in their minds is not a reason based on the idea of relief to the rates of the country, but it is a reason founded on Poor Law administrative grounds. Now, that is extremely plain; it is plain by virtue of the statement the right hon. Gentleman made in defence of his proposal and in the refutation of the idea that this grant would lead to any excessive abuse of the workhouse test on the part of the Guardians of the country. But it is still plainer in the Amendment, which he thinks should recommend itself to the Committee. What we find in the Amendment is this— If at the end of the first quinquennial period next after the appointed day, or of any subsequent quinquennial period, the council of any county satisfy the Local Government Board that the proportion of the average number of indoor paupers of the several counties has so materially altered as to render the distribution of the probate duty grant inequitable. What is to show that the distribution will be inequitable? Why this— The Board shall revise the distribution so as to make the same in proportion to the average number of indoor paupers of the several counties during the quinquennial period so expired, and that the proportion shall be adopted for the distribution during the quinquennial period in which the proportion is so revised, and thereafter until a further revision is made in accordance with this section. Therefore, I say, it is perfectly evident and confessed in this Amendment that the object of the whole clause is this— to distribute the Probate Duty in exact proportions, so far as may be, to the amount of indoor maintenance. There is the strongest contrast and the clearest distinction drawn in this measure between indoor maintenance and outdoor maintenance, and therefore I say, whether the right hon. Gentleman be right or wrong from a Poor Law point of view, he is clearly imparting Poor Law notions and reform into a measure which professes to be constructed on entirely different lines. I am familiar with the administration, or, at any rate, with the supervision of the administration of the Poor Law. I am in favour of a stricter administration of the Poor Law. I do not agree with the hon. Member for the Rugby Division of Warwick (Mr. Cobb) on this point. I know there is nothing so dangerous or so likely to pauperize a community as the lax administration of the Poor Law; but I am not a slave to our English method of strict administration. The workhouse test is a rough and rude test; it is a confession of incompetence, although there is no country which has shown itself able to devise a better. You want a rough and rude workhouse test because of the imperfect system of our organization. The true thing would be to have no such coarse test, but to investigate every case so carefully that you might depend upon your investigation, and treat every case on its own merits. That is the system at Elberfeldt, and if you want a perfect system that is it, provided you can construct an organization capable of carrying it out. I know the difficulty, however, of constructing any such system, and therefore I admit the necessity for the workhouse test. I have said that that is a rude and rough test, and I go further and say that it is a test which we must apply with delicacy and precaution if we desire to continue it; and in the interests of its continuance, I say, beware of the proposals that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board has made. Why, it is impossible—particularly in these days of a cheap Press and public meetings and a democratic suffrage—to hope to continue an intelligent and strict administration of Poor Law by virtue of the workhouse test unless you secure the confidence of the people of this country; and I will tell the Government and the House to-night that they are at this moment risking the confidence of the people with regard to the Poor Law administration. The right hon. Gentleman has not calculated, so far as I can see, all the elements of the question. What did he do when he framed the Bill? He practically told the people that they could not be trusted to elect the Poor Law Guardians who are to administer the Poor Law. That is what the Government have practically done, and it has been said to-night—and I altogether confirm it—that the consequence of what the Government has done has been to excite in the minds of many people in the country a feeling against workhouse administration greater than that which existed before. I say that is an element of danger which the Government and the right hon. Gentleman opposite are bound to take into consideration. Having taken this step and produced this effect the Government have chosen this moment, and in the face of this Bill, to set forth in such characters that those who run may read this statement—"We will give an additional inducement to the Guardians, who will be elected by a restricted suffrage and without the ballot, to employ the workhouse test in the interests of what we call the reform of Poor Law administration." Whether that is right or wrong, I ask is it wise? Is it not foolish? Is it wise to endanger a strict and independent administration of the Poor Law—for I am sure that those feelings now exist in the country. If this Bill passes, those feelings will be excited and enhanced; and I ask is it possible, in the political conflicts that are likely to arise in the future, that everybody will resist the opportunity and temptation of making use of an argument of that kind against the Government that makes a proposal of this description? It is absolutely impossible to avoid that conclusion. I hold that the Government are unwise; and I adjure and entreat them to reconsider this matter, and not to tell us that they can conceive or construct no other method of distributing the Probate Duty than one which is open to such serious objections.

MR. RATHBONE (Carnarvonshire, Arfon)

