§ CAPTAIN PIRIE (Aberdeen, N.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury on what grounds the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury have declined to make payments in lieu of local rates in respect of Volunteer drill halls in Aberdeen and elsewhere; and whether, seeing that the local authorities are prevented from recovering such rates from the commandants of the regiments by a decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, the Government have considered the desirability of making such payments in future; and, if so, what decision has been arrived at?
§ MR. HANBURYThe invariable rule is for the contributions in lieu of rates to be charged on the particular fund which has to pay for maintaining the property. The maintenance of Volunteer property falls on Volunteer funds, towards which 977 the taxpayer is only one out of many contributors. In conjunction with, my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary of the War Office I have carefully considered the question whether a primâ facie case has, under these circumstances, been made out for imposing a rating contribution on the taxpayer, and we have come to the conclusion that it has not. The general taxpayer already foregoes his similar claims for Income Tax, Schedule A, and Inhabited House Duty; and, considering that the Volunteers are primarily a voluntary and local force, the local ratepayer may reasonably be expected to do the same in regard to the rates. This was the view taken by Parliament in 1863, when it expressly exempted Volunteer storehouses from rates.