B.—CUSTOMS—CORN, GRAIN AND MEAL &c.

HC Deb 14 April 1902 vol 106 cc189-255

Motion made, and Question proposed. "That there shall be charged on and after the 15th day of April, 1902, the following Customs import duties:—

	£	s.	d.
Corn and Grain of all kinds, and peas, beans, and lentils - - - per cwt.	0	0	3
Flour and all kinds of meal and prepared grain, starch, and all farinaceous and starchy substances used as articles of food - per cwt.	0	0	5"

—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

*(6.18.) SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT (Monmouthshire, W.)

I am sure the House has listened with satisfaction to the speech in which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been able, with all the incapacities from which he has been suffering, to introduce his financial statement tonight. With a great deal of what he has said and with many of the principles which he has laid down, I tonight, as I have on former occasions, have been able to cordially concur; but with the last proposal which occupied the conclusion or his speech I must express my entire and absolute disagreement. Much as we all regret the enormous burdens placed on the people of this country as the consequence of this war, I do not think there is anything that will bring home to them more completely the real results of the war in all its branches than will the taxation proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer tonight. In his third war Budget the right hon. Gentleman has been compelled to again increase the income tax, and has also been obliged to place, on the first necessity of the food of the people, a tax from which they have been so long free. I believe I can say that, on this side of the House at least, that proposal will meet with the most decided opposition. The right hon. Gentleman asked why there should be any more objection to this proposal than to the sugar tax. Well. Sir, sugar is a comfort, but corn is a tiring of the first necessity, and. therefore, a tax upon corn fails upon the very poorest of the poor. And it is a tiling in which they are not able to economise, for many of them are not able to obtain sufficient of the bare necessaries of subsistence.

What is the argument on which the right hon. Gentleman relies? His argument is this—that this is so small a tax that it will not affect the consumption of the commodity. Why, Sir, that is the old fallacy of the old Protectionists; but, if the argument is true that the tax will not affect the price, why did the right hon. Gentleman say that he objected to putting a tax upon a great number of commodities? You may say of a great number of commodities that if you put a shilling duty upon them it will not affect their price. In that way you may go through the whole scale of commodities. The right hon. Gentleman's own arguments are self-destructive. I do not propose now to go into detail upon this Point, because we shall have and we ought to have many other occasions for discussing this tax before it is imposed upon the country. I think this is quite the most formidable proposal for taxation that has been made for many a long year. I think too, it is far the most objectionable proposal, and if I had to select the one tax which was the worst that could be chosen I should say it was the tax on corn. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is prejudice to say that it is a tax on the food of the people. It is a tax on the food of the people, and you cannot alter that fact. It is a tax on the very commodity which is the most extreme necessity of the poorest of the poor, and is a tax which of all taxes ought to be avoided. The right hon. Gentleman says it existed for a good many years, and so it did.

Every body will feel that this means a great deal more than is implied. My sympathy is entirely with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the position in which he finds himself. I do not know anybody who has suffered more from the vicissitudes of fortune in his financial career. He began with three years of extraordinary prosperity. He came into a land flowing with milk and honey. He revelled in surpluses, one after another, though he laid down the proposition that to enjoy a surplus was a proof of the incapacity of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and only showed what a bad calculator he was. If that is discreditable, he has retrieved his reputation, because his surpluses no longer exist. The right hon. Gentleman in that period when I say he revelled in surpluses was able to gratify a good many favoured interests, and he found, even in the extremity of his surpluses, an opportunity of reducing the Sinking Fund. Upon the strength of an Extraordinary Treasury Minute, which expressed its alarm at the prospect of there being a, Sinking Fund of £9,250,000 in the year 1906, the Sinking Fund was reduced by one-third. I think the Treasury need not have been alarmed. At all events, they may be reassured that in 1906 there will not be a Sinking Fund of £9,250,000. I doubt very much, considering the rate of taxation and the rate of expenditure, whether there is any one in this House who will ever see a Sinking Fund again.

But the right hon. Gentleman has seen lean years, and year after year he has had to repeat the process, which he says is so painful, of increasing taxation. I am sure it is not congenial to the right hon. Gentleman to perform such a task. There is a celebrated comedy of which the title is "A Physician in Spite of Himself." I am quite sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a spendthrift against his will. But, Sir, what we are more concerned with than anything else, and what I desire to know is, what are the prospects we have of a diminution of this rate of expenditure and taxation? Is the taxation we are now paying likely to be diminished when the war is over? That is a question upon which the country ought to have some understanding. The right hon. Gentleman last year in his Budget speech made the remarkable statement that of the taxes imposed in the year 1900, which amounted to £12,000,000, if the war was over in the next month or two not a penny could be remitted. That is the situation. He stated that that £12,000,000 of additional taxation was voted by the House as a contribution to the war and as a war tax. In that year, however, nothing was contributed by taxation to the war. The whole of it was met by loan. I want to know whether the right hon. Gentleman will lay on the Table of the House a statement which will show distinctly how much of the additional taxation that has been I imposed in the last three years has I gone to the war. He told us last year I that none of the taxation of 1900 went to the war, and that it would have been equally necessary if the war had not been going on. In order to ascertain how much of your taxation has gone to the war you ought to defray all your normal expenditure and then see how much of the additional taxation was available for the war. Up to last rear it is quite plain that none lad gone to the war at all. And I think we ought to have a statement in an official form of how much of the additional taxation has gone to the war after defraying normal expenditure. Last year you imposed £11,000,000 of taxation. How much of that has gone to the war? As I understand it, you imposed £12,000,000 in 1900, and £11,000,000 in 1901. How much of that additional taxation has gone to the war, and how much was necessary to meet your normal expenditure? You will find, then, that what has generally been supposed to be a contribution to the war out of taxation has been nothing of the kind. It has been merely ordinary taxation, which would be necessary without the war; and you will find that almost an insignificant fraction has been contributed by taxation to the war. I would, therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman to give us a clear official statement of the matter, and to let us see exactly how we stand in reference to it. I do not know that the figures are exact, but there may have been £12,000,000 raised in 1900 and £11,000,000 in 1901—that is to say £23,000,000 and of that nearly a half, at all events, has not gone to the war at all, but to ordinary expenditure. That is a matter which. I think, is not clearly understood, and has a very strong bearing on what are the prospects of a reduction of taxation after the war is over.

So much for that. Then the right hon. Gentleman has spoken of what are going to be the consequences if, as he devoutly wishes, and as I hope everybody wishes, the war comes to an end. There are, I regret to say, in the War Press those who seem to desire that everything shall happen which will prevent the conclusion of peace. I feel sure that it is not the feeling of this country and of the Members of this House. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said quite truly that there will be heavy expenses in winding up a war. There is no doubt that bringing a war to an end does not bring the expenditure to an end, least of all where you are annexing territories of immense extent. I think we ought to endeavour to form some idea of the hopes that can be held out to the country as to the extent to which the present taxation which you have imposed is going to be diminished when the war is over. I doubt very much whether it will he diminished at all. In 1815, and at other times, when war was over the income tax was at once repealed. The deficit this year is practically as large as last year. You borrowed a margin of ten millions for war, which, as I understand, is all gone, and the £10,000,000 advanced for deficiencies, which was to be replaced at the end of the year, has not been replaced. You propose to ask again the sum of £10,000,000 or the rea bouts for the purpose of deficiency bills, and you have not repaid the "£10,000,000 you borrowed last year. You have taken out of that £10,000,000, £6,000,000, leaving only £4,000,000, which you propose to apply to the expenditure of this year. That, of course, is an entire failure to fulfil the conditions under which that £10,000,000 was voted by the House.

* SIR. M. HICKS BEACH

I explained to the House that if the war ended by the middle of the year, or at a reasonable time before its close, I should be able to pay off either the whole or part of the £10,000,000 which I borrowed for temporary purposes by redeeming Treasury bills; but I said that if the war went on the money would have to be expended for the purposes of the war. That was quite understood.

* SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I do not quite understand why in the world this additional £10,000,000 should have been asked for only to meet deficiency bills. The only pretence for voting that money was that your income came in largely at the end of the financial year, and that then you would thus be in funds to repay it. That was the bargain, and it has not been fulfilled.

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

In discussing the Loan Bill I explained to the House that if the War ended I would be able to repay the money which I had borrowed by redeeming Treasury bills.

* SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

The only pretence for voting this money was because your income would come in largely at the end of the year. It was quite independent of the duration of the war. The country may endure this enormous expenditure with greater patience if they are satisfied that all of it has been necessary for the purposes to which you assert that you devote it. But the country is not satisfied of this, and that is why it is impatient under this enormous expenditure. If at the beginning you had perceived that you would need a more mobile Army, and if you had provided yourselves with a properly mounted force at the beginning or even at an early date, the war would have been over long ago. That which you are now beginning to do, you should have done much earlier, and so saved many lives and many millions. Everybody knows that the policy, the strategy in the earlier part of the war, led very largely to the continuance of the war. The country is not satisfied that the money paid on the contracts is money that ought to have been paid, that there has not been a great deal of waste; that when you bought too few horses you did not buy them at too high a price, and too inferior quality. One thinks of the meat contracts. Is not there disquietude in the public mind due to the feeling that, after all, this taxation and this borrowing to such an extent might have been avoided? You have refused an inquiry; you have removed all means of satisfying the country that this expenditure has been necessary and prudent.

There is the Still more important question which the House has to consider: What is going to be the expenditure after the war is over, the expenditure on the country you have acquired? It has to be seen whether it is not more expensive to repair than to ruin a country. What is the situation in this enormous territory, in these two colonies which were once independent Republics? What is the condition of your Cape Colony itself? The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of compensation, of restoration, in language which, I am sure, the House will agree with. He said that it was a policy to be applied, not only to out-own people, but to our gallant foes. But does anyone form a conception to himself of what that means? Where is the money to come from? What does it amount to? If we "think in continents" we have to pay in continents. This megalomania is a very fine thing, no doubt, but it is a very costly luxury. All this passion for the extension of territory and the annexation of independent countries involves a ruinous expenditure. Let us see a few of the things it involves. You have to pay first of all the compensations. What will that amount to? You are maintaining the people in the camps. What are you going to do with them when peace happily arrives? There is the settlement expenditure. Where are you going to get the people to settle in the conquered territory? I saw the other day a reported conversation with the late Mr. Rhodes, in which he gave his idea as to what the character of the settlement was to be. He said you ought to have 2,000 people, to whom you should give £4,000 apiece, to settle them as farmers in the Transvaal. That involves a sum of £8,000,000. But what would 2,000 people be, scattered over this enormous territory If you multiply this number by ten, you will not have an inadequate estimate. And who are to go there? I have no doubt you can always pick up people to go and settle anywhere if you give them £4,000; but I should like to see any gentleman conversant with land in this country giving persons without experience, going to farm country which they do not understand, and manage cattle which they have never managed, £4,000 apiece. What would become of that £4,000, and how long would it last? At the end of six months the £4,000 would be gone; and the recipients would not have settled in the country. They would have gone to the Johannesburg diggings to pick up gold there. That would be the history of a settlement scheme of the kind which, if carried out, would cost scores of millions, I see an hon. and learned Gentleman opposite who has studied these matters much. He will confirm me when I say that you can do nothing in that country, which has a great lack of water, without irrigation. Irrigation is costly; and if you are going to irrigate districts as large and France and Spain together, how many millions do you propose to-appropriate for the purpose?

Then there is another thing to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded—the army of occupation. How many men do you estimate you will require to keep there? The hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield informed us the other day that there ought to be 100,000; and, if possible, a still greater military authority—Sir R. Giffen—appropriates about £25,000,000 of English taxation for the annual cost of the new provinces we have acquired. Well, that means a shilling income tax. But I do not know what the Government estimate is, and I think we ought to have some idea of what the cost is likely to be. The men are to be mounted, and so the force will be more costly. What will be the cost of many thousands of mounted men as an occupation force? At least, you will require, I suppose, half as many men as you have in our Indian possessions, about 30,000, but for the force in India you make India pay. We are told this war is waged for the Empire; but it is to be observed that it is net the Empire that pays: it is this miserably insignificant part of the Empire called the United Kingdom that is to pay for it all.

