§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEmoved—
That this House disapproves of the regulations made and prescribed by the Local Government Board under the provisions of the Agricultural Rates Act, 1896.He thought all the Members of the House who had perused these regulations would come to the conclusion that they were the most extraordinary set of regulations ever laid on the Table of the House. Although they were nominally laid upon the Table in July it was really only yesterday that they came into the hands of Members, so that there had been very little opportunity for perusing them. He thought they should be able to point out very clearly that these regulations proposed to revolutionise the whole system of rating in England and Wales. [Sir W. HARCOURT: "Hear, hear!"] At present there were two systems of rating in this country—in the urban districts they had a separate valuation, land and buildings being in one category and the farmhouse in another category. In the rural districts they had simply one valuation—the farmhouse, buildings and the land were all in one category. By the Agricultural Rates Act it was incumbent upon the overseers throughout the whole of the Kingdom to make a separate valuation, and to put the farmhouse and buildings in one category and the land in another, which was totally different to what they had at present. That had never been done before for the purposes of rating. The 173 overseers were called upon to effect a complete revolution in the system of rating. That was a thing which he would remind the hon. and learned Member for Stroud—who was a great authority upon rating—that he once told the House of Commons was absolutely impossible. There were three parties who were as a rule affected, the ratepayer himself, the other ratepayers in the parish, and the neighbouring parishes. Under the regulations of the Agricultural Rating Act the Government had introduced for the first time a provision that affected not only the individual and collective ratepayers, but the general taxpayers. To show how important it was that the valuations under those regulations should be carefully made he might point out that an over-valuation of a farm building of £5 would make a difference of £150,000 per annum to the general taxpayers of the kingdom. The separate valuation of the whole of the agricultural land and buildings in the country was, according to the regulations to be made by the overseers, who were generally farmers, and therefore, utterly untrained to the work; and they were called upon to make that valuation by September 7, 1896. In order to show the utter absurdity of the regulation he would remind the House that under the Union Assessment Act of 1852, when the overseers were called upon to make a separate valuation of every parish in the kingdom, they were allowed three months in which to do the, work, although they had the basis of existing valuations and, above all, the more important basis of the rent on which to work. In the present instance there was no such basis to go upon, because the rent was not apportioned between the buildings on the one hand and the land on the other. The overseer's would be called upon to do all this work in throe weeks, and in the certain event of their failing to discharge the duty in the allotted time the assessment committee would be called upon to discharge it in seven days. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] That meant that the assessment committee would have to make a separate valuation of farm buildings and farm land in some 30 or 40 parishes within seven days. Could anything be more preposterous than such a proposal? ["Hear, hear!"] But that 174 was not the whole of this tale of woe. The assesssment committee would have to make out a fresh valuation list for every parish, and revise and examine every separate valuation. For this they would have 21 days. They were not paid men. How were they to do it in the time unless they had all-night sittings? ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] Then the surveyor of taxes came in; and he was the only check suggested by the Government against extravagant valuation. It would be his duty to see that every farmhouse and building throughout the union had its proper valuation placed upon it. If he did not do that he would be worthless. As a rule there was a surveyor of taxes for each union, comprising 20 or 30 parishes. And for all this work he would have 14 days. A more ridiculous suggestion never emanated from a Government or a public department. Then the surveyor of taxes made his objections to the overseer, who had seven days to examine them, and then there were the appeals to the special sessions, which would, of course be composed of the landowners in the district. It was the same thing as lawyers taxing their own bills of costs. They were directly interested in keeping down the valuation of farmhouses and buildings. And to hear every appeal which might arise in the union the special sessions would have ten days. If they sat every day and all day they could not do it. Then there was another fatal flaw. Under the old valuations there was the right of appeal to the individual ratepayer, to the parish, and to every person aggrieved. The overseer had three months to prepare the valuation, and then he had to deposit the valuation for 14 days in the parish where every ratepayer could inspect it, and, finally, 28 days were given for notice of appeal. But in these new regulations, though a separate valuation was to be made of farm buildings in which every farmer was interested, there was no provision for the valuation being deposited, and no individual ratepayer had a right of appeal. These were regulations for the purpose of carrying out the Act. Now by the regulations they prescribed that the moment the lists were ready, they were to be sent to the assessment committee and no opportunity was given to any ratepayer to examine them.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALThe Act enables the ratepayer to appear on an appeal brought by the surveyor of taxes or the overseers.
