Commons Sitting of 30 May 1905

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

MR. SPEAKER'S ABSENCE.
The House being met, the Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. Speaker, owing to continued indisposition.
Whereupon Mr. JAMES WILLIAM LOWTHER, the Chairman of Ways and Means, proceeded to the Table, and, after Prayers, took the Chair as Deputy-Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO COMPLIED WITH).
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERlaid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.:—Bangor (County Down) Water and Improvement Bill [Lords]; Nottingham Corporation Bill [Lords]; University College, London (Transfer), Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
  Skegness Water Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
  Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 14) Bill; Local Government Provisional Order (No. 16) Bill. Read a second time, and committed.

  RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP 4).
  Mr. DE TATTON EGERTONreported from the Committee on Group 4 of Railway Bills; That; for the convenience of parties, they had adjourned till Tuesday, 20th June, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
  Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bootle Corporation Bill. Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Barrymore Estate Bill [Lords]; North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill [Lords]. Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to—Dublin Corporation (Superannuation) Bill; South Oxfordshire Water and Gas Bill, without Amendment.
  Dundee Water Order Conformation Bill, with an Amendment.
  Accrington District Gas and Water Board Bill; Hull, Barnsley, and West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Bill; Otley Improvement Bill, with Amendments.
  Amendments to—Clyde Navigation Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
  That they have passed a Bill, intituled, ''An Act to amend and extend the Workmen's Compensation Acts, 1897 and 1900; and for purposes incidental thereto." [Workmen's Compensation Bill [Lords.]
  Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to enable the Baron Barrymore to restore certain forfeited lenses in the town of Tipperary; and for other purposes." [Barrymore Estate Bill [Lords.]
  And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act; for extending the limits of supply of and for conferring further powers upon the North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Company; and for other purposes." [North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill [Lords.]

PETITIONS.
  SUPPLY OF ELECTRICITY BILL.
  Petition from St. Pancras, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  VOTING DISQUALIFICATION (POOR LAW) REMOVAL BILL.
  Petition from, St. Marylebone, against; to lie upon the Table.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Forres, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  LICENSED PREMISES (HOURS OF CLOSING).
  Petition from Longton, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
  NURSES REGISTRATION BILL.
  Petition from St. Marylebone, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  EAST INDIA (PROGRESS AND CONDITION).
  Copy presented, of Statement exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India during the year 1903–4. Fortieth number [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 180.]
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 3385 and 3386 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Intermediate Education (Ireland). Accounts of Receipts and Expenditure for 1904, with Report of Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to be printed. [No. 181.]
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Calves used for Production of Vaccine Lymph.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the President of the Local Government Board, having regard to the fact that the carcasses of upwards of 1,000 calves, which were vaccinated at the Local Government Board vaccine station for the production of lymph, have recently been sold for food in London, will he arrange for the carcasses of all animals which have been used for the production of vaccine lymph to be destroyed.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) I am advised that there is no evidence whatever that the carcasses of animals used for the purpose referred to are thereby rendered unfit for food. The destruction of the carcasses would, moreover, involve a large additional charge upon the Exchequer, amounting probably to some £4,000 a year, and having regard to these considerations I am not prepared to adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member. I may add that the carcasses
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  are thoroughly examined by a veterinary Burgeon before being allowed to be sold for food.

  Report of Dr. Reece on Liverpool Small pox Hospitals.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the Report of Dr. Reece on the Liverpool smallpox hospitals is based entirely on spot maps, and that the medical officer of the Local Government Board has stated that other sources of infection ought to be taken into consideration; and whether, seeing that the Fazakerley Hospital, condemned in the Report of Dr. Reece, received the approval of three of the Board's inspectors, he will take steps to withdraw the Report in question in view of the above facts.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) Dr. Reece's Report sets out the facts with regard to the incidence of smallpox in the neighbourhood of the three hospitals referred to in it, and these facts are illustrated by means of the spot maps annexed to the Report. He has stated the circumstances in relation to the Fazakerley Hospital, but he has not condemned it, and I sec no sufficient reason for withdrawing his Report as suggested. I may add that the medical officer of the Local Government Board has not expressed any opinion in explanation of the facts recorded by Dr. Reece.

  Post Office Electrical Works at Ports mouth Dockyard.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: To ask the Postmaster-General were extensive electrical works carried out by the Post Office in Portsmouth Dockyard between May and September, 1904; if so, for what purposes were these works undertaken; what was the total cost of them; what was the total amount of wages expended on the works; how many men were employed thereon and for how many days; and what overtime was paid for.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) Extensive telegraph works were carried out in Portsmouth Dockyard by the Post Office engineering staff during 1904 and the

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  early part of this year. The purposes were to reconstruct on modern principles the telephone systems of the Admiralty and War Department, and to render communication more rapid and more efficient. The total cost was about £7,500. I am unable to give the other details, for which the hon. Member asks, without a special examination of accounts, which would involve a considerable expenditure of time and money.

  Precedence in the Postal Service—London-derry and Portadown Travelling Post Office.
  MR. GORDON): To ask the Postmaster-General whether it is a rule of the Post Office service that officers senior in point of service take precedence over their juniors; whether he is aware that, on the day mail sorting carriage running between Londonderry and Portadown, the Portadown officer is always placed in charge, although frequently he is the junior of the staff engaged; if so, whether he can state the reason for this departure from the usual practice; and will he give directions that it should be discontinued.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I have no information on the subject of the hon. Member's Question, but I will make inquiry on the subject, and let him know the result.

  Aliens serving Terms of Imprisonment exceeding Three Months in British Prisons.
  MR. LEVY: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state how many aliens in England are now serving terms of imprisonment whose sentences exceeded three months, and how many of these prisoners came to this country as immigrants.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer which I gave to a Question asked on the 12th of April † last, which was circulated with the Votes on the 13th; and to the figures in Volume 3 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration. A special Return showing how many aliens are now serving terms of
  † See (4) Debates, cxliv., 1387.
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  over three months' imprisonment, such as the hon. Member suggests, would involve a great deal of additional labour to the prison officers, and the result would be of less value than the figures we already possess. The last part of the Question could not in any case be answered. The prison authorities can furnish the number of persons of alien birth, but they cannot supply information as to how they entered this country.

  Abolition of Stamp on Delivery Orders
  CAPTAIN NORTON): To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of his proposal to abolish the duty on bonds, whether he can say when the 1d. stamp on delivery orders will be abolished.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The abolition of the stamp on delivery orders cannot take effect until the date of the passing of the Finance Bill.

  Gambling in Stocks and Shares—Suggested Legislation.
  MR. FIELD): To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the depreciation in the prices of Consols and other Government and trust securities and the fluctuation in railway shares, he will consider the need of proposing similar legislative measures to prohibit bear sales and fictitious dealings in these and all other securities dealt with in the British stock exchanges, such as Leeman's Act of 1867 does with regard to joint stock bank shares; and whether, seeing that the French Government passed, in February, 1904, a similar law prohibiting such gambling operations in Russian bonds and stocks, and that the Belgian Parliament has at present under consideration a similar law with the object of preventing international fictitious dealings on their stock exchanges, he will suggest an international conference to be held to consider this matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) I am not prepared to take any such action as the hon. Member suggests.

  Title of the late Amir of Afghanistan.
  COLONEL LEGGE: To ask the Secretary

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  of State for India when the late Amir of Afghanistan used the title of king whether it was recognised by the Government of India; and whether it appears in any official documents previous to the Treaty of the 21st of March, 1905.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The late Amir appears to have first used the title of king in his communications with the Government of India in 1896. His adoption of the title did not need the recognition of the Government of India, which recognises the independence of Afghanistan; and, as stated in my Answer to the hon. Member of the 26th May,† it was not questioned. The letter of 1896 to the Governor-General, using the title, was an official document.

  Action of the Police at Longford County Races.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can explain why the police force in Longford rendered no assistance to the stewards of the Longford county races to preserve order on the course at Greenfield, Longford, on the 17th May; whether any secret instructions were given to them to refrain from giving any active assistance for the preservation of order and the safety of human life; arid whether he has any report showing that a man was killed at this meeting, and as to the conduct of the police in keeping order on this occasion.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The police attended these races for the preservation of the peace. The regulations prohibit the employment of police in keeping the course at races unless their services for that purpose are specially applied for, in which case a charge is made. No complaint against the police has been received in connection with the circumstances in which a man was knocked down and killed when trying to stop a runaway horse at these races.

  Turbary Rights on the Granard Estate.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state who ate the
  † See (4) Debates, cxlvi., 1533.
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  trustees of the bog on the Granard (counties Longford and Leitrim) Estate; how often they meet, and whether they have any power to regulate complaints made by persons aggrieved by reason of deprivation of turbary or the like; whether he is aware that in 1897 Thomas Whitney, of Lettergullion, purchased his holding subject to a right of turbary on Derawley Bog No. 2, for which the vesting order provides; that, on application of the tenant for his turbary rights, the bailiff told him he had no turbary for him, and that on application to the Land Commission a reply was received that the case was under consideration; and, if so, will he direct the Estates Commissioners to take this man's case into immediate consideration with a view to his getting the rights to which he is by vesting order entitled.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The vesting order in Whitney's case vested with the holding certain turbary rights n Derawley Bog, but the Land Commission were not parties to the deed appointing the trusties and creating the trust of the bog, and they have no information as to who the present trustees are or as to how they discharge their trust. The Estates Commissioners have no power to intervene in the manner suggested.

  Maconchy Estate.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the case of Michael Whitney, of Aghadowry, county Longford, who refused to purchase has holding on the Maconchy Estate because the rent of the holding was too high; and whether, in view of the rent paid by the former tenant, a bailiff, and of the fact that the other tenants on the Maconchy Estate got reductions of over 40 per cent. on their rents being fixed by the Land Commission, the Estates Commissioners, with a view to enabling this tenant to purchase, will inspect his holding before passing the sale.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) An application has been lodged for the sale of this estate, which comprises, amongst

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  others, the holding of Michael Whitney, but no agreement for the purchase of this holding has been lodged. The Commissioners will direct their inspector to inspect and report on Whitney's holding and as to the reasons for his refusal to purchase.

  Delvin Petty Sessions—Case of Luke Gibney.
  MR. HAYDEN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that in a case against Luke Gibney on a charge of offensive and threatening language, heard at Delvin Petty Sessions, the plaintiff having declared he was not afraid of defendant, Mr. Olphert, R.M., the presiding magistrate, called upon the police sergeant to make an information which he dictated to him, and upon which the defendant was bound to the peace; and whether, in view of this proceeding on the part of the magistrate, the rule of bail will be withdrawn.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) This case was heard in July, 1902, and the rule of bail expired in July, 1903. I cannot enter upon a consideration of the magistrate's decision. It was open to the defendant to test the legality of the decision by proceedings in a higher Court.

  Irish Protestant National Teachers' Union.
  MR. SLOAN): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he has received an appeal from the Irish Protestant National Teachers, pointing out the prejudicial effect upon them of the present managerial system in Ireland; and what action, if any, does he propose taking in the matter.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) A resolution to the effect stated was passed by the Irish Protestant National Teachers' Union twelve mouths ago, and was considered by the Commissioners, who did not consider any change in the system to be necessary. The matter is one for the Commissioners.

  Position of Mr. S. E. Stronge in National Education Office, Dublin.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state who appointed Mr. S. E. Stronge to his present position in the National Education Office, Dublin; for what term is the appointment made, and when does it terminate; does he receive extra remuneration for his services and who performs his duty as senior inspector; if the duties he is now performing are those for which the Commissioners have appointed two chief inspectors at a special rate of salary; and, if so, whether he will explain why these duties are assigned to Mr. Stronge instead of chief inspectors, and what work is now assigned to the chief inspectors other than that which Mr. Stronge performs for them.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The Board ordered that one of the senior inspectors should be brought to the Education Office for special duty, and Mr. Stronge was the senior inspector selected. His term of employment was not defined, and it cannot be stated when it will terminate. Mr. Stronge receives no extra remuneration. His duties as senior inspector are performed, during his absence from circuit, by Dr. Bateman, district inspector. Mr. Stronge is not performing any of the duties of the chief inspectors.

  Retirement and Pension of John Shanley from Royal Irish Constabulary.
  MR. JAMES O'KELLY): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state why John Shanley, Lugboy, county Roscommon, who was employed as a detective on the occasion of the visits of the late Mr. Parnell and the hon. Member for Cork City to the United States and Canada, was allowed to retire from the Royal Irish Constabulary at forty-three years of age; how long was he employed as a detective; and what is the amount of his pension.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) Sergeant John Shanley retired on pension, on the ground of ill-health, in October, 1891. He was awarded a special pension of £52 per annum, because his incapacity was due to an injury received while on

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  duty. He was for some time employed as a detective, but it is not now possible to state for what length of time. I cannot give any information as to the occasions on which he was so employed.

  Arterial Drainage in Ireland.
  MR. JOHN O'CONNOR): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can now state if the Government intend to do anything in respect of improving the arterial drainage of Ireland; and, if so, what acts are to be done and what measures are to be proposed.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) I propose to appoint a small Commission, as I announced on Wednesday last.

  Irish Education—Special Consideration Granted to Certain Teachers.
  MR. P. A. MCHUGH): To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that special consideration, and a consequent rise in salary, has been granted to certain teachers appointed to principal-ships subsequent to April, 1900, on the ground that they acted as substitutes for principal teachers prior to April, 1900, while equal service as assistant teacher has not received special consideration; and, if so, will he state why the Commissioners of National Education have made this distinction.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) In the case of certain teachers who acted as substitutes, for principal teachers before April 1st, 1900, special consideration was given to the fact that they had so acted in fixing their salaries on permanent appointment as principals subsequently. Assistants in the service prior to April 1st, 1900, received, as a rule, on promotion to principalships, initial salaries equal to their salaries as assistants, but if they were highly classed special consideration was given to the fact in fixing their initial salaries as principals. Service as an assistant was not regarded by the Commissioners as "equal service" with that of a teacher acting for a principal teacher.

  Government Civil Employment for Army Reservists.
  MR. HARMOOD-BANNER: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether any distinction is made in recommending Army Reservists who have served only three years with the colours and those who have served a more extended period in obtaining established appointments in the Civil branches of the Government service; and if he will explain why the War Office have informed Reservists employed in an unestablished capacity at Glasgow Post Office, who had only performed three years service with the colours, that they were ineligible for established appointments.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) No distinction is made by Army agencies in recommending men if they have the minimum of three years service required by the Post Office. The promotion of such men to established appointments rests with the Post Office authorities. As regards the last part of the Question the War Office has no information on this point; the regulations, however, are fully set forth in the Instructions for Civil Employment, Appendix III.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Rifle Clubs.
    SIR CARNE RASCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that rifle clubs form no part of the system of national defence, he will take steps to secure that members of such clubs shall not be liable to be hanged as franc tireurs in case of a war of invasion.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Articles 25 and 26 of the Hague Convention, 1899, define lawful belligerents. If the requirements set forth in these Articles are fulfilled by rifle clubs, the members of such clubs will not, under the Convention, be liable to the extreme penalty suggested by my hon. and gallant friend. I have little

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    doubt that, in order to serve their country effectually, members of rifle clubs would, in time of war, gladly conform to the requirements of the public law of nations.
    MR. CROOKS: I suppose these members of rifle clubs are real men and not spooks?
    MR. FREDERICK WILSONasked whether, when the £50,000 per annum now promised to rifle clubs for the second time was really given, steps would be taken so to regularise their position that they would no longer run the slightest danger of being hanged as Chunchuses.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I do not know whether the Question is put seriously. If it is I can only say I cannot look far enough into the future to enable me to reply.

    The Indian Earthquake—Gurkha Officers' Claims.
    SIR H. MEYSEY-THOMPSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether anything, and, if so, what, has been done to assist the Gurkha officers in rebuilding their private houses, and also their mess room, which were destroyed by the earthquake at Dharmsala.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODHICK,): I am at present not in a position to reply to this Question. As I stated in this House on the 23rd inst.,† the Commander-in-Chief in India has submitted certain proposals to the Government of India for concessions, the nature of which has not yet been, reported to me. Any proposals which the Government of India think well to forward will be most favourably considered.

    The Naval Battle in the Far East.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: May I ask whether His Majesty's Government have any information to communicate now to the House with reference to the naval engagement, and especially whether they have received
    † See (4) Debates, cxlvi., 1119.
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    any telegram from our naval attaché with Admiral Togo?
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Earl PERCY,): No, Sir; I am not in a position to make any other statement except the general statement I made yesterday. Perhaps I ought to add that it is manifestly impossible for His Majesty's Government to anticipate statements of this kind, which the Japanese Admiralty will themselves make when they think proper.

