§ Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed [24th May] to Resolution,
§ 4. "That in lieu of the duties of Excise now payable on tobacco grown in Ireland there shall, on and after the thirtieth day of April, nineteen hundred and nine, be charged the following duties (that is to say):—
| Upon tobacco manufactured, viz:— | ||
| s. | d. | |
| Tobacco containing ten pounds or more of moisture in every one hundred pounds weight thereof the lb. | 3 | 6 |
| Tobacco containing less than ten pounds of moisture in every one hundred pounds weight thereof the lb. | 3 | 11 |
| Upon tobacco manufactured, viz.:— | ||
| Cavendish or Negrohead manufactured in bond the lb. | 4 | 8 |
§ Which Amendment was to leave out "3s. 6d.," and insert "2s. 10d."—[Mr. William Redmond]—instead thereof.
§ Question again proposed: "That '3s. 6d.' stand part of the Resolution." Debate resumed.
§ Mr. E. H. CARLILEIn rising to support the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for East Clare (Mr. William Redmond), supported last night by the hon. and learned Member for North Kildare (Mr. John O'Connor), I should like to point out the very moderate character of the change which the Amendment suggests. The Government proposal is 1034 for an Excise duty of 3s. 6d.; the Amendment is that the duty should be 2s. 10d. Personally, I would rather that the Amendment which was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Mr. James Hope), and which amended the proposal so that the Excise duty should not have exceeded one-half, but as my hon. Friend withdrew his Amendment we advance a step in our endeavour to support to the best of our ability the hon. Member for Clare's Amendment for a duty of 2s. 10d. I venture to point out that it is not merely a Question which interests hon. Gentlemen from Ireland, great and important as the interests of that island in this matter are. We in England and our friends north of the Tweed are also interested in tobacco, and in adopting new cultivation and forwarding the application of new industries we look forward eventually to the time when this industry of tobacco growing shall have obtained a firm root and considerable dimensions both in Scotland and in England, but for the moment we are specially interested in the position of Ireland. The Government has made a grant towards Ireland, and I am sure the House was interested to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer this afternoon, in reply to a question, assure Members north and south of the Tweed, who take an interest in this matter, that when the time was seasonable he would also be prepared to make a grant, doubtless somewhat in proportion to the population—at least we should hope so so far as England was concerned—to those parts of the United Kingdom. At present the grant is a very moderate and small one; £6,000 a year is all that is given to Ireland. One cannot kelp asking oneself, considering the way in which the Government propose to deal with this industry, whether they do not really desire to kill it. That seems to be their attitude, so absolutely devoid of anything like sympathy has been their action, for those who for years have been struggling to keep this industry upon its feet, that now they are proposing to put upon it an Excise duty which can have no other effect than to destroy its infant life. They put forward the suggestion that 2d. is a sufficiently large difference between the Excise and Customs duty which this industry will be called upon to pay. I venture to remind the Government that this industry is not carried on in Ireland as other industries are. It is carried on under Excise conditions, and any of us who know anything about industries carried on under 1035 such conditions can realise that it very much enhances the cost, and hampers the development, and to say that this very slight difference of 2d. between Customs and Excise would constitute in any sense a sufficient compensation for the increased cost of this industry is to entirely mistake the position which it occupies.
One's mind goes back—one's experience of course does not go so far back—to the way in which industries were treated in the sister island in years gone by. Every effort had been made to destroy the industries there; the woollen industry was ruined because of the selfish policy which actuated the manufacturers of our own country at that time, and similar treatment has been meted out to other industries that were set going in Ireland. Does the Government propose to maintain this attitude at the present day? Surely the whole position with regard to Irish industries has changed since then, and now on other branches of their activity there has in recent years been a decided endeavour on the part of the British Government to forward and to foster the well-being of Ireland. At such a time the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes before us with this destructive proposition. Personally, I was surprised to find that it emanated from such a source, because the right hon. Gentleman has shown himself not altogether indifferent to the welfare of trade in this country. Many of us regret that the right hon. Gentleman is not still at the Board of Trade. The traders of this country owe some considerable debt to the right hon. Gentleman. We do not want on this side of the House to refuse to acknowledge that. The right hon. Gentleman set going the Patents Act, although, of course, it was a Unionist measure which the right hon. Gentleman found in the pigeon holes of the Board of Trade, yet he had the enterprise and the judgment to see that it was a right measure, notwithstanding its source which no doubt suggested to the right hon. Gentleman some misgiving, and undoubtedly the interest of this country benefited from it. There are other measures such as the Merchant Shipping Act, and other Acts which the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for, which have benefited the trade of this country. These are all dry old Protectionist measures in which we recognise a grand form of enterprise of safeguard for the future. At such a time we did not expect the right hon. Gentle- 1036 man to get up in his place and to propose a measure of Excise destructive of industry in Ireland. I am sure that the very moderate nature of this Amendment should appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, and he should, at any rate, show no inclination to strangle this new undertaking. I am not quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman is not a little inclined that way. When we pass from this Resolution and come to the next—I should be out of order in referring to it, and I shall not do further so than to say that the next Resolution to be submitted to the House would be very destructive of very vigorous young industries—I am not quite sure the right hon. Gentleman is now sound upon the subject of our industries, or, at all events, on some of them. He has altered his attitude since he came into the larger surroundings of the Exchequer, which we all regret. It may be that the right hon. Gentleman disapproves of the cultivation of tobacco. I never heard him express that opinion. I do not know what his habits are with regard to tobacco, but there are a great many people in the country who really do object to tobacco being grown or smoked, or taken, or chewed, or in whatever other form it can be enjoyed. There are persons who really have set up a sort of principle about it, and I am sure we should very much respect their feelings, but we do not at the same time want industries to be destroyed. If the right hon. Gentleman is in principle opposed to the use of tobacco in any form I think it is really his duty to inform the House of his attitude about it and also to explain the attitude of the Government as a whole. Many of us look upon tobacco as almost a necessity, and in the last day or two in the Debates in reference to Ireland it has been shown, I believe, that people will forego almost anything for the small, humble quality of tobacco which the poor in many parts of Ireland enjoy, and which they have as much right to enjoy as Members of this House have to enjoy their tobacco. This cultivation is extremely important because of the employment it will give. Those of us who have visited the West of Ireland in the congested districts remember what they were like in 1879 and 1880 at the time of the famine, and what they were like a year or two ago. During the past 30 years the whole countryside has changed from being withered and blighted to blossoming almost like the rose. Those districts are now filled with signs of very 1037 great improvement, and yet on every hand we meet with many old men and women, but the young men and young women are not there. We want to develop a new cultivation like this in order to keep the young people in their own country instead of seeking employment in other lands. Instead of seeing a very large portion of the land—to use a farmer's expression—in a dirty condition, because the old people cannot properly clean it and the young people are not there to do it, we should have the land thoroughly well cleaned and placed under a new and profitable form of cultivation, and then we should have a greatly improved condition of things there. All these things cannot be brought about without very much sacrifice, and the stage of experiment involves great expense. Not only is there the experimental stage, but you must also employ a considerable number of experts in the industry, and all sorts of mistakes will be made and time lost. In order to compensate for all these things, the right hon. Gentleman suggests twopence as the difference between the Customs and the Excise. The thing is perfectly absurd, and we ought to be able to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman with some prospect of success to accept the modest suggestion made by the hon. Member for East Clare (Mr. William Redmond).
The hon. Member for East Clare brought this Question before us in most modest and moderate terms. Why should this tobacco industry in Ireland be discouraged? What has the Government against this form of industry? In any foreign country the attitude of the Government would be totally different, for they would at once send down and examine the Question and encourage those who are already engaged in the industry, and they would endeavour to obtain the co-operation of others not at present engaged in the cultivation by adding bounty to bounty in order that it should not fail for want of funds, and in every sense they would nurse that industry, whereas under the present Administration everything seems to be done to discourage industry, and nothing new can be started. People will not invest their money in new undertakings and new cultivations such as this because they feel that the general arrangements of the Government are such that there is no sense of security. They see the treatment meted out on occasions like this. It is the simplest thing in the world for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make it easy for this cultivation to be 1038 increased, and instead of encouraging this industry we find that every step is taken which is likely to cripple, hamper, and destroy it. For these reasons I have much pleasure in supporting this Amendment.
§ Viscount MORPETHI support this Amendment on the grounds of its merits and also because of a singular argument put forward by the Financial Secretary last night, when he tried to discredit this Amendment by describing it as a preferential one. I am willing to admit that it does partake of the nature of preference, but I do not support it on that ground, because that would prejudice it with hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Ministerial side of the House. The hon. Member who moved and the hon. Member who seconded this Amendment studiously avoided any reference to that side of the Question—indeed, they went out of their way to state that they were opposed to a policy of preference. Therefore, although there is an excellent case to be made out from the preferential side, I shall not use that argument in a House of Commons where the majority returned are opposed to that principle. I urge this Amendment on the ground of common sense. The Government have given a grant to encourage this industry up to the year 1913, and large sums are to be expended in providing buildings to promote the Irish tobacco industry, so that considerable expenditure is taking place in regard to this infant industry in Ireland. It is a strange thing that, whereas the taxpayer is with one hand providing considerable sums of money to foster this industry, the officers of the Government, and the tax-gatherers, with the other hand are taking the money away and crippling that very industry which the grants already being made are intended to put upon its legs. This is a very extraordinary policy, and if this industry is to be dry-nursed until 1913, surely it might be relieved not only of a portion of this taxation, but from all taxation up to that date when it will presumably be sufficiently strong to stand by itself.
It is quite conceivable that it might be cheaper to foster this industry by a remission of taxation than by a system of grants. I am sure that would be a more convenient method, because by a system of grants you have to pick out certain growers—I do not say they will be picked out unfairly and improperly, but one may be favoured more than another, and one district may get an advantage over another district by getting an unfair share of the development grant; 1039 whereas if relief were given by a remission of the duty every person who grew tobacco would be sure of receiving his share of the bounty for the special development of that industry. On this point I appeal to a very great authority, whose Free Trade doctrines will not be suspected by hon. Members opposite, although the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Harold Cox) went out of his way to say that he thought very little of this authority's works and opinions—I refer to Mr. John Stuart Mill. He said in a passage which is no doubt familiar to the Chancellor of the Exchequer:—
Protective duties for a period in young and rising countries are perfectly defensible on Free Trade doctrines.Therefore hon. Members opposite can support this Amendment with a perfectly clear conscience, without any fear that they are tampering with a dangerous political doctrine. Mr. Mill further stated that a protective duty for a reasonable time might sometimes be the least inconvenient mode by which a nation can give support to such an experiment. It is quite true that Mr. Mill applied this principle to young and rising countries, but I think we may class Ireland with regard to the development of the tobacco industry as a young and rising country. We have been told over and over again that all the old Irish industries have been ruined, and we have frequently been told also that this country would be wise if it turned its attention to colonising the territories within its own borders.But there is a stronger argument than this. We have been told by hon. Members from Ireland how this country crushed out industries in Ireland centuries ago and I am prepared to support this Amendment as a very small measure of justice, and as an expiation for the wrongs of the past. Hon. Members opposite would not sacrifice their principles and the withers of the Opposition will not be wrung by supporting this proposal, which will entail the sacrifice of a very trivial amount of revenue. By this small sacrifice we shall be able to help to build up an industry in Ireland which may have the greatest possible social and economic effect in the future. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Hobhouse) rejected this proposal entirely—in fact, he would not look at it, and he said that it was quite unthinkable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should accept a proposal of this sort, however beneficial it might be to the local industries of Ireland. And why is it unthinkable? What is the great 1040 obstacle that stands between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the granting of this boon to the industries of Ireland? It is unthinkable simply on account of the views the right hon. Gentleman has so, often and so successfully stated in this House. This enormous benefit cannot be granted to Ireland, or even thought of or considered, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made speeches on the theory of Free Trade which stand in the way, although it can be proved up to the hilt that this small boon is in no sense contrary to the doctrines of Free Trade. When the Financial Secretary to the Treasury takes up an attitude of that kind it makes one despair of the common sense and practical statesmanship of the Treasury Bench.
