§ (1) The annual value of any premises for the purposes of any duty charged in the First Schedule to this Act shall be determined in the same manner and subject to the same conditions as the annual value of premises is determined for the purpose of a publican's licence, and in the determination of that value the duty on the licence is not to be allowed as a deduction.
§ (2) It shall be the duty of the Commissioners, as soon as may be, to prepare, and to keep corrected, a register as respects all fully licensed premises and beer-houses respectively of the amount which would be payable as compensation in respect of the premises under Sub-section (1) of Section two of the Licensing Act, 1904, if the premises were premises in respect of which compensation was payable under that Act, and of the sum which is to be treated for the purposes of this Act as the annual equivalent of that amount (in this Act referred to as the annual compensation value). That amount and sum shall be certified respectively by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
756§ In estimating for that purpose the value as licensed premises of hotels or other premises used for purposes to which the holding of a licence is merely auxiliary, no increased value arising from profits not derived from the sale of intoxicating liquor shall be taken into consideration.
§ (3) The licence holder and any person interested in licensed premises shall, if required by the Commissioners, make a return in such form and containing such particulars as the Commissioners may require for the purpose of the ascertainment under this Section of the annual value or the annual compensation value of the premises, and if any person fails to make such a return within the time, not being less than thirty days, specified in the return, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.
§ Mr. CLAVELL SALTERmoved to leave out Sub-section (2).
We were dealing yesterday with a very large question affecting the policy of this portion of the Finance Bill, but I venture to think that when it is conceded that these enormously increased duties are to be imposed, no more practical question could engage the attention of the Committee than that of the basis on which the taxation is to be levied. That is the question raised by this Sub-section. It proposes, as the Committee will see, that there shall be yet one more valuation. The Government appear to have a passion for valuation. I do not know whether this valuation will be conducted in their scanty moments of leisure by the 500 new officials of whom we have heard so much, or whether it will be made by other persons. But there is to be a valuation, and it is to be a novel valuation, for all licensed houses in the United Kingdom. As the Bill now stands that valuation is to ascertain the capital sum the owner of each public-house would receive if the house were subject to the English law of 1904, and on the further hypothesis that the house is being reduced, what compensation would be paid under the provisions of that Bill? When that capital sum has in each case been ascertained there is to follow a process about which I do not desire to trouble the Committee at present, although it is quite evident that a little later on it must receive serious consideration. That second process is also to my mind a novel process. In each case the capital sum is that to be reduced to the terms of annual value. That is a matter 757 which will require a great deal of consideration. I desire to base my opposition to this Sub-section on the question of principle and not on mere drafting. Let me in passing call the attention of the Committee to the fact that the Sub-section appears to be somewhat obscure on the not unimportant question who is to be the valuing authority. There are two sets of Commissioners who are unhappily mixed up in this Sub-section—the Commissioners of Customs and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. I am at a loss to understand whether this valuation is to be actually conducted by the Customs Commissioners or those of the Inland Revenue, and as to who is to be responsible for its accuracy. Is it to be a joint production? I hope I shall receive an explanation on this point from the Minister who replies on this Amendment. Clearly the Commissioners of Customs are to collect the information; they are to have the custody of the register, and to be responsible for its correctness from time to time. But the Commissioners of Inland Revenue are to grant certain necessary certificates, and I would point out that under Clause 31, Subsection (3), where it is necessary to have an interim certificate before its accuracy can be ascertained it must be given by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and not the Commissioners of Customs. One may therefore be pardoned for being in doubt as to which is to be the responsible valuing authority in this matter.
Passing from these minor matters, I ask the Committee to disapprove of the valuation which is proposed by this Sub-section. It is obvious to begin with that it is no small matter. It takes months now, and often a good deal of expense, to ascertain the compensation value of any house actually to be reduced. There are, I am told, about 120,000 "on" licences which will be affected. You will, therefore, have 120,000 valuations, and as enormously important interests depend upon them, you will have an enormous number of disputes. There is an appeal, and when this great valuation has been effected the matter is very far from being concluded, because anyone who knows anything about the matter will agree that the compensation value of public-houses varies, and varies very considerably and very rapidly from time to time, with local conditions, and it is expressly made a part of the duty of this authority which is to have the custody of this register that they are to keep it correct. It will mean—I appeal to any hon. Member who has knowledge— 758 a revision of very frequent occurrence of 120,000 separate valuations. That is not a small matter. What is the justification for the proposal to place upon the country, and upon the trade, the worry and expense of this great valuation? To answer that question, if we look first at the Bill, there is on it no justification for this valuation at all. When I say at all, I think that is a slight exaggeration, because there are in the Bill two exceptional cases in which, and in which alone, this valuation is to be used. It is to be used in the case of hotels or restaurants, which desire this alternative basis, and in the case of those comparatively few houses whose gross annual value is over £500 a year, but save in those obviously exceptional cases, no use is to be made in this Bill of the costly valuation which it is proposed to make. That strikes me, as a very strange thing, that the Government are proposing a costly step of national importance of this kind, without indicating in their Bill, that they propose to make any real or practical use of the information so obtained. Of course, we know perfectly well what the Government intention is. My point is, that it is strange that they have not expressed it in the Bill. Their intention was stated most fairly by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech, when he said, referring to the new assessment now proposed:—