§ MR. LLOYD - GEORGEOh! of course, but that is a very different thing. He knew the Act did that, but that was exactly what he complained of. He challenged the Solicitor-General to point out a single article in the regulations which gave the individual ratepayer aggrieved by the valuation a right of initiating an appeal. The Solicitor-General was judiciously silent.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALIf the hon. Gentleman will read the Act, he will see that the regulations could not, if they conformed to the Act, give any such right.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTDo you say there ought to be no right of appeal?
§ SIR W. HARCOURTThat is all very well.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid the Solicitor General had now made it perfectly clear. In the hon. and learned Gentleman's view, no farmer in the country, no matter to what extent he was aggrieved by the valuation, had any right to complain. The Debate would have served a good purpose if it made that clear to the farmers. Another point was that there was no right of appeal in these regulations from any aggrieved parish. This was not a question arising between individual ratepayers, it was a question between one parish and another, because it was amply brought out in the course of the Debates that if in consequence of this Act the rate increased, the deficit would have to be made up by the Urban District. Now an Urban District ought to have a right to lodge objections against a rate if it was too low. There were two checks provided by the regulations, and these were not in the Act. The first of the checks was the minimum of one-eighth. The second check was the Surveyor of Taxes. He only got 14 days in order to examine the whole valuation of every parish in his district. There was no staff provided by the Regulations. The men who collected the taxes at present were the Assistant Overseers—that is to say, the very men who prepared this 176 valuation. As a rule they were farmers' sons, and it was very unlikely that they were going to assist the Surveyor of Taxes to overturn their own valuations. The Government ought to have provided Regulations which would be a check to extravagance, but here a valuation was to be made by Overseers whose practical interest it was to put buildings as low and land as high as possible. They were, moreover, dealing with the Treasury, not with their own parish; as a rule they were farmers themselves, and therefore they had a great incentive in dealing with the Treasury to see that no check should be put upon their parish. The Overseers had three weeks in order to do the work, and to return a statement according to the best estimate the Overseers could make, which really meant the best guess they could make. After this the valuations went to the Assessment Committee, which was constituted of the same type of farmers and landowners of the district, who had no inducement to correct the Valuation Lists and to keep them down. There was an appeal to Special Sessions and Quarter Sessions, but here again the appeal would be made to the same class, that is to say, to the landowners and farmers. Indeed, the only check provided by the regulations of the Government was the Surveyor of Taxes, and that check had practically been rendered impotent and powerless. The Surveyor of Taxes had to do his work in 14 days, and even if he cycled over his district, it would be impossible for him to do the work in the time. In fact, the Regulations were a sham, and elaborate precautions had been taken in order to provide beforehand that they should be a sham. It was said that the Government were going to deal liberally in this matter of the rates, but this was not a question of making a fair and honest valuation in order to protect the taxpayers of the towns and the labourers. It was a question of making a rough-and-ready valuation, and putting the whole thing in the hands of the Overseers to make a valuation which should eventually be submitted to landowners and others constituting a Court of Appeal.
