Commons Sitting of 11 June 1902

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.
UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  EASTBOURNE CORPORATION BILL.
  Consideration, as amended, postponed, under Order [1st May], till Tomorrow, at the Evening Sitting, by the Chairman of Ways and Means.
  WEST HAMPSHIRE WATER BILL [LORDS].
  As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 8) BILL,
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 9) BILL,

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 10) BILL,
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 14) BILL,
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 15) BILL,
    LONDON (POPLAR) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL,
    PILOTAGE PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
    Read the third time, and passed.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL,
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL,

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES) BILL,
    LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL,
    PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL,
    PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
    As amended, considered; to be read the third time Tomorrow.

    COATBRIDGE GAS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL [LORDS].
    Considered (under Section 7, Subsection (2), of The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899); to be read the third time upon Friday.
PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions against: From Holmesfield; Edinburgh; Kiveton Park; Harrowbridge; Middleton in Teesdale; Sharrow Vale; Merthyr Tydfil; Salisbury; Clayton West; Skelmanthorpe; Middlesbrough; Owlerton; and Worsbro' Bridge; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions for alteration: From Ynyscynhaiarn; Leeds; Rothwell (two); and Kirkby-in-Ashfield; to lie upon the Table.
  MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
  Petition from Windsor and other places, against; to lie upon the Table.
  PLUMBERS' REGISTRATION BILL.
  Petition from Wells, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  Petition from Bradford, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  EXPLOSIVES.
  Copy presented, of Twenty-sixth Annual Report of His Majesty's Inspectors of Explosives, being for the year 1901 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PENAL SERVITUDE ACTS CONDITIONAL LICENCE.
  Copy presented, of Licence granted to Mary Quinn, a convict under detention in Aylesbury Prison, permitting her to be at large, on condition that she enter the Hast End Refuge, Finchley [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Copy presented, of (1) Associations constituted under the Voluntary Schools Act, 1897; (2) Associated Schools and amounts of Aid Grant paid; (3) Unassociated Schools and amounts of Aid Grant paid, 1901–2 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1884.
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 5th June, 1902, declaring that James Harris, Royal Laboratory, War Office, was appointed without a Civil Service Certificate through inadvertence on the part of the Head of his Department [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  DISEASES OF ANIMALS ACTS, 1894 AND 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order, dated 6th June, 1902, revoking Order of 23rd April, 1902, defining a part of the Port of Harwich as a Foreign Animals Quarantine Station [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  OYSTER AND MUSSEL FISHERY PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
  Copy ordered, "of Memorandum, stating the nature of the proposals contained in the Provisional Orders included in the Oyster and Mussel Fishery Provisional Orders Bill."—(Mr. Gerald Balfour.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Vaccination—Conscience Clause—Extension to Scotland.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord Advocate if the Secretary for Scotland will consider the expediency of introducing legislation such as will admit of the Conscience Clause in the Vaccination Act of 1898 being extended to Scotland.
  (Answer.) The Secretary for Scotland sees no reason for introducing legislation of the kind suggested by the hon. Member, and cannot undertake to do so.—(Scottish Office.)

  Railway Locomotives—Protection of Firemen, &c.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the President of the Board of Trade, having regard to the recommendation contained in a letter from the Railway Department of the Board of Trade, dated 16th December, 1901, relative to an accident to a fireman at Grangemouth on the North British Railway, will he state whether the railway company has been advised to issue a notice that firemen and others
  352
  must not pass to and from the tender wagons while the engines are in motion.
  (Answer.) The report upon the accident referred to was duly brought to the attention of the railway company concerned, and they inform me that the notice recommended by the Board's assistant inspecting officer has been issued.—(Board of Trade.)

  Railways—Publication of Offences against Byelaws.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that railway companies are in the habit of advertising the names, addresses, and occupations of persons who have committed offences against their byelaws; and, in view of the fact that the persons convicted of such offences have been punished, can he take any steps such as will terminate this system.
  (Answer.) So far as my information goes the practice referred to is not general among railway companies. The railway companies which adopt the practice do so on their own responsibility, and I have no power to intervene in the matter.—(Board of Trade.)

  Mercantile Marine Committee—Lascar Crews.
  SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether any provision is made to place before the Mercantile Marine Committee the question of the employment of Lascar crews in all its bearings; and, if any witnesses will be called by the Committee in order to have the views of the Lascars themselves being properly represented before that body.
  (Answer.) I have been in communication with the Chairman of the Mercantile Marine Committee, who informs me that, in addition to making arrangements for the examination of witnesses already in this country with regard to the employment of Lascars on our ships, he has invited the attendance of Khan Bahadur D. R. Chichgar from Bombay, in order that the views of the Lascars themselves maybe adequately represented before the Committee.—(Board of Trade.)

  Factories and Workshops—Sanitary Accommodation Order.
  MR. TENNANT: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has yet issued an Order setting forth a standard of sanitary accommodation in factories and workshops; and, if so, whether he can lay it upon the Table of the House.
  (Answer.) The consideration of this matter has necessitated a great deal of inquiry; but the Chief Inspector has now submitted his proposals, and although one or two points still require consideration hope to be able to publish the draft Order shortly. (Home Office.)

  Coronation—Palace Yard Stands—Ladies' Head-gear.
  MR. CREMER: To ask the First Commissioner of Works whether ladies occupying seats upon the stands in Palace Yard on the 26th and 27th instant will do so subject to the rational conditions upon which they are to be admitted to the Coronation ceremonies in the Abbey; or, if ladies are permitted to retain their head-dress during the passage of the royal cortège, whether he will make it a condition that the covering of ladies' heads shall be of such limited proportions and so arranged that Members seated behind ladies may have an opportunity of seeing the procession, instead of having their view intercepted by ladies' hats.
  (Answer.) No conditions have been laid down as to the costumes of the occupants of the stands, nor would it be within my province to prescribe such regulations. Matters of this kind must, I think, be left to the good feeling of those concerned.—(Office of Works.)

  Customs—Export drawback.
  MR. SHEPHERD CROSS: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will state what steps the Commissioners of Customs will take to ensure that middlemen who, on commission, use any of the articles mentioned in the first Schedule of the Finance Bill in the preparation of textile fabrics for export, shall be able to claim the drawback therein mentioned in the second Schedule of the Bill.
  354
  (Answer.) The claim to export drawback must depend, not on any steps taken by the Customs, but on the power of the exporter of the goods to prove—

  (1) the presence of dutiable ingredients in the articles exported;

  (2) the payment of the duty thereon. Upon proof of these facts to the satisfaction of the Customs, the exporter can claim drawback under the second Schedule to the Finance Bill. In the case of textile fabrics, difficulties in producing the requisite proof may no doubt arise, but it is for the claimants of drawback to consider how these difficulties can be overcome, and to make arrangements accordingly. The Customs authorities will, of course, be ready to meet all parties concerned in a reasonable spirit.—(Treasury.)

  Coronation Naval Review.
  LORD CHARLES BERESFORD: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether arrangements can be made to send a certain number of naval officers on board the vessels chartered to convey the Members of the Houses of Parliament to the Coronation Review at Spithead, in order that accurate information regarding the Fleet may be given to Members desirous of obtaining it; and whether, if this suggestion be approved of, will he consider the advisability of employing the officers of the Signal School at Portsmouth for this duty.
  (Answer.) Arrangements have already been made for naval officers to accompany the vessels conveying Members of the Houses of Parliament to the Naval Review for the purpose of giving information to Members desirous of obtaining it. It has not been found necessary to detail officers of the Signal School at Portsmouth for this duty.—(Admiralty.)

  Ulster Roman Catholic Schools.
  MR. MACVEAGH: To ask the Chie Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland have received any further representations from the Roman Catholic school managers of Ulster; and, if so, what is the nature of these representations, and what decision has been arrived at in regard to each of them.

  355
  (Answer.) Such representations have, I understand, been received by the Commissioners who will take them into consideration at their next meeting on the 17th instant.—(Irish Office.)

  Roscommon Unions—Exchequer Grant.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the cause of the delay in paying the Exchequer Grant due to the unions in Roscommon County.
  (Answer.) There has been no delay. All sums due out of the Exchequer contribution to the rural districts in Roscommon were paid to the County Council at the close of the past financial year, and the District Councils were so informed.—(Irish Office.)

  Irish National School Books and Requisites.
  MR. GEORGE BROWN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Board Stores of the National Commissioners are to be abolished; whether it is proposed that in future all orders from national schools for school books shall be transmitted to publishers or their agents through the Commissioners; and, if so, what is the reason for prohibiting orders direct from schools to publishers or booksellers, and for keeping a staff at the public expense for transmitting these orders.
  (Answer.) The book stores will be abolished, and it is proposed that in future all orders from national schools for books and other requisites shall be transmitted to the publishers or their agents, through the Commissioners. This arrangement is adopted for the convenience of managers and teachers, and with a view of securing that the books and requisites shall be of proper qualities. A considerable saving to the public will ultimately be effected by the arrangement.—(Irish Office.)

  Reservists' Pay—Medical Staff Corps Pay.
  SIR. JOHN LENG: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will explain why a reservist who had been continuously employed at Aldershot
  356
  during the late war as tailor for his company should be deprived of the 4d. per day which he would have received as capitation pay if he had been engaged in hospital work.
  (Answer.) The hon. Member does not state to what corps the man belonged; and further, there is no such thing as capitation pay. Assuming that corps pay in the Medical Staff Corps is alluded to, the reply is that corps pay is only granted to a man when performing corps duties. Employment in the tailors' shop is in no sense a corps duty, and is specifically excluded by the Pay Warrant. Moreover, such a man is receiving extra remuneration in the tailors' shop.—(War Office.)

  New Barracks—Officer's Accommodation.
  DR. THOMPSON: To ask the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that in many if not all the new military barracks building throughout the country no bathroom or lighting accommodation is provided for the officers; and, if he will give such directions as will remedy this state of things.
  (Answer.) Bathrooms are being provided for officers in the new barracks. The question of lighting is under consideration.—(War Office.)

  Book Post with Canada.
  MR. GEORGE BROWN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that under the postal regulations of the United States magazines are despatched to Canada as second class matter at lower rates than from this country; and, whether he will bring this subject under the notice of the Postmaster General and the Colonial Conference with a view to securing equal facilities in this country.
  (Answer.) I have already been in communication with the Postmaster General on this subject, but I am informed that the financial objections to a reduction in the postage on magazines are very great, and that, as the present rate is uniform throughout the Empire, it is not desirable in the interests of

  357
  uniformity to make a change in the case of printed matter between this country and Canada.—(Colonial Office.)

  Postmastership Appointments.
  MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he will grant a Return giving the names of those selected to fill the various appointments to post-masterships made in England in the years 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, and 1902, the salaries attached to each of those various appointments, the nationality of the men appointed, and their experience; and, whether he will grant a similar Return for Ireland during same period.
  (Answer.) The Postmaster General is not prepared to grant the Return, as its preparation would be troublesome and expensive, and the Department does not know the nationality of the officers referred to.—(Post Office.)

  Brussels Sugar Convention.
  MR. DILLON: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can say when he will give the House an opportunity of discussing the terms of Sugar Convention recently signed at Brussels.
  (Answer.) As legislation will be necessary the House will have ample opportunity of considering the policy of the Convention.—(Treasury.)

  Benefices—England and Wales.
  MR. HUMPHREYS - OWEN: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to the number of benefices in England and Wales, of which the actual value is between £100 and £200, and also of benefices of which the actual value is less than £100, the Government will, in framing the Bill for giving effect to the recommendation of the Joint Committee that Queen Anne's Bounty Board should; be amalgamated with the Ecclesiastical Commission, introduce provisions enabling the amalgamated body to deal with the properties of Episcopal sees and other wealthy preferments, in accordance with a revised scale, having due regard to existing life interests.
  358
  (Answer.) It is not proposed to do more in the Bill than give effect to the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Committee in favour of the amalgamation of Queen Anne's Bounty Board and the Ecclesiastical Commission.—(Treasury.)

(2.15.) QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  South Africa—Terms of Peace.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will state what provisions, if any, have been made in the nature of assurances or guarantees of good faith for the observance by the British Government of the conditions on which peace has been secured in the Transvaal and Orange Free State; and, in the event of disputes or difficulties arising as to the interpretation, construction, or fulfilment of these conditions, what methods, if any, have been provided for the determination of such disputes or difficulties.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. Balfour,): No provisions have been made, and no provisions appear to be necessary.

  Arrest of Mr. Lynch, M.P.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is true that Mr. Lynch, the Member for Galway, has been arrested.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have heard a rumour to that effect, but I have no official cognisance of it.
  Mr. REDDY: Is that part of the celebration of the Coronation ceremony?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My right hon. friend the Home Secretary tells me that Mr. Lynch has been arrested.
  MR. JAMES O' KELLY: May I ask whether Mr. Lynch has not the same right to surrender as any other burgher?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: He is not a burgher.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Why, if he has been arrested, has not that arrest been communicated to the House in proper form by a Message from the Crown?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is not a Question to be addressed to me.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Then I address the Question to the Home Secretary, who must be cognisant of it. I ask, first of all, on what charge Mr. Lynch has been arrested, and, if it is a charge of high treason, why it is not communicated by a Message from the Crown.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. RITCHIE,): I believe that Mr. Lynch will be at Bow Street today, and it will be public property why he has been arrested and what the charge is that is made against him. It is not my business to make any communication to the House.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: On a point of practice, Mr. Speaker, may I ask whether, when a Member is arrested on a criminal charge at the suit of the Crown, as distinct from a private prosecution, it is not the bounden duty of a Minister to communicate the arrest to the House by a Message from the Crown?
  MR. SPEAKER: I will not say that it is the bounden duty, but I think it is the usual practice to write a letter to the Speaker informing him of the arrest of a Member.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: In reference to that, is it not the practice that that communication should be given, not so much to you, Mr. Speaker, as to the House, and that it should be given at the bar by a Minister of the Crown as a Message from the Crown? The last occasion was that of Mr. William Smith O'Brien, and in that case the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland himself, as representing the Crown, wrote to Mr. Speaker;
  360
  but in ordinary cases of anything like seditious offences I submit to you that the practice is that the Home Secretary, as the Minister of the Crown who is responsible, should go to the bar and tell the House by means of a Message from the Crown.
  MR. SPEAKER: I observe that the hon. Member has had to go back more than fifty years for a precedent. I cannot say that there is an ordinary practice such as he describes.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY: May I ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Mr. Lynch is not entitled to the same treatment as if he were in the Boer Army.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That appears to me to be a question of argument or of opinion. It is not a Question to be addressed to a Minister.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY: Is it not a Question affected by the terms of the treaty of peace?
  MR. SPEAKER: It is not a Question to be asked at Question time. It is not a Question to a Minister on a matter of fact.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: May it not be in order to address a Question to the Minister to ask him whether it is intended to extend to Mr. Lynch the same terms of surrender as have been extended to the Cape Dutch?
  MR. SPEAKER: I do not think the hon. Member's Question is in order. If he thinks he can frame a Question which is in order I shall consider it, and certainly shall not reject it unless I think that it is clearly improper.

  Native Reserves in the Transvaal.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there are any such concentrated areas of public lands, now Crown Lands, in the Transvaal, as to make it possible, consistently with respect to good titles to private property in land held by white settlers, to set aside native reserves, for

  361
  example, in the Northern Transvaal; and whether the Government contemplate any steps in the direction of securing for the natives any portion of the country.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THECOLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): Large native locations exist, I understand, especially in the Zoutpansburg district, but owing to the interruption of communications caused by the war, I have at present very little information regarding them. I will ask Lord Milner to give his attention to this matter as soon as circumstances permit.

  Cape Constitution.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has received any communication from Lord Milner in reference to the question of the suspension of the Cape Constitution; and if so, what has been his reply.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I am in constant communication with Lord Milner on every subject of interest in connection with South Africa, but I am unable to make any further statement at present.

  Military Censorship.
  SIR JOHN LENG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether merchants who have been debarred from using their private telegraphic codes during the continuance of the war in South Africa, causing them extra expense, may, now that peace has been concluded, be permitted to resume those codes.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Lord Stanley,): As I told the hon. Member on Monday last, in regard to the military censorship, I cannot make any statements on this subject at present. A communication to this effect was sent to the Press last night.

  Military Education Committee.
  COLONEL LEGGE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will say when an opportunity will be afforded for the discussion of the Report of the Committee on Military Education.
  LORD STANLEY: This Question must be addressed to the First Lord of the Treasury; but discussion of the subject would, I have no doubt, be in order on the Secretary of State's salary.

  Private Slight's Suicide.
  MR. FLYNN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, in reference to the suicide of Private William Slight, of 12th Lancers, at Ballincollig, on 21st May, whether he is aware that Sergeant William Rowe swore at the inquest that a full cartridge case was found in the great coat of the deceased and that it contained similar cartridges to the discharged one. Will he state whether the bullet which killed Private Slight was of the Dum Dum pattern; and is it the intention of the military authorities to permit the issue of this class of ammunition to the troops serving in Ireland.
  LORD STANLEY: No report of the inquest has reached the War Office. I am not aware of the exact pattern of bullet with which this man was killed. A certain amount of Mark V. ammunition is kept in stock, and is used only for practice purposes.

  Naval Machinery—H.M.S. "Drake."
  MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he will state the nature of the breakdown of the machinery of His Majesty's first class cruiser "Drake," when on her trial on the 6th instant, and when the repairs of His Majesty's first class cruisers "Sutlej" and "Spartiate" will be completed.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): The trial of H.M.S. "Drake" was discontinued after thirty hours steaming at twenty-two knots owing to a leakage of salt water in two of the main condensers caused by some ferrules working out of place. It is expected that the machinery repairs of the "Sutlej" and "Spartiate" will be completed, and that the vessels will be able to resume their trials in about ten days time.

  Boiler Committee.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty when the final Report of the Boiler Committee will be in the hands of Members.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The Report received from the Boiler Committee on the occasion of the President leaving this country to take up the command of the Mediterranean Fleet is now before the Board of Admiralty. Until the Board have been able to fully consider the Report, it is not possible to name any date for its presentation to Parliament, but I can assure the hon. Member that there shall be no unnecessary delay in the matter.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: Will my hon. friend endeavour to secure that the Report is in the hands of Members before the Report stage of Vote 8 is taken?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I will do all I can to accelerate it.
  MR. WILLIAM ALLAN: Is the Report printed yet?
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I cannot say.

  Cyprus Mail Contracts.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether a contract for the conveyance of mails to Cyprus has been entered into; and, if so, what are the terms of the contract, with what company, and what are the terminal ports.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I have not yet received official information as to the conclusion of a contract, but I shall be happy to furnish the desired information if the hon. Member will put down the Question at a later date.

  Tientsin.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government are yet in possession of the views of His Majesty's representative at
  364
  Peking on the subject of the heads of terms lately suggested by the commanders of the forces at Tientsin, as intended to accompany the dissolution of the com mission at present governing a consider able territory in the neighbourhood of Tientsin.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR (for LORD CRANBORNE): His Majesty's Minister reports that the Diplomatic Representatives, at a meeting held on the 29th ult., were unanimously of opinion that the proposals made by the commanders of the International forces at Tientsin, with regard to the termination of the provisional Government, should be accepted subject to certain modifications. These are as follows:—The addition of a provision allowing a bodyguard of 300 men for the Viceroy and the omission of the clause prohibiting the native police from arresting foreign misdemeanants: also of the provision allowing the foreign troops to continue to occupy private property, and of the clause limiting the number of Chinese war vessels at Taku.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I suppose we must assume that those are the conditions as they appeared in The Times. The Government have not told us of them themselves.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the right hon. Baronet is right.

  Coroners' Inquests—Payment of Jurors and Witnesses.
  MR. BELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will refer to the Committee appointed to inquire into the allowances to prosecutors and witnesses in criminal cases the question of some allowances being made to witnesses and jurymen attending and serving on coroners' inquests.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. JESSE COLLINGS,): I do not think it would be desirable to extend the reference to the Committee in the manner suggested.

  Working Men Magistrates in Ireland.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the

  365
  Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the terms of the resolution adopted by the recent Irish Trades Union Congress on the subject of the appointment of working men to the Commission of the Peace; and whether he is prepared to advise the Lord Chancellor of Ireland to make such appointments in every county.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): I can only repeat what I have already more than once stated, that applications and recommendations for the Commission of the Peace are made, in the case of boroughs to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and, in the case of counties to Lieutenants of Counties. Both the Lord Lieutenant and the Lord Chancellor are always desirous of making suitable appointments. It is altogether outside my province to intervene in the manner suggested.
  MR. MACVEAGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of his predecessors made such appointments without the consent of the Lieutenants of the Counties?
  MR. WYNDHAM: Yes.

  Proclamation of Millstreet Rural District.
  MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been called to the fact that at the recent Quarter Sessions held in Macroom County Court Judge Bird had no criminal case of any kind whatever for trial; and as Millstreet, which has peen specially proclaimed under the Criminal Law and Procedure Act, is in this quarter sessions district, thus shown to be free from crime, will he state whether it is the intention of the Government to continue to enforce the proclamation of Millstreet Rural District.
  MR. WYNDHAM: At the quarter sessions mentioned, Judge Bird confirmed on appeal, the sentences of imprisonment imposed on two persons convicted of the crime of intimidation at Millstreet petty sessions. The reply to the concluding inquiry is in the affirmative.

