WAYS AND MEANS [19TH APRIL] REPORT.

HC Deb 27 April 1904 vol 133 cc1309-64

Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment proposed [26th April] to First Resolution. "That, in lieu of the duty of Customs now payable on tea, there shall be charged, on and after the 20th day of April. 1904. until the first day of August. 1905. the following duty (that is to say):—

Tea, the pound…Eight pence."—

Which Amendment was— To leave out the words 'Eight pence,' and insert the words 'Six pence.'"—(Mr. Lough.)

Question again proposed, "That the words 'Eight pence' stand part of the said Resolution."

* MR. WEIR (Ross and Cromarty)

said that at twelve o'clock on the previous night, when under the Rules of the House the debate stood adjourned, he was referring to the great hardships which would be suffered by people in his own constituency in consequence of the increased duty on tea, and he had referred to the hundreds of thousands of struggling widows, sempstresses, young girls. and others employed in various occupations at small wages who would be prejudiced by this additional burden. These people, it ought to be remembered, lived to a very large extent on bread and tea, and therefore this extra duty on tea was nothing else than a cruel tax. He had pointed out that poor people were in the habit of buying their tea by the ounce, for which they had to pay a penny, and if they were still to obtain tea of the same quality the price would necessarily go up to five farthings. Now, it was not likely that they would be able to pay that increased price, and the result would be that they would have palmed off upon them an inferior quality of tea. Their duty was to encourage people to drink a better quality of tea, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to do all he could to prevent the common tea coming into the market, because it was a well-known fact that bad tea had a most injurious effect. In the Highlands, especially, it was the custom to keep the teapot all day long in the midst of burning peats, and the result of having a commoner quality of tea would be that the tannin would be extracted to the utmost grain to the injury of the digestive organs of those who consumed the liquor. He was afraid the Chancellor of the Exchequer knew practically nothing about the miseries of the poor. He did not understand what it was to have a family treasury without a penny in it. He could not realise what a gift of a penny or twopence represented to some families, and how they looked upon it as a godsend. Supposing they suddenly came into possession of twopence, what occurred? The little boy who was fleetest of foot was at once despatched to the local grocery store to get a halfpennyworth of tea or a pennyworth of bread, while possibly the other halfpenny had to be spent on a candle. Could the right hon. Gentleman appreciate what life was under such circumstances?

There was another class of people who were likely to be injuriously affected by this additional duty, the working men who. in the very early hours of the morning, were accustomed to get a cup of tea at the stalls in the street on their way to work. He had himself personal experience of what occurred at these stalls, and he knew how much a good cup of tea was appreciated by the men. He feared, however that under the new conditions the stall-keepers would be forced to provide tea of a commoner quality, with the effect that the men's digestive organs would suffer, and that they would be driven to the public-house to purchase spirits in order to get rid of the bad effects. He wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer would extend his sympathies to the suffering poor, that he would endeavour to gain some personal experience of how the poor lived, and he was sure that, if he would undertake that he would seek other means of raising the revenue he desired, cither by taking the deer forests, the salmon fisheries, land values, etc., whence he could, if he liked, obtain millions of money.

He thought that the remark made by the right hon. Gentleman in his Budget speech about the people being "saturated" with tea was an extremely unkind one. Why had the right hon. Gentleman not referred to the fact that The monied classes were "saturated" with champagne, old port, and costly liqueurs. They did not want to drive the poor people to the public -house, but undoubtedly that would be the effect if they forced them to drink bad tea. What they should do was to encourage the cultivation of the better classes of tea. He wanted to seethe common teas which were grown in the lower latitudes forced out of use. It was better to have the tea from the Darjeeling district of the Himalayas. In that region tea cultivation was rapidly extending towards the Sikkim frontier. Large estates had been laid out in these districts. and it was a well-known fact that teas grown in the lower latitudes were coarse and most injurious to the stomach and digestive organs of those who drank them. He was not ashamed to state his personal experience in the consumption of tea. When he was a lad of fifteen he was in lodgings in the country earning but a few-shillings a week, and he allowed himself half-an-ounce of tea per week and two. ounces of coffee. That went on for four months. At that time tea cost 4s. a lb., and there was a high duty upon it. Had the duty been lower he would have been able to double or treble his allowance, but, as it was. he had to be careful of his bawbees—he wanted to save money, and therefore he punished himself in the matter of tea. On the previous night he had reminded the right hon. Gentleman how the people in his own constituency were likely to suffer from the increased duty. Many thousands there depended for their dinner on salt herrings and potatoes, and they necessarily required something with which to wash down their meal. They were in the habit of drinking tea, but if they were forced to pay this additional duty the tea which they would have to consume would do them more harm than good.

There was another point from which this matter might be reviewed. Many millions-had been invested in tea estates in India and Ceylon, and what an injustice was being inflicted on those who had invested their capital by injuring their industry through putting on this increased duty. He himself was neither share nor debenture holder in any of these tea estates, but he quite sympathised with the shareholders. He would like also to draw attention to the fact that the Indian financial statement recently published in Calcutta had declared that the trade with Great Britain had not made the progress it might have been expected to do simply because of the heavy duty on tea. So much for the state of matters in India. Large public meetings have been held in Calcutta to protest against the imposition of this extra duty on tea. and he hoped the Viceroy, who always considered these matters very carefully himself and did not leave them to his subordinates, would let the India Office know his views upon this question. There was a very strong feeling against this tax in India, and they ought in this matter to pay some regard to the extreme poverty of that country. The vast majority of the people of India had to live on three farthings a day. Instead of checking a great industry in this way India needed more industries and then she would flourish. To impose a tax upon a great industry in this way was not the way to build up an Empire, but it was. on the contrary, striking a blow at the pioneers of the tea industry who had spent £30,000,000 in India and Ceylon. That was not the manner in which this great Empire had been built up. They ought to do all they could to promote the welfare of all their colonies. If the tax on tea was taken off that industry India would flourish and the people there would be happier: and in course of time India would produce a better quality of tea, and less of that vile, black, soupy rubbish would be sold as tea which was so injurious to the health of the poor.

MR. ALEXANDER CROSS (Glasgow, Camlachie)

agreed that there were difficulties in regard to this tax. but he thought it would be admitted that there were difficulties in regard to the imposition of any form of taxation. In saying a few words in defence of this tax he hoped it would not be supposed that he was wanting in sympathy for that large class of the population upon whom this tax would fall most heavily. He also sympathised with the right hon. Gentleman who had had the wisdom and courage to bring forward a most unpopular tax, but which, in his opinion, was well conceived in the interests of the finances of the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had been placed in circumstances of enormous difficulty in bringing in his Budget. During the past twelve months a state of depression had existed in all our principal industries, agriculture had suffered a great loss through a bad harvest, the cotton industry had been in a state of collapse, the shipping industry was depressed, and the working classes had been greatly affected by the war. Under these circumstances the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to decide whether he was to propose a new tax or increase the old taxes, If he had proposed a new tax there would have been a great cry out and the difficulty would have been infinitely increased. Therefore he complimented the right hon. Gentleman upon the prudence he had shown in increasing this tax.

He wished to point out that those who had opposed this tax had made no serious attempt to suggest an alternative tax. Hon. Members opposite spoke as if the income-tax was intended only for the wealthy, but they must be aware that the great bulk of income-tax payers were poor persons. The great majority of income-tax payers were professional men clergymen, clerks, and widows, with fixed salaries and incomes, and hon. Members should remember that a tax of Is. in the £ upon all these people was 5 per cent, upon their entire receipts. The average consumption of tea per head of the population was 61bs., so that the average individual would only pay Is. a year in consequence of this extra tax. In a family of five that meant a payment of 5s. a year, or little more than Id. per week He did not think any working man was unable to pay that amount. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was to be congratulated on imposing this addition to the tax so as to put the revenue derived from direct and indirect taxation on the same percentages as prevailed before the war. There were one or two considerations which showed that tea was a singularly fortunate choice in connection with the raising of the revenue required. The price of tea was much cheaper than it was a few years ago when there was no tax on it at all. Tea had gone steadily down in price, and he did not think the proposed imposition would be felt at all. It was an article which could be taxed without doing injury to any particular industry. That was a great advantage. It was said that one advantage of a direct tax was that the payer knew of it. Here was an indirect tax, and the consumer of tea would know about it, because he would have to pay 2d. per lb. more, and, as a consequence, he would be induced to take a keener interest in watching national expenditure, 'and in public affairs generally.

* MR. EMMOTT (Oldham)

said the hon. Member for Camlachie had challenged them to suggest what they would tax instead of tea. He could, of course, only speak for himself, and he would suggest that there should be more economy in the public service. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member who the other day said "Magnum vectigal est parsimonia." Allowing that the present taxation was necessary, he thought that as between the taxing of tea and the taxing of something else there was a strong case made out for some other form of taxation. An additional penny on the income - tax would have been a less evil than this additional taxation of tea. He appreciated all the arguments against increasing the income-tax. He thought that a high income-tax or at least a sudden increase of the income-tax tended to make wealthy people diminish their savings, and, of course, if there was less saving that must react on the poor as much as on the rich. He did not argue for a high income-tax as being good in itself. Quite the opposite. Last year £10,000,000 was taken off the income-tax and only £2,500,000 off indirect taxation. From the standpoint of last year if, twopence were added to the income-tax this year the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have taken off as much direct as indirect taxation. There was one other reason why he thought the income-tax was valuable. It was more difficult to find out who had the real political power in this country than to trace out the incidence of taxation, but he thought the real political power in this country lay with the middle class rather than any other. If that was the case he believed it was necessary to bring the middle class to feel that they had to pay. and to make them dissatisfied with the expenditure if they were going to reintroduce the old spirit of economy from which they had so much departed. For that reason it would have been better to increase the income-tax by another penny rather than add to the enormous taxation on tea.

They would now be taxing tea to the tune of 100 per cent. of its untaxed value. That was far too great a burden of taxation on the one luxury of the very poor. He thought it would lead to deterioration of quality and do great harm in that way. His hon. friend the Member for West Islington had handed him two telegrams received from Manchester stating what was thought of the new taxation by men in the tea trade. One said— Manchester tea trade disgusted with additional duty. Consider it outrage on Colonies, trade, and poor. The other telegram dealt with the question of which he had spoken—deterioration of quality. It said— Strongly support your resolution re tea duty. Wholesale dealers burdened in collecting. Sixpence duty already very heavy. Trade disorganised in view of eight pence. Workers will be driven to use lower qualities. He believed that lower qualities would go into use. He was told that the effect of the tax put on now was that the value of duty-paid tea had increased not 2d. but 2¼d., and that there was a larger demand for the lower qualities. It had often been argued of late, and statistics had been brought forward to show, that when a tax was put upon an article the price was not always increased quite as much as the tax would suggest. But in the case of an article like tea that was very often due to the fact that a lower quality was used, and that the lower quality was worth less money. Therefore the incidence of the tax was hidden by that fact. When the taxation on such an article was increased there was always a tremendous effort made to produce an article which as far as possible looked like it at the same old price, and that could only be done by producing a lower quality. It was easy to push the argument too far that this fresh taxation would not diminish the consumption of tea. He was not sure that it would diminish the consumption for this reason. Tea had become almost a necessity for a great portion of the population, especially the poorer portion. I the same quantity of tea was consumed it was evident that less money would be available for other purposes such as furniture and clothing, and those trades would suffer rather than the tea trade itself.