said, it was a bold step on his part to attempt to answer the powerful speech they had just heard, and he was perfectly aware of all the dangers that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stans- feld) had pointed out; but, on the other hand, he would wish the Committee to give him its attention for a few moments while he pointed out the very grave danger that arose on the other side, and whilst he asked them to consider whether the dangers the right hon. Gentleman had pointed out could not be met. The right hon. Gentleman had begun by saying that he did not understand that a reason had been given for the proposal of the Government. Now, he (Mr. Rathbone) ventured to think that a reason could be given in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board for this proposal. They were going to give very large remissions of taxation to Local Authorities. Now, the experience they had had of these remissions in times past had been that they had done little or no good to the local ratepayer, because they had encouraged a laxity of local expenditure. That was a danger, and a powerful danger, and one which should be met by imposing strict obligations upon the Local Authorities. Now, what did the Government intend by this proposal?—and if they did not succeed in it, he would ask them to modify the proposal so that the object might be carried out. It was said that the Government, by what they proposed, intended to give a bribe to the Guardians to give indoor relief as compared with outdoor relief, because it was cheaper. Now, what the Government really aimed at in their proposal, or, at any rate, what they ought to aim at, was to put outdoor relief and indoor relief on such a footing that there could be no such consideration at all before the Guardians, but that they should consider each case on its own merits quite independent of the cost. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board gave some details as to the relative cost of indoor and outdoor relief. Well, from his (Mr. Rathbone's) personal experience on the subject, which was not inconsiderable, because he had studied it, so far as he could, with the greatest wish that the Poor Law relief of the country should be adequate, and at the same time should not degrade and strike at the very foundation of the respectability of the working classes of the country—his own experience was very much in accordance With the statement of the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that the cost of indoor relief on an average was about 3s. 6d. per head through the family, and that the cost of outdoor relief was about 1s. per head. But the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) said that was not correct, and that the average throughout the country showed that the cost was much more for outdoor relief. Well, if that was so, he (Mr. Rathbone) would urge the Government to diminish the rate that they proposed to give from, say, 4d. to 3d., but still so as to give, if anything, a pull to outdoor relief rather than to indoor relief, so that the Guardians might not be induced by any greater cheapness in indoor relief to give that the preference. There would not then be an inducement to the Guardians as there was now—and it was very largely acted on—to give outdoor relief when it was unwise to do it, in the idea that it was cheaper. He confessed his experience, and knowledge, and study of the action of Boards of Guardians was very different from that of some other Members. He thought the tendency generally was, when a poor man or woman came before the Board of Guardians, to give outdoor relief much more largely than formerly, and he could give some instances which he thought would prove this. But the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. A. W. Hall) had spoken of the authority, as he might call them, of doctrinaires, and the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had quoted authorities on the other side. Well, it would be, perhaps, admissible to quote the experience and action of one of the greatest benefactors of the poor in this country—namely, the late Sir Baldwyn Leighton—in the parish with which he was connected. Sir Baldwyn Leighton, when he first interested himself in the parish, found the granting of outdoor relief a habit with the Guardians. He induced his own parish, then his own Union, and afterwards the Union of Shrewsbury, which adjoined his own parish, to adopt the stricter system of the application of indoor relief, and what was the consequence? Why, the consequence was to reduce the pauperism in the surrounding districts from 8 to 2 per cent. and in his own parish to ½ per cent per annum. But this Gentleman had not done this alone. No one could ever deal with this question of outdoor relief or indoor relief alone. The leisured and wealthier classes of the community must learn to do their duty, for it was not possible to deal with poverty through the Poor Law alone. It must be dealt with, to some extent, by the action of those who had recourse to their own means, and then it would be dealt with effectively and well. What had Sir Baldwyn Leighton left when he died? Why, on his own estate, where the wages were nominally only 10s. a-week, in that rural parish he left about 60 labourers, every one of whom had from £60 to £100 in the Savings Bank. Now, take the action of Guardians in the East of London. There they did not content themselves with being merely restrictive in their Poor Law administration. They dealt with individual cases on a proper footing, and it was found that, instead of giving these poor men and women who had conducted themselves properly a dole of 2s. 6d. a-week, they gave them, through the Charity Organization Society, pensions which enabled them to live decently; and the Committee would find that in these very districts that were held up to condemnation the respectable poor were better cared for than they were in most of the Unions of the country. He (Mr. Rathbone) could speak from his own experience. He, in common with his fellow Guardians, had thought that they were doing a kindness to a number of poor women with families when they gave them outdoor relief for themselves and their children. It was clear to him that, whereas in Liverpool the demand for female labour was less than for male labour, in neighbouring towns it was just the opposite, and they adopted the principle of not giving outdoor relief lavishly to those families who were suitable for migration to the manufacturing districts. The result was that in less than two years, having sent an agent into the manufacturing districts to find out where there was room for these people and taking means to show the people where to go, they removed about 1,100 people who were in a state of pauperism, or on the verge of pauperism, and changing them from that condition into well-to-do and prosperous people. It was just in regard to these matters that the danger of too lax an administration came in. A too lax admi- nistration of outdoor relief kept people hanging on in districts where there was no demand for them, instead of going elsewhere to obtain work. His right hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) had alluded to Elberfeldt. Well, many years ago, his right hon. Friend had sent a Commission to Elberfeldt to make inquiries there, and the right hon. Gentleman the present President of the Local Government Board had also urged that investigation, and one of the ablest of the Poor Law Inspectors had gone over there accompanied by the London Secretary of the Charity Organization Society, in the hopes of finding at Elberfeldt a substitute for our workhouse system. In Elberfeldt the system in question had succeeded to a great extent, but it was from devotion to the work on the part of all classes of society, to an extent and with a persistency to which he was very much afraid he could not rely upon in this country; but, putting aside the Elberfeldt example, he had come to the conclusion that there could not be a much better test than the workhouse test for what he might call the criminal and dissolute and vagrant part of the population. But when they came to compare other parts of Germany where they had attempted to apply the same plan with Elberfeldt, though there was a great amount of civic virtue in those places—albeit less than there was in Elberfeldt—he was sorry to say that the growth of pauperism was enormous, and this in spite of the fact that the Poor Laws were strict, almost cruel, to an extent that would not be tolerated in this country. For want of the workhouse test, pauperism had increased in those places far beyond what it had increased in England. Now, what he wanted to point out was that the proposals of the Government were to this effect—to give very large relief to the local taxation of the country. He feared that if that were done in regard to the Poor Law without taking adequate precautions, the effect would be to encourage a lax distribution of outdoor relief. There was a tendency in that direction already. They were inclined to forget the lessons of 1834; but if they bore in mind the immense importance of preserving the independence of character and encouraging providence in our population, they should seek to put, as he believed this proposal would put, the relative position of indoor and outdoor relief on such a footing as would discourage that laxity which so rapidly encouraged pauperism and demoralization. It must be borne in mind, too, that what they were doing now was to relieve the ratepayer and to pay a considerable part of the cost of relieving pauperism out of funds derived from property. Therefore, while he hoped this proposal would be guarded so as to tend to encourage providence, it would leave in the ratepayers' pocket the money out of which that providence could be exercised. Any man who had worked at Local Government knew that while any increase of rates was watched and complained against, the rates to which people were accustomed excited very little attention or watchfulness; and the relief that they were now giving to the ratepayers would do no permanent good whatever—nothing but harm—unless it was carefully guarded by some such provision as the Government had proposed, and they would inevitably have greater laxity in the distribution of relief and the most fatal demoralization in the character of our people. It was for that reason that almost all Poor Law Reformers had been strongly in favour of the proposal which had been made by Government, and urging that if further relief should be given by local taxation it should be given in a way to encourage the more careful, rather than to stimulate the careless and extravagant. He might point out that the effect of a similar system in the East End of London had not only been to discourage idlers to rely on the rates, but had been also to encourage the action of the wealthier classes in providing adequate relief in its best form to the deserving poor. He wished that all hon. Members remembered, as he did, the introduction of the new Poor Law. At that time the state of the country was such that our working classes were paupers, and our working women were becoming prostitutes. The Government of the day—a Liberal Government, he was proud to remember—had the courage to bring in a Bill which caused such an outcry as few younger men had heard. It would have been possible for the Conservative Party of that day to have raised a great out cry, and turned out any Government, however powerful; but what did the Duke of Wellington do? He came forward and said that he had never known a more courageous act than the introduction of the new Poor Law by the Government of the day, and that he and his Party would support them through it. He hoped the Liberal Party of this day were not more degenerate than the Tory Party of that day, and that, whatever might be done in this matter, no attempt would be made to make Party capital out of it; the Committee would treat it solely in regard to maintaining the character and the prosperity of our working classes, and not degrading them with a degradation beyond conception, as they would if they sacrificed their interests to any Party motive.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN) (St. George's, Hanover Square)

