§ 2. "That a sum, not exceeding £110,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1892, as a Grant in Aid of Local Rates in Scotland."
§ Resolution read a second time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
§ (11.5.) MR. HUNTER (Aberdeen, N.)I protest, in the first place, against the discussion of so important and in many respects difficult question at 11 o'clock in the evening, and I may say that we have been disappointed by the course pursued by the First Lord of the Treasury, who has thought fit to put an unnecessary before a necessary Vote in the discussion in Committee. My first objection is to the amount of the Vote. A sum of £110,000 is going to Scotland this year, and it is supposed to bear the ratio of £11 for every £80 which is given to England. But in England a sum of 10s. per child on average attendance is given, and I should like to know why the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not follow 1410 the same simple form with regard to Scotland? I do not know that it would have made very much difference in the amount; but, as a matter of fact, the Chancellor of the Exchequer preferred to adopt the ratio on grounds which have never yet been examined by a Committee of this House, although that Committee has been promised. How did that idea of a ratio arise? In 1889, when the Probate Duty was applied in England for the reduction of the rates and in Scotland for freeing education, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that it would not be proper to give to Scotland only so much as the Imperial Exchequer had obtained from the Probate Duty collected in Scotland, because that country did not produce so large a share of Probate Duty as England, and therefore the right hon. Gentleman appeared to be generous, and introduced the ratio of 11 to 80. In 1889 we got £18,000 more than the proportion of duty which came from Scotland; but in the following year, instead of getting more, we got £61,000 less, and we are getting £61,000 less at the present moment. For his benevolence in the matter of this loan of £18,000 for one year the Chancellor of the Exchequer is charging Scotland in perpetuity no less than £43,000. The ratio is based upon a theory of the relations of England and Scotland which will not bear examination; and if a due balance is to be struck between the two countries, Scotland was last year over - taxed to the exent of £1,700,000. But how does this question arise? When, last year, it was proposed to give England free education, two courses were open to the Government. They might have paid for the freeing of English education out of English money, which would have been the proper course; but instead they had a surplus which should have been applied to the remission of taxation, not only in England, but in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and this they applied to the purposes of England alone. The portion of that surplus which would have gone to Scotland if there had been a remission of taxation was the sum to which Scotland was entitled, and that amount was not £265,000, but 1411 £320,000. My next objection is to the mode in which this money is allocated between the boroughs and counties—in fact, to the whole principle of allocation. It is to be divided according to the amount of rateable property in the counties and boroughs; but the rateable value has nothing to do with the amount of money raised by the counties and boroughs for the Imperial Exchequer, and has still less to do with the burden of rates, which falls respectively on the counties and the boroughs. Everyone will admit that the boroughs pay at least as much Imperial taxation as the counties—indeed, it is favouring the counties to estimate that they pay as much as the boroughs. Therefore, if we divided this money on the basis of population, we should divide it in accordance with the sources from which it is derived. But only 28 per cent. of the population is in the counties, and 72 per cent. in the boroughs; and of this sum of money the counties would get £30,800 and the boroughs £79,200. In other words, the counties would get £22,000 more than they were entitled to. The sum given to the counties would reduce the rates 8.6 per cent., whereas the sum given to the boroughs would only reduce the rates by 3.6 per cent. If we divided the money according to population the county rates would be relieved by 5.1 per cent., and the borough rates by 5 per cent. But we also find most extraordinary anomalies when we apply this principle of division to the various boroughs. In Stromness the average amount this grant will make per family is 7d. per annum; in Pollok-shields it is 5s. 9d. In Wisham the average is 10½d.; in Lanark, 1s. 2d.; in Motherwell, 1s. 3d. The same ridiculous anomalies are to be found in groups of towns. In Aberdeen the average is 1s. 11d.; in Old Aberdeen, 1s. 3d.; and in Woodside, 9½d.; and yet the populations in these places are all of the same class. In Dundee the average is 1s. 10d., and in Newport 3s. 1d. In Municipal Glasgow it is 2s. 6d.; in Govan, 1s. 8d.; Hillhead, 4s. 6d.; and Pollokshields, 5s. 9d. These inequalities are favourable to the large towns, like Glasgow and 1412 Edinburgh, but very unfavourable to the small places. The present system of allocation means giving to the rich and taking from the poor. My third objection to the method which has been adopted by the Government is that the relief to the taxpayer would be