    Dog Licence Fines.
    MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the number of fines and the total amount produced thereby which have been inflicted on owners of dogs by collectors of the Inland Revenue during the last three years; and whether, in view of the fact that such proceedings conflict with the principle of the Magna Charta that no freeman shall be disseised of his freehold except by the law of the land, and seeing that they are not clearly sanctioned by Section 35 (1) of the Inland Revenue Regulation Act, 1890, he can undertake that they shall be discontinued.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): In reply to the first part of the Question, I have to say that the records kept by the Inland Revenue do not present the statistics desired in a collected form, and I am therefore unable to give the exact figures, but I believe that the following are approximately correct:—Number of cases, 46,000; amount received, £8,800. As regards the second part of the Question, I am quite unable to follow the reference to Magna Charta, or to see the bearing of that document on the facts complained of. It is always open to an offender to appear before a magistrate if he prefers it, but the greater number prefer to avail themselves of the alternative offered by the Inland Revenue. I see no reason for depriving them of this choice.
    MR. LOUGH: But does the right hon. Gentleman seriously say he approves of

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    46,000 fines being inflicted without any control at law?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: In these cases it very often happens that the offence is not a wilful one but is due to negligence or carelessness. In these cases the Inland Revenue offer the offender the option of paying a small fine instead of being taken before a police magistrate, at whose hands they would be liable to a much higher penalty. If the offender chooses to accept the milder alternative I see no reason to interfere.
    MR. LOUGH: But is it legal?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, perfectly legal, and even compatible with the rights of the British freeman under Magna Charta.

    The Suez Canal.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been called to the declaration on May 22nd of a dividend for the past year by the Suez Canal Company which will give the British Government a dividend for the past year of nearly 28 per cent., free of taxes, on the investment of £4,000,000 in 1875; and, if so, whether he will consider the desirability of refunding to British tonnage passing through the canal last year some proportion, say 5 or 10 per cent., of the dividend, having regard to the charges it had to meet to earn such an income for the company.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: According to the announcement in the public Press, a substantial reduction in the shipping dues will be proposed at the annual meeting of the company. I should not be justified in proposing a grant in aid of a particular section of British shipping on the ground stated in the Question.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I shall call attention to this matter at the earliest opportunity.

    Relief Works for the Unemployed.
    MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the President of the Local
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    Government Board whether he can state the amounts expended by the Metropolitan boroughs on works for the relief of the unemployed during the year 1904; and whether he can give similar information concerning the county boroughs of England and Wales.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, Leeds, Central): I am not in possession of the information for which the hon. Member asks, but a Return was recently moved for by my hon. friend the Member for Chelsea for the purpose of showing the amount expended in wages by the Common Council of the City of London and by the councils of the metropolitan boroughs for work undertaken specially for the purpose of providing work for unemployed workmen during the six months ending on March 31st, 1905. I hope that this Return will shortly be issued.
    MR. KEIR HARDIE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication when we may have the Second Reading of the Unemployed Bill?
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am afraid I am not in a position to do so.

    Irish Land Purchase Instalments.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that tenants who have purchased their holdings in districts where there is no bank have to pay poundage charges for postal or money orders by which payment of their purchase instalments is made; and whether he will take steps to relieve them of this impost.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY, Lancashire, Westhoughton): No application for the exemption suggested by the hon. Member has as yet come before me; and I do not see what valid reasons could be urged in support of it. if any could be urged I would be willing to listen to them.
    MR. FLAVIN: We will give you some.

    Committals for Contempt of Court in Ireland.
    MR. P. A. McHUGH: I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ire-land whether the recent judgment of the Chief Baron in reference to committals for contempt of Court in Ireland has been brought under the notice of the Lore Chancellor; and, if so, can he state the result.
    THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. JAMES CAMPBELL, Dublin University): Yes, Sir. The Lord Chancellor informs me that he has not found that any complaint has ever been made of the working of the system which he introduced in 1899 in reference to prisoners committed for contempt of Court in Ireland. He will, however, consider whether any improvement can be effected, but the Crown Office rules would be quite inappropriate to the Chancery Division.

    Valentia Island Transit Facilities.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, in consequence of the withdrawal of the Clyde Shipping Company's steamer from the south-west coast service, an in increased cost of carriage of goods falls on traders in Valentia Island, and that delay and consequent damage to goods is caused by the existing ferry arrangements; and whether, pending the improvement of the pier at Reenard and the ferry service under the Marine Works Act, he will take steps to secure that the railway company will make suitable arrangements, both as to ferrying and storage, for the regular delivery of goods at Valentia.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALTER LONG,): I understand that this steamer called at Valentia once a month, and sometimes more frequently, if cargo offered. The withdrawal of the service will no doubt cause some inconvenience to the traders in that place, but it is not in the power of the Congested Districts Board to secure from the railway company a better ferry service.

    Irish Petty Sessions Clerks.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will give the number of petty sessions clerks referred to in the Return issued on the 20th inst. who had served in the Royal Irish Constabulary, with the names of such men, their districts, and the amount of constabulary pension in each case.
    MR. WALTER LONG: I will communicate this information to the hon. Member.

    Irish Local Government Board Auditors.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the name of the one of the seventeen Local Government Board auditors in Ireland who holds a certificate as an accountant.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Mr. C. E. Browne.

    Irish Local Government Book-keeping.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that after the passing of the Local Government Act a system of book-keeping for local authorities was devised by Mr. Ellis, a Local Government Board auditor in Ireland; that Mr. Ellis registered these books, caused them to be printed, and sold them to the various unions, asylum committees, and other bodies over which the Local Government Board exercises control; whether he can state if any royalties or profit have accrued to Mr. Ellis in connection with the sale of these rocks; and whether the Local Government Board sanctioned this arrangement.
    MR. WALTER LONG: The system of wok-keeping for local authorities was not devised by Dr. Ellis, but by the Local Government Board with the assistance of their audit staff generally. The Answers to the remaining paragraphs of he Question are in the negative.
    MR. MACVEAGH: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say Dr. Ellis did not

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    make any arrangement to derive a royalty?
    MR. WALTER LONG: I mean to say exactly what I have said.
    MR. MACVEAGH: By whom were they copyrighted?
    MR. WALTER LONG: I cannot say.
    MR. MACVEAGH: That is my Question; I shall have to put it again.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg further to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if the new account books specified under the Public Bodies Order, 1904, of the Local Government Board in Ireland were devised by Mr. Ellis, Local Government Board auditor; if so, whether they have been registered; and whether Mr. Ellis will derive any profit from the sale of these books to public bodies over which the Local Government Board exercises control.
    MR. WALTER LONG: No, Sir; but the Board consulted all their auditors when the Orders were being prepared. The new forms of account have not been copyrighted, and it is open to local bodies to obtain them from any printer they may think fit.
    MR. MACVEAGH: As the right hon. Gentleman says the second set of books were not copyrighted, how is it he cannot give similar information as to the first set?
    MR. WALTER LONG: The hon. Member asked if they were copyrighted by Dr. Ellis, and appeared to infer that he had a proprietary interest in the books apart from the Local Government Board.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I shall repeat the Question: was the first set copyrighted?

    Irish Agricultural Department—Mr. Robertson's Appointment.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state when Mr. A. H. Robert-
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    son was appointed agricultural inspector to the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction; and what duties have been assigned to him since his appointment to this position.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Mr. Robertson was appointed in April last. His duties include inspection, supervision, and furnishing reports in connection with the Department's agricultural schemes.

    Bigamy in Ireland.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many cases of bigamy were reported to the Irish police during the past year; and how many of these cases were in Ulster.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Six cases, of which five were in Ulster.
    MR. SLOAN: I do not know what inference is intended to be drawn from this Question, but may I ask how many of the bigamists were Roman Catholics?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Robberies in Ireland.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many cases of robbery came to the knowledge of the Irish police last year; how many of these were in Ulster, and how many of these in the city of Belfast.
    MR. WALTER LONG: There were eighty-one cases of robbery and assaults with intent to rob. Of these, forty-one were in Ulster, and of the latter thirty-four were in Belfast.
    MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: There are some facts for Lord Londonderry's next speech.

    Concealment of Birth in Ireland.
    MR. REDDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland how many cases of concealment of birth were reported to the authorities in Ireland during the past twelve months; what percentage of these were in the province of Ulster, and what percentage in the city of Belfast.
    MR. WALTER LONG: During the year 1904 there were forty-one cases, of which seventeen were in Ulster, including Belfast, and four in Belfast. These figures represent approximately 41 and 10 per cent. respectively.

    Burglary and Housebreaking in Ireland.
    MR. REDDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many cases of burglary and housebreaking were reported to the police in Ireland during the year ending April 19th; what percentage of these were in the province of Ulster, and what percentage of these in the city of Belfast.
    MR. WALTER LONG: During the year 1904 there were 475 cases, of which 188 were in Ulster, including Belfast, and 127 in Belfast. These figures represent about 39 and 26 per cent, respectively.

    Warden Estate, Sneem.
    MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have come to any decision on the proposed exclusion of some townlands from the sale of the Warden Estate at Sneem; and can he state whether the evicted tenants will be reinstated before the end of the summer.
    MR. WALTER LONG: The Answer to the first inquiry is in the negative. The Commissioners hope that the evicted tenants whom it is proposed to reinstate will be put into occupation before the end of the summer, but they cannot say definitely.

    Bee Pest in Ireland.
    MR. P. A. MCHUGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a copy of a resolution recently adopted by the Leitrim County Council in regard to a Bill for the better prevention of bee pest; and what action does he propose to take in reference thereto.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Yes, Sir. It is considered that the facilities for the eradication of this pest which are afforded by the Department's bee-keeping scheme
    240
    will, if properly used, render it unnecessary to have recourse to further legislation.

    Kilmeedy Primary Schools.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, having regard to the objection on moral and on educational grounds which the manager of Kilmeedy Primary School entertains to mixed schools, the Commissioners still refuse the grant-in-aid for separate new buildings there.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Yes, Sir. Rule 194 of the Commissioners' Code provides that in cases of applications for building grants for adjoining boys' and girls' schools, grants for separate schools cannot be made unless there is an average attendance of at least fifty pupils in each school. The condition mentioned in the rule is not fulfilled in the case of Kilmeedy. The rule was made in the interests of education, and the Commissioners do not intend to depart from it in this case.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: I beg further to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Minutes of the National Board of Education dealing with the application of the manager of the Kilmeedy National Schools, in the county of Limerick, for a grant-in-aid for the building of new schools there and the condition of amalgamation required by the Commissioners for the granting of same, the correspondence on the subject the Board had with the manager and the district inspector, and his reports.
    MR. WALTER LONG: This case was not formally submitted to the Board, as the Commissioners had decided tint grants to build separate schools for boys and girls could not be made unless each had an attendance sufficient to maintain an assistant teacher. The inspectors' reports are confidential documents, but there is no objection to furnishing the hon. Member with a copy of the correspondence between the Commissioners and the manager, and I will have it sent to him accordingly.

    Comparative Crime Statistics for Ireland.
    MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the Parliamentary Return, issued last week, on Outrages in Ireland, and to the fact that the Return shows that most of the serious crimes were committed in the province of Ulster; and whether he intends to take any steps to secure a stricter enforcement of law and order in that province.
    MR. WALTER LONG: In the absence of my right hon. friend, I will answer this Question. Taking the population of the four provinces as shown by the last census, I find that the Return referred to gives the following result:—In Con-naught there was one case of serious crime to every 5.725 of the population; in Munster the proportion was one to 6,185; in Leinster (excluding Dublin), one to 6,641; and in Ulster (excluding Belfast), one to 11,215. Ulster, therefore, compares most favourably with the other provinces in respect of serious crime, and there is obviously no necessity for taking any special steps to enforce the law in that province.
    MR. ROCHE: Am I to infer, then, that Belfast is not in Ulster?
    MR. WALTER LONG: The hon. Member is no more entitled to infer that than he is to infer that Dublin is not in Leinster. In both cases I have excluded the two great cities. If Belfast were included in Ulster, the proportion would be one in 8,330 instead of one in 11,215.
    MR. GORDON: How does Leinster stand if Dublin is included?
    MR. WALTER LONG: I have not the figures with me.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Why does the right hon. Gentleman not leave out the city of Cork from Munster? These figures are all gerrymandered.
    MR. WALTER LONG: The hon. Member has no right to make a statement of that kind. I submit to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that an hon.
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    Member of this House has no right to accuse a Minister of producing gerrymandered figures. He has served in a Government office and knows that these figures are produced by the permanent officials and are carefully examined by the Minister who is responsible for them, and no charge of gerrymandering lies fairly and squarely against either permanent officials or Ministers.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid that what he asked was why the city of Cork, which was a city of 100,000 inhabitants, was included in the Munster return, and Belfast and Dublin were excluded from the Ulster and Leinster returns. If the right hon. Gentleman thought the word offensive he would withdraw it.
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The expression of the hon. Member was clearly out of order. In the first place it was not a Question but an interjection, and secondly, the word is certainly objectionable.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I have withdrawn it.
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Yes, I understood that. But if the hon. Member wishes for any further information, drawing the distinction which he has indicated, he can put a Question on the Paper.
    MR. GORDONasked whether he understood correctly that, including Belfast in Ulster, the proportion in that province was one in something over 8,000, whereas, including Cork, in Munster the proportion was one in something over 6,000.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Yes, Sir; Cork is included because obviously it is not excluded. The object of the Question was clearly to draw a comparison between different parts of the country. The reason for the inclusion of Cork is not, as the hon. Gentlemen opposite appeared to imagine, some underhand and dishonest reason; it is simply because I thought that by supplying the information exclusive of Belfast and Dublin I should be meeting the reasonable requirements of the House.
    MR. MACVEAGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the figures he has just given differ from those contained in the Return issued to Members last week?
    MR. WALTER LONG: The Question addressed to me had regard to crime. The Return dealt with outrages only.
    MR. MACVEAGH: And are not crime?
    MR. FLAVIN: And is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Munster is the province in which ex-Sergeant Sheridan committed his offences?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Have any fresh arrangements been made with regard to the business of the House.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's): To-morrow the Third Reading of the Agricultural Rating Bill will be taken as the first order, the Government Ships Bill being put down as the second order. On Thursday the Supply taken will be the Local Government Board Vote. I shall put down to-morrow the Motion for the meeting of Committees at 2 o'clock on Ascension Day.
    SIR HOWARD VINCENT: When will the Aliens Bill be taken in Committee?
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: On the earliest possible day.

    WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION BILL [LORDS].
    Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 233.]

  FINANCE BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N.) in the Chair.]
  MR. CHANNING*MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.) rose to move a new clause to amend Section 2 of the Finance Act, 1901, the object of which was, he said, to abolish the sugar tax as from the end of the year.
  MR. CHARLES McARTHURon a point of order, said he had an Amendment down which preceded that of the hon. Member.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I under stood that that was withdrawn on account of the discussion that took place last night. If it is not withdrawn it of course takes precedence.
  MR. CHARLES MCARTHURsaid he had not withdrawn it; on the contrary, he wished to move it. The new clause he had to move was in the following words. "On and after the first day of July, 1905, three-halfpence shall be substituted for threepence as the increase in the duty on stripped tobacco under Section 2, Sub-section 1, of the Finance Act, 1904." He moved it on behalf of the tobacco trade section of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, who had taken the lead in this matter throughout, and had placed themselves in communication with all the members of the trade in the United Kingdom who were interested in this particular question. They sent a memorial to, as they believed, all the firms in the trade who would be affected in any way by the duty. In all 175 firms wore approached. Of these 126 signed, sixteen declined, and thirty-three made no reply. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the course of the discussion on the preceding night, pointed to the fact that there were 380 licensed manufacturers, and he seemed to infer that, therefore, the memorial could not be taken as repre-

  245
  sentative of the general view, but he would point out that those who were not approached were mainly cigar and cigarette makers in a small way, who were not really affected by these duties. He held, therefore, he was justified in claiming that the memorial was sent to all firms really affected. Now it made two alternative suggestions—one to equalise the duty at 3d., and the other to reduce the duty on strips to 1½d. The right hon. Gentleman had remarked that there was discussion in the tobacco trade on the point, and no doubt there was some difference of opinion, but at a later meeting it had been decided to put forward the proposal embodied in his Amendment as a kind of intermediate suggestion. It was thought that a duty of 1½d. would produce some revenue and admit a certain amount of strips for the relief of those branches of the trade which required strips in order to carry on their business.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer on the preceding night told them it was admitted that there should be some differentiation between leaf and strips. That, no doubt, was an arguable point. The amount was very trifling, and it was not to be denied that whatever reason there might be for proposing some differentiation between leaf and strips, threepence was an excessive figure. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon on the preceding night made a valuable suggestion—namely, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should appoint a small Departmental Committee to inquire into the matter. So far as he knew, the trade would be satisfied with the appointment of a small Departmental Committee, provided that steps were taken promptly and a competent body were chosen which would receive evidence. They would be quite prepared to abide by the decision of a tribunal of that kind. The present delay was exceedingly prejudicial to the trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them he was quite prepared to consider the suggestion, but lie suggested that it would be necessary to wait until the present stock of strips had been exhausted. But that would be too late. The strips were running out every day. There were now
  246
  only about 15,000,000 pounds unsold, and the market was in danger of being cornered, if it were not already so. Until a fresh supply of strips was allowed to enter the country there was danger of stocks appreciating in value as they diminished in quantity. The proposal to reduce the increase in the duty to 1½d. would at any rate relieve the situation and it would involve the least inconvenience to the trade. He begged to move.
  Clause (Amendment of 4 Edw. VII., c. 7, s. 2, as to duty on stripped tobacco)—(Mr. Charles McArthur)— brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
  MR. BRIGGsupported the appeal made by the hon. Member for the Exchange Division. He was in favour of some immediate steps being taken, because the manufacturers in the North of England, with whom he had been in communication on the matter, were feeling this grievance very much indeed. They were in this position, that they could not obtain more then threepence per ounce for this tobacco, and at the same time they were placed at this great disadvantage that they must make tobacco of a certain kind. They could not import the whole leaf as it would not pay them to do so.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): May I ask the hon. Member to tell me why they cannot import the whole leaf? On the other hand it is argued that nobody can import strips with the present duty. Simultaneously the hon. Gentleman tells me that those for whom he speaks cannot afford to import the whole leaf.
  MR. BRIGGsaid they could not afford to pay the price for the stripped leaf. They did pay it, but they felt that they were being ruined by doing so. Very soon they would have to give up selling altogether.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member