One aspect of the question which appealed to him more powerfully than any other was the way in which the tax-affected Ireland. That country was already over-taxed in proportion to her ability to pay. Ireland was essentially a tea-drinking country. He was told that the consumption of tea per head was 81bs per annum there as against a very little over 61bs in the whole of the United Kingdom. Therefore this tux must press more heavily on Ireland than on any other portion of the United Kingdom. It was creating profound dissatisfaction in Ireland He was sure he was speaking for hon. Members on both sides of the House when he said that they were all anxious to do what they could for Ireland although they saw Irish questions from a different standpoint. Last year they spent a good deal of time, usefully he thought, in passing a great measure with respect to the purchase of land in Ireland. Last year they were very generous to Ireland and they did appeal to Irish hearts, but by the imposition of this addition to the tea duty he thought they were undoing all that they had done. For the reasons he had stated he would certainly support the Amendment.

MR. COGHILL (Stoke-upon-Trent)

said that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished to bring home to the people of the country the condition of national finance, he could not have devised a better device than the one which was now being debated. He did not see why they should have an addition to a tax of this kind in a state of profound peace. If any ordinary person found that he was spending more money than he received, he must reduce his expenses. The real remedy was more public economy. That was where the Government had failed. They had not enforced economy in the great spending Departments. He, for one, did not wish to diminish the amount of money spent on the Navy; and he was not prepared to say that we spent too much on the Army; but he said most emphatically that under the head of the Civil Service they spent enormous sums of money for which they received no return whatever. The Chancellor of the Exchequer resisted every proposal of hon. Members for reduction in that Department. The right hon. Gentleman always preferred the feeling of the permanent officials rather than the feeling of the general taxpayer; and that was what ought to be put an end to. Let him give an example of how money was wasted. A short time ago a Committee sat on the Officials of the House of Lords. That Committee recommended that when a vacancy occurred in a certain office it should not be filled up. A vacancy did occur, but it had been filled up and a new official appointed at a salary of £900 a year. Surely that £900 a year ought to have been saved to the country. He did not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to come to the House and ask for any additional taxation. He felt certain that the tea duty would be unpopular in this country, and it would be extremely unpopular in our great dependency of India and in Ceylon. He was one of those who wanted to extend trade within the Empire, but it was a rather curious way to do that by putting this tax on tea which would be felt so much in India and elsewhere. Strongly as he felt on this point he would have had great reluctance in giving a vote against the Government, but he knew that, whichever way he voted, there were on the opposite side of the House nineteen Gentlemen with warm and compassionate hearts who. if any emergency arose, would come to the assistance of the Government, and, therefore, he might go into the lobby against the tax perfectly regardless of the consequences.

SIR ROBERTREID (Dumfries Burghs)

said that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down alleged that the real remedy for the constant complaints which were made in regard to this and every other tax was economy. Well, in the first place, he wished to point out that, although often urged, that doctrine had only recently met with any general acceptance. He remembered four or five years ago it was pointed out as an answer to that argument that really this country was very wealthy and why should we grudge spending public money? On both sides of the House and in the country the statement was made that we were a very rich people and ought to do things liberally. He was not one of the nineteen referred to by the hon. Member, nor was he going to pass an encomium on any Chancellor of the Exchequer. Having been for a good long time in the House, he thought that every Chancellor of the Exchequer, on both sides, had been entitled to complain that the influence of the House of Commons had not been used to reduce expenditure, but to increase it. Everyone clamoured for this and the other thing on particular Votes; and then, when it was asked where retrenchment was to come in. they were unable to reply. The hon. Gentleman himself had given an illustration of that. He told the House that he would not support any diminution in the cost of the Navy. But the expenditure on the Navy had increased from £18.000,000 in 1895 to £42,000.000 in the present year. He said the same in regard to the Army, the cost of which had increased, quite apart from the war and military works, from £18,000,000 in 1895 to £30,000,000 in the present year. There was another charge which could not be diminished—that for the service of the Debt. But the hon. Gentleman was one of those who had contributed by his support of the Government policy to the immense increase on that charge. The Debt had now been increased by £159,000,000 more than it was five years ago; and who was responsible for that? Hon. Members on both sides of the House who supported the Government policy, and this ought to he repeated on every occasion until the country realised it. Somebody had to pay for it. Of course, all these taxes were objectiorable. The income-tax, discussed the previous night, was as all the other taxes, except those which had a sumptuary result.

He sympathised with the hon. Gentleman in his opposition to the tea tax, which was the most cruel of all. It was a tax which pressed really upon the poorest of the poor in the community. It fell largely on poor-widows with children, of whom there were a great many who were hardly able to find subsistence for themselves and their families, who had been left destitute and were unable to find work. Everybody felt for them and was sorry for them: and yet, on account of all this extravagance of the Government, the House had to impose taxation on all of these poor people. It was a most cruel tax. He contended that it would have been butter to have put another penny on the income-tax, although that, too, would bear hardly on the middle classes. But by preference, although he did not wish to offer him elf as a Chancellor of the Exchequer in Opposition, he thought it would have been better to have increased the stale of death duties. These could have been graduated so as to come upon the richer people. He would ask the question, "Did the bulk of hon. Members in the House of Commons really feel the pinch of taxation at this moment?" They did not. They might have to save a little less, or pay a trifle more for their luxuries; but they had no real suffering in consequence of taxation.

MR. COGHILE

We are not all ex-law officers of the Crown.

SIR ROBERT REID

said that he did not think his observations were offered in a personal spirit, and he would say nothing in regard to the hon. Member's interruption. He said again, "Let us, each one of us, ask this question plainly: do we ourselves feel the pinch of this taxation?" He was taking the bulk of the Members of the House. He did not believe that any one of them would say that they did. Hut would any one say that no working man would feel it?

MR. COGHILL

I say so.

SIR ROBERT REID

The hon. Gentleman might say so, but he thought the bulk of hon. Members in the House would agree with him that, however necessary this tax might be in present circumstances, it was deplorable that it had to be imposed. Did not that rather point to this; that they were not imposing a fair class of taxation? Unless they stripped a man of the middle and upper classes of a great deal, they would not make him feel the pinch. There should be something more proposed to secure equality or parity of sacrifices in taxation than was clone by this Budget. He thought it really came to this: that that could not be accomplished until they did two things. First, they must really observe economy, and not by merely taking one particular instance of extravagance, of which there were plenty, but economy through adopting a wiser and more judicious policy. Second, when they imposed taxation, they should see that it was done on a principle somewhat more corresponding to similarity of sacrifices between those who were well-off and those who were poor; and they should not discharge themselves of that duty which was encumbent upon them of being just to all classes in the community.

* MR. WYLIE (Dumbartonshire)

said he wished to say a few words in support of the tea duty, which he thought one of the ablest features of the Budget. His right hon. friend who had just spoken had referred to the large expenditure on the Army and Navy; but he would remind him that a very large amount of that expenditure had been imposed upon this country by the action of other countries. Most hon. Gentlemen in their speeches had gone upon the assumption that tea was an absolute necessity of life—as much a necessity as bread. His contention was that it was essentially a luxury. and should not be regarded as a part of the diet of the people. He hoped his hon. friend opposite, who was such an admirer of tea, would not be shocked when he mentioned the fact that the component parts of tea were precisely similar to those of strychnine—only with a very little difference in their proportions. Strychnine killed by accelerating the motion of the heart to such an extent as to put it out of gear. The stimulus of tea accelerated the action of the heart in a gentler manner. Therefore, it was a very dangerous luxury and not a necessity and should be kept in its proper place. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the consumption of tea was increasing in this country, and that it was now four times as great as the consumption in either Belgium or the United States. The dietary of the country had been entirely revolutionised by the introduction of tea, sugar, and jam; and the good old simple dietary of another generation had been changed very much for the worse. In Scotland a very great deal of the strength of the people was derived from a superior diet of porridge and milk. broth, beef, and potatoes; but now, not only in Scotland, but also, according to the testimony of the Irish Members, in Ireland, that diet had been entirely changed and a very much inferior diet substituted. In some of the large towns in Scotland, at present, twenty tons of sugar were used as against one ton of oatmeal. The consumption of tea affected all classes of the community, especially ladies, who were probably more susceptible to luxuries than the male sex. The ladies went in for a tea diet to an injurious extent; and he was afraid many members of the male sex were following their example. Many hon. Members had tea served in their bedrooms the first thing in the morning; and hon. Members had told him that they would rather lose anything else during the day than their five o'clock tea. That was shown by the number of hon. Members who left the House for the tea rooms in the afternoon even when an eloquent debate was in progress. He was sorry to admit that in his own country the working classes were now using an enormous quantity of tea. The old dietary had been abandoned, and the tea diet was affecting a revolution in the habits and digestions of the people. That applied not only to Scotland but also to England and Ireland. The hon. Member for Oldham stated that in Ireland among the working classes the consumption of tea amounted to 81bs. per head per annum. He would strongly advise his Irish friends to devote a larger proportion of their influence to advocating the substitution of a diet other than tea, which was a most injurious luxury. The hon. Member for Connemara and his hon. friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty stated that the very poorest of the people indulged to a very large extent in a tea diet. They would be making much better use of their money if they spent it on the good old porridge and milk diet of Scotland. A tea diet had an injurious effect physically, and he. was not sure that it had not also an injurious effect morally. On those grounds, therefore, he entirely approved of the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in deriving a considerable portion of his income from this deleterious stimulant, which he was sorry to hear eulogised, but which when examined in the light of testimony now available was shown to be injurious. He was quite sure that the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would meet with general approbation.

* MR. JOHN WILSON (Durham, Mid.)

said he did not very often interfere in Budget debates; but as a member of the Labour group he wished to say a few words on the question. He did not plead guilty to the indictment framed by the hon. Member who had just spoken about taking tea in his bedroom in the morning. He had no time, and even if he had, he thought it would he an unwise proceeding. Neither did he agree with the dictum laid down by the hon. Member that tea was a poison, because he believed that the increase in the consumption of tea had resulted in prolonging life. At any rate, he had lived longer than he ever did before. Speaking from the Irish Benches, the bull might be excusable. He thought, however, he was corroborated by the experience of the country that life was longer than it ever had been before, even in the so-called good old days. The hon. Member for the Camlachie Division stated that many hon. Members spoke to the reporters. He did not speak to the reporters. He spoke because he knew something of the difficulty of getting half a pound or even a quarter of a pound of tea. He happened to know the homes of the people as intimately as any man, and that intimacy led him to think that this question should not be treated in the light manner in which it had been treated that afternoon. The hon. Member spoke of the depression in trade; he was stating an elementary economic truth when he stated that the prosperity of the country-depended on the spending power of the poor, and that, therefore, whatever they did to restrict the spending power of the poor would interfere with the prosperity of the country. Twopence a pound did not appear a very large sum as an individual item; but taken in the aggregate, it was a very important matter to a working-class family. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken referred to the nineteen saviours of the Government last night. He was not one of them. He found himself in the Lobby where he generally found himself. He believed, in the language of Micawber, that if they spent a penny more than their income they were on the way to ruin, whereas if they spent a penny less they were on the way to prosperity. If they lived within their income, were not reckless in expenditure, and did not rush into rash proceedings, there would be no necessity to impose extra burdens of taxation. The hon. Member for the Camlachie Division spoke of the war; he congratulated him- self that he was one of the men who dared to censure the war; and who, although he was maligned and called a traitor, had endeavoured to keep the country out of the war for which they were now paying.