  Police Aid to Bailiffs in County Roscommon.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that on the De Freyne and Murphy estates in the county Roscommon, forces of police are sent out during the night to aid bailiff's in making seizures of cattle; and will he state what are the rules now in force as to the supply of police on such expeditions. And whether his attention has also been directed to the fact that the police are used on both estates to collect information for the bailiffs, and actually aid in effecting seizures.
  MR. WYNDHAM: On two occasions only the sheriff requisitioned and received police protection before sunrise in the execution of writs issued out of the Superior Courts against tenants on the estates mentioned. The instructions followed by the police in this matter are those which were issued during the administration of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose, consequent on the decision of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court in 1893. It is incumbent upon the police to attend to give protection in the execution of a writ issued out of the Superior Courts, and in the taking and carrying away of cattle or goods thereunder, between the hours of sunset and sunrise provided the sheriff or sub-sheriff claims such protection. The police do not collect information for the bailiffs, nor do they aid in effecting seizures.
  MR. FLYNN: Is police aid given to bailiffs between sunset and sunrise in any other class of case?
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is done in this case by order of a Superior Court.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: With regard to the last paragraph of the Question, is the right hon. Gentleman sure the police do not collect information for the bailiffs? That is in direct contradiction of my knowledge.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I cannot enter into argument with the hon. Member on the point.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: You are very unequal to argument.
  MR. DILLON: I shall raise the question on the Estimates. My information also differs from that of the right hon. Gentleman.

  Irish County Court Judges.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that the County Court judges in Ireland sit, on an average, for only about fifty days in the year, and that by the adoption of English methods, business has been diverted from the County Courts; and, whether he will introduce legislation dealing with the manning and procedure of the County Courts in Ireland, with a view to economy ands the better administration of justice.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I cannot admit that the Question accurately represents the amount of work discharged by County Court judges in Ireland. Nor do I understand the reference to the results alleged to follow from the adoption of English methods. There is a Bill now before the House dealing with certain reforms in County Court procedure. It is not proposed to introduce any further legislation on the subject.

  Prosecution of Mr. M'Hugh, M.P.
  MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1) whether he is aware that two magistrates, Messrs. Howell and Brown, at a special court held under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, in Sligo on Friday last, postponed the trial of the hon. Member for North Leitrim, Mr. McTernan, and Mr. Quilty, notwithstanding the repeated assurances of Counsel for the Crown that they were ready to proceed, and the repeated protests of Mr. John Muldoon, Counsel for two of the defendants; (2) Whether he is aware that these magistrates, without application on the part of the Crown, issued a warrant for the arrest of this hon. Member; (3) Has he taken the opinion of the law advisers of the Crown as to whether, in the absence of one defendant, it is possible to proceed with the prosecution of two other defendants in a conspiracy charge; and will the
  368
  general conduct of the magistrates in the trial receive the attention of the Government.
  MR. WYNDHAM: My attention has been called to the matter referred to. The facts are inaccurately stated in the Question. The application made by the Counsel for the Crown to the magistrates was, either to proceed against the hon. Member for North Leitrim in his absence, as he had been served with a summons and failed to appear with his alleged confederates to meet the charge; or, if not, to compel his appearance in the mode pointed out by statute, namely, by the issue of a warrant for his arrest, so that he might not successfully evade justice. The magistrates chose the latter alternative. In doing so, they acted entirely within their rights. I must decline to disclose the advice received by the Executive from the law officers in reference to the legal points involved in a pending prosecution, or to express any opinion on the action of the magistrates in such prosecution.
  MR. DILLON: But is it not the fact that the gentleman representing the Crown did not apply for the warrant, but desired to go on with the case in the absence of the defendant?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I believe he was in favour of proceeding with the case, but the magistrates chose the other alternative. I have no power over the magistrates in such a matter.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Were not these magistrates sent down from Dublin Castle to try the case?

  Limerick-Tralee Morning Mail Train.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware of the inconvenience caused to the public owing to the discontinuance of the 10.15 a.m. train from Limerick to Tralee from the 1st instant; whether the statement of his Honour Judge Adams at Newcastle West Quarter Sessions, to the effect that it would be impossible to devise any scheme which would inflict greater injury upon the city of Limerick, upon the West of Limerick, and upon Kerry, than the stopping of this morning mail

  369
  train, has been brought under his notice; and, in view of the fact that the Great Southern and Western Railway Company are bound under the amalgamation to give facilities to the public equal to those enjoyed by them under the Waterford and Limerick Railway Company previous to the amalgamation, will he inquire into this matter and see that this train is run as heretofore.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member has forwarded to me a newspaper report of a statement purporting to have been made by Judge Adams, which is to the effect mentioned. No specific representations, however, have been made to the new Department in the matter, nor has the Department received any complaint of inconvenience to the public caused by the discontinuance of the train in question. In the absence of such, the Department is not in a position effectively to make inquiry as suggested.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that further inquiries are made?
  MR. WYNDHAM: If any appeal is made to the Department I am sure they will give it every attention. I cannot order a railway company to run trains.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Will the right hon. Gentleman compel the company to give facilities to the public equal to those enjoyed by them previously to the amalgamation?
  [No answer was returned]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I should like to ask as to the order of business.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not think there is any reason for departing from the general plan which I have laid down in regard to the course of business. According to that plan the House will first finish the Committee stage of the Finance Bill and then proceed with the Committee stage of the Education Bill. Tomorrow is allotted to Supply and Friday to private Members.
Subsequently,
MR. A. J. BALFOUR said: I wish to make a modification of the programme of business which I have sketched out. My right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has pointed out to me that it would be better to dispose of the report stage of the Finance Bill as well as the Committee before we resume the Education Bill, which I hope will be taken on Monday.

FINANCE BILL.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Mr. J. W. LOWTHERin the Chair.
Clause 6—
MR. DAVID MACIVER(2.35.) MR. DAVID MACIVER (Liverpool, Kirkdale) moved as an Amendment that income tax should be payable only in respect of income derived from foreign investments. He did so as a protest against income tax generally so far as it affected the comparatively poor, who had to earn their daily bread, and those who, generally of slender means, had some money invested in home industries. Income tax was very closely connected with every industry of this country which was in any sense a public company, and was deducted in a rough and ready fashion from the dividends which in a large measure went to poor people who did not know how to recover the amounts to which they they were entitled. He was in favour of income tax in so far as it was a tax upon realised investments of wealthy people, but not as a tax upon those who had to earn their living. Unfortunately it was not a tax upon the incomes of the rich, but largely applied to British industries and the incomes of the comparatively poor. He did not agree that half our taxation should be direct, and believed a better method could be found of raising the funds required for the national purse. He would encourage trading of every kind in this country, but, as to rich men who preached Free Trade whilst they invested their fortunes in Protective

371
companies abroad which competed unfairly with British companies, he would like to make them pay the income tax. He had no hope of carrying this Amendment, and only desired to call attention to the inequality of the income tax generally, in so far as it was collected from people whose incomes were small and whose investments were made at home.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 12, after the word 'two' to insert the words 'shall he payable only in respect of income derived from Foreign investments, and."—(Mr. David MacIver.)
Question proposed "That those words be there inserted."
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): My hon. friend is raising a very large question on a small Amendment, for he is proposing practically to abolish the income tax. I am afraid I cannot agree to that, and I hope the Committee will pardon me if I decline to enter into that subject. The immediate effect of the Amendment would be, if adopted, that we should be deprived of 94 per cent. of the £38,000,000 we hope to get for income tax, and I feel sure my hon. friend does not seriously wish that. I have no doubt he has attained all he desires by taking this opportunity of calling attention to the question.
Amendment negatived.
MR. TREVELYAN*MR. TREVELYAN (Yorkshire, W.R., Elland) moved to insert words so as to reduce the income tax to 1s. 2d., and adding—
"And every person whose total income from all sources upon which income tax is now paid exceeds £5,000 shall pay an additional tax upon the following scale:—Incomes over £5,000 up to £10,000, at the rate of one halfpenny; incomes over £10,000, at the rate of one penny."
He said his desire in bringing this Amendment forward was to raise the question of a graduated income-tax. He had found it somewhat difficult to frame an Amendment that was in order because not only could no private Members move additional taxation, but apparently it was not in order to propose to increase the tax on certain individuals even where it was proposed
372
to reduce it on others. He had consequently found it impossible to propose a graduation to the extent he would have liked. Still, under the form of his Amendment they would be able to discuss the principle of a graduated income tax. His proposal was that the income tax should not be increased except in the case of wealthy income taxpayers. He hoped he should have the sympathy of those who felt that the increase of the income tax had become a serious burden on those who had small incomes, and also the sympathy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, in his Budget speech, said the increase of a penny in the pound ought to be considered as the first item to be reduced when the happy days of peace and the reduction of taxation were reached. He did not think there could be any dispute in the Cabinet as to this extra penny being regarded as a war tax. His proposal should not be taken too literally; all he wanted was to get the principle accepted by the Government. He was very conscious of the difficulties that surrounded this question, and he was aware that all the authorities in the House were against a graduated income tax, but he had this consolation, that the objection was on the ground of practicability and not to the principle. Even the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not so hostile as he appeared to be, for last year, in discussing a suggestion put forward by the hon. Member for Flint, the right hon. Gentleman said—
"I quite admit that if a permanent income tax of 1s. 2d. were imposed, it might be necessary to reconsider this question. If we had to do so I would suggest that it should not be done by any attempt at reconstruction of the income tax. That, I believe, would be very dangerous. The principle adopted in 1894 should be adopted of imposing some compensatory taxation to equalise the taxation of the richer with that of the poor class of the income tax payer."
Thus the right hon. Gentleman recognised that there was some injustice in the very high taxation of smaller incomes. With the present high taxation on smaller incomes there was a danger of stinting people on the margin of comfort in the enjoyment of such things as special education for their children, extra holidays and bicycles. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth had always been against

373
any proposals hitherto made in this direction, but he too objected solely on the ground of practicability. In the course of a speech last year he said he had no objection to the principle of a graduated income tax, but he added—
"We must be very careful not to disturb the framework of the income tax, which is one of the chief pillars of the revenue of this country, and if we take any course which makes it more odious or oppressive than it is at present, we shall endanger the whole tax."
His proposal that afternoon differed from those previously brought forward. Last year his hon. friend the Member for Flint proposed an Amendment, on which there was a general discussion, of a graduated income tax, from bottom to top through out. The objection raised to that—and he thought it a valid one—was that as we now raised the income tax, three-fourths of it came from the dividends of the companies, etc. It was, so to speak, automatically raised, and they could not venture to dislocate the whole system. The proposal he made now was that only the higher incomes should pay more than they did now. If the graduation began at incomes of £3,000 or £5,000 the difficulty of collection would be removed. That got rid of the chief objection to the graduation of the income tax, viz., the excessive confusion which might be caused, and it certainly disposed of the objection raised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer twelve months since, of the very great loss of revenue which would be caused by omitting to tax the medium income tax payer, to the extent to which he was taxed at present. It might be argued that there was no sufficient precedent for the application of such a tax. But the colony of Victoria had successfully levied a graduated income tax since 1895. There they had three grades of incomes—under £1,200, between £1,200 and £2,200 and above £2,200, and the reports he had seen showed that there had been no difficulty in obtaining the personal declarations required. It was, too, an interesting point that one-fourth of the tax was levied on the highest scale. There was an even more important precedent—that of Prussia. Since 1891 there had been a system of fully graduated income tax in Prussia. Every taxpayer having an income of over 3,000 marks was required to declare it. He had to till in a paper calling for a statement of income from each of four sources, (1) capital
374
invested, interest and dividends; (2) from landed property and houses; (3) from trade, industry or mining, and (4) from any employment, wages, salary or fees. He believed the system had been perfectly successful. The proposal in the Amendment was that a declaration should only be required for incomes of £5,000 and over. Under such a scheme less supervision would be required, and evasion would be much less easy. The discredit which the publicity of unsuccessful evasion would entail, was likely to deter such conduct on the part of people with large incomes. He admitted that there were practical difficulties to be met, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to attempt to deal with them. He raised the question as a matter of principle. This Budget was the starting point of a new system of taxation, and the struggle would centre in future largely around the question of the relative advantages of direct and indirect taxation. Hon. Members on his side of the House looked to direct taxation and not to indirect taxation. [An HON. MEMBER: Altogether.] No, but very largely. There were many of them who did not think it was enough at this time to protest against the bread tax. There was other indirect taxation which was bad, but while they could not hope, in view of the necessities of the country to secure any great reduction of national taxation, they ought to begin to point out in what direction they wished to go. They thought it was dangerous to leave the income tax as it was now levied. The theory of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was equality of direct and indirect taxation, but he had never given any reason why that should be considered a valid theory. It was nothing more than a phrase—a sort of nervous financial disorder craving for symmetry between direct and indirect taxation. They did not propose to wipe out indirect taxation; what they wanted was a definite principle to guide them. They wanted to avoid evils such as the bread tax imposed in the case of the very poor, and which deprived the poorer classes of comforts which made life worth living. They wished to avoid anything which touched trade. They feared the tendency which the Government was showing to tax the necessities of the people, and they looked in an utterly different direction to largely new

375
methods of filling the public purse. They also recognised the necessity of broadening the basis of taxation. They looked to the taxation of monopolies, such as licences; they looked to the taxation of unearned wealth, such as land values; they looked to the taxation of luxuries, as in the proposal which he had brought before the Committee. He knew there were practical difficulties in the way, but he considered that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Civil Service ought to be able to find methods by which those difficulties could be overcome, and taxes of this sort could be raised. There was no question that the enormous accumulated wealth in private hands in this country could bear a greater share than it now did of the burdens of the nation, not only in periods of emergency, but in ordinary times. The plan of his Amendment would have this advantage, that it would not injure trade; it would tax luxuries; and it would point to the right direction in which financially the country ought to go, and against that towards which this and recent Budgets had moved.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 13, to leave out 'threepence,' and insert 'twopence,' and every person whose total income from all sources upon which income Tax is now paid exceeds live thousand pounds shall pay an additional tax upon the following scale:—
Incomes over £5,000 up to £10,000, at the rate of one halfpenny;
Incomes over £10,000 up to £20,000, at the rate of one penny."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
Question proposed, "That the word 'threepence' stand part of the clause."
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I understand that the hon. Member, who has made to the Committee a very interesting speech, desires rather to raise a question of principle by this Amendment than to make a proposal which could be embodied in legislation at the present time. With regard to the question of principle, I am afraid that we differ. The hon. Member desires to see the revenue of this country raised almost entirely, at any rates to a much larger extent than at present, by direct taxation; and be says he finds nothing sacred about the canon that the yield from direct and indirect taxation should be nearly equal. I have never put
376
forward that proposition in any such light. I have pointed out that about two years ago the yield of the two was about equal, that at the present time the yield of direct taxation is larger in proportion than the yield of indirect taxation, and that that has been the tendency for many years past in the taxation of this I country. But I do not think I ever said that, in my opinion, it was a law of economics that the yield of the two should be precisely identical. With the merits of the proposal actually before the Committee I need not deal, because no doubt, owing to the difficulties of the position which any hon. Member occupies who desires to increase taxation, the hon. Gentleman has not been able to deal with the matter in a way the Committee could possibly adopt. The yield of the tax, if the hon. Member's proposal were adopted, would be much less than the yield of the additional penny which I have proposed to add. So large a proportion of incomes are taxed at their sources that no one can tell with any approach to accuracy how many persons there may be with incomes over £5,000 a year. But I doubt whether there are more than 10,000 persons in this country enjoying incomes above that limit; and therefore the yield of the hon. Member's proposal would be a comparatively small matter. I would point out that by the Amendment, as it is worded, persons who enjoy an income over £20,000 a year would not pay anything extra at all.
MR. TREVELYAN: I ask to omit the words "up to £20,000." They were left in by error from a previous form of the Amendment.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The great difficulty in this matter is the practical difficulty. I do not at all object to the view that very wealthy persons should pay more taxation than those with small incomes; but you must be careful what you do, because if you generate a sense of unfairness in the mind of wealthy persons as to the taxation levied on them you will he subject to all kinds of evasions, and, therefore, defeated in your benevolent views. The principle of the income tax is the taxation of income at its source; and the proposal of the hon. Member would require that all persons with incomes above a certain

377
limit, which he puts at £3,000, should be subject to a process of self-assessment by which they are to declare their total incomes. The hon. Member quoted the experience of the colony of Victoria. I do not think you can gather anything of value from a country of the size of the colony of Victoria. The persons there with incomes above £5,000 must be well known, as well as the nature of their investments. But in this country it is the habit of wealthy persons—and the wealthier the person the more confirmed the habit—to spread their investments over all kinds of securities. You can get at the income of the large landowner or the person who has all his eggs in one basket. He would be assessed to the fullest extent. But his neighbour, who had spread his investments over 100 or 1,000 securities, would not be caught at all. Who could possibly tell whether such a person made a proper return of his income? I believe it would be impossible for the officers of the Inland Revenue to find it out. You have to trust to the honour of men, and that is a, very grave temptation. In our system we already have self-assessment under Schedule D and if the hon. Member knew as much as I do about the inner working of Schedule D he would hesitate very much before desiring to extend it. We have had some experience in this country—though a long time ago—in this matter. The original income tax of 1799, invented by Mr. Pitt, was for four years levied by the process of self-assessment, and then was wisely altered to the present system. The result was that the yield under the new arrangement of 1s. income tax was the same as the yield of a 2s. tax under the process of self-assessment. If the hon. Member will look back to Mr. Gladstone's declarations on this matter he will find the strongest opinion expressed as to the danger of this principle of self-assessment. Mr. Gladstone objected to it because, as he said—
"It leads to grievous frauds on the revenue and renders the real inequality of the tax far greater than the many inequalities which strike the public eye, and mainly because of the tendency to immorality which is essentially inherent to the nature of the operation."
I remember a, case where a number of persons, assessed under Schedule D as traders, lived in a street which had to be pulled down. They claimed compensation
378
for loss of business, and they put their profits at £48,000. The jury gave them £27,000; but they had returned their profits for income tax at £9,000. That is what self-assessment means. But it means more than that. I have had returns under my own eyes of persons of the highest standing in this country—some of them Members of this House—who would be quite incapable of any fraud in such a matter, and who by pure negligence or ignorance have returned their incomes at sums infinitely less than they were found to be when the matter was inquired into by the officers of Inland Revenue, and they were required to put it right. The present system is the fairest, best, and simplest ever invented for the income tax. If we are to tax in future years the wealthier classes of the community more heavily than they are taxed at present, we should seek to do it by some compensating tax rather than by interfering with the great principle on which the income tax is framed.
MR. HALDANEsaid that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not spoken against the principle of graduated taxation, but of the practical difficulties in the way of giving effect to the suggestion that been made by the hon. Member. No doubt there were difficulties, and the right hon. Gentleman had a very high authority to shelter himself behind. There was Mr. Gladstone, and he was not sure that his right. hon. friend the Member for West Monmouthshire did not agree with Mr. Gladstone and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to these difficulties. But unless those difficulties could be coped with in some way they would always have the income tax levied in a way different from all other taxes, the principle of which was the ability to bear the burden. A person with a large income could bear the tax more easily than a person with a small income taxed on the same proportion. When it was remembered that the principle of graduation was, to a certain extent, accepted with regard to income under Schedule D, it was difficult to take up such a non possumus attitude as that taken up by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor

