§ As from the fifteenth day of May next after the passing of this Act and during the continuance thereof the annual value of all agricultural lands and heritages in Scotland—
- (1) shall for the purpose of the occupiers' consolidated rate leviable by county councils, including the portion thereof leviable under the Public Health (Scotland) Acts, be held to be the
1359 nearest aggregate sum of pounds sterling to three-eighths of the annual value thereof as appearing on the valuation roll; and - (2) shall for the purpose of the occupiers' share of the poor rate, the school rate, and the other rates leviable by parish councils, be held to be the nearest aggregate sum of pounds sterling to three eighths of the annual value thereof as appearing on the valuation roll, subject to the deductions in pursuance of section thirty-seven of the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845.
§ The expression "agricultural lands and heritages" means any lands and heritages used for agricultural or pastoral purposes only, or as market gardens, orchards, or allotments, but does not include woodlands or land occupied together with a house as a park, garden, or pleasure-ground, or any land kept or preserved mainly or exclusively for sporting purposes. Provided that if any question shall arise as to the lands and heritages falling within the foregoing definition it shall be determined summarily by the sheriff, whose decision shall be final.
§ MR. J. H. DALZIEL (Kirkcaldy Burghs) moved, "That Clause 1 be postponed." There were, he pointed out, five pages of Amendments to this clause, and if this and the other clauses associated with it were postponed, it would facilitate matters. Moreover, there should be more time afforded the people of Scotland for the consideration of the Amendments of the Lord Advocate to the clause. Amendments had been placed on the Paper on Thursday night which materially affected the character of the Bill. It was only that morning that Members had really been in a position to acquaint themselves with the details of these Amendments, and they found that one of the most vital points of the Bill had been materially altered. The question of classification could not be settled in a hurry, and for that reason he proposed that the clause be postponed.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY,) Buteshiresaid he could not accept the Amendment. The main provision of the Bill, the classification of lands and heritages for purposes of rating, naturally took its place in the first clause, and the fact that there were five pages of Amendments down to that clause was a very good reason for proceeding with it at once. Besides, the Amendments he had put down to the 1360 clause were circulated amongst Members on Friday morning, and their object was to limit the operation of the clause in a way to meet the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite, as expressed on the Second Reading of the Bill.
§ SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)said the Bill, though exceedingly small and compact, was a complex Bill. It dealt with a variety of subjects. It abolished the Land Tax in parts of Scotland, it did something for the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, it professed to give relief to agriculture in Scotland; but perhaps its most intricate and most important provision was the alteration of the incidence of taxation in Scotland by the abolition of classification, as embodied in the first clause, and most of the Amendments put down by the Lord Advocate referred to that provision. Classification was, no doubt, one of those blessed words which were very desirable, but it was not understood by the vulgar, which most hon. Members were. [Laughter.] They had not all been brought up in the same atmosphere as the Lord Advocate, who had, perhaps, "classification" engraved on his heart, and they therefore required some little time in order to arrive at the scope of the alteration which the right hon. Gentleman proposed. The right hon. Gentleman had said, when introducing the Bill, that classification was voluntary; that it operated in one parish and not in another, creating great anomalies, and that unanimity was the ideal to be sought for. And yet the Amendments which the right hon. Gentleman had placed upon the Paper departed altogether from that ideal, and perpetuated the very evil he previously desired to put an end to. ["Hear, hear!"] The Amendments were, in one sense, a recognition of the justice of the arguments used by the critics of the Bill on previous occasions. They had pointed out that this elaborate system of classification in parishes appeared to work well, that those who were subject to it were satisfied with it, that upon it they based the amounts of their rents, and that to sweep it away and establish one form of classification only was a supreme step to take. ["Hear, hear!"] But the Government were now going back on their first proposal. He did not know what had influenced them to make 1361 this new departure. Perhaps it was because the abolition of classification would cause an amount of discontent in towns and boroughs when shopkeepers found it meant a considerable increase of their rates. But the new proposal of the Government appeared only on Friday. The result was that many hon. Members had not yet realised what it meant, even if they had seen it, and, apart from that, the people of Scotland should have some consideration shown them in this complicated matter. He therefore hoped that the Government would accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs.
§ Question put, "That Clause 1 be postponed."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 76; Noes, 116.—(Division List, No. 362.)
§ The announcement of the figures was received with Opposition cheers.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON (Dundee) moved to leave out the word "May," and to insert instead thereof the word "November," remarking that the longer the evil day could be put off the better.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid the financial year in the county and parish was from May to May, and they ought to follow the metes and bounds of the financial year, and that was why "May" was inserted.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ *MR. THOMAS SHAW (Hawick Burghs) moved to leave out the words "next after the passing of this Act," and to insert instead thereof the words "one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight," so that the Act should not come into operation until Whitsuntide 1898. It seemed to him that at this period of the Session the House should decide that the Act should not come into operation sooner than could possibly be avoided. It was clear that the Bill was intended to anticipate to some extent the Report of the projected Commission on local rating. He believed that the object of that Commission would be to ascertain in what proportions local rating should affect 1362 realty and personalty as compared with each other. He saw no difficulty whatever in the Commission being set to work at once. Even before the month of May 1898, Parliament might have considerable light thrown upon the whole question. He submitted that under these circumstances they ought to avoid the rash and sudden resolution projected in the hope that prior to May 1898 there would be additional light to enable Parliament, far more readily than it could now, to adjudicate upon the subject.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATE, in opposing the Amendment, said that, seeing the character of the Inquiry to be made, it might be supposed that Parliament would have the result of the Inquiry and the possibility of legislation before the date mentioned. Meantime agriculture was suffering, and its ills should be rectified at once.
§ SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN (Glasgow, Bridgeton)said that this was a mere concomitant to the English Bill. In Scotland there were 166 parishes classified. Under the Amendment of the Lord Advocate that classification might continue if certified by him. Therefore in those parishes the money would not go, as in England, to the agricultural population. Most of it would go to the dwellers in houses, and not to agricultural people at all. It was one of the most dangerous doctrines to lay down that such a question could not by industrious men be mastered in the course of a year. He did not think they wanted a Commission at all, but the announcement of the decision of the Government. By May 1898 the Government would be in full possession of all the materials they wanted, and they would then be able to say what they were going to do for the whole of the ratepayers of Scotland who were not agriculturists. By this Bill, in the most random manner, in 166 parishes out of 750, taken merely by chance, in which the urban ratepayers were not a bit more meritorious or had greater claims on the Treasury than in the other 600 parishes excluded, they were to be given something like five-eighths of their rates. This was extremely unjust, and an iniquitous proposal for which no defence whatever had been made. The Bill was for the relief of occupiers 1363 of agricultural land and heritages; it was not for the relief of the occupiers of other land and heritages. That alone should be sufficient to make the Government pause. But there was a stronger reason. The Government were going to pick out a certain part of Scotland, and then give an advantage to urban and none, in fact, to rural ratepayers. Before they carried out this operation in such an irregular and sporadic manner there should be a careful examination into the whole question, so that all parts of Scotland could be treated justly and equally instead of by a method for which not one single argument had been advanced.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 129; Noes, 79.—(Division List, No. 363.)
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON moved to leave out the words "during the continuance thereof," and to insert instead thereof the words "for a period of two years thereafter," so as to limit the duration of the clause, as distinguished from the Act, to a period of two years. He remarked that, when the nature of the proposals made in this clause was considered, and also the nature of the difficulties they were intended to meet, the reasonableness of the Amendment would become evident. The continuance of the Act, by one of the last clauses, was fixed at five years. But why should this particular clause be continued for five years? What they were proposing to introduce by this clause was a complicated system of classification declared to be necessary to meet a case of partiality—assumed and not proved—and which they were told would form the subject of deliberate inquiry almost immediately. Supposing the result of that Inquiry to be—as he had no doubt it ought to be—that there was no such unfairness in the present system as was contended by the Government, and that the hypothesis which was the foundation for this clause was groundless altogether, why should they be bound to keep this new system of statutory classification in existence a single day longer than was necessary? He therefore proposed that, 1364 instead of the clause being coterminous with the duration of the Act, the shorter period of two years should be substituted. The Lord Advocate's proposed Amendment to this clause supplied, to his mind, a new and imperative reason why some shorter period than five years should be fixed for the duration of this particular clause. That Amendment seemed to involve a new kind of classification altogether—not a classification of lands compared one with another, but a classification of agricultural relief. If the Lord Advocate succeeded in what he was going to move, there would be three kinds of agricultural relief. Some lands would get the full benefit of the Act, others would get no benefit at all, and the third class would get a benefit which would vary from ½d. to 1s. in the pound. Thus, it seemed to him, they were now asked to give a tenure of five years to agricultural relief varying in different parts of the country, and in no degree commensurate with proved agricultural distress, but dependent on the existence of the present system of classification.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid the argument of his hon. and learned Friend came to this—that, inasmuch as there was going to be an Inquiry, he disliked the continuation for five years of the statutory classification which was introduced into the Bill. The simple answer seemed to him to be that it was not certain when that Inquiry would be concluded and when the legislation that followed upon that Inquiry would be introduced. The injustice under which agriculture, as they considered, suffered cried for remedy at once. If, as a matter of fact, the Inquiry was concluded and legislation followed in a sooner period than five years, then, of course, nothing would be easier than in the Bill in which that was dealt with to sweep away the effects of the present Bill. This was necessarily a temporary proposal, and must come to an end when the operation of the Measure ceased to lie. Therefore he submitted that the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument was not an argument for limiting the tenure of the Bill to less than five years, that being the period taken in the English Bill. As regarded the effect of his Amendment, it was sufficient to say at that point that, inasmuch as the Amendment, so far as it went, was for 1365 the maintenance of the status quo, there did not seem to be any good reason for limiting the operation to two years instead of five.