There were two aspects of the question to which he wished to refer. One was the incidence of the tax and the other was the principle contained in it. As regards the incidence he only wished to say that it depended very largely upon the view they took of the position in which they stood when they spoke of the incidence of this or any other tax. The burthen was only heavy in proportion to the strength of the person who had to carry it. It was all very well to talk glibly, as some hon. Members had talked, about the tax being only 2d. a pound, but a pound of tea was a fiction in many working-class families in this country. The poor purchased their tea in very small quantities; and if they could buy a pound at a time the tax would not bear so heavily on them. Everyone who watched the process of taxation knew that beyond the tax itself the people had nearly always to pay an extra burthen. A man's ability to purchase an ounce of tea only was no disgrace to him. It was the circumstance of the wages he received that was the disgrace; it was the surroundings and the conditions among which he found himself that was the disgrace and not his spending power. Those who had only 15s. or 16s. a week coming in had probably to depend upon tea for their food. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer had fixed his mind too much on the word "proportion." He had sat at the feet of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham in his Radical days and was-a great disciple of the right hon. Gentleman. He had obtained all the great Radical truths from the teaching of the right hon. Gentleman, and he was sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not dispute this right hon. Gentleman's authority. In a speech he made in 1885, the right, hon. Member for West Birmingham dealt with a statement that in a village in Northamptonshire there were 120 people whose average income was 16s. on which they had taxation to-the extent of 7½ percent. This was astounding to the right hon. Member, who compared it with his own case. He found it difficult to estimate what he paid in taxation, because, as he said, a good deal of taxation was very successfully hidden. but he came to the conclusion that he could not pay more than 6 per cent. of his total income, and he said— I, with all my worldly advantages, pay 1½ percent. less than is extracted from the scanty earnings of those poor peasants. I say it is unfair, and the sooner it is altered the better. The case of this village, the hon. Member pointed out, was not alone or singular. and with the increase there had been since 1885 in the sugar duty and the tea duty, this proportion had. he said, been widely altered to the disadvantage of the poor. He contended that there were other sources of taxation to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have turned his attention, and he again quoted the Member for West Birmingham as his authority. That hon. Member in 1885 said— Then there is the taxation of unoccupied land, of sporting land, of ground rents, and of mineral royalties. I advocate all these methods of taxation. These words, Mr. Wilson declared, were still sound in principle; they were true to the core, though politicians might have altered their political faith. These things ought to have been taxed before the tea of the poor people, but tea was, he supposed, the line of least resistance.

MAJOR SEELY (Isle of Wight)

agreed that this duty would bear heavily on the poor, but the money having been spent the nation must pay the bill; therefore, so long as the proposal was not in itself outrageous, and was more or less in accordance with established custom, he felt bound to support the tax. It was impossible not to sympathise with the hon. Member for the Ludlow Division who had presumed that another system of taxation was to be resorted to. Wicked though it might be, if it was possible, to tax the foreigner it would be extremely difficult to withstand the temptation. But if a more reasonable frame of mind had been come to, if at last all believed that, as we had spent the money, we ourselves, and not the foreigner, must pay, the House ought to be thankful for small mercies and support the Budget as they found it. He did not, however, consider the taxation altogether necessary, because he did not believe all the expenditure to be necessary. The expenditure on the Army, for instance, could be reduced by at least the amount that would be raised by this tea duty. He was supporting the tax this year, but he would find it impossible to do so another year, because there was being maintained for the defence of this country, and as an expeditionary force, a much larger number of men than was reasonable or necessary. This contention had frequently been urged, but no signs of½ reduction could be seen. To enable, such a reduction to be made. it was absolutely essential that the Volunteer force should be fostered and maintained. The danger most to be feared was that in time of peace a reduction of the Regular Army might be decided upon, and then in a time of panic expenditure on a far larger scale incurred. It was mainly because that had been done before that this extra 2d. on tea was rendered necessary. Therefore, while he urged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to endeavour to secure reduction in Army expenditure, he begged him to see that the one guarantee against panic, viz. the maintenance of a proper spirit of military responsibility amongst the masses of the people, was not impaired.

MR. BLACK (Banffshire)

said that one good effect of the debate was that it had induced the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make the clear declaration that taxation of the character of the tea duty fell upon not the producer, but the consumer, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would remember the point if at any time in the future a re-imposition of the corn duty was suggested. It was necessary in this matter to remember the history of direct and indirect taxation, especially in relation to the landed interest. The basis upon which the landed interest acquired the land was through undertaking to bear the whole cost of national defence.

* MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is now entering upon a point which is extremely remote from the Resolution before the House.

MR. BLACK

said his object was to call attention to the disproportion already existing between indirect and direct taxation, and to the intention of the Government still further to increase that disproportion to the injury of the indirect taxpayer. By degrees the burden of taxation had been thrown off the landed interest on to the shoulders of the people, and a continuation of that process could be seen in the Budget proposals of the present year. In 1902–3, the high-water period of the war, the amount raised by indirect taxation was£66,500,000; this year it was £67.950.000. an increase of £1.150.000. and in the same period, the amount of direct taxation had been reduced from £59.300.000 to £53.200,000. a decrease of £6.100.000. In the face of those figures how could the Chancellor of the Exchequer claim to have restored the two classes of taxation to a position of equality? Whatever differences of opinion there might be as to the incidence of direct and indirect taxation, it could not be disputed that the poorer classes of the community bore practically the whole burden of indirect taxation and yet, after a period of abnormal prosperity and in a time of peace, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was piling up the burden of the indirect and lightening that of the direct taxpayer. Throughout their career the present Government had entirely ignored the question of the taxable margin, their idea apparently being that the minimum wage in the country was £2,000 a year. It might be asked what alternatives there were to the present proposals. He would suggest that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should obtain payment of the £30,000,000 due from the Transvaal, or, if that were impossible, that the interest on the money should be secured. That would, at any rate, yield £1,000.000, which might be applied to the reduction of taxation. Another possible course was to obtain from the Colonies a fair contribution towards the cost of Imperial defence. No less than £8,000,000 of the increase in our military expenditure was due to the number of troops that were scattered about the Empire outside India. He hoped the Government would see their way to adopt one of these suggestions.

* MR. MURNAGHAN (Tyrone, Mid)

said the Chancellor of the Exchequer appeared to have ranged over all possible subjects of taxation and to have selected the one which bore hardest on the people of Ireland. A Royal Commission had proved that Ireland already paid far in excess of her fair proportion, but instead of relieving that overburdened country the new Chancellor of the Exchequer was proposing to increase the tax on a staple article of subsistence among a large class of the people. The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire told them in one sentence that tea was poison, and in another that it was a luxury, and the only object of his speech seemed to be to make a soft bed for the right hon. Gentleman to lie down upon. Ireland was going to suffer very heavily by this extra duty upon tea. The average consumption of tea in Ireland was 81bs. per head of the population, but in England and Scotland it was only 4 or 51bs. per head. The result was that the greatest proportion of this tax would have to be paid by Ireland, which was the poorest, and was a country that never gave any encouragement to this vast expenditure for which this extra taxation was required.

* MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! That subject cannot be discussed on the question of the tea duty.

* MR. MURNAGHAN

said there was a deficit in the Exchequer, and to meet it extra taxation had been placed upon tea; and he submitted that he had a right to say that in incurring all that expenditure Ireland did no share.

* MR. SPEAKER

That subject is not in order.

* MR MURNAGHAN

said it seemed to him that the line was drawn rather strictly in regard to some hon. Members. but not in regard to others.

* MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! That observation is not in order. If the hon. Member does not think I am doing my duty he has his remedy.

* MR. MURNAGHAN

said he would at once withdraw his remark as he had no idea whatever of being discourteous. It did seem to him that Irish Members had a right to protest against a tax which they felt was a great injustice. The right hon. Gentleman might have taxed wines instead of tea, and there were many other commodities which he might have chosen and left tea alone. This tax upon tea was not a fair burden upon the Irish people, who paid far in excess of the proper proportion of the taxes of the United Kingdom, and the right hon. Gentleman did not use any sound argument when he put forward this proposal. The only reason given for imposing this tax was that it followed the line of least resistance. That might be so in Great Britain but it was not so in Ireland, and Irish Members would fail in their duty if they did not protest against, and take every means in their power to try to remove, an impost upon a commodity which the people of Ireland could hardly do without. Ireland had been looking forward to a remission and not an addition to taxation, and if any other commodity had been selected Ireland would have been affected less. If they had taxed maize or flour they would not have hurt Ireland so much. The Chancellor of the Exchequer knew that a tax upon cereals was a tender subject amongst those of his own political household likely to arouse opposition, and therefore he said. "I will go for tea because it is not a duty in regard to which the English and the Scotch take much interest, and as for the Irish they do not count." The resistance of the Irish Members might not count on this Budget but it would count upon other matters. It was an unfortunate day for Ireland when the right hon. Gentleman took it into his head to impose a duty of 33 per cent, upon an article which was mostly used by the people of Ireland. The result of this tax would be that the poor people of Ireland would consume an inferior quality of tea, for they could not afford to buy better tea. He was sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer showed no signs of giving way on this point, and he regretted the right hon. Gentleman could not make up his mind to withdraw this tax and put it upon some other article in less general use in the dietary of the Irish people. Tea, as far as Ireland was concerned, was not a fit subject for increased taxation, and he wished to enter a strong protest against it.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN.) Worcestershire, E.

With the permission of the House I venture to appeal to hon. Members to bring this discussion to a close. This subject of tea has been fully discussed in all its aspects, and I think hon. Members are somewhat repeating what has already been said. The debate has been conducted in a good temper, and I appeal to the House to bring this discussion to a conclusion at the earliest possible moment.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)

I fully recognise the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman has intervened in this debate, but at the same time I do not think he is entitled to express any astonishment at all at the length to which this discussion has run, because this is a matter which vitally affects the comfort and health of the constituencies of hon. Members who have spoken. I think it is rather a remarkable circumstance that so many hon. Members from all parts of the three kingdoms have got up and given from their own personal knowledge and acquaintance so strong a testimony to the evil effect of this proposed duty. The right hon. Gentleman did not complain, but I think that any attempt, even by the moral effect of his interference, to stop the expression of this general opinion which is felt so strongly would be a mistake. The matter is of such importance in regard to this particular duty that I think the House may very well be left to itself to give expression to its strong feelings.