§ *SIR C. DILKEseconded the Resolution. He had some acquaintance with this matter from the Assessment Committee's side, and he knew a good deal 177 about the working of Overseers in country parishes. He had read the Regulations with some care, and he was bound to say that they threw upon Overseers duties which he believed they were in-competent to perform in the time given to them. He did not agree that this was the fault of the Regulations; it was the fault of the Bill; but those Regulations brought out the fact that the Bill had been so drawn that it was impossible fairly to work it, and impossible for the parishes to perform the duties which the Bill threw upon them. He had no fault to find with the Regulations as Regulations. He believed the Local Government Board, in drawing them up, had done its best to carry out the Bill; but, notwithstanding, he believed that the Bill was throwing upon the Overseers duties which they could not possibly discharge. There had been some experience of what Overseers were called upon to perform in connection with difficult duties like those under discussion in the past. He considered that the Overseers, and, above all, the Assistant Overseers, were an admirable body of men. They did their work honestly and efficiently, and he should like to preserve them in connection with the registration of voters for example; but Parliament was in the habit of throwing upon them, year after year, duties so complicated that it would almost take the talent of lawyers to understand them. Take the Service Franchise as an example. The duties here were so difficult that hardly any registration lawyer in the country could explain what the duties of the Overseers were. Several years ago the Overseers broke down under the Parish Councils portion of the Local Government Act. It had been his business to make a good many inquiries in representative rural parishes in different parts of the country as to the working of the Act, and he found that they had thrown upon these officers duties so complicated, to be carried out in a time so short, that it was practically impossible for them to discharge them in the allotted time. Taking the best of the Assistant Overseers in small rural parishes, he should like to know what the House could expect of men who were paid the present salary. A small Overseer might be a farmer's son, and he would be called upon to discharge 178 duties which no lawyer or land surveyor could possibly discharge in the time. It was not the fault of the Local Government Board that such early dates had been fixed, but the fault of the Bill. The, result would be that the best estimate that the Overseers could make would be mere guesswork. But supposing that the Assessment Committees were resorted to, what would happen? The farmers who constituted the Committees would probably not do the work themselves. It would be intrusted to their clerks, who would employ other people who would have to be well paid. The consequence would be that the cost involved would be greater than the return which the localities would receive from the Treasury under the Act.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALobserved that the right hon. Baronet had said that the Regulations were admirably drawn for the purpose of carrying out the Act. But the right hon. Baronet said that the Act was a bad one, and therefore he seconded a Motion to withhold the assent of the House to the Regulations. Was ever such a proceeding heard of before? ["Hear, hear!"]
§ *SIR C. DILKEreminded the hon. and learned Gentleman that the Debate on that part of the Bill relating to the Regulations was closured, and that, therefore, hon. Members had not been able to discuss it.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid that he should be sorry to renew the painful history of the Debates on the Bill, which was fully and amply discussed. ["Hear, hear!"] The Measure was now the law of the land, and it imposed upon the Local Government Board the duty of making these Regulations, and if they were admirably drawn, as the right hon. Baronet admitted, in the name of common sense, why did he second a Motion disapproving of them? ["Hear, hear!"] What had been said by the hon. Member who made the Motion was very familiar to his ears; he had heard the same remarks more than once before. The speech of the hon. Member was a belated attack upon the Act. The hon. Member said that the time allotted to certain business was too short, but it was the Act that prescribed the dates, and none others could have been fixed in the Regulations. Then the hon. Member declared that it 179 was a difficult, if not an impossible, task to separate the value of buildings from the value of the land. [Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE said that he had only quoted that statement.] Yes; but the hon. Member quoted it for the purpose of showing that the Regulations imposed an impossible task upon the Overseers. That duty was imposed, not by the Regulations, but by the Act. The difficulty of that duty had been very much exaggerated. There were districts in the country where the separation had been already effected. These Regulations gave the clearest possible directions to the Overseers as to the mode in which that separation was to be effected, and the difficulty that had been conjured up was, to a very large extent, an imaginary one. Then it was said that it was monstrous that an aggrieved ratepayer should not have an appeal against a valuation. That very question was raised in Section 6, and that section was amended by a provision allowing any ratepayer to be beard on an appeal brought by the Surveyor of Taxes or the Overseers. Again, that was not an objection to the Regulations, but to the Act. It could not be suggested that the Regulations should fly in the face of the Act and give the ratepayer this appeal. ["Hear, hear!"] If they did so it would be good ground for the House refusing to sanction them. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that the Overseers were incompetent for these duties.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI never said they were incompetent.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid he distinctly heard the hon. Member say that the Overseers would be under very great temptation to put the value of the building too low. Did he mean that the Overseers were incompetent or that they were dishonest? ["Hear, hear!"]
