§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the further proceedings on the Bill be now adjourned."
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEOn the Motion that the proceedings be adjourned, I should like to make the statement I promised in regard to the revision of the estimates. We have made very excellent progress this afternoon. It is rather a novel proceeding, I admit, for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to give a revised estimate of his revenue before the Budget leaves the House of Commons. It is not, however, a new thing for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to give a revised estimate of his new taxes. But I propose to go a little beyond that, and to give a revised estimate which will cover pretty well the whole ground. My reason for doing so is this: it is later in the year than I suppose it has ever been with a Budget. Therefore we have a unique opportunity of checking, by the experience of at least half a year, the estimate, which depends, after all, very much upon conjecture when it is made at the beginning of the year Some branches of the revenue have produced more on this occasion already, some less. This is nothing new, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcester (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) knows. As a matter of fact, it is what happens every year. I do not believe there has ever been a case where the estimate has been justified. Some parts of the revenue fall far short of the anticipated yield; other parts produce a good deal more. And that has happened in this case, especially in regard to some of the old taxes. But that would not be a Sufficient justification for giving to the House of Commons a revised estimate had 698 it not been for the fact that there have been very considerable modifications made in the Bill I submitted to the House some months ago, and which will involve a loss, to a certain extent, in one part of the Bill.
I do not believe any Finance Bill has ever been submitted to the House of Commons, involving proposals for raising taxation by a new and novel method, when concessions have not been made in the course of the Debates. I take the case of the Corn Tax, which had considerable modifications, and the Finance Bill of 1894. So far as the Corn Taxes are concerned, the modifications required a revised estimate. But here I confess there is a larger number of new and novel methods of raising taxation than have been incorporated in any single Bill within the last 48 or 50 years. Therefore there is a larger number of modifications and alterations. The only thing that I can say is that we have been more fortunate in that respect than some of our foreign friends who are placed in similar circumstances, and of the German Budget, I believe, barely one-fifth survived. The modifications in my proposals I shall give a summary of. First of all, as far as the yield is concerned, the first modification of the new taxes I will take is land. The modifications in the Land Tax will bear fruit not so much this year as next year and the next ensuing year, because they are in respect of Increment Duty, which I budgetted to yield £50,000 this year, and therefore a very considerable modification in these Clauses would have had a very small effect upon this year Taking these modifications into account, and also making some allowance for the delay in the carrying of the Budget, I think I shall be safe in estimating that these concessions only make a difference this year so far as increment is concerned of £25,000. Next year there will be a very considerable alteration, I think, in the estimates. As far as the Undeveloped Land Tax is concerned, another £25,000 will cover the whole of the modifications there, but I have got to add a sum of £175,000 in respect of our alterations in the Mineral Eights Duty, so that the net effect of our alteration in the Land Tax is that although we have taken off £50,000 and added £175,000, the net result is an addition of £125,000 in my estimate for this year.
We estimate that the concessions given on licences since the introduction of the Bill amount to £500,000. Then there is another alteration in the proposals of 699 the Bill, which will account for a further substantial sum, and that is stamps. The alterations with regard to small conveyances will involve this year a matter of something like £50,000—the total will be £50,000. If hon. Members will take the £125,000 in respect to land, they will find that under the heading of new taxes the reduced yield this year under all modifications amounts to £425,000, but that does not account for all the concessions made in the passing of the Bill. We have proposed that half the yield of the Land Tax should pass over to a Local Taxation Fund, which will account for some £300,000. Then there is the incerased cost of valuation. The Government have proposed that the State shall undertake the whole cost of valuation instead of casting it upon the individual land-owner. That will make a considerable difference in our estimate of the expenditure for valuation, and for this year it will come to £200,000. The Prime Minister estimated it at something more than that, but at that time it was assumed that the Bill would go through sooner than it will go through to all appearances. Therefore, something will have to be taken off in respect of the tax. There will be at least a month's expenditure, which will not count this year. That means another £500,000. That will account for all the concessions in connection with the new taxes. But we made one very considerable concession in respect of a very old tax, and that is Schedule A. We estimated that that concession would cost the Exchequer half a million a year, but it will be obvious to those who have experience in these matters that the whole of that sum will not be paid out of the Treasury before the end of the financial year, because the land-owners will have to send in their claims and sometimes they will have to be investigated. There will be some delay, and I am informed that the probability is that by 31st March £300,000 will count for the proportion of that £500,000 which will be paid during the current financial year. There will be a slight loss in land. The yield from the Land Taxes this year will not be a very large sum, and the delay will not affect it very seriously, and it will not affect the new Mineral Rights Duty in the same way as it would have affected the old Mineral Rights Duty. We do not anticipate much loss there. But, at the same time, undoubtedly the delay will affect to a slight extent the yield which we anticipate from 700 the Land Taxes. It may affect the Super-tax, and it will certainly affect stamps. It will take off something like a couple of months probably from the yield of the new Stamp Taxes.