379
of the Exchequer. There was the example of the Colonies before us. He had always been assured that in the colonies they had had no difficulty in the working of a differential scheme. He admitted that it was a much easier and more simple matter to levy a tax in Victoria than in this country, where matters were more complicated, but of the two evils he would choose a differential scheme to the present system. He felt that our system of taxation was wholly unsatisfactory. Whether it was the levy of a new duty on corn or the arrangements under which they levied the income tax at every turn, one found the scheme of a very haphazard kind. Even the right hon. Gentleman would not commit himself to any principle as to how the difference between direct and indirect taxation was to be maintained. Having regard to the growing expenditure we had to face in future years—an expenditure which would probably increase rather than diminish—in years to come the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to consider means of raising the revenue on a basis which was less felt, and which would least cripple those who had to pay. That involved the consideration of the whole of the taxation canons of this country the chief of which was "ability to bear." He had never believed himself that it was impossible, or that it passed wit of man to further the system of graduating the income tax inherent in the present system, and if the hon. Member went to a division he would vote with him in order to mark his sense of the unsatisfactory nature of the present system, and the desirability of putting that burden more on the right persons than it was now.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that the hon. Gentleman opposite stated that the amount of taxation which an individual should bear was based upon his ability to pay the taxation. Would the hon. Gentleman say that the present method of assessing the income tax, which was the ad valorem method, did not represent the "ability to pay"? Would the hon. Gentleman, or the hon. Gentleman who initiated the discussion, or the greatest professors of finance opposite, say how they were to measure
380
the ability to pay? It was no use arguing against the present method as being unsatisfactory unless it could be shown how another method could be substituted. What was an income tax or a contribution to the State in respect of income? It was a contribution the ability to pay which was measured by the amount of income. So far as that tax was concerned, he thought that was the right method to adopt, although he was not sure that it would be right to levy all the taxes of the country upon that system; but in the absence of any other means of measuring the ability to pay, the ad valorem method was the right one. It had been suggested with regard to the poorer classes that first of all should be deducted the amount necessary to keep a man alive, but that doctrine did not apply to the men with £5,000 and £10,000 a year, yet the hon. Member who suggested this differentiation suggested that the man with £5,000 a year was not able to pay as much by half as the man with £10,000. He could not agree with that view. He boldly said that of these two men one ought to pay double and no more than double what the other paid. They were both wealthy men, and if that was not the true test of the ability to pay what on earth was. He had never heard any answer yet to that question. But he would go further. In his opinion the whole system, scheme and principle of graduated taxation was wrong, mischievous, and calculated to diminish the returns of the tax in every case. It was fallacious, and it was not new. It was at least as old as Robin Hood, who took from the rich to give to the poor. He maintained that in all taxation, in all contributions to the State levied on the people by way of taxation, a man's ability to pay must always be measured by the amount of his means. This was a rough and ready method of measuring ability to pay; it might not be quite accurate, but roughly, it was just as between man and man. With regard to the practical difficulties, the hon. Gentleman who proposed this extraordinary change was no doubt aware that three-quarters of this duty was levied at the source of income, that was to say by deduction, and if this suggestion were accepted the whole of the income tax would be imperilled.
MR. TREVELYANsaid there was no proposal to touch the present income tax, but only a proposal that some should pay more.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESagreed, but pointed out that that principle involved that every man in future would have to make a declaration.
MR. TREVELYAN: That is not the proposal.
MR. GIBSON BOWLESpointed out that in the case of a man with an income of about £5,000 a year from investments, it was immaterial whether it was more or less than £5,000, because the tax was collected at the source. This proposal would require a declaration from everybody subject to the income tax, which would be most mischievous to the collection of that vast amount which was collected by deduction. There was no law at the present time which required a man to declare to a public official the amount of his income, unless he desired to avoid payment of the tax on the ground that his income came below a certain amount. The obligation to pay the tax, therefore, made it generally unnecessary. For a man to have to declare the exact amount of his income to a public official would be a most offensive thing. In Trance they were considering the advisability of imposing an income tax, and the objection which was raised to it was on this very ground. He had pointed out to one gentleman that there was no law of this kind in England, and he was told that if the English practice were adopted in France, half the objection to an income tax would be got rid of. In his opinion the graduation of the income tax had been overdone by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth in his Finance Act of 1894. He believed graduation was wrong, mischievous, and calculated to diminish the returns of every tax, and certainly it would do so in the case of the income tax.
MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid that no doubt every system of graduation must be to a certain extent a burden on some, but he believed the hon. Member who had just spoken was the only Member of the House who believed that in
382
our taxation the principle of graduation should not apply to taxation both in regard to house duty, the death duties, and the income tax. The question of indirect taxation, as against direct taxation, did not arise in this discussion, because the point which was to be considered was the best way of getting the amount required from the income taxpayers. Although he believed it would be an advantage to graduate the income tax to a higher extent, he was one of those who believed it could not be graduated from the top to the bottom. He would rather sec a proper system of taxation from £700 a year upwards to the top of the scale, than the ingenious proposal of his hon. friend, because he did not see, if income tax was to be graduated, why people enjoying incomes between £700 and £3,000 should escape the principle of graduation altogether. The House had accepted the general principle of graduation of the income tax, and the whole point of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech had turned upon the practical difficulties in the way, but he did not think the right hon. Gentleman had conclusively shown that income tax could not be graduated to a greater extent than at present.
MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid he did not forget that there were some cases which showed that the mere number of sovereigns was not the only factor to be considered in considering what was to be paid. He would not produce such an illustration in face of hon. Gentlemen sitting opposite, who were apt to treat the position of landowners with an amount of flippancy. The illustration to which he wished particularly to call attention was the case of great corporations existing for charitable, philanthropic, or other semi-public purposes. Once they introduced graduation—though even in the case of some of them their income was in the aggregate very large—the only effect of their measure would be practically to penalise people of a very necessitous class, who were dependent on the operations of these corporations. That was a difficulty which must always be kept in view, and was one which, in his opinion, must always stand in the way of this proposal.
MR. DILLONexpressed his astonishment at the astounding misstatement made by the hon. Member for King's Lynn that, at the present moment, no member of the community was required to declare his income. Surely the hon. Member must know that, with regard to tens of thousands of people, declaration was absolutely compulsory. The income tax collectors habitually required tens of thousands of persons who had no investments, professional men and others, to declare the whole of their income. Nor was it more difficult to put upon proof the man who enjoyed his income from investments, than the business or professional man who had no investments. Professional men and traders were required to declare their incomes, and, when they made a return to the surveyor of taxes if that gentleman was not satisfied, it was not accepted. He knew many cases in Ireland where the income tax had been doubled, trebled, and quadrupled by the surveyor. The fact of a man considering that his social position required him to keep up a certain amount of state or establishment at his country place could not be accepted as a reason why he should be let off his "fair contribution" to the Exchequer. Eloquent speeches had been made on the theme of broadening the basis of taxation, but it seemed to him that the expression was a euphemism for diving into the miserable resources of the poor in order to meet the enormously increased expenditure of the country. The time would come—and was, he believed, near—when there would be a reaction on this question. When the people understood the true meaning of "broadening the basis of taxation" they would seek to secure that broadening where it could really be effected, viz., on the rich classes of the country. They would want to know on what ground the proposal of a graduated income tax was resisted, while the food of the poor was taxed, and there would be no answer that could be given. This question would come up on the Budget every year, until the people thoroughly understood that all the talk about the impossibility or difficulty of such a system was the merest moonshine, pretext, and
384
humbug, for the purpose of protecting the possessors of large incomes. He should support the Amendment, not because he thought it went nearly far enough, but because it affirmed a good principle. The number of large incomes had been enormously increased by the facilities for watering capital, and the levying of extra tolls on the labour of the country afforded by the extention of the system of limited liability companies, and the people who enjoyed those benefits to the extent of £5,000 and upwards a year ought to pay an additional contribution to the expenses of the country, especially as they were the class who were mainly responsible for the increase of the expenditure.
MR. BARTLEYsaid the hon. Member was hardly correct in saying that people had to make a return of their full incomes. Incidentally, no doubt, if a man had only one source of income the return was a return of his whole income, but the essence of the present proposal was to make it compulsory for persons to give a return as a return of their whole incomes. That was a thing which it was practically impossible to obtain; the evasions would be great, and the result very unsatisfactory. The system on which the income tax was assessed or arranged was certainly not an ideal one. Many alterations required to be made, particularly in regard to the mode of assessment and the system of appeal. But the proposal now made would not do. In his judgment the man who made a large fortune was the least taxed man in the country. During his life he paid a relatively small amount, and before the death duties were enlarged he (the hon. Member) had always advocated some adjustment in that matter. The death duties, however, had largely altered the position of affairs. Suppose a man made £1,000,000. During his lifetime, as compared with smaller men, he paid comparatively little. There was an advantage in that, because it was desirable, both for the welfare of the community and in the interest of the State, that people should not be overburdened with taxation when endeavouring to be successful, because the success of the individual meant the success of the nation. But when such a man left this

385
world, his successors were dealt with by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a very different manner. If the son succeeded to the £1,000,000, £80,000 had to be paid in death duties. That meant that in addition to the 1s. 3d. or whatever the income tax might be, he was really paying the amount that that £80,000 would produce to him as an annuity. Then, in turn, the grandson on succeeding to the balance of £920,000, would pay another £75,000, and so it would go on. In each generation the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take from that £1,000,000 an amount, which if capitalised, would represent a very handsome sum of additional income tax. He had always approved the principle of the death duties, although he had criticised the way in which it was carried out. The death duties formed practically a large addition to the income tax of persons such as those he had referred to, but he was not prepared to say that all had been done that might be in that respect. That, however, was quite another question. The system of a graduated income tax appeared to him to open the door to the greatest amount of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer had called immorality; it would be impossible to get a fair statement, and when a statement had been obtained, it could not be checked. Everybody would be required to give what was practically a certificate of his income, and that he would look upon as a great evil. In view of the system of death duties, any system of graduated income tax would be unfair at present, and unless the whole questions of death duties and income tax were taken together such a plan as was proposed would inflict serious injury.
MR. LAMBERTthought that the hon. Member for North Islington supported the graduation of the death duties in a very peculiar manner. It was easy to riddle with criticism the plan proposed by his hon. friend, but a principle was involved which all on that side of the House ought to support. The Chancellor of the Exchequer sheltered himself rather too much behind Mr. Gladstone and his celebrated speech on the income tax in 1853. The
386
whole proposal of Mr. Gladstone in that speech was based on the fact that he hoped the tax would be of a temporary character. It was now not only a permanent tax, but a very heavy one. The right hon. Gentleman had not attempted to deal with the fact that the principle was in force in Prussia. It was not necessary to refer to Victoria. In Prussia, naturally the conditions were more nearly allied to this country, and if this could be done in Prussia surely they might consider whether the same principle could not be put in force in this country. He felt very strongly for the class who had to earn their incomes as compared with those who inherited incomes. The professional man had many hardships to bear and he had to pay enormous rates for life insurance, but in the case of a man with an inherited income the payments devolved upon his heirs. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give these people some relief. It was ridiculous to argue that a man with a large income could not pay easier than a man with a small one. With the income tax at 1s. 3d. in the £, a man with an income of £800 would pay £50 a year, and would have £750 left; and a man with £8,000 a year, would pay £500 and would have £7,500 left. Surely the latter could bear additional taxation better than the former. He agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire that the difficulties were very great. They had been told by the Leader of the House that it was the policy of the Government which had led to this great expenditure, and that if they wanted a reduction in taxation they must have a change in the policy of the Government. He thought there ought to be some compensatory tax placed upon those who were taxed in 1896 by his right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouthshire. He thought that if Mr. Gladstone could be the Chancellor of the Exchequer now he would find some method of either reducing the expenditure or of raising taxation more justly than was the case at the present time. He suggested that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should follow Mr. Gladstone's example and resolutely cut down the Estimates and attempt to reduce taxation in the direction of

387
increased economy rather than increased expenditure. There was a principle involved in the Amendment which he should support, although the proposal might not be faultless in regard to details.
MR. YOXALLsaid the conclusion at which two millionaires once arrived as to the minimum sum required for a man to have his town house and his country house, his yacht and his opera box, was £40,000 a year. He drew from that the deduction that if it were right that an income of £5,000 a year should not pay more pro rata than an income of £500 a year, then the graduation ought not to begin until the minimum sum of £40,000 a year had been exceeded by the individual. It had been complained about on the other side that the fair basis for taxation should be the margin of income after the proper minimum of expenditure had been undertaken. He represented in that House something like 12,000 heads of families, at least 11,000 of whom had incomes which either fell below the limit of abatement or below the taxable limit of income altogether, and he said on behalf of those people, that if the Government were going to widen the basis of taxation with regard to indirect taxation and caused them to pay more on the commodities they consumed they must in fairness and justice widen the basis of direct taxation also and do something to make superfluities pay more in the same ratio as essentialities. This principle of graduated income tax was not only sound, just, and fair, but practicable. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take the matter up in a practicable spirit with the desire to discover a method, a method could be found. A method had been found in the fiscal policy of other countries, and in giving the Amendment his hearty adhesion, he expressed hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to give his attention to it in the coining year.
SIR ROBERT REID: I wish to say a very few words upon this Amendment. I intend to vote for this proposal, not because I think that £5,000 is the limit which we ought to take, but because it establishes a principle of which I approve. I think it
388
is time for us to look out to see whether the wealthier Members of the community are paying anything like their fair share of taxation. The hon. Member for North Islington acknowledged, with perfect frankness, that the richer parts of the community did not bear their proper proportion of taxation.
MR. BARTLEY: I said that they paid a lighter share than others.
SIR ROBERT REID: The hon. Member admits then that they pay a lighter share?
MR. BARTLEY: What I said was that a man who made a large fortune paid less in proportion than others.
SIR ROBERT REID: It is the opinion of a good many of us, that the richer part of the community do not pay as much in comparison as the poorer parts. I will not now enter upon the question whether that difference has been equalised by the death duties. Up to a very large sum of money the death duties are not greater than the probate duty was before. The only objection I have heard which operated on my mind has been the practical objection that it is necessary to assess the whole income. The difficulty is that you will require to know that totality of each person, because it is in reference to that, that the tax will have to be imposed. I do not want to undervalue the importance of this difficulty, but I know that it has been suggested in many quarters that the difficulty can be got over. I believe that it has been got over in other countries, and I think we ought to have an inquiry for the purpose of seeing whether we can or can not overcome this difficulty. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has appointed at different times small Departmental Committees for dealing with points connected with revenue, and his predecessors have appointed Royal Commissions and Committees of this House for like purposes. I do not think that it is satisfactory for this matter to remain as it is without the Committee of the House being really satisfied that this is an insuperable difficulty. It is far too protracted a matter to enter upon now,

389
but, speaking for myself alone, I do; think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to say that he will take steps for the purpose of investigating, or get some competent persons to investigate this question, whether in the form of a Committee of the House or a Departmental Committee. We should not be content to sit down with our hands folded under a system which surely is not just between the various classes of income tax payers.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I think that there is a great deal in what the hon. Gentleman has said. I am not satisfied with the present system. I am not satisfied in regard to the matter dealt with in the next Amendment on the Paper as to the present abatements of income tax. I think there is a good deal to be said in favour of graduation, but there is also a good deal to be said against it. With regard to the particular point of this Amendment, I will certainly consider the suggestion which has been made—I cannot go further than that today—and see whether it is possible to carry out the suggestion.
MR. TREVELYANsaid that in view of the promise made by the right hon. Gentleman he would ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The hon. Member must not suppose that I make any promise. If he wishes to take the opinion of the House he should not withdraw the Amendment.
MR. TREVELYANsaid he would not press the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. CHANNINGsaid the Amendment he had on the Paper dealing with the questions of exemption and abatement was one with which he should be reluctant to deal at any length in view of the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the previous Amendment, but he should like to receive from the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that the matters referred to in the Amendment would be dealt
390
with either on the report stage of the Finance Bill, or in the course of the year, when the question of graduation was being considered. He would formally move the Amendment in order to afford the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity of giving the assurance asked. He moved.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 13, after the word 'three-pence,' to insert the words—
'(2) Any individual who having been assessed or charged to income tax or having paid income tax either by deduction or otherwise claims and proves in manner prescribed by the Income Tax Acts that his total income from all sources, although exceeding two hundred pounds, does not exceed eight hundred and seventy-five pounds, shall be entitled to relief from income tax equal—

(a) If his total income does not exceed live hundred pounds to the amount of income tax upon two hundred pounds; and

(b) If his total income exceeds live hundred pounds and does not exceed six hundred and twenty-live pounds, to the amount of the income tax upon one hundred and eighty pounds; and

(c) If his total income exceeds six hundred and twenty-live pounds and does not exceed seven hundred and fifty pounds, to the amount of the income tax upon one hundred and fifty pounds; and

(d) If his total income exceeds seven hundred and fifty pounds and does not exceed eight hundred and seventy-five pounds, to the amount of income tax upon eighty-seven pounds;

and such relief shall be given either by reduction of the assessment of by repayment of the excess which has been paid, or by both of those means, as the case may require.'"—(Mr. Channing.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: There are two points in the hon. Member's proposal. One is the exemption of everybody from income tax whose income is under £200. That does not seem to me to be a matter for inquiry at all. The other point has reference to the graduation of the abatements. That is a matter which, as the hon. Member has already said, forms part of the question we have just discussed, because in any inquiry into the possibility of making persons with larger incomes pay more income tax there must also be included the possibility of relieving those with the smaller incomes from a certain amount of the tax.

391
Whatever I may be able to do with regard to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Dumfries will include that part of the hon. Member's Amendment which relates to abatements.
MR. CHANNINGsaid that he was afraid he must proceed with the Amendment in view of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman. He understood that the right hon. Gentleman was not prepared to deal with the question on its merits in the present year, or to give any guarantee that it would receive attention before next year's Budget was presented. He thought it was only right that the case of the small income tax payers should now be placed before the Committee. It seemed to him that their case at present was an extremely hard one. Financial authorities on both sides of the House had repeatedly admitted the reasonableness of the principle upon which the Amendment before the Committee was based. The right hon. Member for West Monmouthshire had extended the exemptions in 1894, and had had hardly credit enough for the relief he then gave to this class. He then said—
"I have always felt, and it is a universal sentiment, that if the income tax is to be maintained at a high figure—and the present rate of expenditure holds out little hope of reduction—we should make some attempt to adjust its pressure so as to make it less intolerable to those least able to bear it. Everybody must agree that the pressure is most severe upon those of very moderate incomes."
In 1894 the income tax stood at only 7d., and his right hon. friend, in imposing an additional penny, gave back out of its proceeds of £2,000,000, no less than £840,000 to the smaller taxpayers. In 1898 the Chancellor of the Exchequer had further endorsed this principle, and given £100,000 more in exemptions. Now they had an income tax of 1s. 3d. There appeared to be every likelihood of the income tax remaining at the increased figure for a long time, so that the present was a suitable occasion for considering the incidence of the tax, with the view to its being equitably adjusted. From the discussions which had taken place during the last two days, it was clear that it would be perfectly easy for the right hon. Gentleman to dispense with
392
the increase of the income tax on the present year. His main reason for not dispensing with the income tax was that he had been pressed in influential quarters not to withdraw the indirect taxation with which he had accompanied the imposition of the extra penny on the income tax. He would not urge the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw that extra penny—it would be a monstrous proposition—unless he accompanied that by the withdrawal of the corn duty which was decided upon yesterday. The hon. Member had no special regard for the large income tax payers who were called upon to pay the extra penny, but he contended that in regard to the lower middle class—shopkeepers, farmers, and others whose incomes ranged from £160 to £1,000—their position at present was extremely hard. These were not people who had profited by the war. The people whose incomes had increased were the large contractors who had received enormous profits, the shareholders of firms like Kynochs, who had doubled their dividends, and the great speculators who had made millions out of the misery of the South African war. They were the persons who ought to be called upon to contribute most largely to meet the enormous increase in the ordinary expenditure of the country, the cost of armaments, and the expenses of the war. It had often been said by his right hon. friend the Member for Montrose that we ought to make people feel the responsibility of encouraging war by giving the tax collector freer access to their pockets. He absolutely disclaimed any adhesion to that principle. He did not care a straw what men's opinions were. It was simply a question of the just incidence of taxation, and equality of sacrifice on the part of every individual in the community. There were a great many women of small means who found it difficult to make ends meet, and they were called upon to pay this increased income tax although they had no responsibility for the war at all. He held that the present Budget was unfair. During the past two or three years the Chancellor of the Exchequer had endowed himself with vast margins of money each year, ranging from £10,000,000 to £20,000,000, for which no ostensible purpose was assigned in the first instance. He had now £40,000,000, which had been assigned for war purposes, set free by the

393
conclusion of the war. It seemed, therefore, that an equitable reduction of the income tax might now be made. The policy the right hon. Gentleman had adopted was both shortsighted and unjust. The right hon. Gentleman was not to assume that the proposal he now made came from any Party source. The Standard, one of the most eminent and staunchest supporters of His Majesty's Government, printed an article the previous day, in which it said—
"The burden, which might easily have been lifted from the shoulders of the great middle class, has been deliberately and needlessly kept on their backs, and this in defiance of equity and a tacit understanding. This policy has aroused more exasperation among the persons affected by it than, perhaps, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his colleagues realise. If they could see a tithe of the letters which pour into our office, they would perceive how deeply middle-class Conservatives have been moved by what they naturally regard as gross and heartless neglect of their interests. The great community which pay income tax—and more especially the vast multitude of persons of moderate means, on whom this unpopular impost presses with the utmost severity—are growing tired of the continued indifference with which they are treated by the Party chiefs."
And the article goes on to say:—
"They are not at all inclined to submit patiently to being squeezed and mulcted beyond their due, when the emergency has passed. So strong is this legitimate resentment, that the Government are fortunate in not being compelled at the present moment to appeal to the constituencies."
That might appear to be a mere quarrel between the right hon. Gentleman and the particular friends of the Government in the Press, but he thought that it showed conclusively that there was a just case for the alleviation of the pressure of the income tax at the present moment on persons with incomes of £200 to £1,000.
MR. SYDNEY BUXTONthought that his friend was a little unreasonable after the attitude taken up by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had promised to appoint a Committee of experts on the question raised by the hon. Gentleman's Amendment, He was in entire sympathy, however, with all his hon. friend had said in regard to the poorer class of taxpayers, who, as Mr. Gladstone had said, practically paid
394
income tax on the whole of their incomes, while the rich did not do so to the same extent. He could not agree with the first part of the Amendment extending the exemptions from £160 to £200. If they had a great tax of this sort, it ought to rest on a very substantial basis. Having regard to the very fair way in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had met them in this matter, he trusted that his hon. friend would not press his Amendment to a division.
SIR M. HICKS BEACHsaid he very much agreed with what the hon. Member for Poplar had said as to the action of the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire. He could not help thinking that he had got his speech ready and would not waste a chance of delivering it, and that he was anxious, more especially, to show his agreement for once with the Standard newspaper. He desired it should be perfectly clear that he was under no pledge with regard to the acceptance of the principle either of a graduated income tax or of an extension of abatements. The hon. and learned Member for Dumfries referred to what he and others had said as to the practical difficulties—he might use even a stronger word—of a graduated income tax, and asked if some inquiry might not be instituted into the matter. That seemed to him a suggestion very well worthy of consideration, and he promised to give it that consideration. As the effect of any such graduation would be to increase the burdens on the higher taxpayers, and therefore to relieve the lower taxpayers, the principle of the hon. Member's proposal must also come within the scope of any inquiry that might be instituted into the subject. He hoped, therefore, the debate might not be further prolonged.
MR. DILLONsaid he did not want the Chancellor of the Exchequer to rest for a moment under the delusion that some hon. Members would listen for a moment to any proposal which would throw a heavier burden on the wealthier classes in order to grant exemptions to persons having an income of from £300 to £500 or £600 a year What the