MR. BUCHANAN (Perthshire, E.)

said he thought when the right hon. Gentleman rose he was going to ask the special leave of the House to reply to some of the observations which had been made. He did not think the speeches which had been made in regard to this tax deserved the sweeping condemnation passed upon them by the Chancellor of the Exchequer who spoke very early in the debate and since that time considerations had been laid before the House which he thought demanded some reply. After all, this was one of the most important proposals in the Budget. There were one or two points in connection with this question which he thought he might dwell upon. It had been a source of satisfaction to many hon. Members that there had been from so many quarters in the House statements made in favour of economy. He and others had advocated that in dark as well as in bright days, and they rejoiced now to find support from unexpected quarters where they did not find it in past days. He would not make any reservations. Some had reserved the Army, others the Navy, and others had reserved both. An hon. Member had limited himself to the salaries of certain officials of the House of Lords. The tea duty pointed to the fact that during past years the country had been living beyond its means, and they must do as a nation what individuals had to do—cut their coat according to their cloth. They must cut down the great spending Departments, and he was prepared to vote against any of the additional taxes now proposed. He did so on perfectly logical grounds. Some of them had done their best to prevent the great increase of expenditure which had taken place. Their next line was to try to prevent the Government from being able to carry out what they believed to be pernicious and extravagant expenditure. He would vote against any other taxes that might be proposed to carry out what he believed, to be a most pernicious policy which would tend only to the ultimate ruin of this country if long continued. He would certainly not follow the. example of those who had made alternative proposals. That was not his business or that of any other Member of the House. What they had to do was to criticise the proposals of the Government. They were responsible for putting before the country the taxes which should be imposed, and prominent amongst them was the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There was one aspect of the tea tax which had not been suffciently dwelt upon. When the duty was raised from 4d. to 6d. in 1900 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol used these words— The extra 2d. is purely, in my opinion, an exceptional tax levied for the purpose of the present war. The 2d. put on for the special and exceptional purpose of the war was not only not to be taken off but was being added to by another 2d. Yesterday they had from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a most important statement to the effect that, while he recognised that theadditional spirit and beer duties were originally imposed for the purpose of the war, the permanent peace expenditure had so increased that they must be retained permanently as part of the financial system of the country to meet that expenditure. That was an absolute abandonment of all hope for this country that it would within a limited time—at any rate under the auspices of the present Government—get rid of any of the burdens imposed on it for the purposes of the war. In past years the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol and other Ministers had promised that when the war came to an end one of the first duties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be to survey the situation and endeavour to see by what means the additional burdens which had been placed on the people might be diminished, or taken off, if not within a single year, at any rate within a limited period. They had good reason to anticipate that this would have been done last year by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon, and still more had they a right to expect it from the present Chancellor of the Exchequer in the current year. But there was no attempt to do this at all. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had gone a step backward and told them that they must abandon the prospect of being able to do this in the immediate future, and must be content to consider the charges imposed as temporary war taxes as permanent peace taxes for time to come. He hoped the House would take note of this and see what they had been led into by the Government.

As to the economic side of the tea tax it could not be denied that the consumer would have to pay it. He had received a copy of a circular issued by a firm of tea dealers in which they drew the attention of their customers to the fact that the price would be increased 2d. per lb. on account of the additional duty imposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As his hon. friend the Member for Durham had pointed out the poorer classes in the country would have to pay more than the extra 2d, because they bought not a pound of tea at a time, but a pennyworth or two penny worth. An inquiry made some years ago at the instance of Lord Goschen, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, showed that poor people who bought tea in such small quantities paid at the rate of 3s. 5d., 3s. 8d., and 3s. 9d. per lb. The estimate given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night as to the yield of this tax seemed to him to be slightly sanguine. He did not say that the right hon. Gentleman's figures were wrong, but he gave the statistics in groups of periods of three years, pointing out that the consumption of tea per head per annum of the population in the last three years had gone up to 6.05 lbs. from 5.9 lbs. in the penultimate period of three years. That small increase for a period of six years naturally made him think that the consumption of tea was really still increasing. On referring to a table in the Report of the Commissioners of Customs giving the consumption of tea in the United Kingdom for the last ten years he found that the figures were:—In 1893, 208.000.000 lbs.; 1894, 2U.000.000 lbs.; 1895, 221.000.000 lbs.; 1896. 227,000,000 lbs.; 1897. 231,000,000 lbs.; 1898. 235,000,000 lbs.; 1899,242.000,000 lbs.; 1900. 249,000,000 lbs.; 1901. 255.000, 000 lbs.; 1902. 254,000.000 lbs. The rate of the increase had begun to go down more than two years ago, and last year there was actually a small decrease. Therefore he thought the right hon. Gentleman was not entitled to lead the House to believe that the proceeds of this tax were in a buoyant position, that year after year we were consuming more tea. and that we might expect a continuously increasing return from the tax with the proposed increase. When Mr. Gladstone dealt with the tea duty in 1863 he reduced it from Is. 5d. to Is., and in 1865 from Is. to 6d.; he contrasted the claims of sugar and tea, and practically decided in favour of tea because of the large proportion the tax on tea bore to the value of the commodity. If that was true then it was equally true now, because it brought it up to a great deal more than 100 per cent.

He had been disappointed that while the Chancellor of the Exchequer had without an effort put on a tax which affected the, poorest of the poor, he had been some what slow and shy in endeavouring to hit one section of the community which ought to bear increased taxation. That was not the well-to-do working classes, or the middle classes, but the richest of the rich. That was a distinct defect in his Budget. They were justified in comparing the easiness with which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to impose this tax on the poor, and the reluctance he showed the previous day even to consider the possibility of altering the incidence of the income-tax to make it bear on the richest of the rich. He thought that this tax had, to a certain degree, besides its economic aspect, also a political aspect. There was no doubt that the members of the richer classes certainly supported Gentlemen on the other side of the House, and that those who sat on his side of the House derived their support from the poorer classes of the community. Without elaborating that point at any great length, one could say that, at any rate, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Ministry of which he was a member were not less willing to put their hands on this tax, because the incidence of it would not press on the majority of their own supporters. He would quote an authority which would be listened to with deference by the majority of the House, and especially by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Shortly after the Liberals had been defeated over Mr. Childers' Budget in 1885, which imposed extra beer and spirit duties, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, in a speech delivered at Holloway on 17th June, 1885, drew attention to the then position of affairs, and contrasted two sets of taxation as proposed by the Liberals and by the Conservatives. In that speech the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham used these words— The Tories have got £13,000,000 to find, and how are they going to do it? Sir M. Hicks Beach, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, told them that the Tories would pay their way. All I can say is that that is in entirely new departure in Conservative finance. But how are they going to pay their way? According to Sir M. Hicks Beach by raising a tax on tea. That is to say, he will spare the beer barrel and tax the teapot. He will relieve the Tory publican at the expense of the Radical teetotaller. That put the political aspect of this question in a nutshell in much more forcible language than he could use.

* MR. BARRAN (Leeds, N.)

said that the House recently discussed the problem that a large number of children were being sent to school in such a physical condition that they could not gain the benefit of the education that was offered them. Now, this tax on tea would fall with a heavy weight on that particular portion of the population of our large cities whose children came to the schools unfed. In his speech the previous night the Chancellor of the Exchequer took exception that they, on that side of the House, had raised an objection not only to the tea tax, but to the tax on corn and sugar. There was no inconsistency in that. It appeared to him to be consistent. They were discussing the large question of taxes on articles which were absolutely necessary for that large class of the population for whom he spoke. It was not simply the question whether this extra 2d. on tea was to be added. If the taxes on tea and sugar could be taken away altogether it would materially alter the position of the whole working-class population. He did not lose sight of the fact that if these taxes were abolished altogether an enormous amount of revenue would be withdrawn from the Exchequer. But he would remind the House that had the normal rate of increase of taxation gone on in this country instead of an abnormal rate, it would have been quite possible to have relieved the people from all taxation on the necessaries of life within the last ten years. An hon. Member opposite had dealt, from a scientific point of view, with the question as to whether tea was a necessity of life or a luxury. He would not follow the hon. Gentleman in that argument; but the people had decided very emphatically that, in their opinion tea was a necessary of life. Apart from that was it wise, as a matter of policy, that so large an amount of taxation should, in time of peace be allowed to fall heavily on that part of the population which both sides of the House admitted should be enabled to live in more comfort than in the past; and, what was more important, should be enabled to send their children to school in a state to be physically and mentally developed? Whatever taxes might have to be levied otherwise, it would be TO the direct profit of the country to assist that class of children by reducing taxation on all the necessaries of life, so that there might be no danger of their physical deterioration.

SIR JOHN GORST (Cambridge University)

said he wished to express the great reluctance and deep regret with which he yielded to the necessity for this tax being imposed by His Majesty's Government. In the first place, everyone who had studied the social condition of the United Kingdom must have a strong objection to indirect taxation of every kind which was levied on the necessaries of life. The hon. Gentleman who had just spoken expressed what he was sure was the opinion of every hon. Member that nothing was more disadvantageous from a large Imperial point of view at the present moment than to attempt to increase the cost of the necessary food of the people of this country. Although a very large number of the people in this country were well and amply fed. there was a very large section of the people—the exact percentage, 30 per cent., 20 per cent., or 10 per cent., might be disputed—who were unable to provide their children with the nutrition necessary for them to go through the physical and mental instruction provided for them in the schools, and to enable them to develop into strong men and women capable of performing their part in the battle of life. Therefore, everyone who had any knowledge of the social condition of the people must feel the greatest reluctance in imposing any tax on any article of the food of the people. But in this case, the taxes upon food which now pressed upon the narrow means of the people were imposed for war purposes; the sugar duty was proposed for war purposes; the corn duty, which was taken off last year, was proposed for war purposes; and the additional duties on tobacco, beer, and spirits were also proposed professedly for war purposes. Now he thought it was a very good thing that the expense of the war should be felt by every class of the people of this country, that everyone should know that if the country indulged in the luxury of going to war it must be paid for by the denial of the conveniences, the comforts, and even the necessaries of life. It was quite true that the war was over; but the payment for the war was not over. They still continued to pay for the war, and they would continue to pay for it, directly or indirectly, for several years still to come. Therefore there was some excuse for still keeping on the war taxes, because the war was not yet paid for, and, until the cost of the war had been paid, taxation could not be reduced. An hon. Member opposite said that the Irish Party were opposed to the war, and that, therefore, it was rather hard that they should be called upon to pay for it. But as long as these countries were a United Kingdom they could not make a distinction between one part of it and another, and as the majority of the people of the United Kingdom were in favour of the war, the United Kingdom as a whole would have to pay for it.

In the case of this particular tax on tea, he was unable to say whether the Government might not have found some other mode of raising the money, but, having decided to raise the money on tea, there were several peculiarities connected with the tax which were well worth the attention of the House. The first was, that it was a very great object lesson as to the effect produced throughout the country by taxation on one of the necessaries of life. The price rose immediately; every grocer in the country put up the price of tea by the amount of the tax, and probably in the case of retailers who sold tea by the ounce, or the half ounce, by a great deal more than the tax, and that not only on the tea which would come into the country hereafter but on the tea which was in stock. What the mass of the people had to pay was not only the tax imposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but a considerable profit which went into the pockets of the retailers. Another consequence which would naturally follow, and which the people of the country would no doubt appreciate, was that there would be a check on the consumption of tea. People would not be able to buy so much tea, and that would be a direct injury to the growers who were British subjects in our own dependencies. A few days ago the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham twitted an hon. Member opposite because he stated that tea growers in India and Ceylon would be adversely affected. But it was perfectly obvious that an injury would be inflicted on both the consumer and the producer, because the consumer would have to pay a higher price for the article, and as regarded the producer because the market would be, to a certain extent, spoiled, and there would not be the same demand as if there had been no tax put on.