§ MR. CALDWELLpointed out that the Government, after they had introduced this Bill, had found it necessary, upon the eve of going into Committee, to make most substantial changes in this particular section of the Bill. That showed at once that the matter had not been carefully thought out. It showed that if a matter of this kind was to go on without inquiry, and without being able to test the effect of the Bill and of its practical operation in the districts of Scotland, they ought to have a reasonably limited time fixed for giving it a fair trial without committing Scotland to a very lengthy period. Even supposing this Inquiry concluded, and the Committee reporting, what guarantee had they that the Government would introduce the Bill of which the Lord Advocate had spoken with the same alacrity they had shown in this case. The object they had in view in this Amendment was to insure that a certain reasonable time should be given, and the proposal was to substitute two years from the 15th of May next—two years and a half practically. What was there to inquire about, so far as Scotland was concerned? The whole facts regarding the principle and expediency of classification were well-known, and they could not possibly be altered. The Lord Advocate put the whole case of classification upon one particular point, and that was that in the case of agricultural lands they were unfairly treated, because they were assessed at present upon their stock-in-trade instead of, as he maintained, upon their proportionate means and substance. If that was all that was involved in the Bill and in the classification of rates, what was there to take up an Inquiry for any length of time? These were matters which a Committee would be able to deal with in three or four days.
§ MR. DALZIELsaid the Lord Advocate stated that this Bill followed the lines of the English Bill, but here, at all events, it differed, because in the English Bill the first clause represented that "during the continuance of this Act for five years," and so on. The Lord Advocate did not adopt that, but fell back on the expedient of adding a 1366 clause at the end of the Bill in which he limited the operation of the Act to five years. He would also remind the Committee that at the commencement of the discussions on the English Bill "during the continuance thereof was inserted," but during the Debates it was pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill that the words were really not necessary, and they were subsequently dropped entirely. He maintained, therefore, that the words were not really necessary. The Act would cease, as proposed, in 1902. In the ordinary course of events he supposed they would have a General Election in 1901, so that the effect of extending the duration of the Bill to five years was to take away from the present Government the responsibility of dealing with the question of rating as a whole unless they happened to get a majority at the General Election. The position of the Government upon this question had been all along that they were going to deal with it. If that was so, then there was no reason why they should postpone this Act until a future Parliament.
§ SIR ROBERT REID (Dumfries Burghs)said there was one argument used by the Lord Advocate which he should always resent. The Lord Advocate said that this Bill was the complement of the English Bill, and that, therefore, because the Bill relating to rating in England was limited to five years, Scotland should be placed in exactly the same position, for the sake, he supposed, of uniformity. But uniformity, when it was not coupled with any consideration of expediency, was not necessarily a good thing, and he entirely repudiated it being said that because the English Bill did this or that, therefore the same considerations should weigh in the case of the Scotch Bill. He should support the Amendment for two reasons. The first was that he thought the classification proposed in the clause was a bad classification in itself and contrary to the spirit, and, he might almost say, the letter, of the previous statutes which from ancient times had governed rating in Scotland. The principle which governed rating in Scotland was that persons were to be rated according to their ability to pay, and not according to the particular class 1367 of property they happened to own. It I was perfectly true that in many burghs and districts, where classification had been applied, the authorities had taken a rough-and-ready method of ascertaining ability by reference to the employment of persons. The real principle was that persons should be rated according to their ability to pay. But according to this clause the farmer who paid £2,000 a year of rent and made £700 a year profit would have this relief, while the small shopkeeper in the counties, who often had a difficulty to make two ends meet, would get no relief. That was bad in principle. ["Hear, hear!"] Another consideration which induced him to support the Amendment was that, if this was to be a temporary Measure, it should be as short as possible in order to induce the Government, if possible, to take some trouble to ascertain what was fair and right with regard to Scotland and to put it into law within two years.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid he hoped the hon. Member would not press the Amendment. As to what the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy had said, he might state that, though there was a difference in drafting, there was little or no difference in substance between the English and Scotch Bills. In drafting the Scotch Bill it was imperative to introduce the words referred to where they were inserted, because there was a Standing Order which required that the precise duration of every temporary law must be stated in an express provision at the end of the Bill. The point had been carefully considered by the law officers for Scotland.
§ SIR G. TREVELYANsaid the Lord Advocate and the First Lord of the Treasury had minimised the importance of the Amendment. In his opinion, it was one of the most important that could be put before the House of Commons. It was a matter upon which he thought the Scotch Members should give the reasons for their vote; it was a point for which they must strive, and as far as he could see it was the only occasion for saying whether or not they were going to put into an Act of Parliament a declaration that for five years special relief was to be given to agriculture in Scotland. If those words on the Paper 1368 went unchallenged, Scotch Members would have so far declared their sanction of the principle that agriculture in Scotland was in such a state, and was likely to be so for the next few years, that special relief ought to be given to it, not for two or three years, but for five years. He should not refer to the past, but confine his remarks to the prospects of Scotch agriculture in the immediate future, and he maintained that they would not be just stewards of the public funds if they voted the proposed relief to agriculture in Scotland. A Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the condition of agriculture, and a large sum of money was spent over it. Were they going to set aside the Reports and evidence of that Commission, so far, at least, as related to Scotland I He maintained that the evidence showed that rent was rising all over Scotland. Before that Commission a farmer of great experience in Fifeshire said—
When you find one farm let at £200 of a rise, and the other going to be let at 40s. an acre, and an offer conies in for 50s. an acre, in one week, it is difficult to find a remedy.Mr. Davidson, a farmer of considerable importance, was asked whether there was still a demand for farms in Scotland, and he replied, "Yes, there was one let in East Lothian the other day, and I understand that the rent is £200 a year higher than before." Taking another part of the country, the convener of the county of Aberdeen and a prominent Member of the County Council, stated in evidence before the Commission—So far as I can see there is very little difficulty in letting all good farms, and sometimes even at a considerable rise of rent, even in these present times.Lord Aberdeen's agent had stated that within the last year rents had been advancing. He might quote other evidence to the same effect, showing that rents were rising all over the country. The Times a fortnight ago published a very interesting account of Scotch agriculture, in which it was said that whilst dire misfortune had fallen on the farmer in the south-west of England and in many parts of Wales, the state of affairs in the north-east of Scotland was probably never more hopeful. Journals in 1369 Scotland had also written in a very hopeful and favourable strain of the agricultural prospects, and on that very day The Times had published a succedaneum to its previous account, and spoke of the extraordinary heavy crops for the moment proving a source; of weakness on account of the heavy rains, but remarking that the country was in so favourable a condition that, with seasonable weather, Scotland would have an abundant crop. With such a state of the facts, did the Government expect that the borough Members would acquiesce in their constituents being asked to contribute something equivalent to what would be a penny on the Income Tax for five years in order that the tenants of farms that were rapidly rising in value should have five-eighths of their rates paid out of the taxes, which came mainly from the pockets of the urban ratepayers? The present prospects of the Scotch farmers were good, and so were those of the labourer. The labourer now had good wages, and was in every way well off, and nothing was more gratifying than to hear the farmer in Scotland expressing his joy that the labourer had plenty of work. The fact was that prices had come to the lowest point. One of the most important of Scotch products in agriculture was wool, and while in 1894 wool was selling for 7d. a 1b. in parts of Great Britain, British wool was now selling at from 9d. to 11d. per lb., and never below 9d. Prices were improving, rents were rising, and labour was plentiful, and in these circumstances—when it was shown, moreover, that agriculture in Scotland was in a better condition than it was in England—they were asked to sanction this relief to the Scotch farmer on the ground of the depressed condition of agriculture.
§ DR. CLARK (Caithness)was astonished that the Lord Advocate should display such warmth in speaking of the terrible injustice which beset the agriculturists. He had always thought this proposal was a mere matter of expediency and not of justice. The object of the clause was to reduce, first of all, the occupier's rate in the county. Until the passing of the Local Government Act of 1888 the county rate was paid by the landlord, but now one-half was payable by the occupier. The terrible 1370 injustice related to the rate imposed on the occupier by the last Conservative Government. The second relief was in respect of the parochial rates. Until the Act of 1845 the parochial rates were payable by the owners, but since the passing of that Act one-half of those rates had been payable by the occupier. Both of the changes had been made by Parliament, and he did not know that there was any terrible injustice unless it consisted in the changes themselves. They were now arguing for limitation; they did not want any hard-and-fast line adopted. The Bill was drawn up, not because Scotland wanted something, but in consequence of the English demand it was necessary there should be a grant equivalent to that given to England. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division had pointed out that there were not the same conditions in Scotland as in England. Undoubtedly in England, especially in the south and east, there was agricultural depression, but in Scotland the condition of things was quite different. After the Bill was drafted the Government found, from information afforded them by Unionist Members, that the Bill would not do, and that they must modify it. The Amendments they proposed entirely changed the character of the Measure, and all that was asked was that Parliament should not have their hands tied, but if in two or three years they found it necessary they should make another change. Nothing had been advanced by the Government to cause him to dissent from the Amendment.
§ MR. MUNRO FERGUSON (Leith Burghs)did not think the Bill should last a day longer than was necessary, because, in the first place, however loud the cry for justice to agriculturists might be, there could be no doubt that the method by which it was sought to bring about that justice was a wholly indefensible one. Again, the Inquiry into the incidence of local taxation need not be a too long one. The Inquiry was one which should not last for two years, and it was desirable that action should be taken as soon as the Commission reported. If the Government meant to deal with the whole question of local taxation, they ought to do so long before two years had elapsed. The Amendment was one 1371 which would be accepted by the great mass of his countrymen, and as such he should give it his support.