  247
  again but I can assure him it is with a genuine desire to understand his point. I understand his argument is that they cannot afford to buy strips at 3s. 3d., but what I do not understand is why they do not import the whole leaf also, and strip it themselves?
  MR. BRIGGsaid so far as he could learn it was mainly because they would have to import the leaf in very small quantities. Then they would have to have all the machinery necessary for stripping and they would only be able to keep that machinery going part of the time. Of course that would be more expensive. The great objection, he gathered, was that there was a difference between those who made finest twist and those who made coarse twist. The large manufacturers, he was told, had a machine by which they bruised the stalk and it thus became incorporated with the tobacco, whereas small manufacturers could not employ the stalk in any shape or form. They complained very severely, and, unless they had some relief they feared that their trade would become extinct. He urged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do what he could to relieve the difficulty.
  SIR WILLIAM TOMLINSONsaid they had no desire to hurry the Chancellor of the Exchequer into a premature decision, but he was sure his right hon. friend would do his best to remedy any grievance which was felt. As the stock ran out there was danger of loss being incurred by the small manufacturers. He doubted, however, whether the clause proposed would provide a satisfactory remedy.
  MR. RITCHIEregretted that his hon. friend had thought it necessary to move the Amendment, as he had understood that he would be satisfied if the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a promise that he would appoint a Committee, if he found a Committee were necessary, to inquire into the matter. This seemed to be a question eminently fitted to be referred to a small Departmental Committee. What was the position of things? It had been alleged that differentiation created a situation in which there was a considerable amount of protection which militated
  248
  very much against certain manufacturers of tobacco in this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer on the other hand declared that he had had no desire, in putting on this tax, to introduce any element of protection, and he did not doubt that no element of protection had been intended—he meant no substantial element of protection, however. It was clear that when a tax was put upon an article which was manufactured it became necessary to put a different tax on the raw material from that which was put on the manufactured article, and it was almost impossible to adjust things so as to prevent the smallest element of protection. It had always been the custom in cases of the kind that where there was a chance of their being an element of injury to a manufacture, the small amount of protection that must be given was not considered improper. He was sure his right hon. friend, when he imposed this tax, had no idea of introducing any contentious element of protection; but it was now contended that there was a very large element of protection in this tax, and he rather gathered from what his right hon. friend had said that he was inclined to consider that the position was not a satisfactory one. If that were so what could be better than to ask some independent tribunal to deal with the matter? Of coarse his right hon. friend, having regard to the discussion yesterday, might of his own motion propose some Amendment which would render such a Committee unnecessary, and he could not help thinking that that was probably in his right hon. friend's mind when he did not give that unqualified promise of a Committee which some of his friends desired. He was afraid that his right hon. friend must recognise that he was somewhat in the position of a suspect in this matter; but he would be quite satisfied if he would of his own motion make some fair proposal, or, if he could not do that, would say at once that he would appoint a Committee.
  MR. AUSTIN TAYLORthought the Chancellor of the Exchequer must recognise that the promise he made on thy previous night to appoint a Committee at the expiration of some undeterminate period could not

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  possibly be accepted by the supporters of the Amendment. He certainly did not regret that it had been moved. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon was quite mistaken in thinking that the objection to this duty was based entirely on its protective element. It was objected to from the business point of view. His right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had needlessly disturbed a trade in America—he did not know whether that was intended as the beginning of a retaliatory policy towards America, but if it were it was a very weak beginning. Again, he had needlessly disturbed a great trade in this country which he was warned he was doing when he put on the differential duty. He paid no heed to that warning at the time, but a year's experience had fully justified it. Then the right hon. Gentleman had protected, or apparently protected, a trade in England which refused to allow itself to be galvanised into existence. The mistake that had been made was the anticipation that strip would continue to be imported. The average import for the four years previous to the imposition of the duty was 50,000 casks. Since this differential duty was imposed the import had shrunk to about 10,000 casks, or one-fifth of the average of the preceding four years, to the detriment of the small manufacturers who were dependent on these imported strips. He thought that was damning proof that so far from laying the ground for raising the revenue the right, hon. Gentleman had laid the ground for destroying an important industry which he had not succeeded in transferring to this country. If his right hon. friend was prepared to promise a Committee, those interested in the matter were so satisfied with the evidence they could lay before it that such a proposal could probably be accepted. They believed that the evidence they could place before a Committee was of so overwhelming a character as to ensure a verdict which would result in the right hon. Gentleman reverting to the position foreshadowed in the Amendment. But the dim and distant suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman that a Committee should be appointed either by himself or his successor when the existing stocks of strips were
  250
  exhausted was not one that could be reasonably expected to be accepted as a substantial contribution to the settlement of a vexed question.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSONsaid he had been approached by gentlemen interested in the trade, and they had not objected to this duty on the ground of its protective character. They did not concern themselves with the fiscal dispute. They only considered the matter as it affected their trade. When it was first put on they formed a rough estimate that 2d. should be about the difference, but experience had enabled them to come to the conclusion that a duty of 1½d. would place the two classes of tobacco on an even footing, and they were confident that they could establish that before an independent body of experts. These gentlemen, he was sure, would be satisfied with an inquiry, and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would grant it. He saw no objection to the tax if it incidentally protected the trade, that not being its purpose. If the tax had originally been imposed as a protective duty he for one would have opposed it, because that would have been contrary to the under-taking given by the Prime Minister that nothing in the nature of protection should be introduced during the life of the present Parliament. But that was not the reason for imposing it. The real idea—which, however, had not been realized—was to create more Work in the country, and the tax certainly appeared to him to be reasonable in itself. He had, however, had representations made to him that the duty of 3d. was too much, and he thought this was a question which might be referred to a Committee of inquiry for definite settlement. At any rate, it was not reasonable to ask the right hon. Gentleman to upset his entire Budget scheme by assenting to the Amendment before the Committee.
  MR. J. F. HOPEjoined in the appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for an inquiry into the amount of the duty. He did not think it had been made out that the duty was protective. He had always understood it to be a canon of fiscal

  251
  doctrine that protective duties were borne by the consumer, and in the whole course of that debate he had not heard it suggested that this particular duty was borne by the consumer. On the contrary, it was claimed that it was the tobacco producer who was the sufferer. He was convinced that it was not the wish of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it should do more than redress an inequality in the incidence of the tax—that it should make matters right as between the different kinds of tobacco. Personally he would not be sorry to see the Excise duties on tobacco done away with altogether. Mr. Mitchell Henry, in a very interesting work, had described how formerly a rough kind of tobacco plant was grown in Ireland and the people were able to smoke it to their own satisfaction and advantage, but the Irish tobacco industry was stamped out absolutely by the Excise duties and a very real wrong was thereby done to the people of Ireland.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: I rise to order. Is the hon. Member entitled to discuss the question of Irish tobacco?
  MR. J. F. HOPEsaid it had been alleged that this was a protective tax and in dealing with that argument he had only incidentally referred to the fact that the tobacco was formerly grown in Ireland.
  THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I must remind the hon. Member that the growth of Irish tobacco does not seem to have much to do with the Amendment.
  MR. J. F. HOPEsaid he only desired to say that those who accused the Chancellor of the Exchequer of having desired to introduce protection by imposing this duty did small justice to his ordinary intelligence. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon had repudiated the idea. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was incapable of adopting such a course, which would have been not only dishonest, but extremely foolish from his own point of view.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBEKLAINsaid he regretted that the subject should
  252
  have been reopened. He had understood that the discussion on the previous night had been deemed sufficient by his hon. friend, and he thought that was the understanding on both sides of the House. He did not desire to delay the Committee by rearguing the whole question, which he had dealt with last night. If he had thought that this was a purely protective measure, even if he had had a wish to do so, he would have considered himself precluded from proposing it last year; but it was proposed simply for revenue purposes, and as such he had commended it to the House. There had been much discussion as to the exact measure of differentiation, and the hon. Member for Liverpool seemed to think that there should be no differentiation at all; but either he did not speak the mind of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce or opinion had greatly changed upon that body, for they had expressed approval of his proposals provided that consideration was given to stocks already imported. A concession was made in that direction last year, and, of course, to extend that to all strips would put an end to that special concession. He could not say, of course, how the stocks had been disposed of; he could only say what remained in bond at a given date. He had always admitted the difficulties and complications in the way of arriving at a proper differentiation, and he thought that gentlemen interested in one particular kind of tobacco were apt to overlook other varieties. He had taken what appeared to be a fair average, and could not admit that a provision intended to secure a reasonable amount of revenue amounted to prohibition of importation. It was clear, however, that it was a matter to be carefully watched.
  He had no insuperable objection to a Departmental Committee of inquiry; but what he had in mind was the possibility that, with all the facts before him, he might come to the conclusion that a modification such as was suggested might be desirable, and then a Committee would be unnecessary. At the time he made the concession alluded to hon. Gentlemen said it would give rise to a certain amount of uncertainty, which would be a great disadvantage, and that was quite true. He would

  253
  gladly have left the duty as it was, and he was not at all sure that that would not have been the best course. The conditional promise, however, held good When directly challenged, he had said he made his proposals for a permanent duty to avoid uncertainty in the trade; but if those who represented the trade pressed to have the subject reopened the responsibility for creating uncertainty must be with them. In the face of statements he had made it would be impossible to assent to the change at the present time, because on the faith of those statements business arrangement had been carried on. Therefore it would be a breach of faith on his part to make such a change, because those engaged in the trade might fairly say that the had been misled by the statement he made last year, and they could fairly argue that had they understood that the matter was open to revision this year they would have made other arrangements. He was not alone in that opinion He observed in many quarters, both amongst traders and from the reports of Company meetings in trade journals, that there was a certain sense of relief when the Budget statement was announced and is was seen that the tobacco duty had not been altered. The mere rumour that he might modify his proposal in regard to tobacco had disturbed the trade, and all they wanted was that he should leave tobacco alone. A good deal had been said about the position of small manufacturers, yet he was not able to understand the difficulties supposed to afflict them. But it was a highly technical matter, and he would be ready to consider their case when presented to him. He thought himself that the disturbance of the trade was much more due to trade combinations than to the operations of proposals made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONthought the Chancellor of the Exchequer was hardly entitled to animadvert upon the action of the hon. Member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool in bringing this matter forward that day, as there was no pledge or understanding that the question should not be again discussed. If the right hon. Gentleman had desired to
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  animadvert upon anybody, he might have done so upon certain Members on his own side who, as usual, got up, not to discuss the question on its merits, but merely to consume time.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINpointed out that it would have been somewhat unusual if he had got up to reply at once, as several hon. Member on either side were rising to criticise his action. He did not know whether the rule as to a Minister's replying immediately he was challenged was to apply to every debate.
  Mr. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid it was obvious to every Member who heard them that some of the speeches were not delivered for the purpose of throwing any light on the question. The point of the present discussion was whether there should be a Committee of inquiry and whether the right hon. Gentleman should at once make the concession for which the hon. Member for the Exchange Division asked. Personally he agreed with the view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had to continue or rescind this tax on his own responsibility. Nothing could be worse from the point of view of the trade than the uncertainty which would be engendered by the appointment of a Committee, and the expectations of an alteration to which it would give rise. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have forgotten that it was the doubts which he himself threw on his own tax which led to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon. All the figures given in the debate had gone to show that the duty, although not imposed for protective purposes, had had protective results, and that the right hon. Gentleman, in endeavouring to remove an anomaly, had imposed a tax which had been extremely detrimental to some portions of the trade and very beneficial to others. The effect upon the trade was the greatest condemnation of the tax as originally proposed and now levied. But for the gift of nearly a quarter of a million of money to certain privileged merchants, the paralysing effect if the tax upon the branch of the trade particularly concerned would have been

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  even more complete; and now the granting of that money was made a reason for not putting the tax on a fair basis because it would damnify those privileged persons. That was surely an object lesson in regard to taxes imposed not purely for revenue purposes but with some ulterior object in view.
  But what was the actual financial position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the matter? Nobody had suggested that sales would be stopped if by the grant of £200,000 or £250,000 strips were enabled to come into the market, or the in the first year and possibly the second the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not obtain a substantial revenue from the tax. But from the very beginning the amount received had been far smaller than it would have been from a general tax on the trade. The mere fact of proposing the tax for other than revenue purposes had meant the loss of one-third of the revenue that would otherwise have been derived, and the net result of the tax was a sum of £400,000. But what were likely to be the receipts from the tax during the present and particularly future years? The figures as to the imports of strips were remarkable, showing as they did a fall since the imposition of the tax from an average for the first quarter of the year of 15,000 casks to 2,000, most of which was to be used for export purposes and therefore would not come in for taxation at all. Unless strips came, in there would be no revenue, and the Committee ought to know on what the right hon. Gentleman based his sanguine estimate that the revenue would keep up to its present level. On the whole he was glad the tax was imposed last year, because, while not affecting any really large or serious interest, it afforded an object-lesson of the results of using taxation for other than purely revenue purposes. The more successful a protective duty was, the less revenue it would bring in. There were two Questions he desired to ask. The first was: Could the right hon. Gentleman give any figures showing that the tax had led to increased employment at home? The other was: Could he disprove the statement that the amount of stalk taken for drawback was smaller than before the tax? Unless the right hon. Gentle-
  256
  man could prove that the amount was not smaller, it meant that the stalk was going into consumption and therefore that the quality of tobacco had deteriorated as the result of this tax. He had hoped that after his experience in this matter the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have come down and, admitting that he had made a mistake, express his willingness to abolish the tax instead of saying that he would reconsider it on some future occasion.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid his sympathies were largely with the hon. Member for Liverpool who had moved this new clause. He did not think it was the business of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give privileges either to classes or to strips, for that was protection. Where were they now? The hon. Member for Liverpool had proposed a clause which would come into operation immediately and would put tobacco upon a proper basis in the present year. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had replied that he was prepared to consider favourably the appointment of a Departmental Committee, but there was not much in that. He also said that there was no insuperable objection to this course. Of course here was not. Whether such a Committee was or was not appointed, he saw no approach towards the acceptance of the proposal now before the Committee. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he might reconsider his question and that he might come to be conclusion that the change proposed by the hon. Member for Liverpool was necessary. They wished to know, if he did come to that conclusion, would he make the change this year or next year? Whenever he heard a Minister suggest a Royal Commission or a Committee he knew the idea was to shelve he question. A Committee was not required in order to ascertain the merits or demerits of this proposal. The mover if this clause had received no concession whatever, and whatever alteration was made in the tobacco duty would certainly not be made before next year. He did not know how the mover of this Amendment felt in regard to the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,

  257
  and, if he were in his position, as no concession had been made he would go to a division.
  MR. HELMEsaid that the policy which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was pursuing was distinctly favourable to the large tobacco trusts. It was practically impossible in the small establishments for the whole leaf tobacco to be used, as they had been accustomed for many years to using strips. The reason was that the manipulation of the stems of the tobacco became much more difficult because of the larger percentage of moisture which they absorbed in manufacture. All were anxious that the conditions of the law should be carefully maintained, the manufacturers, however, were liable to find themselves with results of excessive moisture in the production of their manufactured tobacco. He considered it was undesirable that the smaller manufacturers should find themselves liable to be charged with unscrupulous dealing because of the difficulty of maintaining the standard of moisture specified by the law. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer persisted in maintaining the threepence in the pound they would be mulcted in a very serious loss. The small manufacturers who produced one class of manufactured tobacco had not the power to use the balance of the stems taken from their purchase of whole leaf, and therefore he urged the Government to meet the interests of a large number of traders who had conducted a respectable business in the past and whose business now would practically be ruined. The difference between threepence and three-halfpence—which was the proposal before the House—was sufficient to ruin a very large number of people. If the right hon. Gentleman persisted in his policy he was informed that it would be followed by a large number of failures. The margin of profit was so small that it would not allow the difference, and the conditions were full of anxiety for a large number of respectable traders whose interests he wished to support.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that they had dismissed the whole substance of this question the previous night, and they separated at any rate,
  258
  with the general understanding that they were going to discuss sugar the first thing that day, and he was then encouraged by the general approval of Members present to hope that they might finish the Budget before dinner. He appealed to the House to come to a decision upon this question as rapidly as possible.
  MR. CHARLES McARTHURsaid that, after the assurance given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he begged leave to withdraw his Amendment. [OPPOSITION cries of "No, no!"]
  MR. MCCRAEsaid that Scotch tobacco importers felt themselves precluded from approaching the right hon. Gentleman on this subject, because he gave them last year a rebate on existing stocks, and while they objected to his present proposals they felt in honour bound not to approach him again so soon. Anyone who had listened to the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not help feeling that he had not justified the continuance of this duty at 3d The right hon. Gentleman stated that the only thing which prevented him from correcting what was demanded now was the fact that he gave a pledge last year that it should not be interfered with. Would he do any harm to anyone if he reduced the duty? On the contrary, he would benefit the tobacco trade and the Exchequer as well, because if this duty was continued there would practically be no revenue. By reducing it to 1½d. there was a chance of some revenue accruing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not attempted to justify the 3d. duty. It had been clearly proved that it came to not more than ½d. a 1b., but, adding interest, 1d. was the utmost really that had been estimated as the cost of stripping. If that was so, the 3d. duty must be a protective duty to the extent of 2d. per 1b. He was quite willing to give the Chancellor of the Exchequer credit for having no idea of protection in his mind when he introduced the tobacco duty, just as a predecessor, when he introduced the corn tax, had no conception of the ramifications that would ensue. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol was convinced that it was protective, and he