And this brings me to the consideration of what the right hon. Gentleman said, that we were Hearing the time when the Transvaal would be able to pay something. I know this—it has been said as a consolation to the country—that when peace comes the gold industry will pay; but that I believe to be founded on fallacy. If loans are made to the Transvaal with the hope of developing the gold mining, I believe the security would not be a good one for anything like the expenditure which will have to be incurred. I believe such loans would have to be defrayed exclusively by the British taxpayers. I have seen, within the last few weeks, some remarkable letters written by a Special Commissioner of the Economist newspaper as to the character of the goldfields in South Africa, and it is to be supposed that what is written specially for such a paper can be accepted with some confidence. He says there have been enormously exaggerated ideas of mining development and gold production in South Africa. I will not weary the Committee with long extracts, but this Commissioner refers to a remarkable speech recently made by Lord Milner, a speech made after dinner, and addressed to some of the leading citizens of Johannesburg, in which he referred to Johannesburg as likely to become "one of the greatest cities of the world, and, not wishing to encourage schemes that were doubtful and too ambitious," he was moderate in the expectations he formed. But, looking forward to 1904, he hinted at a population of five millions. Well, if the population of Johannesburg in two years was to exceed that of Canada and nearly equal that of Australia, by all means let them bear the whole of the war debt. Commenting on this statement, the Special Commissioner said— Lord Milner lately ventured the statement that before long there would he live million white people in the Transvaal—the inference being that they were to be supported mainly by the mining industry. If his Lordship knew that country as well as I do, he would realise that even in twenty years from now there will not be five million whites in the whole of South, Africa. The mistake of Lord Milner on a problem connected with gold mining in South Africa is typical of the far greater ignorance in the average lay mind on the same subject. I suppose that at the present moment there are really hundreds of thousands of people in Great Britain who believe that South Africa—and especially the Transvaal—is simply teeming with thousands of potential mines, which the narrowness and ignorance of the Boers caused to lie undeveloped, and which are about to be floated off by generous capitalists, and make rich everyone who is now shrewd enough to buy the shares. As regards the already flouted mines, they believe that, under an enlightened Government, there is now going to he an all-round reduction of live or six shillings a ton in the cost of treating the ore, and that the dividends are going to be far higher than before. No wonder, seeing how widespread are these beliefs, that there has been a strong market in South Africans, and no wonder that the company promoters are now preparing some hundreds of quite worthless flotations for the acceptance of this gullible multitude. In this paper, for the twelfth time, let me say that the Transvaal has been prospected over and over again from one end to the other, and that no payable patches of ore are known to exist which have not already been worked for years. When I first went to the Transvaal to mine, not only was the Rand an important field, but there was much activity at Heidelberg, Klerksdorp, De Kaap, Lydenburg, and all over the Low Country.' As the years passed by, one mine after another in these outside districts closed down. When the war started there were, I suppose, not six outside mines working at a profit. And yet there had been hundreds of companies to commence with. There are hundreds of reefs all over the country—banket reefs, or any other variety you fancy—but they are no good. Not only are they unpayable, but no sophistry can make them anything else. They might get dynamite for nothing, and be relieved from all the other oppressions of the 'corrupt oligarchy.' and still they would be unpayable. And yet all these mines are going to be refloated very soon, and pulled in the good old-fashioned way, and the public is again going to lose heavily on them. This time I expect the losses will be greater than before. The promoter floats with a bigger capital now, and will have a bigger public to sell to. Without wearying the House with further quotations, I may say that there are three or four letters in which this gentleman proceeds to show that the production of gold is limited, and that outside mines already worked the re is little to be expected, and that the whole of these representations are really in preparation for a great scheme of flotation for mines not promoted for working but for selling. This I believe to be perfectly true, that in South Africa enormous fortunes have been accumulated not by the productions of mines, for the mines have failed, but by the sale by projectors of worthless mines to ignorant and credulous people. That is the real secret of the enormous fortunes that have been made. Therefore, the notion that these millions to be spent in the development of the country would be realised in any considera le part from new gold fields of payable gold in the Transvaal is a delusion by which the country has been deceived, and is likely to be still more misled.

The Chamber of Mines, through its chairman, has spoken very much in this sense. The chairman has expressed his opinion that a great extension of production cannot be expected, and that little taxation ought to be imposed, and he expressed the utmost confidence in Lord Milner. But Lord Milner has nobody to rely on except these gold gentlemen; there is no other population, there is nobody else Lord Milner can act with or upon, and they oppose taxation. The hope, therefore, to realise this money from the Transvaal is an utter delusion. These are matters upon which we really ought to have a great deal more information than we possess, and I hope that before the debate closes the right hon. Gentleman will place us in a position to form some idea what the future chances are of this heavy burden of taxation being less than it is at present. He has pointed out, unfortunately too truly, that great as has been the expenditure at home, it is still going on increasing, and it is likely, with the spirit which has been developed in the country, to increase in the future. If this is so, there is very little hope that when peace is concluded the people of this country will be released from the weight of taxation it has been his painful duty to impose. One thing I must ask the right hon. Gentleman, and that is what opportunity will be given to the House for the discussion of his proposals. A good many people will not be satisfied with them, and they would like to have full opportunities of considering their effect. There was a misapprehension upon this subject last year, when it was said we might discuss the general bearing of the question at a later stage.

Such a statement as has been made tonight by the right hon. Gentleman, is one that cannot be discussed in the course of one night. It seems to me that there ought to be an opportunity given on which we should have a discussion on the whole financial position as it has been affected by the war, and as it will be affected by peace. There was a misapprehension on this subject last year, and I think we ought to have a clear understanding on the matter tonight. It should be understood, too, that the chairman of the Committee is a party to the arrangement, so that it may be carried out. I hope that, before these debates close, we may have a statement as to what the Government propose to do in this respect.

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I merely wish to say a word with regard to the concluding remarks of the right hon. Gentleman. It is the invariable practice for the Committee to grant the new Taxation Resolutions the first night, with the understanding that a future opportunity should be given for a renewal of the debate. If we are permitted to obtain tonight, as I think we should obtain, the new Taxing Resolution, we should endeavour to meet the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman, and, by arrangement, set aside a night for a full debate on the subject. Then there is a second consideration. I have stated that it will be necessary for us to borrow on loan, and that, for obvious reasons which any one acquainted with financial matters will understand, is a matter that must be dealt with promptly by the House. What therefore, I would venture to suggest is that, if we are permitted to take the Resolution with regard to the loan as well as the corn duty, the Government will arrange that some other Resolution, like the Income Tax Resolution, should be taken on a future night for the general discussion. That, I think, would meet the general wishes of the Committee, and would be in accordance with the practice of previous years.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

With reference to the loan I do not think that any inconvenience occurred last year in consequence of the loan being postponed. Last year the difficulty was that the Chairman of Committees understood he was bound on the introduction of the Resolution to allow nothing to be said on the general question and that understanding was strictly adhered to in all the other Resolutions. I raise the point because I think it is only fair to the House to do so.

(7.8.) MR. CHAPLIN (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)

I am sure nothing is likely to conduce more effectually to the successful issue of the peace conferences in South Africa than the Chancellor of the Exchequer's generous expression of opinion and intention towards the foe with whom we have been so long in conflict. I am sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in thus stating the views of the Government, expressed nothing but the feeling of hon. Members in all parts of the House and of all classes in the country. I rose, however, particularly to make some reply to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman opposite with regard to the duty on corn. My principle object in rising was to make a few observations in reply to that part of the speech in which the right hon. Gentleman objected to the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He complained very much of the course adopted by my right hon. friend in making this new proposal for taxation, and stated that he would offer to it the most earnest and determined opposition in his power. The right hon. Gentleman is an expert in these matters, and his opinion is entitled to great weight and authority. But I think the House cannot have failed to perceive the extreme exaggeration which pervaded the right hon. Gentleman's speech throughout. What are the facts with which my right hon. friend is con fronted, and what is the position he has to meet? The facts are perfectly simple He has an enormous deficit, which must be provided for and met in some way The position of my right hon. friend, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, is that he has pretty well exhausted all the ordinary resources for obtaining any great additional revenue from existing sources of taxation, and he is obliged to try others. Among them he is going to try the revival of the old 1s. duty upon corn. One must admit, at all events, one advantage which this proposal has. It is not a new one; we have had experience of it before. We have had experience of its effects as a tax. and we have had experience of its repeal. As a tax I defy any human being to prove that it ever did the slightest harm in this country. Its repeal did not the slightest good to anybody. In consequence I entirely agree with my right hon. friend upon that point. I have always regarded the repeal of that tax as an act of considerable financial unwisdom, if, indeed, it might not be better described as an act of great financial folly. So much for the past.

But what are the recommendations which can be urged in favour of this proposal as a tax to be imposed upon the country in the future? In the first place, the burden of the duty will be absolutely infinitesimal at the present time, In the second place I will undertake to say that the price of bread to the workers and the labouring classes will not be raised by even the fraction of a farthing. Therefore, if that be so, the main part of the objections urged by the right hon. Gentleman falls entirely to the ground. In the third place, I venture to say that no other tax could be named, producing an equal amount of revenue, which would so little injure or affect the general public of the country. No argument can be adduced against it, except on the ground of sentiment, and, in the present financial position, as I have often thought and said, sentiment in these matters is a luxury far too expensive for us to indulge in. I quite admit that, as a Protective measure, the effect of this tax will be practically nil. On the other hand, it will produce no less a revenue than £2,650,000 a year. I should like to ask this question of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who has had many years experience in the position now held by my right hon. friend—Where will he find another tax to produce an equivalent revenue to this one, with so many recommendations and so few objections? I believe my right hon. friend in taking this step has adopted a most wise and courageous course. The proposal he has submitted to the House and the country is supported by justice, by reason, by the results of experience, and also by expediency, and I believe it will meet with far more general acceptance and approval among different, classes in the country than many hon. Gentlemen think at all likely. In a word, I believe the verdict of multitudes of people will be—"Thank God that in connection with the financial policy of this country we have brought to bear a little common-sense at last!"

(7.18.) MR. SYDNEY BUXTON (Tower Hamlets, Poplar)

said be would have not troubled the Committee but for the pointed reference to himself in the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On the occasion referred to by the right hon. Gentleman he was discussing the question from the point of view of the expenditure and the reduction of the debt of the country. In his opinion, thirty years ago there was a reckless relinquishment of taxation, while very little was applied annually to the reduction of debt, and his argument in the passages referred to was that it would have been better, instead of relinquishing the duty in question, to apply it to the reduction of the Debt. Moreover, at that time, Mr. Lowe, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Gladstone, as Prime Minister, could not have anticipated the enormous increase which had taken place in the expenditure of the country. Certainly, not having the gift of prophecy, they could not have anticipated the advent of the Colonial Secretary, or of the right hon. Gentleman who preached economy but did not make his colleagues practise it to any large extent, He would also point out that it was one thing to repeal a tax, but quite another to impose it. When this tax was left on, it was purely for the purposes of registration, and produced a very small amount, It was afterwards admitted chat the imports of corn could be registered perfectly well without the imposition of the tax, and, when relinquished, the duty was producing less than£1,000,000 a year. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was now going to reimpose it, when it would produce over £2,500,000—surely a very different tax. The right hon. Gentleman himself had pointed out that, while thirty years ago it affected only one-third of the whole trade, it would today affect two-thirds, so that it was a much more Protective duty now than then. ["No."] A larger amount was levied on foreign corn, and a smaller amount of home-produced corn would he benefited by it.

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

asked if the hon. Gentleman really meant that if only a single quarter of corn was produced in this country, the tax would be more Protective than if a large quantity was produced?

MR. SYDNEY BUXTON

said the result would certainly be to raise the price of that particular quarter of corn. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for Oldham laughed, but surely that would be the result, and the right hon. Gentleman himself would probably not deny that any duty would have some effect in raising the price. At all events, that was his opinion. It ought also to be remembered that thirty years ago the price of corn was almost double its present price. The reimposition of the corn duty was a very serious step in retrogression of all the principles of taxation to which the country had been of late years accustomed.

He did not intend to go into the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; he rose simply to point out that, although the right hon. Gentleman did not misquote him, he did not give the qualification which he very carefully made. His withers, therefore, were entirely unwrung. and he would certainly oppose the tax, which he believed would cause unnecessary interference with and worry to the trade of the country. But he cordially supported the proposal to impose another penny on the income tax. Indeed, as the right hon. Gentleman was raising only a very inadequate proportion of the deficit by increased taxation, he wished he had taken it wholly out of the income tax by an addition of twopence instead of a penny. It would have been better for trade, for the consumers, and for the country at large, rather than to have reimposed a duty which could only have the effect of hampering and harassing trade.