There was another consolation for putting on this tax, and that was that it would press so hardly on the people of the whole of the United Kingdom—Irishmen as well as Englishmen—that it would, he hoped, cause the people seriously to reflect how taxation of this kind could be avoided in time to come. It would be a hard and a cruel lesson for the people, but it would be a lesson; and he hoped that the people of the country would lay to heart the obvious reflection which they were always repeating in this House but never laying to heart, and that was that the only way to avoid taxation of this kind on the conveniences and necessaries of the people was to direct the policy and conduct the affairs of the nation in such a way that such demands on the people would be no longer necessary. If they made up their minds that they were going to be a great military Empire, that they were going to have always a great force ready to strike at their enemies in any part of the world, they must pay for it. It was no use holding out to the people of the United Kingdom any prospect of economy if they were going to pursue a policy which would make a great military Empire of the British Empire of to-day. Let him not be denounced as a Little Englander. He claimed to be an Imperialist of the true sort, because he rejoiced over the extension of the influence of this country in the world. But he looked to the extension of that influence as more likely to result from a just, firm, and benevolent policy towards other nations than from a policy of maintaining soldiers and munitions of war by which force could be exercised against other nations. If this country was to have a small expenditure it must make up its mind to be a model Empire. He hoped that the people of this country would consider between now and next year how the expenditure of the country could be brought within the means of the country without having to resort to taxation of this kind—taxation on corn, sugar, tea, and the other materials which the people of this country consumed, and on the cheapness of which their happiness, to a great extent, depended. The only way of doing that was for them to be content with defending themselves against foreign attack and with maintaining the Navy to preserve their shores from invasion, giving up the idea of keeping a striking force at enormous expenditure in order to intermeddle with affairs in other parts of the world. The great country which was their best ally and which was the product of their own people, the United States, did not keep a great striking force, but contented themselves with adequate provision for the defence of their own territory.

* MR. SPEAKER

The right hon. Gentleman is now, I think, entering on topics which cannot be entered on on each Resolution. It may be that, when the whole scheme is before the House on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, the question of excessive expenditure may be discussed, but on the tea duty it is impossible to allow a discussion on the whole policy which leads to expenditure.

SIR JOHN GORST

said he strongly regretted having been betrayed into matters which he now saw were beside the Resolution. He would reserve any further remarks on the subject until the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, when no doubt they would be in order.

MR. J. P. FARRELL (Longford. N.)

said the opposition of the Irish Members to this increase in the tax upon tea was based upon the Report of the Financial Relations Committee, which stated that Ireland was already over-taxed to the extent of some £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 a year. The additional tax upon tea would add to that over-taxation some £300.000. It was a very grievous burden, and from that point of view he associated himself with everything which had been said in opposition to the imposition of this extra twopence. This tax would inevitably lead, also, to the deterioration of tea. It was not the rich man who suffered, but the poor man: and he held strong opinions on this question of the adulteration of tea, for that was what it came to. The lunacy statistics of Ireland were a lamentable spectacle. When he occupied the position of a magistrate in Ireland he was frequently called upon to commit lunatics, and in most cases the doctors stated that the lunacy was due to the excessive use of tea, owing to the practice among the poor of having the teapot stewing on the fire all day long and extracting the tannin, which was a positive poison, from the tea. The poor people who had to live to a very large extent upon this product would naturally suffer, because the tea supplied would not be so good as before. He opposed this extra duty not only upon that ground but also on the ground that it was the result of a war to which the Irish people gave no countenance and for which, therefore, they should not be made to pay. This tax was a grave injustice to the poorest in Ireland.

MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)

regretted that the right hon. Member for the Cambridge University was interrupted in his very interesting remarks with regard to the foreign policy of the Government, but was glad to hear of the right hon. Member's intention to revert to that subject on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. The right hon. Gentleman was one, whom he could welcome as a brother as his opinions were sound. But unfortunately, in common with other Members of the Party opposite, although his head was sound his legs were weak and his arguments did not carry him into the proper lobby. He warned the right hon. Gentleman and those who thought with him that they would never induce their own side to take up a policy which [hey advocated until they impressed on their leaders the fact that until they did they would not vote for them. One, strong characteristic of hon. Gentlemen opposite was that they seemed to have a hatred of the word "free": directly they heard of "free labour" it was "slavery," they would not hear of "free trade," and when a "free breakfast table" was spoken of would not listen. The tax on the breakfast table had been reduced under Liberal Administrations, but under this Government it had been continually added to. and if it was not now put a stop to where was it to end? They had taxed the sugar; they had taxed the tea; they would tax the cup into which the tea was poured and the spoon with which it was stirred. The Government seemed to be under the impression that they could humbug and hoodwink poor men to such an extent that they would be not only content but pleased at every tax put upon them, so long as they knew that the money was going to be spent; that they would say, "My tea is taxed, thank God. My sugar is taxed, thank God. Everything I have is taxed, thank God, because the Government is going to spend the money in running after Tibetans in Tibet or Mad Mullahs in Somaliland." That was a mistake; the English people would have no taxation of the commodities of the breakfast table.

What was the reason of this tax? The reason was that the Government, like a silly woman out shopping, wanted to buy two ships from the Chilian Government because they thought they had a bargain. The amount paid for those two ships just equalled the amount to be raised by this tax on tea. It was true that tea in one sense was not a necessity, but then a great many things we used were not necessaries. The clothes we wore in summer were not a necessity; the roof that covered us was not a necessity, we could perch in trees. All these things were comforts to which we had become so accustomed as to become necessary to our existence. Tea in that way had become a necessity. Let the House reflect how women enjoyed themselves over a cup of tea. In this House there was a special room called the tea room, to which hon. Members retired when debates were dull and cheered themselves up with a cup of tea. One hon. Member practically ascribed the fact of his being so useful and able a Member of this House to the effect of the tea he used to drink. Look at what the House might have lost! Moreover, if the tax on tea had been less, so that he could have purchased more, his hon. friend might have been—if it were possible—an even more useful and able Member. The extraordinary theory of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the consumption of tea having reached saturation point had been effectively disposed of by the hon. Member for West Islington. To a large class of people who had to struggle for existence tea was a practical necessity, and a rise in the price must inevitably either diminish the quantity or lower the quality of the tea they were able to buy.

Advocates of the new fiscal creed contended that import duties fell on the producer. The tea duty would certainly not fall on the Chinese producer, for he could not produce more cheaply than at present, and if he lost his market it simply meant that land would have to go out of cultivation. The same was true of India. And this was from a Government who were supposed to be in favour of assisting the Colonies! Indirect taxes were a mean fraud on the community, because they enabled the Chancellor of the Exchequer to skin the people without their knowledge. He would like to see nothing but direct taxation, and that should begin where the struggle for existence ended. That was his idea of a sound fiscal system. The Liberal Party when in office might, certainly, have done better than their record proved to have been the case. This he would say—that if only a Radical Ministry were placed in office they would give Members such a Budget and such a scheme of finance as would surprise them. They would act on the principle so ably advocated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham—the principle of "ransom"; they would place the burden on the shoulders best able to bear it; they would effect economies, and do away with the wild and reckless foreign policy which rendered necessary the present huge armaments; and every farthing of taxation would be spent for the benefit of the people of this country. He was not ashamed to call himself a "Little Englander" and a parochial politician. A man could not go far wrong if he devoted himself as a legislator to the welfare of the 40,000,000 of people who inhabited this country, and whose interests would never be properly looked after until there was in power a sound Radical Government, who would bring in a system of Radical finance under which hon. Members opposite would simply writhe.

* MR. THEODORE TAYLOR (Lancashire, Radcliffe)

said the difference between many Members on the Government side of the House and Members of the Opppsition was that the former, although they believed this tax to be far too high, were going to vote in favour of it, while the latter, with the same belief, were going to vote against it. The only way in which the expenditure of the country could be reduced was by voting in the House, and he hoped that Members on both sides would endeavour by that means to lessen the Estimates even in the present year. There was one branch of expenditure in regard to which many Members seemed absolutely afraid of suggesting any reduction. The word "Navy" was very like the blessed word "Mesopotamia," and immediately a reduction was moved on any Navy Vote Members ran like rabbits out of the House. It was high time this fear of words was discarded, and some real economy attempted. He hoped that if ever the Liberal Party got into power, and he supposed they would do some day, they would retain the love for economy, and that they would be reinforced by many Members on the other side of the House.

His main objection to the present tea duty was that it was a poll-tax on poverty. It was almost as much a capitation tax in its effect as that levied in the time of Wat Tyler, and everybody knew what happened then. He hoped the time would come when every taxpayer would be given a slip of paper containing a résumé of the Budget, so that they would know the amount they were paying and the objects for which it was required. If such a system had been in force he doubted whether any Chancellor of the Exchequer would have dared to propose this increase in the tea duty. The spirits and beer duties were not to be increased because they were alleged to have reached the limit of productiveness. But had not another limit been more than reached, viz., that of the productiveness and happiness of the very poor? A large class of the community were only just above the minimum of subsistence. The only charm political life possessed for him was the hope that he might be able to do something for those who were unable to help themselves, and the motive he claimed for himself he freely conceded to all others. But what better way was there of helping these poor people than by laying as small a burden as possible upon them? Already the income-tax was graduated in regard to exemptions, and if it was right that incomes of less than £160should escape that impost, why should not indirect taxation be so devised as to pass over the sheer necessaries of bare existence? The price of sugar had already been increased by at least ½d. per lb. as a result of the Government policy. Many poor widows in the country really lived on bread, butter, sugar, and tea. Tea was already taxed 75 per cent., and now they were going to increase it to 100 per cent. This was a serious matter to them. As expressed in halfpennies the tax looked small, but if they placed themselves in the position of these people, whether in London, Scotland, or Ireland, they would refuse to put any more burdens upon them. There was a remarkable economic difference between a tax on wealth and a tax on poverty. If they taxed the rich man he saved rather less. If the middle classes or better class of the working people, they would do without luxuries, but if they taxed the very poor they would do without things which were generally regarded as essential. Not only had the classes who were just above the Poor Law relief line, and those brought within that line, to pay more for their sugar and tea, but they had to do without some other article manufactured by other classes of the community, and so not only would these people suffer by this tax but various trades would suffer as well. They had to buy less food and less clothing.

He believed from the economic point of view, apart from the philanthropic point of view, that taxation of the poor was the most wasteful kind of taxation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol said in 1901 that this was a tax on an article produced not mainly by the foreigner but by our fellow - subjects in India and Ceylon. He heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer say last night that hon. Members had challenged him to enter upon that aspect of the taxation question raised by his right hon. relative, upon which, however, the Members of the Government had entered into a compact of silence. But hon. Members were not bound by any such compact of silence as that. It was perfectly proper in discussing this tax to bear in mind the possible effect of it in the future. It had been said on rather high authority that tea was as much a necessity of life as bread, and therefore they were quite entitled to point out that if the tea tax was raised from 75 per cent, cd calorem to 100 per cent., which was the present proposal, this might be made use of in the future as a kind of equalisation all round of the taxation on necessities. Therefore he objected to it on that ground. It seemed to him that this was a perfectly appropriate and proper argument for free-traders to urge against any further taxation upon tea. Our fellow-subjects in India and Ceylon were taking very decided action in this matter. The Chamber of Commerce in Ceylon on Thursday last passed a resolution, which he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer had received, protesting against any increase in the tea duty and declaring that this crushing burden, amounting to over 100 per cent, on the staple produce of Ceylon, was calculated to imperil very seriously the prosperity and welfare of that colony. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol told them three years ago that the trade of tea production in India and Ceylon was not then doing very well, but it was even in a worse condition now. The right hon. Gentleman then told them that the trade of India, owing largely to over-production, was by no means in a satisfactory condition, and he did not think they ought to increase the duty on tea. In the interests of their fellow-subjects in those dependencies as well as in the interests of the consumers, who he believed would be injured by this tax, he should vote | against the addition of twopence to the tea duty.

* SIR HENRY FOWLER (Wolverhampton, E.)

said there was one peculiarity about this debate which was worthy of observation, and it was that hon. Members on the Government side representing large constituencies of the working classes had, almost all of them, remained absolutely silent during the discussion.

MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

And I am very grateful to them.