  259
  thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find himself in the same position to-day. He would give satisfaction to the House, the tobacco importers, and the country, if he were to do what was asked for in this Amendment. The hon. Member felt in honour bound to support the Amendment. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would face the facts and accept the Amendment, for he had conceded both in his speech last night and his speech that day that this was an excessive duty.
  MR. FIELDsaid several representations had been made to him by Irish manufacturers in regard to this tax. Some of the largest manufacturers of tobacco in the United Kingdom were fortunately living in Ireland. This was a much more serious matter than the Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently recognised, because it meant the extinction of the small manufacturers altogether. He could not understand the attitude of the hon. Member for the Exchange Division in this matter. If he were in earnest in bringing forward the Amendment he ought to go to a division in order to test the opinion of the House upon the urgency of the question which he had promised to champion. The hon. Member should not be satisfied with the explanation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for it simply amounted to a statement that he would probably consider the question at a suitable time. If the right hon. Gentleman failed to come to a decision he would appoint a Departmental Committee, which meant that the question would probably be shelved for ever. He had promised to his constituents to take action in this matter and he meant to carry out his promise. There was no doubt that if this duty was retained they would only play into the hands of the trusts.
  MR. MCKENNAsaid that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made any promise which had any substance in it he should have been desirous to see the Amendment withdrawn. As a matter of fact, the right hon. Gentleman had given them nothing. He had told them that he would at
  260
  some unknown date appoint a Committee in order to consider the whole subject. That was not a sufficient promise to induce the hon. Member for the Exchange Division to abandon the course he had taken up on behalf of the tobacco trade. He appealed to the hon. Member not to withdraw the Amendment. A protest ought to be made on behalf of the tobacco trade to show that this tax, originally unfair, was still unfair, although some small concessions had been made. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said this was a revenue tax, and pointed to the £400,000 he had obtained from it. That revenue had been obtained exclusively from the holders of the existing stocks of strips. They held a commodity which entered into free and open competition with leaf tobacco which was not subjected to the extra duty of 3d. The holders of strips were bound to pay this duty. This was because it was said the public would pay them a higher price for strips than for leaf. Before this tax was introduced the price of the ordinary quality of leaf tobacco might be said to be 6d. per lb., and the same quality of strips would have stood at 7½ per lb. These were the prices before the duty was paid in bond. They were sold out of bond at 3s. 6d. and 3s. 7½d. per lb. respectively. Now the Chancellor of the Exchequer came down to the House and said the trade were all wrong when they declared that strips were only worth 3s. 7½d. as against 3s. 6d. for leaf tobacco; the true fact was that strips were worth, not 1½d. but 4½d. more. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made the discovery that the merchants and manufacturers who were dealing in strips were all wrong in regard to the prices of the two articles. They thought that there was only 1½d. of difference in value due to the actual cost of stripping, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the difference in price ought to be 1½d. plus 3d., because the price of stripped, owing to people having to pay 3d. to take it out of bond, would be 3s. 10½d.
  The right hon. Gentleman informed the House last year that all his calculations were really for more smokable tobacco than leaf, and that the trade had been

  261
  all wrong. The trade had had the advantage for a year of the ripe experience of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and still in the estimation of the trade leaf and stripped had only 1½d. difference in value. This 1½d. duty had to be found by the owners of the strips out of their own pockets. For immediate and actual purposes this duty would have no effect on the tobacco trade. There were no strips at present imported and taken from the Custom House at 3s. 3d. per 1b. except in a few cases of a very special kind of tobacco, the quantity of which was very insignificant. For all commercial purposes the only strips which were now taken out of bond were those on which only 1½d. per lb. was payable. Those who objected to this tax in the form proposed, asked that the law should be that strips hereafter imported should pay 1½d. per lb. Before this change of the law was made last year, the practice was to accumulate strips in bond in large quantities. Last year there were 110,000,000 lbs. of strips in bond. That supply was sufficient to last two years, All the strips brought into the country now would have to be kept in bond as the old strips were, for they had to mature in bond. All that the Committee would do by passing the Amendment would be to inform the tobacco trade what the duty payable months hence would be. If that duty was reduced to 1½d. per lb. it would enable stocks of strips to grow up and the duty would be got not this year but the year after. If the present system were continued the growth of the stock of strips would be precluded, because strips had to be kept in bond before passing through the Custom-house in order to mature. The only chance of getting revenue from strips was to induce tobacco merchants to buy strips, keep them in bond, and release them on payment of 1½d. per lb.
  The Committee should remember that although this was, in its total amount, an insignificant tax. the individuals affected by it, although few in number, were very seriously affected. It was no compensation to any man who was being deprived of every prospect of employment to tell him that this trade was a small trade, and that the great interests of the nation were not affected
  262
  by it. If this tax was an unjust tax no individual should be allowed to suffer from it. At the beginning of last year, before the tax was imposed, the stocks of strips amounted to 110,000,000 lbs.; there was a great trade in strips; firms imported them; firms dealt in them, and now all that business was gone. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was only getting revenue from the strips which were in bond. If this Amendment were adopted these men would be enabled to do a limited business in strips again. Why should not the Chancellor of the Exchequer recognise that he had made a mistake? The right hon. Gentleman had not made out the merits of the case in behalf of this tax. He appealed to hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House who supported free trade to remember the language used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer when this tax was originally introduced. It was introduced as a protective tax, though it was true that that notion was afterwards abandoned when the Chancellor of the Exchequer was reminded of the pledges given that protection was not to be introduced during the present Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking of what Mr. Gladstone had done in 1863, said—
  "There is no doubt what was Mr. Gladstone's object at that time. He intended to throw open the tobacco trade to foreign competition, as other trades had then recently been thrown open; and he explained that he allowed the difference between the rates on manufactured and on raw tobacco as a full and fair equivalent for all charges—both the direct and the indirect charges—to which the British manufacturer was subject, and 'in order that the labourers who were employed in the manufacture, amongst whom were women and children, might be well looked after.' What has is been the result? In the first place, I think it is demonstrable that there was an error in the calculations on which Mr. Gladstone worked. He himself, indeed, subsequently corrected the error, but he did not alter the rates which he had proposed, and the result is that the home manufacturer making for home consumption has a larger measure of—shall I say compensation?—than Mr. Gladstone intended."
  "Compensation" was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's word for protection; and he showed, with perfect truth, that the existing rates did give protection to the home manufacturer. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went on to say—
  "It is clear that the stripped leaf has a definite and distinct value differing from that

  263
  which the whole leaf enjoys. It is not right that this separate value, this process of manufacture which the leaf has undergone, should not, like all other processes of manufacture which add to the value, be marked on our scale and find its reflection in the appropriate way."
  The "appropriate way" was, of course, that it was to receive compensation in the same way as other processes of manufacture, and that was by protection. His objections to this tax were that it had
  failed in its purpose, it was unjust in its incidence, and it was bringing in no revenue; and on all these grounds he heartily supported the Amendment of the hon. Member for Liverpool.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 158: Noes, 221. (Division List No, 186.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

  Grant, Corrie

  Parrott, William

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Berwick)

  Partington, Oswald

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Allen, Charles P

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Ambrose, Robert

  Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

  Perks, Robert William

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Hammond, John

  Philipps, John Wynford

  Asquith,Rt. Hn. HerbertHenry

  Harcourt, Lewis

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Hardie, J Keir (MerthyrTydvil)

  Price, Robert John

  Austin, Sir John.

  Harwood, George

  Rea, Russell

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  Bell, Richard

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Richards, Thomas (WMonm'th

  Blake, Edward

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Boland, John

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Roche, John

  Brigg, John

  Hutchinson, Dr.Charles Fredk.

  Runciman, Walter

  Bright, Allan Heywood

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Russell, T. W.

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Johnson, John

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Joicey, Sir James

  Shackleton. David James

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Burt, Thomas

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Caldwell, James

  Joyce, Michael

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Cameron, Robert

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Kennedy, VincentP. (Cavan,W.

  Spencer,Rt. Hn. C.R.(Northants

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Kilbride, Denis

  Sullivan, Donal

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Kitson, Sir James

  Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

  Cawley, Frederick

  Lamont, Norman

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan,E.)

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Langley, Batty

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal,W.)

  Thomas JA(Glamorgan, Gower

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Thomson, F. W. (York,W.R.)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Tomkinson, James

  Crombie, John William

  Leese, SirJosephF. (Accrington

  Toulmin, George

  Delany, William

  Levy, Maurice

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Lough, Thomas

  Ure, Alexander

  Dillon, John

  Lundon, W.

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Doogan, P. C.

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Dunn, Sir William

  McCrae, George

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Edwards, Frank

  Mansfield, Horace Rendall

  Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

  Elibank, Master of

  Mooney, John J.

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Ellice, Capt EC(SAndrw's Bghs

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Murphy, John

  Wills, Arthur Walters(N.Dorset

  Fenwick, Charles

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Wilson, Fred, W.(Norfolk, Mid.)

  Field, William

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)

  Findlay, Alexander (Lanark,NE

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.

  Flynn, James Christopher

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Woodhouse, SirJT (Huddersf'd

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

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

  Young, Samuel

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  O'Connor, James (WicklowW.)

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Furness, Sir Christopher

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Dowd, John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.

  Gladstone,Rt.Hn.Herbert John

  O'Malley, William

  McKenna and Mr. Dalziel.

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Garfit, William

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Morreil, George Herbert

  Allhusen, Angustus Henry Eden

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

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Morton, Arthur H. Alymer

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-

  Mount, William Arthur

  Arrol, Sir William

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Myers, William Henry

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt Hon.SirH.

  Graham, Henry Robert

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitzroy

  Greene, Henry D.(Shrewsbury)

  Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Gretton, John

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Balcarres, Lord

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Percy, Earl

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Hamilton RtHnLordG (Midd'x

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Balfour, Rt HnGerald W(Leeds

  Hamilton, Marq.of (L'nd'nderry

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Hardy Laurence(Kent,Ashford

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Plummer, Sir Walter R.

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Bill, Charles

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Bingham, Lord

  Helder, Augustus

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Hickman, Sir Alfred

  Purvis, Robert

  Bousfield, William Robert

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Pym, C. Guy

  Bowles,Lt.-Col.H F(Middlesex

  Hobhouse RtHnH.(Somers't,E

  Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

  Brassey, Albert

  Hope,J.F (Sheffield,Brightside

  Rankin, Sir James

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Rasch, Sir Frederick Carne

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Ractliff, R. F.

  Brymer, William Ernest

  Hoult, Joseph

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Butcher, John George

  Howard,J.(Midd., Tottenham)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Campbell, J.H.M.(Dublin Univ.

  Hozier,Hon James Henry Cecil

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Renwick, George

  Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire

  Hunt, Rowland

  Ridley, S. Forde

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Hutton, John (Yorks. N.R.)

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas.Thomson

  Chamberlain,Rt.Hn,J.A (Wore.

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Chapman, Edward

  Kennaway,Rt Hn. Sir John H.

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Kenyon, Hn. Geo. T (Denbigh)

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

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

  Kenyon-Slaney,Rt.Hn. Col. W.

  Rothschild, Hon. LionelWalter

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Kerr, John

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool

  Colomb, Rt Hon. Sir JohnC. R.

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Samuel, Sir Harry S. (Limehouse

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim,S.

  Lawson,Hn. H.L.W.(Mile End)

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Lawson, JohnGrant(Yorks.N.R

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Lee, Arthur H(Hants.,Fareham

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham

  Shaw-Stewart, SirH (Renfrew)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

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

  Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Lowe, Francis William

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Denny, Colonel

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Smith,Abel H.(Hertford, East)

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Smith,RtHnJ Parker(Lanarks

  Dimsdale,RtHon.Sir Joseph C.

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Stanley,Edward Jas (Somerset)

  Dixon-Hartland,Sir Fred Dixon

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Stanley,Rt.Hon. Lord(Lancs.)

  Doughty, Sir George

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Stewart,Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh,W

  Stock, James Henry

  Faber, Edmund B. (Hants.,W.)

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Fellowes, RtHnAilwyn Edward

  Malcolm, Ian

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Fergusson,Rt.Hn.SirJ (Manch'.

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Tuff, Charles

  Finlay, Sir RB.(Inv'rn'ssB'ghs)

  Maxwell, Rt Hn SirH.E(Wigt'n

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Vincent, Col Sir C. EH(Sheffield

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Walrond,Rt. Hn.Sir WilliamH.

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Welby, Lt.-Col A.C.E.(Taunton

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Milner, Rt. Hn.Sir Frederick G.

  Welby,Sir CharlesG. E (Notts.)

  Forster, Henry William

  Milvain, Thomas

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Foster,PhilipS.(Warwick, S W.

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Whiteley,H.(Ashton und.Lyne

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants)

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Gardner, Ernest

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

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

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B.'Stuart

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Viscount Valentia.

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

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  MR. CHANNINGsaid he desired to move the abolition of the sugar tax which was imposed in the Finance Act. Section 2, of 1901. He would once more ask the Committee to reconsider this question for three reasons, first, that the tax was a war tax imposed for war purposes on the entire community, and it was, moreover, a war tax needlessly and wrongly maintained in time of peace. Second, it was a tax on food which fell with undue weight, almost in geometrical progression, on the poorest of the poor, the poorest household contributing the largest proportion to the national expenditure as compared with the middle and higher classes. The tax involved a contribution from the agricultural labourer of thirteen times as much as a man with an income of £1,500 a year; twenty times as much as a man with £3,600 a year, and eighty times as much as a man with £20,000 a year. He had given these figures in detail last year and only reverted to these calculations now to show that the tax operated on a disproportionate scale. Thirdly, this tax fell not only on food, but on raw material. It fell on some of the growing industries of the country, which ought to be encouraged instead of discouraged. All the objections he had mentioned were aggravated and intensified by the Brussels Convention, which was almost unanimously condemned by his hon. Friends, and under which this country handed over to a foreign Junta the power to dictate where it should obtain its sugar supplies. The tax was essentially in its nature and origin a war tax. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol, in moving the tax in 1901, said that he wished, for the purposes of the war, a tax on some article of universal consumption, by which everybody should pay something. He said—
  "I want a tax which shall not be open to the objections to which a protective duty on an article produced in this country would certainly be open, namely, that it would raise the price of the whole amount of that article to the consumers by a far larger sum than the I yield of the tax accruing to the Exchequer."
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  No wise or prudent man would deny that to meet a great national emergency there might be conceivable justification for imposing a tax on an article of universal consumption. But the right hon. Gentleman went on to expressly justify the tax on the ground that it probably would not increase the price to the consumer because of the operation of the bounties. If that were so the enormous enhancement of prices which had resulted from the operation of the Convention, and so had enforced upon the consumers heavy outgoings far beyond the actual contribution to the revenue, logically imposed upon the Government the duty of reconsidering the tax now, if only because of the reasons alleged by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol.
  Then the tax was a severe burden upon the poor. In the recent Blue-book, which gave 1,944 family budgets of various classes of artisans, it appeared that the duties on sugar and tea together represented an income-tax of nearly 5d. in the £ on incomes of 21s. per week, 3¼d. on incomes of 31s., and nearly 3d. on the highest incomes given—52s. When it was remembered that these people also contributed heavily through other duties it could not be denied that the sugar duty was an exceedingly severe burden upon the poor.
  Then there was the question of the effect of the tax upon trade. Last year, when be moved the abolition of the tax, he was furnished with figures showing the disastrous effect upon many industries which were largely dependent on sugar as a raw material. There was widespread ruin and loss of employment. There was no doubt that the subsequent immense rise in prices had intensified their difficulties, and that their position during the past winter had been in the highest degree critical. A slight fall in prices had somewhat relieved the pressure, but the general effect remained much about the same. The industries which depended on cheap sugar as a raw material had been stunted,