(7.26.) MR. JAMES LOWTHER

During the earlier part of my right hon. friend's speech tonight I took a very hopeless view; he appeared to me to be floundering along very much on the old lines. Towards the end of his speech, however, there was introduced what my right hon. friend the Member for the Sleaford Division has called the element of common sense. I do not wish to be misunderstood in this connection. There is not an element of Protection in this proposal. It is not as a Protectionist who has, during the whole of his lifetime, advocated those principles, that I welcome this recurrence to common sense after an aberration of more than a political generation? welcome it upon financial, and purely financial, grounds. We know perfectly well that the narrow basis upon which our taxation rests is now generally condemned by all thinking persons who deal with matters of finance. A few days ago I received a copy of a memorandum by the Committee of the Cobden Club, entitled, "How to Increase the Public Revenue." Of course there are in it many points from which I wholly disagree, but there is one under the head of "Direct Taxation" which I would seriously commend to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to all who oppose his proposals. The Cobden Club says— We now pass to the question of direct taxation, In a country where almost every man who likes can secure a vole, the present wholesale exemption from the payment of direct taxes forms a serious political danger.…We therefore urge that direct taxation should be extended, either by lowering the present limit of exemption from income tax, so as to include all incomes over £100 a year, or by extending the inhabited house duty to all houses and tenements above £10 in annual value, and making the rate of the house duty fall and rise with the rate of the income tax I shall not go into this point at the present time, but it shows that even Sir Robert Giffen recognises this principle. [An HON. MEMBER: But those are not the views which he expressed years ago.] I do not welcome this proposal as a return to Protection, but as an admission that the present system is a danger to the State. This document says— it is only by direct taxation that the responsibility for national expenditure can be brought home to the taxpayer, for an indirect tax is always uncertain in its incidence, and often appears to be no tax at all. I maintain that, on purely revenue grounds, the new tax on corn announced tonight is a proper one, and one which, at any rate, has nothing to do with the treatment of home industries. I hope the time will come when we shall decide to raise the greater portion of our revenue by indirect means. The Chancellor of the Exchequer several years ago propounded an absolutely novel doctrine—that direct and indirect taxation should as far as possible, be brought to a level, ignoring the fact that the income tax payer has to pay a larger proportion, relatively, of the indirect taxes than any other class of the community. I suppose it is in conformity with this novel but indefensible doctrine that my right hon. friend now proposes to put another penny on the income tax. I would like to know what the right hon. Gentleman means by that doctrine. Does he mean that when an indirect tax is put on, there ought also to be an equivalent tax put on as a direct tax? Does he mean that what he calls the income tax payers, as a class, should pay this additional direct tax and at the same time ignore the fact that they already pay a larger proportion, relatively, of the indirect taxes than any other class of the community? I suppose my right hon. friend holds the view that, after putting a tan upon sparkling wines, which are wholly consumed by the income tax paying class, he makes it fair to them by putting another penny on the income tax besides.

I notice that my right hon. friend has tried to balance his indirect taxes by putting another penny upon the income tax, which is evidently done to carry out this theory. Nobody except the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth ever endorsed this extraordinary theory of taxation, that direct and indirect taxes should be equalised. The Cobden Club suggests very properly that exemptions from income tax should be, diminished, and that the great mass of voters should contribute. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, leaves the incidence of the income tax exactly as it is and proceeds upon the old lines. That is a very dangerous doctrine, which is absolutely unsound. My right hon. friend produced no authority whatever in support of this extraordinary theory. I hope my right hon. friend will not persevere with this untenable theory, which is contrary to all sound finance. My right hon. friend always displays an indifference to any attempt to weld the Empire together upon commercial lines, and he is essentially a Little Englander in finance. As I said last year, he draws no distinction between a Canadian and a Belgian, and he rather prefers the Belgian on account of his proximity. I think a great opportunity has been missed for framing our fiscal system upon a basis that will meet the requirements of the great bulk of our fellow subjects in various parts of the world, and which would have placed our financial system upon a sound basis.

As regards indirect taxation. I should have thought that those who talk so loudly about protecting the food of the people from taxation would have suggested that some articles of manufacture not produced here should take the place of such articles as coffee and tea, which are regarded as necessaries rather than luxuries. I am not going to say a word against the tea or coffee duty from a taxation point of view, but I have never been able to understand why indirect taxation should be raised on articles not produced here that formed the staple of life, while articles which compete with the products of our labour are admitted without let or hindrance in to the country, and without the manufacturers of those goods bearing any of the burden of the rates and taxes which other producers of food and other commodities have to bear in this country. This may be considered a narrow system of finance, but it is coming rapidly to the front at the present time. I have been told that it is no use talking about a registration duty on corn, but I have gone on with this principle notwithstanding that warning, and I do not think that I am now so very much out of my reckoning. I want to know why the people of this country should have to pay rates and taxes upon the production of articles when other articles are allowed to come into this country free of contribution towards the rates and taxes. I say that this system is unjust and unsound. It is contrary to commonsense, and I venture to say that the public opinion of this country will not allow it very much longer. The people do not want all this claptrap about free trade. The people know perfectly well that a large revenue has to be raised, and they are not going to be curtailed in their financial operations by any old-fashioned prejudices of that kind. My right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer lives in the financial world of fifty years ago, and he is several generations behind his time. He believes in the doctrines of a. school, the teachings of which have become more and more discredited as time goes on, and he has closed his eyes to what must be the inevitable result. We have not only this country to think of, but also all our colonies and dependencies, the representatives of which will shortly be amongst us. I think my right hon. friend will find that his obsolete prejudices of a century ago will not enable him to deal with the crisis of the present day, and I hope the time will come before long when we shall decide to raise the greater portion of our revenue by indirect means.

SIR HOWARD VINCENT

Hear, hear!

(7.40.) MR. BROADHURST (Leicester)

said the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year promised him that he would consider some means by which the working man could get cheaper tobacco, or the equivalent in better quality. His complaint then was that the poor man upon his tobacco paid as much revenue as the man who purchased the best class of tobacco. The Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted the anomaly in that respect, and he said that he would, during the ensuing year, make some arrangement by which that anomaly might be considerably reduced, if not done away with altogether. Apparently he had forgotten all about that promise in his excitement of levying these new taxes, and he had lost sight altogether of that promise. He hoped it was not too late now for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tell the Committe whether he would be able to give proper consideration to this point during the ensuing year.

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I did consider the matter, and made a good deal of inquiry, but found that what the hon. Member had in his mind would distinctly not be to the benefit of the consumer, although it might be to the benefit of the manufacturer of tobacco.

MR. BROADHURST

said that something might be devised for the benefit of the poor consumer, and he could not see why something of the kind could not be worked out. It was monstrous that the man consuming the very dregs of the tobacco trade should pay the enormous duty on tobacco that he did pay, while those who smoked the very best material only paid the same amount. He sincerely trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not give up the problem as one which could not be solved. He must warn the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this. new tax upon corn would he fought with all the strength they could command on the Opposition side of the House. A more monstrous tax he could not imagine. We had been engaged in a war for three years, spending £200,000,000. It was contemplated now at a cost of £200,000,000 to build up that which we had knocked down, and for the pleasure of the foreign mine owners in South Africa we were now going to tax the bread of the widows and orphans at the centre of the empire. [Laughter.] Yes, but we were going to do it. Hon. Members might say that it would not tax them, but why were the right hon. Gentlemen the Members for Sleaford and Thanet pleased with the proposal? They regarded it as an instalment of better things to come. Only a few moments back the Member for Thanet said this was a very good start, but that we had nothing like reached the limit to which we ought to go in the taxation of foreign imports.

MR. JAMES LOWTHER

The statement I intended to have made was that I regarded this proposal for the taxation of corn as not in any shape or form of the slightest use as a fiscal measure. I went on to say that a vast deal more of our revenue should be raised by indirect taxation.

MR. BROADHURST

said he knew this was an instalment of a tax that had been demanded for years by the right hon. Gentleman and his friends. Take the meetings of the agricultural associations all through the country next Saturday, and they would find this tax; would be welcomed in all directions. What did it mean? It meant that it was a tax in favour of the industry of farming and of agriculture. The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of the fallacy of Mr. Lowe in having stated in abolishing the registration duty of 1s. on corn that it would cheapen bread. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer was under a similar fallacy. It did not always follow that when flour was cheapened bread would be lowered in price, but it always followed that if flour was increased in price, bread was immediately increased in price. So it would be, and so it must be, in the case of bread, when this tax came to be levied. It was absolutely monstrous that the poor of this country should have to pay for the Empire fireworks of other people through the increased want of the necessaries of life which would follow as a consequence of this corn tax. He entirely agreed with the extra 1d. on the Income Tax. He wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer had put on 2d. or 3d. It was one of the best, most direct, and most justifiable of taxes if it was properly levied. He would not impose it on any incomes under £500 a year, and he would double it on those of £5,000 and over. The income tax was a splendid piece of revenue machinery if levied according to the means to pay it. That should be the first consideration, and the basis on which the income tax should be worked. He did not think for a moment that the increase on bills at sight—the cheques the people used through the banks—would be imposed. There was not the least doubt that the city would knock it out before it became law. The banking and financial influences were so enormous that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to give way. He disliked the Budget very much. He wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer had taken another £5,000,000 a year out of direct taxation as he ought to have done. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had fallen on the evil days of departing from his free-trade faith, and that he now proposed to tax the necessaries of the people. Had he held fast to the faith that was in him he would not have proposed this tax, but he had no doubt given way to others. He hoped and believed that this taxation of corn would prove one of the most disastrous strokes of policy that this Government had initiated for many years past.

(7.50.) MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)

said he would begin by congratulating the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his restoration to health. The malady which they all regretted came the more inopportunely last week because it coincided with a malady on the part of the Colonial Secretary. The simultaneity of the recovery of the two right hon. Gentlemen furnished the House with suitable matter of congratulation. It was extremely inconvenient to be promised a discussion on the Corn Resolution after it had been passed, and it was equally inconvenient to debate the authorisation of a loan of £32,000,000 after the Resolution dealing with it had been agreed to. Those were the only Resolutions for which there was any urgency, and he suggested that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should take the Loan Resolution this evening, but that the Corn Resolution should be taken for a certain portion of the year only, say, three months. That would leave the rest of the year open, and if by any chance, which he certainly did not believe would occur, the Committee should decide against the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it would still have the remaining nine months in its hands. He understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say that there was a deficit of £45,500,000, and by the proposals submitted to the Committee that would be met to the extent of £41,600,000; so that there was a gap of close upon £4,000,000 still to be filled up. He heard with the greatest satisfaction the hope expressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that peace might result from the conferences now taking place, and he was also interested to know that the right hon. Gentleman considered the time was drawing near for the repayment by the Transvaal of the money we had spent in conquering the country. He was afraid, however, that the right hon. Gentleman would be disappointed in that expectation. The time would come no nearer until the sovereignty of the Transvaal had been transferred from Mr. Schalk Burger to the British Government, and until that was done this country was not in a position legally to charge a halfpenny on the revenues of the Transvaal. He was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman express a readiness to rebuild and restock the farms destroyed in the course of the war. It was a generous intention, which he was sure the people of this country would respond to.

He had risen to make a few suggestions suggested at the first sight of this Budget. The income tax already provided the Chancellor of the Exchequer with nearly £35,000,000, and the proposed addition of 1d. would raise the amount to £37,000,000. This was a stupendous amount of money to be raised from a single tax, especially when it was remembered that owing to exemptions and abatements not more than half of the taxable incomes were taxed. He held it to be a sound principle never to increase the income tax without endeavouring to spread it over some of those who had not hitherto paid it but who ought to pay it. He was convinced that persons with incomes of £200 and £300 who approved the policy of the war would be ready to pay income tax; and the whole question was how to discover a convenient method by which the tax could be levied upon them. The true method was the smallest possible tax over the largest possible area. The Post Office revenues had shown the great virtue of the penny in point of productiveness. He thought, therefore, it would be reserved for some future Chancellor of the Exchequer, when looking about for further subjects of taxation, to endeavour to apply the penny system to the income tax. When we talked of the extension of the Empire it should be remembered that it was not the Empire that paid, but Great Britain alone; and that in Great Britain it was almost exclusively the richer classes who were made to pay for the maintenance of the Empire. The poor man scarcely paid anything. [HON. MEMBERS on the Opposition Benches: Oh, oh!] He did not say that the poorer man did not pay what was really a considerable portion of his income; but the aggregate sum that he paid was almost infinitesimal, and, as the right hon. Gentleman had said, it constituted a very great danger to the Empire; because when a man voted for war, and was not made to feel the payment for it, he was inclined to vote for a war in regard to which he might be otherwise in doubt.

On one point he agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His ideal for this country was that Great Britain should be an absolutely free port, with no customs duties. But we were now in financial straits, and he was bound to say that he knew of no method by which so large a sum could be so easily raised, and with so little injury to the people, as that adopted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this case. It must also not be put out of consideration that the tax might be of use in putting us in a better position for bargaining with such a country as, say, the United States in regard to a diminution of their tariff, because incase of necessity that might be increased.

With regard to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposal to raise the stamp duty on cheques to twopence, he thought that a peculiarly mischievous proposal. There was no country in Europe that had so largely availed itself of the cheque system as this country, and the tendency of this tax would be to turn it from the cheque system to a system of transferring money in coin—a tendency which he regarded as a relic of commercial barbarism He thought he saw a latent purpose in the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to protect the Post Office by this tax, and he imagined that the Post Office had already had too large a share of the business which properly belonged to private banks.