395
additional taxation of the wealthy was wanted for was the relief of the poorer class of taxpayers.
MR. CHANNINGsaid that on the understanding that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was preparing to institute an inquiry very shortly into the whole subject of exemptions, he would withdraw his Amendment.
SIR M. HICKS BEACHsaid he had nothing to add to what had already been said.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. FLYNNsaid that the Committee had been engaged for two hours in discussing a graduated income tax. He had a proposal for a graduated income tax, which had the merit of being practical and equitable, and he hoped the Committee would support it. His proposal was a graduation between the income tax levied in Great Britain and in Ireland. He maintained that it would be quite easy to levy a heavier tax in Great Britain than in Ireland. He would even go the length of saying that the income tax in Ireland should not be more than 6d. He contended that to levy an income tax in Ireland was altogether inconsistent with the preamble of the Bill. That preamble set forth—
"We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, towards raising the necessary supplies to defray your Majesty's public expenses, and making an addition to the public revenue, have freely and voluntarily resolved to give and grant unto your Majesty the duties hereinafter mentioned."
Now, the people of Ireland have never freely and voluntarily resolved to grant an income tax which pressed in a particularly burdensome manner on a large number of the poorer classes in Ireland. He had no sympathy whatever with those who thought to lessen the burden of the income tax on persons who ought to pay it. If he had the honour of a seat in an Irish Parliament he would be in favour of the principle of an income tax, but it would be a tax levied for the good of Ireland and for the development of Irish resources. At present the income tax was levied in Ireland from people who had no part whatever in the expenditure
396
of it. The income tax was first imposed as a war tax in Great Britain in 1793, and was repealed in 1816. It was renewed in 1842 by Sir Robert Peel—first, because he had to meet a deficit, and secondly, to enable him to make certain fiscal reforms for the benefit of the manufacturing interests of the country. In 1845 the tax was again renewed by him. On neither occasion was the tax extended to Ireland, the ground stated being—
"That it had never been imposed on Ireland, even during the pressure of European wars, and that as Great Britain would derive the greater advantage of the fiscal changes which were then made, it was but fair that they should bear the tax that was imposed to enable these changes to be made."
In 1853, Mr. Gladstone, being Chancellor of the Exchequer, decided still further to relieve the burdens on manufactures and on articles of consumption, and for the purpose of effecting these objects he proposed in his Budget to extend the income tax to Ireland for a limited number of years, and to equalise the spirit duties. Now it was 1853 that the financial grievances of Ireland began. The income tax was to be extended to Ireland only for a limited number of years, but it had been imposed ever since. A set-off was given by wiping out a capital debt of £4,000,000, which had been contracted mainly for the relief of the poor during the great famine of 1847–8–9. That £4,000,000 was wiped off, and beyond that Ireland had paid £30,000,000. Therefore, the Committee would not be surprised if on every occasion when it could be raised, this question was raised by Irish Members, and it was pointed out how Ireland had been defrauded during all these years of over £25,000,000. He claimed that Ireland was entitled to an exemption of this tax altogether, and she was certainly entitled to have a lower tax. If the principle of graduation was to be enforced at all, this was the opportunity to take of putting it into operation as between, not individuals, but two countries so differently circumstanced. It should be remembered that in Ireland income tax was paid in the large majority of cases by the possessors of small incomes. They were the people hardest hit. He had no objection to income tax, as a tax; he thought it was the most beneficent tax of modern times; but, while he held

397
that opinion, he held that the position of Ireland was totally different to the position of this country. In the first place this was a war tax, and Ireland should not be called upon to contribute to the cost of a war of which she did not approve, and in the second place the continuance of the policy of levying income tax on Ireland was a direct violation of the promises of Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone. If this was a tax being voted by an Irish Parliament for the development of Irish resources it would he a very different matter. In that case he would be in favour of a fairly strong income tax. As it was, he hoped that this Amendment would be accepted by the right hon. Gentleman, and that he would reduce the sum of income tax in Ireland from 1s. 3d. to 1s. in the £.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 3, line 13, at end, to add the words 'in Great Britain, but in Ireland the said Income Tax shall be charged at the rate of one shilling.'"—(Mr Flynn.)
Question proposed "That those words be there added."
SIR M. HICKS BEACHsaid the hon. Member not only objected to the income tax now to be levied in Ireland, but also asked that the tax leviable by the Finance Act of the previous year should be reduced by 2d. Of course he was well aware that Irish Members had consistently objected to war taxation, but he could not see that disapproval of one form of expenditure justified this claim for exemption. But the whole speech of the hon. Member led up to topics that were now excluded from debate, and from the very nature of the case this was so. It could not be argued against this tax, as had been argued against the tea and other duties, that it was levied upon the poorest part of the population; and he could not see why shareholders in Guinness's brewery, Harland's shipbuilding works, or in Irish railways should not be taxed on their dividends equally with the same class of taxpayers in England. But arguments upon these matters must be postponed until the financial relations of the two countries were under discussion.
MR. FLYNNsaid he had no desire to put forward the doctrine that the rich
398
men in Ireland should be exempt from the tax any more than the rich people of England. He had always taken the view that this was a tax in which no Customs difficulties were involved, and, therefore, could be dealt with more easily than other taxes. If it was being raised for the development of Irish resource, as he had said before, he should have no objection to it. He begged leave to withdraw his Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid that, in the course of his remarks, his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had raised a very important question. The remark to which he referred was the reference to a graduated income tax, a principle which no Chancellor of the Exchequer had ever listened to or encouraged, and he hoped his right hon. friend would make it clear that no such suggestion could have any kind of claim to his support or authority. He was quite aware that the remarks of his right hon. friend were made in connection with a proposal for dealing with the question of abatement, and he hoped he would take the opportunity to explain that in connection with any inquiry he might institute into the incidence of the income tax, he in no way committed himself to tampering with that dangerous doctrine of a graduated tax, which had always been repudiated by the Conservative Party. The rigid hon. Gentleman might also make clear the principle he had in mind, in his references to direct and indirect taxation, and the supposed necessity for keeping an equal proportion of amount in these sources of revenue. That was a principle which many had, in the course of the debate, carried far beyond what was probably intended by the remarks of his right hon. friend. The income tax payer was relatively a very large contributor to all indirect taxation, and there were some forms of indirect taxation that fell entirely upon income tax payers, for instance, the wine duties; and to say that an increase in the wine duties should be accompanied by an addition to the income tax was unfair, and an absurdity. Even the Cobden Club recognised the necessity of remedying the intolerable position into which we were drifting—a position in

399
which the tune was called by those who did not help to pay the piper, and he held in his hand a memorandum signed by the Committee advocating the abolition of all exemptions upon incomes exceeding £100 per annum, so as to ensure a fair distribution of the tax amongst all classes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer should listen to the warning of the Cobden Club rather than encourage an inquiry into the means of concentrating the weight of taxation more and more on a few shoulders, which was universally admitted to be contrary to public policy.
MR. LOUGHsaid that this tax should not be allowed to pass without a word on the present occasion. We had come to the end of the war, peace had been restored, and in consequence the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been released from a great many of his burdens, but instead of taking a penny off taxation he inaugurated the peace by placing a new and heavy burden on the country. When they discussed this question before, they had not the advantage of having the figures before them, but now they had all the facts in a Paper recently issued. That Paper showed that after providing for the restoration of the Sinking Fund, the interest on the new Debt, the grant for South Africa and to the West Indies—after providing for every thing required, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in hand a surplus of nearly £6,000,000. Put the Paper did not go to the bottom of the situation, and he wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer would deal with the Committee a little more kindly in this matter. There was a surplus of £4,029,000, from the loan of the previous year which was not mentioned. If the two surpluses were added together that made a surplus of nearly £10,000,000. It was therefore an extraordinary state of things, that instead of taking off taxation, the right hon. Gentleman should have imposed new taxation. He pressed the Chancellor of the Exchequer to explain to the Committee what was to become of the surplus of the loan of last year. The right hon. Gentleman had stated in reply to a Question that £2,500,000 of it had been used for Exchequer balances but even then there remained a balance of £1,500,000 that should be added to the present surplus, so that the surplus would amount to £7,500,000. They had no right to build up such surpluses as these
400
at a time when the burden of taxation was so heavy on the people. They must remember that rates were also growing, and they also had to be met by the same people who paid the taxes. He felt he was in some difficulty with regard to this matter, because the corn tax, which ought to have been got rid of, had been carried by the Committee and relief had been refused with regard to the tea duty. This was the third increase in direct taxation. The House was generally in favour of direct taxation, but he was not always in favour of it. He was not in favour of increasing taxation unnecessarily, and at the present time the income tax pressed just as heavily on the trade and commerce of the country. Ireland had been mentioned in regard to the proposal that a different income tax should be levied upon her. He would like to point out that while ten years ago the income tax levied in Ireland amounted to £550,000, this year the amount was £1,100,000. In ten years it had been doubled. He would not discuss the matter further, but merely point out that the increase of income tax had fallen with exceeding weight on Ireland. It had been more than doubled since the Chancellor of the Exchequer entered office, and at a moment when some relief might have been expected, it was being still further increased. In what position would the country be a year hence? The heavy charges in connection with the termination of the war would have been disposed of, and there would be a revenue of £22,000,000 above the normal expenditure. If the Government were left in possession of that revenue, they and their supporters would not fail to discover some means of increasing the already extravagant expenditure of the country, and the House ought to pause before they allowed that revenue to remain without some good reason being given. The moment was an extraordinary one at which to increase the tax, and he should certainly refrain from supporting the Clause.
SIR M. HICKS BEACHsaid he had nothing to add to his previous statement, except that the hon. Member was entirely mistaken as to the amount of the balance of the loan.
Clause 6 and remaining Clauses agreed to.
MR. JOSEPH WALTONrose to move a new Clause reducing the coal duty from one shilling to a penny. He reminded the Committee that when the export duty on coal was proposed strong objection was taken to it on the ground that it was a reversal of the established fiscal policy of the country, and that in many markets it would prove to be a bounty of 1s. per ton in favour of the foreign producer. Last year there might have been something to be said for the tax as a temporary impost in the financial emergency arising out of the war, but now, with a peace Budget and a surplus, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's own figures, of £6,000,000, the time had surely come when this exceptional tax, placed upon one and only one great industry, might reasonably be discontinued. Why should the tax be imposed on coal only? There were other great industries—such as the armament manufacturing industry and others—which had made huge profits out of the war, and it seemed to be contrary to the true principle of taxation, viz., that every man should be taxed according to his ability to pay, that this special impost should be placed on coal, while these other great and profitable industries went absolutely free of any such special tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech had declared that there was nothing in the experience of the year to justify the prophecies of evil made on the imposition of the tax. He, therefore, desired briefly to state how the tax had operated in Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland. Before the export duty was proposed, the British coal producer was handicapped in securing trade in foreign countries by considerable import duties, amounting to 11¾d. in France, 1s. 11¾d. in Russian northern ports, 2s. in Spain, 1s. in Denmark, and 1s. 6¾d. in Portugal. When, in addition to these, a 1s. export duty had to be borne, the working of the coal trade was seriously affected. Eighteen months ago coal prices were shillings per ton higher than at present and the conditions of the trade had materially altered. In times of high prices the coal owner could bear the 1s. duty; it simply meant 1s. less profit; but when prices had fallen to the extent,
402
for instance, of from 16s. to 9s. for best steam coal, and from 23s. 6d. to 9s. or 10s. for coke, the position was altogether different. Had the prophecy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the foreign buyer would have to pay the duty been borne out by the fact? During the inflation of the coal trade, Belgium, Germany, and France used every effort to increase their output of coal; they succeeded, and today Germany especially was a more effective competitor with Great Britain in the European markets than ever before. The Westphalian Syndicate was artificially restricting its output by 20 per cent., and the price to be obtained for English coal in the market, say of Hamburg, was absolutely fixed by the price which the Westphalian Syndicate would accept for its coal. Therefore, the price the British producer was able to get in the markets where German, French, or Belgium coal entered into competition was the relative value the buyer attached to English as compared with foreign coal. But from that price had to be deducted the freight and the export duty, the balance being the price at the pit's mouth. If the duty were now repealed it would mean that the British producer would get 1s. more at the pit's mouth. It could not be said that Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland had a monopoly. They knew that within the last two or three years German coke had secured five-sixths of the trade of the Baltic ports and had ousted English coal. By the completion of the canal to Hamburg, along which Westphalian coal could be sent at a very low cost, competition in the Hamburg market was keener than ever it had been before. About a fortnight ago the Belgian coalowners reduced their coal at one stroke by three francs per ton.
With regard to railway rates, they had been told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that 50 per cent. less was charged by the English railway companies for the transport of coal for shipment than was charged for transporting it for manufacturing purposes. The right hon. Gentleman must have been misinformed, because, with the exception of small manufacturers consuming only occasional trucks of coals,

403
which cost railway companies much more to handle and ought to be charged higher, all the large manufacturers, whether in the iron, steel, or chemical trade, had their coal carried at precisely the same rate as the railway companies carried coal for shipment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out in his Budget speech that the exports of coal were higher by 300,000 tons in the first three months of this year than last year. That was perfectly true taking the exports as a whole, but the exports fell in 1901 as compared with 1900 by 2,200,000 tons. One extraordinary feature was that this fall in the exports of coal was almost entirely in connection with four foreign countries. Though there had been increased exports from South Wales, yet the exports to Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France, mainly supplied by Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland, actually went down over 2,000,000 tons in 1901 as compared with 1900.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: 1901 is not the present year.
MR. JOSEPH WALTONsaid that the exports of coal from the north-eastern ports during the first three months of this year had gone down by 100,000 tons as compared with the first three months of last year. He was trying to show that as far as Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland were concerned a real injury had been done to the coal trade by this tax. Referring to a colliery in his own constituency which exported five-sixths of its produce, he said that since the imposition of this tax its exports to Hamburg had fallen from the rate of 70,000 tons a year to 35,000 tons a year, its exports to Holland from 15,000 tons to nothing, and its exports to Belgium from 120,000 tons to 50,000 tons. The price realised, after deducting the freight and the shilling duty, did not leave a farthing profit on the coal produced at that colliery, and if there were a further fall in the value of coal it would be necessary that the colliery should be stopped, which would throw 1,000 miners out of employment. Those miners were now only working three days per week instead of six, and at
404
the same time they had had the bread tax put upon themselves and their families. The difference in the cost of production at this colliery, working three days instead of six, was no less than 9d. per ton. The reason why their exports had kept up was because the demand for coal at home had fallen off, but in order to have the cheapest production of coal, it was necessary to have a full output, and though they had had to accept prices that would not pay in many cases it was better to do that rather than work the collieries short time.
This tax, so far as the counties which he had mentioned were concerned, was paid not by the foreign consumer, but by the coal owner and the coal miner. Within a very short time the wages of miners had been reduced 17½ per cent., and at the present moment negotiations were going on in the Midlands to reduce miners' wages by 10 per cent. The Committee was warned last year that it was the coal owner who would have to pay this duty, and that a considerable proportion of it would ultimately have to come out of the miners' wages, and this had already happened. The reductions in wages in his own district had been rendered necessary by this export duty, which prevented coal owners getting an extra 1s. per ton at the pit's mouth. As trade declined and as prices fell, the injury to the coal industry, especially in the North of England, by reason of this export duty would be greatly increased, and the tax would become more and more unjust. Another reason why this tax ought to be repealed was that it was most unfair in its incidence. If the tax was applied to the whole of the coal trade of the United Kingdom, and if, instead of 1s. per ton on exported coal, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had charged 2d. per ton upon the whole coal of the United Kingdom, if he had put one-half of that 2d. upon the royalty owner and the other half upon the colliery owner, he did not think there would have been the same outcry against the tax.
Another injustice was that this was not an ad valorem tax. Some collieries could put their coal on board at a cost 1 of 6d. per ton, whilst in other cases it would cost 2s. or 3s. per ton. Therefore,

405
if the right hon. Gentleman wished to impose an equitable tax, it should be put on the coal at the pit's mouth. Supposing 2s. 7d. per ton was the rate to the port of shipment from certain collieries and 6s. 1d. per ton was the selling price. That would mean 3s. 6d. per ton at the pit's mouth, and then there was 1s. per ton export duty to deduct. In the case of another colliery, which was nearer the port, the coal owner could afford not to charge 6s. 1d., but 5s. 11d., by reason of the fact that it would only cost him 6d. per ton to the port of shipment. Therefore this coal owner would receive 5s. 5d. as against 2s. 6d. by the other owner. He submitted that that was not a fair and equitable method, and it ought to be altered in this particular Budget. Was it reasonable or fair that 1s. per ton should be levied on coal worth 6s. 1d. per ton, while the same tax was levied upon coal worth twice that sum? There should be an ad valorem duty, and the tax ought to be borne according to the value of the coal at the pit's mouth. Last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer put forward as a very strong argument in favour of the imposition of this export duty on coal the fact that it was desirable that the nation's resources of the best quality of coal should be husbanded. As the realisable prices at the pit's mouth were falling lower and lower, colliery owners ceased to work the expensive seams, so that week by week and month by month they were being driven to concentrate themselves upon working the cheaper seams. So far from the tax conserving the best and most valuable classes of coal, it was operating in the other direction, and the expensive seams were being worked more extensively. The tax, therefore, had not fulfilled in the slightest degree the objects which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in view when he imposed it. He would give one or two actual facts as to how the tax was operating with regard to the export trade of Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland. The French East Railway Company, which had always drawn its supplies of locomotive coal from England, had this year concluded a contract for 150,000 tons of German coal, which would be shipped from Rotterdam. What was the difference between German coal producers and
406
ourselves with regard to the contract? The German competitor had no export duty to pay on his coal, whereas the British coal owner was handicapped by having to pay the 1s. export duty. If that was not a clear example of a 1s. bounty in favour of the German producer, there never was a bounty in this world. A communication was received last week from Kiel with regard to a contract for 8,500 tons which came to this country last year and which this year had gone to the Westphalian Syndicate, the export tax imposed here just making the difference which caused the loss of the order. In times of low prices it must make the difference. Westphalian coal had displaced much of the English coal. During the year ending 31st March 1901, a colliery in South Yorkshire sent to Hull for shipment 203,000 tons, but for the year ending 31st March, 1902, the quantity was only 108,000 tons, a diminution of 96,000 tons: whilst the output of the colliery for the same periods went up from 668,000 to 834,000 tons, an increase of 166,000. As coal had recently been more difficult to sell at home, the Committee could imagine how much the coal tax had affected the trader. A communication from St. Petersburg the other day stated, in regard to a particular contract, that the buyer would only give a certain price for English coal, because he had an offer of German coal at a particular price. There, again, was a case whore German competitors were not handicapped by any export tax on coal. He had shown to the Committee that, so far as Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland were concerned, this tax had already operated most injuriously, and it was not necessary to wait for another year to ascertain its effect. It was already beginning to be felt by the wage-earning class of the country. Undoubtedly we had not heard the last of the reduction of wages, because the trend of trade was downwards, and in proportion as prices fell the 1s. export duty would become a still greater hindrance to trade and to the securing of contracts in some parts of Europe. He agreed that in certain parts of the world competition was not so severe. He trusted the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give careful consideration to the statement he had made, and agree to the addition of the clause to the Finance Bill. He had been

407
asked, "Why make two bites of a cherry? Why not propose the repeal of the tax altogether?" In the present circumstances of the coal trade, and having regard to the fact that they were paying an additional impost in the way of income tax, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would let them have 11d. per ton out of the 1s. he would be quite prepared to give him the other 1d. for luck. He moved the following clause—
New Clause—
"On and after the 1st day of August, 1902' 1d. shall be substituted for 1s. as the duty on coal under Section 3 of the Finance Act, 1901."—(Mr. Joseph Walton) brought up and read the first time.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The hon. Member has repeated and amplified the speech on this subject which he delivered on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. He has spoken solely with reference to coal in Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland, and I think he has taken his instances practically from certain collieries only, and mainly with regard to certain kinds of coal. The hon. Member practically proposes the entire abolition of the coal tax of last year. There is no indirect tax which I should be so reluctant to interfere with at the present moment as the duty on coal. I entirely differ from the arguments and conclusions of the hon. Member. I will take the whole coal export trade of this country. We were told that the coal duty was going to stop it. Well, the assertion has been proved to be absolutely untrue. In introducing the Budget I gave the figures of our total export of coal for the years ending 31st March, 1900, 1901, and 1902, and I showed that, with the exception of the record year 1900, by far the highest export year which has ever been known was the year ending 31st March last. Of course, I admitted then, as now, that the experience of the first year of the tax was not conclusive, because up to the end of December largo exports were made under previous contracts, on which an exemption was allowed. But now I will take the record of the first five months of the present year, in which the exports have been practically under new contracts made since the passing of the tax. In the five
408
months ending the 31st of last month the total export of coal from this country was 23,057,567 tons, including, of course, bunker coal. That was the highest amount exported in any similar five months that have ever been known. That is what the hon. Member says is the terrible effect of the coal duty. In the record year 1900 there were 22,637,000 tons exported in the same period. In the first five months of 1901 the total was 22,546,000 tons.
MR. JOSEPH WALTON: Does the Chancellor omit bunker coal?
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: No, certainly not. Why should I omit bunker coal? That is the total export of coal.
MR. JOSEPH WALTON: Bunker coal does not bear the shilling duty at all.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: Yes, but that does not affect my point of view. The bunker coal export has largely increased because it does not bear the duty, and therefore the shipowners have taken far larger amounts in their bunkers than they did before, instead of coaling at coaling stations abroad, where probably they would have got foreign coal.
MR. JOSEPH WALTON: That is due to the absence of the tax.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: Very well; but the mines are employed, the mine owners are selling their coal, the miners get their wages, and the industry is going on.
MR. FENWICK: Wages are greatly reduced.
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: That may be, but the reduction of wages is not the result of the tax, but is due to the fall in prices. Now I will take the German trade to which the hon. Member referred. Our exports to Germany in the five months ended May 31st, 1901, were 2,146,000 tons, and in the similar five months of this year they were 2,140,000 tons. Where then is this terrible competition of the Westphalian coalfield which was supposed to