absolutely insignificant and inappreciable. Take first the counties. The amount given represents a halfpenny in the pound to the owner and a halfpenny to the occupier. What does that mean? Four out of five of the inhabitants of the counties occupy houses of less than £6 annual value. The consequence is that every four out of five ratepayers in the counties will receive a benefit which will not, on the average, exceed 3d. per annum. But take the rich man. What is he to get who is both the owner and occupier of a house rented at £100 a year, and presumably, therefore, is a man with an income of not less than £1,000 a year? Why, such a man will receive the munificent contribution from the Government of 8s 4d. per annum. Now take the burghs. In burghs generally the grant will involve a reduction to owners of one-fifth of a penny, and to occupiers four-fifths of a penny; and taking the burghs as a whole those figures will work out this result—that 433,000 families will get an average of 5d. each per annum; 64,000 families will get 9d. each; 37,000 will get 1s. 2d. each, and 55,000 families will get 3s. 1d. each. These sums are absolutely insignificant. In fact, in the burghs a man positively loses by this grant as compared with a reduction of Customs and Excise, until we come to a rent of £40 a year, and only 3 per cent. of the inhabitants of Scotland occupy houses over £40 rental. Who, then, will get this money? In the first place, those 3 per cent. will get something out of it. Then 20 per cent. only of the shopkeepers will get something. The manufacturers and the railways and the canals, coupled with the owners of property, get the whole of this money. My last point is this: that this mode of distribution involves peculiar injustice to the working class—to the great mass of the population. I have figures which can be relied upon for Aberdeen, Dundee, and Glasgow. Unfortu- 1413 nately, the Return which the Government promised is not yet before us, or it would be in the power of hon. Members to ascertain what would be the real effect of such a distribution of the money in any part of Scotland. In Aberdeen, which may be taken as an average town, I divide the ratepayers into three groups. The first, numbering 7,500, lived in houses not over £5 a year, and would get of Aberdeen's share £95 divided amongst them per annum, or 2¾d. each. The second group, numbering 10,000, will get £347, which works out to 8¼d. per annum. The remaining group of 6,000 will get £689, or 2s. 4d. per annum, while business premises will get £704, or 2s. 9d. on the average. The owners of property get £627, making in all £2,461. What is the sum which the 17,500 get as against the 6,000? You have £2,461 to divide, and between the 17,500 ratepayers there is only a sum of £441 to divide, leaving £2,000 to be divided amongst the remaining third of the ratepayers of Aberdeen. Dundee is an instructive example, because it happens to be one of the very few towns in Scotland where the municipal rates are paid entirely by the occupier, and not by the owner. Dundee gets £3,273. Out of that £3,273, £2,000 goes to 11,000 ratepayers, or an average of 4¾d.; £600 goes to 18,000 ratepayers, or an average of 8d.; £144 goes to 2,300 ratepayers, and £364 goes to 2,211 ratepayers, making in all for the occupiers of dwelling houses the sum of £1,312. That is all out of a sum of £3,273, the rest being given to the large manufacturers and the owners of business premises. Then I take Glasgow. Glasgow is a somewhat interesting case, because Glasgow is, I believe, the only town in Scotland in which there is graduated rating for municipal purposes, in which those who occupy houses under £10 pay only half the rates of those who occupy houses of £10 and upwards. I am enabled, by figures which I received in June last from the Municipal Authorities in Glasgow, to measure precisely how Glasgow's share of this money will go. Glasgow will get £15,646. I divide the ratepayers into two groups—a group of 76,000 and a group of 56,000. The 1414 76,000 ratepayers get less than 1–10th of the money. They get £1,548, which amounts to an average of 4¾d. The 56,000, on the contrary, get £10,000, amounting to an average of 3s. 9d. Then the owners, who have been very active over this business, get £3,458. The significance of these figures lies in the comparison with the benefits which the poorer ratepayers would have obtained by a remission of the duties, say, for example, on tea or tobacco. If there had been a remission of £110,000 of the duties on tea or tobacco, each family in Scotland would, on an average, have gained 2s. 9d.; but with regard to four-fifths of the entire body of ratepayers, the maximum benefit which they will get on an average is 5d., instead of 2s. 9d., so that, in point of fact, this species of finance which has been inaugurated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a plan by which with one hand he empties the pockets of the working men and with the other he hands over the proceeds to 20 per cent. of the shopkeepers, the large manufacturers, and the owners of property. I regret to have occupied the time of the House so long at this period of the evening. The subject is much too vast to exhaust on this occasion, and I can only express my hope that the Government will fix an early day for the Second Reading of the Bill for the distribution of the money, so that it may be possible to deal with the subject more exhaustively.