I come to the old revenue. The House will be very glad to hear that the old revenue is doing very well. All the taxes are doing well, old and new, except one, and that is whisky. The Whisky Tax is discouraging—or shall I say encouraging?—but beer is doing very well. There are five new taxes. Four out of the five are quite up to our anticipations, but the fifth, the Spirit Tax, is not doing well. I will take the taxes in respect of which I shall have to alter and revise my estimate. The first is the Death Duties. They are the most difficult of all taxes to estimate with anything like approximate accuracy. I do not know a tax which has so often falsified anticipations as the Death Duties. Sometimes they exceed the estimate by hundreds of thousands of pounds. In the last few years they exceeded the estimate by £1,200,000. Sometimes it falsifies the estimate the wrong way, and I think that happened last year. We received less by some hundreds of thousands of pounds than we anticipated. This year I announced that already the anticipations with regard to the yield of the tax have been considerably exceeded. It is very difficult to know whether in the course of another six months we may find that there will be such a shortage in the yield as to lose the full benefit of the advantage of the considerable harvest which we have had during the last six months, but the anticipation of the Inland Revenue is that, looking at the yield of the last six months, when two or three very exceptional estates have come in, which, of course, made a very great difference, the estimate in respect of the Death Duties will be exceeded by £1,300,000. Then the Post Office has also done better. That is due to the improvement in trade. Stamps have done very much better since the introduction of the Budget. That is because there has been such a boom on the Stock Exchange. [An HON. MEMBER: "Selling."] Well, there must be somebody buying when there is selling, and that is where the revenue comes in. They are doing so well and there has been such considerable briskness in business there that we shall improve our stamp revenue. Even making allowance for two months which were lost to the Inland Revenue, and even making allowance for the concessions we have given, we hope to derive £250,000 more 701 from stamps than I originally anticipated. From the Post Office we hope to get an additional £200,000, and from the Land Taxes we hope to get an additional £100,000. Instead of receiving £500,000, we hope to receive £600,000. That will mean on the credit side—
a total of £1,850,000, most of that being accounted for by the Death Duties.
- £1,200,000 on Estate Duty,
- £250,000 on Stamps,
- £200,000 on the Post Office, and
- £100,000 on Land Taxes—
I come now to the other side of the account. I am very pleased to say that there is only one tax I can place on the other side. All the other taxes are doing very well, including the Income Tax. I have seen some very wild statements about the Income Tax—about there being a falling revenue, and probably a serious deficit. On the contrary, the Income Tax is doing admirably, including the new tax—the additional 2d. Unless the Budget is very late, and there is a loss of money on the Super-tax, I expect that the Income Tax will come fully up to expectation in the same way as in regard to other taxes. That is not the case in regard to the Spirit Duty. The Spirit Duty has done either badly or well, according to the view any hon. Member may take of it.
