§ MR. SEARSI beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that both in Scotland and in Ireland the assessors and collectors of income tax, etc., are Government officers, whilst in England parochial officers are employed on the same class of work; will he say if the Acts of Parliament for this purpose are the same for the United Kingdom; and, seeing that the system has been found to work so satisfactorily in Ireland and Scotland, if he will take steps to introduce it into England so as to dispense with clerks to Commissioners, except in their capacity as legal advisers to the Commissioners sitting as a Court of Appeal.
§ MR. ASQUITHThe statement in the first part of the Question is not accurate. In Scotland only some of the assessors are Government officers, whilst in Ireland the collectors are almost wholly unestablished employees. The law is not the same for the three parts of the United Kingdom, and the system at present in force in England could not be assimilated either to that of Scotland or to that of Ireland without extensive changes in the law, which the Board of inland revenue cannot recommend.