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  paralysed, and thrown back. According to the Returns of last month, the diminution of exports of refined sugar and candy was very considerable. For the month ended April 30th. in the three years 1903, 1904, and 1905, the quantities in cwts. were 53,670, 49,166, and 36,074, respectively. Seeing that these industries were started and pushed forward by free access to cheap sugar, no business man could regard such figures as those with complacency. Taking the first four months in each of the years named, the fall in the exports of refined sugar and candy was from 216,223 cwts. in 1903 to 180,918 cwts. in 1904, arid 130,328 cwts. in 1905. Such facts could not be ignored. The fall had been continuous, and it carried its own story with it. The increase in the imports from abroad, though great in quantities, had been still greater in value, while the value of the exports, even at the higher prices, was stationary, if not lower, than three years ago. He submitted that the tax was unjust to these great industries, and imposed upon them an intolerable disability and disadvantage. Possibly some slight advantage had been contributed to the sugar planters of the West Indies, but the economic difficulties of the West Indies were more likely to be met by the intelligent adaptation of land and capital to new industries as had been shown by the hon. member for Buteshire a few days before, than by the bolstering up by artificial means of the sugar-cane industry. On the three grounds that the tax was inconsistent with the pledges and principles on which it was originally imposed, that it involved an unjust contribution from the poorest of the poor, and that it imposed serious disabilities and loss upon many industries in this country, he urged that there should be a reconsideration of the whole question. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not abandon the tax at once, he hoped he would intimate that it was not a tax upon which the Government would in future rely. He begged to move.
  Clause (Abolition of sugar duty)—(Mr. Channing)— brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he would deal with the hon. Member's objections to the tax seriatim. In contending that it was a war tax and that the war being over it should no longer be maintained the hon. Member had not kept fully in mind the statement repeatedly made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the effect that the difficulty which faced him as Finance Minister was not so much that of financing the war, onerous as that task was, as that of providing a sufficient revenue for the peace expenditure of the country. It was true that when the tax was first imposed his right hon. friend expressed, the hope that early relief might be given, but subsequently in making further proposals he explained that he had to provide not merely for the war but for the maintenance of the ordinary financial, equilibrium after the war had ended. Therefore it was a complete misapprehension to suppose that this tax was imposed or should be regarded solely as a war tax. It was imposed in the first instance to meet war expenditure, but it was intended after the war had concluded to be one of the country's financial resources.
  It was no doubt true that the tax fell more heavily in proportion on the poor man than upon the rich. The expenditure of a poor man upon a certain article would bear a larger proportion to his income than would be the case with a rich man. That would be a just and conclusive criticism if this were the only tax on which the Exchequer relied for its revenue, but, as he had often pointed out, the equity of a tax could not be judged upon one isolated item separated from all other taxes. The balance was redressed by taxes imposed solely on the wealthier classes, such as income-tax, death duties, and the like, besides those other taxes which, for reasons known to everybody, were put on articles of luxury used by the rich that they also might contribute fairly to the revenue.
  In the main the sugar duty was not a tax upon raw material, but

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  upon food, but even as a tax on raw material it did not stand alone. Cocoa beans and tobacco were raw materials subject to taxation, and he might find other instances. Hon. Gentlemen opposite returned to the argument repeated from time to time that all the objections to the tax were aggravated by the Brussels Convention. More than a slight reference to the Brussels Convention would be out of order. He had defended the policy of that Convention in reply to a deputation, and upon a fitting occasion would be ready to justify the action of the Government. It was, no doubt, perfectly true that certain industries had been encouraged and fostered by the abnormally low price of sugar in the past, but that was not a natural price at which sugar could remain in any circumstances for any length of time, or a price that could be attained except by artificial means; and it was surprising that the hon. Member, with his strict economic views, should desire that an industry should exist on an artificial basis when it could not subsist under fair terms of trade competition.
  The effect of the Brussels Convention had been to withdraw an artificial stimulus from particular industries obtained at the expense of another industry equally deserving and which left the favoured industries on a footing of insecurity not beneficial to trade generally. No doubt the rise in the price of sugar last year, due largely to circumstance; wholly unconnected with the Convention, was detrimental to the trade. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that violent fluctuation of this kind, in the sugar trade were unknown before the Convention. On the contrary, the most violent fluctuations had taken place in the price of sugar from time to time before either the Sugar Convention or the tax existed, and the liability to such fluctuations was increased when the market was dependent upon a single source of supply or upon one area of production. The best defence against such sudden fluctuations was to secure that other sugar which was being driven out of the market by artificial competition should be able to compete on fair terms, and to provide that we should have a wider area of
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  production from which to draw supplies, and that we should not be dependent on the climatic conditions of a particular part of the world, or any combination which could be formed among the producers for a single and limited market.
  The inconvenience caused by the rise was great, but it had been exaggerated-Failures in the confectionery and mineral water trades had not been substantially larger than in other years; and the Returns supplied by the Board of Trade seemed to show that the alteration in price since the Convention came into force had not been such as to prevent the making of very good profits. He did not dispute that the great and sudden rise due to shortage of crop had been highly injurious to trade, but prospects for the future were brighter. The price at the beginning of January was 14s. 10d., and increased by the middle of that month to 16s. But by May 18th it had fallen to 11s., and the price quoted on that date for deliveries in the following November was 9s. 11d. The average of the ten years 1892–1901 was 10s. 9d.; a higher price than that quoted for delivery in November next. He did not understand why the fact that they had a tax on sugar consumed at home should affect the export of confectionery and other manufactured articles which obtained a drawback. As a matter of fact, the figures he had before him did not bear out the suggestion made. The import figures included as confectionery a good deal not generally recognised as such, and, so far as the exports were concerned. which were much more nearly true confectionery, the decrease was very slight indeed; nor would the figures, even though less favourable, afford a conclusive reason for abandoning permanently so important a source of revenue.
  The tax produced very nearly £6,000,000 of revenue last year, and he did not know where he, could look to recoup to the Treasury the sum which would be lost by the abandonment of the tax. It was quite obvious that he could not agree to part with it in the current year, and neither did he feel inclined to pledge himself to its abandonment at a future time. If it were true, as he believed, that one source of our indirect taxation

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  on which we had so largely relied in the past—namely, the tax on alcoholic drinks—was going to produce leas to the revenue in proportion than in former years, that was a reason the more for finding other sources of indirect taxation which might go some way to meet the difficulty. It was often said the tax on beer, spirits, and tobacco need be contributed to by no man unless he pleased. It was perfectly true, no doubt, that a man could get out of paying these taxes if he did not drink and refrained from smoking, but we must have some taxation which citizens could not decline to contribute to by simply changing their habits or altering their form of expenditure. The sugar tax was one to which everyone contributed, and, taken in conjunction with the rest of our system of taxation, he did not think it imposed an undue burden upon any section of the population. He could give no pledge that he would make it his business to secure a withdrawal of the tax.
  MR. EDWARDSsaid he desired to say a few words in support of the new clause moved by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire. He need not go into all the figures to show that this tax was a great burden on the poor, and on certain industries of this country. That fact was only too well known. He was very disappointed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not at the present moment give any hopes of the withdrawal of this tax. He had hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would have held out some prospect, if not then, of its withdrawal or diminution in the near future. The Chancellor had said that he had as far as he could redressed the balance by putting on the shoulders of the richer classes a heavier burden of taxation, but, at the same time, as they all knew, the burden of taxation was heavier on the shoulders of the poor than upon the rich. Speaking generally, the very poor paid double the amount paid by the income-tax payer towards the general taxation of the country. He could not help regretting also that the Chancellor had not given some redress to those manufacturers who were such heavy sufferers from the burden put on the sugar industry, and when they saw that this Government had been careful to help
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  industries in other countries by allowing them to get cheap labour, it really did seem hard that they should burden industries in this country by keeping a tax upon them it was very difficult to bear. He saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer had fallowed his great predecessor, Sir Stafford Northcote, in the matter of the Sinking Fund. He wished he had also followed him in the, matter of the sugar tax. Sir Stafford Northcote in 1864 used words about the sugar tax which seemed to him peculiarly appropriate at the present moment. Sir Stafford said—
  "I need scarcely remind the Committee of the enormous importance of that article (i.e., sugar) to trade and consumption. I believe in its importance in reference to the comforts of the people, it may be said to stand next to corn. That duty was raised for the purposes of war (the same in 1804 as in 1905). It was readjusted after the peace in 1857, but the I principal part has never been removed. We propose to make a considerable reduction in the sugar duties. There certainly is an objection to making this reduction. We are labouring under a quasi-scarceness owing to diminished production and increased prices."
  That seemed to be exactly the case before them now. But Sir Stafford Northcote, in spite of that, regarded it as his duty to make a diminution in this tax. He commended that to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his next Budget, and he hoped he would give it the attention it deserved.
  SIR JAMES JOICEYsaid he sympathised with the Chancellor because, after all, he had to find the money to carry on the business of the country, but the taxation in this case was extremely high. He agreed with every word that had fallen from the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire with regard to this matter, but the Chancellor seemed to urge that as a tax on raw material it did not injure the interests of trade. It was a very foolish policy on the part of the Government to prevent other countries sending raw material to this country cheap. These industries had grown up because of their cheapness, and if the conditions were to be altered at all, let them be altered by the people who exported the raw material into this country. The Convention had produced quite a different state of affairs abroad, as in this

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  country. It had given other countries cheap sugar, and as a result the industries in this country built up on that cheap raw material had suffered. Owing to competition abroad having been stimulated and strengthened by the action of the Government in connection with the Convention, this industry had an additional claim to some consideration in the matter of taxation. He admitted, of course, that the drawback did help the industries that exported. But the condition of competition abroad had been completely changed because foreign manufacturers, owing to the cheapening of sugar, were able to make articles in the manufacture of which we had had previously a monopoly. Great injury had been and was being done to our sugar industries by the policy of the Government. Industries did not die all at once, but by a system of slow starvation, and that this starving was going on would soon make itself very apparent if the Government persisted in its mischievous policy.
  MR. LOUGHsaid the hon. Baronet was right when he stated that the taxation of sugar abroad had been greatly reduced, while in Great Britain this taxation fell upon competitors who could not now obtain sugar at lower prices. The Chancellor of the Exchequer dropped a few words with respect to which he would like a further explanation. The right hon. Gentleman said he expected a less revenue from the tax this year than last year. That was a most momentous thing to say. It was a most alarming statement. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had estimated that the consumption of this most important article was decreasing. This statement should arrest the attention of the free food Gentlemen on the other side of the House The consumption of sugar had already decreased 10 per cent, per head of the population in four years, and now the Chancellor of the Exchequer knew that there was to be a further decrease. That decrease had come after sixty years of steady progress. As the consumption of sugar had increased in this country, industries had increased in all directions. The raw material of sugar was produced by countries on the Continent which sent it here to be worked
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  up, and the result was that we had established important industries because we could get cheap sugar. We sent it back to these countries manufactured. These industries were growing in all directions until this Government had entered upon a policy which was stifling them, and yet the majority of hon. Members on the other side of the House sat unmoved.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of the average price for the ten years before 1903. Nothing more fallacious could be stated. During these ten years machinery had been improved, and more scientific methods had been adopted in the sugar trade. The tendency of the price was downwards, and as the price got lower sugar was used in a variety of ways it had never been used before. It was not right for the Government to complacently turn back the wheels of time and stop this cheapening process. The tax itself was bad enough, but when it came on the top of a high price it became a great burden to the people. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had spoken of the prices next December, but he desired to warn him that these were only gambling prices. People who were making mineral waters were not helped by the fact that there was a cheap quotation for next December or January. The right hon. Gentleman had shown that he was familiar with certain circumstances which might prevent the lowering of price. There was the possibility of drought on the Continent which they all hoped would not take place, but contingencies of that sort showed the folly of basing calculations on prophecy. Poor people were suffering greatly from the high price of sugar brought about by the manipulations of the Government. He thought the sugar tax would also require the attention of the Government on account of the expensiveness of the system of collection. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer should make the expense in connection with the collection of the tax as light as possible, and the mod as simple as possible. He suggested that the tax might be reduced to a farthing per pound.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid the sugar duty was imposed partly as a war

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  tax, and partly, as the then Chancellor of the Exchequer said, for the purpose of broadening the basis of taxation. One of the reasons for voting for this and other Amendments in regard to the proposed taxation was because it was a way of protesting against the expenditure of the country. We were still labouring under a burden of no leas than £23,000,000 a year of taxation which was pat on during the war, and which, unfortunately, had been continued in time of peace. It was obvious that it would be of advantage if the sugar tax could be reduced or abolished. It was a tax on an article of universal consumption, and, what was still more important, it was a tax on certain manufactures which had been rapidly increasing. The right hon. Gentleman had said that there were other taxes on raw material, and he instanced tobacco, but the tax on sugar affected a large number of small industries. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not deny that, in consequence of the rise in the price of sugar, due in large measure to the Convention, these industries had been injured. If the Board of Trade Returns were looked at in relation to imports, it would be seen how the rise in price of sugar had affected both the consumer and the manufacturer. If the last three months were taken there was an actual diminution of imports of sugar amounting to 922,000 cwts. refined and unrefined; and while there was a diminution of consumption of nearly 1,000,000 cwts., the country had to pay over £1,500,000 more for its sugar than before. That was partly duo to the Convention to which reference had been made. To emphasise the point the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech informed the Committee that the revenue from sugar was falling off and showing no elasticity.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Oh, no. What I said was—
  "Sugar, in spite of the shortage of supply and the high prices prevailing during the latter part of the year, realised £180,000 more than I had expected. Had it not been for the failure of the Continental beet crop it would very largely have exceeded my anticipations, and though under present circumstances it is necessary to make a cautious estimate of the yield from this source of revenue in the current
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  year, it promises to be an expanding revenue in future years, when good harvests shall have restored prices to their normal level."
  I think the hon. Gentleman will see that what he has stated hardly represents what I said on that occasion.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTONsaid that possibly that might be so: but the figures he had just given to the Committee, taken from the Board of Trade Returns, showed that there was an actual diminution of the amount of sugar coming into this country of nearly 1,000,000 cwts., and that, therefore, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would get a less revenue from the sugar tax. The assumption was that the Convention had not only seriously affected the consumer and the manufacturers but had seriously affected the revenue from the sugar tax, and therefore had seriously affected the trade of the country all round. On the other hand, countries abroad had been able to reduce their sugar duties, to encourage a larger consumption of sugar by their people, and at the same time to obtain a larger revenue from their sugar duties.
  He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the manufacturers here had not suffered seriously either from the sugar duty or from the action of the Convention, and the right hon. Gentleman referred to the reports of some particular firms in order to prove that point. But the figure, which the right hon. Gentleman gave the Committee were not very much to the point. As he understood the right hon. Gentleman, one of the objects of the Government in proposing and carrying through the Sugar Convention was to put an end to the great fluctuations in the price of sugar. But, so far as he had been able to see, the fluctuation of prices had never been so great as in the summer of last year. At any rate, the fluctuations all tended then to a lower level, while the fluctuations since the Convention came into operation tended to a higher level. The right hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to extend the area of supply of sugar; but that was hardly the basis on which the Prime Minister had argued for the Convention. The Prime Minister stated specifically that the benefit to the West Indies was not an argument