From the point of view of the Exchequer, I say frankly we are doing badly, owing to forestalments, owing to the shortening of the stocks, and also to an anticipated drop in the quantity of drink consumed. Forestalments were very accurately estimated. We did not estimate with equal accuracy the other two elements of the reduction of the yield of the tax. I believe that the trade, owing to the uncertainty with regard to the immediate prospects of the Finance Bill, have reduced their reserves to the very lowest figure, and they have not taken a keg of whisky more out of bond than they were obliged to do; and it is rather remarkable, I have been told, in some districts when some recent speeches were delivered they had the effect upon the trade of their still further reducing their stocks and reducing their clearings from bond, because they were under the impression that possibly something might happen this year to do away with the whole of the tax, and that, therefore, there would be no necessity for them to pay. Undoubtedly they are living on as narrow a margin as they can possibly conduct their business on, and that has had a very serious effect 702 on that view. That is bound to be temporary. They must make that up before the end of the financial year. That is not the case with regard to the drop in consumption. Undoubtedly there has been a very serious diminution in the quantity of drink which has been consumed. It may or may not be temporary; but even if it is temporary the effect upon the revenue this year is irreparable, because even if they do get back to their old habits of drinking the same quantity it will not quite make up for lost time. Therefore we must anticipate a very considerable diminution in the yield of the Whisky Duty. I am told that in some districts the quantity consumed has gone down by something like 30 per cent. In Glasgow I have heard that the amount of whisky which distillers sold in the month of September was 30 per cent. less than the amount sold in the September of last year, and that as far as bond is concerned the diminution is something like 36 per cent. But that I think is not altogether accounted for by the decrease in consumption. I estimated for an increased yield of £1,600,000. I do not think I will get it. And may I say that every criticism directed against that estimate at that time was in the direction of complaining that we had underestimated. No one ever suggested that we had overestimated. On the contrary, there were Members—and I am not sure that there were not some on my own side—who thought I had really deliberately underestimated. I had in view that there would be a serious reduction in the whisky consumption, but I thought that the percentage I allowed would cover that diminution. Taking the twelve months as a whole, I am going to estimate for a loss of £800,000 on spirits. [An HON. MEMBER: "A loss?"] Not a loss of £800,000, but a decrease; I give £800,000 instead of £1,600,000. All this must be purely an estimate, but there is one advantage in estimating now. I am estimating now with some six months' experience of what has happened during the year, whereas at the beginning of the year I had to estimate without knowing exactly what was the nature of the tax and what it would produce.
Let me come to the actual figures. The Income Tax I estimated will cost £300,000 under Schedule A. The loss on licences will be £500,000, and the sum of money that will be paid over to the local authorities will be £300,000. The valuation will cost £200,000, in addition to the £50,000 that we already provide. That 703 amounts to £1,300,000. You add to that the loss on whisky, which is £800,000. That comes to £2,100,000. Place, on the other side, the increase in the Revenue of £1,850,000, that means that I shall be short of £250,000. I have already provided £488,000 to meet contingencies, but that sum, I fear, will be absorbed by Supplementary Estimates which I shall have to submit to the House; £200,000 for the unemployed, and a good many small sums. Therefore, in order to meet that deficiency, I propose that we shall take out of the Sinking Fund another half million. That is a really moderate proposal, because I think Lord Cromer suggested we should take a sum of £4,000,000, but we have only taken £3,000,000. We now propose to take an additional £500,000, and I shall be at any rate £500,000 under the proposal of so careful a financier as Lord Cromer, which he actually proposed and submitted to the country before my Budget. That is the position of affairs. I think it is a matter for congratulation that the revenue on which the prosperity of the country depends, and the revenue which indicates prosperity, the Income Tax and all the other taxes are doing well, and that the only tax that is doing badly is that tax the diminution of which proves that there is a considerable improvement in the habits of the people. I am very much obliged to the House for having afforded me this opportunity of making this statement. I propose to circulate a Paper, which will not contain any fresh information, but which will give the whole of these facts.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI do not propose now to make any lengthened statement, nor do I wish to make any lengthened comments to-day, as he will have to amend the Sinking Fund proposal, and we shall have the opportunity of referring to it at that stage, and, when we come to discuss the Motion to alter the Sinking Fund, to the circumstances which gave rise to the arguments which the Chancellor of the Exchequer adduces in favour of that proposal. I shall, therefore, be as brief as I can in what I say to-day. I am not going to criticise the Chancellor of the Exchequer under all the circumstances of the year in meeting the deficit which he ultimately devised by a further appeal to the Sinking Fund; neither do I criticise him for the divergence which now appears between his present estimate of revenue in certain respects, with the estimate he made six 704 months ago. That is, I fully admit, due to changes which the House, under the guidance of the right hon. Gentleman, have made in his Budget. Those are matters which cannot be foreseen until the Budget is actually discussed, but when I turn to the other parts, to that part which is not due to changes made by the House, but to the inaccuracy of forecast on the part of the Revenue authorities, I am bound to say that it is a kind of inaccuracy which no human foresight could guard us against. The Death Duties are, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the most uncertain of all forms of our revenue, and that is, from the purely fiscal point of view, one of the objections to trusting too much to death and to the raising of too large a proportion of our revenue from that source, because the accident of individual death may upset the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and may turn an apparent or probable surplus into a deficit just as readily as, more happily on this occasion for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they turn what would have been a very serious deficit into a comparatively small and manageable deficit.