409
have done so much harm? The Government are bound to consider, as time goes on, the effect of the coal tax on this industry, as they are bound to consider the effect of all other indirect taxes on the various industries of this country. But for that purpose the business of the present year will afford an infinitely better standard of comparison than that of last year. So far as the year has yet gone, there is absolutely nothing to show that the hon. Member has any cause for complaint. This subject is at present under investigation by a Royal Commission, and they will, no doubt, make a Report as soon as they have any facts to which they think it desirable to call the attention of Parliament. I trust the debate will not be prolonged, for I cannot possibly accept the Amendment.
MR. MARKHAMsaid that though he represented a mining constituency he was not going to allege that the tax had fallen on the men. His experience in South Wales was that up to the present time the tax had been paid by the buyers. The tax had not injuriously affected the coal trade to any considerable extent, but it had worked partially in regard to small coal. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had limited the duty to coal at 6s. per ton f.o.b. His hon. friend had spoken of coal in the North of England being sold at 6s., 8s., and 9s. per ton; but he know of coal in South Wales which only fetched 3s. 6d. per ton. He himself was quite ready to sell the Chancellor of the Exchequer as many thousand tons of small coal as he liked at 6d. per ton.
MR. PICKARD: What! 6d. per ton! I should like to be a competitor.
MR. MARKHAMsaid he would go further and say that if the hon. Member was willing to buy 10,000 tons at 4d. per ton he was quite willing to sell. He wanted to impress the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the fact that this tax pressed heavily on districts, such as Nottingham and Derby, which lay far away from the port, to which a freight of 3s. and 4s. a ton was charged. Formerly they were able to ship, but not now. He asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
410
therefore, to make this an ad valorem tax and not a tax with a limit of 6s. f.o.b. Of course he did not deny that the tax had done harm to the coal trade. All taxes were more or less injurious to trade, but he was not going to admit that the tax had been of a ruinous character during the last twelve months. He was certain that the reduction in the price of coals in South Wales was not due to the tax.
MR. FENWICKsaid he could not allow the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the effect that miner's wages were not being reduced in consequence of this tax, to pass unchallenged. His experience was quite to the contrary. It was perfectly true that the contracts were free up to the 31st December last, and so far as last year was concerned wages were not much affected by the tax; but at this moment they were affected by it, and the very last reduction suffered in the North of England, ten weeks ago, was due entirely to the coal tax. His hon. friend the Member for Mansfield said that coal buyers were paying the tax.
MR. MARKHAM: To some extent.
MR. FENWICKsaid he would like to know under what circumstances and conditions they were paying the tax. At present they were prepared to give a certain price free from all considerations of the tax. If they had to pay the export duty their price to the coal owners was 1s. per ton less. Wages in the North of England were calculated according to average realised selling price of the coal each quarter; and it was to the coal owners, advantage to take the lower price so as to reduce the average at the end of the quarter and thus reduce the workmen's wages. He believed in a largo number of cases the foreigner was paying the tax, but under conditions such as he had just stated, and the work men's wages were consequently affected by the tax. He had never said that the coal trade would be ruined by the tax, but had always contended that it would seriously affect the workmen's wages, as was being proved every day now that; the tax was fully operative. Therefore, he insisted that it was an unfair and unjust tax. The Chancellor of the

411
Exchequer had said that it would be one of the last taxes he would give up, and that coal ought to bear some taxation. If the right hon. Gentleman would take his stand on the principle that all coal raised in this country ought to bear a tax he did not believe they would be inclined to disagree with him; but he had singled out particular districts, which were exporting districts, and taxed the coal raised there 1s. per ton, which was large enough to have an injurious effect on the workmen's wages. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer imposed a duty of 2d. per ton upon all coal raised in the United Kingdom he would get every penny as much as he now received from the export duty of 1s. per ton. In fact, he thought the right hon. Gentleman would get rather more, because every coal owner was compelled to make a return to the Home Office of the amount of coal he produced, and he was sure that the cost of collection of a universal 2d. tax per ton would be much less than that of the export duty. Then the tax would be so very small that the effect upon workmen's wages would certainly not be anything so great as under the present tax. He sincerely hoped that before the Chancellor of the Exchequer had another Budget to prepare he would take this matter into his serious consideration.
SIR EDWARD GREYsaid he only wanted to add a word to re-enforce what had been so well advanced by the hon. Member for Barnsley. The great objection to the tax last year in the North of England originally was that its incidence created a sense of injustice. That sense of injustice had not been removed. The assistance which the Chancellor of the Exchequer received last year in passing the tax arose very greatly from prejudice created by the high price of coal charged to consumers in this country. But the high price of coal was charged for an entirely different class of coal from that which was exported, and on which the duty had to be paid. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had complimented the Members from the Midlands upon their support of the tax, but it was not on them that the burden of the tax fell. The tax fell on special districts, and in
412
these districts it operated very harshly. It called from the right hon. Gentleman the promise that he would make some modifications. Still, that did not get rid of the whole difficulty, nor was it to be removed by quoting wholesale figures, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done. First of all, bunker coal was included in his figures, and upon bunker coal the tax did not fall. It struck him, though it was impossible to follow it up on the spur of the moment, that this increase in the amount of bunker coal taken in this country was in itself a proof that the tax did affect the price. The Chancellor of the Exchequer let fall the suggestion that if bunker coal was not taken in this country the shipowner would have to fill up with foreign coal. But he thought it was much more likely that the shipowner would have to fill up with foreign coal in the future under this tax. That went to prove that a certain amount of coal was being driven out of our markets by the operation of this tax, and that the coal owners had been obliged to seek other markets in places not affected by the tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his figures did not distinguish between different kinds of coal. It was possible that the export of some kinds of Welsh coal had increased, and that that made up the figures; but, without knowing what the wholesale figures were, that was no consolation to the district affected by the tax. Where there was monopoly coal of a special kind, which people abroad must have almost at any price, the consumer paid the tax; but where the coal had not a monopoly value then the tax must fall upon the producer in this country. They were getting tired of the argument that this small tax would not have any effect upon the price. The argument was that, having regard to the oscillations in the price of coal, this 1s. could not have any real effect upon the price. If they put a small weight on one side of a pendulum the pendulum would continue to swing, but they would alter the centre over which it swung. And so will this tax. The oscillation of the price would continue, but it would be affected by the tax. Therefore, the tax must have an effect upon wages. Wages had fallen in the districts to which special reference had been made and there was a prospect of a further reduction. This tax must bear its part in the reduction of wages.

413
On one point he agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was too soon yet for them to be able to gauge the effect of the coal tax. But that argument cut both ways. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had expressed himself as having an open mind to this extent—that the course of trade ought to be watched. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that they would join him most earnestly in watching the course of trade, and in drawing, as soon as possible, the moral which, he was, afraid, was certain to be drawn from the operation of this tax.
SIR JAMES JOICEYsaid that the argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be based on the quantity of coal exported, but the right hon. Gentleman did not seem to have taken into consideration the fact that during the last few months there had been an extraordinary fall in freights, which had been an advantage to our coal-owners in competing with countries like Germany, France, and Belgium, and to a certain extent had neutralised the effect of the tax. During the last six or nine months freights had been lower than they had been for fifty years. But ship owners could not continue carrying coal at the existing freights, because during all this time ships had been losing money, and, therefore, some change must be expected. He had never argued that this tax would ruin the coal trade, but he still maintained that it was mischievous and injurious, and its effects would be felt to a much greater extent in the future. In those countries where there was no coal, and which were dependent on English coal, the foreigner paid the tax; but wherever there was competition, then the coal owners would suffer. Contracts would be taken at a shilling a ton less than if there was no tariff, with the result that the men at the pit's mouth must bear the loss. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had, in his figures, left out of account certain charges amounting to about 1s. 9d. per ton, which on 220,000,000 tons amounted to something like £18,000,000 a year. If they took £18,000,000 a year from the alleged profits, it showed that for the fifteen years in regard to which the right hon. Gentleman had quoted figures the average return was about 4 per cent. In a
414
speculative trade like the coal trade that was not an unreasonable return. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would explain how he came to quote those figures without considering a larger reduction for rents, material, and other costs, because the figures quoted influenced both the House and the country.
MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAMdisclaimed being one of those who had said the tax was going to kill the coal trade. All he said was that when the demand for steam coal fell off they would feel the effect of the 1s. tax. When the right hon. Gentleman made his statement last year he no doubt believed the statement he made was correct. Last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated his belief that the working man would not pay this tax. In South Wales the miners had put their accountants to work in order to discover if the Chancellor were correct. The result was to make it clear that, whoever did pay, the coal owners, by a nice device, had been able to keep the shilling off the books. The miners received a certain percentage on their wages, but of every penny the coalowners got for their coal they manipulated this shilling per ton, and it did not appear on their books as the price of coal free on board. When the miners of South Wales were prepared to prove up to the hilt that the tax cost them 8¾per cent. in their wages, they had made out a case which, in his opinion, the Chancellor should consider. Wages in South Wales had gone down 15 per cent, in the last two months, and 30 per cent. since the imposition of the tax. Wages were on the downward grade, and one thing he feared was that the miners were about to give notice to terminate the sliding scale arrangements. If that should happen, he knew of nothing that would cause greater confusion among the South Wales collieries. That the employers did receive this advantage he had no doubt, and he was equally sure that the miners received no benefit. He was afraid that the House would find that this tax would be probably one of the greatest preventives of an amicable settlement in South Wales. There was also sufficient proof that the miners had already had a reduction in

415
their wages. Although the war was finished, and peace had been proclaimed, shippers were not carrying coal, and South Wales was suffering very greatly. Not only would the demand fall off, but so long as this tax remained, wages, he was afraid, would continue reduced to the tune of 8¾per cent. He hoped, therefore, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would think twice, now that he had these facts placed before him, and would do all he could to meet these difficulties.
MR. LAMBTONsaid that he opposed the tax last year. It was, in his opinion, clearly proved that those who opposed it last year were in the right. He should not vote for the new clause, because he thought it was not a suitable time to derange the finances of the country. He had not altered his opinion that it was a mischievous tax, a partial tax, and that it affected some of the districts he represented in a very adverse way.
MR. CHARLES WILSONthought that the present state of things showed conclusively that there ought to be a Minister of Commerce protecting and representing the trade of this country. He had listened with great attention to the speech of the hon. Member for Barnsley, but he would not repeat his statistics. He was not a coal owner, but a ship owner; and so far all that had been said in the debate was from the point of view of the colliery owners and the labouring classes in the collieries. At Goole, Hull, and Grimsby, the principal portion of the trade was in continental steamers sailing in great numbers weekly to the nearest continental ports. For one reason or another the export of goods in his time had fallen off enormously, and steamers had to make up the difference by filling up with coal. Often the steamers took 500 tons of coal and 100 or 200 tons of other goods. The last offer he heard of from Hull to Ghent was at 2s. 2d. per ton, and he would like to know how a steamer could exist upon such a freight as that. Upon the last occasion when he endeavoured to protect the shipping interest, he was told by the Chanceller of the Exchequer that he did not represent it. Perhaps it might be
416
news to hon. Members that the shipping members of the House of Commons did not think that their interests were being properly guarded, and they had determined to work together in Parliament in the interests of the mercantile marine of this country. Perhaps, under these circumstances, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take a little more interest in the mercantile marine than he had done up to the present. Owing to the demand for large steamers, which had been constantly employed for war purposes, the demand for coal had been very considerable, and as a ship owner he could say that shipping at present was in the position that it was almost impossible to make a paying reight for any class of steamer, and more especially the tramps. Consequently, they had to fall back upon the export of coal, and the export of goods would annually decrease unless there was a great change in the policy of this country. Steamers were more and more becoming dependent upon the export of coal. The coal owners and the labour representatives had stated what the effect of this tax had been as far as their interests were concerned, and he had told the House what the effect on shipping had been as far as he was connected with it. Everything that the hon. Member for Barnsley had said upon this point was borne out by his own experience. They had also to consider the railway carriers, the ship builders, and the poor shipowners, and on their behalf he had not the slightest hesitation in saying that this tax was a great mistake in the political economy of this country.
SIR THOMAS WRIGHTSONsaid he did not regret the raising of this subject, because he thought it was very desirable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should keep his attention directed upon this tax. He believed that the incidence of this tax had been most unfair in many respects on Northumberland and Durham. In Northumberland they exported something over 90 per cent. of their coal, and consequently this tax told upon them much more heavily than upon other districts. The falling off in the demand of coal owing to the export tax had very much more affected the Northern counties than the Southern exporting districts. This was a matter which affected employers

417
of labour seriously. He could confirm what had been said by the hon. Member for the Wansbeck Division of Northumberland, that this tax upon coal had already told upon the wages of the men to a small extent. The increased cost of raising coal due to diminished quantity was a very serious matter in Northumberland, and it was doubly serious because the disadvantage in the increased cost owing to the lesser production became an absolute advantage to foreign competitors, because every ton of coal they raised instead of our raising it caused a diminution in their cost. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer insisted upon taxing coal in some form or other, he would suggest that be should tax the waste of coal. The waste of coal was very great. Coal was used very largely for the production of steam, and any expert would tell the right hon. Gentleman that almost half that coal could be saved by proper appliances. If the right hon. Gentleman could devise some means by which to tax the waste, he would confer a lasting benefit on the resources of the country, as it would force people to be economical. There would be no difficulty in assessing the amount of coal each engine should use, and then the use of coal free of duty could, be allowed up to a certain amount, and all waste over that amount most heavily taxed. The machinery for the collection of such a tax might involve some cost but it would pay, as a large revenue would at the time it was wanted be forthcoming, and the coal saved would defer the exhaustion of our national stock of fuel now so recklessly wasted.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONwas not opposed to the principle of the tax, and he quite appreciated the force of the argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Committee should wait for the finding of the Coal Commission, which was empowered to inquire into the effect and incidence of the tax. But if there were grounds for Members from Wales and Durham and Northumberland opposing the tax on the ground of its partial incidence, there was still more ground for Members from Scotland to do so, because the tax fell more heavily
418
there than in South Wales, or Northumberland, or Durham. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred to figures showing that the export of coal had been sustained, but the export of the cheaper coal had largely fallen off. That indicated that special districts had suffered special hardship under the tax. He would support the tax if it were levied equally and fairly in all districts as an ad valorem duty, and he believed a larger amount would be raised in that way with less grievance than was the case under the present extremely unfair system; but, seeing the manner in which it actually was levied, he should oppose it now, as he did last year.
SIR JOSEPH PEASEdesired to reiterate the remarks he made last year as to the injury the tax would do not to the coal trade particularly, but to the general trade of the country. In the Hull district the additional 1s. had caused a great loss of freight, as the shipowner was not able to get the coal to make up a good freight. In that district, the steamers loaded with a variety of goods and a coal ballast, but the trade had been largely knocked on the head. The tax did a great deal more harm to the trade of the country than it did good to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It decreased rather than increased the taxable area. In his own district the question of wages was a very grave one, and the deficit of freights had made a much smaller demand in the shipbuilding industry. In the colliery districts there was not much to complain of in the quantity of work, but there was as to the price that could be obtained for the coal, and the men complained of the decrease in the rate of wages. Then the question of wages affected the farmers. The farmers in Yorkshire and Durham sent almost the whole of their best meat to the co-operative stores. When wages went down the demand for bread might go up, but the quantity of meat consumed in the pitman's family went down, and the farmers complained. He hoped, therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman again looked into this question he would consider it from the point of view he had mentioned.
MR. DAVID MACIVERwas understood to say that many Members had lost sight of the circumstance that coal had fallen in value not only in this country, but all over the world. He had always been a supporter of the coal duty, and he had no sympathy whatever with the Amendment. Having a great deal to do with carrying and buying coal, he believed the duty had had no prejudicial effect whatever as regarded the higher qualities of coal. It might be still higher, so far as those qualities were concerned, without causing any mischief. But it was different with regard to other qualities. The case put forward by the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs as to Scotland was perfectly true. The Amendment standing in his name on the Paper was one that he had been asked to put down by members of the trade. Their case was much the same as that stated by the hon. Member for the Leith Burghs—that certain districts of the country were prejudicially affected by the duty. He was glad to know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was carefully watching the effect of the tax. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman did not wish to injure the coal trade in any way, and doubtless the time would come when he would meet the views of his Liverpool and Wigan friends, and so re-arrange the duty on small coal as to make it possible for such coal to be profitably exported from Wigan. At present it was not possible to do that, because the cost of conveyance to Liverpool was 1s. 9d. per ton, and when the wages were added the cost was brought up to above the 6s. limit; consequently the exemption could not be claimed, and the trade was stopped. There used to be a considerable business in this coal, but it could not exist unless something was done to meet the cost of railway carriage to the ports. The tax cut in
two ways: There was less coal raised from the pits, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not get his 1s. a ton. It had distinctly stopped the export of the poorer qualities of coal, and it was perfectly impossible for that coal to be exported unless some such plan as that suggested in his Amendment lower on the Paper were adopted, and the geographical position of the colliery taken into account.
SIR M. HICKS BEACHappealed to the Committee to come to a decision on the question. For reasons which commanded the assent of the majority of the House, he was not only unable to reduce taxation, but was obliged to increase it. Therefore, even for that reason alone, he had to resist the Amendment. But it was further admitted by a high authority that it would be impossible to tell the result of the tax for another year; it was also known that the matter was under the consideration of a competent Royal Commission, and he had promised to give attention to the condition of the trade.
MR. PICKARDsaid he thought the hon. Member for Barnsley had made out an excellent case for the re-consideration of this matter. The wages of the miners had been injuriously affected by the tax, and on that ground the representatives of the miners in the House were bound to resist its re-imposition. Considering that miners had already suffered a reduction of 8¾per cent. in their wages he thought that ought to have some effect upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government. The coal tax was an extra tax, and he hoped that next year it would be withdrawn altogether.
(7.3.) Question put.
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 147; Noes, 249. (Division List No. 216.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

Boland, John

Channing, Francis Allston

Abraham, William (Rhondda)

Bolton, Thomas Dolling

Cogan, Denis J.

Allan, William (Gateshead)

Broadhurst, Henry

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Allen, Charles P. (Glouc., Stroud

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Crean, Eugene

Ambrose, Robert

Burns, John

Cremer, William Randal

Atherley-Jones, L.

Burt, Thomas

Crombie, John William

Barlow, John Emmott

Caine, William Sproston

Dalziel, James Henry

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Caldwell, James

Delany, William

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Dillon, John

Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

Carew, James Laurence

Doogan, P. C.

Bell, Richard

Causton, Richard Knight

Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

Duncan, J. Hastings

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Reckitt, Harold James

Dunn, Sir William

M'Crae, George

Reddy, M.

Emmott, Alfred

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

Esmonde, Sir Thomas

M'Kean, John

Redmond, William (Clare)

Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Robson, William Snowdon

Ffrench, Peter

Mansfield, Horace Rendall

Schwann, Charles E.

Flynn, James Christopher

Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe

Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

Markham, Arthur Basil

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Fuller, J. M. F.

Mellor, Rt. Hon. John William

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Furness, Sir Christopher

Mooney, John J.

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Gilhooly, James

Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

Moulton, John Fletcher

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Goddard, Daniel Ford

Murphy, John

Soares, Ernest J.

Grant, Corrie

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants

Grey, Sir Edward (Berwick)

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Strachey, Sir Edward

Haldane, Richard Burdon

Norman, Henry

Sullivan, Donal

Hammond, John

Nussey, Thomas Willans

Taylor, Theodore Cooke

Hayden, John Patrick

O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

Tennant, Harold John

Hayne, Rt. Hon. Chas. Seale-

O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur D.

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gower

Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.)

O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

Thompson, Dr. E C (Monagh'n, N

Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

Tomkinson, James

Horniman, Frederick John

O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

Trevelyan, Charles Philips

Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Jacoby, James Alfred

O'Malley, William

Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

O'Mara, James

White, Patrick (Meath, North)

Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Whiteley, George (York, W. R.)

Joyce, Michael

O'Shee, James John

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Lambert, George

Palmer, George Wm. (Reading)

Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

Partington, Oswald

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

Leamy, Edmund

Pease, Alfred E. (Cleveland)

Wilson, Chas. Henry (Hull, W.)

Leigh, Sir Joseph

Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

Levy, Maurice

Pease, Sir Joseph W. (Durham)

Young, Samuel

Lewis, John Herbert

Pickard, Benjamin

Lloyd-George, David

Pirie, Duncan V.

Lough, Thomas

Power, Patrick Joseph

TELLERS FOR THE AYES— Mr. Joseph Walton and Mr. Fenwick.

Lundon, W.

Price, Robert John

MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

Priestley, Arthur

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Rea, Russell

NOES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Davenport, William Bromley-

Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden

Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

Denny, Colonel

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

Dickinson, Robert Edmond

Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

Cayzer, Sir Charles William

Dickson, Charles Scott

Arrol, Sir William

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

Austin, Sir John

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.

Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

Dorington, Sir John Edward

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Doughty, George

Balcarres, Lord

Chapman, Edward

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r

Charrington, Spencer

Doxford, Sir William Theodore

Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

Clive, Captain Percy A.

Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W. (Leeds

Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart

Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

Coddington, Sir William

Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

Banbury, Frederick George

Coghill, Douglas Harry

Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)

Banes, Major George Edward

Cohen, Benjamin Louis

Faber, George Denison (York)

Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor)

Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

Bartley, George C. T.

Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

Finch, George H.

Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

Compton, Lord Alwyne

Fisher, William Hayes

Beresford, Lord Charles William

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

Fison, Frederick William

Bignold, Arthur

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

Bigwood, James

Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Blundell, Colonel Henry

Cripps, Charles Alfred

Flower, Ernest

Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

Forster, Henry William

Brassey, Albert

Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ.

Brotherton, Edward Allen

Crossley, Sir Savile

Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W.

Brown, Alexander H. (Shropsh.

Cubitt, Hon. Henry

Galloway, William Johnson

Bullard, Sir Harry

Dalkeith, Earl of

Garfit, William

Butcher, John George

Dalrymple, Sir Charles

Gibbs, Hn. A. G. H. (City of Lond.