§ Mr. HENRY CHAPLINI desire to give to this Amendment all the support in my power, because there is nothing in connection with this Budget, so far as Ireland is concerned, in which I have more interest than in the question raised by this proposal. I will tell the House why. Many years ago—more years than I care to think of or remember—I spent a good many months in Ireland at the time immediately preceding the introduction of the Irish Land Bill of 1870, and I was then very desirous of making myself acquainted, as far as possible, with the land question, which was a matter of great urgency at that time in Ireland. When I travelled in the West of Ireland there was one thing which struck me more than anything else, and it was the old ruined mills formerly employed in manufactures, which I found in great numbers in many different parts of the country. I must say that a darker page in the history of the commercial treatment of one country by another it would be very difficult to find or imagine. That being so, I heard with the utmost interest the speech of the hon. Member for East Clare and his colleagues last night, and I rise to do my best to support this proposal. After hearing the speeches of hon. Members from Ireland, which seemed to me to be very reasonable, very natural, and very moderate, I am wore than ever surprised at the attitude which His Majesty's Government up to the present time, at all events, have maintained on this Question. It is not long ago since that memorable night when the right hon. Gentleman unfolded to us his great Budget. It is not more than two or three weeks ago, and the right hon. Gentleman on that occasion 1041 was apparently willing to do everything for the interests of agriculture in the United Kingdom. He said that his great anxiety was to make the country produce more than it produced at the present time. He descanted on the productive powers of this country compared with foreign countries, and he held out the hope that by development grants and other means great things would be done in the future both for Ireland and England at the hands of the Liberal Government. I remember that the Member for Waterford interposed in the Debate, and asked if Ireland was to share in all these good things. "Most certainly," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer. "I hope Ireland will share to a large extent in what I intend to do for the improvement of the agricultural interests of the United Kingdom." There is one passage in his speech which I should like to quote. It is as follows:—
It is no part of the functions of a Government to create work but it is an essential part of its business to, see that the people arc permitted to make the best of their own country, and if necessary it is the duty of the Government to help them to make the best of their own country.In reply to the earnest, the careful, and moderate statements from the Irish Benches, what is the Government going to do to help the Irish people to do their best in their own country? Last night the hon. Gentlemen from Ireland submitted a case in which they dealt with the records of the past. They referred to the old Committee on Tobacco, which sat in 1830. I have refreshed my memory by a perusal of the evidence taken by that Committee. I have done so within the last few days. Some of the evidence, I think, was excellent.
§ Mr. CHAPLIN1830. The right hon. Gentleman will find the evidence in the library. Some of the evidence which I have had time to look at bears directly on the desire expressed by the right hon. Gentleman in his Budget speech to do something to meet the desire for labour in this country, and I ask hon. Members to look at the evidence on page 22. It is on the subject of employment with regard to which the members of the Committee were engaged in eliciting all the information they could get. What I read on this Question is as follows: "In England an acre may give employment to about six persons for six months." But a witness 1042 said that in the cultivation of tobacco he could on three acres employ as many as fifty men, or half that number, or on the average about thirty a year. If the right hon. Gentleman desires to provide employment for people in Ireland he should really do something practical for the interests of agriculture in that country, and therefore he should give a more favourable reply to the appeal which has been made to him by hon. Gentlemen from Ireland. The witness to whom I referred added: "The cultivation of tobacco, he thought, would improve the industrial habits of the people."That is not all, because I ventured to point out to the right hon. Gentleman, in the course of the Debate on the general question on his Budget, that there has been another committee sitting in Ireland since them. The Committee took a great deal of evidence on that subject also. I could quote a few important passages, but I do not care to do so, as I do not wish to detain the House. But in the speeches. last night one of the Irish Members quoted the evidence of Colonel Everard Nugent. The evidence given before the Commission of 1830 showed, in conjunction with the evidence of the Committee which sat in Dublin for some weeks, the possibilities of cultivating tobacco in Ireland. First of all, the soil and the climate are especially favourable to the cultivation of tobacco. What is wanted is moderate warmth, and, above all, a moist climate. They prevail in Ireland. I have no doubt tobacco could be cultivated in some parts. of England with success, and also in some parts of Scotland. On that subject, however, I cannot speak with experience or with any authority of my own. But this fact stares the right hon. Gentleman in the face, that in Ireland the cultivation of tobacco is possible and that its cultivation would result in the employment of an immense amount of labour, and that it would be exceedingly profitable. I do think we have some reason to complain of the attitude taken up by His Majesty's Government. They have had the case put before them by Irish Members. I very greatly regret myself that the Government have adopted the course which they have done. I think the right hon. Gentleman—if he will forgive me for saying so—has lost one of his greatest opportunities—he has lost an opportunity greater than any Government has had of doing something enormously for the benefit of Ireland without little or any loss to the revenue. I am one of those who agree with the statements made by two hon. Gentle- 1043 men from Ireland with reference to the treatment financially of Ireland by this country. In the past I believe that Ireland suffered much at the hands of England. I believe that the greatest injury you can do to the connection of Ireland with this country at the present moment is the attitude adopted on this question by the Government. It is a question absolutely trivial as regards revenue, while on the other hand it is of immense importance to Ireland herself. I believe that the greatest injury you could do Ireland is to teach her that the Liberal Government which poses as her friend will not help her in this industry and that the Government have made up their minds to take the course which they have done—that they will not do anything in response to the appeal of the Members for Ireland and that they will do nothing on behalf of an industry which was once prosperous and flourishing in Ireland.
§ Mr. J. J. CLANCYMy belief is that the fear of Protection is the sole reason why the Government have taken up the attitude which they have on this Question. Let me say one or two words on this point. The principles of Free Trade have been set at nought by both parties. There has been a rebate and also a subsidy. The first man to violate the principles of Free Trade in regard to the industry of Irish tobacco was a Free Trader himself. I mean Lord Ritchie, who instituted the rebate of 1s. The next violation of this great principle of Free Trade was perpetrated by the right hon. Gentleman himself when he gave a grant. [Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE shook his head.] I understood that was the case. He may not have been the first to give it, but what I want to point out to him is that there is no consistency in raising the cry of Protection under the circumstances of the present moment. Surely there is something exceptional, not only in the sense which the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has mentioned, but also in this respect, that there is now being made an attempt to revive an Irish industry which was deliberately crushed by this House not more than 70 years ago. It is a most extraordinary thing that the Irish people should be told from time to time that their industries must be, one after another, crushed out. At one time the industry is crushed out, as this was, in the interests of the policy of Protection, and now, when it is being 1044 revived, it is being equally crushed out in the interests of the policy of Free Trade. How are we to get on? It appears that no matter whether the policy of Protection is imposed or whether the policy of Free Trade is imposed we are to be hit and crushed out, in so far as our industries are concerned in the interests of one or the other. Something must be due to Ireland, in view of the fact that this particular industry was crushed out in the year 1833, and for anyone to be afraid that he may be accused of initiating Protection or of introducing the policy of Protection by resisting the proposal of the hon. Member for East Clare, in view of the fact that the industry has been crushed out in the interests of the policy of Free Trade, would be nonsense.
But there is a stronger argument, which might appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a Free Trader, for acceding to the Amendment of my hon. Friend. This is one of the clearest and one of the most significant cases, showing the nonsense of pretending that indiscriminate taxation bears with equal weight on every portion of the three kingdoms. Everyone knows that a tax on French wines hits one part of this country more than another. If you tax coffee you hit England more than you hit Ireland; if you tax tea you hit Ireland more than you hit England. Here is another case. When you are imposing this tax let it be clearly understood that you are imposing it on Ireland alone. I should like the Chancellor of the Exchequer to answer this point. I say that, in imposing this tax, the right hon. Gentleman is taxing Ireland as one portion of the United Kingdom. That is clearly shown, or at least clearly suggested, by the form of the Resolution itself, because if hon. Members will look at the Resolution they will see that Ireland is first dealt with by itself, and Scotland and England are dealt with afterwards, as if, which is the case, there were no industry such as tobacco growing in those two countries. It is dealt with as a contingent and not an actually existing state of things at all. The one thing treated as an actually existing state of things is tobacco growing in Ireland. I should have expected, seeing that it is no violation of the principle of Free Trade, the right hon. Gentleman would not have imposed any Excise duty whatever when seeking to treat all parts of the three Kingdoms on terms of equality, but we find, and it is 1045 really a most extraordinary state of things, that Ireland is alone growing tobacco, and the right hon. Gentleman picks out this industry for taxation, pretending at the same time that England and Scotland will be similarly taxed, when we know that neither of those countries grow any tobacco. I do not like to attribute, and I have not done so, any bad object to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I really think he ought to be able to give some answer to the charge which I make, that he is in this case taxing Ireland alone, out -of the United Kingdom, and that he knows that he is doing it.