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI said that they could not do the work in three weeks' time.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALThat was not the point at all. The hon. Gentleman said the Overseers would be under an irresistible temptation to put the value too low. Again, this work was not imposed on them by the Regulations, but by the Act. The Regulations provided that the Surveyor of Taxes might authorise persons to appear for him, and he would not, therefore, be 180 tied down to the possibility of appearing only in one place and on one occasion. He did not desire to dwell on these points, for he listened with curiosity to see when the hon. Member would come to any objection to the Regulations, and he ventured to say that his speech throughout was a renewal of objections which had been stated over and over again, to the Act, and did not contain one syllable of objection to the Regulations as such. Anyone examining the dates in detail would find, having regard to what had to be done, that the time allowed was not so inadequate as the hon. Gentleman supposed; and the 21st Regulation gave the Local Government Board power, if under any special circumstances more time was wanted, to extend the time.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTconfessed that he was extremely surprised at the aggressive tone which had been assumed by the Solicitor General on this subject. The statement made by his hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon was a very calm statement. [Ironical Ministerial laughter."] Why these ill-bred interruptions? [Cheers.] Why was a person not to be allowed to speak without what he might call these vulgar cheers from Gentlemen who ought to know better? He claimed the right to discuss this matter in spite of interruptions of that kind. What they had to examine was how far these Regulations were likely to fairly carry out the objects of the Bill. He entirely differed from the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean as to these Regulations—as to their character and their bearing upon the Bill—and if he entertained the right hon. Gentleman's opinion upon the subject he certainly should not have seconded this Motion or have supported it. [Laughter.] When you condemned Regulations you did not begin by saying they were perfect. [Laughter.] When the Bill was first discussed the Leader of the House said it was a single-clause Bill and that it was a question of machinery. These Regulations were the machinery, and they wanted to see what the machinery was like. ["Hear, hear!"] The moment these Regulations appeared there was found in this document of 87 pages the commentary on the statement of the First Lord of the Treasury, and commentaries were often a hundred 181 times longer than the text to which they were attached. A more extraordinary, more unworkable, more impracticable set of Regulations he had never seen. ["Hear!"] The fact was these Regulations were in themselves the machinery referred to in the Bill. If these had been part of the Bill they never would have passed, and when examined they would he found impossible of execution. This was the machinery the Leader of the House spoke of as so simple. And what was the machinery? When the Bill was before the House he ventured to say it was a revolution in the rating system of the country, and these Regulations were the means by which the revolution was to be carried out. It was idle for the Solicitor General to say it was all the fault of the Bill; they knew that perfectly well. They would comment on these Regulations, and they would be commented upon in every parish in the country as an illustration of what the Bill was; the value of these Regulations was that they illustrated the character of the Bill. The Bill, as they had always maintained, revolutionised the whole system of taxation of this country. The Solicitor General was not extremely wise in relying upon the Bill. That Bill was carried through all-night sittings, and it was in attempting to deal with this machinery that his hon. Friend was suspended. ["Hear!"] He endeavoured to discuss this very machinery, and, though the Solicitor General now said: "The Bill is passed; what is the use of discussing the machinery?" the machinery was before the House, and the machinery showed the character of the Bill. These Regulations would be discussed in the House, and elsewhere they would be criticised by those who had to carry them out, and by those who suffered from them in every parish. Those who had to carry out the Regulations would be the real enemies of the Bill. It was necessary to examine how the Bill would be carried into operation. First, the spending authorities were to make their returns to the Local Government Board on September 1st. These spending authorities were County Councils, Borough Councils, District Councils, Guardians, and School Boards. In this portentous document there were 60 pages of Schedules, etc., which the 182 various authorities under the Bill were to fill up. They were to fill it up in the last fortnight in August. These spending authorities were to send in their Returns by the 7th of September. He should like to know where these spending authorities were at this moment. A great many of them were abroad, and a good many of them had gone to Scotland, and all these spending authorities were to come back in the middle of August, and make these returns. And they were not simple returns. The first return was to be as to what the rating was in the last year. That was not a simple thing, because they were instructed to report whether or not there were any exceptional circumstances in the rating of the past year which should not make that the proper basis—that was, the basis for five years, and probably for very much longer than five years when once it was made. And now, at a time when everybody was absent on their holidays, they had to return, and, within a fortnight, to make these returns. That was, according to his right hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean, an admirable provision.
§ *SIR C. DILKEsaid he did not say so. He said that under the Bill they could not get a longer time.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTWhy not a longer time?