I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), as to the Elberfeldt arrangement, and for this reason—that the Government do not admit that the question at issue at present is one between outdoor and indoor relief. It is a very interesting question whether outdoor relief should be discouraged and indoor relief should be encouraged, no doubt; but what I desire to do is to assure hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite that the Government have no administrative views in the statement they have made. It is a fiscal view that they have taken, and on that I should like to say a word. I think that a very interesting topic has been suggested on both sides, and I should have been glad to discuss whether outdoor relief has not the effect of keeping down wages at the expense of the general ratepayers; and I should also have suggested whether the inadequacy of outdoor relief has not the most demoralizing tendency, and is at the bottom of the majority of the cases of starvation which most touch our hearts. I wish, however, to point out that this is not the question at issue now. Some Members have been greatly scandalized by the discouragement of outdoor relief, and I think that is the view taken by the hon. Member for the Rugby Division of Warwickshire (Mr. Cobb), who quoted from some notes by Sir Charles W. Dilke; but the clauses which are alleged to discourage outdoor relief have been in all the previous drafts of the Bill. Therefore, this proposal, which some hon. Members opposite condemn with considerable vivacity, is the proposal which has been embodied in the draft Bills submitted by previous Governments. I do not mention that to prove that this is a sound proposal, but to disarm hon. Gentlemen opposite. The right hon. Member for Halifax was extremely fervent against creating an impression among the working classes on this subject; but he did all he could to create that impression by suggesting that the Government had an idea in their mind which, as a matter of fact, never entered into their mind at all.

MR. STANSFELD

I suggested nothing; I based my argument on a previous statement of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board.

MR. GOSCHEN

The right hon. Gentleman may remember what he said; but he must allow his audience to be their own judges of that which he suggested. He suggested that point very forcibly to those who sit on this side of the House; and I presume that if we saw the suggestion it was still more forcibly brought home to hon. Gentlemen sitting opposite, and will be repeated by them on the authority of the right hon. Gentleman. He stated that this was a proposal introduced from an administrative point of view.

MR. STANSFELD

I gathered it from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board.

MR. GOSCHEN

The right hon. Gentleman cannot dispute what I may call the suggested inference of his statement. The inference—that which he wished the country to understand—was that this proposal was made for administrative motives. That was the point he put before the Committee. Does he retract?

MR. STANSFELD

I retract nothing. I gave my opinion—

MR. GOSCHEN

He gave his opinion—then his explanations and contradictions really mean nothing, as he is of opinion that we made the proposal for administrative purposes.

MR. STANSFELD

The right hon. Gentleman distinctly misrepresents me. I made no contradiction—I imputed no motives; and the only opinion I ex- pressed on the point was as to the bearing of the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board. I based my arguments from beginning to end on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. My intention was not to impugn their action, but to give them a warning in a friendly spirit.