§ Mr. E. A. GOULDINGI desire to say a few words in support of the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Clare. I do not think a case can be brought before the House which would command greater consideration than this one of tobacco growing in Ireland, if only on account of the past treatment by this country of the Irish tobacco industry, and the almost stupid penal laws enacted in reference thereto, whereby tobacco was not only not allowed to be cultivated, but if any, by chance, grew it was to be burnt and uprooted and utterly destroyed. Are we to take no thought at all as regards the future of Ireland? It is only by the cultivation of the soil and the improvement of agriculture that there is any hopeful prospect opened up for the greater portion of Ireland. I am glad to think that the late Lord Ritchie was the first Member of the Unionist Party to throw over publicly the dogma of Free Trade, and to try to deal with this question on practical common-sense lines. He gave a rebate on the tobacco duty grown in Ireland, and I do not think the House is aware of the enormous benefit derived by Ireland even from that small rebate passed on the initiation of Lord Ritchie. He gave a shilling rebate in 1906, and in that year 7,000 pounds of tobacco was grown, the rebate amounting to £367. In the next year the rebate amounted to £912, while the production of tobacco was treble, and reached 20,000 pounds. In 1908 the rebate was over £3,000, while the actual amount of tobacco grown in Ireland rose to nearly 69,000 pounds. There are thus three years which show practically the advantage of this rebate. They show that the production of tobacco rose from 7,000 pounds to 69,000 pounds, and it had thus multiplied to an extraordinary extent. I would like to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to name a single one of 1046 the remedies put forward by the different parties in this country for dealing with the Irish problem which shows anything like the same ratio of success as this rebate on tobacco. But now it has been withdrawn, and it can only have been withdrawn because this Government still adhere to the doctrine of Free Trade, and they would damage this industry rather than in the least cause any trouble to this idol of theirs. By insisting on this Excise duty they evidently are anxious to secure that any tax they impose on commodities coming from abroad shall not lead to any diminished return of income they hope to get from it, and so no regard at all is paid to the cultivation or to the development of this industry. The whole power of the Government is exerted in the direction of securing that the income to be obtained from the industry shall not be diminished. The industry itself is treated by the Government as an entirely secondary consideration. They do not think what can be done to help an industry or to promote a cultivation which must give employment to many men, and must add to the natural prosperity of the country. They have done nothing in that direction, but in order to save their dogma they come forward and say that, having taken away the rebate, they will give a bounty of £6,000 a year, which is to hold good until the year 1913, and having given us this bounty—only, I think, early last year was it promised—they now come forward and take away a part of the benefit of it by putting an additional tax of 8d. in the pound upon the industry. It is idle for any man to say that it is not an enormous tax. No native industry like this has ever been called upon to bear such a burden. It absolutely cripples it in more ways than one. The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that the people who conduct this industry in Ireland are not people who have the longest purse, and in their case, of course, a tax of 3s. 9d. is absolutely absurd. The right hon. Gentleman, I believe, has a great deal of sympathy with Ireland, and I would suggest to him that he should display the courage which he showed when at the Board of Trade and disregard the doctrine of Free Trade, and say he is willing to continue the subsidy of £6,000 a year to this industry, and at the same time will not impose this extra tax of 8d. in the pound upon tobacco grown in Ireland. In that way he will encourage this industry, he will help employment in Ireland, 1047 and he will help to carry on in his present post the name he earned at the Board of Trade for looking at these things not through purely party spectacles, but at the actual facts of the case as they present themselves to him. I would like to make a few comments with regard to tobacco grown in Ireland.
Some people talk of it as if the cultivation were merely an experiment and not an actual industry. I had the pleasure of reading the evidence of one of the greatest expert authorities on tobacco as regards the Irish product, and certainly his view was very favourable towards it. He said of the plant as grown in Ireland that a cow can eat her fill of the leaf and not have a pain, while if the animal were to attempt to eat the American tobacco the result would be devastation to herself. American tobacco is so coarse and rank, but if only Irish tobacco were given a chance it would be found that, mild flavoured as it is, experts may be able by cultivation to get a little stronger flavour into it. At the same time, it is an excellent thing for blending with the more severe tobaccos which come from America and other places. So, on that ground also, I appeal again to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be sympathetic towards this request. Do let him feel it his duty to go a little further in regard to the industry, and give it a helping hand, and not to do what this Government is doing by this duty, hampering and crippling it by taxes of this kind. It is very seldom that here in this House we have the whole of the Irish representatives coming unanimously with a request, or with any demand, and here is a request, that all the Irish representatives come forward and unanimously ask should be granted, in order to deal with this Question, and I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will rise to the occasion, and, having a sympathetic heart, he will respond to the appeal from all sections of the Irish people.
§ Mr. LOUGHI feel that this Question has been put in a manner from the opposite Benches, which makes it extremely difficult for me to support the Amendment, because, from the Free Trade standpoint, if there is one doctrine more than another which we believe in, it is that the Excise duties must absolutely balance the Customs. I believe it is a matter of fact that these Excise duties do not absolutely balance the Customs as regards tobacco, but I do not approve of any 1048 breach of that principle, and, although my conscience is always elastic with regard to the taxation of anything connected with Ireland, yet I cannot find it in my heart to press the right hon. Gentleman to make a sacrifice of that sacred doctrine to which I have always been attached. I wish the Motion was one to the effect that we should have a different duty upon tobacco, whether imported or grown in Ireland, to that which is levied in the larger area of Great Britain. I believe that, although that proposal may be a shock to some hon. Gentlemen in this House, who are not so well acquainted with the conditions in Ireland as hon. Gentlemen opposite are, or a perhaps I am myself —I believe that that would be a proposal perfectly defensible. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will know, from his acquaintance with these matters, that when Ireland had an opportunity of fixing her own taxes on a product of this kind, it always fixed the duty about one-third as high on tobacco as was fixed in Great Britain. There was no compulsion, and both countries equally wanted to provide the necessary revenue, but the Irish Parliament knew the conditions of its own people and it never dreamed of putting a higher duty than 1s., or at the outside 1s. 6d. on tobacco, and in those days the duty was 3s. in England and Great Britain at large. In those days the people of Great Britain through this Parliament raised a duty of 3s. or 4s., and a much higher duty as they do to-day. When these small duties were levied there was a very flourishing industry in tobacco in Ireland, and very great relief was felt there in consequence of this cheap tobacco and of this low duty upon what I may call in that country one of the necessities of life. There is one point with regard to the difference in the social conditions between the people of Ireland and the people of Great Britain that we have always great difficulty in bringing home to this Parliament. This Parliament has got six-sevenths of its Members who are inhabitants of Great Britain, brought up here as their ancestors were, and accustomed to the particular ways of this country, and they cannot realise the different state of things prevailing here to those which exist in Ireland. They assume that Galway is the same as Kent, and that every Irish county and the whole of Ireland indeed is just the same as the counties which exist in England. That is a great mistake, and there is no product in which an illustration of this mistake can 1049 be brought home to an intelligent and sympathetic mind more easily than in regard to this matter of tobacco.
The great, difference between the Irish and the English is, that the English are a meat-eating people and the Irish are a people who eat very little meat. I believe statistics show that the British every year consume 150 or 160 lbs. of meat per head, but the Irish only consume 50 lbs. a year each man. To a great meat-eating people like this tobacco is a luxury, but to people who do not eat meat it is almost a necessity. I have seen the case of a working man in Ireland, and I do not think it is extravagant of a man offered either a good smoke of tobacco or his dinner in the middle of the day, and preferring a smoke of tobacco. He goes away and has his pipe of tobacco, and works away vigorously all the rest of the day. No Englishman would do that. No Englishman could do it, and it illustrates the difference between the two peoples, and I think that on this point of tobacco therefore there is a very great and substantial difference between the two islands. Therefore if my hon. Friend opposite, the Member for Clare, whom I always like to support in his reforms, could boldly put forward a proposal that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should let tobacco pay in Ireland 1s. less than in Great Britain, whether imported or grown in the island, I would have been glad to have supported that proposal. There would not be any breach of Free Trade, and I think this House ought to consider, so long as it fixes the finance of the two countries the different social conditions and necessities of the two islands. The great failure that we make here is that it is impossible for this Parliament, chiefly elected from Great Britain, to strain a point in favour of Ireland. I am afraid that this is as far as I can go in support of the proposal, and I cannot do anything more except to press my right hon. Friend to consider a suggestion of the limited character I have made. It does not affect the better qualities of tobacco at 3s. 11d. and at 4s. 8d., although so far as the lower classes at 3s. 6d. are concerned there would be some breach of Free Trade. I think an Amendment like that might be accepted. I would ask my right hon. Friend to pay some attention to the appeals which have just been made to him to consider this question of restoring some part of the abatement, which was given to Ireland a year or two ago, or to meet the 1050 difficulty in some other way. I do feel that this additional 8d. on tobacco presses very hardly on the Irish people, and I wish the Amendment were framed in a way in which we Free Traders could support it, but I am afraid that in the crude form in which it is I cannot oppress my conscience, so far as to vote for it, but I am very glad to ask my right hon. Friend to take steps which would not imperil the Free Trade doctrine, and I am very glad to join in the appeal made to him from every part of the House, to consider whether this industry, which is developing in Ireland, could not be given some extra allowance, something like that which previous Chancellors of the Exchequer have given to get over that difficulty, and to meet the case of Ireland without infringing the doctrine of Free Trade.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINA few years ago, when the Unionist Government was in office, I used to be very familiar with the incursions of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken into discussions upon our financial system. For two or three years he was condemned to an official silence, and we missed him from these discussions, and I am sure the House will join with me in congratulating the right hon. Gentleman upon the fact that he is once again in the position of greater freedom and less responsibility, in which he may contribute to our consideration, and I may say enjoyment. In the speech which he has just delivered, we can see a most curious illustration of what he would himself describe, as the Free Trade mind, and it is really partly in order to examine the working of that peculiar intellectual instrument that I venture for a few moments to trespass upon the time of the House; I wish to examine it, whether it is in the case of the right hon. Gentleman, or of the still more distinguished right hon. Gentleman that I see opposite, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is not often that I am led into the Lobby by the hon. Member for East Clare. I do not think it is very often that we find ourselves in the same Lobby, whoever is the Leader, but on this occasion, on this proposed Amendment, I am hound to support him, and that no less because of my general views on fiscal and commercial subjects, but because I take an interest, which I can hardly describe as fatherly, towards this industry, because it is not my child, but as step-fatherly, because when it was at a tender stage of its existence, in regard to a concession given by Lord Ripon, 1051 I had to decide whether that concession ought to be extended or not, and I extended it. I think as a practical question for the present and probably for the future, as far as it concerns tobacco alone, this is a much more Irish question than an English or a Scotch question. The experiment has been made in Ireland, on a sufficient scale to give great hope that tobacco growing may be extremely successful there, if you will have some patience with it, give it some assistance, and be tender to it in its early years. I do not think that that has been proved to be true of any districts in England or Scotland, though I think it is possible that there will be districts in both those countries in which it may subsequently be proved. For the moment, however, the question is an Irish question in its direct aspect, but I should have very much regretted if the hon. Member for Clare had drawn his Amendment, as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury supposed, so as to exclude England and Scotland from similar benefit under its terms.
§ Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDThat is not so.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINIt is not so, and it is one more illustration, of which we have had so many, that the spokesmen of the Government do not know their own Resolution. The Resolution says that the duties on Irish tobacco shall be so and so in lieu of those already charged, and in future the same new duties shall be charged in England and Scotland. Hitherto there have been no duties in England and Scotland, because tobacco growing has been prohibited there. When that prohibition was removed in Ireland it became necessary earlier to impose Excise duties in Ireland than in England or Scotland, but here the hon. Member proposes a lower Excise duty for Ireland than the Customs duty, and a subsequent Resolution would apply that same lower duty to England and Scotland. The question of tobacco growing is not so much of immediate importance in England or Scotland, but I think the treatment which Irish Members are asking for an infant agricultural industry in Ireland is treatment which we ought to accord, given like circumstances and an equally strong case, to other agricultural industries in Ireland, and which might be suitable to industries in England, notably the growing of sugar beet. Having in view that pos- 1052 sible development throughout the United Kingdom, I think that this matter, which is for the moment fiscally very small, becomes one of very considerable importance.