* SIR HENRY FOWLER

said his point was that their constituencies would not be grateful to them, because the Resolution before the House was a tax imposing an extraordinary, unexpected, and a very heavy burden upon the working classes of this country. In regard to such a proposal, whether hon. Members opposite supported or opposed it, he thought the men of all others who were entitled to speak upon this question were those who represented the working classes. He should like to hear some such Conservative Member stand up and say he believed the working classes would not object to pay this tax, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had rightly apportioned this burden upon them. To such an argument and to such a statement the House would be bound to attach the weight it would deserve. There was another peculiarity about this debate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, at any rate, had settled a question which had been very much in dispute during the last twelve months. The country had been told in impassioned speeches, elaborate articles, and pamphlets and leaflets of every description, that where a tax was imposed upon an article which was produced abroad and imported into this country that tax was paid by the producer, the foreigner. He should like to hear the hon. Member for Sheffield, who had been the eloquent and consistent advocate of that theory for many years, or some other supporter of the new fiscal policy, say that in this case this tax upon tea producers would fall upon the Chinese, and that the British consumer would be entirely exempt. They could not have a better illustration than this. There was a very small amount of tea imported from China, he believed the proportion was nearly 95 per cent, from India and only 5 per cent, from China, but every man in the House knew that within twenty four hours of the Resolution imposing this tax being passed the price of tea was raised practically throughout the United Kingdom, by the full amount of the tax. There had been no recognition of the argument of which so much had been heard that when they put a tax upon an article of this description the burden was distributed among the producers, the carriers, the merchants, and the consumers. Nothing of the sort. Every shilling of the additional tax was already charged to the working classes, and that would not be confined, as had already been shown, to the amount of the tax. His right hon. friend the Member for the University of Cambridge in a very powerful speech pointed out that the addition to this tax would not only be the actual amount of the duty levied, but would be based upon the attendant consequences of levying such an additional tax, which would make it an additional burden.

There was another feature of the debate for which they were also indebted to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had not convinced the House, though he had convinced himself, that it was absolutely necessary to levy this taxation. It was a singular Budget, and they had not had an opportunity yet, as no doubt they would have, of discussing it in all its aspects. There was a Chancellor of the Exchequer who produced five or six Budgets, and who was alleged to have under-estimated what the revenue would produce in order that he might have an enormous surplus at the end of the year. He alluded to Mr. Lowe, whose estimates for a succession of years, whether intentionally or unintentionally, were much below what the taxes actually did produce. He was not going to charge the present Chancellor of the Exchequer with that; but he did think the right hon. Gentleman was under-estimating the produce of the revenue next year when he contemplated a surplus of nearly £750,000. That was a large sum to take from the country if it was not absolutely necessary. He thought the true test of sound finance, and the course which the Chancellor of the Exchequer should pursue, was to take as little from the taxpayers as he possibly could, of course keeping on the safe side. Of course the right hon. Gentleman must keep within the lines of safety and that he quite admitted. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was called upon to prove that it was absolutely necessary for the expenditure of the country that this sum should be raised. He was not now going to discuss the expenditure of the country, for the Chairman had ruled that that could not be done at present, but it was impossible to keep out of their minds that they were really putting on additional taxation because of additional expenditure which a large number of Members of the House believed to be unnecessary. That question would. of course, arise on another occasion.

This was an addition to a war tax. No other war tax had been increased. The' Chancellor of the Exchequer was now asking the working classes to pay a tax of 8d. on tea, in a time of peace, under a peace Budget, though during the last peace Budget the people were only paying 4d. He thought that was a very serious feature in this proposal. The right hon. Gentleman in his Budget speech said that beer and spirits would not stand any more taxation because there was a danger point beyond which they could not endure further burdens. He had been rather disposed to agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the point had very nearly been reached; but within ten days of that statement the Home Secretary proposed a compensation tax on those articles of £1,000,000 per annum on the sellers of beer and spirits, and that tax would practically fall on the consumers of these commodities. The right hon. Gentleman did not contemplate dealing in this increase of taxation with the taxation of luxuries. It was simpler and easier to put the tax on necessaries. What the Chancellor of the Exchequer was proposing was to increase permanently the taxation of the country through an article of universal consumption. This tea tax fell with excessive severity on the poorest of the poor. He thought that every expedient should have been adopted before a tax on one of the prime necessaries of life to the working people was imposed. He believed that the food of a large number of working people, especially in Ireland, for the great bulk of the week was bread and tea, and this was the class which ought to receive special consideration in this matter. He agreed with his hon. friend the Member for Edinburgh as to what was the true policy that ought to be followed in all these cases. He agreed also with his right hon. friend the Member for the University of Cambridge, who spoke of the need for teaching a lesson to the country, and that the working people should be taught to feel the burden of the increased expenditure. He agreed also with the view of his right hon. friend the Member for the Montrose Burghs, that where a great military operation was undertaken in which all classes were interested and were responsible it was desirable that the burden should be spread over the whole community. But where was the lesson going to begin with respect to the other classes of the community? The income-tax during the war was Is. 3d., it was reduced last year to l1d., and it was raised this year to Is.; so that the class of the community possessing the greatest influence and power in the House would not feel the keenest effect of the Budget. He doubted very much whether it was necessary for the expenditure of the country in a time of peace, under the conditions in which we were now living, and with the knowledge that money was being wasted.

THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.

On what?

* SIR HENRY FOWLER

On every department of public expenditure. He made no exception; money was being wasted all round, and he believed that expenditure could be reduced in every department. But if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had proposed, in order to maintain the existing expenditure in time of peace, to add 3d. to the income-tax, he did not think that the Government would have remained in office twenty-four hours after the proposal had been made. The pressure of the House would have been too powerful.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

Outside influence.

* SIR HENRY FOWLER

said he regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had selected the article of tea for increased taxation. It was liable to all the objections raised against any form of indirect taxation. Taxation of this kind ought not to be resorted to except under the gravest emergency. When in a time of peace it had been reduced to 4d., and then raised in a time of war to 6d., the first thing the Chancellor of the Exchequer should do was to bring the tax back again to 4d. He should record his vote against the increase of the tax.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)

said there were many Departments of the State which cost far more than they should do, but this was not the time to protest against the charges. It was when the Estimates were being discussed, or when Bills and Resolutions authorising loans and expenditure on public works were submitted. He had endeavoured to stop expenditure of this kind, and on one occasion he did his best to stop the granting of £2,000 a year to the Incorporated Law Society, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton strongly supported. He hoped that on the next occasion when he endeavoured to save a little money to the country he would have his support. The right hon. Gentleman talked of the working men of the country living on bread and tea. He himself knew many working men and he did not believe there was one in a thousand in this country at the present time who lived on bread and tea. There was, perhaps, a time when that was the case, but that was long gone by. The right hon. Gentleman put another test which was hardly fair when he asked whether working people were anxious to pay this tax. He never knew anyone, rich or poor, who was anxious to pay any tax whatever. He did not agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he said that the Chanceller of the Exchequer had budgeted for too large a surplus. In his opinion the Chancellor of the Exchequer had over-estimated the income which he would receive from this extra duty on tea. The inevitable result of the increased duty would be a fall in the con sumption of tea, and there certainly was no question here that the tax would fall on the consumer. Millions of pounds of tea that had not paid the increased duty were being sold at the higher figure, so that the consumer was paying considerably more now than the extra duty. Four per cent, of our tea came from China and 93 per cent, from India and Ceylon, but while the tariff reformer professed an enormous affection for the Colonies it was an extraordinary thing in all the tariff question that India was left entirely out of account. That was one reason, perhaps, why tea was selected for this extra burden. From that point of view he thought that the tea duty would disappoint the expectations of the right hon. Gentleman. He did not know if there would be a surplus left to the right hon. Gentleman after he had had a few interviews with the tobacco trade, and representatives of the tea merchants, and the tea planters of India and Ceylon. As he had said before, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the victim of a situation created by this House. When the House voted the Estimates, it must expect fro be called upon to pay them. Nevertheless, there was a right left to the House to criticise the manner in which the revenue was to be raised. He could not regard tea as a food. It was less a food than beer, and very much less than sugar. He had not the same delicate feeling about tea as a bout sugar; but he felt that this extra tax upon tea would press very hardly upon the poor because too many of these poor people had discarded their ancient beverage of beer for tea.

MR. WHITLEY (Halifax)

said he was surprised that no hon. Member on the Government Benches had ventured to rise in response to the challenge of his right hon. friend. He noticed that the Prime Minister had immediately gathered up his skirts and fled, and did not venture on a reply. He was sure that the House would have been intensely interested if they had had from the right hon. Gentleman some "economic notes" as to whether this tax would fall on the consumer or producer. He ventured to ask the understudy of the hon. Member for West Birmingham —he meant the hon. Member for Tunbridge—whether he could give the House a little enlightenment on that particular point. They really ought to hear the hon. Gentleman's views on this tax on tea. He objected very strongly to this proposed additional tax on tea, because it was a tax graduated as badly as a tax could be; graduated, that was to say, in exactly the wrong direction; and it pressed most heavily on the smallest incomes. He objected to it also because of its secondary effects upon the trade of the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech gave a gloomy, and he was afraid a true, account of the trade of the country during the last twelve months. What was the reason why our trade has so sadly fallen off? So far as his own experience went, the decline was not in foreign trade, but in the home trade; and the falling off in the home demand was due to the reduced spending power of the great masses of the people, owing to the heavy demands that were being made upon them by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The margin which lay between the absolute necessaries of life and the small luxuries was becoming narrower, and, therefore, the working classes had less to spend. The great textile industries of the country, which depended so largely on the home demand, were specially affected. He was convinced that this tax was not only bad. but that any addition to indirect taxation, which fell heavily on the working classes, meant a less demand for clothing and other necessaries, and had, therefore, a very farreaching effect on the whole industries of the country. He ventured to hope that the House would not agree with the Resolution.

MR. McKENNA (Monmouthshire, N.)

said that his hon. friend had expressed a wish to hear the views of the right hon. Member for West Bristol on this tea tax. A speech by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered in 1901 had been referred to; but since then the right hon. Gentleman had made another speech, in 1902, in which he expressed a very remarkable opinion about the tea tax. The right hon. Gentleman then said— I come to tea. Well, I have listened to the pitiable cry of our fellow subjects, the tea producers of India and Ceylon. Bear in mind that tea, which is almost a necessary of life, is already taxed to 75 per cent, of its value. I acknowledge I would be very sorry to increase that tax. Now, the right hon. Gentleman was bound to find new taxes to meet the war expenditure, and he passed by tea; and he found satisfactory reason why he should not increase the tax upon sugar, and turned to corn, and instituted the Is. duty on corn. Why did not the present Chancellor of the Exchequer propose a duty on corn now, instead of on tea? What was good for hon. Gentlemen opposite two years ago, one would have thought was good enough to-day; and as a Is. duty on corn would bring in exactly the same amount as the proposed addition to the tax on tea, he was astonished that the hon. Member for Tunbridge and his friends did not insist to-day, as they insisted on a recent occasion in this House, upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer abandoning this duty on tea, and going back to the Is. duty on corn, which they found so satisfactory two years ago. Of course, they had this advantage that, according to their theory, the Is. duty on corn was paid by the railway companies of the United States. After that duty had been passed, the hon. Gentleman the hon. Member for Tunbridge had proved that by facts and figures. He thought he had seen a publication, not altogether unconnected with the hon. Gentleman, in which it was stated that every penny of that corn tax was paid by the American railways and by the shipping firms, and that not one farthing of it fell on the taxpayers of this country. And yet, believing that, hon. Members opposite, representing British constituencies, were willing to support the imposition of an additional tax of 2d. in the lb. on tea instead of a Is. duty on American railways! That was political consistency and political courage! If hon. Members opposite, after such an exhibition as that, imagined that the British people believed in the sham agitation for tariff reform he would be very much surprised.