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  in favour of the Convention. The evidence went to show that the increase of the sugar crop in the West Indies had been comparatively small, and that the Convention had been to the benefit of our greater sugar-producing rivals. Nobody had said that the increase in the price of sugar had been wholly due to the Convention. About half of it was, and the other half to the shortage of crop. He would support the Amendment of his hon. friend on all these grounds.
  MR. JOHN WILSONsaid he would not have risen to take part in this debate but for the remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what the right hon. Gentleman called the equities of taxation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of the millions which he derived from this form of taxation, and said that there was no other source to which he could turn to recoup himself if this tax were abolished. There was one fact lost sight of, and that was that the imposition of this tax had not only reduced the profits of the confectionery and other allied trades, but had increased the volume of the unemployed. The Government were by artificial means restricting employment in the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer talked of abolishing the sugar bounties, but why should we not take advantage of the foolishness of other people who gave us their produce freely at a cheap rate? As to the equities of taxation to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred, and the inequality of taxation between the direct and indirect taxpayer, he would quote the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. Speaking in the days when he was a Radical and when some of them on that side of the House sat at his feet as a Gamaliel, and drank in what at that time they believed was sound doctrine in politics, the right hon. Gentleman for West Birmingham referred to a village in Somerset in which the agricultural labourers paid 7½ per cent. of taxation on their small incomes. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that, whereas he was a comparatively rich man, he only paid at the rate of 6½ per cent.
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  He, himself, was not a learned man, but he had read Adam Smith; and he held that the burdens of the nation should be placed on the shoulders of those best able to bear them. If this country were in either a stationary or retrogressive period he could quite understand the poor bearing a large share of taxation, but we were in a progressive period when the wealth of the country was increasing by leaps and bounds. There were surely other means of getting money than by trenching upon the wages of the poor. The industries of this country depended for their impetus upon the spending of the many, and if that were limited in any way depression followed. It was time they turned to other sources of income. Much had been said about the war being the cause of the tax, but he did not think it would have been needed if the Government by their system of doles had not filled the rich with good things and sent the poor empty away. He, himself, did not want anything from the rich man that he was not entitled to pay; but there was a new spirit abroad which was not in any way iniquitous or unjust and which was opposed to the present system of taxation.
  MR. O'MARAsaid he had no objection to taxation being raised in England, but he protested against his own countrymen being subjected to the pressure of this tax. It was iniquitous to put a fresh burden on a country such as Ireland. It was obvious that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had no regard for the happiness and contentment of the country. The tax was especially iniquitous in so far as it pressed heavily on the poorest of the poor. The hon. Member who had just spoken, and whose eloquence he would not attempt to rival, referred to labourers earning 17s. or 18s. a week, but what about the agricultural labourer in Ireland who only earned 10s. a week. The Chancellor of the Exchequer referred to the equities of taxation; but a man with £1,000 was far above the line of mere subsistence, whereas the agricultural labourer was below it. The Committee did not realise the terrible conditions under which Ireland laboured.
  MR. DILLONsaid when the sugar tax was first imposed he was one of those who opposed it. He opposed it first because it was a tax on food, and secondly because it was a tax on the raw material of certain manufactures of this country. It was no argument in favour of this tax to point out, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done, that there were other taxes on food and raw material, because the whole policy of the taxation of this country for the last half century had been to lessen the taxation on food and on raw material, and the idea of all the great financiers of this country had been to gradually get rid of all those taxes. The fundamental objection to the sugar tax was that a new departure had been taken and that the whole policy of fifty years had been reversed by the imposition of a tax upon an article of food and a most important raw material for manufacture. He was one of those who ventured to prophecy that if the House was so complacent as to accept this tax the principle would very soon be extended to other articles. His prophecy was received with shouts of laughter and great, ridicule, but within two years of the imposition of the tax upon sugar they had a tax upon wheat, and then developed the great scheme of consolidating the Empire on the basis of preferential duties. He objected to this tax upon principle. It was a vicious tax. It was not only a tax which in its incidence was unjust to the poor, but it was a tax which should be reversed on principle, because if they once admitted the justice of a tax upon sugar they would have to admit in the future many other taxes on food on the same principle.
  The case against the imposition of the sugar tax had been enormously increased by the effect of the Sugar Convention. It was all very well to say that the sugar tax had had no effect in the shape of injuring the power of our manufacturers to compete with the manufacturers of foreign countries because they received a rebate on the goods exported, but when the cost was enormously increased on all that portion of the trade which was consumed in this country, and when the profits were enormously depleted, to say that the power of the manufacturers to compete was not crippled owing to that
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  enormous depletion of profits was absurd. The strength of the claim of the manufacturers of sugar products had enormously increased by the rise in prices owing to the Sugar Convention. When the tax was debated on a former occasion some of them had taken the trouble to investigate the facts as to the consumption of sugar by other countries, and they found that the consumption in England and Ireland had risen to more than double that of Germany and other countries. Since the Convention the consumption of sugar in other countries had been rising rapidly and the consumption here had been falling off, and that alone was sufficient to condemn this tax.
  MR. CAWLEYexpressed the opinion that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should give an assurance that this tax should not partake of a permanent character. The sugar tax was first of all put on as a temporary tax in order to obtain revenue for war purposes, but now they were told that it was to be a permanent tax. In his opinion the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not considered enough the enormous injury done to the confectionery trade. He had not considered sufficiently the fact that there was no trade where an advance or a reduction of prices made such a difference in the consumption as it did in the confectionery trade. Each reduction in the price of sugar increased consumption to an enormous extent, and that must necessarily always be so, because with a low-priced sugar the manufacturers were able to produce a low-priced jam and were thus able to bring that product within reach of every consumer. Even in so small a matter as a pennyworth of sweets the children got more for their money when sugar was cheap than they did when it was dear. He was certain that if this tax was continued the revenue from it would very much decrease. Confectionery manufacturers had a real grievance. Owing to the bounties, Continental countries contracted themselves out of prosperous business. The people of this country had all the benefit of protection without any of the ills; they had cheap sugar, while Continental consumers had dear sugar. The Government had most stupidly given away that

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  advantage, and the positions were now reversed, with the result that enormous confectionery works were starting up all over the Continent to compete in their own markets and possibly in ours. As that was entirely due to the action of the Government, he submitted that British manufacturers should not be handicapped even in he home market by a heavy duty. The rebate would not put the matter right; he believed that sooner or later the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to remove, if not the whole, at any rate the greater part of the duty. Even if the duty was kept on the revenue was almost certain to decrease from it because the consumption would be less. He thought, therefore, on account both of the poor consumer and of the great hardship inflicted on the confectionery trade, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should hold out some hope of a reduction in the duty.
  MR. HARWOODsaid it was becoming more and more an accepted fact that sugar was a necessity of nutriment, and that for a nation to be well nourished it must be a tolerably large consumer of sugar. A nation to be great must be a well-nourished nation; to be well nourished it must have reasonable supplies of sugar; to have reasonable supplies of sugar it must be able to get sugar at a reasonable price. That being so the making of the tax permanent became a serious matter, because it dealt a blow at the physical development of the nation, upon which the national prosperity depended. What did the Chancellor of the Exchequer mean by the "equities of taxation?" The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that the equities were met by taking a class of the population and saying that as there were so many people in it they should pay so much. That was a very false idea of the matter. The equity of taxation would rather suggest that people on the starvation line should pay nothing at all, and that as they rose above that line then taxes should increase. The Chancellor of the Exchequer should bear in mind the great principle that it was not for the good of the country that people on the starvation line should be
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  taxed. For the good of the nation their lot should be made as easy as possible. He would put that point as an employer of labour. The great necessity of labour was that it should be fairly nourished; we could not maintain our manufacturing position in the world without a decently fed working class, and that could not be had if they were taxed out of proportion. The simple equities of taxation in the case of a farm labourer, who had to bring up a family on 10s. a week, were that he should pay no taxes at all; he was contributing his labour, which was the most valuable element in the national life. The Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to be very careful in fastening permanently around the neck of the nation a burden which would drag the nation down for ever.
  MR. DALZIELremarked on the fact that while Member after Member on the other side got up and urged that a concession should be made in regard to the tobacco tax, none of them had assisted the Opposition in their efforts to secure a modification of the sugar duty. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University was a strong advocate of the feeding of poor children in schools, but he had not said a single word on this occasion on behalf of the people he desired to help. The hon. Member for King's Lynn had spoken strongly as the friend of the people, but where was his eloquent voice that day? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Croydon appeared to be no longer a stalwart, his speech gave the impression that he was finding his way back to the fold. Why had not a single Unionist Member supported this appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. What was the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman? He had thrown over the coal tax because the influence against him was too great, and they knew that one of the first proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, should the opportunity arise, would be the abolition of the coal tax. They had practically heard the end of the tax on stripped tobacco, but the right hon. Gentleman had absolutely shut the door with a bang in regard to sugar, and he had declared that he could not give any

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  pledge at all in regard to the repeal of the sugar tax. That marked a very important departure as compared with the position he took up a few years ago. He remembered the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol, who stated that this was a temporary tax to raise war taxation. That had been the position right through, and yet that night the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he could not give any pledge. Had this attitude anything to do with possible fiscal changes? It was admitted that the poor paid more proportionately than the richer classes, and that the right hon. Gentleman could not deny. It was the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to recognise the force of argument, and that on this occasion was in favour of a reduction of this tax. He could not conceive a better argument with which to go to the constituencies of hon. Members opposite than to say that they had voted against a reduction of the sugar tax. The hon Member for Gravesend represented a working-class constituency; was he going to vote for dear sugar? He knew that colonial preference was in their mind. Upon an occasion when this question was vitally affecting their interests, it was remarkable that not a single Unionist Member had raised his voice in favour of a reduction of this tax.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he was dead against the sugar tax, and nothing would induce him to vote against the Amendment. This tax had every defect which a tax could possibly have. It had now become permanent in its nature and it was one of those taxes which had been withdrawn from annual revision by the House. He objected to this tax on the ground that taxes on raw material were odious and impolitic because they interfered with trade. Taxes on food were still more odious, because food was the raw material of man, and the Prime Minister had declared that he would never be a party to imposing taxation either upon raw material or upon food. ["When?"] He could not give the date, as the right hon. Gentleman had made so many declarations. This tax had all the objections which applied to raw material and food, because it was a tax on both. Sugar was an article which the
  286
  ingenuity of the British, and especially the Scottish people, had worked up into the most tempting forms of marmalades and jams, which had competed most successfully and completely with similar manufactures on the Continent, because they had cheap sugar in this country. The worst of it was that things had been made far mare onerous and mischievous for those engaged in the sugar industries by the Brussels Convention, whereby they had not only put a tax upon sugar, but they had also restricted the countries from which they could obtain a supply of sugar.
  He told the House the other day, and he repeated now, that the question was—What does the poor man pay for his sugar? The year before the Sugar Convention, at King's Lynn—a most admirable and industrious town, but a place whore the people were very poor—the price paid to the retail dealer was 1¼d. per pound for sugar. The price now paid for the same sugar to the same dealer was 2½d. per pound. That was the result to the poor man, and the result, though less serious, was still very serious to the more wealthy manufacturers, who formerly made jam preserves with this sugar and competed with the foreign manufacturers of these same things and beat them. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the artificial price of sugar before we reverted to that original order of nature which was embodied, he presumed, in the Brussels Convention, What was an artificial price? If a man wanted to sell his stock at half the cost he did not feel himself debarred from taking the price the seller was willing to pay. It was now, after the Convention had come into operation, that the artificial condition had arisen by prohibiting sugar from coming to these shores and preventing the enlargement of the area of supplies. The two things together made the grievance. The price of sugar had been doubled. He frankly confessed that his grievance was against the Convention much more than against the sugar duty, for this reason: We could diminish or take off the sugar duty as we pleased, but that was not so with reference to the conditions of the Convention. He would not vote in support of the sugar duty. He still believed in the necessity of maintaining the food of the people of this country untaxed.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 166; Noes, 231. (Divison List No.187.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Philipps, John Wynford

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Rea, Russell

  Allen, Charles P.

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Reddy, M.

  Asher, Alexander

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Redmond. John E. (Waterford)

  Asquith, Rt Hon Herbert Henry

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

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th)

  Austin, Sir John

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Jocoby, James Alfred

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Johnson, John

  Roberts, John H.(Denbighs.)

  Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

  Roche, John

  Bell, Richard

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Benn, John Williams

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Rose, Charles Day

  Blake, Edward

  Joyce, Michael

  Runciman, Walter

  Boland, John

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Russell, T. W.

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W.

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Brigg, John

  Kilbride, Denis

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Bright, Allan Heywood

  Kitson, Sir James

  Shackleton, David James

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

  Lambert, George

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Lament, Norman

  Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Langley, Batty

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Burt, Thomas

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Buxton, Sydney Charles

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Slack, John Bamford

  Caldwell, James

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Cameron, Robert

  Leese, Sir Joseph F (Accrington

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Levy, Maurice

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Lough, Thomas

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip James.

  Cawley, Frederick

  Lundon, W.

  Sullivan, Donal

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Tennant, Harold John

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

  Clancy, John Joseph

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

  Crombie, John William

  M'Crae, George

  Thomas, J. A (Glamorgan, Gower

  Dalziel, James Henry

  M'Kean, John

  Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.)

  Delany, William

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Tillett, Louis John

  Dillon, John

  Mansfield, Horace Rendall

  Tomkinson, James

  Doogan, P. C.

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Toulmin, George

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Mooney, John J.

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Morley, Rt Hon. John (Montrose

  Ure, Alexander

  Dunn, Sir William

  Moulton, John Fletcher

  Wallace, Robert

  Edwards, Frank

  Murphy, John

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Ellice, Capt E C (S Andrw'sBghs

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Emmott, Alfred

  Newnes, Sir George

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Eve, Harry Trelawney

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R)

  Fenwick, Charles

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid

  Whitley. J. H. (Halifax)

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

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

  Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

  Field, William

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  Wills, Arthur Walters (N Dorset

  Findlay, Alexander (Lanark, N E

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Wilson, Chas. Henry (Hull, W.)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  O'Dowd, John

  Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.)

  Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

  O'Malley, William

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  O'Mara, James

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

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Young, Samuel

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Parrott, William

  Grant, Corrie

  Partington, Oswald

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Herbert Gladstone and Mr.

  Hammond, John

  Pearson, Sir Weetman D.

  Spencer.

  Harwood, George

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  NOES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Aubrey-Fletcher Rt. Hon. Sir H.

  Balfour Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitzroy

  Balfour, Kenneth R, (Christch.

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Banner, John S. (Harmood-

  Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn. Hugh O.

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Arrol, Sir William

  Balcarres, Lord

  Bigwood, James

  Bill, Charles

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn Lord G (Midd'x

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Bingham, Lord

  Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'derry

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Bond, Edward

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

  Plummer, Sir Walter R.

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Brassey, Albert

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)

  Pryee-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Purvis, Robert

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Pym, C. Guy

  Brymer, William Ernest

  Heath, Sir James (Staffords. N W

  Rankin, Sir James

  Butcher, John George

  Helder, Augustus

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin Univ.

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hickman, Sir Alfred

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Cautley, Henry Strother

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Renwick, George

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Ridley, S. Forde

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn J. A. (Wore.

  Hoult, Joseph

  Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson

  Chapman, Edward

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Hozier, Hon James HenryCecil

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

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

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Coddington, Sir William

  Hunt, Rowland

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Jameson, Major J. Eustace

  Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo T. (Denbigh)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C. R.

  Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hon. Col. W

  Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

  Colston, Chas, Edw. H. Athole

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Samuel, Sir Harry S (Limehouse

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Lawson, Hn H. L. W. (Mile End)

  Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N R

  Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

  Cust, Henry John C.

  Lee, Arthur H (Hants.,Fareham

  Sharpe, William Edward T.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Legge, Col. Hon. Hencage

  Shaw-Stewart, Sir H (Renfrew)

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N S.

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Long, Col. Charles W (Evesham

  Smith, Abel H (Hertford, East)

  Denny, Colonel

  Long, Rt Hn. Walter (Bristol, S)

  Smith, H. C. (North'mb Tyneside

  Dickinson, Robert Edmond

  Lowe, Franciss William

  Smith, Rt Hn J Parker (Lanarks

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

  Stanley, Edward Jas (Somerset

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.

  Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

  Doughty, Sir George

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers.

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Stock, James Henry

  Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Stone, Sir Benjamin

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Stroyan, John

  Faber, Edmund B. (Hants,W.)

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Fellowes, Rt Hn Ailwyn Edward

  Malcolm, Ian

  Thornton, Percy M.

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

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Fielden, Edward Brooklehurst

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Tuff, Charles

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H E (Wigt'n

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Finlay, Sir R B. (Inv'rn'ssB'ghs)

  Maxwell, W J. H. (Dumfriesshire

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Vincent, Col Sir C E H (Sheffield

  Fison, Frederick William

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Walker, Col. William Hall

  Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Welby, Lt.-Col. A C. E.(Taunton

  Forster, Henry William

  Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.

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

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

  Milvain, Thomas

  Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Whiteley, H (Ashton und. Lyne

  Gardner, Ernest

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Garfit, William

  Montagu, Hon. J. Soott (Hants.)

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

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

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

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

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Morgan, David J. (Walthamstow

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Wilson-Todd, Sir W H. (Yorks.)

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Wodehouse, Rt Hn. E. R. (Bath

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.)

  Mount, William Arthur

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Myers, William Henry

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Gretton, John

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

  Hain, Edward

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darfington

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  Hall, Edward Marshall

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Viscount Valentia.

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Percy, Earl

  Hambro, Charies Eric

  Pierpoint, Robert

  MR. CHARLES DOUGLASsaid the point raised by the new clause which he proposed was quite separate from the general argument on the subject of the coal tax. He put forward this Amendment as a plea for equitable treatment in the imposition of the coal tax. He was sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, realising from the previous debate on the coal duty its unpopularity in all parts of the House and in all parts of the country, and that he had not been able to defend it with seriousness, would desire to do anything he could to diminish that unpopularity, and make its incid nce a little more equitable. The Amendment he desired to move was to exempt coal nuts manufactured from dross, provided it was proved to the Commissioners of Customs that the value of such dross delivered free on board would not exceed 6s. per ton.
  He ought to explain for the benefit of hon. Members what coal nuts precisely were. It was the practice in Scotland, and also to an increasing extent in the North of England, to wash the dross with water, and then grade the several sizes of coal which it contained, so as to form different qualities of what were called nuts. A large and expensive plant was necessary and a great deal of labour was employed in dealing with the dross in this manner. The contention he put forward was that coal nuts were a manufactured form of fuel, involving the use of machinery which had to be periodically renewed. Therefore coal nuts ought to be treated on the same footing as other manufactured fuel. The Finance Act of 1901 admitted a rebate on all products manufactured from coal whose price fell below the level at which coal was taxed. A rebate was given on all coal which entered into the composition of patent fuel if it were valued below 6s. a ton. He contended that that exemption should be applied to coal nuts. The only difference between coal nuts and patent fuel was that a certain amount of pitch was employed in the manufacture of patent fuel. But in both cases a quantity of coal worth less than 6s. per ton was manufactured so as to form a product worth more than that sum. The Cheapest class of nuts could not be
  292
  sold abroad at a price which would bear the duty. The result was that coalowners were obliged to sell cheaper abroad than in the home market. Was that reasonable? It was not good business to encourage and even compel a coalowner to sell his coal abroad cheaper than he could sell it at home. He did not suggest that the rebate in connection with patent fuel was an improper rebate; but it should be extended to other manufactured articles. There ought to be equality of treatment as between the different articles.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again this evening.