(8.13.) SIR H CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

We have arrived at a critical moment in the evening, when we ought to come to some understanding as to the progress of the debate. I understand that the Chancellor of the Exchequer regards it as desirable, if not absolutely necessary, from the point of view of the public interest, to take the Resolutions regarding the corn duty and the loan to-night. If the right hon. Gentleman gives us that assurance, I hope that the House will not place any impediment in the way of his obtaining these Resolutions, although some of us may, according to our views of the question, be disposed to vote against them. As to the proposed duty on corn, for instance, I would myself vote against the Resolution, but I do not wish to prevent its being taker tonight. I trust, however, that the light hon. Gentleman will be able to promise that on the Report stage we shall have a full and complete separate opportunity of discussing that question. As to the general discussion and criticism of the whole financial position of the country, and of the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, I would venture to submit to him that instead of taking it tomorrow, we should have some longer time to consider it. If we are to discuss with advantage the most important and elaborate statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we ought to know as much as possible what the opinion of the country is upon it, and we ought to have an opportunity of studying it deliberately and most carefully. I trust, therefore, that after taking the two Resolutions that he requires tonight, the right hon. Gentleman will adjourn the general debate to some more distant date than tomorrow.

(8.14.) MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

said he regretted very much the absence of his hon. friend the Member for Waterford, but he must on his behalf protest in the strongest possible manner against the Resolution sanctioning the Loan being taken tonight. Everyone recognised that the new taxes had to be passed on the first night of the Budget, but he had yet to learn that the Resolution sanctioning the Loan had the same urgency. Nothing had been said which would justify the assumption of such a position. It was not taken up last year, and he thought it would be a gross abuse to commit hon. Members, as they would be committed if they passed the Resolution, to the extraordinary system of finance which was wrapt up in the loan. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had asked for an enormous loan, and for an immense margin to play with; and, therefore, when the Resolution was brought forward, hon. Members ought to have a fair and reasonable opportunity to discuss it on its merits. On behalf of his hon. friend the Member for Waterford, of whose views on the matter he had been informed, he strongly protested against the Resolution sanctioning the Loan being taken to-night.

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I should like to ask your ruling, Sir, as to the position, because I am very desirous of meeting the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and the convenience of the House generally. Supposing the Resolution in regard to the corn duty is taken tonight, and that the Loan Resolution is taken tomorrow—and I can assure the hon. Member it cannot, without the greatest public injury, be postponed later—[Mr. DILLON: Nobody objects to that]—could the debate tomorrow be confined to the Loan Resolution, leaving the general discussion on the Budget to be taken on Thursday, and giving another day, at some later period, for a full discussion on the Report of the corn duty? Perhaps I am acting beyond my powers, as my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury rather objects to that. Still, I thought that, possibly, the whole of the night would not be required for the discussion on the loan, if the discussion were confined to the loan itself.

* THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN

The precedent of former years on the Budget was to have a general discussion on the first Resolution, as is usual in the first Vote for the Army or for the Navy. After that, the debate is strictly confined to the Resolution before the Committee, but at the same time, I believe it has been usual to select one particular Resolution, by agreement on both sides, and with the approval of the Chair, on which there might be a general discussion. Therefore, the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be in order.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

It seems to me that the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a very reasonable one. and would meet the views of the Irish Members, as expressed by the hon. Member for East Mayo, He said he would be perfectly satisfied to discuss the Resolution on the loan tomorrow. You, Sir, have ruled that the discussion must be confined to that Resolution. I do not suppose it will take a very long time to discuss it. Then on Thursday, on the Income Tax, there might be a general discussion on the Budget, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has suggested, and that a day should be fixed later for the discussion on the corn duty on Report. That seems to me to be a very fair proposal.

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I ought to add that if, as I think is very possible, the discussion on the loan does not take the whole of tomorrow night, I should be allowed to proceed further with the other Resolutions, of which there are some half a dozen, but not, of course, for general debate. (8.30.)

*(9.0. MR. HOLLAND (Yorkshire, Rotherham)

confessed that, in common with many of his colleagues on the Opposition Benches, he should not have been disappointed if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had announced his intention of postponing the introduction of his Budget in view of the conference which was at present proceeding in Pretoria. And yet he did not for a moment quarrel with the decision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to proceed with his Budget, for he admitted that in a matter of this kind the right hon. Gentleman was the best judge as to what was the right moment at which to bring forward his proposals. He further admitted that putting off the Budget might have rendered the situation liable to this misconstruction—that the enemies of this country, or some of them at any rate, might have suggested that we had got to the end of our financial tether, and that we were faltering in the task to which we had put our hands. Nevertheless, he did not see why the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not have so arranged his Budget that certain of his proposals might, so to speak, have been earmarked with a view that if circumstances required it, those proposals might have been readily dropped without interfering with the general construction of the Budget. He felt sure that many hon. Members would rejoice to hear the announcement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in his judgment, and also in the judgment of Lord Milner, after the 1st of July it might reasonably be expected that a substantial contribution would be forthcoming from South Africa from the mines. He thought that the oftener such pledges were given by responsible Ministers, the better were the chances of such pledges being ultimately fulfilled.

There was one part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech which commended itself to his mind much more heartily than any other, and it was that part in which he expressed the desire to give the most generous treatment to those in South Africa who had suffered so severely in consequence of the war. The right hon. Gentleman had expressed his desire to make large money grants for the rebuilding and restocking of farms in South Africa, and he thought that was a sentiment which would meet with cordial approval in all parts of the House. He ventured to say that the echo of those words would be heard the next morning in Pretoria, and would do much to facilitate that result which they all so anxiously desired. He wished to say a word or two about the doubling of the stamp duty. He submitted that an additional penny stamp upon cheques would disturb very greatly their business transactions. The yield of this tax would be only a very small one, while the irritation would be very considerable. During recent years the use of cheques had been enormously increased in the business of this country, and the French bank manager referred to by the hon. Member for King's Lynn seemed to him to be only fit to be placed in a museum of curiosities, for it was hardly conceivable that any one holding a responsible position in a banking institution should confess himself an entire stranger to and unacquainted with the appearance of an English cheque. The increased use of cheques proves them to be a great convenience, besides which our commercial and banking system effect a great economy by restricting the use of currency. Discourage cheques and every cashier in the country will have to enlarge his till, and provide far more gold and silver than he at present needs. He did not think that remittances would be made with the same alacrity if the use of cheques was discouraged, for there was something in human nature which made it easier to pay an account by cheque than to part with hard cash.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that the sugar tax imposed a year ago had been more or less a successful tax, and he had said that the price of sugar in the retail shops had not advanced, or had only advanced to a very small extent. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, knew as well as anybody else that the reason of that condition of things was because the fates had been very kind to him, and the abundant harvest enjoyed in beet growing countries had produced this result. The enormous increase in the production of beet sugar had reduced the price, and that reduction had enabled the duty to be paid without any substantial increase in the price to the purchaser. There was another factor which the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not afford to overlook, and it was that sugar bounties were at present being paid by continental nations, and when they were abolished next year under the Brussels convention the price of sugar in this country would inevitably rise, precisely to the extent to which those bounties had made sugar artificially cheap.

He was very much interested with the reference made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet to the pamphlet issued by the Cobden Club. He had never heard the right hon. Gentleman say a civil word for the lob-den Club before, but he had now expressed his commendation, of some part at any rate, of the pamphlet issued by that club. He was rather inclined to think that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet had read the pamphlet only in a cursory kind of way, or else he had skipped over those portions which did not answer his case. He noticed in the pamphlet, for instance, that there were some very strong arguments against the imposition of a tax on corn. It was obvious that any proposal for enlarging the basis of taxation ought to receive the most careful examination, for a tax, once imposed, was no easy matter to get rid of. There was an enlargement of the basis of taxation last year, when the coal tax was imposed, and not a word had been said on the present occasion about removing that impost on the coal industry. He did not complain that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said nothing in that direction, because until peace was once more restored it was unreasonable to expect any diminution in the taxation of the country. In the pamphlet which had been referred to one of the arguments urged against imposing a tax on wheat was because wheat was a necessary food of the people, and one quarter of the population of this country was at present living in absolute poverty. Therefore, it would at once be seen that in their case there was no taxable margin available from which the revenue could be raised. By this proposal those in receipt of the smallest wages were to be hit the hardest. Tables had been put before them by economists showing that in the family budget of the labouring classes 50 per cent. of the income was spent on food, so that any tax on food must hit those classes more hardly than others.

Another objection was that this proposal violated and indeed inverted that sound principle which was first introduced by the right, hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire in 1894, that the burden of taxation should be proportionate to the ability of the people who were called upon to pay. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to suggest that this tax on corn was so small in amount that it really would not affect the price at all. Did the Chancellor of the Exchequer seriously argue that the price of bread would remain unchanged if a tax was put upon corn? Somebody must pay that £2,500,000 sterling which the Chancellor of the Exchequer expected that this tax would yield. And if the middleman pays it today depend upon it he will transfer the burden to the consumer tomorrow. The Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared to have argued that the registration duty upon corn was proved not to have affected the price of bread at all, because during the period from January to May in 1869, when the duty was on, the price of the 4lb. loaf fell a halfpenny. But the argument of those who resisted this tax was that the price of the four pound loaf would either have fallen sooner than it did or that the fall would have been larger in amount if there had been no registration duty in former years. He did not know precisely in what month in 1869 the four-pound loaf was reduced by a Halfpenny, but it might have been in the month of April. His argument was that if the registration duty had not been in existence the price of the four-pound loaf might have fallen in the month of February and then the people would have got the advantage of the reduction in the price earlier than they did. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that the price of bread was fixed by the law of supply and demand, and no political economist would wish to diminish the effect of the law of supply and demand. He would be a very poor economist who did anything of the kind. He was certain, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would admit that if the cost of producing any commodity was increased, other things being equal, its price would rise, and demand for it be proportionately diminished. A diminished demand for bread stuff would mean, of course, that less was being eaten, and if the number of mouths to fill were as numerous as before it followed that more would be hungry after the tax was imposed than before. The duty would be received with enthusiasm by the corn-growing interest, although if there was to be no rise in price such enthusiasm would be hard to justify, but in the great centres of population an outcry against it would be raised. It was a revolutionary and retrograde proposal, and there was great danger that the prospect of peace would so gild the pill as to induce people to swallow just now that which they would reject under other circumstances. It was right and proper that the burden of a great war should be as widely diffused as possible. It was right that all classes should be called upon to make sacrifices when a great national undertaking had to be carried through, and in his opinion there had been no difference in connection with the South African war, in the sacrifices the rich and the poor had been willing to make in allowing their loved ones to go to the front, But when the poor lost their relatives the parallel was no longer the same. It was true that the grief under such circumstances would be precisely the same, but the hardship afterwards would be by no means the same. If the breadwinner of a poor family fell at the front or was maimed during the war, there was imposed on his dependents at home a struggle and burden for the rest of their lives which the rich were not called upon to bear. Therefore the poorer section of the population was entitled to special consideration at a time like this, when it was a question of apportioning the sacrifices entailed by the war equitably between both rich and poor. And it was because he thought a tax on corn inflicted undue hardship on the very poor that he would oppose it, not only in this House but wherever he had the opportunity.

(9.20.) MR. JOHN WILSON (Falkirk Burghs)

said there was nothing in the remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer he more heartily agreed with than when he spoke of the peace negotiations, and that, while willing to do the best we could to secure peace, the best way to secure it was to be prepared for war. The right hon. Gentleman's War Budget would undoubtedly receive the support of the House. He did not approve of all the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but as the money must be found to carry on the war he would support them. He had expected that at least the right hon. Gentleman would announce that he intended to raise the loan of £32,000,000 on the security of the mineral wealth of the Transvaal. He was sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire talk in a rather disappointing way of the mineral wealth of the Transvaal. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman, on the authority of those most competent to judge, that the Transvaal was well able to pay the cost of the war. He was himself a mining expert and his opinion would be taken for what it was worth. He had been to the Transvaal and had examined the country, and as to its resources he was fortified in the opinion he had expressed by Mr. Henry Hays Hammond.

The hon. Member read an extract from a speech by Mr. Hays Hammond, at a date before the outbreak of the war, referring to the enormous benefits that would accrue to South Africa from the gold mining industry under firm rule.

One of the difficulties in the past had been with regard to natives and the illicit liquor traffic. When the natives were able to obtain liquor their labour was intermittent, and it was caculated that under other conditions there would be a saving on this branch of £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 per annum. Then, again, there was the dynamite monopoly. That would no longer be the prey of the gang of swindlers who presided over the destinies of the Transvaal. It was said there would be a saving under this head of £700,000 per annum. There would be an efficient system of police, on which a large saving would be effected. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, instead of imposing new taxation, should have proposed to raise a loan of £50,000,000 as a mortgage upon the minerals of the Transvaal Why should not the gold miners pay for the benefits which would accure to them from British rule? He should like to have heard from the Chancellor of the Exchequer an explicit declaration that the minerals of the Transvaal would have to bear ultimately the whole cost of the war.