§ MR. ALEXANDER URE (Linlithgow)said that all the facts were known and nothing remained to be done but for the Government to make up their minds as to the proper proportions of local taxation and for a skilled draftsman to frame a Measure. If, on the other hand, it was necessary that a Committee should inquire into the incidence of local taxation, could anyone imagine a better incentive to accelerated action on the part of the Committee than a limitation of the operation of this clause to two years? If the Lord Advocate held the view there was an injustice to be remedied, he had better consent to have this Amendment made part of the Bill.
* MR. MCLEODsaid the duration of the Bill would bring them up almost to the conclusion of this Parliament, with the result that, before the General Election it would he proposed to continue it in the Expiring Laws Continuation Bill. The effect of that might be that another place would prevent them dealing with the matter in a proper manner.
§ * MR ALEXANDER WYLIE (Dumbartonshire)urged that, as compared with other industries in Scotland, that of agriculture was greatly depressed. The opposition of the Member for Bridgeton was not well founded.
§ MR. CALDWELLmentioned the case of the Bill which a few years ago was brought in for the relief of local ratea, the money being, after a year's reflection, given to the establishing of free education, with the approval of the whole of the people of Scotland. They only asked for a reasonable time to consult the feelings of the local authorities. He thought a period of two years would be sufficient.
§ Question put, "That the words during the continuance thereof' stand part of the clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 138; Noes, 81.—(Division List, No.364.)
§ MR. CALDWELL moved to leave out, the words "and heritages." He said that the object of the Amendment was to place the relief given on the same basis as in the English Bill; and in that 1372 Measure it was confined to agricultural land, exclusive of buildings. In Scotland the rental of a farm was placed on the valuation roll as an indivisible whole, land and builidings being taken together. A great many farmers in Scotland made a profit out of summer lettings of their farmhouses; unless "heritages" was excluded from the clause, relief would be given in respect of such houses, as well as of the land with which they were connected.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid that the words "and heritages" were put in the clause to secure the benefit of the Definition Clause in the Valuation of "Land Act, 1884. In this particular there was a necessary divergence from the English Bill. In that Measure the amount of relief given was conditioned by the amount of agricultural land. But in this Bill for Scotland the amount of relief was simply a proportion of the English amount. All that had to be done, therefore, was to see that agriculture was relieved, and that as between different agriculturists the money was fairly divided. As there was approximately a constant ratio between the buildings and the land, a fair division of the relief could be given without separating land and buildings, and thus an expensive inquiry was rendered unnecessary.
§ MR. CALDWELLpointed out that, if the whole of the sum available were not required, there would be more money available for other purposes.
§ SIR R. REIDobjected to the Amendment, because it would make it impossible that any portion of the money would find its way into the pockets of those who were not actually owners and occupiers of agricultural land as opposed to agricultural cottages. One of his complaints against the Bill was that, taking money for agricultural purposes, it did not fairly distribute the money to persons who were suffering more or less from agricultural depression, and he thought the Government Bill was more liberal and fair in that regard than it would be if the Amendment were accepted.
§ DR. CLARKsupported the Amendment, and said he should be curious to see how hon. Gentlemen on the other side who supported a similar Amendment on the English Bill would vote on 1373 this one. In the English Bill it was land and land alone they wanted to relieve, and so they kept out buildings—or heritages. Now, in Scotland they were going to relieve both land and heritages. Why not apply the same principle to both countries? They were passing a temporary Measure for the relief of a class, yet that class was exactly the same in England as in Scotland. Another important reason why he supported the Amendment was this—that if they gave this relief to land only, then the class of people for whom he had peculiar sympathy, the small working agriculturist, would get the benefit, whereas at present the benefit, especially in the northern counties, would go to the largo capitalists.
§ Question put, "That the words 'and heritages' stand part of the clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 119; Noes, 70.—(Division List, No. 365.)
§ MR. CALDWELL moved, after the word "Scotland," to insert the words "in parishes partly landward and partly burghal." He said that the contention of the Lord Advocate was that rating was to be on the principle of means and substance. It was further pointed out that there were only 158 parishes which were classified, and the right hon. Gentleman explained, as a reason why more were not classified, that there were landward parishes where classification was of no use, they being all of a similar nature. The object of the Amendment was to test these theories. They were dealing with household property and manufactories in the burghs, and with land in the county districts of the same parish. Classification was, therefore, necessary. Landward districts should not have to pay the same rate as in the case of burghs; but the fact was that they were giving relief, not by imposing rates on the different occupiers, according to their means and substance, not on the principle of classification, but giving a grant out of the Imperial Exchequer in relief of rates. Rates were under the control of the landward parishes, and there was no other authority to classify them. There was no injustice in the rates being levied on the occupier of the landward portion of a parish unless 1374 they were prepared to introduce a new principle, that of giving a grant in aid to local rates, apart altogether from the question of distress.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEcould not accept the Amendment. They had not said that the classified parishes exhausted the whole of the parishes in which there was anything else besides agricultural land. They said that in a good many parishes which were not classified there was not the same call as in the case of parishes which were classified. The effect of the Amendment would be to stop the relief of any grant to any parish that was not a landward burghal parish.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. E. ROBERTSON moved, after the word "Scotland," to insert the words "in respect of lands and heritages in the occcupation of the owner thereof." He could not see how the Government could defend the extension of the grant in the case of a landowner who occupied and farmed his own land for his own pleasure. There were a number of cases in which his Amendment would apply which did not seem to him to come within the scope of the Bill. A large portion of the land in Scotland was let out by the owners in grass parks. There were other cases in which the owner had a home farm. It was absurd to say that the home farm of a great landowner was really connected with the agricultural industry. He farmed the land for his own amusement and pleasure, rather than in the way of business; and he did not see how they could justify the giving of public money to the great landowners whose land was occupied in this way. The Government ought to limit their relief to the men engaged in agriculture as an industrry.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEcould not accept the Amendment. He was sorry to say that there were many owners in Scotland who were taking to agriculture as an industry very much against their will. Everyone knew that again and again the necessity had been forced upon owners to take land into their own hands pending the prospect of re-letting. In all these cases the owner was occupier, and paid the full rate; and therefore the Government thought that it was only logical to put him in the same position as everyone else receiving relief.
§ MR. R. B. HALDANE (Haddingtonshire)did not agree with his hon. and learned Friend the mover of the Amendment. He was interested in developing the system of small holdings, and he should like to see more agriculturists own as well as occupy their holdings. But, as the Amendment would act as a discouragement to any scheme of that kind, he must oppose it. In the rich and prosperous county which he represented farms were easily let, but, if they went to the more distressed parts of Scotland, it was extremely difficult to get tenants. The persons who had farms in their own hands were not the prosperous owners of the rich and fertile parts, but were comparatively poor persons who ought to be assisted.
§ MR. T. R. BUCHANAN (Aberdeenshire, E.)also said that he could not support the Amendment. If they were going to give relief to the agricultural tenant, it was due just as much to the man who farmed his own land as the ordinary tenant-occupier. The Amendment would, besides, act as a deterrent to the creation of small holdings.
§ DR. CLARKreminded the Government that a pledge had been given that a provision would be introduced into the Bill for the purpose of preventing the relief from going to the Scotch landlords. Now, however, the Government were opposing an Amendment which would prevent the money from going into the pockets of a certain class of landlords. Many of the landlords would not reduce their rents to the market level. They were telling the farmers that they did not want them, that they could do as they did after the war in 1815, and that they could deal with the labourers themselves directly. In fact, they threatened to farm the lands through the agency of their own bailiffs, and to wipe out the farmers. They were trying an experiment, and some of the owners were already finding out that it was not a paying experiment. Be that as it might, he did not think that they ought to aid men who did not reduce their rents. He trusted, therefore, that the Amendment would be pressed.
§ MR. ROBINSON SOUTTAR (Dumfriesshire)said that he had no particular sympathy with landlords, and that perhaps he should not be sorry if money were diverted from their pockets. He 1376 had, however, great sympathy with small holders, of whom there were a considerable number in the county which he represented. They belonged to a class whom it was desirable to encourage in the interests of agriculture and the country. He hoped on this account that the Amendment would not be accepted.
* MR. MCLEODwas in favour of limiting the relief to owners of holdings of a certain size. What was needful in the North of Scotland was that holdings should be of a reasonable size and let at fair rents.
§ MR. E. ROBERTSON, in asking leave to withdraw his Amendment, reserved his right to raise the question again on the Report stage. The objections against his Amendment might be met by the introduction of words providing that the size of the holding to which relief was to be given should be limited. He had been influenced to move this Amendment by a flagrant case which had come under his notice. A man who had bought a big estate as a pure speculation, had turned out the tenants one by one. He could not consent to giving public money to men of that kind.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ * MR. J. B. BALFOUR (Clackmannan and Kinross)had an Amendment on the Paper to insert, after "Scotland," the words "not situated within any burgh, as defined by the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act, 1892." He said that he did not now intend to move the Amendment, as it was put upon the Paper to prepare the way for raising later on the subject of classification, and it would probably have been held that without some such Amendment the subject could not be raised. The Lord Advocate, however, had given notice of an Amendment which, while it did not go as far as he wished, would to a certain limited extent provide for the case of burgh classifications. It might be well, therefore, to wait to see whether it would not be possible to make amendments in the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment, either in Committee or on the Report stage. The Amendment which he had placed on the Paper also referred to the question of accommodation land, because lands within the area of burghs were generally, although not universally, 1377 accommodation lands. Seeing, however, that the object which he had in view when he put the Amendment down might now be attained in other ways, he did not propose to move.
§
MR. CALDWELL moved, at the beginning of the clause, to insert:—
In any parish where the value of agricultural lands and heritages as appearing on the Valuation Roll for the year 1895–6 was less than that for the year 1879–80 by more than 10 per cent. and not more than 25 per cent.