§ (11.30.) MR. HOZIER (Lanark, S.)My hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen, who has just sat down, makes three chief complaints against this Vote. In the first place, he complains of the amount of the Vote; in the second place, he, complains of the basis of distribution of the Vote; and, in the third place, he thinks it perfectly monstrous that the rates should be relieved. I think I have put the points he submitted pretty fairly and accurately. In the first place, with regard to the amount, my hon. Friend himself allows that if we got 10s. for each child attending school in Scotland, as they do in England, we should practically have the same amount as at present. But the real fact of the matter is that the question cannot be 1415 thoroughly solved until the Committee to inquire into the financial relations between Scotland, England, and Ireland has been appointed, has deliberated, and has given its Report. Why has that Committee not been appointed? It is because of Welsh obstruction. ("No, no!") But I think if you look at the Notice Paper you will find a series of objections put down by the Welsh Members which have hitherto made it impossible for this Committee to be appointed at all. In the second place, my hon. Friend objects to the basis of distribution of this Vote, according to which the £110,000 is to be distributed to counties and to burghs on the basis of the valuation of rateable property. My hon. Friend suggests the basis of population, and proceeds on some hypothetical figures; but I think he stands alone—he is a unique and peculiar party almost by himself in urging the basis of population. But I have had put before me proposals that the money should be distributed on the basis of assessment—that is to say, on the basis of the amount of the rates that are assessed. There are, however, obvious advantages in favour of valuation being made a basis. In the first place, valuation is a more or less permanent basis to go upon. Valuation is imposed by a Government Assessor in most cases, and his decision is subject to an appeal to the Judges. It is, therefore, an eminently fair basis, whereas the basis of assessment simply depends on the sweet will of the assessing body. There is no stability about it; it may be more in one year than another, and so on. There is, moreover, another very strong point against assessment being made the basis of distribution, and that is that burgh rates include gas rates and water rates. Gas and water are commodities which are supplied to those who pay the rates, and, therefore, I do not see how that could be made a basis upon which to distribute this money. As a matter of fact, the proposal to distribute the money according to assessment is nothing more nor less than a premium on extravagance, and it is grossly unfair to the rural districts. But the whole of this Debate on the 1416 present occasion is more or less a preliminary skirmish. The great battle which we, on behalf of the ratepayers of Scotland, are going to fight against the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) and his followers, a battle in which I earnestly trust we shall beat him and his followers, will be on the Second Reading of the Educational and Local Taxation Relief (Scotland) Bill, and I hope that the Government will give us a first-rate opportunity for that discussion. This evening the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs is merely making what, perhaps, in his favourite French, he would call a naked and brutal reconnaissance, of our position. But I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has chosen a very good opportunity. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen makes an attack on the relief of the rates; but has he anything whatever to support him in the opinion of the people of Scotland as far as this Vote is concerned? I have here in my pocket a very large bundle of suggestions of various sorts as to what ought to be done with the money of the regular Equivalent Grant. But though these proposals vary in almost every point, they are practically unanimous in the view that this partial Equivalent Grant ought to be applied just exactly as the Government propose in respect of the relief of the rates. The only sad point of this proposal of the Government is that it sows dissension between right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite. I am sorry I do not see the right hon. Baronet the Member for Bridgeton in his place this evening. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling Burghs is at direct variance with the right hon. Baronet the Member for Bridgeton. Which is in the right? Let me call as arbiter the North British Daily Mail, the leading Gladstonian paper in Scotland. Here is an extract from its leading article of 26th February—
Mr. Campbell-Bannerman has totally and absurdly misrepresented Scottish public opinion. For the opinion of the people we must turn to Sir George Trevelyan's speech. Sir George gave admirable expression to Scottish sentiment.1417 I have risen, however, not merely to support this Vote, but also, as a former member of the Civil Service, in order to record my emphatic protest against the language used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs in attacking the permanent officials of the Scottish Office. The right hon. Gentleman said that a member of the Glasgow Corporation had gone to the Scottish Office, and had been told the exact amount Glasgow was to receive—that Glasgow would be justified in counting on this money, and that the cheques were being written out. The right hon. Gentleman said that was a breach of duty on the part of the officials; asked whether the official in question had been rebuked, and added emphatically that he had never known in the whole course of his acquaintance with public Departments anything more improper on the part of a public official. The right hon. Gentleman has made a gross personal attack upon a permanent Civil servant without even taking the trouble to verify the facts. I happen to have first-hand information on that point. I have not been in communication with the Scottish Office, or with any Government officials, and I have purposely abstained from approaching them on the subject. My information comes from the representative of the Glasgow Corporation who went to the Scottish Office on the occasion in question, and I have been authorised to make public a memorandum which has been drawn up by that member of the Corporation and by two City officers who accompanied him.