MR. GOSCHEN

Then I must apologize to the right hon. Gentleman; but I must say that his "warning" was one of a very lively character. I am glad that I misunderstood him, and that he is ready to admit that the Government had no administrative arrière pensée which he seemed to suggest they had. The right hon. Gentleman asked—and asked in a very pointed manner—what were the reasons for our proposals? He could not see any other except administrative. I should have thought the reasons were on the face of our proposals. The reasons which influenced the Government were that, where the ratepayers are most heavily taxed for pauperism, in that direction we should attempt to give relief. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will accept that statement.

MR. STANSFELD

No.

MR. GOSCHEN

Indoor pauperism weighs most heavily upon the communities, and, therefore, we desire to give relief in respect of that pauperism. Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that?

MR. STANSFELD

No, no!

MR. GOSCHEN

Does the right hon. Gentleman contradict that?

MR. STANSFELD

Certainly. I am sorry to have to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman; but he himself challenges me. My point is this—if the proposal had been to give a grant in respect of the total cost of pauperism, then the right hon. Gentleman's argument would have been a correct one, but the grant is confined to in-maintenance.

MR. GOSCHEN

In confining it to in-maintenance we were following the right hon. Gentleman's own Report.

MR. STANSFELD

No, no.

MR. GOSCHEN

The right hon. Gentleman read his own Report to the House. It was to that effect.

MR. STANSFELD

No.

MR. GOSCHEN

His words were perfectly plain; he dealt with it as in-maintenance.

MR. STANSFELD

No.

MR. GOSCHEN

It is a different thing to give distinct encouragement to indoor relief by giving a grant in respect to the total cost of the poor, and to discourage outdoor relief by giving a bribe to the Guardians to extend the system of in-maintenance. We give no bribe of that kind. That was distinctly disclaimed in the powerful speech of my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board. We give no bribe; but if we said that we would give a subvention to the total cost of pauperism that would be a distinct bribe. Any subvention given with the statement, "The more you spend on your total poor relief, the more we will give you," would have been about as dangerous a proposal as could have been made. It was not said by our Predecessors; it was not said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax; and it has not been said by any hon. or right hon. Member in this House at the present time. It was in that direction where we saw that pauperism was heaviest, and heaviest in respect of indoor poor—it was for the sake of the relief of the over-burdened taxpayer, and not for the sake of any administrative improvement, that we have made this proposal. I think that is a clear statement. It is a distinct one. Then it is suggested that we should give relief according to population. But you may have a large population in places where the amount of pauperism is light; and, on the other hand, you may have in other districts a scanty population where the amount of pauperism is very heavy. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board spoke of the Metropolis. London attracts to itself a vast amount of pauperism—the pauperism of London is even in excess of that of any other large centre; and the result of that is that, according to indoor pauperism, under our proposal, London would get £536,000, whereas if you take the test of population, the amount would only be £230,000. Now, I want to know whether it is not right, in order to give relief in the direction of the weight of pauperism, that we should take a test such as that? Some hon. Members may say—"Why should London have so much?" But, on the other hand, they must re- member that London suffers very much. It suffers from the withdrawal of grants. Our proposal here is that, taking indoor pauperism as the test of the distribution of the Probate Duty, and taking into consideration the method of distribution and the withdrawal of grants, that we have made as equitable a division of the amounts that are to be given as we are able. Any great alteration substituting population or rateable value for indoor pauperism will disturb the whole adjustment we have made, and which we have endeavoured to make as fair as possible to all the interests affected. If hon. Gentlemen opposite representing the Metropolis were to vote for this Amendment, they would be largely decreasing the amount to which the ratepayers in London would be entitled. They would certainly vote for it, if they thought it was right; but they must bear in mind that it is the ratepayers in the poorer districts of the Metropolis—and it is in those districts that pauperism is most concentrated—upon whom the burden will be heaviest. It is to such districts that this relief will be specially given, and I believe that there is no part of the country where our proposal will give greater assistance than in the East of London. If hon. Members think the proposal we make is right in itself, they will support the Government in their attempt to give that relief to poor localities to which they are not at present entitled. I repeat that it is not intended to encourage indoor relief as against outdoor relief, but simply to give relief where, financially, it is most needed. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax said that he saw from the Amendment that this was an administrative question. No, Sir; the Amendment which we propose, and which we did not think necessary in itself, we merely bring forward for the sake of correcting a suspicion which might exist in some minds that we have an administrative object in view, and that we desire to curtail outdoor relief, and to drive people into the workhouses. Many hon. Members on our own side of the House seemed to be of opinion that that would be the effect of our proposal. We were sincere in our desire to prevent any such suspicion, and therefore we put the Amendment on the Paper, which we think will dismiss and render no longer possible that idea. It is really a charge against the Guardians which ought not to be entertained for a moment, that for any slight benefit they might derive in this matter they would be prepared to revolutionize the whole system of their administration; but, as I say, we have rendered assurance doubly sure against such an action on their part by removing even the slight temptation which some may suppose to have existed.