The Lord Advocate, he said, based his proposal to relieve agriculture on the ground of agricultural distress, and also upon the ground of just taxation as between one class of the community and another. The Lord Advocate had told them that in Scotland, comparing the year 1879–80, when rents were at their highest, with the year 1893–4, there had been a reduction in rents of 20 per cent. He proposed in his Amendment that relief should not be granted in the case of agricultural lands where the reduction was less than 10 per cent. Twenty per cent. was the average reduction in Scotland, and there had been at least an average reduction of that amount througout the kingdom. His object was that, in all cases where the rent had not been reduced to a greater extent than 10 per cent., the land should not get the benefit of any bonus from the Imperial Exchequer. Why was he of that opinion? Because it was obvious that in cases where the reduction was less than 10 per cent., the tenant was paying far too much rent for his holding. Rents in Scotland were the result of competition, and in consequence tenants often paid more than reasonable rents for their holdings. How could tenants who did that expect to receive any relief out of the pocket of the Imperial taxpayer? But the Lord Advocate would say, probably, that he did not base this proposal to give this relief on the ground of agricultural distress, but on the ground of equity and just taxation between different classes of the community. The Lord Advocate would, no doubt, get up and say that this was a question of rating, and that agricultural distress had nothing to do with it; yet he made agricultural distress the moving power of the Bill. When there was throughout the United Kingdom an undoubted fall in rents of not less than 20 per cent., it
1378
was not an unreasonable thing to say that if there was any tenant in Scotland who was paying within 10 per cent. of the rent that was paid for the same land in 1879–80, he was doing so with his eyes open. Why should that man get relief for an act of his own I When he made the offer of that rent for the land he knew what the burdens were, and he estimated his rent accordingly. He contended that where the rent was notoriously within 10 per cent. of what it was in 1879, it showed that the tenant had not been getting that reduction of rent which he ought to, and it showed that the State ought not to interfere. It was purely a question of rent. When the question of agricultural distress was raised, he was entitled to point out that it was not a question of taxation but of rent.
* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSsaid that as there were Amendments of a similar kind put down by several hon. Members, he should put the hon. Gentleman's Amendment in such a way as not to prevent other hon. Members from moving theirs as Amendments to this one. He therefore put the question that the words "in any parish where the value of agricultural land and heritages" be added to the Bill.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid this was not an agricultural relief Bill, but one for the reform of rating. [Cheers.] Considering that the Bill had been approved upon Second Reading, and that he put in the forefront of his speech that it was a Bill for rating reform, the hon. Gentleman would hardly expect the Government to accept his Amendment.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNEEMANsaid the right hon. Gentleman was very ingenious in shifting as much as he could on to the particular leg on which he desired the Bill to stand. But, whatever the right hon. Gentleman might say, the Committee could not forget that the original purpose and intent of this legislation, both for England and for Scotland, had been professedly to relieve agriculture; and, although from the point of view of the readjustment of the incidence of taxation this Amendment would appear somewhat out of place, yet the rise and fall in the value of the farms had something to do with the other aspect of the Bill. Therefore, on that ground, he hoped a good many of them 1379 would support his hon. Friend. The I Amendment, however, had certain words at the end of it which he could not support, though his hon. Friend told him they were adopted from the English Bill. The truth was that this Amendment was a very reasonable and moderate statement of the arguments that had been used against the proposals in the Bill. From the first what the Opposition had maintained was, that while they sympathised with the depressed condition of agriculture, they sympathised also with all other trades and industries in the country which were depressed, and they thought that it was unfair, at all events, that those other industries and trades which were grievously distressed and had been for the last 10 or 20 years, should be called upon to pay for the relief of this one particular industry of agriculture, and they had argued with regard to the case of Scotland that there had been no such reduction in rents, and no such distress in agriculture as to justify any extraordinary steps being taken. This view, which had been expressed from the Table at considerable length on the Second Beading of the Bill, had been very remarkably strengthened and endorsed by a Blue-book which had been circulated not many days ago, giving elaborate statistics of the history of the expenditure and receipts on certain great estates during the last 30 or 40 years. Those returns bore out exactly what had been said upon this subject. There was no doubt that 30 years ago rents in Scotland were abnormally high, and therefore they ought not to be accepted as the standard for normal rents in the country. Taking rents as they stood at the present time, farms in Scotland could be let easily, and were even competed for when the rents were reduced 20 or 30 per cent. upon those of 30 years ago. That was borne out by the Return to which he had referred. Bents had been steadily reduced for many years, and now they appeared to be settled to a considerable extent. The hon. Member's Amendment proposed that relief should not be given in cases where the rents had not fallen 10 per cent., and he thought that that was a very moderate demand. He thought that there was nothing to be said against the equity, justice, or the reasonableness 1380 of such a proposal. The Bill was open to many epithets, but its original object had been the relief of distressed agriculture, and hon. Members on the Opposition side would continue to regard it in that light. Whilst they admitted the great losses which farmers had sustained, and whilst they admired the way in which those losses had been met, they could not help feeling that other sections of the community had suffered equally. The man with capital got less interest for his money than he formerly received for it, and the profits of trade had fallen. The only redeeming fact was that the wages of the workmen had not fallen. ["Hear, hear!"] But with that exception the profits of all trades had fallen equally with those of agriculture. He did not wish to push this point too far—he did not deny that there was distress in agriculture, but he maintained that other trades had suffered to an equal extent. In these circumstances he should support the Amendment. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ SIR J. FERGUSSONsaid that he must protest against the right hon. Gentleman's view as to the sweet reasonableness of this Amendment. He could not see why a farm in a particular parish should not receive relief when the rent had fallen 50 or 60 per cent. merely because the rent of other farms in the same parish had not fallen to such an extent as to effect a reduction of 10 per cent. upon the rents of the whole of the parish. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ * MR. ALEXANDER WYLIEsaid the assertion of the right hon. Member for Stirling, "that other trades had suffered to an equal extent with agriculture," was erroneous, and asked him to specify any leading industry in Scotland which had done so. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ SIR R. REIDsaid that he entirely concurred with what had fallen from his right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling. His difficulty, however, was to appreciate exactly the meaning of the Amendment and its bearing upon the Bill. The proposal contained in the Amendment was that no farm should receive relief unless the rent had fallen 10 per cent. But why should the farmer be refused relief because his rent had been increased instead of reduced? 1381 He sympathised with the object of the Amendment, but he thought that it had been drawn in a wrong form. He hoped that the Amendment would be withdrawn, and be reintroduced in an amended form on the Report.
§ DR. CLARKsaid that this point had been fully discussed when the English Bill was in Committee. There could be no doubt that the object of this Bill was to relieve agricultural distress. But were there no other Scotch industries that were depressed? The mining interest of the country had suffered greatly, and by this Bill the burdens upon it would be largely increased. It was clear that the Government did not look on this Bill as one for relieving agriculture. In Ayrshire there had not been the same fall as in the Lothians, because the produce was entirely different, and the distress was not equal in different parts of the country. He supported his hon. Friend on I he ground that those who did not require relief ought not to get it.
§ * MR. J. B. BALFOURsuggested that the word "case" should be substituted for "parish."
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid he understood the suggestion was that the Amendment should be withdrawn in order that it might be put in the altered form. He did not in that case object to its withdrawal.
* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSsaid this Amendment was the first which raised the distinction of value. If the Amendment were put in the suggested form he should put the question that the words "in any case where the value of agricultural lands and heritages," be added, so that, if carried, it would not preclude further Amendments.
§ MR. CALDWELLasked leave to withdraw his Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§
MR. CALDWELL moved, after the word "Scotland," to insert the words—
In any case where the value of agricultural lands and heritages, as appearing on the Valuation Roll for the year 1895–6, was less than that for the year 1879–80 by more than 10 per cent.
§ Question put, "That the words 'in any case where the value of agricultural lands and heritages' be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 58; Noes, 130.—(Division List, No. 366.)
§ DR. CLARK moved, after the word "Scotland," to insert the words "during the currency of the existing leases thereof," the object of the Amendment being to limit the reduction to the present current leases.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYWe have already passed words in the clause implying that this relief would be applicable to agricultural land cultivated by the owner. This Amendment applies only to land let on lease, and I wish therefore to know whether it is in order?
* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSI think the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman will require alteration, because it would imply that all lands to which the Bill applies are let on lease. I would suggest that the Amendment should run "during the currency of existing leases of such lands as are subject to lease," so as to show that it is intended to apply only to lands under lease.
§ DR. CLARKsaid he would move the words suggested by the Chairman. At the end of an existing lease the land would fall, of course, into the hands of the owner; and in any new letting the tenant would not get the benefit of the Act, because the amount of the rent depended upon the amount of the local rate. Where local rates were low the rents were high, and where the local rates were high the rents were low. It was, therefore, perfectly clear that the Amendment should be accepted in order to carry out the pledge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that every effort would be made to prevent the benefit going to the landlord.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid he could not accept the Amendment. It was a fantastic proposal, for it meant that the rating authority would have in every case to consider not only the state of the valuation, but how many years of a lease were unexpired. Another result would be that, in cases were lands were in the occupancy of the owner, the owner would get relief so long as he kept 1383 the lands in his own hands, but the moment he let them go he would lose the relief.
§ SIR G. TREVELYANthought the right hon. Gentleman had not at all met the point that the relief would go to the landlord at the expiration of a lease. The North British Agriculturist had written that the right policy for the Government to have adopted was to have advocated a reduction of the rents on agricultural land on the ground that agricultural land was paying more than its just share of rating; and to have recognised the indisputable fact that on the expiration of leases the benefit of the reduction would be secured by the landlords in the shape of increased rents. That was evidence as to the necessity of the Amendment from practical authorities on the subject.