§ *SIR C. DILKEBecause you cannot. There is not room for it.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTsaid this Bill was to be carried out in March, and his right hon. Friend said they could not give longer time than the 7th of September. He did not understand, and he did not think it was so. This was to be the basis of an entire change in the rating system of the country, and, as far as the spending authorities were concerned, it was to be accomplished by the 7th of September. If that was a necessity of the Bill and of the Regulations, he said it was preposterous, and absurd, and impracticable. But if this was so with reference to the spending authorities he had already named, it was a far more serious thing with reference to the Overseers. The First Lord of the Treasury had given them the benefit of his opinion upon this Bill.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURYsaid what he dealt with were the 183 clauses of the Bill after the first and second clauses. They had nothing whatever to do with the Regulations.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTsaid the Regulations arose entirely out of the machinery clauses. It was to carry out the machinery clauses that these Regulations were brought in—machinery clauses which were passed at an all-night sitting, and that was really the cause of the absurdity of the arrangement. They had no means of discussing the clauses, otherwise they might have prevented it, and the result was necessarily to produce the preposterous absurdities that appeared on the face of the Regulations. Let them see what the Overseers were to do. They were to undertake a task which was pooh-poohed by the Solicitor General, who was extremely learned in the law, but who, he ventured to say, knew extremely little about the actual administration of the Overseers in English parishes. It was an exceptional thing for Overseers to make out a separate valuation. He regarded the opinion of the Solicitor General on matters of law with the greatest veneration, but, when he laid down the law as to parish administration, he must allow him to have his opinion. The Overseers were, being set to do what they had no knowledge or experience of whatever. If ordered to do things they were not accustomed to they ought at least to be allowed decent time. But by September 7th they were expected to have valued every tenement in the parish, separating the value of the land from that of the houses. It was an impossible task, and one they could not and would not do. Besides, most of the Overseers were farmers, and between now and September 7th they would be engaged in the harvest. A more ridiculous, preposterous, and absurd proposal than that of the Government it was impossible to conceive. As to making a valuation on a basis of the character proposed in the Regulations, anyone who knew anything of rural life knew the thing was absurd. ["Hear, hear!"] Suppose the Overseer did not do it, what was the provision in the Regulations? That the Assessment Committee might appoint a man to come and value every enement in the parish and separate the buildings from the land. How long had this man, who had never seen the parish before, 184 got in which to perform the work? He had to do it in seven days. Any man acquainted with the country must know that that was absolutely and totally impracticable. ["Hear, hear!"] Again, the Bill provided for no appeal by the ratepayer against an unjust assessment. Why was that? Because the Government chose to pass a Bill of this kind, dealing with a great reform of the rating system of England, at all-night sittings. The subject, requiring the greatest care in its treatment, never had consideration in that House nor in the Committee from which the Bill emanated. ["Hear, hear?"] Having passed a Bill revolutionising the whole rating of the country, and which was to govern it for years, in two all-night sittings, they were then going to inquire how the thing ought to be done. ["Hear, hear!"] The Solicitor General thought it was very unimportant whether the ratepayer was to have an appeal against an unjust assessment. Did he think that when these Regulations went to the parishes in England, and all the ratepayers found they were deprived of this advantage of appeal, which they had always had and to which in justice they were entitled, they would be put off in this off-hand manner? He knew very little of the rural parishes in England if he thought so. ["Hear, hear!"] He had mentioned two classes of authorities through whom this new system of rating had to be passed. They next came to the Assessment Committees, and after the Overseers had gone through this task, which they had had no time to perform, it became the duty of the Assessment Committee to review their imperfect work. Everybody must know that by September 7th the work would require a great deal of review. What was the time given to the Assessment Committee for this purpose? As the hon. Member for Carnarvon had said, the Assessment Committee might have to deal with a dozen or two dozen parishes, and this imperfect work of the Overseers had to be reviewed by the Assessment Committee in three weeks. Again he said it was ridiculous and preposterous. Every man who knew anything about the work that was to be done in cases of this kind, knew perfectly well that in the month of September, when everybody was wanting and taking their holidays, it was impossible, even if they 185 kept them up all night, as the First Lord kept them up to pass his Bill, that they could do the work which these Regulations imposed upon them. Then he came to a matter in which he took a deep interest, and that was the position of the Surveyor of Taxes in this matter. The hon. Member for Carnarvon had properly pointed out that the natural anxiety of all these local authorities was to get as much money out of the Exchequer as they possibly could. There was no special original sin in people who had that desire, but he wanted to see what protection was given under these Regulations against this robbing of the Exchequer. What was the Surveyor of Taxes to do? All these valuations, which were to be made by the Overseers in a fortnight or three weeks, were to be reviewed by the Assessment Committee, and then the Surveyor of Taxes was to have his say in the matter. In those Regulations they found the form in which the Overseers wore to state to the Surveyor of Taxes the grounds on which the buildings and other hereditaments were valued at less than the rental, and then the Surveyor of Taxes was to examine whether those grounds were sufficient. How was he to examine them? He must go into the parishes, and he must inquire into matters of which he had no personal knowledge whatever. If he must protect the revenue he must go there and examine why those valuations are below the rental, and he was allowed 10 days to go through all the parishes.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid he was allowed from the 7th of September to the 17th of October to decide whether he would assent to the valuations, or whether he would make objections.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTsaid it was stated on Page 10 of the Regulations:—