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANIt will save the time of the House and the hon. Member the trouble of quoting the document if I say that I fully intended when I spoke to explain the whole of the circumstances of the case. Unlike the hon. Member I have been to the Scottish Office, and I know exactly what has happened.
§ Mr. HOZIERI think the right hon. Gentleman ought to take, or rather to have taken, the earliest opportunity of expressing a humble apology. This is the memorandum— 1418
On the 21st July a member of the Glasgow Corporation, accompanied by one of the city officials, having occasion to be at Dover House on other business, inquired what proportion of the partial Equivalent Grant of £110,000 would be receivable by Glasgow, assuming that the scheme announced by the Lord Advocate in the previous month were given effect to. Naturally and without difficulty the sum was mentioned. The statement of Mr. Campbell-Bannerman that the representatives of the Corporation of Glasgow went to the Scottish Office and asked the officials whether they would be justified in counting upon this money, and were told that they would be, is absolutely without foundation. It is really impossible to conceive of so absurd a question being put, or, if put, of its being answered.
(11.40.) MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, &c.) (StirlingThe hon. Member never takes part in a Scotch Debate without introducing into it the genial and friendly spirit which characterises all his observations upon the conduct and opinions of his political opponents. I will refer to the little incident upon which he has expended so much of his energy. What I did in a previous Debate was this: I simply quoted a statement made by a member of the deputation in the presence of the Secretary for Scotland. It was to the effect that certain gentlemen from Glasgow had gone to the Scotch Office and asked for information as to how much money was to come to them, and they were given the information. I said it was altogether an indefensible action on the part of anyone serving in that office to inform persons so interested of the amount and the nature of a grant which had never even been submitted to the opinion of the House, much less passed by it. This circumstance was quoted by the deputation as being the justification of the Corporation for having taken credit for that sum of money in making up their local budget for the year. Well, I have nothing to withdraw from the remarks I made upon that occasion, and which I quoted on the faith of the report of what was said by that member of the deputation. I have since been to the Scotch Office myself, and Lord Lothian has been good enough to explain to me precisely what happened. The member of the deputation who made the statement I referred to was mistaken. The deputation were told what their share would be, not of this Vote, but of a residue fund, of which 1419 there are so many. This fund arose out of an Act passed in 1890. The Department could not exactly say how much the residue would be, but it was with regard to that fund that the deputation were told that the cheques were made out. The deputation further asked about the Equivalent Grant, whereupon the clerk naturally said they had only to apply the rule of proportion, and they could find out how much they would get of the new fund. This was how the mistake arose, and I hold that I was not responsible for it, and that I was perfectly justified in using the strong observations I used in regard to the matter. It is impossible now to alter the destination of the money. We must either let it go where the Government intended it to go or refuse it altogether, and I am certainly not prepared to reject the Vote. Why was the money assigned to the relief of rates last summer? Because the Government had not time to frame a larger scheme. I regret very much that the Government did not give the money to the County or Town Councils, with power to use it with a free hand. As it was a windfall, the Local Authorities should not have been able to use it in the mere reduction of rates. It is natural that when they knew it was going they should put in the strongest claim they could for it; but I very much question whether they represented in that respect the feelings of the mass of the population, who would prefer the money to be given to some national purpose which could not otherwise be met. It is true that County Councils have not much power to deal with such questions, but that can be met by legislation. At present they can do nothing but protest. The circumstances of the case are such as are altogether to be deplored. The Chancellor of the Exchequer somehow has again and again had a difficulty in defining the objects upon which to exercise his beneficence in Scotland, and I doubt whether the Government would now say that they had found the best object to which to apply so large a sum. For my own part, I regret that the money has not been devoted to some nobler, larger, 1420 and more national purpose than the relief of local rates.