MR. C. T. DYKE ACLAND (Cornwall, Launceston)

said, he dared say there were many Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House who were anxious to speak on this question, which was one of the most important which had ever come before the Committee with reference to local affairs. He would endeavour not to be long; but, considering the length of time he had been conversant with Poor Law relief, he could not refrain from taking part in the discussion. At the outset, he wished to say one or two words as to what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of this controversy. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to think that there was something still in the old complaint of the administration of outdoor relief in rural districts by farmer Guardians who might be inclined to give this relief in lieu of wages. He (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) did not think it was altogether necessary for him to repudiate that idea. The right hon. Gentleman must know as well as they all knew that the administration of the Poor Law had steadily improved from the point of view of the increased proportion of indoor relief during the past 40 years; but the proposal of the Government would infallibly have as one of its results the lowering of the confidence of the people in the administration of the Poor Law. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider what should be done in the case of a widow with three or four children alive when her husband, who had, perhaps, been for years saving and working honestly and well, suddenly broke down by some accident or sickness, and it might be in the course of a long sickness had exhausted his savings, and left his wife without means? Cases of that kind they could not prevent, and those were the cases that had to be dealt with in rural districts, and which led the agricultural labourers of the country to watch very carefully the administration of the Poor Law. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) was accused by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer of something akin to threats or sinister warnings. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax had fallen into that danger which he (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) was afraid it was impossible for anyone to avoid who predicted what he believed to be the consequence of that which seemed to him a bad proposal. He (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) had fully intended, if the right hon. Gentleman had not said what he did, to draw attention to that which he also believed to be one of the most serious results certain to come from this proposal even with the Amendment. He was sure that do what they would, either by an annual average or by a quinquennial average of indoor pauperism, they would not be able to remove from the labourers of the country a suspicion that the Guardians were influenced by this proposal. He was quite sure that, however carefully the Guardians administered the Poor Law, and however mercifully, the impression that would be produced on the mind of the agricultural labourer would be in the direction of diminishing the confidence which up to now he had felt in the administration of the Poor Law relief. He held that the suggestion made in the Bill—which he was afraid the Government would carry in its present shape so far as this point was concerned—would have a very serious result in that direction. He deprecated it with all his heart and soul. All he could do was to assure the Government that that result would ensue —and in saying that he must not be taken as threatening the Government with agitation; but he trusted the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board would not turn a deaf ear to the suggestion. He (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) had an Amendment on the Paper which he admitted was one which appeared to be rather complicated, but he was anxious to get the Committee to give it just a moment's consideration. A great deal had been said about the population, and some allusion had been made also to the adoption in this matter of the principle of rateable value. He submitted that indoor pauperism was in no sense whatever an indication of the needs of a dis- trict. What really did produce the necessities of a district for local taxation was the density of its population. He did not believe, however, it was possible to overcome, or even to avoid, great anomalies if they took the basis of population alone; and, therefore, he suggested that they should take another element into consideration in the settlement of the problem. What was it that best indicated the capacity of a locality to meet its necessities? Why, surely, the rateable value per head of the district. Therefore, he suggested that if they increased the grants in proportion to the population of the district, they should, on the other hand, decrease them in proportion to the rateable value of the district. He said, therefore, that if they took these two elements into consideration, and divided the population by the figure which represented the rateable value per head, they would find results come out which were less unjust and anomalous than those produced either by the method suggested by the Government, or by the suggestion to take population alone, or by the suggestion to consider rateable value alone. But he was afraid it was impossible now to get the Government to consider such a proposal, and he was afraid the Committee might fairly consider it too complicated. He could only say that he had given a great deal of attention to the matter, and that others had also done so, and that they had found that the results were not so anomalous as would be the results of the proposals already brought forward. He would now draw attention to some results which would follow from the Government proposal. He had made a comparison between several counties, and he would ask the Committee to listen to the results. Take the counties of Stafford and Durham. They each had a population of a little over 1, 000, 000, and the rateable value of each was just under £4,000,000; and whilst under the system of distribution of Probate Duty on the amount of indoor pauperism as proposed by the Government Staffordshire would receive a sum of £59,000, Durham would only receive £37,000. For no earthly reason that he could see, the total grant which Stafford would receive would be £152,000, as against £111,000 which would be received by Durham. Then he had taken the three counties of Hertford, Cornwall, and Norfolk. Hertford had a total population of 200,000; Cornwall of 300,000; and Norfolk of 450,000; and the rateable value of Hertford was £1,300,000, that of Cornwall £1,100,000, and of Norfolk £2,300,000. It would be seen from these figures that Cornwall was one-third larger than Hertford, and that Norfolk was half as large again as Cornwall. The grants would be in this way: Hertford, the smallest of all, would get £13,000, as against £12,000 given to Cornwall, and £30,000 given to Norfolk, or more than double the amount of Cornwall. He could not understand upon what ground that sort of adjustment could be preferred. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, in his speech in moving the second reading of the Bill, had given them—and he had given them since—no real reason in favour of this plan. One reason, which many were inclined to regard as being that which had recommended the plan—namely, that it would tend to the encouragement of indoor relief—was one which the Government took pains to repudiate. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, in replying to an hon. Member who had spoken from his own side of the House, had mentioned several good authorities, and he (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) did not for a moment underrate the value of these authorities. The right hon. Gentleman had mentioned the names of several Gentlemen whom they all knew to be experienced and skilled in Poor Law administration, but it was solely in the Metropolis that their experience had been gained. All three instances the right hon. Gentleman had given them were taken from the Metropolis, and a great deal of the right hon. Gentleman's own speech was founded upon the condition of the Metropolis. Now, what he (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) wished especially to urge upon the right hon. Gentleman was that the Local Government Bill was not drawn up for London solely. It was intended for the whole of the country, and, as he (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) had ventured to say a few nights ago, it was to new constituencies that they were going to appeal. It was to a new rural community that they were trying to give a new municipal life, and it was to the manner in which this proposal would affect the rural population that the right hon. Gentleman ought to direct most of his attention. The right hon. Gentleman had given them excellent reasons from a Metropolitan point of view—he had appealed more than once to the Metropolitan Members. Well, he (Mr. C. T. Dyke Acland) admitted that the suggestion of the Government might be the best principle which could be adopted so far as the Metropolis was concerned. He was sorry for it; and he wished it were more just to the rest of the country. He contended that the rural population had greater interest in their poor than the population of any other part of the country. He contended that by the way in which the Probate Duty grant was being distributed the rural population were not getting full justice, and he was sorry to say that he believed the rural population of the country would strongly resent the proposal of the Government. He believed this from the bottom of his heart; indeed, he knew it to be the case in the West of England. Spontaneous representations had come to him from that part of the country from several Boards of Guardians. He knew that some Boards of Guardians in that part were discounting the proposals of the Government, and that corresponding indignation was felt by the labouring classes. These facts came to his knowledge before he read the Bill, or made a speech upon it; and the effect would be that, sooner or later, the Government would heartily repent that they had made this proposal.

MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)

said, as a London Member, and especially as an East End Member, he should like to be permitted to say a few words in response to the appeal which had been made from the Treasury Bench. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had highly extolled the Guardians of Whitechapel and St. George's-in-the-East. He (Mr. Pickersgill) would only say, as to that, that the extreme stringency of the Whitechapel Guardians brought very especial pressure on the Guardians of neighbouring localities—in fact, in order to escape from the tender mercies of the Whitechapel Guardians, the poor overflowed into Bethnal Green and other districts. The right hon. Gentleman condemned the lax administration of outdoor relief. Well, he (Mr. Pickersgill) agreed in that; but the Guardians, when applications for relief came before them, ought not to be subject to any other considerations except purely the merits of the cases. Now, they had to consider whether the proposal of the Government did subject the Boards of Guardians to other considerations. It was perfectly obvious that the Bill, as originally drawn, did expose Boards of Guardians to another and a very strong inducement; but the right hon. Gentleman declared that by the Amendment he had put on the Paper he had entirely removed that objection. Well, he (Mr. Pickersgill) submitted that the right hon. Gentleman had not removed that objection. He had to some extent diminished it, it must be admitted; but he had by no means removed it. The right hon. Gentleman said that he was going to take the amount of indoor pauperism for the year ending in March last, and that, therefore, there was no inducement that could be held to operate on the minds of the Guardians. That was quite a correct statement so far as the first quinquennial period was concerned; but how about the second quinquennial period? It was quite obvious that if the distribution now made was equitable, at the end of five years that distribution would not be equitable, and a redistribution would have to be made as was provided for in a later part of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment. But the right hon. Gentleman said that it was absurd to suppose that Boards of Guardians would allow their minds to be influenced by the consideration of a claim which was not to accrue until five years afterwards. Well, but surely the right hon. Gentleman had left out of sight that this quinquennial period was constantly slipping away, and that they had to consider the pressure of those considerations to which he had alluded not only in the first year of the quinquennial period, but also in the last year—that was, at the time immediately preceding the period when the gain would accrue. Now, as a Metropolitan Member, he came to that subject which especially interested himself—the case of London. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had said, and said correctly, that London would derive very consider- able financial advantage from the proposals which he had submitted to the House. That he (Mr. Pickersgill) quite admitted; but probably the Committee were not acquainted with the special circumstances of Poor Law administration as at present existing in London. They had at present in operation in London a system in its character very similar to that contribution which the right hon. Gentleman now proposed to introduce for the country at large. They had in London what was called the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, contributed to by the whole of the Metropolitan area, out of which a sum of 5d. per day for each indoor pauper was paid to each Union. They had, therefore, at present the sum of 5d. per day paid in respect of each pauper out of the Common Fund. Now, the right hon. Gentleman proposed, in addition to the 5d., to give 4d. more, so that the result would be that London would receive from the Government and the Common Fund together 9d. per day in respect of each indoor pauper. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford (Mr. A. W. Hall) had put before the Committee, in a very powerful and eloquent speech, the mischievous and cruel effect of contributing out of the Common Fund only 4d. a-day in respect of indoor paupers; but that argument was immensely increased in force when they considered the case of London; for whereas, taking the country at large, the contribution out of the Common Fund would be only 4d. a-day, in the Metropolis it would be as much as 9d. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had told them to-night that the average cost of the maintenance of an indoor pauper was 6d. a-day. What followed? Why, that the Guardians, by sending the poor applicant for relief into the workhouse, instead of giving him outdoor relief, would not only save the outdoor relief, which would otherwise be necessary, but they would actually make in the balance a net 3d. a-day by sending him into the Union. He (Mr. Pickersgill) saw the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his place. This question was not by any means a new one to the right hon. Gentleman. In 1870 the right hon. Gentleman had occasion to introduce a Bill dealing with the question of Poor Law relief in the Metropolis, and it was by that Bill that this contribution of 5d. a-day out of the Common Fund, to which he (Mr. Pickersgill) had alluded, was enacted. The original proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was to make a contribution out of the Common Fund of 6d. a-day; but it was objected that 6d. a-day was too much, and in reference to that objection the right hon. Gentleman used these words. He said— It has been complained that 3s. 6d. a-week—that is 6d. a-day—is too much. I entirely agree with the hon. Member that a margin ought to be left; indeed, in the course of the remarks I made in introducing the measure, I stated that it was a portion of my plan that a margin should be left, in order to secure economy in the administration. Well, he (Mr. Pickersgill) would ask the right hon. Gentleman what margin did he leave now? So far from leaving a margin, whereas the average cost of in-maintenance was 6d. a-day to the Guardians, the right hon. Gentleman proposed to contribute 9d. a-day out of a common fund. He (Mr. Pickersgill) could hardly understand how it was possible for the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reconcile the view which he held now with that which he expressed 18 years ago. In conclusion, he (Mr. Pickersgill) admitted that a powerful argument had been addressed by both the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie) to what he might call the cupidity of London Members. That was not a very lofty appeal to make, and he (Mr. Pickersgill) would, at any rate, decline to be influenced by it. He admitted that London would derive very considerable advantage in the immediate present from the Government plan; but he still believed that that plan was founded upon a very vicious principle. He had been for many years a strenuous advocate of absolute equality of poor relief throughout London. He still adhered to that plan; but the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board did not propose it. So far was he from that, that whilst his proposal would have the effect of reducing the poor rate in the district he himself represented—St. George's-in-the-East—by as much as 1s. in the pound, it would reduce the poor rate of Bethnal Green by only 8d. in the pound. He (Mr. Pickersgill) should always maintain the principle of absolute equality not only in regard to indoor relief, but also in regard to outdoor relief; and believing that the plan of the Government, though it was true it would give the Metropolis some financial advantage, was based on a wrong principle, and would be both mischievous and cruel in its effect on the poor, notwithstanding the bait thrown out to the cupidity of Metropolitan Members, he refused to support the proposal.