§ MR. UREsaid that if the Lord Advocate was honest in his desire that the full relief should go to the tenant—as no doubt he was—he would accept the Amendment.
* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSI have great doubts now whether the Amendment is in order, not on the point which has been already raised, but on another point. The Committee have already decided that this clause is to come into operation on the 15th day of May next after the passing of the Act, and during the continuance of the Act certain things are to happen. The effect of the Amendment would be to limit what the Committee has already decided. There is no proof that existing leases would continue for five years during the whole of the continuance of the Act. Indeed, some existing leases might only run for six months. The Amendment is, therefore, out of order.
§ After the usual interval, Mr. E. R. WODEHOUSE (Bath) took the Chair.
§ MR. CALDWELL moved to leave out Sub-section (1). He said that when the Unionist Government in 1889 introduced the Consolidated Rate Bill they had regard to the fact of what had been the incidence of taxation at that particular time, and they took into consideration that they were dealing with the management of the county rate which had up to that time been levied entirely upon the owner. If the contention of the Lord 1384 Advocate had been a sound one, that rate should be levied according to means and substance. Why was it that the Unionist Government thus departed from that principle when they were introducing this new principle of taxation in counties? They had before them the principle of classification which existed in the case of the poor law and in the case of the public health, and nothing was more simple than for them to introduce the principle of classification in the counties in the same way as it existed with regard to these other rates in the counties, if the principle of means and substance was a proper method of rating. If they were going to rate a parish they rated it according to its annual valuation as a whole. They took that as the subject of rating, and then they rated every individual occupant of any part of that parish according to the valuation of the portion he occupied. They did not rate according to the uses to which a particular property was put, or to the income which any man derived out of his use of the property. The result was that they could not, that it was impossible to approach or anything like approach, the question of means and substance when they were going to deal with taxation. The moment they departed from the principle that they took the valuation of the district or county as a whole and assessed each man according to the portion of the parish he occupied, they got into inextricable confusion. They never could introduce into the case of the county the particular uses to which a man might apply any particular portion of the rateable area which he occupied. All the matters that preceded the Act of 1889, such as the Lord Advocate had referred to, took place before they drew out the Local Government Bill at all, and yet, in the face of all these things, upon which the Government had relied as justifying the present Measure, they did not give effect to them, but gave effect to the present principle upon which they were insisting. Why had there been this change of front on the part of the Government for the settlement which they themselves made so recently as 1889? What they were asked to do was entirely to change the legislation and the principle of valuation which the Unionist Government themselves adopted in 1889. He thought he 1385 could supply the reasons for the action of the Government in 1889 and the actions of the present occupants of the Treasury Bench. In 1889 the Unionist Government had a declining majority in the country. They were then coming near the time of a General Election, and when a Government was in a decline and coming near to a General Election they had to be exceedingly careful, in meeting their constituents, as to the proposals they made. The then Unionist Government would not have dared to have brought in such a Bill as the present. It was only brought in now because the Government felt they had got a majority of 150 and that they had five more years, and that accounted for the period of five years in the Bill in which they could enjoy uninterruptedly the sweets of office without anyone calling them to account for this particular revision. The county rates before the Act of 1889 came into operation were levied and paid by the owner. The Act of 1889, introducing the consolidated rate, laid upon tenants a burden which they had not to pay before. If the rate had been oppressive to the tenants, who imposed the burden upon them? The Unionist Government had imposed the burden upon the tenant or occupier. It did not exist in 1889. Again, who was going to get this alleged relief I Not the tenant. ["Hear, hear!"] In the end the landlord would get the benefit. For it was in the course of things that, if they relieved a tenant of certain obligations attached to his occupation, the landlord would make up for it in increased rent and thus secure the benefit. If the rates were reduced, it was pretty certain that the abatements of rent by the landlord would be less than they otherwise would be, and in this way again the relief would go to the landlord. However, his main consideration was that, a sum of money having been taken by the Government for allocation to Scotland, the representatives of Scotland were entitled to see that it was applied according to Scotch opinion and needs. He begged to move the Amendment that stood on the paper in his name—namely, that Sub-section (1) be omitted from the Bill.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid he thought he might be relieved from answering the hon. Member for Mid Lanark in so far as his speech had been 1386 a Second Reading speech, because it must be perfectly obvious to the Committee that this clause was the first clause in which the general purpose of the Bill was put into expression, and the general purpose of the Bill was the relief of certain rates. He was not going to argue the propriety of giving the proposed relief under the Act. The only point that might be properly argued on the Amendment, was whether the particular rate specified in the sub-section was a rate that ought to be relieved. He contended that it was. The argument of the hon. Member was reduced to a very narrow compass, for it was to the effect that, because the Unionist Government did not deal with this consolidated rate in 1889, because they did not at that time introduce a compulsory system of classification, therefore they should not do so now. The hon. Member was not quite accurate in telling the Committee that prior to 1889 all the county rates were payable by the owner alone, because he had forgotten the road rate, because it was leviable, half upon the owner and half upon the occupier. The road rate, which was introduced in 1878, was part of the occupier's consolidated rate. The point was whether the consolidated rate should be relieved or not, and the consolidated rate included the road rate. The reason why the Government did not deal with the matter in 1889 was because at that time there had not been this project of rating reform brought forward; and it was certainly a very extraordinary thing to say, that because the Government did not introduce a good reform in 1889 they ought not to do so now. ["Hear, hear!"]
* Mr. MCLEODpointed out to the Lord Advocate that there was a great difference between the position of the occupier in the parish and in the county. He had recently read a book which he regretted he had not with him—the Official Guide of the Conservative Party—in which the contention was that, instead of the occupier paying the half in the county he was, as a matter of fact, not; paying more than the third. In the county, therefore, the position was entirely different from the parish where rates were equally divided. He contended that the rates which fell upon agricultural occupiers were very light indeed, except in a few of the more northern counties. He thought that what applied 1387 to a parish did not apply to the counties, therefore, in order to do anything like justice, they ought to have an entirely different classification. There was another point to which he wished to refer, and that was that the agricultural occupier was only called upon to pay rates for those particular objects for which he received benefit, such as the road rate. No class received greater benefit from the road rate than the agricultural occupier, and he contended that all that ground also there ought to be an entirely different treatment for the county as compared with the parish. So far as the county was concerned, there was no grievance whatever. For these reasons he should support the Amendment.
§ MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he rose for the purpose of eliciting information, and he was not going to make a Second Reading speech. What he wanted to put to the Lord Advocate was, assuming that the Public Health rate as now classified, was that classification abolished by the Bill as it stood? Was it or was it not abolished by the Bill? Why did it not apply in the case of agricultural lands?
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid the answer to that was that the portion of the rate was levied in the same manner as the Public Health rate. Where there was no classification there was no classification. The rate was levied as if there was no valuation. He should say more about this when he came to his Amendment. This did not apply to the Public Health rate, but his hon. Friend, would see that the poor rate was different.
§ Question put, "That the words 'shall for the purposes of the occupiers,' stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 142; Noes, 67.—(Division List, No. 367.)
§ MR. CALDWELL moved, in Subsection (1), to leave out the word "consolidated." If that Amendment were carried he would move as a consequential Amendment the omission of "including the portion thereof leviable." The effect of the Amendments would be to exclude the consolidated rate from the operation of the sub-section. In this rate was included the cost of the 1388 maintenance of roads, and there was no reason why the occupier should be relieved of five-eighths of the rate of which he got almost the sole benefit. He contended that the relief in this case would eventually find its way to the pockets of the landlords, for the rents would go up as the rates went down. The practical effect of the Amendment would be to limit the sub-section to assessments under the Public Health Act. He admitted that in regard to that rate there were anomalies which ought to be removed; but he strongly objected to the proposed reduction being applied to the consolidated rate, which would practically enable the landlord to get additional rent at the expense of the Imperial rates.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid the reason why the Government proposed to apply the sub-section to the Consolidated rate was the general reason that, as between occupiers and occupier they thought it unjust that agriculturists should be rated at the full amount, and the particular reason that they could see no difference between the Consolidated rate and any of the other rates.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANhoped his hon. Friend would not press the Amendment. He thought there was a great deal in what his hon. Friend had urged, but if the Committee went to a division they would be only repeating the decision they had already given on the Motion to omit the sub-section.
§ Amendment negatived.
§
MR. CROMBIE moved, in Sub-section (1), after the word "Acts," to insert—
in so far as the amount per pound of that rate does not exceed the amount per pound at which it was levied during the financial year ending the fifteenth day of May one thousand eight hundred and ninety-six.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid the Amendment had been moved in a very fair spirit, but it was not in accordance with sound principles. There were two principles running side by side in this Bill. [Opposition cheers.] They contended that realty was unduly pressed in comparison with personalty, and where the State made a grant from the Imperial Exchequer, it was right to give it to the person who had borne most of the burden; that was why the grant was given in the way in which it was given. He might 1389 remind hon. Members that the proposal was the same in the English Bill. He could not consent to the Amendment.