If they were to have the tax on tea, why should it not be imposed in such a way as would not raise the price of tea to the poorest classes? The right hon. Member for West Bristol spoke of tea being taxed on the average at 75 per cent, of its value and the proposed addition to the tax would increase that to 100 per cent. He was told that tea was sold at present as low as 6d. per lb., but that the average price of all teas was 8d. per lb. If the right hon. Gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was to impose a duty of, 100 per cent, ad valorem, he would raise exactly the same amount. The effect of an ad valorem duty of 100 per rent, would be that the cheapest tea would be sold as at present at 6d. per lb. while the consumption of the higher class of Chinese and Ceylon teas would not be decreased. If 2d. per lb., as suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were added to the price of the cheapest teas, it would immediately diminish the consumption of these: but if the right hon. Gentleman were to put 100 per cent, ad valorem duty on all teas, he would leave the consumption of these cheap teas exactly as it was, and yet would obtain the revenue which he anticipated. He therefore suggested that the right hon. Gentleman should withdraw his Resolution from the consideration of the House, and introduce a duty of 100 per cent, ad valorem. It was surprising to think that our working classes should be taxed on tea more heavily than those in any other country in Europe. In Denmark the duty was only 4d. per lb., in Germany 5½ d., Holland 2½d., in Belgium it was free, in France it was 9d., in Italy, l1d.—but there tea was very little drunk—and in Switzerland it was as low as 1¾d. It was a pity that in this country, where tea was so largely drunk and where, in the words of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was almost a necessary of life, that we should now add 2d. per lb. to the duty, and so diminish its consumption.

* MR. AINSWORTH (Argyll)

said that as representing a Highland constituency, he might be allowed to refer to the hardship which the tax would inflict on the Highland districts. He thought he might make a special appeal to the House, because there were very few hon. Members who did not hope to spend a portion of their holidays in the North and West of Scotland. Hon. Members knew how the crofters and the fishermen lived. The fishermen were not so badly off in the fishing season; but the only luxury a crofter and his family had was a cup of tea. He would remind the House of some correspondence which appeared in the Standard newspaper a few days ago, in which it was pointed out that one of the results of the tax would undoubtedly be to divert the trade in the direction of cheaper and inferior China teas, and everyone knew how injurious that would be. It was said that having voted for the Estimates they were now bound to vote for these taxes; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer was looking forward to a surplus at the close of the year, and he should like to encourage the right hon. Gentleman to increase it on the way in which any business firm would act, namely, by decreasing expenditure. That was the reason why they not only voted against the Estimates but would vote with equal persistency against this taxation. He should like to suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer how expenditure might be reduced. What was the large permanent garrison in South Africa for?

MR. SPEAKER

The question as to the mode of expenditure will not be in order on this Resolution.

* MR. AINSWORTH

said he would, of course, bow to the ruling of the Chair. He would only add that he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to increase his balance at the end of the year.

MR. HARWOOD (Bolton)

said he wished to say a word in reference to what had fallen from the hon. Member for King's Lynn. As an employer of labour his experience was that tea was being more and more largely consumed in substitution for beer. He was not a teetotaller; but he was bound to say that he had noticed, he believed as a result of the change, an enormous increase in the sobriety of

the workpeople, and an increase in the effectiveness of their labour, so much so that regular facilities were now provided for the workers to have tea at all their meals. It certainly was the fact that the workers did depend largely on tea, especially the poorer classes. In reply to the philosophy propounded by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University, he rather advocated the tax from a punitive point of view; the people, he said, were extravagant and the tax would bring home to them the result of their extravagance. Taking the South African War as an example, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the people did not urge on the war, or the extravagant expenditure connected with it, but they loyally supported the decision of the House. It was not for the people to decide; and, therefore, they should not be punished as they did not take the initiative. It was rather hard that those who loyally supported the decision of the House should now be punished.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes, 239; Noes, 202. (Division List No. 97.)

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Campbell, J.H.M. (Dublin Univ.	Doughty, George
Allsopp, Hon. George	Carlile, William Walter	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Doxford, Sir William Theodore
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Cautley, Henry Strother	Duke, Henry Edward
Arnold-Forster, Rt.Hn. Hugh O.	Cavendish, V.C.W. (Derbyshire)	Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Cayzer, Sir Charles William	Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart
Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H.	Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton
Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy	Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)	Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas
Bain, Colonel James Robert	Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Worc	Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.
Baird, John George Alexander	Chapman, Edward	Faber, George Denison (York)
Balcarres, Lord	Charrington, Spencer	Fardell, Sir T. George
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r	Clare, Octavius Leigh	Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J.(Manc'r
Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W (Leeds	Clive, Captain Percy A.	Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.	Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Cohen, Benjamin Louis	Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne
Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor)	Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Fisher, William Hayes
Bartley, Sir George C. T.	Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	Fison, Frederick William
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin	Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge	FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose
Beach, Rt. Hon Sir Michael Hicks	Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.	Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon
Bignold, Arthur	Cripps, Charles Alfred	Flannery, Sir Fortescue
Bigwood, James	Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)	Flower, Sir Ernest
Blundell, Colonel Henry	Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile	Forster, Henry William
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith	Cust, Henry John C.	Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S.W.
Brassey, Albert	Dalrymple, Sir Charles	Fyler, John Arthur
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John	Davenport, William Bromley	Galloway, William Johnson
Bull, William James	Denny, Colonel	Garfit, William
Burdett-Coutts, W.	Dickson, Charles Scott	Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick
Butcher, John George	Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph	Gordon, Hn. J. E (Elgin & Nairn)
Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A (Glasgow)	Dorington, Rt. Hn. Sir John E.	Gordon, Maj Evans- (T'rH'mlets
Gore, Hon G.R.C Ormsby-(Salop	Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth	Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)
Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred	Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford
Goschen, Hon. George Joachim	Macdona, John Cumming	Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander
Graham, Henry Robert	MacIver, David (Liverpool)	Samuel, Sir Harry S. (Limehouse)
Green, Walford D. (Wednesbury	Maconochie, A. W.	Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles
Greene, Sir E. W (B'ryS Edm'nds	M 'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)	Seely, Maj J.E.B. (Isle of Wight
Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.)	M'Calmont, Colonel James	Seton-Karr, Sir Henry
Gretton, John	Majendie, James A. H.	Sharpe, William Edward T.
Groves, James Grimble	Malcolm, Ian	Simeon, Sir Barrington
Gunter, Sir Robert	Martin, Richard Biddulph	Sloan, Thomas Henry
Hamilton, Rt. Hn Lord G (Midd'x	Maxwell, Rt. Hn Sir H. E. (Wigt'n	Smith, H C (North'mb Tyneside
Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry	Maxwell, W.J.H. (Dumfriessh.)	Smith, Hon. W F. D. (Strand)
Hare, Thomas Leigh	Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.	Spear, John Ward
Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)	Middlemore, John Throgmorton	Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)
Haslam, Sir Alfred S	Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Stanley, Edward Jas.(Somerset)
Heath, James (Stafford, N. W.	Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G.	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.
Heaton, John Henniker	Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N.	Stewart, Sir Mark J. M' Taggart
Helder, Augustus	Mitchell, William (Burnley)	Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.	Molesworth, Sir Lewis	Stone, Sir Benjamin
Hickman, Sir Alfred	Morpeth, Viscount	Stroyan, John
Hoare, Sir Samuel	Morrell, George Herbert	Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
Hobhouse, Rt Hn H. (Somers't, E	Morrison, James Archibald	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G (Oxf'd Univ.
Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Bright-side	Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Hoult, Joseph	Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.	Thornton, Percy M.
Houston, Robert Paterson	Muntz, Sir Philip A.	Tollemache, Henry James
Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham	Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute)	Tritton, Charles Ernest
Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil	Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)	Tuff, Charles
Hunt, Rowland	Nicholson, William Graham	Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward
Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse	O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens	Tuke, Sir John Batty
Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.	Parkes, Ebenezer	Valentia, Viscount
Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton	Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley	Vincent, Col. Sir C.E.H (Sheffield
Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)	Pemberton, John S. G.	Walrond, Rt. Wn. Sir William H
Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.	Percy, Earl	Warde, Colonel C. E.
Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)	Pierpoint, Robert	Welby, Lt.-Col. A.C.E (Taunton
Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.	Plummer, Walter R.	Welby, Sir Chas. G. E. (Notts.)
Kimber, Henry	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp	Whiteley, H.(Ashton und.Lyne
King, Sir Henry Seymour	Pretyman, Ernest George	Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Knowles, Sir Lees	Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward	Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Laurie, Lieut.-General	Pym, C. Guy	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)	Quilter, Sir Cuthbert	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.
Lawson, John Grant (Yorks, N. R	Rankin, Sir James	Wilson, John (Glasgow)
Lee, Arthur H. (Hants.,Fareham	Remnant, James Farquharson	Wilson-Todd, Sir W. H. (Yorks.)
Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage	Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine	Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath
Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.	Renwick, George	Worsloy-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Llewellyn, Evan Henry	Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green	Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart
Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine	Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson	Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham)	Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)	Wylie, Alexander
Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Bristol, S.)	Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)	Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.
Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert
Lowe, Francis William	Round, Rt. Hon. James	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Alexander Acland - Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.
Loyd, Archie Kirkman	Royds, Clement Molyneux
Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)	Rutherford, John (Lancashire)
NOES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Brigg, John	Crean, Eugene
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Brown, George M. (Edinburgh	Cremer, William Randal
Allen, Charles P.	Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson	Crombie, John William
Ambrose, Robert	Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Crooks, William
Asher, Alexander	Burke, E. Haviland	Cullinan, J.
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Burt, Thomas	Dalziel, James Henry
Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herb. Henry	Buxton, Sydney Charles	Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)
Atherley-Jones, L.	Caldwell, James	Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan
Austin, Sir John	Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)	Delany, William
Barran, Rowland Hirst	Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.	Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Causton, Richard Knight	Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)	Cawley, Frederick	Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.
Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.	Channing, Francis Allston	Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles
Black, Alexander William	Coghill, Douglas Harry	Donelan, Captain A.
Blake, Edward	Condon, Thomas Joseph	Doogan, P. C.
Roland, John	Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow	Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)
Bolton, Thomas Dolling	Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark	Duncan, J. Hastings