What has happened in Ireland? Throughout the agricultural districts of the whole of the United Kingdom there has been in recent years a great decrease in population, and a tendency prompted by all manners of circumstances to lessen the demand for agricultural labour, and we are accustomed from all sides of the House on every occasion where our sentiment can he expressed without any practical result to deplore this, and to urge that it should be reversed and that someway should be found for procuring more employment on the land for agricultural labour. The tobacco industry finds a great deal of employment, measured by the acreage which it covers. It has the further advantage that it not only finds a great deal of employment, but that it finds employment out of season. It finds winter employment as well as summer employment. There is the employment of the tillage of the land, of the tending of the crop while it is growing, and of gathering the crop. That does not exhaust its possibilities of usefulness to the district in which it is carried on, because you still have further stages of growing, handling, sorting, and stripping, if I may use that dangerous word, and treating up to its finished stage, which are found to be in agricultural districts where the tobacco is grown and handled a great blessing to the people, not merely in the spring and summer, but also in the winter months. What has it done for Ireland? We have had mentioned Colonel Nugent Everard, who, I think, more than any single man, is the inventor of this industry for Ireland, because, really, to show a prospect of its commercial success in these days is as good as to have invented a new thing, though it may be only restoring an old industry. As to his experience and confidence no man who knows anything about him would question that. He speaks of himself as having had 25 years' farming experience, he is a member of the Irish Board of Agriculture, of the council of the Royal Dublin Society, and of the county council; chairman of the County Committee of Agriculture and Technical Instruction and the executive committee of the Irish Agricultural Organisation, and president of the county Meath and other agricultural societies. He owns and occupies 1,400 acres, and it was stated by 1053 an hon. Gentleman from Ireland that he is the only landlord in county Meath whose cattle have not been driven during the last twelve months.
I think what has protected Colonel Everard's character is the fact that he is recognised to be a blessing to the district in which he lives. What does he say about it? This is evidence given either in 1905 or 1906:—
For seven years I have experimented in growing tobacco…. Professor Harper, of the University of Agriculture, Kentucky, who came over to superintend the curing, said the soil was perfect and the climate more suitable than that of Kentucky. It requires much labour, especially during the winter, for the processes of stripping and sorting…. The crop requires much moisture either in soil or climate, but is less precarious than any crop except grass. We have had a drier se son this year, but we have a finer crop than elsewhere, even in Kentucky.£50 an acre, he says, is the net profit, including the refund.
§ Mr. HAROLD COXHow much is the refund?
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI must refer the hon. Member to the Report of the Agricultural Committee of the Tariff Commission, which forms very instructive reading. There is an account of it—an industry which, on the testimony of a Kentucky expert, can be established in Ireland with better natural advantages than those which attend its wonderful growth in Kentucky itself. Being in its infancy, it labours under great disadvantages, because it is very difficult, while the industry is on such a small scale, to provide for all the different processes which are necessary in an economical way. If you are handling a large mass of the product you can provide at each stage conveniently and economically for buildings, labour, machinery or whatever else it is necessary to deal with, but if you are handling a very small portion of it these processes become expensive out of all proportion. Here you have, if ever you had, a case which falls within that definition of infant industry which even the sternest of Free Traders have admitted might legitimately receive some protection. Why do the Government and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Islington (Mr. Lough) object? On this point I expect the full support of the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Harold Cox), who is nothing if he is not a supporter through thick and thin of the old economic doctrine on these points. Why do right hon. Gentlemen object, and what is it that they object to? I do not know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer will thank the right hon. Gentle- 1054 man the Member for West Islington for the support which he gave him in opposing the Amendment or for the alternative suggestion which he made. The right hon. Gentleman will not hear of a preference on Irish industries. That he says is contrary to all his Free Trade principles and, elastic as his conscience is in Irish matters, it will not stretch enough to cover that. But he is perfectly willing to give a preference to the Irish smoker—not to an Irish industry, but to the Irish smoker. Tobacco grown in Ireland is to have no favour, but the man who smokes tobacco in Ireland is to be preferentially treated over the man of the same class, or any other class, who smokes tobacco elsewhere. Why is that?
§ Mr. LOUGHThat does not necessarily amount to a preference. My case is that the social conditions of a nation like Ireland may be different from those of Great. Britain, and it might suit them to get their revenue in a different way from what it might suit us. But I press it no further. I would be a stern upholder of Free Trade in England.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINIt is a: little difficult to follow the right hon. Gentleman exactly in his rapid transition from one side of the Channel to the other. I do not think I seriously misrepresented him. He thinks, for reasons in which there is a good deal of force, if there were not other countervailing objections, that there is reason in the abstract for taxing tobacco more in Ireland than in England. Of course, that means that the smoker in Ireland will have a preference over the smoker in England. That is all I say I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer-noted the reasons which the right hon. Gentleman gave. I made some observations the other day about the application of the phrase "necessaries of life" to articles which either are dutiable or which might become dutiable, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer very good humouredly chaffed me about it. What does his supporter say about tobacco for the Irishman? He says "tobacco to the beef-eating Englishman is a luxury. Tax it by all means." I suppose beef to the Englishman is a necessity, and therefore to him you must leave it free; but he says to the Irishman, who is not benefited by your leaving meat untaxed, tobacco is a necessity of life, more important to him and more valued by him even than his dinner. There is something in what the right hon. Gentleman says, and I am glad to enrol 1055 him on my side against the Chancellor of the Exchequer. At any rate, he has given the Chancellor of the Exchequer something to think about on that subject.
What is the meaning of the attitude of the Government on this subject? The Financial Secretary to the Treasury referred to an observation made in an earlier Debate that the man who made two blades of grass grow where one had grown before was a benefactor to humanity. He said it is not a question of making two blades of grass grow—it is not a question of production, but of selling. That is a very profound observation. I hope the Government will see the full force of it, and that they will apply it to other portions of the fiscal controversy, and not overlook the interests of the producer in getting a market in their extreme anxiety to secure to the consumer what he buys at the cheapest possible price. Does the Financial Secretary mean that if you reduce the price of the article by levying a lower duty that will not advantage the sale? It is a very extraordinary doctrine for the Government to lay down that the price is immaterial, and that the sale will be the same whether the price is 8d. a pound higher or 8d. a pound lower. It is quite true that with a new article, and especially a new article which is a matter of taste, your first difficulty is to make a sale for it. You have to create the taste for the new article, to advertise it, and to get over the prejudice which regards any tobacco grown in the United Kingdom as being an impossible article for human consumption. We used to be told by people assumed to be authorities that it might be fit for use in sheep dips or for fumigating greenhouses, but that it would never be fit for anything else. But it is not so. That kind of prejudice which makes itself felt in the House naturally might be expected to prevail more largely among the less intelligent and less educated people outside. You have got to do it with every new industry, and in order to do that you have to put up in the initial stages with a price which does not represent the real commercial value. When you have made a market and got a reputation equal to the reputation of other goods in the market, then you can get the same price for your article. All these circumstances add to the force of the plea put forward that you should deal tenderly with this promising industry in its infancy. What is the attitude which 1056 the Government took up? They were horrified by the rebate on tobacco grown in Ireland. That was contrary, in their opinion, to the principles of Free Trade, and they without hesitation abolished it. It was nothing to them that it had been introduced by an eminent Free Trader, the late Lord Ritchie. The source from which it came did not save it. I hope it was not abolished because it passed through my polluted hands in the interval. They did not do away with the rebate at once. They could not afford to show themselves less sympathetic than their predecessors had been with the industry, and accordingly what they took away with one hand they professed to give back with the other. They would not allow a rebate of one-third of the duty. They collected the whole of it, but they did not return the whole of it. They voted a grant of £6,000 a year as a bounty to those engaged in the industry. I do not know—and perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer can tell us—how the bonus is administered—whether it is as a poundage on the tobacco to the people interested, and whether, therefore, the relief per acre or per pound on the tobacco grown will be less to the people interested. That is an interesting question; but, after all, what I want to know is on what principle can the Government say that it is unthinkable that they should allow a rebate of the duty or a lower duty as proposed by the hon. Member, while they are perfectly ready to vote a bounty to those who produce the tobacco. Preference in the shape of lower duties for articles produced at home may have demerits. Protection may have demerits. No doubt most things have demerits, but surely there is no demerit which can be alleged against preference or protection which is not true with tenfold force of a system of bounties or of a single bounty. You may apply a general system of protection, but the general principle of bounties is that they are always arbitrary in their application and uncertain in their effect, and that they lay you much more open to those charges of corruption, and those charges of demoralisation which are sometimes alleged against protective duties. I am afraid I have occupied the time of the House much longer than I meant to do, but I shall not have spoken in vain if I induce the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give us a reasoned explanation of the attitude of the Government and of their defence of the principle of establishing a system of bounties whilst denouncing a system of rebates.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEIt is rather remarkable that the only Protectionist Debate we have had on the Budget has been on the question of Irish tobacco, although we are raising about £13,000,000 or £14,000,000 by Free Trade expedients. There has been no alternative suggested at all to the proposals of the Budget except in respect of Irish tobacco. The Protectionist Members of the House have taken little part in the Debates beyond raising the question in which they are interested on this very narrow issue. There is very general sympathy with the experiments made in Ireland for the protection of the tobacco industry, and that is by no means confined to one side of the House. It is not merely an academic interest which we on this side of the House take in the question. We have given very substantial proof of our real interest in the development of this very interesting experiment. It is a question really of the best method of assisting the industry. I agree that it is an exceptional case, and I think no Free Trader can challenge that position. What makes it exceptional is that it was an industry which was crushed, deliberately crushed, by Act of Parliament. I have here the Report of the Committee which was the beginning of the destruction of the Irish tobacco industry, which up to that date was a fairly flourishing—I would not say it was a very flourishing—industry, but it did provide a good deal of comfortable employment in Ireland. There was a Committee, presided over by Sir Henry Parnell, which sat on this question in 1830. We have heard a good deal about the Report of that Committee. Hon. Members from Ireland overlooked one fact, and that is that the British Government which crushed the tobacco industry in Ireland had already crushed it in Great Britain. The result was that the Report of that Committee extended the destruction of the tobacco-growing industry to Ireland. But that is no part of my argument to-day. It was an industry, as I have said, which was deliberately crushed by Act of Parliament, and, therefore, it is on a different footing from other industries.
§ Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDIt was stronger in Ireland.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEUndoubtedly it was an existing industry there. The same reasons which are put forward with regard to Ireland would also apply, if put forward on the part of England. It was 1058 an industry deliberately destroyed by Act of Parliament, and not by the setting up of tariffs. The Act of Parliament absolutely forbade the planting of tobacco in the whole of Ireland. Therefore, I think Ireland has a special claim for consideration at the hands of Parliament, for these reasons: This industry is more or less in the same position as afforestation. I only mention this by way of illustration. We might spend money on afforestation, but we have no forestry industry there. The same thing applies to the growing of tobacco. You cannot pass an Act of Parliament and say: "In future the prohibition which, up to the present, has prevented the growing of tobacco in Ireland, will be withdrawn, and you can go on planting tobacco as much as you like." That is not enough. The Committee will realise that it takes years in order to train a body of people expert enough for the purpose of conducting an industry of this kind. You, first of all, have to make experiments with regard to the soil and the methods of drying, and the people who start under these conditions make many mistakes, and they cannot possibly make a commercial success of the industry for years for that simple reason. Very well, I think, under these conditions, Ire-lend deserves special consideration. The right hon. Gentleman asked me why I draw a distinction between giving a rebate and making a grant for the encouragement of an industry. My answer is that in the initial stages of an industry of this kind, which has been killed deliberately by Act of Parliament, it has to be put more or less into the position it was in before Parliament interfered. That is the position you have got to assist, either in the way of experiments or by assisting the people with a view of getting experts there. It is more or less an educative process. That is a totally different position from the one submitted to the House by the right hon. Gentleman, and that is why I draw a distinction between a rebate and a grant. Once you say that the duty is to be 3s. 6d. on foreign tobacco and only 2s. 10d. for tobacco grown in this country, that is establishing a tariff, and you can never withdraw it. That is really the reason why I draw a distinction between a rebate and a grant. The grant we make is £6,000 a year. Hon. Members on the other side of the House said that we had done absolutely nothing for this industry. What do they propose to do? I think the was the Noble Lord the 1059 Member for South Birmingham (Viscount Morpeth) who said that we had done nothing.