422

423

Gibbs, Hon. Vicary (St. Albans)

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

Royds, Clement Molyneux

Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

Russell, T. W.

Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn

Macdona, John Cumming

Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets

MacIver, David (Liverpool)

Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

Gore, Hn G. R. C. Ormsby-(Salop

Maconochie, A. W.

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Goulding, Edward Alfred

M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.)

Simeon, Sir Barrington

Graham, Henry Robert

M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W

Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

Green, Walford D. (Wednesbury

Majendie, James A. H.

Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.)

Greene, Sir E. W (B'ryS Edm'nd's

Martin, Richard Biddulph

Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

Spear, John Ward

Grenfell, William Henry

Maxwell, Rt Hn. Sir H. E. (Wigt'n

Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)

Gretton, John

Maxwell, W. J. H (Dumfriesshire

Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset)

Greville, Hon. Ronald

Melville, Beresford Valentine

Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

Groves, James Grimble

Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Middlemore, Jno. Throgmorton

Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

Gunter, Sir Robert

Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

Stock, James Henry

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

Molesworth, Sir Lewis

Stone, Sir Benjamin

Guthrie, Walter Murray

Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

More, Robert Jasper (Shropshire

Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord G (Midd'x

Morgan, David J (Walthamstow

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.

Morgan, Hn. Fred. (Monm'thsh.

Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ.

Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

Morrell, George Herbert

Thorburn, Sir Walter

Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.

Morrison, James Archibald

Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford)

Tritton, Charles Ernest

Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

Mount, William Arthur

Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

Heath, James (Staffords. N. W)

Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

Valentia, Viscount

Helder, Augustus

Murray, Rt Hn. A. Graham (Bute

Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

Henderson, Alexander

Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

Walker, Col. William Hall

Hickman, Sir Alfred

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Wanklyn, James Leslie

Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.)

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Warde, Colonel C. E.

Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

Warr, Augustus Frederick

Hoult, Joseph

Parker, Gilbert

Webb, Colonel William George

Howard, Jno. (Kent, Faversham

Parkes, Ebenezer

Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.)

Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)

Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley

Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)

Percy, Earl

Whiteley, H. (Ashton-und-Lyne

Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawies

Pierpoint, Robert

Whitmore, Charles Algernon

Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard

Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

Plummer, Walter R.

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Wills, Sir Frederick

Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

Pretyman, Ernest George

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.)

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.)

Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

Purvis, Robert

Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.)

Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath)

Lawson, John Grant

Randles, John S.

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

Lecky, Rt. Hon. William Edw. H.

Rankin, Sir James

Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

Legge, Colonel Hon. Heneage

Ratcliff, R. F.

Wrightson, Sir Thomas

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Reid, James (Greenock)

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

Renshaw, Charles Bine

Younger, William

Llewellyn, Evan Henry

Renwick, George

Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge)

Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

Robinson, Brooke

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S)

Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

Lowther, C. (Cumb. Eskdale)

Round, James

MR. CHANNING*(7.18.) MR. CHANNING moved a new Clause to make the sugar duty leviable for one year only. He said the effect would be that the sugar duty would have to come before the House annually in the form of a Resolution. The case he had today before the Committee was based on two points, the results of the duty to those interested in the sugar trade, and also on the situation which had arisen from the recent Convention dealing with the question of sugar bounties. This duty, which had brought in an enormous excess of revenue
424
over the estimates, had imposed a very heavy burden on several industries, and especially the confectionery trade, and many subsidiary trades depending on the free use of sugar. The trade consumption was 400,000 tons, and the tax meant a sum of £1,650,000. It had led to a loss of wages to the extent of three-quarters of a million among those employed in the confectionery trades. He was assured by those interested in sugar refineries that 20,000 hands had lost their employment owing to the changes imposed on the sugar industries

425
by this duty. He thought it was only reasonable that the House should have an opportunity of fairly reviewing and revising the tax annually before a Committee of Ways and Means. The right hon. Gentleman would say again that it was always possible to re-open the question each year, but he was well aware that the only really effective and satisfactory way of dealing with a tax was by full discussion on the Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means which set the tax in operation. Then, on the second ground, there was grave apprehension. This country yearly imported sugar to the amount of 1,776,000 tons, of which only 250,000 came from the colonies. In view of recent proposals for revolutionising our fiscal policy, those interested in this trade were filled with a very natural apprehension on the suggestion that duties specially favouring the colonies should be imposed. It was clear that the arrangements contemplated under the Convention, whichever of several forms they might take, whether in the imposition of countervailing duties, or in other commercial restrictions, would almost certainly result in restricting the free supply, and in greatly raising the price of sugar as the raw material used in a number of trades, it would not be in order to go into the question of sugar bounties at present further than to say that the possible restraints which might be sought to be enforced on the confectionery and sugar-refining industries, in consequence of the treaty, constituted a strong ground for the Motion he was now making. He begged to move.
New Clause (Amendment of Section 2 of the Finance Act, 1901), (Mr. Channing), brought up and read the first time.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The hon. Member will expect me to oppose this new clause with reference to the sugar duty. He has given two reasons for making that which is now a permanent tax only an annual tax. The first reason is that the duty in his opinion disorganises trade in connection with the manufacture of articles in which sugar is
426
used, and that certain workers have been discharged. Of course the imposition of a new tax must have to some extent that effect on industry. But this tax was imposed a year ago, and the trade has now settled down under the new conditions, and to make the tax an annual one would increase and renew any disturbance that has hitherto taken place. I do not think that the hon. Member could do a worse thing for the trade than to propose that this should be an annual tax. Then the hon. Member referred to the Convention in regard to sugar bounties having been signed at Brussels, and argued that certain alterations may be required in the sugar duty next year on account of the result of that Convention, but as that Convention will not take effect until September, 1903, it is not probable that any alterations will be made in the sugar duties before then on account of it, but if it should be necessary to make any alteration, of course the Government will have to propose whatever alteration may be required. It would be out of order to discuss the Convention itself I now. I can only say that the Government will place before Parliament a statement with regard to any action they propose to take. I fail to see the ground on which the hon. Member proposes this Clause except the general ground he took last year, that the sugar duty should be annual. On that subject I have said all I have to say.
It being half past seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
Committee report progress; to sit again this evening.

EVENING SITTING.

  FINANCE BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Question again proposed. "That the Clause (Amendment of section two of the Finance Act, 1901) be read a second time."
  MR. KEARLEYsaid he wished to press on the Chancellor of the Exchequer again the question of appointing a Scientific Committee to ascertain whether the computation on which the sugar duty was levied was a fair one or not. He would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should call into consultation some analysts of eminence. He also wished to draw his attention to glucose used in the manufacture of jam. Last year in dealing with this question, he pointed out that glucose was largely used in the manufacture of confectionery, and he urged that in order to preserve purity, the duties on sugar and glucose should he equalised. The duty on glucose was 2s., but that on sugar was 4s. 2d. What was happening now? Glucose was being substituted for sugar, and the revenue was suffering. He knew of a case where 28 per cent. of glucose was used in the manufacture of marmalade. That was done, of course, to enable production of a cheap article, and he feared the practice would grow, so that presently jam, instead of consisting of 50 per cent. of sugar, and 50 per cent. of fruit, would be composed, 25 per cent. of sugar and 25 per cent. of glucose, with 50 per cent. of fruit. The right hon. Gentleman ought to look into this matter in his own interest. He would like to say a word or two on the sugar duty generally, especially as to the reason why it had not been felt. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had twitted some of them with what he called their doleful prophecies as to the probable effect of the sugar duty. It was true that the burden bad not fallen on the consumer and that was due to the fact that the circumstances which brought about the fall in the price of sugar were quite exceptional. For instance, the average carrying over from one harvest to another was 500,000 tons, but this year the carrying over was estimated at l,834,000 tons. Naturally that caused an enormous fall in the price of sugar. In the same way also during the last twelve years there had been great fluctuations, terrible slumps and great booms in the value of mining shares, so in the case of sugar the prices had risen and fallen enormously, and as sure as the sun would rise the next morning, values
  428
  would again go up. In 1888, the rise was from 12s. 2d. to 28s., in 1892 from 12s. 9d. to 18s. 9d., and in 1898 from 8s. 6d.—the lowest point at which it ever stood—to 12s. 9d. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer must not think that the present low price would be chronic, for a year or two hence, when the market got rid of the great glut, values would go up, and then the full effect of the duty would be felt by the consumer.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACHsaid he gathered that the hon. Gentleman did not wish to make this an annual tax, because he admitted that the trade had settled down, and that any fresh disturbance would be injurious. He, therefore, need not argue that point. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would believe that he was obliged to him for his attention to these matters in the interest of fair play to the trade, and also in the interest of the revenue. With regard to the last point, he entirely admitted that sugar was a fluctuating article, and that, in the future, prices might rise, with some addition in the cost to the consumer. He was rather glad to hear from the hon. Member the admission, not only that the price of sugar was low at the present time, but that it was likely to remain so for the next year or two. However that might be, his impression was that when the Convention which had been agreed to came into force, the effect would be to steady the price of sugar, because the law of supply and demand would work under more normal conditions than at present. He could assure the hon. Member that he would carefully consider his suggestion that the system on which the sugar duties were framed gave some unfair advantage to the refiners in this country. This matter cropped up at the Brussels Conference, but it was not then established that there was in reality any unfair advantage. His own impression was that there was no such advantage, and he had heard nothing from those who might be supposed to take this view with regard to the trade generally in support of the suggestion. He was not prepared at present to say whether any

  429
  such inquiry as the hon. Member had proposed would be right or not. It might be necessary in the course of the next twelve months. He was obliged to the hon. Member for calling his attention to the increased use of glucose, and he was not prepared to say that the duty upon it might not be varied at some future time so as to bring it into nearer relation with the duty on sugar. If there should be a large substitution of glucose for sugar in the manufacture of jam, the matter ought to be inquired into. He should like to impress upon the Committee, with regard to the proposal of the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire, that this should be an annual duty, that there was no reason, as far as he could see, why the motion should not be applied to every kind of Customs duty. If they carried out the principle that every year every tax was to be brought up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for revision in the House of Commons, the business of Parliament would be impossible, and a position would be created which would be absolutely intolerable both to the House of Commons and to the country. He hoped, therefore, the Committee would seriously consider what it was doing before assenting to the proposed new clause of the hon. Member opposite.
  MR. JAMES REIDbelieved that the imposition of the sugar duty had played an important part in bringing about the abrogation of the sugar bounties, and urged that they ought not to interfere now with legislation which was solemnly adopted by that House only twelve months ago. They had better lot well alone. The sugar refiners of the country must wait until September, 1903, when the new Convention will come into force. No doubt there were huge stocks of sugar, but was not that all the better for the country? Did it not tend to cheapen the food of the people? He hoped they would accept the advice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and let the sugar duty have a fair trial.
  MR. DAVID MACIVERadmitted that the sugar refiners—especially in Liverpool—had had serious difficulties to contend
  430
  with, but they were struggling gallantly to maintain their trade. The idea that the sugar tax should be brought up every year for consideration was absurd. The tax had been of immense value to the revenue, and he believed it was capable of being of still greater value in the time to come. He preferred to trust the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this matter. It would be better that a little time should elapse before the whole question of the sugar duties should be revised; but be hoped that the time would come when the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to re-consider them with the object of helping the cultivation of beet in this country for the manufacture of sugar. He would remind the Committee that no one in the House took a greater interest in this question than the late Colonel Milward, and shortly before his death he published a most able pamphlet on the possibility of beet being successfully grown in this country and in Ireland.
  MR. MCKENNAasked whether the question which the hon. Gentleman was discussing was relevant to the Amendment.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid he was waiting to hear how the hon. Gentleman could connect his speech with the question before the Committee.
  MR. DAVID MACIVERsaid he thought that the subject might safely be left in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to be re-considered again at the proper time and in the proper manner, when the sugar duty might possibly be readjusted with a view to the encouragement of the growth of beet in this country. The hon. Member for Devonport had been, he thought, a little too persistent on the rights of the consumer. The rights of the producer ought also to be considered. He hoped the contention of the hon. Member for Devonport would not be sustained, but that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would increase the duties on sugar grown in foreign lands, and encourage the production of beet sugar in this country.
  MR. FLYNNhoped the Government would take note of the fact that if the

  431
  Committee had been delayed in getting on to the more important portions of the Bill it was their own supporters, who had made most eloquent speeches, who were responsible.
  (9.33.) Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 92; Noes, 118. (Division List No. 217.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Scale-

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Allan, William (Gateshead)

  Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Allen, Charles P. (Glouc., Stroud

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

  Barry, E. (Cork, S)

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  O'Mara, James

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Bell, Richard

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Boland, John

  Lambert, George

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Caldwell, James

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Price, Robert John

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Leamy, Edmund

  Rea, Russell

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Cawley, Frederick

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Reddy, M.

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Levy, Maurice

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Craig, Robert Hunter

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Crean, Eugene

  Lloyd-George, David

  Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

  Cremer, William Randal

  Lough, Thomas

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Delany, William

  Lundon, W.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Dillon, John

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Doogan, P. C.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  M'Crae, George

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Sullivan, Donal

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  M'Kean, John

  Thomas, J A (Glomorgan, Gower

  Fenwick, Charles

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Thompson, Dr. E C (Monagh'n, N

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Mansfield, Horace Rendall

  White, Patrick (Meath, North

  Ffrench, Peter

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R.)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  Murphy, John

  Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid.

  Gilhooly, James

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Young, Samuel

  Gurdon, Sir William Brampton

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Haldane, Richard Burdon

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES— Mr. Whitley and Mr. Broadhurst.

  Hammond, John

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S.

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Doughty, George

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Arrol, Sir William

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Fisher, William Hayes

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W

  Banbury, Frederick George

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Bignold, Arthur

  Flower, Ernest

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ.

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

  Brassey, Albert

  Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W

  Maxwell, W. J H (Dumfriesshire

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn)

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Mere, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire

  Bullard, Sir Harry

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Morgan, David J. Walthamstow

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Gretton, John

  Morgan, Hn. Fred. (Monm'thsh.

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. Midd'x

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford)

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Mount, William Arthur

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Murray, Rt Hn. A. Graham (Bute

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

  Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Chapman, Edward

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

  Charrington, Spencer

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Howard, J. Midd., Tottenham

  Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Kenyon-Slaney. Col. W. (Salop.

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Lawson, John Grant

  Purvis, Robert

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Randles, John S.

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Rankin, Sir James

  Denny, Colonel

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset)

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  Renwick, George

  Stock, James Henry

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton und. Lyne

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Wills, Sir Frederick

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath)

  Russell, T. W.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Smith, H. C (Northmb. Tyneside

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Spear, John Ward

  Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.)

  Question put and agreed to.

  MR. CHARLES MCARTHURsaid the Clause he now moved was meant to clear up a doubt which had arisen as to the interpretation of the 10th Section of the Finance Act of last year, and he had been asked to propose it by the Association of corn millers of Great Britain and Ireland. He understood that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not oppose it.
  New Clause—
  "Section 10 of the Finance Act, 1901, applies, although the goods have undergone a process of manufacture or preparation, or have become a part or ingredient of other goods."—(Mr. Charles McArthur.)
  brought up and read a first time.
  Motion made and Question proposed "That the Clause be read a second time."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACHsaid he certainly understood that the object which the hon. Member desired to attain was secured by the Bill of last year, but if there was any doubt in the matter he had no objection to the Clause.
  Clause added.
  MR. HALDANE MR. HALDANE moved a new Clause standing on the Paper in the name of his right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton. It was a very reasonable one, and had the full approval of the Associated Law Society, which had great experience of these matters.
  New Clause—
  "The provision of Section 62 of the Stamp Act, 1891, limiting to 10s. the duty on conveyances or transfers made for effectuating the appointment of a new trustee, shall apply to any deed for effectuating the retirement of
  434
  a trustee under Section 11 of the Trustee Act, 1893, although no new trustee is appointed."—(Mr. Haldane.)
  brought up and read a first time.
  Motion made and Question proposed "That the Clause be read a second time."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,)said that the Government had no objection to the Clause.
  Clause added.
  MR. HALDANEsaid that from that side of the House they had been endeavouring to get for the people free bread and free coal; he was now about to ask for free alcohol. The Clause he now moved naturally presented a somewhat picturesque aspect, and, therefore, perhaps required a word or two of explanation. He might say that nobody need imagine that they would get free drinks if this Clause were passed. The myrmidons of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take care of that. There would also be no loss of revenue by the operation of the Clause, because the alcohol to which it applied was not, as the law stood, in use at all. Owing to the unenlightened policy of this country manufactures had been prevented front coming into existence, and others hail been starved out of existence, because it was impossible to get cheap alcohol, which was a very good solvent, and which was necessary for carrying out very many manufacturing processes. There was an unobtrusive but useful body called the Explosives Committee, which had been doing a good deal of useful work during the last three years. They had found themselves face to face with the necessity

  435
  of obtaining an adequate supply of nitrocellulose for the purpose of bringing the powder used in our Navy and Army to perfection, and of encouraging manufacturers to establish their factories in this country, and to make nitro-cellulose, which would be a source of revenue and employment to our people, and a national stand-by in the event of its being necessary to increase our supply of powder. He had the authority of the Secretary of State to move the Clause on behalf of the Explosives Committee, and on their behalf be had had some consultation with the powers that be, and he was not without hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might smile on the Clause, which represented the deliberations of the Explosives Committee. He might say at once that in all matters connected with science and real development in connection with the work of the Explosives Committee, they had always found the Chancellor of the Exchequer most benevolent, and it was really a pleasure to ask him for money. Now when they came to him with a very modest request, not to take away revenue, but to add to the manufactures of the country, which, in themselves, would be good for revenue, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would be equally complacent. The purpose of the Explosives Committee was really to procure pure nitro-cellulose, and to enable people in this country to manufacture it, thereby relieving this country of the necessity of importing it from Germany, from which it was imported without any alcohol, and therefore paid no duty. The difficulty with which the Committee were face to face was that in the present state of the law the Inland Revenue authorities laid a very heavy duty on pure alcohol which rendered it prohibitive for the purposes of the ordinary manufacture, although they allowed the use of alcohol which had been rendered unpotable or undrinkable, and which, for that purpose, was mixed with spirits of wood containing a number of impurities. The Explosives Committee found that that did not merely concern them as producers of explosives, but they found also that it touched six or seven other industries which might become great, and they, therefore, thought it right to go a little out of their way to
  436
  try and do what was best in the manufacturers' interest, and to draw their provision in such a form as to benefit the chemical industry generally. He should like to tell the Committee the state of the law. In the manufacture of knife handles, billiard balls, and those beautiful combs which ladies sometimes were, but which would not bear the proximity of a candle or a match without disastrous consequences, foreign nations had an enormous advantage over this country owing to the necessity of using alcohol with the impurities in it of which he had spoken; and which rendered it impossible to produce in this country knife handles, billiard balls, and combs of that brightness and whiteness which were necessary to enable them to compete with foreign goods. The advantage of the foreigner was that be could get pure alcohol cheap. Germany, which in all matters involving the application of science to practical purposes, whether as regarded education or manufacture was a generation ahead of this country, saw that a long time ago, and the result was that Germany had taken a half a dozen manufactures from us at a very considerable loss. The Amendment would affect not only powder manufacturers, but manufacturers of billiard balls, night candles, combs, and other things resembling ivory. There were also a number of other important manufactures affected. There was the enormous colour industry. The colours used in this country were prepared from coal tar, and involved the free use of alcohol in order to get their full perfection. As the result of the want of facilities for the use of pure alcohol in this country, that industry had practically shifted to Germany. According to figures recently given, eighty per cent. of the colours used by the Bradford dyers were imported from Germany, and that notwithstanding that aniline colours were the invention of a British inventor, and were prepared from British coal tar exported to Germany for the purpose of being manufactured, and then returned to this country. That was an industry which they might hope by the Amendment to help to re-establish in this country. Then be came to another industry—the manufacture of what was called the

  437
  essential oils, and the whole industry of preparing perfumes and scents. That depended enormously on the use of free alcohol—he did not mean alcohol which anybody could get, and do what they liked with, because the Amendment provided the most stringent control of the Inland Revenue authorities with reference to superintending the processes and to seeing that no abuse occurred. The scent and perfume industry in this country was only half what it should be. Take drugs, especially what were called synthetic remedies, composed of various well-known products. Hon. Members had heard of antipyrine for headaches, and sulphonal for sleeplessness, both being occasionally the consequences of their debates. Those valuable commodities, of which doubtless bon. Members had practical knowledge, were scarcely produced in this country at all, owing to the difficulties occasioned by the existing law. Again, all the chloral used in this country had to be made a broad, and as regarded chloroform the case was more disastrous still. Chloroform could be produced in this country, because they had what was tantamount to a Protective duty; but they could not export it. If it were exported to Australia it would cost 2s. 1d. per pound to put it down on the Australian shore; whereas the German manufacturer could put it down at 1s. 1d. That was because people formerly did not understand such things as they were understood today, and it was the business of those who had the interests of the country at heart to lose no opportunity of bringing them forward in order that the necessary changes might be made. Again, the scientists of the country engaged in investigating the secrets of nature were hampered in their work by being unable to get the facilities they required for the use of pure alcohol. That hampered research work in this country, with the result that a great deal of the most valuable research work had to be carried on abroad, where greater freedom was allowed. These facts, he submitted, made out a case for the relaxation of the existing Revenue law; and if the proposed relaxation were made, the condition; imposed by the clause were so stringent as to prevent people from being given; temptation to drink, and it would be
  438
  practically impossible that there could be any abuse. If the clause were carried, it would lead to a larger production of alcohol. That would help the sugar industry, would help the West Indies, and would act as a stimulus to various industries in a manner not realised in this country, but which had been realised in Germany, Switzerland, and America. He hoped, also, it would be, the beginning of a more enlightened educational policy, by restoring to this country a few industries it had lost, but which they ought not to lose sight of. He trusted the Clause would commend itself to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose views on the subject were of a very enlightened kind, and they had endeavoured to frame it in such a fashion as would meet the objections of those who might regard with suspicion any attempt to increase the production of alcohol in this country.
  New Clause—

  (1) "Where, in the case of any art or manufacture carried on by any person in which the use of spirits is required, it shall be proved to the satisfaction of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue that the use of methylated spirits is unsuitable or detrimental, they may, if they think fit, authorise that person to receive spirits without payment of duty, for use in the art or manufacture, upon giving security to their satisfaction that he will use the spirits in the art or manufacture and for no other purpose, and the spirits so used shall be exempt from duty.