  EVENING SITTING.

    FINANCE BILL.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    [MR. JEFFREYS (Hampshire, N.) in the Chair.]
    MR. CHARLES DOUGLASsaid that before the interval he had almost concluded his explanation of the reasons why he desired the Committee to give a rebate to coal nuts. The raw material of this manufacture was in itself really valueless. It was certainly not of any export value and could not be profitably put on any foreign market, and nobody who knew anything about it would ever suggest that it was worth anything like 6s. a ton. The principle was already accepted in the case of other manufactured products of coal made from raw material of below the value of 6s. a ton, and he thought a complete case was made out for asking for a rebate in this instance on the ground, if on no other, of equal treatment to all industries connected with, the manufacture of the waste product of coal. The right hon. Gentleman was aware of the unpopularity of the tax as a whole, and that in itself should appeal to his mind as a strong

    293
    reason for redressing any grievance and removing any injustice and hardship in respect of a tax which was regarded by all concerned as a most inequitable one.
    Clause (Coal nuts),—(Mr. Charles Douglas)—brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the clause be read a second time."
    MR. BAIRDsupported the Motion of the hon. Member. He could quite understand that no Chancellor of the Exchequer cared to relinquish any part of a tax, but on the other hand he was equally sure the right hon. Gentleman did not wish to do any injustice to any particular trade. He had, therefore, great hopes that the right hon. Gentleman would give a satisfactory reply and would be able to tell them that if he could not make this concession now he would do so at the earliest opportunity. The industry affected was subsidiary to the coal industry and had only grown up in the last few years. The raw material was a poor description of coal filled with dross and impurities which by itself was practically worthless. By manufacture, however, an article was produced which had a certain market both in this country and abroad. Had this tax been in force a little earlier than was the case, in his opinion, this industry would never have grown up and the raw material would have been wasted. In his view a process which gave employment to a great deal of labour and utilised a waste product for the benefit of the community was not one that should be interfered with, and anything that would deter that trade should as far as possible be avoided. He hoped, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman would give a favourable consideration to this matter.
    MR. EUGENE WASONjoined in the appeal made by both his hon. friends to the right hon. Gentleman to see whether he could not accept the clause which his hon. friend had moved. The sum at stake was a very small sum. It was not a sum like the coal tax which
    294
    brought in about £2,000,000 a year. The question of nuts was a small matter, and if the right hon. Gentleman gave the same equality of treatment to the manufacture of nuts as he did to briquettes it would not cost him more than £40,000 a year. Seeing that this industry employed large numbers of people he thought something ought to be done to encourage it. By this industry a waste product was turned into a by-product and the difference between waste products and byproducts often determined the prosperity of a trade. Having regard to the fact that the raw material of this growing trade was of a much lower value than 6s. a ton he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to give effect to the clause moved by his hon. friend.
    MR. PARKER SMITHthought that everybody who spoke upon this subject would no doubt take the same view, because the case they had to present was absolutely overwhelming. The case which they presented that night was not a question of the general coal tax which, for the time, was settled on the previous day, but a question arising out of the rebate given under the tax in order to make it possible for the cheapest class of coal to be utilised for the public benefit. It was perfectly certain that that was what was in the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and in the mind of Parliament when the Bill was passed. In the case of patent fuel the language of the Act was so drawn as to cover that particular class of goods. He was not certain whether the language of the Act would not cover the case the Committee was now discussing. It was a different question, but the same principle which governed the question of patent fuel made from dross and coal dust certainly ought to cover this case. The argument they used was not the me quoque argument that because a rebate was given to Welsh briquettes it ought to be given to coal nuts. They used this argument because the principle which governed the Welsh briquettes was right and just, and therefore it ought to be applied to coal nuts. Hon. Members would agree that one of the primary objects of taxation must always be to endeavour not to discourage

    295
    industries which gave employment in this country and not to check the growth of any industry, where such industry was liable to be most seriously interfered with by existing taxation. Here was a case in which this class of small coal and dross, which in the past was wasted altogether, which people could hardly be induced to take away, had been turned into a saleable article in this country and into a large staple of foreign export by an industry which had only sprung up of late years. No argument was needed to support the proposition that an industry of that sort ought to be encouraged rather than discouraged.
    But when a Chancellor of the Exchequer was pressed to make any concession he was always tempted to ask, and very naturally did ask, where such a concession would lead him and what would be the result that must follow if he made such a concession. He (Mr. Parker Smith) did not see that any dangerous extension could follow from the right hon. Gentleman treading in the path in which they desired him to tread. All they asked the right hon. Gentleman to do was to give a rebate upon this stuff, which in its unmanufactured state was unsaleable, and to show him that this shilling tax must inevitably kill the industry. This was a question which pressed very heavily on Scotland, where the coal was of a very poor and cheap quality, and where the competition of Westphalian and German coal was particularly keen, necessitating highly scientific methods on the part of Scotch miners in order to compete at all. Continuous complaints had been received of their inability to give to the foreign purchaser that uniformity of quality and cleanliness in the article which he desired for the economical working of his furnaces. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had expressed the wish that there might be an agreement come to between the various sections of the coal industry with regard to what they required, but there could be no agreement in regard to an ad valorem duty for obvious reasons. It was different in a matter of this kind, because this was a question which only affected those collieries which produced the poorest quality of coals. He contended that if a Manufacturer took coal at its lowest value, and by the process of washing,
    296
    grinding, and manufacture produced an article of higher value, he ought to have the benefit of the increased value, and for the purposes of taxation that product ought still to be taken at the lowest price of the raw material. That was the only fair way of treating this class of goods.
    It must be remembered that the washing machinery used for this purpose was not the mere scaffolding at the pithead with which those who knew nothing of the subject often confounded it. It was more comparable with a flour mill, and might cost anything up to £50,000. That showed the expenditure of making coal nuts, an expenditure much larger than that involved in making Welsh briquettes; yet under the present arrangements Welsh briquettes, which, were sold at something like twelve shillings a ton, had the full rebate, and coal nuts, which were only worth seven shillings a ton, got no rebate at all but had to bear the full weight of this shilling tax. In some of the foreign markets they were very particular as to the appearance of coal, and it was the regular thing as the last process in the making of nuts to wash them with clean water. Suppose that as a final process the nuts were washed in sugar and water to give them a bright appearance, there would then be a mixture of which perhaps 99·9 percent. would be coal and 1 per cent. sugar. Would that be a mixture on which the rebate could be claimed? The value of briquettes did not arise simply from the addition of pitch; they were brought from dross of no value to a commodity worth 12s. or 13s. a ton by a variety of processes closely resembling those through which nuts had to go, and if the principle were accepted that briquettes made out of cheap dross were not to be taxed, the same principle should apply to nuts. The total export of nuts amounted to about 1,500,000 tons, a large part of which consisted of the cheaper nuts on which no duty was paid, because if they could not be exported under 6s. they could not be exported at all. Thus the amount gained by the Exchequer from nuts represented less than half the weight exported, and was only about £40,000 a year. The industry was doubtless growing, and if they could get a process adopted which brought a marketable article out of what was formerly waste dross, whether

    297
    it was consumed at home or abroad, it was a clear gain to the nation, but it was impossible for the industry to flourish if the export was hampered or diminished.
    A shilling was a serious weight to carry, and it bore with extreme heaviness upon the cheapest coals and those on the margin of exemption. The Act of 1901 was passed when the coal industy was very flourishing, but the conditions were now much altered, and in the present state of depression the people concerned expected to be met with much more consideration than was meted out to them in their time of prosperity. The object of our whole fiscal system should be to encourage industry, and not to snatch revenue, and he regarded the whole coal tax as a relict of recent unenlightened times. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would make a beginning with this small item in the application of the general principles of scientific taxation.
    MR. FENWICKhoped that after what had occurred yesterday, when, with the exception of the Chancellor's own remarks, not a single speech was delivered in favour of the coal tax, the present proposal would receive favourable consideration. The question of small coal stood in a totally different position from that discussed yesterday. The article now being dealt with was until quite recently of no value, being absolutely unsaleable. Hundreds and thousands of tons of national wealth in this shape had been thrown back into the pit because it was not worth bringing to the surface, and the amount that did get to the surface was a nuisance to the owners; it was laid out in large heaps around the collieries, where it became an absolute danger to the health of the people. That condition of affairs had now been to a large extent altered. After huge expenditure on expansive machinery and the employment of additional labour, this coal was washed and cleaned and brought into a saleable condition. The tax, however, was leviable not on the value of the article at the mine, but on the value delivered f.o.b. after it had undergone the processes of washing and manufacture. The article was of no value until it had been treated in a very elaborate and
    298
    expensive way, and yet it was subjected to taxation just the same as other coal not so treated. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer could very well grant the exemption under the conditions stated in the proposed clause, and that the loss to the revenue would not be so considerable as had been suggested. It was hardly possible for those engaged in this industry to put their product on the foreign market under existing conditions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had urged tha British colliery proprietors should imitate the more scientific methods of their German competitors. Here was a case, where they were trying to do something in that direction and to get all that was possible out of the national wealth in their possession, and he asked that the right hon. Gentleman should not continue the operation of a tax which tended to check the development of a process which would provide additional employment to the industrial classes of the country. The tax was really an impost upon a process of manufacture, because without the process the coal would be worthless. Nothing should be done to discourage men who were willing to put their capital into a process likely to develop into a new and growing industry, which would bring comfort and prosperity to a large body of people, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would agree to grant the rebate asked for by the Amendment under discussion.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid that too much stress must not be laid on the fact that his own speech was the only one delivered in favour of the coal tax yesterday. He had been Chancellor of the Exchequer long enough to know that in defending the public treasury he could count upon no support except that of his own arm, strong or weak as it might be. It was those who were dissatisfied with his action who made their voices heard in these debates, and those who agreed with him could render him no greater service than to record silent votes in his support. If all those who agreed with his proposals thought it right to express their approval in debate the discussions in Committee, even on an uncontentious Budget, would be almost interminable.

    299
    The mover of the Amendment under discussion based his claim for the exemption of nuts on the precedent of patent fuel or briquettes. No sooner had the Budget of 1901 become law than the Lanarkshire Coalmasters' Association approached his predecessor the right hon. Member for West Bristol and asked him to consider this question. His right hon. friend went into the matter at length in a correspondence with the association, and the case made out by the right hon. Member for West Bristol for distinguishing between nuts and briquettes was much more solid and real than hon. Members might be ready to admit. Certainly he had not been impressed by the force of the reasoning of the mover of the Amendment when he attempted to assimilate the case of the two. Under what conditions did briquettes or patent fuel obtain rebate? Under a sub-section of the Act it was provided that if an article was mingled with another article on which duty was charged, and was exported in a mixed state, then the duty was to be charged, not on the whole weight of the export, but on the amount of the dutiable material which it contained. In the case of briquettes or patent fuel, there was the pitch—which, in view of the warning of the hon. Member opposite, he would handle delicately—which was not dutiable; then there was the coal below the value of 6s., which also was not dutiable: then there was a certain amount of other coal of a higher value than 6s., and upon that duty was charged. In nuts, however, there was no material which was not dutiable, because there was no admixture of anything which was not coal, and there was no coal which did not exceed the value of 6s. a ton. They could not, therefore, claim an exemption on the grounds which secured the exemption of briquettes. But he admitted that that was not the whole of the case. If it were, and the whole case rested on a comparison, with patent fuel and briquettes, he would agree that nuts differed from patent fuel and were not at all entitled to exemption.
    But the whole case as stated did not rest there. It had been pleaded by hon. Members that the tax had a direct deterrent effect on the process of preparing this species of coal for sale. He felt the force of that argument. It was
    300
    true that this process of washing was comparatively a novel one, that it had been introduced in recent years, first in Scotland, and that it was just beginning to spread to other districts. We were probably only at the beginning of its development, and he would be sorry to see the development checked unnecessarily if he could possibly avoid it. So far he was in complete accord with the argument on that portion of the case which had been addressed to him. No part of the Report of the Royal Commission was of more interest to the trade than that in which they dealt with this subject of the preparation of coal for market, and none was of greater consequence to the future of the trade, and none, therefore, deserving of more serious consideration both of the trade and the Government when it was alleged that the particular provision they were now considering acted as a direct deterrent to improvements. But this was a new contention presented to him practically for the first time. He received joint deputations from the whole of the coal trade last year, and this year he had met two deputations, one representing the owners, managers, and shippers, and the other deputation representing the miners, and workers in and about the mine. They addressed very interesting speeches to him which wore now more or less familiar to the House, because naturally they formed the subject-matter of the debate yesterday, but he did not think that either of the two deputations he had received this year directed his attention to this new phase of the subject. The first attempt to call his serious attention to this matter was a letter from the Scottish Exporters' Association, which. was dated on the very day that the Budget was introduced, and apparently after the contents of the Budget were known. It was not till the Budget was an accomplished fact that the matter was brought to his attention.
    He had been looking into this matter, and had been much struck, he regretted to say, with the complications to which the proposal gave rise and the difficulties which surrounded any attempt to meet the objects sought to be attained. In the first place, if they adopted the principle, they would make a revolutionary change in the

    301
    whole basis of the tax which would, in many cases, seriously affect the revenue, and in some cases have the result, not of relieving the coal from duty, but of bringing coal now exempt within the purview of the duty. His second difficulty was not a less one. The concession which his predecessor made on behalf of briquettes was now pleaded as involving this further concession on behalf of nuts. If he could see his way to making the concession on behalf of nuts, had he any assurance that that concession would not be treated merely as giving hon. Gentlemen a stronger right to claim still further concessions? The process of washing required the provision of costly machinery which added to the cost of production. But would it be agreed by the trade at large that a line might fairly be drawn at such a process, and that a concession in respect of coal so washed would not be followed by a claim for a similar concession in regard to screens? It was very difficult to find a logical basis for the distinction which he had been asked to draw.
    In view of the short time he had had for the consideration of the matter and the many difficulties he saw, it was impossible he should accept the Amendment as it stood, or even promise that he would bring up proposals another year which would be directed to meeting the object of the hon. Gentlemen opposite. At the same time, he recognised the strength of the case which had been brought forward in respect of this process on its own merits—not as following the analogy of briquettes—and he was anxious to find a way of removing any deterrent effect which the Act might have on those engaged in the preparation of coal for marketing. He would certainly consider whether that could be done, and he thought his task would be facilitated if gentlemen interested in the coal trade could assist him to draw a line of distinction which would be generally accepted by the trade itself. That was as far as he could go at the present time. Those interested would see that he was not insensible to the case which had been presented to him, and he would give it his best consideration, and he hoped he would have their
    302
    co-operation in endeavouring in the course of next year to arrive at some common agreement upon this subject.
    MR. MUNRO FERGUSONsaid that at present considerable expenditure was necessary in order to prevent the pollution of rivers as a result of screening and washing the coal, and some consideration should be shown to those who thus kept the rivers pure. This tax bore very heavily on those who worked certain coal seams in Scotland, a large proportion of the coal from which could not be put on the market without first undergoing the process of washing and screening. The coal from a good many of these Scotch seams would be put out of the market altogether unless it could be treated differently. A great proportion of the Scotch coal was about the value of 6s. or 7s. per ton. As soon as the value rose above 6s. they found themselves under the tax, and therefore he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would consider the effect of this tax upon cheap Scotch coal. The tax hit the particular process adopted in Scotland very heavily, and he trusted that when the right hon. Gentleman had considered the matter he would be able to give them a rebate another year.
    MR. FINDLAYsaid he was very pleased to hear the sympathetic remarks of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but they would like him to go a little further. He wished to say a few words about a district in Lanarkshire with which he was associated and which was affected by this tax. As hon. Members were aware, there had been a great increase of late in the use of bye-products, and the utilisation of what hitherto had been waste material had proved a valuable asset in many industries and had had much to do with the prosperity of trade in a great many parts of the country, and this ought to be encouraged. In Lanarkshire there was a great depression in the coal trade and many miners were idle. There had been a number of installations of this washing process, and this helped considerably in the production of these bye-products. He would not go into detail because the process had been so well explained by the hon. Member