§ Viscount MORPETHI said you had given a grant.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEI am glad to get that admission from the Noble Lord. Some Members asked, "What have you done?" My answer is that we have given £6,000 for the purpose of making these experiments, and experts have been brought over from Virginia. My hon. Friend who represents the Agricultural Department of Ireland will give a full account of what he has done.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINIs not that in addition to the £6,000?
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEThere was a little doubt about that. The grant of £6,000 is to the actual growers, and there is, in addition, the assistance given by the loan of experts. My hon. Friend will give a full account of how the money is expended. He is in charge of that money, and he will tell the House what is done with it. What is the proposition which the hon. Member has submitted to the House? He submitted a proposal for a rebate which would involve a loss to the Exchequer of £1,600. Do hon. Members who denounce us and say that we are doing nothing for the. tobacco industry in Ireland realise that this proposal only involves a sum of £1,600? We are giving four times as much as this proposition would give, and I want hon. Members to bear this in mind. Is that the expiation which is due to Ireland for the wrong which has been inflicted upon her in the past when we destroyed her industries one after the other? The Noble Lord said that we ought to make sacrifices in order to do penance for the past. The sacrifice he is prepared to make is to sacrifice other people's principles. That is a very easy sacrifice to make. He says, "Why do not you sacrifice Free Trade which I do not believe in?" Really, after all, we have got to do something for Ireland more than the 8d. penance he would inflict on this country. We are doing very much more for the tobacco industry in Ireland than we would do by adopting his proposition. I agree that Parliament really owes something to Ireland for having, in spite of the protests of Irish Members at the time, deliberately killed a fairly prosperous industry. 1060 As regards the work of Colonel Everard, I have every sympathy for the trouble and the great expense he put himself to in order to open up this new field of industry in Ireland. I am very glad to hear that the industry is a very considerable success, and am also very glad to hear that he is making a profit of £50 15s. an acre, but the hon. Member for East Clare, with his shrewd Parliamentary instinct, at once saw the danger of that—
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI put it that he anticipated that that profit might be made when the industry might be established.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEI agree it is a very important distinction. The right hon. Gentleman did not say he was making the profit. He only said that the Tariff Reform Commission said so.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI referred to the evidence of Colonel Nugent Everard. I put it as given to the Tariff Commission. I did not quote any observations of the Tariff Commission.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEI thought it was the red book of the Tariff Commission. I agree that one ought to receive those things with a good deal of caution. I cast no doubt at all upon it, but I am merely adopting the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member last night made several very helpful suggestions. One very helpful suggestion was that there should be a number of Members of Parliament to go round visiting the tobacco plantations. He might make a very good selection during the present summer months. For instance, the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London might visit the tobacco fields and examine them very thoroughly, and bring back a report upon it about the month of September, and, let us say, in reference not merely to the tobacco fields, but the other industries interested in these fiscal proposals. But I agree, on the whole, that there is a case made out for special treatment of this new industry; but I do deprecate this method of doing it, and I do so for the simple reason that one should begin with what is after all a tariff of 20 per cent—a higher tariff than hon. Gentlemen on the other side have proposed for any industry. That is one of the evils of tariff. Five per cent. goes on to 10 per cent. In this Debate it has already reached the proportion of 10 per cent. Once you set up a tariff of, say, 20 per cent. for an industry—that is 1061 what it means—you can never withdraw it—it will still go on extending. In the very short time I have had to look at the Reports of the Committee which destroyed the Irish tobacco industry it is very interesting to note that one of the reasons why they destroyed it was that they said that the difference between a duty of 1s. 8d. per lb. and a duty of 3s. a lb. was not enough to keep the industry alive, though that is a difference of 70 or 80 per cent. That was the evidence given by tobacco growers in Ireland. That shows that once you begin to bolster up an industry by means of tariffs you simply go on from percentage to percentage until at last the industry begins to live not on its own skill, not on its own industry, not on its own management, but purely on these grants, on these tariffs which come from the Imperial Parliament. It is a bad thing for the industry, and the hon. Member has only got to read the evidence to see that that is so. When I read the evidence of the first witness it was perfectly clear that they were driven into growing the very poorest kind and the worst kind of tobacco. The industry was suffering more from that than from anything else. What is the result of the present system? The result of the present system is they have been driven to cultivate the best tobacco, and I believe with success. I think Colonel Everard was kind enough to send a sample the other day and with no ill result. I believe it was excellent tobacco, and my hon. Friend experimented upon it the other evening, and it was smoked, and I was told it was very good tobacco. And I am still friendly. So that, therefore, think the present system is a better one. The present system is the system of spending money on improving the industry and improving the quality of the tobacco and improving the method of curing and getting expert advice—much better advice than was available under the system which ended in evidence such as was given before the Committee which showed that the Irish tobacco industry, in spite of the difference between 1s. 8d. and 3s.—
§ Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDWho was the witness?
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEMr. Thomas Brodigan, who was cultivating tobacco in Ireland and was supporting the industry.
§ Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDMay I say this: From what the right hon. Gentle- 1062 man has quoted from the Report of the evidence at that Committee he would lead us to believe that the reasons for prohibiting the growth of tobacco in Ireland was because the industry could not live on account of the difference in the duty charged. I am sure if he reads the Committee Report carefully he will come to the conclusion that no such reason as that was alleged for suppressing the industry, as the industry was going on fairly well.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEI will read the exact passage. This is the Report:—
That it is the opinion of the Committee that it appears from the evidence that the tobacco at present grown in Ireland is to a great degree inferior to that of American growth, though the hope is entertained by the growers that its quality might be much improved; and from this, and from the disadvantages attending the cultivation of tobacco arising from humidity and uncertainty of climate, the proposed duty of 1s. 8d. per lb. would be higher this than they could afford to pay in competition with the Customs duty of 3s. per lb. on foreign tobacco.Then in the last paragraph of all they say that in their opinion it should be prohibited, and it was, as a matter of fact, prohibited. I think we are going on the right lines, and I am certain that that is the most businesslike way of doing it. I do not think the hon. Member would serve the interests of Irish tobacco if he substituted for the premium method the one which he has indicated in the course of this Debate.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI wish to continue the examination which was begun by my right hon. Friend into the working of the Free Trade mind. We have had some curious examples as to the way in which that mind works in the short speech to which we have just listened. The right hon. Gentleman really only got into his stride at the end, when he told us about the evils of protection, and how everything evil in this world comes from it. But before that he laid down what seemed to Toe this extraordinary doctrine, extraordinary for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He had to consider a question like the fostering of the tobacco industry, not on the ground whether it is a wise thing to foster under present conditions, whether it is something that will pay the country to foster, or something that it will pay the Treasury to foster, but on the simple ground that nearly a century ago it was taken away from Ireland by injustice, and, rightly or wrongly, we have got to re-establish it now. I felt while the right hon. Gentleman was speaking his feeling was that this Amendment was contrary to the whole 1063 principle of his Budget, and he could not possibly support it. I can quite sympathise with him in that. The principle of the Budget is inevitably, and I believe in some cases deliberately to destroy industry. The object of this Amendment is to try to improve the home industry, and naturally of course he could not accept it. I was much struck by the working of the mind of the hon. Member the Financial Secretary. His argument was on these lines, "How can we set up this distinction? We are a Free Trade party. We were returned to keep Free Trade. How could you expect it?" They are more Royalists than the King; they are more Free Trade a great deal than the expert exponents of Free Trade; and everybody knows, even His Majesty's Government, that men like John Stuart Mill, who are Free Trade enough even to satisfy the present Chancellor of the Exchequer I hope, laid down as an undoubted rule that it, was not only justifiable to use protection as a means of establishing the growth of an infant industry, but that it was sometimes necessary. Was there ever a case where that rule applied with greater force than the case which we are discussing just now? Of course, it might be said, and if acquiesced in, I would say it was a sufficient answer that this is an industry which will never pay standing against foreign competition. But if that be so you are doing an injustice to Ireland by establishing it with the knowledge that it will only wither and decay later on. That might be said, but the Government cannot say it, for they are themselves spending money now in other ways in order to foster this industry. Therefore, according to the strictest dogma of Free Trade there is nothing whatever in this Amendment which they could upset. But there is this strong fact that in any creed you like—and this is a creed—the readiness with which you adhere to particular dogmas about it is in direct proportion to the ignorance of the system on which those dogmas lie. That is the explanation why they cannot permit any diversion, however small, from what they consider erroneously to be the principles of their own doctrine.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Clare asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to explain this curious phenomenon. How can it be wrong, and in every way vicious to help to enable an industry of this kind to grow up by one method, that of giving a lower basis 1064 of taxation, and right and proper to do your best to foster it by a system of bounties? What was his answer? His answer was a fear of Free Trade: "If you once establish this you will never be able to go back." There, again, is another evidence of the weakness of their own faith. When people are strong about their own creeds they do not worry about these trifles; they believe in their own creeds. They are not afraid to adopt what they believe in, because somebody else may apply it to what they believe to be wrong. If you admit that this is an industry which is worth trying to improve and to foster, then whether or not you do it by means of a duty or by means of bounty is entirely immaterial. The only thing you have got to consider is which is the way that will do it best. Can anyone doubt which is the best method here? A system of difference of taxation enabling this industry to grow would have at least this great merit in my mind, that it would put all parts of the country and all individuals engaged in the industry on precisely the same footing. There is the fullest degree of competition amongst themselves, and more than that, from the Treasury point of view, if there is no result there will be no payment. The payment is given in proportion to the result achieved, and in proportion to nothing else, and I am perfectly certain if you went to any ordinary body of agricultural or business men and said to them:" Here are the two alternatives, one a system of doles, to be handed out at the will of a Government Department, and the other a system which will for the time give a preference to those engaged in developing this industry in the home country free to all, to be competed for by all," I do not believe that there is any sane man among them who would not say that the system recommended in this Amendment is the better system of the two. I am not myself sufficiently acquainted with this industry to urge that a grant should be allowed, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester has sufficiently shown, the growth of this tobacco industry is sufficient to justify us in saying that we ought to do everything we can, in the best way we can, to enable this industry to flourish, and possibly to flourish in England and Scotland too. But my interest in this question is based on other grounds than that which relates merely to the Tobacco Duty. The right hon. Gentleman in his speech made the statement, which I think was very instructive, that no industry 1065 of this kind can at first compete, because there are no experts to carry it out. That is perfectly true. In connection with his Budget the right hon. Gentleman has adopted as his principle, for which I give him all credit, a principle which he has put at the head of the Development Grant, that his object is in that way to develop the resources of our own country, and to get the most out of it. That applies to England as well as to Ireland, and it applies in a great many ways that the right hon. Gentleman does not consider now, but he will find that there are many methods by which it can be carried out of which he does not approve at present. However, once he embarks on that very dangerous ground, once he abandons what has been hitherto the root principle of Free Trade, once he abandons the principle laid down by Adam Smith, in words which I do not remember, though I recall their substance, that "as regards trade the less you have to do with those insidious and crafty animals called statement the better"—[Cheers]— understand that principle, but I do not understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer cheering it after proposing the Development Grant—then the two things do not go together, and all I want to say in this connection is this, that once you begin really try to develop your own resources you will find that there are many better and easier ways than the scheme of afforestation. There is one way, for instance, to which I cannot refer except as an illustration, namely, the development, in the way this Amendment proposes, of the beet sugar industry in this country, which would do infinitely more to get the people hack to the land and to keep them there than all the fancy proposals that are being submitted.