The Surveyor of Taxes shall, within fourteen days of the receipt by him of the notice of any corrections of the Overseers' statement by the Assessment Committee, or within fourteen days after the Third day of October, One thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, if he has then received no notice of any such corrections, give to the Committee notice of his objections to the statement or to any correction hereof on the ground (a) that any separately valued hereditament has been wrongly entered as agricultural land, or (b) that the value of such buildings and other hereditaments not being agricultural land as are included in a separately valued hereditament, 186 comprising also agricultural land, has been under-estimated, and in the latter case shall state the gross estimated rental and rateable value of the buildings and other hereditaments, not being agricultural laid, which, in his opinion, should be inserted in the statement.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid that in the first instance the statement was to be sent by the Overseers to the Surveyor of Taxes.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTsaid the Solicitor General was quite wrong. The hon. and learned Gentleman could not have read the clause.
The Surveyor of Taxes shall, within the time within which he is required to give notice of his objections, if any, to the statement or any correction thereof, state in what cases he consents and in what cases he refuses his consent to the valuation of any buildings and other hereditaments being fixed at less than the minimum rateable value.That was Schedule M.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid that if the right hon. Gentleman would turn to the First clause of Article IV., he would find that:—
The Overseers of every Parish shall, as soon as practicable, make, and shall, on or before the Seventh day of September, One thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, send to the Assessment Committee and to the Surveyor of Taxes in whose district the Parish is comprised, statements as follows.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTsaid the Assessment Committee might change the whole thing, and when the Return came to the Surveyor of Taxes he would only have 14 days to examine it. That was insufficient time. The burden of all these rating reforms was to be borne by that class of ratepayer's who would get no relief under the Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] They were, in fact, to pay all the expenses of the proceedings, and all these unfortunate people were to be called upon to perform the duties within a limited time, and if they failed they were to be fined 40s. Fancy these instructions being sent to the ordinary overseers, who were generally small farmers! He must say that he never, in the whole course of his life, heard of a more ridiculous or preposterous proposal. What in the world did it all mean? This was a great rating reform; and regulations more unfitted to carry out, more impracticable, he never before heard of. He supposed the Solicitor General would make up his mind 187 as to the staff he was going to supply. It was impossible to describe the absurdity which characterised these instructions. What was the meaning of all this desperate hurry, of the all-night sitting, and of this revolution in the rating system of this country? They all knew very well that it was to grab the surplus. Why was this limit of time fixed to make the overseers do what they could not do? It was to prevent the two millions slipping out of their fingers. Next year they might not have a surplus. That was why they obliged the local spending authorities to do everything by the 1st September, and the overseers by the 7th September, and that was the reason why the Bill had been pushed through in the small hours of the morning without deliberation; a Bill on which regulations of this character had been founded. He could only call this a hugger-mugger policy, and the Bill was a harum-scarum Bill. Gentlemen who transacted business in the small hours of the morning were very apt to be confused, and to produce work like that which they had in these regulations. They complained that the whole of this Measure, which involved enormous financial consequences, both local and Imperial, had been huddled through the House without any due consideration of the importance of the matter, with the result that regulations of this character were founded upon it. The object was, without due consideration, to get hold of a large sum of money taken from the taxpayers of this country for the benefit of one particular class. The reason why he condemned these regulations was because they were intended to deal with a large sum of public money which had been unjustly taken from the taxpayers of the country without the subject having been adequately considered by Parliament. Such a principle as was involved in these regulations was calculated to do an immense injustice to the general taxpayers of the country. The Solicitor General himself had admitted that how-over unjust these valuations might be, there was no power to appeal against them.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Henry Chaplin,) Lincolnshire, Sleafordsaid that he had more than once been under 188 the apprehension that the right hon. Gentleman was about to indulge in another Second Reading speech upon the Agricultural Rating Act.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTThis is practically the First Reading of it. We had no opportunity for discussing the Measure.
