STAMPS. (Hansard, 17 May 1909)

§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN
We have conducted our proceedings in a very good temper to-day, and I should be very sorry if our discussions should turn to a less favourable aspect. I think, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will agree with me when I say it really is not reasonable to ask the House to begin at 12.30 the discussion of a series of Resolutions dealing with very important changes in the stamp duties which have aroused a considerable anxiety outside this House, and which we have had some evidence, have aroused great interest inside this House, in all parts of it. We are aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been receiving a deputation in regard to some of these stamp duties. We do not know what has actually passed, but I understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer undertook to consider the points raised, and I rather gather that he has promised to remodel these proposals in some respects. He dealt with them in the briefest possible manner during his Budget speech, and I rather think there was a further six pages omitted from what he intended to tell us. At different periods of his speech the right hon. Gentleman put papers on one side, and I think he said he would omit something because his speech was becoming so lengthy. The right hon. Gentleman sketched his proposals in regard to stamps in the merest outline, and he did not argue them. I do not complain of this, but that is all the more reason why we should have a proper amount of time, and why we should discuss them during the ordinary working hours when our proceedings can be properly reported in the country. I beg to move that we now report progress, and I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will feel that my proposal is reasonable, and that he will be ready to accept it.

§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE
I reciprocate the desire of the right hon. Gentleman that the good humour which has hitherto prevailed in these discussions should be continued, but I am afraid that I cannot consent to this Motion to report progress. The right hon. Gentleman will find that the attitude of the Government is a perfectly reasonable one. We have got two Resolutions, and that is all. Only two Resolutions from four o'clock this afternoon until half-past twelve o'clock—that is eight and a-half hours. Yet we have several other Resolutions to get. The general position is this: We have had eight and a-half hours' discussion. At the present rate it would be impossible to introduce any Finance Bill at all. If we discuss every Resolution in this way it will take two years to introduce the Bill. It is an impossible position for any Government to accept. We am discussing Resolutions whether I should be able to introduce a Bill or not. I admit that it is an important question which we are discussing on the Resolution. The offer which we have made to the Opposition is a fair one, and in their heart and conscience they know it. The proposal which I have made to the Leader of the Opposition is that we are willing to introduce the Bill before Whitsuntide—they can devote the time at their disposal in their own way—that is, they can discuss what they regard as the most important points just as they like. But they must let us introduce the Bill before Whitsuntide. It is not an unfair thing to claim that, after three weeks' discussion, we should obtain the first reading of the Bill. I remember the denunciation by the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Edward Carson) of the Home Rule Bill, and in its way it was more violent than that what he is thinking of using now.

§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE
I do not want to quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman; but the Home Rule Bill was regarded as revolutionary. Yet only three days was occupied in the discussion on its introduction; but now nine days have been occupied on these Resolutions. We are offering the Leader of the Opposition this week and next week for the discussion of these Resolutions. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite can divide the time in their own way. Some of the Resolutions they may like to have discussed at considerable length, whereas others probably will require but little debate. Really that is not an unfair offer to make to the Opposition—to give them three weeks for the preliminary stages to the introduction of the Bill.
I am bound to say that the time when we disperse for the holidays must depend entirely on when we get the Resolutions through. If the right hon. Gentleman were on these benches, I feel certain—of course, I can only judge from my own experience —that he would not consent to the House dispersing for the holidays without getting the first reading of the Bill. I quite recognise that it is an important Budget: that it contains novel propositions. We realise that the House is entitled to a fair and full discussion of them, but I also say that in our opinion three weeks is a very fair time for such discussion. I trust that this Motion for progress may either be taken so as to enable us to go home with a full understanding as to getting the Resolutions through in the period I have suggested, or that we shall now be allowed to proceed to business.