    303
    for Partick, but he knew the heavy cost of these installations, and how they brought into the market what might otherwise be wasted, and in any case it made the result more useful as a commercial asset. In the district he referred to they required something to stimulate the trade, and by allowing a rebate upon these nuts produced by screening and washing the trade would be greatly helped, and they would be assisted in getting a market for this class of coal. He wished to emphasise very strongly what had been said as to the proposal contained in the Motion under discussion being helpful to districts in Scotland which were now suffering very seriously from depression and he hoped the Motion would be agreed to.
    MR. MCKENNAsaid the first observation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was that this phase of the subject had only been presented to him upon the present occasion, but he had apparently forgotten that when the coal tax was under discussion up on a previous occasion he told them that the question was still sub judice, because it was being considered by a Commission. The Report of that Commission was now available, and the evidence showed the great advantage derived from this process, and that much small coal was brought up and sold to advantage after washing. That fact was brought out last year, and therefore he did not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was entitled to give as a reason for not accepting this clause the fact that he had not had this case brought before his notice. He thought it was a little unfair to give that as a reason why this simple measure of justice should not be extended to those persons who were engaged in this process of washing coal. The fact that this operation of washing took place after the coal had reached the pit's mouth was no argument against granting this exemption.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINsaid he understood the proposal brought forward by the hon. Gentleman opposite was that he should consider the condition in which the coal came out of the pit, and not the condition in which it was put on board ship. The hon. Member wanted him to go back to the value when the
    304
    coal came out of the pit, instead of taking the valne after it had been screened.
    MR. MCKENNAstill thought that the right hon. Gentleman had not seen the objection which was being taken to his argument in this case. It was to the condition after the first screening and before it was washed that he asked the right hon. Gentleman's attention. The right hon. Gentleman should take into account that this refuse was not worth 6s. per ton. When the coal was first brought out from the pit's mouth they could not distinguish what was above and what was below the value at which the tax operated. It was only after screening that that could be done. The dross was subsequently washed and it was only the process of washing that gave it any value. Was it reasonable for the purpose of taxation to take the value after it had been washed? This dross, which was absolutely worthless when it came out of the pit's mouth, was subjected to the expensive process of washing, with the result that a material was produced which was worth 7s. per ton. This material could be sold at home or abroad. If it was sent abroad it came into competition with foreign products. Only 7s. per ton was asked for it if sold at home, but if it was sent abroad the foreigner would not pay 8s. per ton for it in order to recoup the seller for the shilling duty on the export. The consequence was that if it had to be sold abroad it had to be offered at 6s. per ton. The exporters, therefore, would he selling at less than cost price. The only thing that could induce them to do that was that production on a large scale reduced the cost of washing the nuts, and they were able to sell so much at 7s. per ton and so repay themselves for selling abroad at less than cost price. The result was that we supplied our foreign competitors with an article necessary to carry on their manufactures at less than cost price while charging the home manufacturers a higher price for coal without which they could not carry on their business. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not accept the clause proposed he would enable our foreign competitors to get these nuts at a lower price than the British manufacturers. Was it reasonable that a product like coal should go out of the country at less

    305
    than cost price, while our own manufacturers were charged a higher price in consequence? The Chancellor of the Exchequer had pleaded for the better employment of the working classes, and he would appeal to him to take off a tax which produced an insignificant amount of revenue, but which might be the means of preventing the full employment of the expensive machinery which had been put up for the carrying on of this trade and of the workers who were engaged in it. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take these matters into consideration, forgetting for the moment the objection which had been raised to the coal tax as a whole.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINappealed to the Committee to second his efforts to bring the discussion on the Bill to a conclusion at a reasonable hour. The discussions on the Bill, it would be admitted, had been very full.
    MR. CALDWELLsaid Scotland was more hardly hit by this tax than England, and Mid-Lanark was more hardly hit than any of the other constituencies of Scotland. He wished to point out the fallacy of taking general statistics to support this tax as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done. Taking Great Britain as a whole there had been an increase in 1904 of 3 per cent. over 1903, but if the case of Scotland alone were taken the state of matters was somewhat different. In Scotland in 1880 the exports were under 2,000,000 tons; in 1890 they were upwards of 4,000,000 tons; in 1900 they were upwards of 7,000,000 tons. While for Great Britain as a whole, according to the statistics, between 1880 and 1900 the exports had increased two and a-half times, those of Scotland had increased four times. There had, therefore, been an enormous increase in Scotland before the imposition of the coal tax. Since the coal tax had been in operation there had been an increase in the exports for the whole of Great Britain of about 3 per cent. in 1904, but during that period in Scotland there had been a decrease of 150,000 tons. That showed the fallacy of taking the statistics of the whole country in dealing with this question.
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    The exports from Scotland had decreased because the coal produced there was inferior in quality to that produced in England. In Scotland itself there were varieties of quality. Fifeshire coal was of a superior class, and the collieries there were nearer the points of embarkation, the rates ranging from 6d. to 1s. per ton. The general statistics of Scotland would not meet the case of Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, and Midlothian, where what was called the "main" coal was worked out, and they were working a lower seam of inferior quality from which the nuts were manufactured to be sent aboad. It would be seen, therefore, that certain localities in Scotland suffered heavily from the method in which this tax was levied. In Lanarkshire the average price of coal was 6s. 2d. per ton, and the dross which came out of the lower workings was only worth about 9d. per ton at the pit. This was the material from which the nuts were separated and sold at about 6s. per ton. It was by setting up machinery and the employment of labour that material which was not worth 1s. per ton when it came out of the pit was manufactured into a material which was sold at about 6s. per ton. Lanarkshire was badly situated in regard to carriage. For example, he carriage from Lesmahagow to Glasgow was 2s. per ton, from Larkhall 1s. 4d., and from Hamilton 1s. If the coal was sent to Grangemouth the rate, was 2s. per ton, so that the Committee could see that certain districts were particularly struck at by the tax. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the case of coal coming out of the pit, and the necessity for separating the good coal from the dross and selling one at a cheaper and the other at a dearer price. That was not the case here. If the price of coal free on board was 6s. 6d. it would be an advantage to sell it at 5s. 9d., and so avoid the payment of the shilling duty, but it could not be said that that would be for the advantage of the revenue.
    What was the practical effect of the tax in the case of Mid-Lanark? In the Larkhall district Messrs. Hamilton, McCulloch & Co. had closed the Bog and Holm Farm Collieries in Larkhall, and the Barncheth and Silvertown Hill in the Hamilton district. Several others in the same dis-district had been closed. The Bardykes

    307
    Colliery, near Cambuslang, where about 700 persons were employed above and below ground, had also been closed. The closing of the latter was owing to the refusal of the landlord to reduce the mining royalty 2d. per ton. The 2d. perton mining royalty was the determining factor in that case, but then it should be remembered that the royalty was on the whole output of coal for home consumption as well as for export. Great hardships resulted from the closing of collieries. Landlords who had dwelling-houses to let could not find tenants, and shopkeepers did not find business profitable. The people in these districts would not object if this state of things were caused by the natural law of supply and demand, but when they found that it was caused by the Government putting on this tax they felt they had a grievance. Although the nominal wage of a miner was 5s. 6d. a day, in reality he only made about 23s. per week. No one would say it was not of great importance that in a district of that kind there should be as much labour provided as possible in the way of sifting and washing the dross and making nuts. It was not pleasant to find that they had to pay a tax of a shilling per ton on the product of their labour.
    It might be asked—Why did Lanarkshire still go on exporting coal in these depressed circumstances?
    The answer was very plain. In the first place profits had disappeared so far as the coalowners were concerned, and as to the miners, their wages had been reduced 67 per cent. since 1900. It was only in the hope that matters might take a turn that they had been struggling on in these depressed circumstances. In Westphalia coal was sold at a high price near the pit, at a less price where there was greater railway carriage, and at a still less price where the coal came into competition with that from this country. Therefore it was the cheaper quality of coal, such as that sent from, Lanarkshire, which had to bear the heaviest competition. When the details were looked into the Committee would see that the hardships of the shilling, duty were very great in the districts which produced the cheaper qualities of coal. It had the injurious effect of putting people out of work, and of lessening the opportunity of getting help on account of the general state of poverty in the districts. He was surprised that the Government had not seen their way to give a sympathetic ear to the appeals which had been made to them in connection with this tax.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes, 127;. Noes, 164. (Division List No. 188.)

    AYES.

    Abraham,William (Cork, N. E.)

    Ellice, Capt E C (S Andrw's Bghs

    Joyce, Michael

    Allen, Charles P.

    Emmott, Alfred

    Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W

    Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

    Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

    Kilbride, Denis

    Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

    Eve, Harry Trelawney

    Kitson, Sir James

    Bell, Richard

    Fenwick, Charles

    Lambert, George

    Benn, John Williams

    Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

    Lamont, Norman

    Boland, John

    Field, William

    Langley, Batty

    Brigg, John

    Findlay, Alexander (Lanark, N E

    Law, Hugh Alex (Donegal, W.)

    Bright, Allan Heywood

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

    Brown, George M. (Edinburgh

    Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

    Layland-Barratt, Francis

    Burt, Thomas

    Gilhooly, James

    Leese, Sir Joseph F (Accrington

    Caldwell, James

    Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John

    Leigh, Sir Joseph

    Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

    Goddard, Daniel Ford

    Levy, Maurice

    Causton, Richard Knight

    Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

    Lough, Thomas

    Cawley, Frederick

    Hammond, John

    Lundon, W.

    Channing, Francis Allston

    Harwood, George

    MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

    Cheetham, John Frederick

    Hayden, John Patrick

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Cremer, William Randal

    Helme, Norval Watson

    M'Crae, George

    Crombie, John William

    Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

    M'Kean, John

    Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    M'Kenna, Reginald

    Dalziel, James Henry

    Higham, John Sharp

    Mansfield, Horace Rendall

    Delany, William

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

    Markham, Arthur Basil

    Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

    Holland, Sir William Henry

    Mooney, John J.

    Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

    Johnson, John

    Murphy, John

    Doogan, P. C.

    Jones, Leif (Appleby)

    Nannetti, Joseph P.

    Edwards, Frank

    Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

    Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

    Norman, Henry

    Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

    Toulmin, George

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Roche, John

    Ure, Alexander

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

    Runciman, Walter

    Villiers, Ernest Amherst

    O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

    Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

    Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

    O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

    Shackleton, David James

    Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

    O'Dowd, John

    Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

    White, George (Norfolk)

    O'Malley, William

    Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

    Whiteley, George (York, W. R.)

    O'Mara, James

    Shipman, Dr. John G.

    Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

    Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

    Partington, Oswald

    Slack, John Bamford

    Wills, Arthur Walters (N Dorset

    Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

    Smith, Rt Hn J Parker (Lanarks

    Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.)

    Pirie, Duncan V.

    Soames, Arthur Wellesley

    Woodhouse, Sir J T (Huddersf'd

    Power, Patrick Joseph

    Stanhope, Hon. Philip James

    Young, Samuel

    Rea, Russell

    Sullivan, Donal

    Reddy, M.

    Tennant, Harold John

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.

    Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

    Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

    Charles Douglas and Mr.

    Rickett, J. Compton

    Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

    John Wilson (Durham)

    Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

    Tomkinson, James

    NOES.

    Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

    Fellowes, Rt Hn Ailwyn Edward

    Lyttelton Rt. Hon. Alfred

    Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

    Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

    MacIver, David (Liverpool)

    Allhussen, Augustus Henry Eden

    Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

    Maconochie, A. W.

    Anson, Sir William Reynell

    Finlay, Sir R. B. (Inv'rn'ssB'ghs)

    M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

    Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn. Hugh O.

    Fisher, William Hayes

    Majendie, James A. H.

    Arrol, Sir William

    Fison, Frederick William

    Malcolm, Ian

    Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

    Forster, Henry William

    Martin, Richard Biddulph

    Aubrey-Fleteher, Rt Hon.Sir H.

    Foster, Philip S (Warwick, S. W.

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

    Bailey, James (Walworth)

    Galloway, William Johnson

    Maxwell, W J. H (Dumfriesshire

    Balcarres, Lord

    Gardner, Ernest

    Melville, Beresford Valentine

    Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

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

    Milvain, Thomas

    Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

    Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

    Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

    Balfour, Kennoth R. (Christch.

    Gordon Maj Evans (T'rH'mlets

    Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.)

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

    Morgan, David J (Walthamstow

    Banner, John S. Harmood.

    Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

    Morrell, George Herbert

    Bignold, Sir Arthur

    Green, Walford D (Weduesbury

    Morrison, James Archibald

    Bigwood, James

    Grenfell, William Henry

    Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

    Bond, Edward

    Gretton, John

    Mount, William Arthur

    Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

    Groves, James Grimble

    O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

    Bowles, Lt.-Col. H F (Middlesex

    Hall, Edward Marshall

    Palmer, Sir Walter (salisbury

    Brassey, Albert

    Hambro, Charles Eric

    Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

    Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

    Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry

    Percy, Earl

    Brymer, William Ernest

    Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

    Pierpoint, Robert

    Bull, William James

    Hare, Thomas Leigh

    Pretyman, Ernest George

    Butcher, John George

    Hay, Hon. Claude George

    Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

    Campbell, J H. M. (Dublin Univ.

    Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

    Purvis, Robert

    Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

    Heath, Sir James (Staffords N W)

    Pym, C. Guy

    Cautley, Henry Strother

    Holder, Augustus

    Rankin, Sir James

    Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

    Hickman, Sir Alfred

    Rasch, Sir Frederic carne

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

    Hope, J. F (Sheffield, Brightside

    Ratcliff, R. F.

    Chatnberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Worc.

    Hoult, Joseph

    Reid, James (Greenock)

    Chapman, Edward

    Hudson, George Bickersteth

    Remnant, James Farquharson

    Clive, Captain Percy A.

    Hunt, Rowland

    Rerishaw, Sir Charles Bine

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

    Jameson, Major J. Eustace

    Ritchie, Rt Hon. Chas. Thomson

    Colomb, Rt. Hn. Sir John C. R.

    Jebb, Sir Richard-Claverhouse

    Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

    Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

    Kenyon, Hn. Geo.T. (Denbigh)

    Robertson, Herbert (Harkney)

    Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

    Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W.

    Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

    Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S

    Laurie, Lieut.-General

    Round, Rt. Hon. James

    Cripps, Charles Alfred

    Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

    Royds, Clement Molyneux

    Cubitt, Hon. Henry

    Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N. R

    Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

    Dalkeith,Earl of

    Lee, Arthur H (Hants., Fareham

    Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

    Davenport, William Bromley

    Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

    Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

    Deny, Colonel

    Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

    Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thus. Myles

    Dickson, Charles Scott

    Llewellyn, Evan Henry

    Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

    Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

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

    Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln

    Doughty, Sir George

    Lowe, Francis William

    Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

    Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

    Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale

    Sharpe, William Edward T.

    Dyke, Rt Hon. Sir William Hart

    Loyd, Archie Kirkman

    Skewes-Cox, Thomas

    Smith, Aber H (Hertford, East)

    Tollemache, Henry James

    Whiteley, H (Ashton und. Lyne

    Smith, H C (North'mb. Tyneside

    Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

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

    Stanley, Rt Hon. Lord (Lancs.)

    Tuff, Charles

    Wilson, John (Glasgow)

    Stock, James Henry

    Tuke, Sir John Batty

    Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

    Stroyan, John

    Walker, Col. William Hall

    Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

    Walrond, Rt Hn. Sir William H.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Sir

    Thorburn, Sir Walter

    Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C E. (Taunton

    Alexander Acland-Hood and

    Thornton, Percy M.

    Welby, Sir Charles G. E (Notts.)

    Viscount Valentia.

    Question put, and agreed to.

    MR. MCKENNAsaid he wished to move the insertion of the following clause—"The offspring of a marriage with a deceased wife's sister, heretofore or hereafter contracted within the realm or without, shall be deemed to be legitimate for the purpose of the payment of legacy and succession duty."
    THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMANsaid that the proposed clause was outside the scope of the Bill, and, therefore, was out of order, as it sought to create a new class of persons, unknown to English law.
    MR. MCKENNAsaid that on a point of order he wished to call attention to the fact that he did not propose to alter the legal status of the children of marriage with a deceased wife's sister; they would still remain illegitimate. All that he proposed was to amend the Inland Revenue Acts, which could be done by Resolution of the House.
    THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMANsaid that the hon. Member was not entitled to make a speech on a point of order. He had carefully considered this question, and ruled that the Amendment was outside the scope of the Bill.
    MR. MCKENNAsaid that he bowed to the ruling of the Chairman; and he would not proceed with the new clause in regard to sugar which was on the Notice Paper.
    Schedule agreed to.
    Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next.

    ADJOURNMENT
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Sir A. Acland-Hood.)
    Mr. RUNCIMANsaid he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Patronage Secretary whether any effort was likely to be made to secure the reappointment soon of the Foreign Ships Regulations Committee, which sat last session. The question was rery pressing, and all that was necessary was to hear the Board of Trade evidence in order to complete their Report. What he wanted was that a Report should be made by the Committee, and some action taken upon it this session.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD, Somersetshire, Wellington)said he was sure his hon. friend would help the Government to get this. Committee through in a few days.
    SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked if there was any truth in a report which had got in to circulation that the Speaker had tendered his resignation?
    SIR A. ACLAND-HOOD: No Sir; I have no knowledge of anything of the kind.
    Adjourned at twenty-five minutes after Eleven o'clock.