§ MR. J. BRYCE (Aberdeen, S.)noticed the ingenious way in which the Lord Advocate admitted that there were two entrances to the burrow. They must bear in mind that they were not at the end, but at the beginning of inquiry. There was a strong reason for expediting inquiry, and that was that the greatest objection to the whole scheme of aiding local rates out of Imperial grants was that it had a tendency to diminish the interest in economy. It destroyed local responsibility to make the locality see that they had the national ratepayer to fall back upon. It would be very hard on those who would have to bear the additional burden. He did not agree with the Lord Advocate, and he hoped his hon. Friend would take a division on the question.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANtook the same exception to the Clause. The Committee was now dealing with a fixed sum. In the case of England the sum required was to be adapted to the requirements of the case, but when they got a little further on in the discussion they would have to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the distribution of that sum had been so nicely calculated that this Amendment would make no difference as to the way in which the money was to run out. Supposing, however, the rating expenditure of the parish rose in the course of five years, how would that money be met? Was it not desirable to stereotype the amount of the expenditure incurred during the past year in order that the financial effect might be the same? There was obviously a considerable chance of a deficit or a surplus unless it was carefully managed, and therefore the Amendment was a perfectly sound and reasonable one. It was true that a similar arrangement was not accepted in the case of the English Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman could not expect them to be bound by the English Bill, seeing that they voted against this proposal in it. He and his hon. Friends must again support this proposal, that there should not be a varying amount of assessment to be dealt with, but that it should be estimated on a stereotyped figure of the past year.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid that the amount of the Government grant was stereotyped under Section 2, and would not be affected by the amount of the rate. The effect of the distribution of the rate would be the same as in the English Bill, and as between the occupier and one kind of property and the other that was fair.
§ MR. J. COLVILLE (Lanark, N.E.)supported the Amendment, and protested against the clause as it stood. In Lanarkshire and Ayrshire the miners were at present suffering from serious depression in the coal trade, and unless this Amendment was accepted any increase in the rate would simply impose additional burdens on these poor men.
§ MR. CALDWELL, dealing with the argument that realty paid too much in comparison with personalty, asked to whom realty belonged? It belonged to the owner, and, unless the Government were prepared to say that the rates were borne by the owner, he did not see how the Government could say that the rates were paid by realty. The rates referred to in this clause were the occupiers' rate, and that was a rate paid out of the labour and industry of the agricultural tenant. He understood that the object of the Bill was to relieve agriculture, but he did not understand that the object was to impose increased taxation on occupiers of non-agricultural property. That was what the Bill did, and the Amendment made sure that while giving relief to the agricultural tenant they did not impose an additional burden on the other non-agricultural tenants in the county. Rates were an increasing quantity in every community, and it was not fair that the tenants of dwelling-houses should be compelled to make up for the five-eighths reduction of the agricultural rate.
* MR. MCLEODsaid that in his constituency, if this Amendment were rejected, the burden of any new rates would have to be borne mainly by poor farm labourers, small shopkeepers, and fishermen. The larger agricultural tenants, who would receive a considerable amount of relief under this Bill, would pay nothing like the same proportion of new rates. It would be very unjust to render it impossible for any increased rate to fall with anything like 1391 due incidence upon large agricultural tenants who were capable of paying the burden. He hoped, therefore, the Amendment would be accepted.
§ MR. T. SHAWhoped that the Lord Advocate would reconsider his decision. It was admitted by the Government that, when there was an increase in rates, that increase would be borne in a larger ratio by the non-agricultural occupier. Whenever a subsidy was given from the Treasury in relief of rates, the rates increased as surely as night followed day. Would it not be wise to accept a moderate amendment of this kind, which would prevent friction in parishes? If the cast-iron rule which the Bill as it stood would establish were adhered to, there would be occasions in nearly all parishes where class would be set against class. In many counties in Scotland there were three classes, the agricultural, the mining, and the fishing. The first of these would of course vote with the greatest alacrity for any increased expenditure, knowing that the burden would be borne by the two other poorer classes. The position of the agriculturists would in fact be that of gamesters playing with loaded dice.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYremarked that, if they were to accept this Amendment the Government would not only be modifying the Bill, but abandoning every principle upon which the Bill was based. The hon. and learned Member had pointed out that, if the rates should increase after the Bill had passed, the increase would fall unequally upon different classes of property, and that land would suffer from the increase in a smaller proportion than other kinds of property. That was perfectly true, but it was only the corollary of the system of classification which had been adopted in Scotland for many years.
§ MR. T. SHAWpointed out that the Amendment referred to the First subsection of the clause, which would chiefly affect county rates, which were not classified.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid that the question of area was irrelevant to the general argument, which was founded upon this, that both in justice, according to the Government's view, and in law, the principle of 1392 classification was an admitted principle in Scotland. The Government held, as the law did, that agricultural land ought not to be rated at the same rate as other classes of property; and when the hon. and learned Member stated that to establish this difference of rating was to introduce a principle likely to cause constant friction and heart-burning between different classes of the population, he would point out that the Bill was not responsible for that consequence, if it should be found to exist, but that the existing law of Scotland was responsible. The Government held that the present principle of classification as between land and other classes of property had long been recognised as unjust, and that that injustice ought to be put an end to. They also held that this was a convenient time for putting an end to it, because that could be done now without throwing any additional present burden upon any other class of the community. They held further that the broad principle of classification as between agricultural land and other kinds of property was recognised so completely in the Scotch system of rating and so clearly also in the English system of rating that they were amply justified in making a general rule for the whole country. Holding these views, the Government could not assent to the proposal that the principle which they had adopted should not apply whenever any increment of rating was imposed upon a parish.
§ SIR G. TREVELYANsaid that, so far from classification being completely adopted in Scotland, as the right hon. Gentleman had declared, only about one in five parishes had adopted it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Well they knew their own business best. ["Hear, hear!"] Since the Parish Councils had been adopted what had been the case? If he was not misinformed, about eleven parishes had abolished classification, and some eight or nine had adopted it. Now, in a country where for half a century every parish parochial board had been allowed to adopt classification and only one out of five had adopted it, in a county where since the vote had been free and universal other parishes had abolished classification—he must remark that the right hon. Gentleman was not well informed in saying that classification was completely recognised in Scotland.
§ MR. BUCHANANillustrated the working of the provision in a parish consisting of, say, 100 agriculturists, 100 villagers, and 100 fishermen. At the present moment the fishermen along the coast of Scotland had to pay road rate from which they practically got no benefit whatever. In this respect the fishing community especially had a great grievance. Under the proposal of the Bill the road rate was to be classified in future; the agricultural tenants were only to pay upon three-eighths of their valuation, and if any increase in the road rate should take place, in this particular parish, where two-thirds of the inhabitants already derived no benefit from the road, they would have to pay more than their full proportion of the increased rate. This was an obvious injustice, for which surely it was the duty of the Government to devise a remedy.
§ MR. E. ROBERTSONcommented on the statement of the First Lord of the Treasury that the principle of classification was in law and in fact recognised in Scotland. The principle of classification in so far as it was recognised was a classification of all interests; but the classification which was now advanced was a classification between agricultural land and non-agricultural land only—a totally different thing; and not only so, but any classification now recognised, instead of being perpetuated, as the right hon. Gentleman said, was in great part abolished by this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman, without intending it, had conveyed a false impression as to the relation between this new classification and the classification with which Scotland was familiar at present.
§ * MR. SOUTTARsaid that in his own county of Dumfries-shire there were men who would benefit to a certain extent by this Bill, but they were the wealthy men of the county. He had also a large number of his constituents who were quarrymen, miners, and fishermen, poor men who had a hard struggle for existence. Now these poor men would have to pay the rates of the rich farmers; and here was a new and additional burden which was being put upon the poorest class of the community. If a road was built for the benefit of the farmers, the fishermen and the quarriers and the miners would have to 1394 pay a considerable proportion of its expense. He could not see why the Government should not accept this Amendment. He would in the circumstances ask the Government to reconsider the matter, seeing that this was only a temporary Measure, and that at the end of five years if they found that the Act did not work well in respect of the point now raised, the Government might set the matter right, if necessary, when a continuation Bill was brought in at the expiration of the present Bill.
§ SIR R. REIDsaid that he entirely agreed with what had fallen from the hon. Member for Dumfriesshire on this subject. The Amendment had brought to light very strongly the principle that underlay this Bill. If the Government had brought forward a Measure that would have thrown the increased burden of the rates upon those who were able to bear it, he should have been disposed to have supported it, but unfortunately under the present Bill the burden would be thrown upon those who were least able to bear it. Under the old Scotch method the rates were so apportioned that the burden was thrown upon those who were able to bear them, but the Government now appeared to have assumed that the agricultural interest was a poor one, and that all the other interests were wealthy ones. He thought that it was a great pity, that the Government did not reconsider their position in reference to this matter. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ DR. CLARKsaid that it was undoubted that under this Bill the rates would be considerably increased, and therefore it was most necessary that care should be taken that they should be properly apportioned in the future. A large portion of agricultural land in Scotland was held by rich farmers who occupied from six to 20 farms, and who paid from £2,000 to £4,000 a year rent. It was these people who would be relieved from rates, while the poor fishermen's and quarrymen's villages would have to make good the deficiency. He was glad to see rates increased, because it showed that the locality was being developed, and that greater comfort was being enjoyed. He believed that the rates ultimately came out of the pockets of the landlords, but at the same time it was necessary that the burden should be fairly distributed among the ratepayers.
* MR. MCLEOD, in reply to the statement of the First Lord of the Treasury that the cost of construction of new roads fell upon owners only, said that under the Local Government Act of 1889, the burden of maintaining the existing roads and constructing new roads, was thrown upon the landowners and occupiers equally.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 72; Noes, 157.—(Division List, No. 368.)
§ *MR. MCLEOD moved to leave out the words "three-eighths" and to insert instead thereof the words "one-half." The object of the Amendment was to make the classification one-half instead of three-eighths. By far the heaviest county rate was the road-rate, the incidence of which fell more heavily on the poor and sparsely populated counties than the richer counties. His Amendment would have the effect of making a saving on the aggregate sum which could be applied to increasing the grant to the northern counties, and it would also bring the Bill on a line with the English Rating Act.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid he could not accept the Amendment. The three-eighths classification brought very much the relief which was as a rule given in the classified parishes under the old classification, for although the classification varied in certain particulars, they had this in common—that they put agricultural land at the bottom of the list. The three-eighths, moreover, was conditioned by the money they had in their possession to spend under the Bill.