§ Mr. A. J. BALFOUR
The right hon. Gentleman has responded in a very good-humoured speech to the very good-humoured appeal made by my right hon. Friend behind me. He has appealed to history, to reason, and to the finer feelings on both sides of the House. With regard to history I am not quite in accord with the right hon. Gentleman. He says our practice when we were in a position to command a majority in this House was of a much more drastic character than that which we have been accustomed to under the iron rule of right hon. Gentlemen who sit on those beaches. I do not think that that is the fact. I will not go into the history of general legislation, but if the right hon. Gentleman will cast his mind back to a certain Budget he will find that he and his Friends insisted, even when there was no new departure in legislation with regard to fiscal matters, on having a far 172 larger period of time than they have been able to afford us. I have not gone over those old and musty records of ancient controversy, but I do remember our Debates on the Wednesday which the right hon. Gentleman has himself chosen as an example of the method employed in our time. The right hon. Gentleman actually mentioned the coal tax, and said it was got with other important war taxes in the course of a single night. But the coal and the other taxes were got on the first night, as is the necessary and invariable rule of the House when it deals with any taxes the postponement of the Resolutions on which would cause great loss to the Revenue. Therefore, no doubt, that tax was given on the very first night of the Budget, but when we come to the Report stage three days were given. I venture to say that these are more novel, more far-reaching proposals — proposals affecting more deeply great interests in the country than was the coal tax or any tax proposed by the late Government. Have we been allowed three days, not on Report, but on any stage of any Resolution? The right hon. Gentleman who has controlled our proceedings knows well enough that we have not only not been allowed three days, but we have not been allowed a day on any Resolution. Therefore, when you go further into the history of the past, I think the right hon. Gentleman must admit that taking the measure of the situation by the gauge which he himself proposed to us last week, the amount of time given at this stage of the proceedings to novel proposals was much greater under the late Government than has been given on the present occasion.
When the right hon. Gentleman goes from his historical comparisons to an abstract discussion on the proprieties of Parliamentary Debates, and the possibilities of Parliamentary discussions, I find myself much more in accord with him. I am inclined to agree that you cannot on these preliminary proposals introductory to a Bill—you cannot spend, and ought not to spend, too large a fraction of the possible time of the Session. A Budget Bill, be it good or bad, must be passed in the Session. I quite agree that these preliminary proposals which are before the Bill is introduced cannot be allowed to spread themselves over the whole available time of the Session. In old days, even before I was in the House. and that is a good deal more than thirty years ago, these things were regarded, or very largely regarded, as formal stages, 173 but the peculiarity of the modern House of Commons is that it will not regard any theory as a formal stage, and directly you begin on what used to be a formal stage to discuss the merits, it really is very difficult to draw the line. I do not think any one will honestly say that there has been obstruction on these Resolutions. I think that may be admitted from all sides of the House. I do not say that there are no speeches which some of the hearers would wish had not been delivered, but on the whole I think it will be admitted that there has not been anything in the nature of obstruction at all. What discussion there has been has been inevitable, as the Budget excites great feelings, both of political economists and practical economists, and involves great interests of vast masses of the population. Therefore directly proposals are started and you begin to discuss them on their merits—and from the point of view of merits the discussion we have had is absolutely insignificant—they must be threshed out in a way in which it has been impossible to thresh them out so far.
If I carry the House with me on both sides so far, now comes the practical point proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. I find it very difficult to bring into any kind of harmony the suggestion which he has made across the floor of the House, and the statement made by the Prime Minister at Question time with regard to the course of business between this and the Whitsuntide holidays. I listened to that statement with perfect amazement. We have four days and two half days before the day on which we commonly separate for the Whitsuntide holidays. How does the Prime Minister propose that they should be occupied? He says to-morrow, Budget; Wednesday, all sorts of small Bills, the names of which I do not carry in my mind. Then Thursday—that is to be Budget. I think the Government are perfectly right in postponing Supply. Friday is a private Members' day. Then the Government say, "We will sit on Saturday "—a procedure more disagreeable to the majority than to the minority, and the right hon. Gentleman, though he belongs to the majority, is in this particular case, I think, in a minority. Then on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we are to take some business at present unspecified. The Prime Minister absolutely refused to give any sketch of the procedure of the House after Saturday. The plan of the Government at Question time was that we were to pass 13 Resolutions, and to get the Report of 24 or 25 on each of which a debate is in order, and 174 may be legitimate on which it may be necessary to move the closure, and on each of which there may be divisions. The Government suggested at Question time that it might be got through to-night, tomorrow, or on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. The six or eight hours which have passed since that amazing programme was placed before us have produced a much more reasonable frame of mind in hon. Gentlemen opposite. I am not disposed to raise any serious objection to the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, provided it be understood that if these Resolutions are given before the Whitsuntide holidays, we shall have all the time before the holidays to discuss them. I am quite as anxious—I am not sure that I am not more anxious—as the Government to see this Bill in print, and I do not wish to defer that happy denouement longer than is inevitable, but I do say that the Budget now brought forward has this peculiarity over the Budgets to which the right hon. Gentleman looks forward so eagerly at some future time, that it embodies a great many disconnected principles. It is perfectly true that the number of propositions is not unlimited. It is not like Pitt's which had 272, or some large number. I really forget the number, but it was very large. There are quite different principles underlying the proposed taxes—those on land, the super-tax on incomes, and the rest of them. I think the right hon. Gentleman fully recognises that, and I do think that if the Government make an appeal to us to give them their Resolutions before the Whitsuntide holidays, so that the country may be able to consider the Bill during the holidays, and so that when we meet to discuss the second reading we shall have had time not only to give the principles private study, but to get some information from our constituencies as to the proposals—if they make that demand on us, then I think they ought to give us all the time available before the holidays. If they are prepared to accept that, as I think, very reasonable suggestion, I do not say that the possibilities of a bargain are entirely beyond the horizon of practical politics. Of course, it must be understood that when the happy moment arrives when these Resolutions have passed the Committee stage and the Report stage, we are not longing and languishing in anxiety for the Bill itself. It seems to me that if the Government are prepared to accept that suggestion, there is in it the element of some arrangement which might be come to.

§ Mr. ASQUITH
I think the right hon. Gentleman made a reasonable proposition. What I would propose is that we should take to-morrow (Tuesday) the Budget Resolutions; on Wednesday the Lords' Amendments to the India Councils Bill; on Thursday, with the exception of ten minutes for the introduction of the Labour Exchanges Bill, and next week on Monday and Tuesday and a half day on Wednesday, the Budget Resolutions; and on Thursday the Motion for the adjournment of the House for the holidays. That means five full days and two half days for the business I have mentioned. I would only add that we should like to take tonight the Military Manœuvres Resolution.