As to the coal tax, he wished candidly to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the incidence of the coal tax was unfair. As a matter of fact, all that it had brought in to the Exchequer had been lost in the fall in freights and the consequent loss to the shipbuilding industry. In one class of coal in Scotland the lowest price was realised. How, therefore, could the Chancellor of the Exchequer maintain that a tax of 1s. a ton, even if it was fair in the case of a coal fetching 16s. a ton, was fair in the case of a coal that fetched only 8s. a ton? He had all along hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would have had something to say on that point. Further, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had scarcely been fair in the manner in which he had dealt with patent fuel. The patent fuel which was manufactured in Wales, and which fetched a high price, had been exempted from the tax, while another similar article manufactured in Scotland was not, notwithstanding the fact that a memorial on the subject, signed by twenty-three Scottish Unionist Members, lad been presented to the Chancellor of she Exchequer.

(9.33.) MR. ROBSON (South Shields)

said the Chancellor of the Exchequer had claimed some credit for the fact that, although negotiations for peace were proceeding in South Africa, that was no reason why he should postpone his Budget. It certainly was not. Seeing that we all knew that a new taxation had no relation whatever with the war, the right hon. Gentleman must provide for normal expenditure, and for that alone—for that new taxation was required. We had now to deal with a return to the old policy of taxing food, just as last year we had to deal with a return to the policy of taxing trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer relied on the old financial policies which were heard in the last generation, and which every one thought were exploded. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that when the registration tax was removed prices showed no considerable variation, and he asked the House to believe that, because that was so, the removal of the tax had no effect on the price. There could not be a more elementary fallacy. Price was affected by many causes—the right hon. Gentleman said principally by supply and demand. Anything that added to the cost of production permanently of an article affected its price. There might be some fluctuation in the price, and, although those fluctuations might obscure the cost, they would not alter the fact, any more than the law of gravitation could be said to have ceased to exist because a man went up in a balloon. So that the mere fact that this had no effect did not alter the law, which not even Chancellors of the Exchequer could alter, that any addition to the cost of production must mean an increase in price. The instance given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in order to reduce an argument of the hon. Member for Poplar to an absurdity only illustrated the extraordinary want of consideration and reflection on the part of those who, when they proceeded to tamper with economic laws, apparently never considered either their general operation or their particular effect. The right hon. Gentleman asked, did the hon. Member suppose that if we imported only a quarter of corn, the price of that quarter would be affected by this tax, He had listened with amazement to that suggestion. Let the House suppose on the other hand that no corn was grown, but that it was all imported: would the right hon. Gentleman suggest that the price would not then be affected by this duty? It would all go on to the price; not even the right hon. Gentleman could deny that. The right hon. Gentleman gave another reason for this tax; he said he desired to find a tax that could be conveniently collected, and he gave several arguments in favour of the convenience of the collection of the tax, It evidently did not occur to the right hon. Gentleman that the convenience of this tax was its greatest danger. That would constitute to every other Chancellor of the Exchequer its temptation. Did hon. Members think they were going to stop at a shilling, with our expenditure increasing by millions per annum, and with a Chancellor of the Exchequer who had avowed his determination to vary the incidence of direct and indirect taxation? The hon. Member for Central Sheffield knew that, or he would not be so happy tonight. He knew perfectly well that it would not stop at a shilling a quarter on corn, but would be made to extend to manufactured articles. Did anybody believe that an impost of two and a half millions put on corn would produce no effect on price? He could not understand how the Minister for Agriculture would agree with that. Who was going to pay that tax?

SIR HOWARD VINCENT

The foreigner.

MR. ROBSON

Then we did not pay the taxes, and we were only receivers of money from foreigners. As our deficits arose, we must expect to have our Chancellors of the Exchequer telling us how much more we should receive from the foreigner. The foreigner did not pay it. He might pay some part for a time. But it was going to be paid by the English consumer. It was going to be put upon bread, and he asked the House to consider on whom it would fall. The middleman would not merely add to the price of the twopenny loaf a fractional part of a farthing. He would get his tax on his capital back in the shape of an appreciable coin of the realm. Now, taking Mr. Rowntree's figures in his remarkable book about poverty in York, it appeared that there were dependent on less than 18s. a week 474 families, numbering 1,589 persons. Their total income was a little over £274. Of that amount £68 went for rent, leaving less than £207 per week for 1,589 persons, or about 4½d. per person per clay for the necessaries of life—not for food alone, but for every purpose except rents. Having regard to food alone, he pointed out that if these people were paupers they would under the workhouse scale be entitled to £21 more, or about £227. Then Mr. Rowntree went on to narrate how these people supplied themselves with necessaries of life, and he said there were two ways, by charity or by starvation. When they required something extra for clothes or fuel or anything else, they had to take it out of their food. He would like the Chancellor of the Exchequer to go down to these families at York—there were hundreds of thousands of persons—and say to them, in his admirable Parliamentary manner, "I fear a great deal of bread is wasted." In Belgravia it might be, but not among the people Mr. Rowntree described. These people who lived on the margin of existence were the people on whom the tax would fall. And were Members of the Liberal Party to listen in silence and patience to this iniquitous proposal? He hoped that every Member, from his duty to his constituents, and as a humane man who knew anything of the condition of the poor in our great cities, would fight this wicked proposal from end to end. Not only was it bad in itself, but it was welcomed by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite as the dawn of a better day, and it was said that bringing corn within the area of taxation would give this country a means for securing commercial advantages. That was the true mind of hon. Gentlemen opposite. The food of the people was to be one of the counters in the game of bungling diplomatists, of whom they had had so much experience in other matters. Never was there a more fatuous delusion of financial heretics than to suppose that you can bully or threaten other nations into financial concessions. If this was to be material for a war of tariffs, then it was not a mere brututn fulmen but would be put into practice. The reasons given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer should nerve the mind of every Liberal in the country to opposition by every legitimate means. The Chancellor of the Exchequer mentioned a fall in the price of coal as eminently satisfactory. But this was an effect, he said, the tax be imposed would not have.

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I did not say that. I absolutely deny that anything of the sort can be proved. The fall in coal is due to other causes entirely. I said it would not injure the coal trade.

MR. ROBSON

said he contested that position; the tax had borne its part in the reduction of price, and he proceeded to give facts in regard to the operation of the tax, The right hon. Gentleman told them that in the German market our coal held its own. We were certainly still selling coal there; but was the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the best of test markets, that of Hamburg, although the fall in price might be taken to indicate a general fall in consumption, our exports had decreased and that German exports were taking their place?

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I can show a decrease in both. Unfortunately, I have not the figures with me tonight, but I can show them to the hon. Gentleman.

MR. ROBSON

said he would deal with the right hon. Gentleman's figures, when he produced them. They would then see over what area he calculated his percentages. He had not the figures, but from his recollection of them he could tell the right hon. Gentleman that the monthly returns some months ago showed that English coal was being displaced in the test market of Hamburg. The right hon. Gentleman wound up his remarks on the coal tax by saying that, if it had caused a decrease in exports, that would be no reason for repealing it. That meant that a tax laid upon a trade which had the effect of contracting its area was, according to the present financial principles under which they were governed, no reason for repealing it. He ventured to say it was the one all-sufficient reason for repealing such a tax, So they now understood—and he hoped it would not be forgotten—that the taxation of trade and of food was among the cardinal points of Tory policy precisely as it was in the past. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet had stated that they were behind the times, but he had really done an injustice to his own Party. The bulk of that Party had never altered their views with regard to Protection. At every election since he (the hon. Member) had had any connection with English public life, at which the Tories had invited the suffrages of the people after a period of Opposition, they had made Protectionist promises, though they had never kept them until now. With regard to the income tax, he did not intend to go into any financial argument, but he desired to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the irritating manner in which the Treasury agents throughout the country were collecting this tax, In his own constituency, men of undoubted position and of the best financial standing had had the bailiffs walking into their houses without notice, in some eases even where there had been no refusal to pay, and seizing part of the furniture. He was quite willing to give the right hon. Gentleman names, and he mentioned the matter in order that it this procedure was the result of any general order from headquarters, that order might be modified.

(10.18.) SIR HOWARD VINCENT

expressed his gratification at the initial statement of the right hon. Gentleman that it was not intended to diminish in any way the pecuniary resources of Lord Kitchener in carrying on the war. That was undoubtedly the most satisfactory statement that could come at the present moment from the Treasury Bench, and could not fail to have a material effect on the early con elusion of peace and the settlement of affairs in South Africa. It was also satisfactory to note that the Chancellor of the Exchequer recognised that, although peace might come in the early future, there would not be any great cessation of expenditure for some little time to come. The war expenditure in South Africa was in the most capable hands, as Lord Kitchener supervised every detail himself, and so long as Lord Kitchener was at the head of affairs the Committee might rest assured that not a single sixpence would be wasted.

He had no intention of going into the details of the proposed new taxation. The Committee could not have failed to be impressed, not alone with the sincerity and honesty of the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but also with the great desire of the right hon. Gentleman to take the House of Commons entirely into his confidence, and to tell them exactly the state of affairs. The right hon. Gentleman had repeatedly laid before the House the dangers of increasing the normal expenditure of the country. In the last forty years the expenditure had risen from about £70,000,000 to the £180,000,000 or £190,000,000 now required. A portion of that was, of course, war expenditure, but there could be no doubt that the ordinary expenditure of the country had gone on increasing. It was, therefore, absolutely essential that the basis of taxation should be widened in every possible way.

MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL (Oldham)

And the expenditure, if possible reduced.

SIR HOWARD VINCENT(continuing)

And the expenditure, if possible, reduced, but there was great difficulty in reducing expenditure. When his hon. friend the Member for Oldham had been longer in the House, he would see that the great pressure upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not to reduce but to increase expenditure, that great pressure came not from one quarter only, but practically from all quarters of the House and country. It was, therefore, only right that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should lay before the country the enormously increased demands it was necessary for the present and future Governments to meet and the necessity, if possible of enlarging the basis of taxation.

He would say but a very few words on the increased taxation. For his own part, he thought it would have been possible to raise with the greatest ease a larger amount from increased taxation. The payers of income tax were lucky to be let off with an increase of only a penny. He was by no means in favour of a large income tax, but it could not be denied that many people thought that income tax should provide a very large proportion of the taxation of the country. Undoubtedly this tax weighed extremely unfairly upon many people, especially upon small professional men and those in small industries, and it was gratifying to have an indication that when the war was over a substantial reduction of the income tax might be looked for. As regarded the stamp duty, he did not altogether agree with the right hon. Gentleman's proposals. He had always understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be of the opinion that it was not worth while to impose a tax unless it produced a substantial amount. Whether the amount estimated to he-produced by this additional tax would be sufficient compensation for the great annoyance it would cause was a matter of considerable doubt.

Then as to the registration fee on corn. There could be no better opinion than that of the late head of the late head of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade. Sir Robert Giffen had recently written a letter to The Times on this very subject, in which he said— We have only to go back to a date just before these wanton sacrifices of indirect revenue began which have landed us in our present difficulty—that is a date prior to the Gladstone Government of 1869–74. … No taxpayer one has ever heard of ever recognises himself as better off by the repeal of the 1s. a quarter upon grain. That was the opinion of Sir Robert Giffen, who was in no way concerned with the politics on that side of the House, but who had given a lifetime to the study of the question. After hearing the opinions which had been expressed by hon. Members on the other side of the House be could not help quoting the opinion of the leading article of The Times— The great value of Sir R. Giffen's letter is that he is able to disengage himself from the causes of financial conditions and to look political and economic facts in the face as they exist at the present day, and not as they were accepted, in the character of unalterable axiomatic truths, thirty or forty years ago. It was to be hoped that hon. Members would adopt that freedom of mind, and look at facts as they were now und not as they were thirty or forty years ago. It would, no doubt, be possible to obtain a certain amount of cheap applause on the platform by speaking against this tax, but he did not hesitate to say that when he met his constituents, as he intended to do, they would approve of the course taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They would recognise that it was only the ordinary toll which every article in the neighbourhood of Sheffield paid to go into the Corporation market—that it was a toll which foreign corn would pay to come into the markets of this country for the use of those markets. It was not protection. It was merely a means of raising money which had been advocated on many platforms in urban constituencies and he had no hesitation in saying that the majority of the people of Sheffield would approve of the tax a. being one of the best ways which could possibly be devised for raising moneys But, although he approved of it, he confessed he did not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer had gone nearly far enough. He would have been glad if the right hon. Gentleman had been able to see his way to make some distinction between foreign and colonial grain, which, he thought, would have done a great deal to bind the Empire together and bring about that commercial federation which was the only means of preserving the Empire in the future. He believed that the taxation of foreign, manufactures would conduce to our financial and industrial prosperity, by recreating again that supremacy which this country once enjoyed and which, unfortunately, it had lost in some considerable measure.