§ SIR R. REID, in supporting the Amendment, said it was extraordinary and unfair treatment of Scotch rating to classify proportions not according to the intrinsic merits of the parts, but because the particular proportion happened to suit the exigencies of the English Bill.
§ DR. CLARKsaid one-half of the county rate, poor rate, school rate and the rate levied by Parish Councils would be payable by the occupier, but the larger proportion, at least two-thirds and in some counties three-fourths of the rate, would be payable by the owner, and all the occupier would pay would be one-fourth or two-fifths of the rate. In 1889 1396 there was placed on the owner a consolidated rate equal to what the entire rate had been on an average of ten years, and now this consolidated rate was all that was required beyond that. So the owner paid his own consolidated rate, and paid one-half of the new rate. Let the money that would be available be used in the counties where it was required and not in all the counties alike, whether required or not. They desired that this proportion should be limited so that there might be more money for other purposes under the Act.
§ * MR. THOMAS HEDDERWICK (Wick Burghs)said he felt somewhat embarrassed by the double barrelled character of the Bill as explained by the Lord Advocate. It was all very well to contend at one moment that the Bill really aimed at readjustment of the rates, and at another that its motive was the relief of agricultural distress. With regard to the former contention he would simply say, with deference, that if the Bill was intended to effect a readjustment of the rates as between realty and personalty such a reform should not be sought by way of subsidy from the Imperial Treasury. The Lord Advocate proposed to allocate the sum of £192,500 to the relief of agricultural distress. If the Amendment were carried, £38,500 of that sum would be released, and might be devoted to some other purpose. As an inducement to the Lord Advocate to accept this Amendment he would like to point out that it was not necessary to deprive agriculturists of this sum at all. So far from that being the case, it would place at his disposal something like an effective sum for the alleviation of the congested districts in the Highlands. The Lord Advocate, in his Second-Reading speech, in substance, told the House that the gift of £15,000 to the crofters in the Highlands was so inadequate that it was proposed to appropriate it merely as a sort of a nucleus of a fund which was some time or other to mature, and come into operation when the Government had created the authority by whom it was to be administered, and had made up their minds as to the purpose to which it was to be applied. If the Lord Advocate really meant to do any good to the crofters in the Highlands he ought to be glad that this opportunity had been afforded him of swelling the sum of £15,000, and of so increasing it as to make it, at least 1397 approximately, adequate to the purpose for which it was intended. If they were going to endeavour to do as much for the agriculturists of Scotland as had been done for the agriculturists of England, then this Amendment ought to be accepted, for, as far as there could be given to the agricultural occupier in Scotland any equivalent to the gift to his rival in England, it would be found in the limitation of his relief to half the rate that was now payable by him. Another reason which ought to operate in favour of the acceptance of the Amendment was the much greater ease in calculating the changes in the rates which the Amendment would insure as compared with the complicated calculations rendered inevitable by the proposal of the Government.
§ MR. WHITEsaid that undoubtedly the low-priced land had suffered most, and yet the cost of labour and of fertilisers was not much less than it was on dearer land. For example, land that was worth only 10s. an acre required very nearly as large an expenditure on it as land worth £2 an acre. Then again, this cheaper land was generally furthest away from the populous centres, and this Bill did not take sufficient cognisance of the fact, that while the price of agricultural produce had gone down, the rates for bringing that produce to markets had not gone down. This was shown by the fact, that if one had invested say, £100,000 in railway shares 15 or 16 years ago, and had also invested £100,000 in land at the same time, while the £100,000 in land would have been worth now, only £60,000 or £70,000, the £100,000 in railway shares would have been worth double that amount.
* THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSreminded the hon. Member that he was now discussing an Amendment standing in his name which might never be reached. The question he had put from the Chair was that three-eighths stand part of the clause.
§ MR. WHITEsaid he was endeavouring to show that this low-priced land had suffered most, and that they should have a graduated scale of relief for that reason. He thought he had put before the Committee a fair statement of the case.
§ * MR. WYLIEsaid the object of his Amendment, and the three subsequent Amendments which stood in his name, was simply to give practical shape to 1398 his recommendation on the Second reading to double the amount which the Lord Advocate proposed to apply specially for the Highlands and Islands. The total agricultural occupiers' rate in Scotland was £308,000. Of that it was proposed to relieve the occupier by five-eighths, equal to £192,000—he was speaking in round figures—still leaving to the occupier £115,000. If the Amendment he had put down were accepted, the grant in aid would be reduced to £173,000, and £19,000 would be left to be added to the £15,000 which had been set aside for the Highlands and Islands. He was quite sure that the farmers who were occupiers of agricultural land, and who were going to be relieved to this very large amount of five-eighths should be quite willing that this sum of £19,000 should be added to the £15,000 already proposed to be appropriated to the Highlands and Islands. The Highlands and Islands were suffering from the agricultural depression to a much greater extent than the lowlands, and even than some of the worst districts in England, as might be proved by the comparatively large decrease in population. £15,000 was therefore a small sum for the various purposes to which it was to be applied in the Highlands, and it would be a paltry sum to administer. If the sum was increased to £34,000, it would be a reasonable amount, and much really practical work might be done with it to develop and benefit this part of Scotland. ["Hear, hear!"] Several hon. Members had suggested various sums, ranging from £20,000 up to even £200,000, and he thought the amount of £34,000 which he suggested would be a fair compromise. While he wished to pay the Lord Advocate a high tribute for the skill and ability he had shown in framing the Bill, and to thank him for introducing into it the beneficent principle that the prosperous parts of the country should assist the poorer and weaker parts, he regretted that he had not had the courage to apply the principle a little further and give them more than the bare £15,000. Seeing the general acceptance the principle had received in the House, he thought the Lord Advocate might have made the grant to the Highlands and Islands £30,000 at least. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give this matter further consideration, and by 1399 increasing the grant even still further improve an excellent and useful Bill. ["Hear, hear!"]
§ MR. CALDWELLsaid the effect of the action of the Government by stereotyping the rate over an average of ten years had been to put a new rate, and a heavy rate, too, on the occupier which was formerly an owner's rate, and which they now placed under the consolidated rate in this case. He asked upon what principle the Government proposed to give such a large amount of money to the agriculturist in Scotland, and to apply so little comparatively to other purposes. In England the agricultural tenant paid all the rates, and the Government were going to relieve him to the extent of one-half. But in Scotland no occupier paid more than one-half, the other half being paid by the landlord, so that by this Bill the Scotch tenant would be placed in a more favourable position in this respect than the English tenant. This Amendment provided that the agricultural tenant was only to pay half the occupier's half of the rate; that was to say, the tenant would pay one-fourth of the total rate. He would, therefore, pay one-half of what the Government thought the English tenant ought to pay. The Amendment treated the Scotch agricultural tenant in the most liberal manner, and the effect of it would be that money would be left at the disposal of the Government to be devoted to other and more necessary purposes.
* MR. MCLEODthought that, after what had fallen from the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire, the Lord Advocate might very well reconsider his position in this matter. There was a considerable grievance between the northern and southern counties, and that grievance would, to some extent, be redressed by the adoption of the Amendment. As the Bill now stood, the bulk of the relief in the Highlands would go into the pockets of a few pluralist farmers, while the small agricultural occupier would not get more than two or three shillings per annum. He earnestly appealed to the Lord Advocate to modify the present arrangement.
§ Question put, "That the word 'three-eighths' stand part of the clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 152; Noes, 64.—(Division List, No. 369.)
1400§ *MR. T. SHAW moved in Sub-section (2) to leave out the words "poor rate." He argued that there was no occasion whatever in the present state of affairs why the Government should attempt to inaugurate a system of national poor rate in Scotland with all the disadvantages resulting from a lack of local control and possible extravagance—a system which had been condemned as unsound by all financial writers. Every student of recent Scottish finance had been struck by the incidence of the police rate. In aid of that rate there had been large and increasing subventions given by the Treasury, but Scotland was not a penny the easier on that account, because year after year, as the subventions had increased, year after year the cost to Scotland had increased in a similar ratio. Surely it could not be depended on as a matter of sound finance that the British Treasury should not be represented in the administration of these local funds. There would be no representative of the Exchequer in the administration of the money by the parish councils. In the case of the educational rate, the Treasury was protected constantly by the action of the inspector and by the constant supervision of the Education Department. But the same analogy did not hold good with regard to the poor rate; the Exchequer had to pay money in relief of disbursements by the parish councils in respect of the poor rate, and it was to have no control. The result would be that, whereas the expenditure of the parish councils was already growing, with the new subvention the parish council expenditure would increase in a greater proportion than ever. The Scottish Members must, therefore, take the first opportunity of protesting against an innovation in the system of Scottish rating in the direction of establishing what was universally condemned by sound writers of finance—a national poor rate.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid he did not complain of the temperate way in which his hon. Friend had stated his case, but it only served to accentuate the difference between the Government and the Opposition on this Bill. The view of the Government was that this Bill in no sense inaugurated a system of national poor rate. By the Bill they 1401 were putting agricultural land in its proper place in respect of local rating. The effect of that was to make a hole in the local Exchequer, and this hole was being filled up by a contribution which was partially owing by personalty to realty. By the principle of the Bill as it stood there was no reason to make any distinction between the poor rate and the other rates paid by occupiers. In respect of this rate, as well as the other rates, agricultural land ought not to be rated on the full value, but it ought to take its classified position, which was the effect of the Bill.