§ Mr. HAROLD COXAs I understand the proposal made by hon. Members opposite, it is that the growers of tobacco in Ireland should be endowed with an extra 8d. per pound at the expense of the smoker and buyer of tobacco. It must be that, because the Irish Members all agree that this proposed addition to the tax is going to fall on Ireland, and clearly the added price of the tobacco would be the amount of the tax; and if they are going to raise the price of tobacco by the amount of the tax, then there is no injury whatever to the industry. I think that is obvious. Therefore Irish Members are asking for an extra subsidy of 8d. per lb., and I submit, therefore, that there is no grievance, and that they should not have the extra sub- 1066 sidy, even if it is to be paid only by the people who buy the tobacco. To their main argument it seems to me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave almost too much sympathy. It was that this industry had been crushed out in 1831. But there is the much stronger argument—if you are giving a subsidy to people who are wanting to plant tobacco—that in England also the tobacco industry was crushed out two centuries earlier than it was crushed out in Ireland. [An HON. MEMBER: "By your own Parliament."] But when this discussion took place it was your Parliament; you did us the honour to come here. It was in the seventeenth century, and again in the eighteenth century, that the industry was crushed out in this country by Act of Parliament, and that gave a practical meaning to Colonial preference; the industry was destroyed here solely to give a preference to the Colonies. If any one will examine the State documents at that time they will see a very interesting light thrown upon the way in which this preference was procured. The full facts are not revealed, but there are private letters which have since been published by an Agent of the Government, who wrote that somebody had brought pressure to bear on the Lord Protector and other highly placed persons, with the result that the forces of the Commonwealth had been used to destroy the national industry of tobacco growing in England. And there was actually a rebellion against this Act, and they had to employ the forces of the Commonwealth, with a great deal of bloodshed, in order to destroy tobacco growing in England. That was in the seventeenth century. Again in the eighteenth century a succession of Acts of Parliament were passed calling on the constables of the parish and the bailiffs to root up and destroy and wipe out tobacco planting. Therefore, after we have suffered this loss for centuries surely we, too, have a right to come to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and ask that he will subsidise tobacco industry in this country.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYWhy do not you dig up Oliver Cromwell's bones?
§ Mr. HAROLD COXI do not ask for any subsidy, and I think Ireland would be a wealthier country if she was less prone to ask for subsidies.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYHumbug.
§ Mr. COXHon. Gentlemen opposite also suggested that the Irish climate and 1067 Irish soil were nearly perfect for tobacco glowing. How is it, then, that it wants all this assistance? It has been started for several years, why is it not independent of the subsidy? The right hon. Gentleman opposite quoted some figures with reference to home-grown tobacco. I wish he had quoted more, for my impression is that the whole profit of the industry is derived from the Imperial Grant, and that this tobacco industry in Ireland, this brilliant Irish industry, has simply been spoon-fed by the right hon. Gentleman. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is Free Trade."] I do not think it is Free Trade; I am utterly opposed to it.
§ Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDI am glad you are opposed to it, because it shows we are right.
§ Mr. COXIt is quite easy to quote the amount of labour in the winter, in the spring, in the summer, and in autumn, and you can point to any industry if you only pour enough money into it from the Exchequer. I remember a foreigner describing to me a small colony in the East, where the soil and the climate were arid and unkindly. Then he showed me some photographs of some very beautiful public gardens at that place. I said: "You told me about the arid climate; how did they get such beautiful gardens there?" "Oh," he said, "you can make anything grow if you water it with British gold."
§ Mr. W. REDMONDIs it not our own money?
§ Mr. COXI am quite willing, on any occasion when in order, to meet the hon. Gentlemen opposite on the question of their own money. I contend that Ireland is under-taxed as compared with the rest of the Kingdom. The Irish pay no police rate and no education rate—fairly heavy items in this country. If there be any national grievance, it is we who have it, because our money is being used for purposes in Ireland for which it would not be used in England. I am rather sorry the hon. Gentleman's speech led to the conclusion that it is right that the Exchequer should encourage infant industries out of national money. I am still more surprised that he based his argument on the authority of John Stuart Mill. I thought that he and his Friends cheered me when I said the other day that the authority of Mill had been greatly overrated. I still think so. I think you will find that John Stuart Mill is almost the only economist of repu- 1068 tation who has put forward this doctrine of subsidising industries, I am reminded very much in regard to this infant industry theory of a story once told me by a gentleman who went to America and propounded that theory to the Americans. He said that there was something to be said on the subject of the protection of these infant industries, and that it was supported by John Stuart Mill. "But you Americans," he added, "you have been going on for a hundred years protecting your industries, and now you want more protection." The Yankee replied, "Well, I guess we can better afford to pay for it." It was a very impressive contrast in the utterance of the Member for Dulwich, which he made between subsidising industry out of the Exchequer and assisting it by means of a duty. The hon. Gentleman certainly made a very interesting comparison, and one would admit that there are certain advantages in the method he proposes. But what is the essential disadvantage? To my mind the conclusive objection to his method is that there is no limitation to the cost, whereas in the case of a subsidy there is a limitation. If you give, say, £5,000 a year, you know that is all there is to get. We shall hear presently, I hope, whether that is all. At any rate, it has some advantages, one being that you know exactly where you are. You know the extent to which you may make sacrifices for the purposes of local industry, and that seems to me a conclusive argument for a subsidy rather than a duty, if you are going to adopt that policy at all. Personally, I object to the whole thing, and I think it is utterly unwise from the point of view of the future development of the country. Let me take another industry. The motor industry in this country was killed largely by bad legislation, but since the removal of that bad legislation the motor industry did not come to Parliament asking for a subsidy; they did not ask for a protective duty, but by their own energy they have built up their industry and can compete with the foreigners to-day. I maintain that this is the only way in which a nation can compete industrially. I wish Irishmen would appreciate that as much as Englishmen do, and they would ultimately bring much more prosperity to their country, which depends for its future, not on subsidies which they can extract from the British Exchequer, but on the industry, intelligence, and enterprise of its own people.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThe hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston should have 1069 attacked his own Government, and not us. We are not his Government. He has been lecturing Ireland. We do not come here to be lectured; we come here to teach, and not to receive lessons from him. We come here to teach on the only subject we understand, namely, the affairs of our own country, and his Free Trade and Protection policies we believe to be both false. They are both concerned with taxation, and everything in connection with taxation, in my opinion, is a curse. Free Trade is a curse, Protection is a curse, and the notion that there is some sort of theory called Free Trade which is right, and some sort of theory called Protection which is wrong, is only worthy, in my opinion, of Gentleman of the mind of the hon. Member opposite. There is nothing either right or wrong about Protection; there is nothing either right or wrong about Free Trade. Whatever suits you is best. Now there is one thing that does not suit Ireland, and that is to be robbed, and there is one thing that does not suit Irishmen, and that is when they are robbed to come here and to be told by those who have stolen our till and who are keeping it for themselves, to be told when we ask for 4½d. that you cannot have 4½d., because it is against the principles of Free Trade. You are taking two millions out of us by this Budget, and what does my hon. Friend (Mr. William Redmond) ask? Is be asking on a question of principle? Nothing of the kind. He is only asking as a palliation against your rascality. I do not care whether the principle is right or wrong. He is trying to do something for Ireland, and that is good enough for me.
What is this great business we have the great audacity to ask? By every engine this country could possess you destroyed our wretched country. You turned our perfumed garden into a blackened potato patch. You hunted our miserable people across the ocean, where they are your deadly enemies, where they are now allying themselves with the Germans against you in every city of the United States, and then when my hon. Friend (Mr. W. Redmond) tries to keep up some little industry at home he gives us chunks of John Stuart Mill every time we make a protest on this business. It is not a question with us of principle; it is trying to get back something of our own, and what do we find? You destroyed our Parliament. What was Ireland paying at that time? One million of money was the total amount of tax upon Ireland when you robbed us of our Parliament. What 1070 does it pay to-day? Under this Budget it will pay something like 13 millions of money, and yet the hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. Harold Cox) tells us he will go upon a platform, I suppose before an Irish audience at Preston, and that he can convince us that it was we who had the advantage of this partnership. Yes, but where is the tribunal that is going to decide it? Is it a British jury will decide it, or is it this House that is going to decide it, where you are 600 to 80?
Who is going to decide it? Will you have a Hague Tribunal on it? Will you refer it to any of the 48 States of America? Will you refer it to little Holland or little Belgium? Will you refer it to Spain or to Portugal? No, the gentlemen who will decide it, whether we are well treated or not, are gentlemen of the category of the Member for Preston. We are the judges whether we are well treated or not. We have to wear the shoe, and all we know is this, the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it. All we know is this, that after 109 years of connection with you, after 109 years of your splendid system, after 109 years of coming to this Parliament, the Irish to-day are more hostile, more disaffected, more determined against your rule than ever they were before. That is the system which the hon. Member for Preston asks us to be proud of, and asks us to accept. No, Sir. Why, take those two millions that you are extracting from us under this Budget. Capitalise it at 20 years' purchase, which would come to 40 millions, a sum which would buy up the whole of the Irish railways. If we got those two millions ourselves we could go on the market, and we could raise 40 millions of money to buy up the whole of the Irish railways. I suppose that would be against the principles of John Stuart Mill.
§ Mr. HAROLD COXYou do not pay for your police and education.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYAre we asking anything from England except to be let go? We will not only pay for our education, but we will pay for anything if you let us. But what do you do? You insist on bringing in this Budget, you insist upon taxing our country, you insist upon keeping the whole thing in your own hands. Take this Cabinet. Is there one man who is connected with this Cabinet who has any Irish interest? Is there any man connected with this Cabinet who has ever spent one month of his whole existence in Ireland? [An HON. MEMBER: "Morley."] Well, of course, we quite agree, the Irish 1071 Secretaries have to live in Ireland, but they do not seem to be very fond of it. Accordingly, all your system is settled and determined upon without the smallest reference to our country, and then the hon. Gentleman gets up and argues this as a question of high policy as between Free Trade and Protection. It is nothing of the kind. All we ask from you is this. You will not give us Home Rule. Give us control of our own finances. Give us liberty as in the Isle of Man, as in the Channel Islands. You call on them for nothing. Why should Ireland, which admittedly is the poorest of the three Kingdoms, be compelled to pay all these abominable imposts because you need Protection of your coasts against a foreign enemy? No foreign enemy is troubling us. There are no airships flying over Ireland. You have taken very good care that there is nothing for anybody to steal in Ireland.