§ (11.58.) THE LORD ADVOCATE (Sir C. J. PEARSON,) Edinburgh and St. Andrews UniversitiesI must begin by correcting two misapprehensions on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. First, he seems to forget the reason why this question only comes up for discussion now, on the Report stage. It is because hon. Members opposite represented that this arrangement would bring on the discussion at a reasonable hour. In the second place, my recollection does not agree with that of the right hon. Gentleman as to what took place last year when this matter came under discussion. It was through no inability in respect to the shortness of the time at their disposal that the Government were at that time unwilling to develop a scheme for the permanent allocation of the money upon the then grant. If the right hon. Gentleman refers to the report of what took place, he will see that my predecessor did not so state. It was conceded, I think on all hands, that a large portion of the money would ultimately be devoted to the relief of rates; and inasmuch as we had only to deal with half a year's payments, it was not considered worth while to deal with the allocation of, at least, double the amount which in future years we should have to deal with. It was because it was so treated that this grant is submitted to the approval of Parliament at the present time in the direction of relief of the rates. I do not think it is pertinent to the present discussion to ascertain whether the proportion stated as between England and Scotland, and which has resulted in this sum of £110,000 for Scotland, is a fair and well-drawn proportion or not. I may remind hon. Members who object to this proportion that it was long prior to 1890 that Parliament gave assent to the proportion. In 1888, in the Probate Duty Act, Parliament expressly allowed the proportion of 9 to Ireland, 11 to Scotland, and 80 to England; we find it embodied in the text of that Act, and two years' actual experience and another year's estimate have confirmed the justice of the propor- 1421 tion then laid down. Of course, this is a subject for examination by a Committee of this House; but I need not refer to the reason why that Committee has not been set up and is not occupied with the inquiry. Another matter has been dealt with by the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter)—the question of the allocation of the money as between counties and burghs. The Government propose to allocate on the principle of the respective valuations in counties and burghs, and in so doing they follow again the Parliamentary precedent set in the Act of 1890. The residue under that Act was distributed upon that basis, and I have not heard any well-founded or substantial complaint as to the equity of that distribution. It is all very well to say that anomalies arise from distribution upon this method. Distribution according to valuation, or assessment, or expenditure, or any principle you fix upon, will in given cases result in anomalies and inequalities; but when the whole thing is examined no principle will be found so fair, so equitable, as between burghs and counties, as that of valuation, which has been laid down by Parliament and tested by experience. The statistics of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen as between burghs themselves I do not enter into. They offer no very fruitful field of inquiry, because they seemed to me to be lacking in important particulars. The hon. Member said that in one town a few pence would be the only relief to a family, and in another town the relief would be a few shillings. That is not a fruitful comparison unless a great many other ingredients are taken into account—the rateable value of the town and the gross amount of assessment require to be taken into account. Again, I say, the principle of population and of assessment has not stood the test of experience as the principle of valuation has. More than that, there are obvious objections to the distribution of the money on the principle of assessment or expenditure. It seems to me there is an element of uncertainty and of fluctuation about it that does not attach to valuation. Valuations are fixed by responsible officials, and subject to appeals from year to year, whereas assessments are made to 1422 meet passing exigencies and by a fluctuating body. There is also this objection, to which no answer has been suggested, that to allocate a sum of this kind relatively to expenditure in a district, rather than to valuation and sources of assessment, would tend to extravagance. I do not see that that can be doubted. In certain cases the evil would cure itself; but the tendency would be to impose rates with less care and supervision than would otherwise be exercised, because thereby a larger share of the grant would be obtained. This is not the case of a grant devoted by Act of Parliament to a certain specific object, subject to the supervision of a public Department, such as the subventions