  (2) "The authority shall only be granted subject to a compliance with such regulations as the commissioners may require the applicant to observe for the security of the revenue, and upon condition that he will, to the satisfaction of the Commissioners if so required by them, render the spirits unpotable before and during use, and will, from time to time, pay any expenses that may be incurred in placing an officer in charge of his premises.

  (3) "If any person so authorised shall not comply with any regulation which he is required to observe, he shall, in addition to any other fine or liability, incur a line of £50."—(Mr. Haldane.)

  brought up and read a first time.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. COCHRANEsaid he was very glad indeed that the Clause had been brought forward by the hon. and learned Member, who had such unique opportunities for studying

  439
  the question. He thought that it was highly desirable that the hon. and learned Gentleman should have taken up the question of free alcohol—he did not mean alcohol free to the public in any sense, but merely free in a technical sense. The hon. and learned Member, who had had great experience on the Explosives Committee, where he did such valuable service, placed the case of many industries before the Committee. He would only mention one other to illustrate the point. The particular case he wished to mention was the manufacture of fulminate of mercury, which required assistance in the same way, and was used for the making of caps for explosives for the Army and Navy services. He believed the only factory making fulminate of mercury was situated in Scotland. In making it, it was necessary that nitric acid and other ingredients should be dissolved in alcohol. A heavy duty had to be paid on that alcohol, or else methylated spirit had to be used. That spirit consisted of 90 per cent. of free alcohol and 10 per cent. of crude spirit. The latter cost 4s. 10d. a gallon, whereas free alcohol cost only 1s. 10d. The 10 per cent. was not only useless in the process, but it was harmful, because of its deleterious effect on nitric acid. The result was that the English manufacturer was put to an extra cost of something like 8d. or 9d. a gallon, whereas his German competitor was entitled to use the cheapest form of free alcohol without duty. After all, the supply of ammunition to the Army and Navy Was a national industry; but, owing to the advantage possessed by the foreign manufacturer, his imports had increased 100 per cent. in eight years. That was an instance of one of those cases which, although they might appear small in themselves, made a vast difference to the commerce of the country. No possible loss could fall on the Chancellor of the Exchequer by accepting this Clause; and no danger could possibly exist that under it alcohol would be used in any other than a legitimate manner. Manufacturers were perfectly willing to have inspection, and, in their own interests, they would take care that the alcohol was not used in an improper manner, He thought it was not necessary to further urge the question so clearly put forward by the hon. and learned Member,
  440
  and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see his way to take the step proposed in the interests of the commerce of the country.
  MR. CAWLEYsaid he had in his constituency two or three aniline dye manufacturers, and he had often heard of the great disability under which they competed with German and other manufacturers. He had also for many years been a very large buyer of aniline colours, and he could corroborate the statement of his hon. and learned friend that 80 per cent. of the aniline dyes used in this country came from abroad; and there was no doubt that the cost of alcohol had an enormous influence in the production of these colours. If the aniline dye manufacturers of this country could have cheap alcohol, they would certainly be able to compete with the foreigner. Millions of capital and thousands of workmen were employed abroad which ought to be employed in this country. The raw material was exported from this country and imported as dyes. It was owing to the duty on alcohol, and also, perhaps, to bad patent laws, that they had lost many industries of great value; but if the law were altered in the direction indicated they would have a chance of getting them back again.
  COLONEL SADLERsaid that for many years he had been interested in manufactures in which the use of free alcohol, without duty, would have been of very great importance indeed. He could quite see the difficulties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in order that there should be no abuse. He remembered a very painful case within his own experience where alcohol used in a manufacture resulted in great detriment to the workmen employed. The applications of alcohol in manufacture were of a very diverse character and covered a great area of ground; and, speaking from his own experience, the lack of pure alcohol exercised a remarkable influence on the restriction of the trade in which he was interested. An hon. Member opposite spoke of the manufacture of aniline colours, of which he knew a great deal. There were certain colours now produced in

  441
  Germany which were first of all produced in this country, but the manufacture of which had to be transferred to Germany owing to the high price of alcohol. If cheap alcohol could be obtained in this country under suitable restrictions, he was perfectly satisfied that a very important development would take place in many industries. As a solvent it was one of the best for certain specific purposes of any known solvent. Again, as regarded synthetical chemistry, English chemists had not had the opportunity of developing that science which they would have had if pure alcohol could be obtained at a low price. As a motive power it had largely come into use on the Continent. He had never heard that anyone in this country had ever attempted to utilise it for motors or engines, as he had seen it utilised in France. As power for a motor ear, it possessed very great advantages. Alcohol had an agreeable smell, and if more of it were used in an engine than should have been used, there was no objectionable partially combusted material resulting from it. It had been mentioned that perfumes were manufactured from alcohol, and he knew, of his own knowledge, of one perfume which was now manufactured in France, but which was invented in this country, and could not be manufactured here on a large scale simply because alcohol was too expensive He appreciated the difficulties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he felt that a very great advantage would result to many industries if alcohol could be obtained at a comparatively low price. There was one other point he should like to mention, and that was that the flash point of alcohol was very much safer than in the case of any other spirit used for motive power, and in that respect it commended itself to those who did not desire a dangerous article. He hoped, therefore, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would accept the Clause.
  MR. MOULTONsaid after the convincing speeches they had heard on the subject of allowing the free use of alcohol as an instrument of manufacture, he would not have intervened, were it not that he wished to suggest to the Chancellor of
  442
  the Exchequer that, when he was about to take the step which would help to free important manufactures in England from restrictions which were thrown upon them, with the result that they were behindhand as compared with their continental rivals, he should do it thoroughly. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer realised what the hindrance in the way of pure alcohol coming into England was doing in the way of ousting trade from the country, he would suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in removing the restrictions on alcohol, he should also remove the restrictions on other most valuable agents used in manufacture, such as chloroform, sulphuric ether, and acetic ether. These were agents of great importance in many trades. Chemistry had become infinitely more complex since the days when the present statutes were framed. The form of the original statutes has rarely been revised, and the schedules, as far as the articles contained in them were concerned, remained to the present day unaltered. The result was that the chemical manufacturer in England had one hand tied behind him when competing with his foreign rival. Reference had been made to coal tar products. A greater number of reactions occurred in the presence of alcohol than in any other way; in fact, many of them could not occur at all without the presence of alcohol. That was not all. Strangely enough, out of such an unwholesome-looking article as coal tar, they had not only got certain drugs of great value, but they had almost got to such a pitch of knowledge that they could prophesy the existence of drugs of very special qualities which were to be obtained in a particular way from coal tar products. By putting on a heavy tax on pure alcohol, they had made it impossible for the English manufacturer to manufacture pure drugs in this country. But it was not only alcohol that must thus be freed. Sulphuric ether and acetic ether had, in the hands of a skilful chemist, uses almost as numerous as alcohol, and should also be taken into consideration; and manufacturers ought to be informed that they were to have the privilege of using pure agents at cost price which other nations possessed. He trusted that the Chancellor; of the Exchequer, in accepting the clause,

  443
  would consult the very skilful chemists at his command, in order to see whether, at the same time, burdens could not be taken off other agents of great value when used for the purposes of manufacture. The principle of this taxation ought to be to tax alcohol as a luxury, and not when it was used for manufacturing purposes; and, in order that trade might be retained in this country, it ought to be admitted free from taxation. That was the general principle, and he felt sure that the logical mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would carry it further so as to include other re-agents. The articles he had mentioned would not entail any heavy sacrifice on the revenue, but would set free other re-agents besides alcohol when intended to be used as a means of manufacture.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I think the Committee will agree with me that this debate has been one of unusual interest. The hon. and learned Gentleman who initiated it has done admirable service, as a member of the Explosives Committee, to the whole county, and I do not think that the least of the services rendered by the hon. and learned Gentleman has been the manner in which he has brought this matter forward this evening. I feel very much the responsibility of my position as Chancellor of the Exchequer in this matter. Nothing could be worse, to my mind, than that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day should, in the idea of favouring or improving trade in this country, give opportunities for the use of alcohol in such a way as would increase drunkenness in the country. I do not speak of the revenue alone, although that is a matter of great importance; but, I must confess, I was struck by a sentence which fell from my hon. friend the Member for Middlesborough, in which he spoke of a case in which the use of alcohol without payment of duty had been by no means conducive to the benefit of the persons employed in a factory. However that may be, I have carefully investigated the probable effect of the clause proposed by the hon. Gentleman opposite, and I think it is a clause to which I may safely and
  444
  properly assent. I do not wish now to enter into the further matter very properly brought before the Committee by so high an authority as the hon. Member for Launceston, but I will see if it is possible to extend the clause in the manner suggested. This may require a longer time for consideration than will elapse before the Report stage, and I will not definitely promise that anything shall be done in the present session. But I am sure the Committee will feel that the law on this subject is somewhat antiquated, that chemistry, and science generally, have made enormous strides since it was passed, and that it may well be that the progress of our industries may be hindered and their development prevented by the present restrictions in a manner never anticipated by those who framed them, and which the Government will be bound to examine into with a view to a remedy. In the meantime, I have great pleasure in agreeing to the clause.
  MR. CAINEsaid that, on behalf of the temperance party, he did not see any serious objection to the general principle involved in the Amendment which was moved in the statesmanlike and picturesque speech by his hon. and learned friend. But he was rather disappointed at the Chancellor of the Exchequer accepting the proposal without going further in the way of precautions and safeguards, which would undoubtedly be necessary if the clause were to be admitted into the present Bill. He thought it would be very much wiser, and quite as effectual in the long run, if, instead of accepting the Amendment, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had promised to bring in a short Bill dealing with the matter comprehensively, which could be sent to the Grand Committee on Trade, and experts sent with it, and the whole matter threshed out. He saw several I dangers in the acceptance of the Amendment, regarding which he thought they ought to have had some more information. It had been suggested that scents and perfumery should be allowed to contain alcohol duty free. There was, however, no doubt whatever that there was a distinct line of drunkenness in this country which proceeded directly from scents and perfumery. In India it had

  445
  reached such a stage that the Government had to largely increase the duty on scents and perfumery in order to restrict their use. A line of drunkenness, which was one of the most serious problems with which temperance reformers had to deal, and which, speaking from a wide knowledge of inebriate homes, he could say was very prevalent amongst women, was chloral drunkenness, which was well known to every medical man. Then there was a distinct line, especially in Ireland, of ether drunkenness as well. He himself had come across many most pitiable cases, especially among women, and it was one of the most difficult forms of intoxication with which temperance reformers had to deal. They had been told with regard to paints and colours that the form of alcohol now admitted free was not satisfactory, but it was impossible to touch all these questions on an Amendment to the Finance Bill. It would have been very much better if, instead of accepting the Amendment, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had promised to bring in a Bill which could be properly looked into. For his own part he trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take very wise and careful precautions to prevent the improper use of alcohol in the interests of the revenue as well as of the sobriety of the country; and he hoped that when the Committee agreed to assent to a proposition of such a far-reaching kind, they would realise their responsibilities.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I do not think the hon. Member has read this Clause carefully. The object of the Clause, as I understand the position, is that in certain manufactures the obligation to use methylated spirit really does prevent proper development. Does the hon. Gentleman admit that?
  MR. CAINE: Quite.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: That being so, the second paragraph of the Clause provides that—
  "The authority shall only be granted subject to a compliance with such regulations as the Commissioners may require the applicant to observe for the security of the revenue, and upon condition that he will, to the satisfaction of the Commissioners if so required by them, lender the spirits impotable before and during use."
  446
  I am bound to say that I think the Clause as it stands gives full authority to the Inland Revenue to take all necessary precautions to prevent abuse. I will, moreover, undertake that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue will work this clause in a very tentative manner, so as to secure that proper experience of its working shall be acquired before any abuse can possibly occur.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid he was inclined to think that the apprehension of his hon. friend was exaggerated. As to his hon. friend's allusion to ether drinking in Ireland, that practice did prevail to an alarming extent in the ultra-loyal part of Ulster, though whether there was any necessary connection between the locality and the practice he could not say. His hon. friend the Member for East Cavan was a manufacturer of excellent whisky, the sale of which was no doubt rather interfered with by the indulgence in another form of alcohol. He had heard of two theories to explain the consumption of ether in Ulster. One was that some eminent teetotalers, like his hon. friend, put so many restrictions on the sale of whisky that the unfortunate people were driven to resort to some other form of alcohol. The other reason was that drunkenness produced by ether was cheaper, and could be more frequently repeated, than drunkenness resulting from whisky. He could, however, inform his hon. friend that drunkenness had largely diminished in Ireland. His hon. friend did not quite appear to appreciate the vast importance of the question from a manufacturing point of view. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough referred to the use of alcohol as a motive power in France. France was ahead of this country in many respects, and the French had solved the problem of constructing motor cars to be driven by alcohol, and some of the best motor cars were now driven in that way. Then, again, alcohol was also used in France as an illuminant. He read of a case recently in which the electric light supply in a large shop failed at twelve o'clock, but at six o'clock in the evening the shop was perfectly lighted with alcohol lamps. It would be impossible at present

  447
  to utilise alcohol for that purpose in England, owing to the difficulties which surrounded its use. He believed that some of the best spirit, other than for drinking purposes, could be produced from potatoes. Anything that touched potatoes touched Ireland, and, therefore, he would support the Amendment, because it would be a great relief to agriculturists if potatoes could be used for producing alcohol to be employed in the manufactures of the country. He was glad the Chancellor of the Exchequer had accepted the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member, whose services had not received more than their due recognition.
  MR. NORMANsaid there was one question which closely concerned his constituents, and that was whether it would be possible, under the Clause, to introduce into this country on more favourable conditions the form of solidified alcohol known as spiritine. He was told that spiritine had a very largo popular use in Germany for certain domestic purposes, but that it could not be used in this country owing to the high duty imposed on it. The point was one of considerable interest to many manufacturers in his division, who were prepared to put upon the market the appliances for using spiritine. With reference to the use of alcohol for motor cars, the hon. Member for the Scotland Division overlooked the fact that alcohol was cheaper in France than petrol, owing to the heavy tax upon the latter, although the contrary was the case in England.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I do not like to answer the question of the hon. Member offhand, but I confess I do not wish at present to agree to any extension of the Clause.
  MR. MOULTONsaid that, if he mistook not, spiritine was a mixture of alcohol with a little resin and a certain amount of soap, and was used largely, he believed, for the purpose of heating curling tongs. No doubt it was also used for other purposes, but if there was anything in which a little methylated spirit would do no harm it was spiritine, as it would not make any difference to its inflammability. With regard to the
  448
  fears of his hon. friend the Member for the Camborne Division that the operation of the Clause might lead to abuse, he should like to point out that in almost all the uses of alcohol in manufacture, so soon as it was added to the vat it was just as unpotable as if methylated spirit had been added to it, and, therefore, so soon as it came into actual use all danger that it might be abused would disappear.
  MR. HALDANEalso assured his hon. friend that he need be under no anxiety. In Germany, where chemistry was carried to a very high state of perfection, they used acids and other chemical compounds in particular industries, which, while they did no damage to the alcohol, rendered it absolutely unpotable.
  MR. CAINEsaid he had no intention of opposing the Amendment. All he desired to do was to satisfy himself that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the advocates of the scheme were aware of the danger which really existed.
  Clause read a second time.
  On the Question, "That the Clause be added to the Bill":
  MR. M'KENNA MR. M'KENNA moved to omit the words. "and upon condition that he will, to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, if so required by them, render the spirits unpotable before and during use." In the first two lines of the sub-clause the Commissioners were given full power to require the applicant to do anything necessary for the security of the revenue. That was a general power. Immediately after the general power the Commissioners were given this limited power. He had always understood that where a general power was given, and then subsequently a limited power of the same sort, the limited power confined the operation of the general power, and he should say that under the two powers as they now stood the authority of the Commissioners was limited instead of increased by the words of which he moved the omission. If he was

  449
  wrong in that contention, and if it was possible for the Commissioners to render the alcohol unpotable in every case without detriment to its quality for manufacturing purposes, then he thought the condition should be made absolute. As a matter of form, he moved to omit the words.
  Amendment proposed—
  New Clause, line 11, to omit the words "and upon condition that he will, to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, if so required by them, render the spirits unpotable before and during use." (Mr. M'Kenna.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed new Clause.
  MR. HALDANEthought it desirable that the words should be retained, because they called the attention of the Commissioners to the desirability in every ease in which it was possible of rendering the stuff absolutely unpotable. But there were eases in which the alcohol used could not be rendered unpotable, but it, disappeared out of the finished product, or changed its nature so that it could not be extracted and used for drinking purposes. Those were the cases in which the Commissioners were to have this discretionary power. Before the Explosives Committee it had been stated that nitrocellulose, which was the basis of cordite, could not be prepared in its finest qualities, except with absolutely pure alcohol, but it was prepared in Germany under conditions which ensured that no alcohol should remain in the finished product, and prevented the workmen getting at the stuff in the course of manufacture. These were cases which might well occur in this country, and it was desirable that a, free hand should be left to the Inland Revenue authorities to deal with them. He had no doubt that the permission would be granted most sparingly, and only under the most stringent control.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause added.
  Schedule 1—
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS(10.55.) MR. HERBERT LEWIS (Flint Boroughs) moved to omit "wheat." There were many on that side of the House who regarded this particular part of the Bill as the very worst feature in it, and he looked upon the word, of which he now moved the omission, as the blackest spot in the entire Budget. The question was of immense importance, because it practically revolutionised the whole fiscal policy of the country. There was a distinction between wheat and the other articles to which the Schedule referred, inasmuch as wheat was an article of human consumption, whilst other articles were used only for animal consumption, and those who would have to pay the duty on the latter were much better able to afford it than many of those who would have to pay the tax on wheat. In the case of bread, the duty fell with altogether disproportionate severity upon the poorer class, because their diet was far more largely composed of bread than anything else. The tax had been called a graduated tax, but it was graduated in exactly the wrong direction, because the rich would pay the least, and the poor the most. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in defending this portion of the tax, had declared that every person who could maintain himself was bound to contribute towards the expenditure of the State. Every Member of the House would agree with that proposition. But, as a, matter of tact, did not such persons already contribute very largely indeed in proportion to their means? The Customs and Excise duties amounted to £62,593,000, an enormous proportion of which was paid by the working classes. The rich man could not drink twice as much tea, beer, or whiskey, or consume twice as much tobacco, as the working man. The consumption of these articles, upon which the Customs and Excise duties were levied, depended upon the physical ability of the individual to consume rather than upon his ability to pay, so that the poor man paid practically the same as the rich man upon such articles. The canon of the Chancellor of the

  451
  Exchequer was, therefore, fully met, because at the present time the working classes, in proportion to their means, contributed not only their full share but more than their full share of the taxation of the country. The Opposition had been twitted with having no alternatives to offer. In this case no alternative was needed. The right hon. Gentleman was relieved of the pressure which until recently had weighed upon him, and there was no reason whatever why he should make such an enormous change in the fiscal policy of the country as was involved in the imposition of a tax of this character. Taxes of that kind should be left to the very last extremity, and should be admitted only, say, when the country was threatened by a great combination of Powers, and it was necessary to make every possible effort to repel the invader at all cost. But there was no such pressure, and, moreover, an amount of money had been borrowed which was not actually required for the expenditure of the year, and yet the tax was maintained. Several alternatives had been suggested, such as an additional penny on the income tax—
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The hon. Member is not entitled to reopen the whole question of the tax. The Committee has decided that there is to be a tax on grain; the only question is as to what grain. The hon Member must find arguments to show that wheat ought not to be included amongst the grain.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIScontended that as wheat was the only component of bread, which was the chief food of the working classes, further taxation ought to have been imposed on luxuries rather than on wheat. The natural effect of an increase in the price of broad would be, in many eases, to drive families to seek outdoor or indoor relief, and, by that means, to increase the load of the already overburdened taxpayer. He regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in imposing this tax on wheat, had given away the very citadel of our great free Trade policy. He had always regarded the right hon. Gentleman as the champion of Tree Trade, and he could not help protesting when he saw him handing over
  452
  the keys of the citadel to the enemy. The Chancellor had been regarded as the bulwark against these economic heresies, and now that that bulwark had gone, the ship of State was in much worse case. He trusted the Committee would see the advisability, if not at present, at some future time, of repealing the tax on wheat—a tax which he felt convinced would result in impairing the physical vitality of the population, especially in the larger towns, lower the stamina of the nation, and bring nothing but economic disaster, if pursued to its logical conclusion.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 5, line 5, to leave out the word 'Wheat.'"—(Mr. Herbert Lewis)
  Question proposed—"That the word 'Wheat' stand part of the Schedule."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACHhoped the hon. Member would not consider him wanting in courtesy if he declined to follow him into arguments which the Committee had heard over and over again, and to which he had given the best answers in his power. He would not occupy the time of the Committee by repeating those answers, for the simple reason that the Committee had already decided that there should be a duty on grain, and the only question was what grain. If that meant anything at all it meant a tax on wheat. He, therefore, could not accept the Amendment.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONwas glad the Amendment had been moved, and he hoped that on each of the different articles they would have a short discussion and take a division, because the proposal to impose this tax was by far the most retrograde fiscal step which had been taken in the last fifty years. Though they accepted to the fullest extent the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they were not content that this tax was introduced only for revenue purposes. In regard to flour, differential treatment had already been brought in. He looked upon this retrograde step with such suspicion that he should vote