§ MR. CHAPLINsaid that he did not know whether there was really anything in the right hon. Gentleman's speech which called for a reply on his part.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTThen why do you not move the Closure?
§ MR. CHAPLINsaid that the hon. Member for Carnarvon had, in the course of his speech, described these regulations as being ridiculous, while the right hon. Gentleman opposite bad described them as constituting the grossest imposture he had ever known. He had, therefore, been extremely glad to hear such a high authority upon matters of local government as the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean express his approval of the regulations in contradiction to the wild and foolish assertions that had been uttered with reference to them. ["Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had complained of these regulations, and had said that if they had been embodied in the Bill that Measure would never have been passed into law. The Government were quite as well aware of that fact as the right hon. Gentleman himself was. The Government knew of the unexampled and unprecedented powers of obstruction in the face of which the proceedings of Parliament in the present day had to be conducted. Never before had a Leader of an Opposition thrown himself so openly and avowedly into the arms of the obstructionists as the right hon. Gentleman had done. The overseers would be able to do their work in time, because they would be totally free from the terrible obstruction which Parliament had to encounter. The right hon. Gentleman said that the overseers could never complete their work by the 7th September. What was to prevent them from doing so? They would have all the necessary materials for making the valuation in their hands. The former 189 were divided into two heads. There were those which related to past expenditure to be settled by the spending authorities, and then there were those which related to assessments in the future. There were upwards of 48 of these forms in the first class and only 19 in the second. There were 10 spending authorities, and it might fairly he asked why it was that more than 48 different kinds of forms were required for 10 spending authorities. There were two reasons for it. In the first place, Parliament had required that these regulations should be laid on the Table for a certain number of days before they acquired the force of law, and, consequently, the Local Government Board had been compelled to be most careful to provide for every possible contingency. In the next place, some of these 10 authorities must be again subdivided. For example, they had to provide 11 different forms for one kind of spending authority alone—namely, the School Board. At the same time, no School Board would have to fill up more than one form unless alterations were made in the area or in the contributory district. The same thing held good more or less with regard to other spending authorities. With regard to the surveyor of taxes, first of all these regulations had the approval of the Treasury, and he had heard the right hon. Gentleman express unbounded confidence in the present Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, as regarded the buildings, the Surveyor of Taxes was protected by the minimum clause in the regulations. He was not the east surprised at the opposition to these regulations by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. There was nothing the right hon. Gentleman would have stuck at by which he could further impede the effective administration of an Act of Parliament which had been supported through this House steadfastly by larger majorities than he ever remembered in the case of any Bill. When the right hon. Gentleman told them it was impossible to make this separate valuation the answer was simple; it would be done precisely in the way in which it was done now. The right hon. Gentleman would appear before the agricultural community in his true colours at last. Over and over again he had heard him profess the deepest sympathy for them 190 in their troubles, but he had seized with avidity every opportunity to interfere with and impede their interests. One result of these Debates would be that the right hon. Gentleman would go down to posterity as their bitterest foe, deadliest enemy, and most unscrupulous opponent.
§ MR. E. H. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S. W.)said the learned Solicitor General had characterised this Motion as an attack upon the Measure, and had said that these regulations would faithfully carry out the Act. He traversed that statement. The illustration upon which the Solicitor General had relied was a very unfortunate one for him. The hon. and learned Member had referred to the question of appeal and the provision in the rules that the occupier of the hereditament that was immediately concerned in the appeal might be heard. That provision, however, did not at all carry out what was enacted in the Act itself. He had special reason to know that, because the concession made by the Government in Committee was made in consequence of an Amendment which he had himself moved. The Act did not say that this right to be heard should be confined to the occupier of the tenement. The words in the Act purported to give that right to any aggrieved ratepayer, but by these regulations the effect of the enactment would be narrowed and restricted. A ratepayer, it should be remembered, might be aggrieved because some other ratepayer was assessed more lightly than he ought to be. Surely, the Solicitor General would not maintain that it was competent for the Local Government Board to narrow an enactment in a statute by a rule made under that statute?
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.