Again, when I come to the error in whisky, that is a more serious one. I do not say that it was unavoidable. No doubt the Chancellor of the Exchequer is right in saying that when he first produced his estimate the criticism which was levelled against it from all quarters of the House was that he had estimated the Spirit Duties too low. That is so. That error was fostered by the declarations of the Government themselves, who, when the spirit distillers raised the price of whisky, made the most exaggerated statements that it is possible to conceive as to the enormous profits which the distillers were going to reap from that rise of price. We, not unnaturally, argued that if by raising the price of the glass of whisky a halfpenny, out of which halfpenny they took the smaller half, they were going to make a profit, as we were told by the Government, of something like three or four million pounds per year. Then clearly the Chancellor of the Exchequer had grossly underestimated the amount of revenue which he was going to get from that same halfpenny. The increase was not divided equally between them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had taken to himself the larger half, so that when his colleagues said that what remained to the distiller was three or four millions we were naturally driven to the conclusion 705 that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had grossly underestimated the share which he himself was going to get. But though I do not blame him for having made an underestimate—so far as I am concerned, I blame him only for the very extravagant language which he used in order to prejudice the House and the country against the distillers——
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE dissented.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI think that, if he looks back on the Debates to the statement he made as to the profits the distillers were going to make, he will admit that my language is not unjustified.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEOn the contrary, I have always considered that the extra halfpenny might be a perfectly legitimate charge, and that whatever profit they made upon that was quite legitimate. I have always said so. I am not sure that I did not say so in my Budget statement. Beer, I agree, I consider is on a totally different footing.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI am told it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer who invited the distillers to raise the price of whisky by a halfpenny a glass. I hasten to give him full credit. What is really serious is the effect which this increased duty has had on consumption. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and some other Members too easily comfort themselves by laying to their souls the flattering unction that if there is a reduction in the consumption of whisky there is also an improvement in the habits of the people. That does not follow at all. I do not believe that a slight additional charge checks the habitual drunkard, the man with a craving for drink which he cannot resist. He will have the drink, whatever happens, as long as he can afford to pay for it, and if he cannot get it at the old price he will stint himself of something else rather than go without that which has become to him a drug with which he cannot dispense, or that from which he has not the moral or physical strength to abstain. I do not believe that this kind of drop in the consumption, produced by a rise in price owing to increased taxation, is at all an evidence of improvement in the moral habits or social conditions of the people. I think it is a diminution of consumption not among those who have hitherto consumed too much, but among the moderate drinkers. People who think that all consumption of alcohol is bad or wrong, would, of course, be 706 pleased at a reduction in consumption wherever it took place. But that is not my view; it is not the view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; it is not the view upon which this House has hitherto legislated; and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman can console himself for his loss of revenue by supposing that it is balanced by an improvement in the habits of the people. In my opinion it is a very serious injury which he has done to one of oar great sources of revenue by being greedy in what he asks for. By attempting to get too much he has made a serious inroad upon what he should have got if he had been more moderate. The lasting damage is that it may not recover; that that may be a permanent injury to this source of revenue. I will say no more about it now; we shall get to the subject in two or three days' time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said nothing about tobacco. I have seen some figures which—of course, they are very difficult to follow or test from outside—led me to suppose that tobacco was not doing well. I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would tell us more in detail how tobacco is doing. There is only one or a couple further observations that I desire to make at this stage. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, whilst congratulating himself on the unexpected recovery in stamps, spoke humorously of the boom on the Stock Exchange. I suggest to the Chancellor that when he is performing a very difficult and invidious task, as every Chancellor does when he has to face a deficit, and having to impose new taxation—and that taxation will never be popular with the people who have to bear it—that he does not improve his position or lighten his task by remarks characterised by a rather unhappy levity with regard to the position of the people who are notoriously not doing well. It is absurd to talk of a boom on the Stock Exchange at the present time. There has been a very bad time. The stamp revenue for several years has declined, and has hardly reached the estimate of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has estimated yearly rather less than the year before or about the same sum. There has been a slight recovery as the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer show. But really he had better not exaggerate the amount of prosperity or the ease and readiness with which people are meeting their liabilities. He talked in the same way of the revival in trade. It is a curious commentary on the revival in trade that he also had to 707 announce that amongst the demands he had to make was one for £200,000 for unemployment. A grant introduced, first of all, in a particular winter season as a wholly exceptional method is now becoming an annual service!
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in dealing with his Supplementary Estimates, did not say when we were to have them. Can he tell us when he proposes to lay them on the Table of the House? In connection with them he did not mention any money for "Dreadnoughts." We should like to know if he is going to provide for the "Dreadnoughts" of which he talks, as I understand the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty claims that he is spending money.
§ Sir F. BANBURYOne word to express my great regret at the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he is going further to deplete the Sinking Fund by half a million. The Sinking Fund was imposed by Sir Stafford North cote in 1874 or 1875, in order that there might be a permanent fund from which money for the reduction of the Debt could be taken, and that permanent fund was not to be liable to the temptation, which might occur to Chancellors of the Exchequer when short of revenue, to take the money which was to be devoted to this particular object. It is not so much the half million to which I object as it is to the evident intention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to avail himself of the Sinking Fund whenever he happens to be in a tight place. Six months ago on the Estimates he stated that he intended to reduce the Sinking Fund by £3,000,000. I thought it was a mistake, even though it had been understood that for the future the amount of money devoted to the services of the Debt was £20,000,000 instead of £28,000,000. Still, everybody knew where that would put us. My own impression was that until better times came the sum would be £25,000,000 instead of £28,000,000. What do we see? Owing, it may be, to the perfectly natural circumstances which have arisen, the Chancellor is short of money. He immediately goes to the Sinking Fund to replenish his purse. My right hon. Friend asked about the money which was to be provided for "Dreadnoughts." What safeguard have we that next year the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not come forward and say, "We require £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 for 708 "Dreadnoughts"; we must take it from the Sinking Fund"? I admit there is a deficit to be made up, but all I can say is that the Sinking Fund is the last possible thing that should be touched, especially at the present moment. I was startled beyond words when the Chancellor said that things had gone up on the Stock Exchange. What does he mean by an increase in prices? Consols were 85 when he introduced his Budget——
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEI did not say prices; I said business had gone up.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI beg pardon. I will not pursue that subject; I understood him to say that, and my hon. Friend below me says that he used the word "boom." "Boom" means a rise in prices. You only have a "boom" when things go up. Perhaps I ought to have known that the Chancellor was not conversant with these phrases. I am not quite certain if he knew the meaning when he used the word "boom." There has been no boom in English securities—[An HON. MEMBER: "There has been in South Africans"]—though there has been a small rise in foreign, but that is not a feature upon which we as Englishmen ought to congratulate ourselves upon.