  453
  against each article as it came up in the Schedule, and he hoped all on that side would do the same.
  MR. M'KENNAsaid that he entirely agreed with what had fallen from the hon. Member for Poplar in regard to these Amendments. He was quite aware that the same arguments applied to most of the Amendments to this Clause but he thought that they ought, as a protest against this tax upon food, to divide the House upon this Amendment and so far as the other Amendments which stood in his name were concerned he should insist upon a division on each of them.
  MR. NORMANsaid that before this debate was concluded he desired to call attention to certain arguments by which this tax had been defended. In reply to his right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had stated that a tax upon wheat would not ultimately fall upon the consumer. He said—
  "The idea that this tax must fall upon the consumer I can assure the hon. Gentleman is an economic heresy of the grossest character, and he really ought to brush up his political economy which at one time was all that could be desired."
  Mr. Mill was a well-known authority upon political economy and he says—
  "A tax on any one commodity, whether laid on its production, its importation, its carriage from place to place, or its sale, and whether the tax be a fixed sum of money for a given quantity of the commodity, or an ad valorem duty, will, as a general rule, raise the value and price of the commodity by at least the amount of the tax.
  Further on Mr. Mill says—
  "In these several modes, taxes on commodities often cost to the consumer, through the increased price of the article, much more than they bring into the Treasury of the State.
  "Such taxes bring less into the public Treasury, compared with what they take from the consumers, than any other imports to which civilised nations are usually subject."
  The right hon. Gentleman might say that Mr. Mill was rather an old fashioned authority, and he had therefore provided himself with one or two more modern authorities and one of them was Professor
  454
  Nicholson, who said in the Encyclopœdia Britannica:—
  "When production taxes take place under free competition the tax will, owing to the tendency of profits to equality, be transferred to the consumer."
  There was a still more modern authority in Mr. Elliott, the Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, who in the Dictionary of Political Economy stated that—
  "It is usually considered that the burden of Customs' duties will fall eventually upon the consumers."
  He ventured to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should brush up his own political economy. In his Budget speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he was certain that the price of bread would not rise in consequence of this tax; yet on the other hand he said that the basis of taxation was to be broadened by taxing articles of universal consumption. It was only fair that the right hon. Gentleman should tell the Committee upon which foot in this matter he had elected to stand. Hon. Gentlemen opposite had see-sawed in their arguments on this point, but the hon. Member for Oldham—
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The hon. Member seems to have forgotten that the Committee have decided by passing the first clause that the tax shall be imposed upon grain. The only question now is whether wheat is to be excluded, and the hon. Member is not entitled to go back upon the decision of the Committee.
  MR. NORMANsaid that he was endeavouring to answer the arguments of hon. Gentlemen in favour of taxing wheat.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I do not think the hon. Member is entitled to go back and answer speeches which were delivered upon a former occasion.
  MR. NORMANsaid he thought he should be in order in endeavouring to show that wheat should not be taxed, but he would bow to the Chairman's ruling and leave that branch of the

  455
  subject. In conclusion, he would like to quote another sentence used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said that doubtless attempts would be made to fan the flames of popular prejudice against taxing the bread of the people. For his own part, he desired to add that in view of this tax upon wheat casting burdens upon the very poor, and remembering that now the door to Protection, which they thought
  had been closed for ever was again being opened; and in spite of the gibes of the right hon. Gentleman about their ignorance of political economy, he proposed to fan these flames just as long and as hard as he could.
  (11.23.) Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 200; Noes, 122. Division List No. 218.

  AYES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Lawson, John Grant

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.

  Legge, Col. Hon Heneage

  Arrol, Sir William

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Fellowes, Hon Ailwyn Edward

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

  Fergusson, Rt Hn. Sir J (Manc'r

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Balcarres, Lord

  Finch, George H.

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Firbank, Joseph Thomas

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S)

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Lowther, C. (Cumb. Eskdale)

  Beach, Rt Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

  Flower, Ernest

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Brownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Forster, Henry William

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

  Bignold, Arthur

  Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S W.

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Bigwood, James

  Galloway, William Johnson

  MacIver, David Liverpool)

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Brassey, Albert

  Gordon, Hn. J. E (Elgin & Nairn)

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlt's

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.)

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Gore, Hn. G R C. Ormsby-(Salop

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

  Butcher, John George

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Linc.)

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

  Cavendish, V. C W. (Derbyshire

  Green, Walford D. (Wednesb'ry

  Maxwell, W J H (Dumfriesshire

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Middlemore, Jno. Throgmorton

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Gretton, John

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm.

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

  Groves, James Grimble

  More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Morgan, David J (Walthamst'w

  Chapman, Edward

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  Morgan, Hn. Fred (Monm'thsh.

  Charrington, Spencer

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. (Mid'x.

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Hamilton, Marq of (L'ndsnderry

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Hanbury, Rt Hon. Robe'rt Wm.

  Mount, William Arthur

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Harris, Fredrick Leverton

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Helder, Augustus

  Newdigate, Francis Alexander

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Henderson, Alexander

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Peel, Hn Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Crossley, Sir Saville

  Hoult, Joseph

  Pilkington, Lieut.-Col Richard

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Howard, John (Kent, Faversh'm

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Denny, Colonel

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Dewar, T R (T'rH'mlets, S. Geo.

  Jackson, Rt. Hon. Wm. Lawies

  Purvis, Robert

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Randles, John S.

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

  Rankin, Sir James

  Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

  Keswick, William

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Kimber, Henry

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Renwick, George

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Salybridg

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson

  Stock, James Henry

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Sturt, Hon. Humphrey Napier

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Wills, Sir Frederick

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Talbot, Rt Hn. J G. (Oxfd Univ.

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Round, James

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.)

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath)

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Valentia, Viscount

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Smith, H C (North'mb, Tyneside

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Webb, Colonel William George

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES— Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.)

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Hayne, Rt Hn. Charles Seale-

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Allen, Charles P. (Glouc., Stroud

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.)

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  O'Malley, William

  Bayley, Thomas Derbyshire

  Horniman, Frederick George

  O'Mara, James

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Boland, John

  Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  O'Shee, James John

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

  Joyce, Michael

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Lambert, George

  Rea, Russell

  Butcher, John George

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Caine, William Sproston

  Leamy, Edmund

  Reddy, M.

  Caldwell, James

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Leng, Sir John

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Levy, Maurice

  Runciman, Walter

  Cawley, Frederick

  Lough, Thomas

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Lundon, W.

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Cogan, Denis J.

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Craig, Robert Hunter

  M'Arthur' William (Cornwall)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Crean, Eugene

  M'Cann, James

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Delany, William

  M'Crae, George

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Dillon, John

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Spencer, Rt Hn. C R. (Northants

  Doogan, P. C.

  M'Kean, John

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  M'Killop W. (Sligo, North)

  Sullivan, Donal

  Emmott, Alfred

  M'Laren, Charles Benjamin

  Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gower

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Mansfield, Horace Rendall

  Thompson, Dr E C (Monagh'n, N

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glanmorgan)

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Toulmin, George

  Fenwick, Charles

  Mooney, John J.

  Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Ffrench, Peter

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Murphy, John

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Gilhooly, James

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Young, Samuel

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipp'rary Mid

  Haldane, Richard Burdon

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Mr. Herbert Lewis and Mr. Norman.

  Hammond, John

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  MR. CHANNING(11.35.) MR. CHANNING moved to omit "Barley" from the Schedule He said he did so mainly in the interests of the stock farmers of the country. Those who were familiar with the difficulties which were experienced by agriculturists
  458
  during the latter period of the great depression which had occurred, in the last ten or twelve years, knew that nothing helped the stock farmers so much as the low price of foreign barley. In support of this view the hon. Member quoted the

  459
  evidence given before the Agricultural Commission by Mr. James Stratton, one of the ablest and most successful of the stock farmers in the country, who had in the worst times farmed more than 5000 acres in the South of England with a large capital. He stated to the Commission that the best policy for the farmer was to sell off his own crops, and to buy feeding stuffs from abroad, so that he might get a workable profit on his farm. In perhaps the worst years of the series the stock and dairy farmers had been able to buy Russian barley at four guineas the ton, and thus tide over the bad times. He thought it was pertinent to show to the Committee that serious injury would be done to the British Agriculturist by the imposition of the tax on corn
  imported from abroad. Certain kinds of foreign barley were also of extreme value to brewers for producing light and fine qualities of beer. On both those grounds, he thought a considerable amount of argument could be advanced for the exclusion of bailey from the tax. He begged to move—
  Amendment proposed.
  "In page 5, line 6, to leave out the word 'Barley.'"—(Mr. Channing.)
  (11.38.) Question put. "That the word 'Barley' stand part of the Schedule."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 210; Noes, 118. (Division List No. 219.)

  AYES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir. A. F.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Grenville, Hon. Ronald

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Groves, James Grimble

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Crossley, Sir Savile

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Arrol, Sir William

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Bagot, Capt. Jos'line FitzRoy

  Denny, Colonel

  Hamilton, Rt Hn. L'd G. (Midd'x

  Balcarres, Lord

  Dewar, T. R. (T'rH'mlets, S. G.

  Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'derry

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manc'r)

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

  Hanbury, Rt. Hn. Robert W.

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds)

  Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Balfour, Ken'th R. (Christch.)

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Helder, Augustus

  Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Mic'l Hicks

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Henderson, Alexander

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Bignold, Arthur

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.

  Bigwood, James

  Durning Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Bri'side)

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.

  Hoult, Joseph

  Brassey, Albert

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Houston, Robert Paterson

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edw.

  Howard, Jno. (Kent, Faversh.)

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Man.

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham

  Butcher, John George

  Finch, George H.

  Hudson, George Bickersteth)

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Finlay, Sir Robt. Bannatyne

  Jackson, Rt. Hn. Wm. Lawies

  Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

  Firbank, Joseph Thomas

  Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop)

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Keswick, William

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Flower, Ernest

  Kimber, Henry

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Forster, Henry William

  Lambton, Hon. Freder'k Wm.

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.

  Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S. W.)

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Chamberlain, J. Aust. (Worc'r)

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fred.

  Lawson, John Grant

  Chapman, Edward

  Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead)

  Charrington, Spencer

  Gordon, Maj. Evans-(T'rH'mle.

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Gore, Hn. G. R C. Ormsby-(Salop

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Cochrane, Hn. Thos, H. A. E.

  Gore, Hn. S. F. Ormsby-(Linc.)

  Leveson-Gower, Fred K N. S.

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Gorst, Rt. Hn. Sir John Eldon

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Colomb, Sir Jno. Chas. Ready

  Green, Walford, D. (Wednes'y

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsb'y)

  Long, Rt. Hn. Wal'r (Bris'l S.)

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.)

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Gronfell, William Henry

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Cox, Irwin Edw. Bainbridge

  Gretton, John

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsm'th

  Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Rich'd

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Talbot, Rt Hn. J. G. (Oxfd Univ.

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Thornton, Percy M.

  M'Arthur, Chas. (Liverpool)

  Purvis, Robert

  Tollemache, Henry James

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim E.

  Randles, John S.

  Tomlinson, Wm. Ed. Murray

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

  Rankin, Sir James

  Valentia, Viscount

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Warde, Colonel C. E.

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

  Renwick, George

  Wason, John Carth. (Orkney)

  Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumf'shire

  Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybr'dge

  Webb, Colonel William Geo.

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomp.

  Welby, Sir Chas. G. E. (Notts.

  Middlemore, John Throgmor'n

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Whiteley, H. (As'tonund. Lyne

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire

  Round, James

  Willoughby, de Eresby, Lord

  Morgan, David J. (Walt'stow)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Wills, Sir Frederick

  Morgan, Hn. Fred. (Monm'ths.

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Wilson, A. Stan. (York, E. R.)

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Wilson, J. W. (Wor'tersh' N.)

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Dept.)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.

  Mount, William Arthur

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.)

  Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath)

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Smith, H C (North'mb, Tyn'side

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Murray, Rt Hn. A Graham (Bute

  Smith, Jas. Parker (Lanarks)

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Spear, John Ward

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Newdigate, Francis Alexander

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Stewart, Sir Mk. J. M'Taggart

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES— Sir Wm. Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Stock, James Henry

  Peel, Hn. Wm. Rob. Wellesley

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  AYES.

  Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Allen, Chas. P. (Glouc., Stroud)

  Hayne, Rt. Hn. Charles Seale-

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Hemphill, Rt. Hn. Chas. H.

  Norman, Henry

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol E.)

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipp'ary Mid.

  Beaumont, Wentworth, C. B.

  Hope, Jno. Deans (Fife, West)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Boland, John

  Horniman, Frederick John

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary N.)

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow W.

  Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

  O'Kelly, Jas. (Roscommon, N.)

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Joyce, Michael

  O'Malley, William

  Caine, William Sproston

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  O'Mara, James

  Caldwell, James

  Lambert, George

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.

  O'Shee, James John

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Leamy, Edmund

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Leese, Sir Jos. F. (Accrington)

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Cawley, Frederick

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Cogan, Denis J.

  Leng, Sir John

  Rea, Russell

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  Levy, Maurice

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Craig, Robert Hunter

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Reddy, M.

  Crean, Eugene

  Lough, Thomas

  Redmond, Jno. E. (Waterford)

  Delany, William

  Lundon, W.

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Dillon, John

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Doogan, P. C.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  M'Arthur, Wm. (Cornwall)

  Runciman, Walter

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  M'Cann, James

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Emmott, Alfred

  M'Crae, George

  Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  M'Hugh, Patrick A

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Evans, Sir Fran. H. (Maidston

  M'Kean, John

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Fenwick, Charles

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  M'Laren, Charles Benjamin

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Ffreneh, Peter

  Manslield, Horace Rendall

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Gilhooly, James

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R. (N'thants)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Mooney, John J.

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Hammond, John

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire

  Sullivan, Donal

  Harmsworth, R. Leicester

  Murphy, John

  Thomas J. A. (Glamor. Gower

  462

  463

  Toulmin George

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Mr. Channing and Mr. Broadhurst.

  Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth

  White, Patrick (Meath, N.

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I think it would be for the convenience of the House if the right hon. Gentleman would state what course the Government intend to follow in regard to the further progress of this Bill. I may say at once that I understand there will be a certain amount of discussion on the subject of maize. I think it would be a convenient course to stop the further consideration of the Bill tonight when we get to maize.
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I always desire to meet the convenience of the House; but the Government are put in a position of considerable difficulty by the statements of hon. Members below the gangway that there is an intention to divide on every one of the items in the Schedule. That is not fair Parliamentary opposition. If we are to be met in that way, we shall have to take the necessary measures to meet these tactics. That is not our wish at all. Our wish is to proceed with the Bill in the ordinary way by fair discussion, and divisions, of course, when necessary. Therefore I would suggest that, if we are met fairly we would agree to report progress tonight before coming to the item of maize. Then we would put down the Bill for Monday and commence wit maize on that day, on the understanding that the debate in Committee would be concluded on that day. If that meets with approval I shall put down the Report for Wednesday, to enable hon. Members to out down any Amendments that may be necessary on the Report stage.
  SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I fully acknowledge the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman has met my hon. friends on this side of the House. I can assure him with regard to anything that has been said, that it may have been a rhetorical outburst, and the very natural expression of the strong feeling that exists, but there is no desire to pursue any extreme or extravagant
  464
  course, and I think the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman is one that might very well be accepted.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: The point which the Irish Members are chiefly interested in in the remaining portion of this Schedule is the question of maize. We are exceedingly anxious that the debate on that should not be taken at this hour of the night, and that it should be taken at the commencement of the sitting on Monday. Therefore I welcome the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and so far as my friends and myself are concerned, if that arrangement can be made, we shall not interfere in any way with the possibility of concluding the debate in Committee on the Bill on Monday. I hope the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman, which personally I think is a reasonable one, will be carried out.
  MR. LOUGH MR. LOUGH moved to omit "oats" from the Schedule. In view of the additional cost of about £1 per horse per annum which this duty would impose on cab proprietors and hackney carriage owners, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had recently promised a deputation that something must be done to meet their case. The right hon. Gentleman stated that the tax on oats was one which the cab proprietors would not be able to pass on to others, their difficulty being that their fares were limited by Act of Parliament and other arrangements. He stated that possibly their case would not be met by an alteration of the tax but by some other means. He said he would see the Home Secretary in regard to it. The hon. Member could only assume that the right hon. Gentleman intended to remit the hackney carriage tax. He asked the Chancellor to state what he meant by that definite promise.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 5, line 7, to leave out the word 'oats.'"—(Mr. Channing.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'oats' stand part of the Schedule."
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I will only say that I do not think the hon. Member is justified in saying that I made any promise whatever in this matter. What I did say was that I would examine into the matter in view of the restrictions placed upon the charges of cab proprietors. In the course of that examination I had to consider
  the case of cab proprietors in other places. My own impression after the examination which I have made on the subject is that it is not possible to deal with the matter in the way I had contemplated, and that in no case ought I to give a remission of the tax on oats.
  (12.3.) Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 199; Noes, 114. (Division List No. 220.)

  AYES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Lawrence, Wm. E. (Liverpool)

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Lawson, John Grant

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Lees, Sir Elliot (Birkenhead)

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Arrol, Sir William

  Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Balcarres, Lord

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r

  Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r

  Lockwood, Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Finch, George H.

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S)

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Lowther, C. (Cumb. Eskdale)

  Beach, Rt Hn Sir Michael Hicks

  Flower, Ernest

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Beckett, Ernest William

  Forster, Henry William

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Bignold, Arthur

  Galloway, William Johnson

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Bigwood, James

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Bond, Edward

  Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'ml'ts

  M'Calmont, Col. J. (Antrim, E.

  Brassey, Albert

  Gore, Hn G. R. C. Ormsby-(Salop

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Linc)

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Bull, William James

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F.

  Butcher, John George

  Green, Walford D (Wednesbury

  Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

  Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

  Middlemore, Jno. Throgmorton

  Cavendish V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Gretton, John

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Groves, James Grimble

  Morgan, David J (Walthamst' w

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Morgan, Hn. Fred. (Monm'thsh.

  Chamberlain, J. Austen (Worc'r

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Chapman, Edward

  Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. (Mid'x

  Morton, Arthur H. A. (Deptford

  Charrington, Spencer

  Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry

  Mount, William Arthur

  Clive, Capt. Percy A.

  Hanbury, Rt Hon. Robert Wm.

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Murray, Rt Hn A. Graham (Bute

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Newdigate, Francis Alexander

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Helder, Augustus

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Henderson, Alexander

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.

  Peel, Hn Wm. Robert Wellesley

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Hoult, Joseph

  Plummer, Walter R.

  Crossley, Sir Savile

  Howard, Jno. (Kent, Faversham

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Johnstone, Hey wood (Sussex)

  Purvis, Robert

  Davenport, William Bromley-

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop

  Randles, John S.

  Denny, Colonel

  Keswick, William

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

  Kimber, Henry

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Renwick, George

  Dorington, Sir John Edward

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Ridley, Hon. M. W (Stalybridge

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Stock, James Henry

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Sturt, Hon. Humphry Napier

  Wills, Sir Frederick

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.

  Round, James

  Talbot, Rt Hn J. G. (Oxf'd Univ.

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.

  Sadler, Col-Samuel Alexander

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Wodehouse, Rt Hn. E. R. (Bath)

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Tomlinson, Wm. Edw. Murray

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Smith, H C (North'mb, Tyneside

  Warde, Colouel C. E.

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Spear, John Ward

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES, Sir William Walrond and Mr. Anstruther.

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Whiteley, H (Ashton und. Lyne

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

  Allen, Charles P (Glouc, Stroud

  Hope, John Deans (Fife, West)

  O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Horniman, Frederick John

  O'Malley, William

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  O'Mara, James

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Jones, Dav. Brynmor (Swansea

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Boland, John

  Jones, William (Carnarvonsh.

  O'Shee, James John

  Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

  Joyce, Michael

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Lambert, George

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Leamy, Edmnnd

  Rea, Russell

  Caine, William Sproston

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Caldwell, James

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Reddy, M.

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Leng, Sir John

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Levy, Maurice

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Cawley, Frederick

  Lundon, W.

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Charming, Francis Allston

  MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

  Runciman, Walter

  Cogan, Denis J.

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Condon, Thomas Joseph

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

  Craig, Robert Hunter

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Crean, Eugene

  M'Cann, James

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Delany, William

  M'Crae, George

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Dillon, John

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Doogan, P. C.

  M'Kean, John

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Spencer, Rt Hn. C. R. (Northants

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  M'Laren, Charles Benjamin

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Evans, Sir Francis H (Maidst'ne

  Mansfield, Horace Rendall

  Strachey, Sir Edward

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Sullivan, Donal

  Fenwick, Charles

  Mooney, John J.

  Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gower

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)

  Thompson, Dr. E C (Monagh'n, N

  Ffrench, Peter

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

  Toulmin, George

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Murphy, John

  Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

  Gilhooly, James

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  Norman, Henry

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Hammond, John

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tip'erary Mid

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Harmsworth, R. Leicester

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES. Mr. Lough and Mr. Pirie.

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  MR. FLYNN MR. FLYNN moved to omit "maize" from the Schedule.
  Amendment proposed—
  "In page 5, line 9, to leave out the word maize.'"—(Mr. Flynn.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'maize' stand part of the Schedule."
  Committee report progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
  Adjourned at twenty minutes after Twelve o'clock.