I think we are entitled to know after bringing in a Budget which admittedly will put on a large measure of taxation upon our country, are you going to give us something in exchange besides battleships, arsenals, dockyards, and soldiers? What are we going to get for it? [HON. MEMBLES: "Old age pensions."] Old age pensions. I thought we had those last year, because the Budget came in. [An HON. MEMBER: "Pay for them."] Supposing, when the right hon. Gentleman was bringing in the Old Age Pensions he offered us this suggestion—we will largely increase your taxation, and we will make you pay for the old age pensions. Do you think if we had known that we would have taken up the attitude which we did, and which, remember, was a very passive attitude. We said nothing on the subject. I suspected the Government. I never spoke on the question. I was amazed at the so-called generosity of England. I suspected something. Of course, you suspect Greeks when they are giving you presents. We did not ask for the system which you gave us, and now I put this before the Government to-day, when you propose to carry on this great fiscal system, do you not think it would be fair to give Ireland something in exchange for the large amount of money that you are going to get out of her?
The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Churchill) said he is giving four thousand per year, and even when he is giving four thousand per year the hon. Member for Preston objects to the giving of that sum. Then in what way are we to be recompensed? I ask any 1072 English Member to consider this. Supposing we had two millions per year in Ireland, which this Budget will raise, to play with in an Irish Parliament or in an Irish Council or anywhere. What could we not do with it in the way of developing our harbours and helping our industries, instead of spending it in the funnel smoke of your cruisers, because that is what will happen to it. I did not intend to take part in this Debate, but though I do not certainly take much interest in the question of bounty or of subsidy, nor am I very attached to the principle, I cordially agree with my hon. Friend, not that I believe that this system of bounty is the best system that could be invented, but it is the only way that I see under this Budget by which we will be able to get back even an insignificant amount in consideration of the taxation you levy upon us.
§ Mr. A. C. MORTONAlthough I am always very pleased to support hon. Members from Ireland in any way I possibly can, I wish to refer on this occasion to the subject as it affects Scotland. The same wrong was committed against Scotland, and I hope, therefore, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the proper time comes, will be as willing to do justice to Scotland as he is now to do justice to Ireland. Previous to about 1780 tobacco growing was a flourishing trade in Scotland. That was before it was entirely prohibited under very heavy penalty, and so much was it a flourishing trade that Parliament allowed the growers a certain number of months to get rid of the large stocks they had in hand. I want the Government to remember there is a place called Scotland and that, although the passage of the little tobacco Bill was not opposed last year, still Scotland must not be forgotten. In the way of taxation they have more to complain of even than Ireland, and they do not get so much as Ireland does in many ways. When the time comes, therefore, for considering the question of tobacco growing in Scotland I hope we shall have equal justice compared to what is proposed for Ireland.
I am in favour of Free Trade and against Protection, and, therefore, I sympathise with the Government when they say that they cannot lower the duty for any part of the United Kingdom. If the difficulty can be got over by a subsidy for a certain number of years for the encouragement of the growth of tobacco that may he more useful even than the reduction of duty as far as 1073 Ireland or Scotland is concerned. There is no doubt at all that the Government owe something to Ireland; but they also owe something to Scotland. I do not know how the Liberal Government could get on without Scotland at all, and I do not know how that Front Bench could be kept up without it. They may in the future have to depend more on Scotland than in the past. I ask them to bear that in mind when the question comes forward again with regard to the growth of tobacco in Scotland. It was once a flourishing industry, but it was killed out of existence There is no doubt at all that a great amount of labour has to be employed in the cultivation of tobacco; consequently in a country like this, with its unemployment, it might assist the people greatly to keep in the country instead of coming into the towns. Therefore the Government, especially a Liberal Government, should consider whether, for the sake of finding work for the unemployed, and keeping the people on the land, it should not do something to encourage an industry of this sort. I see no objection at all to the Government's giving a subsidy as proposed instead of reducing the duty, because it is notorious that all over the world, and especially in our own Colonies, that they have made it their duty to do something to assist the people to get on. In every Colony that I could mention the Government have always granted subsidies to give the people an opportunity of making a living and of bringing the land into cultivation. Especially in the Western States of America, the States Governments have always worked to give assistance to the people to cultivate the land and to get on. It is not for me at this moment to make any special proposal with regard to Scotland. But it must be borne in mind that. Scotland is the most important part of the United Kingdom. ["Of the world."] An hon. Member says the most important part of the world, and I am not sure that he is not right, because, go where you like, you will find that the Scotsman gets there.
§ Mr. SPEAKERWill the hon. Member kindly confine himself to the question?
§ Mr. MORTONI beg your pardon. I was led into the digression. In the course of these discussions it cannot be said that I have attempted to occupy the time of the House unduly, and I am sorry to have got out of order. I wanted, however, to say a word for Scotland, and to tell the Government that Scotland must be 1074 thought of both in regard to the question of tobacco-growing and many other questions, so that justice may be done to all people alike.
§ Mr. P. FFRENCHI wish to support the protest against the increased taxation which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to place upon Irish tobacco. The growing of tobacco in Ireland cannot be successful unless the small farmers are induced to take it up. That is what is happening in my Constituency, where the small farmers have taken up tobacco-growing, and made it a success. It is admitted even by Members of this House that good tobacco has been produced in Wexford. It will be in the recollection of the House that the hon. Member for Clare (Mr. W. Redmond) a year or two ago brought over some tobacco grown in Wexford, and it seemed to be admired by many hon. Members. The growing of tobacco was beginning to be looked upon in my Constituency as a godsend; there has been a great reduction of farmers' crops, and tobacco growing was looked upon as something to relieve them from the difficulties of low prices and increased expenditure. I can assure the Chancellor of the Exchequer that his proposal is regarded with feelings of dismay by my Constituents, and I would appeal to him, if he must put on this tax, at least to increase the subsidy.
§ Mr J. D. REESThe hon. Member for North Louth (Mr. T. Healy) poured a great deal of scorn but very little argument on the devoted head of my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Harold Cox). He poured seven vials of vitriolic criticism upon him, but he never met his logical arguments. It seemed to me that the hon. Member's mind was as mixed as his metaphors. We have heard, in the writings of the German fairy-tale teller, of soup on a sausage peg; but whoever heard before of pudding in a pinching shoe? My hon. Friend the Member for Preston is well able to take care of himself, but as he has already spoken I feel greatly moved to say a. word in his defence. The speech of the hon. Member for Louth seemed to be a mere statement that Ireland was to be placed upon an entirely different footing in regard to taxation and all other matters from any other part of the United Kingdom. That is a statement which might equally well be made in regard to any other part of the United Kingdom. Any Member for Wales might equally well 1075 get up and put forward a similar plea on behalf of the Principality. Ireland already gets a subsidy; now she asks for a preference. I can understand the policy of Imperial Preference. There is something large about that which is certainly entitled to the utmost respect; but what can be said for a principle of preference such as is now asked for for Ireland? Does the Channel separate Ireland from England? It simply provides a better road than can be found in any other part of the United Kingdom. It is traversed by innumerable ships. There is no greater barrier between Ireland and Great Britain than between England and Wales. I submit that the hon. Member for Louth offered no argument whatever to meet the arguments of my hon. Friend. The sea unites these islands and does not divide them.
The right hon. Member for Islington (Mr. Lough) also intervened in the Debate. I should surmise from internal evidence afforded by his speeches that the right hon. Gentleman himself is an Irishman— and for this reason, that on every occasion he is against the Government. Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer made an indisputable statement with regard to the taxation on tea, showing how heavily it presses on the poorest of the poor, and the right hon. Member for Islington objected. To-day, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is preaching the undiluted doctrine of Free Trade, the right hon. Member for Islington objects to the policy of the Government, which I understand to be on this occasion, at any rate as far as half of it is concerned, in strict accordance with the principles of Free Trade. I never heard such an extraordinary argument put forward as that of the right hon. Gentleman to the effect that tobacco was a greater need to Irishmen than to Englishmen, because Englishmen eat more meat. He seriously contended that the more meat you ate the
§ less need you had for tobacco. I could understand the exact contrary being argued, because it is the case that after a good meal of meat or any other animal food tobacco is grateful and comforting, whilst a vegetarian on his thinner diet hardly stands in need of that digestive luxury. But for the contention put forward I think there can be absolutely no reason of any kind suggested. I do not know whether it is supposed that in Russia and other countries where people eat more meat they smoke less. I should have said that the contrary might have been argued. For instance, take a country where you have vegetarians and meat-eating people side by side, like India, where you have Mahomedans and caste Hindus. The caste Hindu, at any rate, is not a meat-eater; the Mahomedan meat-eater, however, does not smoke less, but probably smokes more than the Hindu. If there is to be a preference for Ireland in respect of tobacco, why not for Wales in respect of beet cultivation and flannel? Absolutely every reason that can be argued on behalf of Ireland in this respect would be equally good in regard to Wales. I will not weary the House with any arguments based upon political economy, but I was rather astonished to hear the hon. Member for Preston, who recently disestablished and demolished Mill, bring his defeated friend into the argument to-day. Whilst I thought the hon. Member for Louth made a most violent attack on my hon. Friend, I most heartily agreed with him when he said that we do not want a logical system of either Free Trade or Protection, but that each country wants what is good for its own particular needs. I maintain that that is a good doctrine for England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.
§ Question put: "That '3s. 6d.' stand part of the Resolution."
§ The House divided: Ayes, 252; Noes, 131.