§ Mr. MOOREI do not know whether the Paper which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has promised will contain very full information. We have asked on several occasions for certain information, and we have always been referred to this Paper. During the Committee stage of the Finance Bill concessions were made to the Irish publicans, while the publicans in Great Britain were being obliged to pay an increased scale, as provided in the Bill. We asked then, but we got no information, What is the money value of this concession to the Irish publicans? I subsequently put a question to the Secretary to the Treasury, but he said at the time it would not be respectful to answer it then, and that we should wait for the full statement. I hope that information will now be forthcoming.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEI can reply at once to the observations addressed to me by the hon. and learned Member who has just sat down. We estimate that the alteration made with regard to the Irish minimum will amount to £25,000 a year. These are the estimates, and that is the view we take of the loss to the revenue involved in these concessions. With regard to the observations of the hon. 709 Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) I know his views with reference to the Sinking Fund, or, rather, the views he holds since the present Government came into power. I also know when he was this side of the House in the time of the late Government he was one of the most faithful supporters of the Government on that point, and on two occasions he supported a reduction of the Sinking Fund which was much more drastic than the one I am proposing at the present moment. I only hope he will extend to me the indulgence he was prepared to extend to my distinguished predecessor. May I point out that in the main our attitude towards the Sinking Fund is because of our concessions under Schedule A and our concessions upon the higher class of public-houses. Owing to these things it is necessary to go in for a further reduction of the Sinking Fund. I do not think anyone in this House would support the imposition of a new tax at this stage merely for the purpose of relieving Schedule A by £500,000 and the higher class of public-houses. I think we have taken a course which will commend itself to all sections of the House in going to the Sinking Fund. With regard to tobacco, I am very glad to say that it is going on nil right, and we are likely to realise our estimates. It is true that there were very considerable forestalments, and the figures which the right hon. Gentleman has seen show those forestalments, and we had to work them off before we could get into our stride. Now the Tobacco Duty is doing very well, and the Revenue officials anticipate that the estimate will be fully realised. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) asked me when I could lay these figures on the Table. I must get an order for the printing of the Paper, and then it will depend upon the expedition of the printer. I am not sure that I can put the matter into the hands of the printer to-night. There will be no fresh figures.
As to what has been said about the Stock Exchange, I can assure hon. Members that I was not treating this serious question with levity; on the contrary, I thought I was referring to a matter of congratulation even amongst members of the Stock Exchange. Whether the word "boom" is too strong I do not know, but it has been pointed out to me that there has been a great revival of business on the Stock Exchange, and that revival represents really an increase of £450,000 in stamps. This has covered not only the 710 £250,000, but the £200,000 loss in respect of the delay and in respect of small conveyances. An increase in stamps of £400,000 entirely due to the Stock Exchange undoubtedly represents a very enormous revival in business. As a matter of fact, I know that, at any rate during some period of the time, they were working early and late, and almost all through the night in some of the most important offices. I was not sneering at the Stock Exchange, who have treated me uncommonly well over this Budget, and who have met me in a way which is beyond praise in the matter of the adjustment of the duty, and I should be the last man to sneer at them. On the contrary, I congratulate them upon the improvement in business which I do not say has resulted from the Budget, but which has inured to them since my financial statement was made to the House. The right hon. Gentleman also referred to the unemployed grant, and said that last year we spent £200,000. Let me remind him that we have granted £300,000 for this purpose, and we think that £200,000 will probably be more than sufficient this winter; and that represents an improvement of 33 per cent., at any rate in our view, as to what will happen with respect to unemployment. I think I have now dealt with all the points. As to "Dreadnoughts," I am afraid that I cannot give an answer to my right hon. Friend, and I would rather not say until I have made inquiries.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINWhen do you propose to lay the Supplementary Estimates?
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEThe Financial Secretary to the Treasury always undertakes the Supplementary Estimates.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI imagine that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to answer my question. Does he mean to lay Supplementary Estimates this Session or wait until Parliament meets again in the new year?
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEI do not think it will be necessary to lay them this year. I think now I have dealt with all the questions put to me; and I suggest that the discussion should, as I would respectfully submit to the Chair it could, be debated on the Motion that £500,000 be taken out of the Sinking Fund, and, inasmuch as it does not involve an increased charge, but quite the reverse, I think it can be done merely upon an Amendment placed on the Paper.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThere can be no doubt that an Amendment can be made, and doubtless the reasons for making it can be gone into.
§ RESOLVED.—That the further proceedings on the Bill be now adjourned.