to police or to pauper lunatics. Then, it is said, this is a case of relieving the rich and not the poor, and that it tends to injustice to the working classes as compared with other classes; but I think the remark is utterly fallacious as applied to the facts in the present case. In the first place, if you are to relieve the rates with this money, I cannot see anything unfair or unequal if the persons who are relieved are those who proportionately pay those rates. It seems to me that anything operating for the relief of rates, if it operates at all fairly, ought, roughly speaking, to relieve the ratepayers of a given district in proportion to their payments. It is not a good argument to say, because a certain class pay more relatively to their incomes than another class, that, therefore, they should have more relief in the rates. There is another fallacy underlying this observation which it is important to point out. It is assumed by the hon. Member for North Aberdeen that this money is the product rather of those whom he specially champions to-night than of those whom he objects to relieve. But I would remind the hon. Member that the portion of Imperial taxation assigned to the relief of local rates is raised from various sources. Take, for instance, the Probate Duty. Can anybody say this taxation is not paid to a large, if not to the whole, extent by those to whom the hon. Member has an objection to give relief? And if you look at the Licence Duties, 1423 you find these, to a large extent—I need not go into particulars—are not contributed, and it cannot be pretended they are, by the class of whom the hon. Member constitutes himself the champion to-night. For instance, in the latest Return which has come into my hand, I find that dog and gun licences, game licences, carriage licences, and for male servants and armorial bearings run up to £99,000.
§ MR. HUNTERBut is not the total Imperial taxation for Scotland £9,000,000?
§ SIR C. J. PEARSONThat may be, but I am only speaking of those taxes which are assigned to the relief of local rates. I simply give these figures. The Probate Duty Grant amounted two years ago to £234,300, and the Licence Duties to £323,000, and of the latter close on £100,000 were contributed by the licences to which I have referred. This seems to supply a complete answer to the hon. Member and his attempt to introduce class distinctions into this relief of rates. I think it fully justifies the proposal the Government make to the House is fully justified, and it has, I may say, the support of a very large number of influential Governing Bodies throughout Scotland.
(12.14.) MR. SINCLAIR, &c.) (FalkirkI am sure the House will sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling Burghs in the unfortunate position in which he finds himself owing to the incorrect information he has received from his informants.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI have no informants. I have my information from the report of the proceedings when the deputation waited on the Scotch Office.
§ MR. SINCLAIRAt all events, the information conveyed to the right hon. Gentleman seems to have been incorrect. However, I do not wish to press that point further. I take up the surplus question referred to by the hon. Member for North Aberdeen. He referred during his speech to the fact that there was something like £365,000 that ought to be coming to Scotland, whereas we only get £265,000.
§ MR. HUNTERNo; I said we get £265,000, and ought to get £320,000.
§ MR. SINCLAIRThe hon. Member referred to the fact that Scotland was getting less than she ought to get, and that this was because information was not before the House as it would have been had the Committee on financial relations been able to conduct its investigations. We all know the reason why this Committee has not been appointed, because of the desire of certain Members for Wales that the Principality should be included in the inquiry. For my own part, I have a considerable amount of sympathy with that desire. I should like to see not only the proportion of taxation paid by Wales, but also of other portions of the Kingdom ascertained. But whilst I have this feeling, I should be very sorry to stand in the way of the appointment of the Committee by insisting upon having Wales included, thus preventing the appointment of any Committee at all. I hope sincerely that the Government will take steps to secure the appointment of the Committee at an early date, so that we may have the facts before us to decide on the question, in which I think the hon. Member for North Aberdeen is, broadly speaking, right, that Scotland pays more and receives less than she should. I earnestly wish to emphasise the appeal of the hon. Member for Lanarkshire for the consideration at an early date of the Bill dealing with the Scotch Equivalent Grant. I do so in the interests not of the larger but of the smaller burghs, so that they may be able to forecast their financial requirements.