(10.31.) MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)

I rise for the purpose, not of taking any prolonged part in the debate that has arisen on this Budget, but because I think no time should be lost by those who represent Ireland in this House in entering their protest against this demand of further taxation upon the people of Ireland. The House must excuse me if I commence by repeating a remark which I have made on, many occasions such as this in the past. It is one of the commonplaces of English statesmen in dealing with Ireland to say that we ought to congratulate ourselves upon the fact that a poor country like ours is associated in partnership with a great and wealthy country like England. How docs this work out in practice? We see the great fact that we are bound to this country and forced to pay a share, and as we believe an unfair share, of those enormous Imperial expenses which are entered upon by this country, and in which we have practically no concern whatever. I suppose this is the largest Budget ever proposed in the English Parliament. The amount is well over £200,000,000, and it is necessitated by a policy which is absolutely repugnant to the bulk of the people of Ireland, and from the success of which they can derive no possible benefit whatever. The voice of Ireland in this House has always been heard on the side of economy. I remember in the debate we had last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer lamented the days had gone when statesmen of different periods advocated a policy of economy, and he said he thought there was no party of economy left in this House. I may remind him that the representatives of Ireland in this House have always raised their voices in the interest of economy, and in spite of that the expenses of the empire have gone on increasing at a ratio which is absolutely appalling, and we, because we are bound up with this country by the Act of Union, are bound to pay an exorbitant share, as we believe, of those extravagances into which the empire is forced by a policy we disapprove of and oppose. All this time, while the increase of the expenditure of the empire has gone on, Ireland's prosperity has been diminishing. In this country you are able to bear increased taxation, and you are able to regard with some degree of equanimity the enormous increase year by year of your budget. Your population is increasing and your prosperity has been increasing by leaps and bounds, but in Ireland our population has been going down, and certainly by comparison with any other country in Europe our prosperity has been declining, and yet all this time our taxation year by year has been increasing. Although it may seem to many old Members of the House like repeating an oft told tale, yet we are bound to repeat on every occasion of this kind some of the facts connected with the over-taxation of Ireland. A Commission in the year 1895 appointed by this House, and consisting in the majority not of Irishmen but of gentlemen belonging to Great Britain, came to the conclusion that on the figures for the year 1893–94 Ireland was overtaxed according to her relative taxable capacity as compared with this country to the extent of £2,750,000, and that figure was arrived at on a supposition which, I for one always regarded as a false supposition, that the amount which Ireland ought to pay to Imperial charges according to her taxable capacity was one twentieth of what England ought to pay. I believe that was a false figure. I believe that one thirtieth or one thirty-fifth rather than one twentieth is the correct figure. But taking one twentieth as correct for the sake of argument it was shown that we were overtaxed that year£2,750,000. What has happened since? According to the figures for 1893–94, which were the figures taken for comparison, the taxation of Ireland amounted to £7,500,000. Since then £3,000,000 has been added to the taxation of Ireland, and to-day we are asked to agree to a Budget which will still further increase the unjust burden which is east upon our country. Therefore, we who represent Ireland in this House are bound on every occasion such as this to raise our voices against any taxation which increases the financial burdens under which we suffer. As to the methods of this new taxation I shall say very little. I am not inclined to agree with the hon. and learned Member for South Shields, He is an upholder of the war; and if so, he ought not to be afraid to put upon the shoulders of those he represents a fair share of the burden of the war. The complaint I make against the Chancellor of the Exchequer is this—he boasts that the bulk of the people of this country approved of this war; and if so, why has he not the courage to put the bulk of its cost upon those who were in favour of it? He has to make up a deficit of £41,000,000 and he raises a beggarly £5,000,000 by direct taxation and the balance he raises by loan. That is neither an honest nor courageous policy. If the bulk of the people are in favour of this war, the bulk of the increased taxation necessary to carry on the war ought to be put upon the shoulders of the people who approve of it. What is the case in respect to Ireland? Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not pretend that the bulk of the people of Ireland approved of the war. He knows perfectly well that the bulk of the population of Ireland abhor this war and regard it as a most unjust and iniquitous war, and that if they had the power they would refuse to pay a sixpence towards the cost of it. Yet he proposes to put on us an unjust burden of taxation in support of it. It would have been far more honest and courageous on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he had put not a penny but 6d. on the income tax, and instead of raising a loan to meet the bulk of the £4,000,000 deficit he had put the entire amount of that taxation upon the people. Then we should have seen whether Gentlemen like the hon. and learned Member for South Shields approved of the policy of the war when he went down to address his constituents on the subject. I have risen, not to take up the time of the Committee in discussing the Budget, but for the simple reason of voicing Ireland's protest. We protest against it, first. because we pay an unfair share of the taxation, and we protest against it also, and chiefly, because the bulk of the taxation is one we absolutely disapprove of. There is one thing upon which I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman, und that is that in the proposals of this terrible Budget he has not apparently concealed anything—he has put the full truth before the people; and if he had only been consistent and shown what this war was costing in money to the people of England—if he had gone further and put the cost upon their shoulders—I should have thought better of him. With reference to the tax on corn, we in Ireland are differently situated to you in England. There is no doubt that the free trade which was productive of so much benefit to this country has been little short of a curse to Ireland, and if this duty gave any protection to the Irish agricultural industry, which is unfortunately the only industry Ireland has left, it might be a serious responsibility fur us to take up an attitude antagonistic to it. But this is so small a thing that it cannot help our agricultural industry in Ireland. It is a very sad thing to say, but it must be confessed that a certain portion of the population of Ireland largely subsists on meal and flour, and even a small increase in the price of the staple food Stuff's may amount to something like disaster to Ireland. But apart from that consideration we take a clear, intelligent resolution that we object to pay for a war which we regard as unjust, and which we believe future generations of Englishmen would look upon in the same manner as we do.

(10.47.) MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)

I do not think that the complaint about Ireland, so far as the income tax is concerned, is reasonable, because the new taxes will hardly fall on the Irish people at all. The Budget is, I consider, a very bold measure on the part of the Government. I am a free trader in every sense, and have always been so. I represent a very dense population.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

"Natural selection."

MR. BARTLEY

If I have made any remark that is unparliamentary, I am very sorry; but I represent a very densely populated district, and I am bold enough to say that the great bulk of the people approve of the war, and inasmuch as they profess to approve of the war, I accept the principle that they should in a small degree, even if they are poor, help to pay the cost of it. There is a sort of fetish worship in the objection to any taxation of the people. The speech of the hon. Member for South Shields showed exactly what we have to put up with. No doubt the corn duty will be used all over the country as an attack on the food of the people; but a shilling duty on the quarter of imported corn would only represent the half of a farthing on the 8lb. loaf, which probably would have to be paid by the middleman. I think the two pence on cheques is a mistake, and will lead to a great deal of irritation for a very small sum.

SIR JOHN KINLOCH (Perthshire, E.)

said that the tax on grain would be most objectionable from the point of view of cattle feeding farmers in Scotland, who bought enormous quantities of maize and other feeding stuff's from America.

(11.1.) MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL

said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had selected the least of the evils among which he had to choose. He had not listened to the seductive whispers which urged a borrowing Budget. He had held firmly to the principle that no new borrowing should be undertaken unless accompanied by the imposition of new taxation. As for the stamp on cheques, the proposal which seemed to have excited the most disapprobation, he thought it ought to be welcomed as a step in the direction of taxing those elusive forms of personalty which had so long escaped their proper share of the public burdens. The increase in the income tax was, no doubt, a source of grave concern to all of them. Nevertheless, taking the propositions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a whole, he was inclined to think the House would admit that they were the best that could have been made in the circumstances. What were those circumstances? A visitor from another planet, who made himself acquainted with our Budgets since 1880 and saw the rise in expenditure which characterised that period, culminating in an extraordinary upward bound in the last three years, would probably ask what great accession to the national wealth had taken place in those three years. If he were told that the only new asset had been the existence of a costly colonial war, he probably would return to his own planet with a peculiar idea of the intelligence or even the sanity of this nation. He was not, he observed, attacking the war expenditure. How very different was the present rate of increase of expenditure as compared with our former experience. Let him take three six-year periods. In the six years before 1890 the increase was £4,500,000; in the period from 1890 to 1896 the increase was£13,750,000; and from 1896 to 1901–02 the increase was no less than £36,000,000. Thus the increase in the first period was 5 per cent.; in the second period 15 percent.; and in the third period 36 per cent.

These were facts which, however stale, ought to be brought to the notice of the country on every occasion. He held that these increases were out of all proportion to the national enrichment, and that there was no adequate explanation or excuse. But, however explained, this grim fact remained, that the cost of government was nearly half as much again as it was seven years ago. Did anyone suppose that it was half as good again? Side by side with the increase in the Imperial expenditure and the march of indebtedness, municipal expenditure and indebtedness, no doubt encouraged by Parliament, had gone on increasing all over the country. It had been said that this was a wealthy country. No doubt that was so; but there were also very poor people in the country. This extra taxation might, in the case of the poor and distressed, interfere with the comfort of their homes. When the Committee extended their view over the last seven years, the prospect was still more unsatisfactory and alarming. They had yet to deal with the Finance Act of 1894, of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire was so proud. That Act ought to have been modified or amended by the Conservative Government. Today it imposed on the taxpayers of this country a burden of about £14,000,000, as against £7,500,000 which was the product before the passing of the Act. All that had been swallowed up mainly by an increase in normal expenditure, as well as by the war expenditure. That showed how absurd it was to institute any comparison between what was happening now and the financial policy of Mr. Pitt. In the days of Mr. Pitt, by the most austere and rigid economy, and by adopting every shift to keep expenditure down, nearly the whole, and in some cases actually the whole, of the yield of the war tax was secured, and not as in the present day frittered away, or at any rate consumed in domestic expenditure. So much for the past. The question which now immediately arose was—did the people complain? The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said this afternoon that there was no falling off in the consuming power of the people, and no diminution in business at home, that we were living in a time of great prosperity, and that our prosperity was ministered to by the wealth of neighbouring nations. There had been many years of peace and plenty in Europe, and many years of light taxation at home. America had been developed, and the application of scientific invention to industry had continued. All these facts had so accumulated wealth in the world that there was a great reserve fund, and a fine inheritance for extravagant or imperious hands. The income tax payer thought that the money was wanted for the war, and his public spirit would not allow him to grumble while the war was going on. The glut in the sugar market covered the imposition of the sugar tax, and the great gamble in the coal trade the year before last favoured the imposition of the export duty. But these things were not going to last. Let hon. Members think of the lean years and the evil days of reaction which in the next five or six years might threaten the prosperity of the country. There was a revenue of £150,000,000 for ordinary domestic purposes, and if the details of the Estimates might be challenged, at least as much might in justice be said as to their distribution. How were they distributed? The resources of the British Government were not unlimited. They might be as vast as even Sir Robert Giffen conceived them to be, but they had their limits, although they were not easy to ascertain accurately. But those limits should be respected, and to transgress them was to incur swift automatic retribution. Therefore, the question which all who advocated retrenchment should take up was, not that of gratifying the demands of Departments, but of adjudicating between those demands. It was no longer a question of the Army, the Navy, and the Civil Service having all they wanted, as one would think to hear some people talk. It was a question of spending a limited although vast income to the best possible advantage.

