§ Now, among these taxes there is one which is singled out, not only by the pledges and the action of the Liberal Party in the last Parliament, but by its own intrinsic demerits, as an inevitable victim to be offered on the altar. Upon what ground, Sir, is an export duty on coal to be defended as a permanent part of our system of taxation? The suggestion that it has become desirable to restrict our output—;there are still people who hold that view—;because our reserve of potential supply is being exhausted, has been emphatically negatived by the Report of the Royal Commission. They report our available resources at 100,000 millions of tons, and our annual output at 230,000,000 tons. It is said the tax has not injuriously affected our exports inasmuch as the quantity exported, if you include bunker coal and coal equivalent of coke and patent fuel, has increased from 60,000,000 tons in 1902, to nearly 66,000,000 tons in 1904. But the Royal Commission again point to the increase of shipments as largely due to the growth in the export of the very classes of coal, bunker coal and coal which costs less than 6s. per ton, which are exempt from the tax. The balance of increase is, I believe, more than accounted for by the continued demand for the really first-class steam coal of South Wales and gas coal of Durham, in which are natural advantages which make our producers practically independant of the tax. It is in regard to the low and medium-priced coal, on which the margin of profit is smallest, that the tax has pressed so heavily on the British producer. Let me point out to 304 the House in this connection that in the last ten years the coal production of Germany has increased by nearly 60 per cent., and in such markets as those of France, Holland, and Belgium our exports have decreased, while those of Germany have been steadily increasing. Whatever you may say about the injurious effects of foreign tariffs on British productions and British trade, surely we shall all admit that it is the height of folly by our own hand, by a fiscal arrangement not imposed upon us from outside, but voluntarily and spontaneously adopted by ourselves, to fetter our exporters in the very markets where competition is keenest. Nor is it to be forgotton that there are other interests involved in this tax. Coal is practically our only bulky export, and it is the chief commodity which supplies us with outward freight on a large scale. Anything that checks coal export checks, also the activity and prosperity of our shipping trade. I might add other considerations, but these are more than sufficient to justify what I am about to propose—;namely, the complete repeal of the export duty on coal. One question remains. On what date ought that repeal to take effect? The export trade in coal is carried on for the most part under contracts made in advance to provide for periodical delivery over a long period of time, in many cases twelve months. The suspicion that this tax was not likely to have a very protracted life has been long in the air, and a large proportion of the contracts now running stipulate that the foreign purchaser shall have the benefit of the remission if and when it occurs. I do not propose to incur a sacrifice of revenue for the benefit, not of our own coal producers, but of foreign buyers. The circumstances of different districts are not the same, and. it is not easy to choose a date to give at the same time the maximum of benefit to the trade and the minimum of loss to the Exchequer. But after much consideration I have resolved to propose the repeal of the duty as from November 1st next. The loss to the revenue during the financial year I estimate at £1,000,000.