MR. F. S. POWELL (Wigan)

said, that as one who for many years had taken part in Poor Law administration he would offer his respectful contribution to the discussion. He could not help thinking there would be great advantage in giving consideration to the Report of the Poor Law Commission that led to the enactment of 1834. After the lapse of half-a-century since the passing of that Statute, the time had come when the condition of affairs previous to the passing of that Act should be better known throughout the country than it now was. He was quite sure that any acquaintance with the condition of affairs in rural districts at that time would be a warning and a caution to Members who spoke lightly of the severe test that, under the most painful, terrible necessity, was imposed at the passing of that Act. It was only truth to say that many districts were exposed to crushing burdens, rates being nearly equivalent to the whole rental value; and, as regarded the character of the people inhabiting those districts, nothing could be more gloomy and disastrous than the Report given by the Commission. Though he recalled these circumstances to the Committee, he admitted there must be some outdoor relief. He did not believe it was possible in manufacturing districts, or in London—and be spoke from experience in both districts—to entirely dispense with outdoor relief; but, at the same time, he believed that, while such relief ought to be diminished to as narrow proportions as possible, where legal relief was diminished, voluntary charitable relief should be increased. When he heard Members speaking of the hardships of poor folks shut up in workhouses, it occurred to his mind that if the wealthier classes were doing their duty these poor folks would not be sent to the workhouses at the cost of their scarcely less poor neighbours. In many cases they might look for relief from their wealthy neighbours. This remark was wrung from him by what had been said by previous speakers. When he was one of the Guardians at Paddington again and again rich men sent in recommendations to the Guardians on behalf of their butlers or their coachmen for assistance; but that assistance should have been given by the wealthy master, not by the poor ratepayers of the parish. But, as he was proceeding to say, while outdoor relief could not altogether be avoided, yet, at the same time, experience led him to dissent entirely from what was said by an hon. Member that indoor relief created generations of paupers. He would not say that the effect was not a melancholy one, but he would say that much mischief was done by outdoor relief. It was the first step towards breaking down independence of character, and the recipient passed by sad and unfortunate steps to the position of a man who became week after week an applicant for pauper relief. For himself, he should like to make a larger appeal than of late years had been made to private benevolence, and to see less reliance placed on legal and enforced relief. His own experience in such matters led to the belief that there was much less demoralization among the poorest classes where charitable relief was abundant, and legal relief reduced. Remarks had been made as to the encouragement to those Unions which gave most indoor relief which the clause would give; but he reminded the Committee that it was not only the inmates of the workhouses who would earn the benefit of the clause, but there was the encouragement given to the boarding out of pauper children. He was sure no hon. Member would desire that any discouragement should be given to the system of boarding out of pauper children. Some reference had been made to London, and it was admitted that to London the proposal of the Government would be more favourable than to other places. Without labouring that part of the subject, he would say that this boon to London was one that London Members should not lightly neglect. As to it being unpopular, he did not believe it was possible to prevent the administration of the Poor Law being unpopular. It was a painful, sad, depressing subject, beset with entanglements and difficulties almost hopeless, and those who had studied the subject most could least see the end of those difficulties. Earlier in the evening reference was made to the theories of doctrinaires in a depreciatory manner, but this was a subject in which theory and experience must go band in hand. He who would study the subject with advantage must combine the two. Theory alone might make a man a high and dry doctrinaire; but, on the other hand, to approach the subject in practice without some study of the principles that should guide administration would lead the administrator into grave errors.

MR. H. R. FARQUHARSON (Dorset, W.)

said, he had given notice of an Amendment very similar to the one before the Committee, and he should vote for the present Amendment. He regarded the Government proposal as one likely to work with great injustice towards those Unions in rural districts where, from local circumstances, the amount of outdoor relief was proportionally greater, and the indoor relief less than in large towns.