§ (12.20.) DR. CLARK (Caithness)On the question, Sir, of the basis of the calculation, if the House will take the last five or six years they will find that the Probate Duty has been growing more quickly and more largely in Scotland per head of the population than has been the case in England, and that every year it is growing less fair to Scotland. Some three years ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised me a Return of the money received and spent in England, Scot- 1425 land and Ireland. That Return has not yet been presented. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lanarkshire said the reason was the opposition of the Welsh Members, but I think the Welsh Members are justified in the course they have taken, and it is entirely due to the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, if he took the Motion at 11 o'clock at night, might get the matter disposed of in half an hour. I suppose it is thought by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that by appointing a Committee to inquire into the financial relations of the three countries, there is no need for the Return. For my own part, I will endeavour as far as I can to get this Return modified, in order to carry out the point that was strenuously urged by the late Sir George Campbell, and to get a separate Return made in respect of London, so that we may see how far Scotland, and England, and Ireland are interested in London itself. The right hon. Gentleman the Lord Advocate advanced an ingenious argument, but it was based upon a fallacy. The right hon. Gentleman assumed that the money we are getting is in lieu of the Licence Duty and the Probate Duty. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. Scotland's share of the Probate and Licence Duty it was agreed should go for the purposes of education and to pay back the Local Authorities what has been previously given in annual grants. This is equivalent to money taken out of the Consolidated Fund—not from these sources, but from all sources—and it acts unfairly upon those who pay the money, as it has been shown that it gives 7d. or 8d. a family in small burghs, whilst in large and rich burghs like Hillhead and Pollokshields it gives 4s. and 5s. per family. This money ought to come back in proportion to what is paid, and it is the poorer classes who contribute the most. In Scotland one-half of all the rates are paid directly by the landlord, and, practically, the result will be one-half of the money will go to that class direct. We are at one in demanding that this money shall be given back for the purposes of education, and I had hoped that something might have been done in the direction 1426 of restoring to Scotland her old position in respect to secondary education. I do not object to the course the Chancellor of the Exchequer has pursued because I am against landlords and want to abolish them altogether. I think they got their land on condition that they should carry out certain duties, but bit by bit they have got rid of their duties and betrayed their trust, and we wish to dispossess them of their power of control in these matters.
§ (12.33.) MR. J. P. SMITH (Lanark, Partick)While with the right hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs I should wish to see the Authorities receive this money and use it for what purposes they desire, I think we are precluded by what was done last Session from insisting upon that, and I do not see my way now to enter upon the subject either on the general question of what we are to receive in future years or the proportion which our grant bears to that of England. There is not the slightest doubt that we are a down-trodden people, but, till we have heard the result of the inquiry on the financial relations of the two countries which has been so long impending, I am not prepared to say how down-trodden we are. There is one point, however, which we may fairly enter upon now, and that is the basis of the distribution of this Vote as between burghs and counties. The scheme of the Government is to distribute the money in proportion to the valuation of the burghs and counties: that is to say, to give the burghs and counties about half and half of the fund. But the population of the burghs is three times as great as the population of the counties, and the amount the burghs pay to the rates is about two-and-a-half times as much. Therefore, if you divide the money in this way you will be giving the counties three times as much per head and reducing their rates by two-and-a-half times as much as you are reducing the rates in the burghs. I do not think that is a satisfactory arrangement, and I do not understand why the counties should receive this specially favourable treatment. The money to be distributed comes from Imperial taxation. You may have differences of opinion as to 1427 how much should go to one class or another, but you can have no differences of opinion that the amount paid per head into the Imperial Exchequer by those who inhabit the counties is almost the same as the amount paid in by those who inhabit the towns, and, therefore, it seems clear that the distribution as between counties and towns should be in proportion to population and not in proportion to valuation. This is not a convenient opportunity to press the matter, but we may appropriately enter our protest, and, having stated that we consider that the burghs are not being fairly treated in the matter, give warning that this question will have to be pressed when the permanent distribution of the fund comes to be considered.