Dunn, Sir William	Leigh, Sir Joseph	Redmond, William (Clare)
Edwards, Frank	Leng, Sir John	Rickett, J. Compton
Elibank, Master of	Levy, Maurice	Rigg, Richard
Ellice, Capt. E C (S. Andrw'sBghs	Logan, John William	Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)
Ellis, John Edward (Notts.)	Lough, Thomas	Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)
Emmott, Alfred	Lundon, W.	Robson, William Snowdon
Esmonde, Sir Thomas	MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	Roche, John
Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone	MacVeagh, Jeremiah	Roe, Sir Thomas
Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)	M'Crae, George	Russell, T. W.
Eve, Harry Trelawney	M'Fadden, Edward	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland
Farquharson, Dr. Robert	M'Hugh, Patrick A.	Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)
Farrell, James Patrick	M'Kean, John	Schwann, Charles E.
Fenwick, Charles	M'Kenna, Reginald	Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)
Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)	M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)	Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)
Ffrench, Peter	Mansfield, Horace Kendall	Sheehy, David
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond	Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Flynn, James Christopher	Markham, Arthur Basil	Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)
Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)	Mooney, John J.	Slack, John Bamford
Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Smith, Samuel (Flint)
Freeman-Thomas, Captain F.	Moss, Samuel	Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants
Fuller, J. M. F.	Moulton, John Fletcher	Strachey, Sir Edward
Furness, Sir Christopher	Murnaghan, George	Sullivan, Donal
Gilhooly James	Murphy, John	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe
Goddard, Daniel Ford	Nannetti, Joseph P.	Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.
Griffith, Ellis J.	Newnes, Sir George	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.
Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton	Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.)	Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)
Harcourt, Lewis V. Rossendale	Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)	Thompson, Dr. E C (Monagh'n, N
Harmsworth, R. Leicester	Norman, Henry	Tomkinson, James
Harwood, George	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Toulmin, George
Hayden, John Patrick	Nussey, Thomas Willans	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir A. D.	O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)	Ure, Alexander
Helme, Norval Watson	O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid	Waldron, Laurence Ambrose
Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)
Henderson, Arthor (Durham)	O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.	O'Connor, James (Wicklow,W.	Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)
Holland, Sir William Henry	O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Horniman, Frederick John	O'Dowd, John	Weir, James Galloway
Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.	White, George (Norfolk)
Jacoby, James Alfred	O'Malley, William	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Joicey, Sir James	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)
Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea	Palmer, Sir Chas. M. (Durham)	Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Jones, William (Carnarvonshire	Parrott, William	Whittaker, Thomas Palmer
Joyce, Michael	Paulton, James Mellor	Wilson, Fred, W. (Norfolk, Mid.)
Kearley, Hudson E.	Pearson, Sir Weetman D.	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.)
Kilbride, Denis	Perks, Robert William	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)
Kitson, Sir James	Pirie, Duncan V.	Wilson, John (Falkirk)
Labouchere, Henry	Power, Patrick Joseph	Wilson, J.W. (Worcestersh, N.)
Lambert, George	Price, Robert John
Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)	Priestley, Arthur	TELLRS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. William M Arthur.
Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)	Rea, Russell
Layland-Barratt, Francis	Reddy, M.
Leamy, Edmund	Redmond, John E (Waterford)

Question put, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

The House divided:—Ayes, 236; Noes 192. (Division List No. 98.)

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Balfour, Rt Hn. Gerald W.(Leeds	Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John
Allsopp, Hon. George	Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.)	Bull, William James
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Butcher, John George
Arkwright, John Stanhope	Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor)	Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Glasgow
Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O.	Bartley, Sir George C. T.	Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin Univ.
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Bathurst. Hon. Allen Benjamin	Carlile, William Walter
Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H.	Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks	Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.
Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy	Bignold, Arthur	Cautley, Henry Strother
Bain, Colonel James Robert	Bigwood, James	Cavendish, V.C.W. (Derbyshire
Baird, John George Alexander	Blundell, Colonel Henry	Cayzer, Sir Charles William
Balcarres, Lord	Boscawen, Arthur Griffith	Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r	Brassey, Albert	Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A (Worc.	Hickman, Sir Alfred	Pretyman, Ernest George
Chapman, Edward	Hoare, Sir Samuel	Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward
Charrington, Spencer Clive, Captain Percy A.	Hobhouse, Rt Hn H (Somers't, E	Pym, C. Guy
	Hope, J.F (Sheffield, Brightside	Quilter, Sir Cuthbert
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.	Hoult, Joseph	Rankin, Sir James
Cohen, Benjamin Louis	Houston, Robert Paterson	Remnant, James Farquharson
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)	Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)	Hozier, Hn. James Henry Cecil	Renwick, George
Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge	Hunt, Rowland	Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.	Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse	Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson
Cripps, Charles Alfred	Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.	Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)
Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)	Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton	Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)
Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile	Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)	Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert
Cust, Henry John C.	Kenyon, Hn. Geo. T. (Denbigh)	Round, Rt. Hon. James
Dalrymple, Sir Charles	Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop	Royds, Clement Molyneux
Davenport, William Bromley	Kimber, Henry	Rutherford, John (Lancashire)
Denny, Colonel	King, Sir Henry Seymour	Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)
Dickson, Charles Scott	Knowles, Sir Lees	Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford
Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph	Laurie, Lieut.-General	Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander
Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.	Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)	Samuel, Sir Harry S. (Limehouse
Doughty, George	Lawson, John Grant (Yorks, N. R	Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers	Lee, Arthur H. (Hants.,Fareham	Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)
Doxford, Sir William Theodore	Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage	Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight
Duke, Henry Edward	Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S.	Seton-Karr, Sir Henry
Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin	Llewellyn, Evan Henry	Sharpe, William Edward T.
Dyke, Rt, Hn. Sir William Hart	Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine	Simeon, Sir Barrington
Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton	Long, Col. Charles, W. (Evesham	Sloan, Thomas Henry
Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas	Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.)	Smith, H C. (North'mb. Tyneside
Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Faber, George Denison (York)	Lowe, Francis William	Spear, John Ward
Fardell, Sir T. George	Lloyd, Archie Kirkman	Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)
Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir. J. (Manc'r	Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)	Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset)
Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst	Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lanes.
Finch, Rt. Hon George H.	Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred	Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart
Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne	Macdona, John Cumming	Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Fisher, William Hayes	MacIver, David (Liverpool)	Stone, Sir Benjamin
Fison, Frederick William	Maconochie, A. W.	Stroyan, John
FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose	M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)	Strutt Hon. Charles Hedley
Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon	M'Calmont, Colonel James	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Flannery, Sir Fortescue	Majendie, James A. H.	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ.
Flower, Sir Ernest	Malcolm, Ian	Taylor, Austin (East Noxteth)
Forster, Henry William	Martin, Richard Biddulph	Thornton, Percy M.
Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W.	Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H. E. (Wigt'n	Tollemache, Henry James
Fyler, John Arthur	Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.	Tritton, Charles Ernest
Galloway, William Johnson	Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.	Tuff, Charles
Garfit, William	Middlemore, John Throgmorton	Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward
Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick	Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Tuke, Sir John Batty
Gordon, Hn. J. E (Elgin & Nairn)	Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.	Valentia, Viscount
Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets	Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N.)	Vincent. Col. Sir C.R H (Sheffield
Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon	Mitchell, William (Burnley)	Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.
Goschen, Hon. George Joachim	Molesworth, Sir Lewis	Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E Taunton
Graham, Henry Robert	Morpeth, Viscount	Welby, Sir Charles G.E.(Notts.)
Green, Walford D (Wednesbury	Morrell, George Herbert	Whiteley, H (Ashton-und. Lyne)
Greene, Sir E. W (B'rySEdm'nds	Morrison, James Archibald	Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.)	Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Gretton, John	Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.)
Groves, James Grimble	Muntz, Sir Philip A.	Wilson, John (Glasgow)
Gunter, Sir Robert	Murray, Rt Hn. A. Graham (Bute	Wilson-Tod. Sir W. H. (Yorks.)
Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x	Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)	Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath)
Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry	Nicholson, William Graham	Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Hare, Thomas Leigh	O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart
Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)	Parkes, Ebenezer	Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Haslam, Sir Alfred S.	Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley	Wylie, Alexander
Haslett, Sir James Horner	Pemberton, John S. G.	Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.
Heath, James (Staffords, N.W.	Percy, Karl
Heaton, John Henniker	Pierpoint, Robert	TELLERS FOR the AYES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.
Helder, Augustus	Plummer, Walter R.
Hendenson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.)	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp
NOES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Allen, Charles P.	Asher, Alexander
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Ambrose, Robert	Astruith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Atherley-Jones, L.	Gilhooly, James	O'Dowd, John
Austin, Sir John	Goddard, Daniel Ford	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.
Barran, Rowland Hirst	Griffith, Ellis J.	O'Malley, William
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)	Harcourt, Lewis V. (Rossendale	Palmer, Sir Charles M. (Durham)
Beaumont, Wentworth C. B	Hayden, John Patrick	Parrott, William
Black, Alexander William	Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.	Pirie, Duncan V.
Blake, Edward	Helme, Norval Watson	Power, Patrick Joseph
Boland, John	Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.	Price, Robert John
Bolton, Thomas Dolling	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)	Priestley, Arthur
Brigg, John	Hobhouse, C.E.H. (Bristol, E.)	Rea, Russell
Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)	Holland, Sir William Henry	Reddy, M.
Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson	Horniman, Frederick John	Redmond, John E. (Waterford;
Buchanan, Thomas Rybum	Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.	Redmond, William (Clare)
Burke, E. Haviland	Joicey, Sir James	Rickett, J. Compton
Burns, John	Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea	Rigg, Richard
Burt, Thomas	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire	Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)
Caldwell, James	Joyce, Michael	Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)
Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)	Kearley, Hudson E.	Robson, William Snowdon
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.	Kilbride, Denis	Roche, John
Causton, Richard Knight	Kitson, Sir James	Roe, Sir Thomas
Cawley, Frederick	Labouchere, Henry	Russell, T. W.
Channing, Francis Allston	Lambert, George	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Coghill, Douglas Harry	Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)	Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)	Schwann, Charles E.
Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)	Layland-Barratt, Francis	Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)
Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark;	Leamy, Edmund	Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)
Crean, Eugene	Leigh, Sir Joseph	Sheehy, David
Cremer, William Randal	Leng, Sir John	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Crombie, John William	Levy, Maurice	Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)
Crooks, William	Logan, John William	Slack, John Bamford
Cullinan, J.	Lough, Thomas	Smith, Samuel (Flint)
Dalziel, James Henry	Lundon, W.	Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R. (Northants
Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)	MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	Strachey, Sir Edward
Delany, William	MacVeagh, Jeremiah	Sullivan, Donal
Devlin, CharlesRamsay(Galway	M'Crae George	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radclilfe)
Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)	M'Fadden, Edward	Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)
Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.	M'Hugh, Patrick A.	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)
Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles	M'Kean, John	Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)
Donelan, Captain A.	M'Kenna, Reginald	Thompson, Dr. E C (Monagh'n, N
Doogan, P. C.	M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)	Tomkinson, James
Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)	M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin	Toulmin, George
Duncan, J. Hastings	Mansfield, Horace Rendall	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Dunn, Sir William	Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe	Ure, Alexander
Edwards, Frank	Markham, Arthur Basil	Waldron, Laurence Ambrose
Elibank, Master of	Mooney, John J.	Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)
Ellice, Capt EC (S.Andrw'sBghs	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Ellis, John Edward (Notts)	Moss, Samuel	Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan
Emmott, Alfred	Moulton, John Fletcher	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Murnaghan, George	Weir, James Galloway
Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone	Murphy, John	White, George (Norfolk)
Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)	Nannetti, Joseph P.	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Eve, Harry Trelawney	Newnes, Sir George	Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Farquharson, Dr. Robert	Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.)	Whittaker, Thomas Palmer
Farrell, James Patrick	Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)	Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid.)
Fenwick, Charles	Norman, Henry	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)
Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)
Ffrench, Peter	Nussey, Thomas Willans	Wilson, John (Falkirk)
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond	O'Brien, James F. N. (Cork)
Flynn, James Christopher	O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid	TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. William M'Arthur.
Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry	O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)
Fuller, J. M. F.	O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)
Furness, Sir Christopher	O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Gentlemen appointed to bring in a Bill upon the Resolution reported from the Committee of Ways and Means on the 26th day of April last and then agreed to by the House, that they do make provision therein pursuant to the said Resolution.—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

Further consideration of Second Resolution deferred till To-morrow.