1079| Division No. 131.] | AYES. | [6.43 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Beauchamp, E. | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles |
| Agnew, George William | Beck, A. Cecil | Bytes, William Pollard |
| Alden, Percy | Bennett, E. N. | Cameron, Robert |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Berridge, T. H. D. | Carr. Gomm, H. W. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Betheil, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romford) | Causton, Rt. Hon. Richard Knight |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Betheil, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Cawley, Sir Frederick |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Bowerman, C. W. | Chance, Frederick William |
| Barker, Sir John | Bramsdon, T. A. | Channing, Sir Francis Allston |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Branch, James | Cheetham, John Frederick |
| Barnard, E. B. | Brigg. John | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Brodie, H. C. | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Brooke, Stopford | Cleland, J. W. |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Bryce, J. Annan | Clough, William |
| Beale, W. P. | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Cobbold, Felix Thornley |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Jackson, R. S. | Richardson, A. |
| Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.) | Jenkins, J. | Ridsdale, E. A. |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Cowan, W. H. | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Cox, Harold | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Robinson, S. |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Crossley, William J. | Kekewich Sir George | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Curran Peter Francis | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Dalziel, Sir James Henry | Laidlaw, Robert | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Davies, David (Montgomery Co.) | Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster) | Rose, Charles Day |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Rowlands, J. |
| Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan) | Lambert, George | Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W. |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) |
| Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.) | Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirrall) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.) | Levy, Sir Maurice | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Lewis, John Herbert | Sears, J. E. |
| Duckworth, Sir James | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Shackleton, David James |
| Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall) | Lyell, Charles Henry | Shaw, Sir Charles E. (Stafford) |
| Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Mackarness, Frederic C. | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Erskine, David C. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Essex, R. W. | M'Callum, John M. | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Spicer, Sir Albert |
| Evans, Sir S. T. | M'Micking, Major G. | Stanley, Albert (Staffs., N.W.) |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Maddison, Frederick | Stanley, Hon. A. Lyulph (Cheshire) |
| Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Mallet, Charles E. | Steadman, W. C. |
| Falconer, J. | Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Fenwick, Charles | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Findlay, Alexander | Marnham, F. J. | Summerbell, T. |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Masterman, C. F. G. | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Gibson, J. P. | Menzies, Walter | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) |
| Gill, A. H. | Micklem, Nathaniel | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | Molteno. Percy Alport | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury) |
| Glover, Thomas | Mond, A. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Montgomery, H. G. | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Tomkinson, James |
| Gulland, John W. | Morrell, Philip | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) | Morse, L. L. | Ure Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Villiars, Ernest Amherst |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.) | Walters, John Tudor |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-sh.) | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) | Walton, Joseph |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Myer, Horatio | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Napier. T. B. | Wardle, George J. |
| Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) | Nicholls, George | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Harwood, George | Norman, Sir Henry | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Weir, James Galloway |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Nussey, Thomas Willans | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. W. | Nuttall, Harry | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Parker, James (Halifax) | White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.) |
| Helme, Norval Watson | Partington, Oswald | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Paulton, lames Mellor | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Henry, Charles S. | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Pointer, J. | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Higham, John Sharp | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.) |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestershire, N.) |
| Hodge, John | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Holt, Richard Durning | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Hooper, A. G. | Radford, G. H. | Winfrey, R. |
| Hope. W. H. B. (Somerset, N.) | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Hudson, Walter | Rees, J. D. | |
| Hyde, Clarendon G. | Rendall. Athelstan | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and the Master of Elibank. |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) | |
| Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, W. (Cork, N.E.) | Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Castlereagh, Viscount |
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F. | Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Cave, George |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Bignold, Sir Arthur | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Bridgeman, W. Clive | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) |
| Ashley, W. W. | Bull, Sir William James | Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry |
| Balcarres, Lord | Burdett Coutts, W. | Clancy, John Joseph |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Butcher, Samuel Henry | Clark, George Smith |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Carlile, E. Hildred | Clive, Percy Arthur |
| Baring, Capt. Hon. G. (Winchester) | Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H | Clyde, J. Avon |
| Clynes, J. R. | Joynson-Hicks, William | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Kavanagh, Walter M. | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thomas H. A. E. | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antolm, E.) | Kennedy, Vincent Paul | Pretyman, E. G. |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Kerry, Earl of | Handles, Sir John Scurrah |
| Craik, Sir Henry | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Redmond, William (Clare) |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | Renwick, George |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred. Dixon | Law, Andrew Honor (Dulwich) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lee. Arthur H. (Hants Farenham) | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Horner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Long. Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Rutherford, W. W (Liverpool) |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Lyttelton, Rt Hon. Alfred | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Fell, Arthur | MacCaw, Wm, J. MacGeagh | Sandys, Col. Thos. Myles |
| Ffrench, Peter | MacNeili, John Gordon Swift | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Macpherson, J. T. | Seddon, J. |
| Forster, Henry William | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.) | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D. |
| Gardner, Ernest | M'Arthur, Charles | Starkey, John R. |
| Ginnell, L. | M'Calmont, Colonel James | Staveley-Hill. Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Gordon, J. | Magnus, Sir Philip | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Mason. James F. (Windsor) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Gretton, John | Middlemore, John Throgmorton | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) |
| Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Mooney, J. J. | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Gwynn, Stephen Lucius | Morpeth, Viscount | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Haddock, George B. | Morrrson-Bell, Captain | Valentia, Viscount |
| Hamilton, Marquess of | Murphy, John (Kerry, East) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid.) |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Newdegate, F. A. | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Hazleton, Richard | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Wilson. A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Healy, Timothy Michael | Nolan, Joseph | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Helmsley, Viscount | O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid) | Wyndham. Rt. Hon. George |
| Hill, Sir Clement | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.) | Younger, George |
| Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | |
| Houston, Robert Paterson | Oddy, John James | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Patrick O'Brien and Mr. Boland |
| Hunt, Rowland | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) | |
| Joyce, Michael. | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) |
§ Motion made and Question put: "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
1080§ The House divided: Ayes, 253, Noes, 128.
1083| Division No. 132.] | AYES. | [6.52 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Cheetham John Frederick | Gibb, James, (Harrow) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Gill, A. H. |
| Adkins, W. Ryland D. | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John |
| Agnew. George William | Cleland, J. W. | Glover, Thomas |
| Alden, Percy | Clough, William | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Collins, Sir Wm J. (St. Pancras, W.) | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Cotton, Sir H. J S. | Harcourt. Robert V. (Montrose) |
| Barnard, E. B | Cowan, W. H. | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvill) |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Cox, Harold | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-sh.) |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Craig. Herbert J. (Tynernouth) | Hart-Davies. T. |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Crossley, William J. | Harvey, A. G C. (Rochdale) |
| Beale, W. P. | Curran, Peter Francis | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) |
| Beauchamp, E | Dalziel, Sir James Henry | Harwood, George |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Davies, David (Montgomery Co.) | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Beck, A. Cecil | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Bennett, E. N. | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan) | Hazel, Dr. A. E. W. |
| Berridge, T H. D. | Davies. Timothy (Fulham) | Hedges, A. Paget |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romford) | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Helme, Norval Watson |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.) | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Dickinson. W. H. (St. Pancras, N.) | Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.) |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Henry, Charles S. |
| Branch, James | Duckworth. Sir James | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon. S.) |
| Brigg, John | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) |
| Brodie, H. C. | Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall) | Higham, John Sharp |
| Brooke, Stanford | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Hobart, Sir Robert |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Erskine, David C. | Hodge, John |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Essex, R. W. | Holt, Richard Durning |
| Byles, William Pollard | Esslemont, George Birnie | Hooper, A. G. |
| Cameron, Robert | Evans, Sir S. T. | Hope, W. H. B. (Somerset, N.) |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Everett, R. Lacey | Horridge, Thomas Gardner |
| Causton, Rt. Hon. Richard Knight | Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Hudson, Walter |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick | Falconer, J. | Hutton, Alfred Eddison |
| Chance, Frederick W | Fenwick, Charles | Hyde, Clarendon G |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Findlay, Alexander | Illingworth, Percy M. |
| Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Napier, T. B. | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Jackson, R. S. | Nicholls, George | Spicer, Sir Albert |
| Jenkins, J. | Norman, Sir Henry | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) |
| Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Norton, Captain Cecil William | Stanley, Hon. A. Lyulph (Cheshire) |
| Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Steadman, W. C. |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Nuttall, Harry | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Parker, James (Halifax) | Summerbell, T. |
| Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Partington, Oswald | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) |
| King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton) | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury) |
| Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster) | Pointer, J. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Lambert, George | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Tomkinson, James |
| Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral) | Priestley, W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Levy, Sir Maurice | Radford, G. H. | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Walters, John Tudor |
| Lloyd George, Rt. Hon. David | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) | Walton, Joseph |
| Luttrell Hugh Fownes | Rees, J. D, | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Rendall, Atheistan | Wardle, George J. |
| Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Richardson, A. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Mackarness, Frederic C. | Ridsdale, E. A. | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Weir, James Galloway |
| Macpherson, J. T. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| M'Callum, John M. | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | White, J Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Robinson, S. | White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.) |
| M'Micking, Major G. | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Maddison, Frederick | Roch, Waiter F. (Pembroke) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Mallet, Charles E. | Roe, Sir Thomas | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Wiles, Thomas |
| Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Rose, Charles Day | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Marnham, F. J. | Rowlands, J. | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Masterman, C. F. G. | Runclman, Rt. Hon. Walter | Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.) |
| Menzles, Walter | Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Micklem, Nathaniel | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestershire, N.) |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Mond, A. | Scarisbrick, T. T. L. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Montgomery, H. G. | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) | Winfrey, R. |
| Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Sears, J. E. | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Seaverns, J. H. | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Morrell, Philip | Shackleton, David James | |
| Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Shaw, Sir Charles E. (Stafford) | |
| Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.) | Sherwell, Arthur James | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and the Master of Eli-bank. |
| Murray, James (Aberdeen. E.) | Simon, John Allesbrook | |
| Myer, Horatio | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, W. (Cork. N.E.) | Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | Kennedy, Vincent Paul |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon | Kerry, Earl of |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) |
| Ashley, W. W. | Faber, George Denison (York) | Lane-Fox, G. R. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Lardner, James Carrige Rushe |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Fardell, Sir T. George | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Fell, Arthur | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham) |
| Baring, Capt. Hon. G. (Winchester) | Ffrench, Peter | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. |
| Barrie, H.T. (Londonderry, N.) | Fletcher, J. S. | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Forster, Henry William | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Gardner, Ernest | MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh |
| Boland, John | Ginnell, L. | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Gordon, J. | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Goulding, Edward Alfred | M'Arthur, Charles |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Gretton, John | M'Calmont, Col. James |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Magnus, Sir Philip |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius | Mason, James F. (Windsor) |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Haddock, George B. | Middlemore, John Throgmorton |
| Cave, George | Hamilton, Marquess of | Mildmay, Francis Bingham |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Harrison-Broadley, M. B. | Mooney, J. J. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Hayden, John Patrick | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Hazleton, Richard | Morrison-Bell, Captain |
| Clark, George Smith | Healy, Timothy Michael | Nannettl, Joseph P. |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Helmsley, Viscount | Newdegate, F. A. N. |
| Clyde, J. Avon | Hill, Sir Clement | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
| Clynes, J. R. | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Nolan, Joseph |
| Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Houston, Robert Paterson | O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thomas H. A. E. | Hunt, Rowland | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Joyce, Michael | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Joynson-Hicks, William | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Cralk, Sir Henry | Kavanagh, Walter M. | Oddy, John James |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) |
| Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) | Walker, Col W. H.(Lancashire) |
| Parkes, Ebenezer | Salter, Arthur Clavell | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | Sandys, Col. Thos. Myles | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Power, Patrick Joseph | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Pretyman, E. G | Seddon, J. | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Randles, Sir John Scurrah | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Redmond, William(Clare) | Starkey, John R. | Younger, George |
| Remnant, James Farquharson | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) | |
| Renwick, George | Stone, Sir Benjamin | TELLER FOR THE NOES.—Sir A. Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia |
| Robert, S. (Sheffield, Eccleasall) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichoster) | |
| Ronaldshay, Earl of | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) | |
| Ropner, Col. Sir Robert | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
§ Order read for further consideration of Resolution.