§ (12.38.) MR. MUNRO FERGUSON (, &c.) LeithI agree that this is not the most convenient time to discuss the general principles upon which this grant is based, but I think we might have had some explanation as to why it is necessary to tie up the Local Authorities in the use of this grant. If the money had been simply handed over to Town and County Councils I do not think there would have been any opposition on this side of the House to the proposal of the Government; but it is unfortunate that this money should have been tied down to the relief of local rates, and I think the Lord Advocate will admit that it is not altogether fair to look upon this money as ratepayers' money. I cannot admit that the Parochial Boards or Town Councils represent the views of the mass of the people, or can be accepted as fair exponents of public opinion on this question, and I much regret that this money has not been devoted to freeing education, or some useful work by which the mass of the population would have been benefited. They will not be benefited by this distribution, and so far as the mass of the population is concerned a great opportunity has been thrown away.
§ (12.40.) MR. M. J. STEWART (Kirkcudbright)The opinion of the hon. Member opposite is not shared by a vast number of County Councils in Scotland, for they are most 1428 anxious that the manner in which it is proposed to distribute this grant should be adhered to; and they do not want to be allowed to spend the money here, or there, or anywhere, but wish it to be devoted to the alleviation of certain rates, as is now proposed to be done. Nothing could be more just than that plan, and I am satisfied that Scotland will be well pleased with it; and that when we come to discuss the larger method we shall have the greater number of constituencies and County Councils in our favour.
§ (12.41.) MR. CALDWELL (Glasgow, St. Rollox)The chief difficulty in regard to Scotland arises from the fact that the whole mind of the people is opposed to Grants in Aid. They were perfectly willing that the whole of the money which the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought would be a great boon should be given to freeing education, and there was no demand whatever on the part of the Scotch people for these Grants in Aid of local taxation. What you are doing is really an attempt to alter the incidence of taxation. You are going to give relief in regard to these local rates to property, and that is why this principle of Grants in Aid has no support from the people of Scotland. As has been been pointed out by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, those who will principally reap the benefit of this Grant in Aid will be the large ratepayers, and very little advantage will go to the smaller ratepayers. Reference has been made by the Lord Advocate to the fact that the principle of allocating the grants in the proportions of 80 per cent. to England, 11 per cent. to Scotland, and 9 per cent. to Ireland has already been sanctioned by Parliament, but he did not tell the House that this was in relation to the Probate Duty grant. The Imperial Treasury is the collector of the Probate Duty grant, and half was to go to the Local Authority and half to the Imperial Exchequer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, so far as the Local Authority was concerned, was merely the collector, and he handed over the Probate Duty grant from the three countries in the proportion in which he collected it from those countries.
§ MR. CALDWELLThe right hon. Gentleman stated so at the time.
§ MR. GOSCHENIf I may interrupt the hon. Gentleman I will explain that he is entirely mistaken. I said distinctly it was not collected in those proportions from the three countries but the contrary.
§ MR. CALDWELLHitherto it has been usual to treat the United Kingdom as a whole; and when grants were made from the Imperial Purse they were made as Imperial grants, and not as Scotch, English, and Irish grants. Now, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has altered the principle, and says, "Henceforth you are no longer to be treated as part of the United Kingdom, getting 10s. per child as the English parents do, but you are to be treated as a partner in a joint concern, in which your interest is 11 per cent., our interest is 80 per cent., and Ireland's interest is 9 per cent." The right hon. Gentleman has a Committee sitting to determine how much taxation is paid by England, Scotland, and Ireland, but how can any Committee tell that without you have separate Customs and Excise for each country? You in England drink whisky which pays duty in Scotland, and we in Scotland drink tea which pays duty in London. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is engaged in the policy of separating Imperial accounts into national accounts, and we have now Scotch interests pure and simple. The whole difficulty of the right hon. Gentleman now is that, having created this Scotch interest, we ask that it should be dealt with according to the views of the Scotch people. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says he does not recognise Scotch Members as being here to speak for Scotch opinion in the matter. If we are not, let some constitutional inquiry be made to ascertain that opinion.
§ Question put, and agreed to.