MR. HALLEY STEWART (Lincolnshire, Spalding)

said, he felt that the objections which had been taken from the Government Benches to making population the basis of a State grant had some force in them, but that there was tenfold force in the arguments against the injustice of the Government proposition. In the first place, the Government proposal was distinctly contrary to the very principle of the Bill. The Bill was based, as he understood, on the idea that hitherto popular opinion had been excluded from the administration of local affairs, and the Bill was introduced that local opinion might be accentuated and enforced, and the opportunity given for the free expression of opinion in each locality. But the right hon. Gentleman proposed by this clause to override local opinion and stamp an uniform system of Poor Law relief on the country by extending special pecuniary assistance to districts which favoured indoor relief. This system was enforced by treating all Unions which had practised outdoor relief as if they had actually done something illegal, or opposed to the strict rights and common sense of the community. If the clause should pass into law what would be the result? Those Unions which had adopted outdoor relief, as scores of Unions had in preference to indoor relief, would be punished by being deprived of the grant that those who had fostered indoor relief would receive. He admitted that the quinquennial allotment was some amelioration; but, though slightly improved, the substance of the difficulty was not removed. When the right hon. Gentleman taunted hon. Members with not seeing the purport of the Amendment, it rather appeared as if the faculty of vision was wanting on the side of the right hon. Gentleman who failed to see the incidence of his own original proposal and his own Amendment. He could not understand how it could be disputed that the tendency of the Government proposal would be to foster indoor rather than outdoor relief. Members had been told that they had no right to take part in the discussion of this question unless they had sat on Boards of Guardians for the administration of Poor Law Funds; but it might as well be said that no one out-side the House of Commons was competent to express an opinion on matters under discussion there, and such doctrine would exclude the people at large from the discussion of the matter. He had received from his constituents, and from different parts of Lincolnshire, the strongest protests against the Government proposal—not the amended proposal, but as it originally stood—and that was why he was anxious to he heard on this matter. It was the wishes of the people they should seek to know, rather than those of Boards of Guardians. What did the people say upon the question? What was the opinion of the ratepayers? He was there as the spokesman of the people, and their opinion should be heard. He was quite certain that if a Census were taken of the recipients of Poor Law relief there would be an overwhelming vote against the Government proposal. There was no rural district in England where, if a Census of the opinion of the people were taken, the view of the Government would be found acceptable. Not only was it opposed to the principle of the Bill—it was contrary to the professions of the Government. When the right hon. Gentleman introduced his right hon. Gentleman introduced his Bill, he was met with a request that he would take the Boards of Guardians under his care and alter the system of election so as to give the ratepayers an equal share in the management of affairs. His reply was that he did not propose to touch the question of Poor Law administration; but here was the right hon. Gentleman incidentally interfering with that administration in a most important point, and fostering a system that would certainly drive the poor into the workhouse. The Government had no right to plead in the first instance, when asked to deal with it, that they had no intention to touch the question, and then, by a side issue, raise the question which they declared was external to the objects of the Bill. On these grounds, as well as on the merits of the question, he opposed the proposal, although it had the sanction of great authority. There was not much advantage in going back to the condition of affairs half-a-century ago, when there was great national anxiety existing in regard to the administration of the Poor Law. We had learned much in the interval; we had learned that the poor had rights not then recognized; that they were creators of much of the wealth of the country, and much of the poor relief was provided by those not many degrees removed from the condition of the recipients of the relief. While strongly opposing the Government proposal, he kept an open mind for subsequent Amendments. He had no hesitation in voting against the Government proposition, which would certainly tend to foster pauperism, whatever the intention might be. That intention might be what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was; but it was not of intentions the Committee had to judge—they had to look at what would be the probable result.

VISCOUNT EBRINGTON (Devon, Tavistock)

said, that as he, unlike the hon. Member who had just spoken, had had some experience of the work of Boards of Guardians, he might be allowed a few remarks. Judging from the tone of the hon. Member's speech, the Guardians in the district he represented must have been somewhat lax in the administration of outdoor relief. He altogether demurred to the hon. Member's statement that if the poor were consulted they would not approve the Government proposal. There might be, and there probably was, opposition to the subsequent proposal of the Government that the County Councils should distribute the grant to the Unions at the rate of 4d. per head on indoor pauperism; but as to the division of the Probate Duty, he believed the poor, who, after all, were the ratepayers, only desired a system that gave the fairest distribution of the grant, and which would give to the various districts a sum as near as might be proportionate to their wants; and he believed that indoor pauperism was about the best test of the wants of different districts. Rateable value was not a fair test, for, under that, St. George's, Hanover Square, would receive very much more than St. George's in-the-East. It was not necessary to say more on that point. Nor would the plan of the hon. Member for the Launceston Division work at all. That hon. Member would distribute the grant according to the ratio of population to rateable value; but, so far as he had tested the scheme, it was wholly impracticable. The proposal of the Government appeared the most equitable that had been put before the House.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 228; Noes 164: Majority 64.—(Div. List, No. 188.)

Question put accordingly, "That the words 'their indoor pauperism' stand part of the Clause."

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE (Bradford, Central)

, rising to a point of Order, said, he had given Notice of an Amendment somewhat different in object, and he would ask the Chairman to put the Question in such a way as would enable him to raise the point he desired to raise. The Amendment he had to propose would come in after the word "proportion." If the Question were now put to omit the words "Several counties of England in proportion," then that would give him an opportunity of moving his Amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN

The question was considered when the right hon. Gentleman was not in the House. The whole of the discussion, which has now been going on for four hours, has been on the question whether the basis of distribution should be indoor pauperism, and upon that question the Division will now be taken.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 222; Noes 166: Majority 56.—(Div. List, No 189.)

It being after Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Friday, at Two of the clock.