He wished to ask if at the present moment there was any effective direction of expenditure, any holding back of some Departments in order that others might have their enterprises put forward. Everyone knew there was nothing of the kind. They looked in vain to the constitution of the country to find any machinery or force which could effect such an accurate allocation, It was not much good looking to the country itself, because the country could only judge of grave issues at infrequent and very often uncertain intervals. In the House? They were told with convincing force by the Leader of the House the other night that the control of the House over Supply had practically passed away. He thought it had inevitably passed away, and that Supply was now brought before the House, not that it might be controlled, but in order that certain questions of administration might be discussed. They could not look to the House of Commons, therefore, to arrest and apportion expenditure. There was not much good in looking to the Press to arrest the progress of expenditure. The Press merely exaggerated popular caprice. There was no good looking to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, except when he was also the First Minister of the Crown. There was only one force which could make the necessary allocation of public expenditure, and that was the Cabinet, controlled by the Prime Minister, who in the Party system of the country very often stood as a surety for certain great principles and as a guarantee that the King's Government should be carried on in an orderly and honourable manner. That was the only force that could be depended upon. Something no doubt was desperately done by the Treasury. He wished hon. Members to understand clearly what the Treasury was. There was an opinion abroad that the Treasury had certain statutory, or even constitutional powers, apart altogether from the ordinary government of the country. Ultimately however, the control of the Treasury was neither more nor less than the influence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Cabinet. Of course, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were able to persuade the Cabinet that what he considered the maximum of taxation should be accepted, naturally the Treasury would be in a very strong position in dealing with Departments, the heads of which had all signified their acceptance, as Cabinet Ministers, of that standard. Sometimes a Chancellor of the Exchequer was overruled. He did not say that that had happened. He did not venture to insinuate that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been overruled, but he hoped that he had, from the point of view of the position he would occupy in history. Something was done by the Treasury, but in the main we drifted, and the result was—he hoped the Committee would forgive him for putting these matters forward with such assumption, but he felt he would not be able to bring them forward in any very apologetic tone—that there was a lack of proportion in the distribution of expenditure between different objects, without any regard to their relative importance. He would take the greatest and most notorious instance, namely, the ratio observed between the Naval and Military expenditure of the country. No one, however great an enthusiast, not even the Duke of Wellington—he did not mean the great Duke but the present Duke—not even the Secretary of War himself, would deny that the Navy was much more important than the Army to an Island Empire, yet we spent an equal proportion of our national resources on both. Surely that was an anomaly. Let them look at other countries. Germany, like Great Britain, was a country which required two defensive weapons, but, unlike Great Britain, her primary weapon of defence was her Army, her secondary weapon being her Navy. The German Army was to Germany what the British Navy was to England—a matter of life and death. Germany was anxious above all other nations to increase her Naval strength, but she did not make the mistake of making her secondary weapon compete with her primary weapon, and she was spending three times as much on her Army as on her Navy. Then, again, France more than any other nation approached the conditions of expenditure in which England stood. She aimed at being a first-class Naval and Military Power. The result was that in 1870 her Army was found to be unequal, and her Navy was thought to be unequal as recently as 1898. France appeared to be making an unwise disposition of her forces, but she had spent twice as much on her Army as on her Navy. There was no nation, look where we might throughout the whole world, which spent as much on its secondary as on its primary weapon of defence. He ventured to think that if one examined the details of expenditure and saw where the money was actually spent, a great many more facts not less striking than the present ratio between Naval and Military expenditure would be discovered.

He should like to say a few words about the manner in which we were spending, roughly speaking, £150,000,000 for domestic purposes. Did any one suppose that we were going to stop there? He would name to the House three different causes of increased expenditure which would have to be met in the immediate future. First of all there would have to be an increase in the pay of the Navy. We had increased the pay of the Army, and we were now calling for more men for the Navy, and their pay would have to be increased. There was also certain to be an increase for primary and secondary education, and there would also be an increase in expenditure due to the garrison in South Africa. That last-mentioned expenditure had been estimated by people who did not take too gloomy a view to be about £10,000,000 a year. It might very easily be more, unless the peace which was now being made was one which would command the acquiescence of the Boers. There were one or two other considerations which would arise as soon as the war was over. The Sinking Fund would have to be revived—he thought they were all agreed about that—and the income tax would have to be reduced. He held that the Income Tax pressed more heavily than any other tax, It pressed upon the brain workers of the country, but that was no reason for its reduction, as it was the elbow of the country in time of war, and could meet ordinary fluctuations on the Budget without adding to the cost of collection or dislocating any trade or industry. After the war we would have to meet new and possibly large demands out of resources diminished by the revival of the Sinking Fund and the reduction of the income tax, and would have to meet them during a period when we would not have the patriotic stimulus due to the war, and when very likely the good trade conditions which new prevailed would be absent. What would it come to? The basis of taxation would have to be broadened, and he thought it well that the Committee should realise that further expenditure meant serious taxation of bread and meat and other necessaries of the food of the people. He held that if the basis of taxation were further broadened, two gigantic issues would be raised. In the first place the fair trade issue would be raised. A tax which in the first instance would be honestly imposed solely for the purpose of revenue would, no doubt, under the influence of the hon. and gallant Member of Central Sheffield—not less gallant in the field of economics than in the field of war—became Protective in character, for the hon. and gallant Member would say, why not kill three birds with one stone—raise the revenue, support British industries, and consolidate the Empire. He wondered what would happen if the fair trade issue was openly raised by some responsible person of eminence and authority in the country. They would stand once more on the old battlefields, with all the old broken weapons, and amid grass grown trenches and the neglected graves of heroes who had fallen in former conflicts. Party bitterness would be aroused such as the present generation could furnish no parallel for except in the brief period of 1885–6. He wondered how the advent of such a tremendous issue would affect the existing disposition of political parties. These were questions for the future on which he would not, however, detain the Committee, but the time would come when they would have to be answered.

There was another issue, and one not less important, even more important, which would be raised if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were called upon to increase taxation beyond its present limits. Let them indulge in no illusions. Perhaps a Chancellor of the Exchequer with great power—he did not mean any reflection on his right hon. friend—and with the demand of the country for retrenchment behind him. would come; yet he would not be able to pull down expenditure which had bounded up nearly £40,000,000 in seven years by more than £7,000,000 or £8,000,000. All that economists should work for was to insist that the sums now voted should be made to meet the demands of the near future, and that the present expenditure should be kept stationary. In 1885 the suggestion of a £100,000,000 Budget was scouted as a wild idea. A £100,000,000 Budget was now ancient history. We had a £150,000,000 Budget for domestic expenditure, and a £200,000,000 Budget loomed portentous in the future. He could quite conceive such a Budget being extremely popular, and supported by the enormous mass of the voting strength in the country, but he wondered who would pay. That was a serious question for hon. Members on his side of the House. Was it seriously to be supposed that the democratic electorate of the country in time of peace would accept such a burden? He made no aspersion on the patriotism of the people. He thought the Government had received unflinching and unselfish support from the masses of the people in connection with the war. By the courtesy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer be had been able to verify the figures showing the ratio between direct and indirect taxation. They showed that, as the franchise had been extended, the proportion of direct taxation to indirect taxation approached more and more closely. Direct taxation was increasing, and indirect taxation was getting less and less. Two years ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that we had succeeded in establishing a financial equilibrium between direct and indirect taxation, but last year, for the first time in the history of the country, direct taxation amounted to 52 per cent. of the total, and indirect taxation to only 48 per cent. Did not that show in the most convincing manner that any attempt largely to extend indirect taxation would run counter to some very potent instinct far down in the hearts of the people? To "broaden largely the basis of taxation" would raise not only the fair trade issue but something much more formidable than a political issue; it would raise an issue directly social.

By way of recapitulation he would say that the increase of £40,000,000 in the cost of governing the country during the last six or seven years was not to be explained by the indulgence of the Government in new ideas, or by the assumption of new functions of government. It had not been governed by any just sense of proportion in distribution; and he very much doubted if there had been any proportionate corresponding gain in efficiency. It had been largely, if not mainly, due to a more open-handed administration of public Departments, resulting from the confusion of our finances due to the war and from a shocking lack of Cabinet control. We had reached the extreme limit of practical and prudent peace time taxation, and unless effective means were taken to curb and control the growing expenditure of the country, we would be confronted with important social, economic, and political problem, which might be most dangerous to the country and the Empire, and very damaging to many causes which the Conservative Party held near and dear to their hearts.

(11.42.) MR. SEELY (Lincoln)

said he did not wish to follow the hon. Member who had just spoken into the general question of the expenditure of the country, but he should like to explain the reason why he objected to the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to put a tax on corn, and why he intended to oppose it at every stage. They had just listened to an eloquent speech in favour of general economy in the management of the finances of the country. There was no doubt that in the minds of some it was thought to be a certain advantage to put on a tax which would be felt by everyone in the country, but he regretted very much indeed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have selected for that purpose the particular article he had.

In the first place, a tax on wheat was a bad tax in itself. It was a tax which pressed most hardly upon those who were least able to bear it. Those who were most dependent upon bread were the people whose incomes were the smallest. That class might contain the largest number of voters, but it also contained a large number of people who had no votes at all. Every widow, every soldier's wife, living on the allowance considered by the Government sufficient for her support and that of her children, had to spend a much larger proportion of her income upon bread than those in more comfortable circumstances. He regretted the tax for that reason, and also because it was a revival of the evil custom which we got rid of fifty years ago of imposing protective duties on the food of the people. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had declared, no doubt honestly, that it was not a protective duty, but when the people of the country read the debate which had taken place and saw who were those who had accepted with pleasure and gratitude the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman, it would be difficult to persuade them that the tax, at all events in its future results, if not in its immediate effect, would not be protective to a very large extent. It was protection of the worst kind. According to a rough calculation made at the moment, it appeared that about £300,000 would be taken from the food of the people and given to the producers of wheat—the farmers and the land owners. The total amount which the agricultural producers would get was, of course, more than that—probably about £1,300,000. With regard to barley and oats, it was not so serious a matter. It was to the taxation of wheat, which was the food of the people, and especially the food of the poorest of the people, that he objected. The tax was being levied in such a way that out of the amounts paid by the people in the increased cost of food, a certain proportion would go, not for the support of the general taxation of the country, but into the pockets of a particular class of inhabitants. He sympathised as much as anyone could do with the difficulties of farmers and landlords, but it could not for one moment be asserted that they were not as a class distinctly superior in wealth and comforts to many of those upon whom would press most hardly any tax upon corn, and consequently upon bread. It had been asserted that the tax would be paid by the foreigner or the middleman. Taxes could not be obtained, by any manœuvring, out of other countries. Especially was that the case with regard to wheat. The only way in which any portion of an import tax could be obtained from other countries was by the consumption being diminished. If an import tax diminished the consumption, then to a certain extent it diminished the demand and might diminish the price abroad. But the peculiarity of wheat was that if the price was increased the consumption was not thereby diminished. If the price of bread were increased, so far from the people eating less, lame numbers of them would eat more, because their surplus being diminished, they had less to spend upon meat and other forms of food. No por- tion, therefore, would be obtained from the foreigner; the whole of the burden would fall upon the people of this country.

He would not go further into the question at the present stage. The speeches from economists to which the House had listened would come in far more usefully in the discussion on the expenditure of the country, rather than in connection with the raising of the money made necessary by that expenditure. He looked forward to the time when the war would he ended, as all hoped it would be soon, with honour and credit to this country, and with good feeling towards our opponents, and when he hoped a serious attempt would be made to reduce the expenditure of the country. He would oppose the imposition of this tax upon the food of the people, because he believed it to be in itself wrong, socially wrong, and that it would raise social feeling in the country. In addition to that, there would be interested in its maintenance large numbers of people in the country who might prevent the tax being taken off in the future. For these reasons he regretted the step which had been taken, and would oppose it at every stage.

* (11.55.) SIR M. HICKS BEACH

We have had, as is always the case upon the introduction of the Budget, a debate ranging over a great variety of subjects but of all the speeches delivered, I confess the most interesting to me has been that of my hon. friend the Member for Oldham. It was, to my mind, an admirable and eloquent speech, and, though there are parts of it I could criticise, and statements in it which I think, if time permitted, I might question, yet, taken as a whole, I welcome it most sincerely as some aid to me in what I think even my hon. friend must admit to be the extremely difficult task of keeping down expenditure in such times as those in which we live. I can speak now from an experience of seven years as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and no one but myself knows the arduous, continuous, disagreeable nature of the duties of that office in attempting to control expenditure, and nobody but myself knows how much I have succeeded, or how much I have failed, in this. But this I do say most sincerely—that I welcome the assistance of my hon. friend, as I have often welcomed the assistance of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth, and of all Members of the House who will regard something more than the popular outcry of the moment for expenditure upon this or that hobby of the day, and who will look at the expenditure of the country as a whole, and will, as my hon. friend has rightly said, endeavour to weigh the different classes of demands for expenditure one against another, and have the courage to refuse what really ought not to be acceded to at all.

My hon. friend has referred to a point which was also referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth. The right hon. Gentleman was anxious to obtain a statement of the amount of the new taxation which has been imposed during the last three years for purposes of the war. I think I laid on the Table last year a statement on that subject, but I will refer to it, and will endeavour to see that the information the right hon. Gentleman desires is presented to the House.

SIE WILLIAM HARCOURT

The expenditure in the year just closed?

* SIR M. HICKS BEACH

Quite so. It should be. I think, for each year, so as to show, as far as possible, how much of the taxation has gone for the war. But let me say this. It is extremely difficult, when, as in several cases of this new taxation, the increase of taxation has not been by way of a new tax, but by way of an addition to an old tax, to decide precisely how much of the increase of taxation is due to the addition to the tax and how much to the growth of the old tax itself. I think the more satisfactory statement would be to take the taxation of the country each year as a whole, and show how much has gone to ordinary expenditure and how much has been devoted to the purposes of the war. I will endeavour to put such a statement before the House.