§ SIR G. TREVELYANsaid that the right hon. Gentleman had passed over the real gist of the argument, and it was that subventions from the Treasury in general relief of rates were very demoralising and led to extravagance. Up to 1891–2 there might be said to have been no general relief of poor rate in Scotland; but in 1892–3, for the first time, £50,000 a year was given in general relief of rates to the parochial boards, and that grant had been continued since Between 1879 and 1891 the expenditure on Scottish poor law was as near as possible £840,000 a year. It scarcely varied from year to year, but, when relief was given, it rose the first year, and two years afterwards it rose again, by £25,000 to £894,000. The effect of that £50,000 given every year to the Scotch Boor Bate, had been that the expenditure of the poor had increased by £50,000, beginning from the year 1877. By this Bill a still larger grant was to be given in a still more demoralising manner. He was quite certain that, looking to the general interest of the community, and still more to the interest of individual holders of house property, the effect, so far from being a relief, would prove an additional burden.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid he contended that more harm was done by the adoption of a principle temporarily as a means of relief than by its permanent adoption. He should not have been so apprehensive if the Lord Advocate had come forward with arguments in favour of a national poor rate. What excited apprehension now was that this principle was introduced by a side wind for another purpose, in a manner which was calculated to make Parliament forget 1402 the dangerous nature of the course on which it was asked to embark. Of all the kinds of expenditure to which it was dangerous to give subventions, and from which it was dangerous to remove the security of local economy, the expenditure on the poor rate was the most dangerous. He regarded with great apprehension the proposal to remove by this Bill the security to which local administration surrounded the expenditure on the poor. There could be no doubt that when any Government proposed hereafter to give larger subventions for this purpose, this instance would be cited as a precedent, and the House would here, without any deliberate purpose, have opened the door to a very large and dangerous deflection from its ordinary course.
§ MR. HALDANEsaid the point which his hon. Friend had raised was not one which the Government ought to pass over lightly. The Bill was for the relief of agricultural distress, but they ought to be careful lest they interfered with a principle well established which had worked satisfactorily, and on which it was not desirable to infringe without careful consideration. The poor law had larger latitude in Scotland than in England. It was true that an able-bodied man had no right of relief from the poor rate, but in the case of the aged and infirm the law of Scotland was different from the law of England. It was open to the Parish Councils, who now stood in the place of the old parochial boards, to administer the poor rate with a latitude and freedom unknown to the law of England. In Scotland you could give relief in a form which practically amounted to the grant of an old age pension to the aged and infirm. It was being done by Parish Councils in his own experience, and he believed satisfactorily. But it was a large problem to intrust to these Parish Councils the power of administering rates so freely that they might grant outdoor relief to the aged and infirm without check or restraint of law such as existed in England. What had worked satisfactorily so far was the feeling that funds were raised in the locality. But, without consideration of the difference they were making, they were interfering with the check on local responsibility, and handing over to these bodies considerable sums of 1403 money which would be applied without any sense of the necessity of raising them or contributing to them, to be administered by the Parish Councils in a fashion wholly unfamiliar to Members for English constituencies. He should have thought it desirable to keep the poor rate in Scotland intact and exempt from the operation of the Bill. He wished to have local responsibility intact, and bring home to the people who made large grants a sense of the responsibility they owed to their constituents who had to bear the burden of the rates. If they did not preserve that state of things he would not say that they would have extravagance, but a lessening of local restraint and responsibility without due realisation on the part of the committee of what a large infraction they were making on a principle well established in Scotland.
§ Question put, "That the words 'the poor rate' stand part of the clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 138; Noes, 56.—(Division List, No. 370).
§ *MR. MCLEOD moved, in Sub-section (2), to leave out the words "three-eighths" and to insert instead thereof the words "one half." He believed that agricultural occupiers in Scotland should receive the same relief as the agricultural occupier in England—one half of the present rate. That would enable the Committee under this Bill to apply a certain proportion of the grant to parishes where the rates, particularly the poor rate, was a heavy burden. The average county rate did not vary very much, but the poor rate did. It would only be fair that they should endeavour to bring about the same average rate, and a plan that commended itself to him was that they should reduce the valuation of the parishes to one half and secure a sufficient sum to make up to those parishes where the poor rate was heavy. Another method would be to increase the amount of the special grant for the Highlands and Islands, for it was in that part of the country that the poor rate was heaviest. If the Amendment were accepted the Bill would be made to serve in a much greater degree than it did the object of the Government, the anomalous condition of things which at present existed would be removed, and a system produced which would approach much nearer to equity. He begged to move his Amendment.
1404§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEdid not think the hon. Gentleman had really shown any practical difference between this and the First sub-section, and if he were to make a reply to this Amendment he should simply have to repeat the arguments he had already advanced in reply to proposals that had been made on the previous sub-section. He would only say that the matter of the amount of relief had been carefully considered, and the sum fixed was that which would afford the greatest amount of benefit to those whom it was desired to serve.
§ MR. CALDWELLobserved that the rates indicated in this sub-section were different to those referred to in the previous sub-section. The latter rates were levied according to the annual value, but in the case of the rates dealt with in the present sub-section they had classification for one thing, and deductions which were allowed in the case of the poor rate and the school rate, which were not covered in the other rates. The rates in this sub-section, the poor rate, the school rate, and the other parish rates—were certainly very much heavier than the rates dealt with in the First sub-section, and therefore it was more important that they should have consideration shown to them than it was in the case of the others. The effect of reducing the grant to one half, which was the Amendment, would undoubtedly be to give a less reduction to the agricultural tenant than the Bill proposed; but, on the other hand, a larger sum would be released which could be devoted to other purposes. Anyone acquainted with the law of rating in Scotland knew it had been a matter of repeated complaint that there existed parishes where there was an inordinate amount of poor rate and school rate, especially in the case of parishes in the north which were the very poorest. In the case of the wealthier parishes, where the valuation was very high, the rate was low, and they might have a poor rate of sixpence in the pound; but in a parish like Ross, in the Highlands, where the valuation was low, there might be a poor rate of seven shillings in the pound. If they had a little money ought they not, obviously, to take advantage of the opportunity of applying it to equalise an excessive rate which did not arise from local mismanagement at all, 1405 but because the valuation of the parishes concerned was so low, compared with the population, that it was impossible to provide the poor rate and school rate except at an enormous expense? When they had undoubted poverty, and rates were so notoriously different in the case of poor crofting parishes in the Highlands compared with the rest of the country, he thought it was a great pity, when they had this money available, that they did not apply it for the purpose in some way of redressing what had always been found to be an inordinate burden. It was evident the Government were determined to accept no Amendments and to consider nothing that was advanced from that side of the House.
§ DR. CLARKsaid Sub section (1) applied to the whole county, but Sub-section (2) applied only to certain parishes in that county. Ross-shire had been mentioned. Sub-section (1) would not affect Ross-shire very much, but to both Ross-shire and Caithness Subsection (2) would be a very important matter. In Ross-shire there were some parishes where the rates were 10s. in the pound. In the same county there were parishes where the Poor Rate was only 2d. or 3d. Why should they not have some limitations—say 6d. or 1s.—and why should they not give this money only to parishes paying more than 6d. or 1s.? They would then have a much larger sum to give to parishes where there was a congested population. There the rates were very high. The average School Board Rate was 2s. 6d., and the average Poor Rate 3s. 4d.; whereas in the eastern portion of the same county the rates were merely nominal. All they now asked for was some differentiation between those parishes where the rates were high and those where the rates were low. If the right hon. Gentleman wished to get the Bill through, he could assure him that by differentiating between the parishes as he had been suggesting, and then distributing the money where it was most wanted, he would find it an easier means of getting the Bill through. He hoped the Government would consider the matter, and not stick to a cast iron rule, giving to all alike, but would so distribute the grant that the money would be given where it was most needed.
§ MR. DALZIELsaid that before the Debate closed, they were entitled to some further explanation than had already been given with regard to this Amendment. One or two points of importance had been raised on the Amendment. The first was, that if this was a Bill, as the Government had said, dealing with the reform of the rating as well as with the relief of agricultural depression, how was it that the Government took no notice of the variation of rates in different parishes? As the Bill now stood, the parish where the rates were only 6d. in the pound would receive just as much as the parish where the rates were as high as 7s. 6d. The next point raised was the contention of the Government that this Bill followed on the lines of the English Bill. If it was so, surely the same amount of relief should be granted to both countries; whereas, five-eighths was the proportion of relief given to Scotland and only one-half was given to England.
§ * THE LORD ADVOCATEdid not think the point raised was germane to the present Amendment, but still he was ready to say that obviously the parishes which paid the most would get the most.
* MR. MCLEODsaid it was not correct to say that the relief would be the same in the parish which had a low rate as the parish which had a high rate. For instance a parish with a 6d. rate would be left with only 3d. in the pound to pay, while a parish with a 7s. rate would still have 3s. 6d. in the pound to pay.
§ * MR. HEDDERWICKhoped the Lord Advocate would see his way to accept the Amendment, on the ground that the acceptance of the Amendment would enable the right hon. Gentleman to deal a little more generously with the crofters.
§ Question put "That the word 'three-eighths,' stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 123; Noes, 49,—(Division List, No. 371.)
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANappealed to the Leader of the House at this stage to consent to report Progress, in order that the Committee might apply themselves with fresh minds to important new matter which would be raised by an Amendment in the name of the Lord Advocate.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid he had hoped, and still thought, that it would be possible for the Committee to finish the Bill to-night and to-morrow. ["Hear, hear!"] But he quite admitted, if the course proposed by the right hon. Gentleman was followed, and if there was to be a lengthened discussion on the Amendment referred to, without putting a great, if not an undue strain on hon. Members, to ask them to finish the Bill on Tuesday. He, on his part, was ready to meet the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman if it were a distinct Parliamentary understanding that the Committee stage should close on Wednesday afternoon. He hoped the discussion would continue in the same friendly spirit which had marked the proceedings to-night. If he understood that the present stage should close at the time he indicated he should be glad to meet the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANthought the right hon. Gentleman might count upon that understanding so far as the Opposition side of the House were concerned.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.