The hon. and learned Member for Waterford has, with perfect consistency, stated that he was opposed on two main grounds to the proposals of this as to the proposals of former Budgets. In the first place, he considers that Ireland pays an unfair share of general taxation. Well, that is a subject I have often attempted to argue in the House, and on which I have always found myself in direct opposition to the hon. and learned Member. I will not attempt tonight to deal with it further than to say that in regard to this, as I think I have shown in regard to former Budgets, though I entirely admit that Ireland has had to bear increased taxation in these later years, yet the proportion of increase is much less than that borne by Great Britain, and will, I believe, be found to disappear altogether, if you consider how much of it is devoted to what may properly be called Imperial purposes. I demur, therefore, to the view taken by the hon. and learned Member, and those who sit around him, as to the grievance of Ireland in this respect. But the hon. and learned Member took another objection. He said that he and those whom he leads, object altogether to the war for which the increased taxation and borrowing proposed in this Budget is mainly required, and that we ought to put the taxation for the war on the people who approve of it. I do not think, if the hon. and learned Member attempted to apply that doctrine to Great Britain, that he would find it a practicable or a reasonable policy. You cannot allocate taxation for a certain purpose to those who approve of that purpose, and relieve those who disapprove of it. That is obvious. What he really means is that the majority of his fellow-countrymen in Ireland, in his opinion, disapprove of the war, and that, therefore, Ireland should not contribute to it at all. That is a separatist doctrine, to my mind, in which, I am afraid, I am quite as far—if not farther—apart from the view of the hon. and learned Member, as I am on the other subject.

The main criticism of the Budget tonight has not been on the increase of the income tax, or even the increased duty on cheques, though something has been said on the latter subject, but on the proposed new duties on corn and flour. Those have been objected to on different and sometimes almost contradictory grounds. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth and the hon. Member who has just sat down did not trouble about what I endeavoured to argue, the practical side of the question. They object to the tax in theory. They assume without the slightest reason—I defy them to prove it—that the old registration duty on corn and flour increased the price of bread. Until that is proved, I will venture to say that all this talk of the increase in the price of the food of the people, of its being a protective duty to home producers, of its putting, as the hon. Gentleman who last spoke suggested, a large sum into the pockets of the owners and occupiers of land in Great Britain and Ireland, are propositions which it is unnecessary to argue. When you have shown that this tax caused an increase in the price of bread, then I think there will be something to be said for the arguments which have been adduced against the tax.

But there have been other arguments. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford referred to this tax, and used a very curious argument. I thought he was going to approve of it. He said he thought that free trade had been an absolute injury to Ireland, but he could not support the duty I have proposed because there was so little protection about it. He went on to argue that he was also opposed to the duty because it would increase the price of cheap meal, which was much consumed in Ireland. I do not know whether that is protection or not, but the duty cannot be open to objection on both these grounds. Then the hon. Gentleman the Member for Poplar, who is an authority on this subject, admitted that it was a good tax while it lasted, so long as it was devoted to paying off debt; but why it should be a bad tax to re-enact again now that it is proposed for the purpose of avoiding debt is an argument I entirely fail to understand. Then the hon. and learned Member for South Shields made an impassioned oration against the duty, very like that which he delivered against the coal tax last year. I feel now, as I felt then, that if he has made up his mind that the tax will have the effect which he anticipates, I cannot wonder at his violence, and I could not convince his prejudices. Some of the arguments that have been addressed to the Committee against the duties on corn and flour remind me of my old friend "the thin end of the wedge." I can remember in my younger days in this House, when I was a Member of a Party which was always in a minority and perhaps occasionally addicted to rather out of date opinions, that "the thin end of the wedge" argument was a very favourite one indeed. A proposal used often to be objected to because of what it might lead to; and so this little duty which is suggested tonight, which when it existed was never considered by Mr. Gladstone or Sir Robert Peel as in any practical effect protective, now is considered to bear all the worst marks of protection, not because any thing practical can be alleged against it, but because my right hon. friend the Member for Thanet gave it his benediction, as a tax for revenue, and then went on to express his wish that it might be made much heavier, or turned, as my hon. friend the Member for Sheffield would desire, into a beginning of colonoial preferential taxation. How so small a tax could be usefully trusted on preferential lines I really fail to see. These, however, are matters which do not affect the rights or wrongs of the proposal. I only ask that it may be fairly considered and dealt with on its merits in accordance with its previous actual history, and not according to prejudices which belong to another order of things altogether. I hope that after the discussion of this evening we may now be allowed to take the Resolution.

MR. LOUGH (Islington, W.)

said the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that he had not discovered any serious opposition to the addition to the stamp tax, He thought it was one of the most worrying and annoying impositions.

(12.10.) Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes, 254; Noes, 135. (Division List No. 108.)

AYES.
Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.	Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Gardner, Ernest
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready	Garfit, William
Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel	Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole	Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H. (City of Lond.
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Compton, Lord Alwyne	Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick
Archdale, Edward Mervyn	Corbett, T. L (Down, North)	Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin&Nairn)
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Cranberne, Viscount	Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Linc.)
Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.	Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)	Goschen, Hon. George Joachim
Arrol, Sir William	Crossley, Sir Savile	Graham, Henry Robert
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Cust, Henry John C.	Gray, Ernest (West Ham)
		Green, Walford D. (Wednesbury
		Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)
Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitz Roy	Dalkeith, Earl of	Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)
Bain, Colonel James Robert	Dalrymple, Sir Charles	Grenfell, William Henry
Band, John George Alexander	Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham)	Gretton, John
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r	Denny, Colonel	Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill
Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds)	Dickinson, Robert Edmond
Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.)	Dickson, Charles Scott
Banbury, Frederick George	Dickson-Poynder. Sir John P.
Bartley, George C. T.	Digby, John K. D. Wingfield	Hall Edward Marshall
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin	Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph	Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.
Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks	Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon	Hamilton, Rt. Hn Lord G.(Midd'x
Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.	Dorington, Sir John Edward	Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.
Bignold, Arthur	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford
Bigwood, James	Doxford, Sir William Theodore	Hare, Thomas Leigh
Bill, Charles	Darning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin	Harris, Frederick Leverton
Blundell, Colonel Henry	Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart	Haslam, Sir Alfred S.
Bond, Edward		Hay, Hon. Claude George
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-		Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley)
Bousfield, William Robert	Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton	Heath, James (Staffords., N. W.)
Brassey, Albert	Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas	Helder, Augustus
Brookfield, Colonel Montagu		Henderson, Alexander
Bull, William James		Hermon-Hodge, Robert Trotter
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)	Hoare, Sir Samuel
Butcher, John George	Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward	Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.)
	Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r	Hogg, Lindsay
	Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst	Hope, J. F.(Sheffield, Brightside)
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H	Finch, George H.	Hornby, Sir William Henry
Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire	Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne	Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Firbank, Joseph Thomas	Hoult, Joseph
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)	Fisher, William Hayes	Howard, John (Kent, Faversham
Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r)	Fison, Frederick William	Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil
Chaplain, Rt. Hon. Henry	Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon	Hudson, George Bickersteth
Chapman, Edward	Flower, Ernest
Charrington, Spencer	Forster, Henry William
Churchill, Winston Spencer	Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ.)	Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawies
Clare, Octavius Leigh	Foster, Philip S.(Warwick, S. W.	Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse
Clive, Captain Percy A.		Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E		Johnston, William (Belfast)
Cohen, Benjamin Louis	Galloway, William Johnson	Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)
Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.	Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)	Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrew)
Kenyon, James (Lancs., Bury)	Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)	Sinclair, Louis (Romford)
Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop		Skewes-Cox, Thomas
Keswick, William		Smith, Abel H.(Hertford, East)
Knowles, Lees	Nicholson, William Graham	Smith, H. C (North'mb, Tyneside
	Nicol, Donald Ninian	Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.
		Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk
Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.		Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset
Law, Andrew Bonar	O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens	Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)
Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth)	Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay	Stewart, Sir Mark J. M Taggart
Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)		Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Lawson, John Grant		Stone, Sir Benjamin
Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareh'm	Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)	Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier
Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage	Parkes, Ebenezer
Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington
Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.	Pemberton, John S. G.	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.	Penn, John	Talbot, Rt. Hon. T. G. (Oxf'd Univ.
Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S	Percy, Earl	Thornton, Percy M.
Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Pierpoint, Robert	Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray
Lowe, Francis William	Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard	Tritton, Charles Ernest
Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)	Platt-Higgins, Frederick	Tuke, Sir John Batty
Lowther, Rt. Hon. James (Kent)	Plummer, Walter R.
Loyd, Archie Kirkman	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp
Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)	Pryce-Jones, Lt. Col. Edward	Valentia, Viscount
Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth	Purvis, Robert	Vincent Col Sir C. E. H (Sheffield
Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred	Pym, C. Guy
		Warr, Augustus Frederick
Macartney, Rt Hn W. G Ellison	Quitter, Sir Cuthbert	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney
Macdona, John Cumming		Webb, Colonel William George
Maconochie, A. W.		Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E.(T'nt'n
M'Calmont, Col. J.(Antrim. E.)	Randles, John S.	Welby, Sir Charles G. E (Notts.)
M Killop, James (Stirlingshire)	Rankin, Sir James	Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Majendie, James A. H.	Ratcliff, R. F.	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Malcolm, Ian	Rattigan, Sir William Henry	Willox, Sir John Archibald
Martin, Richard Biddulph	Reid, James (Greenock)	Wills, Sir Frederick
Maxwell, W. J. H (D'mfriesshire	Remnant, James Farquharson	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)
Middlemore, John Throgmorton	Richards, Henry Charles	Wilson, John (Falkirk)
Milvain, Thomas	Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge	Wilson, John (Glasgow)
Mitchell, William	Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson	Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.)
Molesworth, Sir Lewis	Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.)	Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)	Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.
Moon, Edward Robert Pacy	Rolleston, Sir John F. L.
Moore, William (Antrim, N.)	Round, James
More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)
Morgan, David. J. (Walthamstow
Morrison, James Archibald	Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—
Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford)	Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander
Mount, William Arthur	Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles
Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.	Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert	Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.
Muntz, Philip A.	Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isleof Wight)
Mnrray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute)	Sharpe, William Edward T.
NOES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.	Burke, E. Haviland-	Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)
Allen, Chas. P. (Gloue., Stroud		Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan)
Ashton, Thomas Gair		Delany, William
	Caldwell, James	Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles
	Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)	Dillon, John
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)	Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton	Donelan, Captain A.
Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.	Causton, Richard Knight	Doogan, P. C.
Bell, Richard	Cawley, Frederick	Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)
Black, Alexander William	Channing, Francis Ailston
Blake, Edward	Cogan, Denis J.
Brigg, John	Condon, Thomas Joseph	Edwards, Frank
Broadhurst, Henry	Crean, Eugene	Elibank, Master of
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James	Cremer, William Randal	Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone

Fenwick, Charles	M'Govern, T.	Russell, T. W.
Ffrench, Peter	M'Kean, John
Flynn, James Christopher	M'Kenna, Reginald	Samuel, S. M (Whitechapel)
Furness, Sir Christopher	M'Laren, Charles Benjamin	Schwann, Charles E.
	Mather, William	Seely, Charles Hilton (Linoln)
Gilhooly, James	Minch, Matthew	Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)
Goddard, Daniel Ford	Mooney, John J.	Sheehan, Daniel Daniel
Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick)	Morton, Edw. J. C.(Devonport)	Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)
Griffith, Ellis J.	Moss, Samuel	Soames, Arthur Wellesley
Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton	Murphy, John	Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R, (Northants
		Stevenson, Francis S.
Hammond, John	Nannetti, Joseph P.	Strachey, Sir Edward
Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William	Newnes, Sir George	Sullivan, Donal
Harmsworth, R. Leicester	Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)
Harrington, Timothy	Norman, Henry	Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)
Hayden, John Patrick	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings)
Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-		Thomas, JA (Glamorgan, Gower)
Helme, Norval Watson	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.)
Holland, William Henry	O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)	Tomkinson, James
Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.	O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
	O'Dowd, John
Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.	Ure, Alexander
Jordan, Jeremiah	O'Malley, William
Joyce, Michael	O'Mara, James	White, George (Norfolk)
	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Kearley, Hudson E.		Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
	Palmer, George Wm. (Reading)	Whiltaker, Thomas Palmer
Lambert, George	Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)	Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)
Layland-Barratt, Francis	Power, Patrick Joseph	Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid.)
Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accringlon	Price, Robert John	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R)
Leigh, Sir Joseph	Priestley, Arthur	Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.)
Leng, Sir John		Woodhouse, Sir J. T. (Huddersf'd
Levy, Maurice	Rea, Russell
Lewis, John Herbert	Reckitt, Harold James
Lough, Thomas	Reddy, M.	Yoxall, James Henry
Lundon, W.	Redmond, John F. (Waterford
	Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries)
	Rickett, J. Compton	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—
MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.	Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)
MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	Robson, William Snowdon
MacVeagh, Jeremiah	Roche, John	Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. M'Arthur.
M'Crae, George	Roe, Sir Thomas

Resolved, That there shall be charged on and after the 15th day of April, 1902, the following customs import duties.

	£	s.	d.
Corn and grain of all kinds, and peas, beans, and lentils the cwt.	0	0	3

Resolution to be reported tomorrow, Committee to sit again tomorrow.

Adjourned at half after Twelve o'clock.