This assessment, when it is completed, will be translated into terms of annual value, and the licence will be levied accordingly.So there is no doubt about the intention of the Government. So soon as this valuation can be prepared the whole basis of licence assessment is to be changed, and it is to be shifted on this novel basis.If I am asked for my own opinion why the Government, having formed and stated this definite intention, did not indicate it in their Bill, my answer would be, that the reason is, that the Government are so entirely in the dark—and, what is more significant, their advisers are so entirely in the dark, and I am not surprised at it—as to what sort of figures this new kind of valuation will produce, that they have been afraid to put into the Bill any kind of proposal as to the taxation of which it is to form part. Anyone will agree that the onus rests in a matter of this kind heavily upon the Government to show this, and this is. the point which is raised by this Subsection. It is a question of the comparative merits of the present basis of licence taxation, and the basis now proposed by 759 the Bill. This is not a matter—the Leader of the Opposition referred to the distinction yesterday—this is not a matter which affects the amount of taxation, to be levied from the trade. It applies whether that amount is to be large or small. It does not affect any question of the rate of charge, but it affects the equally important question—what the fair incidence of that taxation is between the different members of the trade. I am not in opposing this Subsection supporting, and I am not concerned to support, the present basis of taxation. I am only concerned with the relative merits of the two bases. I think there is a good deal to be said against the present basis, which is far from being either logical or completely just, but all I am concerned to say and to invite the Committee to assent to is this—that the present basis of licence tax is both a fairer and a more politic basis than the novel basis which the Government propose to substitute for it. The two bases are these. At present, the taxation is levied on gross annual value. There are differences in different parts of the country as to the manner in which, under the Statutes, it is ascertained, but I think substantially, there is no distinct difference as a rule, in the gross annual value upon which the hypothetical tenant would come in. It is proposed to levy, on the entirely distinct basis, of the un-analysed equivalent of the compensation levy. The question is a little technical, and I venture to put it to the Committee in this way. There are three elements of value in any going licensed house, on one or more of which you may base the taxation. The first element is, what I would venture to call the shop value of the premises—the unlicensed commercial annual value. The second element, I venture to call, in a subsequent Amendment the "licence" value, to take a new expression, and by that, I mean the annual value which is given to the premises by the licence, and the third element, obviously, is the goodwill.
There are these three main elements of value, and I think I am right in saying that the taxation of licences is at present based on the first and second, and it is proposed to shift it to the second and third. It is based at present on the shop value plus the licence value, and I think it is proposed to base it upon the licence value plus the goodwill. It must be obvious how utterly different these two bases are. 760 This is not a matter of theory or a technical matter at all. The commercial difference between the two bases is enormous, and the whole welfare and existence of the trade, in my opinion, depends upon it. May I venture to take, to illustrate what I mean, the case of two public-houses in the same district, or opposite one another in the same street. Take them at a value exactly equal in construction, capacity, convenience, and age, and say that one of those public-houses has been habitually well and fortunately conducted for a good many years, with the result that it is doing a very large trade, is very popular, and has a great goodwill. The other, unfortunately, has been very badly conducted for many years, with the result that it is an unpopular house, and does a very small trade. Consider, in the case of those two houses, the gross annual value for rating purposes, and then consider the compensation value. Now, obviously, the compensation value would be utterly different. The compensation value is the actual sum which a real buyer would give to a real owner for those premises as a going concern as they are. It is quite obvious that he would give far more for the prosperous than for the un-prosperous house, and the rent of the prosperous house would be no higher than the rent of the unprosperous house. The compensation value, therefore, in the one case would be, and ought to be, very much higher than in the other, but the present gross annual value to the hypothetical tenant would be, and ought to be, exactly the same. The rateable value of these two premises would be, and ought to be, exactly the same because the premises are equal, the capacity for trade, is equal, and the hypothetical tenant, asking himself in one case or the other what rent he would give, would arrive at exactly the same result. One depends on the actual profit, and the other on the opportunity for profit. That being the difference, my objection to the new basis of taxation, as opposed to the present basis, is that the present basis, with all its faults, does not tax the publicans' goodwill. The proposed basis will tax the goodwill and will make it the main subject of taxation.
It was pointed out by the Royal Commission on Liquor Licence Laws that the present annual value does not tax the goodwill, and there can be no question about it. In London there is a practically uniform system of rating assessment to the great advantage of the publican. 761 That was mainly brought about by the action of the county council, who some years ago called a conference of all the rating authorities in the county of London, with the result that they agreed upon certain rules, and thus uniformity is obtained. These rules, of course, vary according to whether the public-house is freehold, or on a long or a short lease, and so on. They pay so much on the land, so much on the building, and so much on the premium. But in every case, however much the other circumstances may vary, the rule is that the premium shall be divided into two equal parts, and that in assessing the present basis the percentage, which is 5 per cent., shall be taken only on one-half and not on the whole of the premium, and that is because half the premium contributed to the premises and the licence, and the other half to the goodwill. It therefore will not be challenged that the present basis does not tax the publican's goodwill. The proposed basis does tax his goodwill. This new basis will have to be ascertained under the direction of the Statutes—the Act of 1904, which refers you again to the Finance Act of 1894—and what is to be ascertained, on the wording of the Act, is the actual sum which an actual purchaser would give for the actual thing in the open market. These Acts were construed in the well-known judgment of Mr. Justice Kennedy, and not merely was there no dispute, when it came to the point, between counsel for the publicans and the Law Officers of the Crown as to the proper basis of taxation, but the taxation was based mainly on goodwill. Take the first of these cases. The figures which were ultimately arrived at by Mr. Justice Kennedy were £1,412 in respect of the capitalised brewers' profits, which were taken at only 10 years, and as against that only £360 for the rent, which was taken at 18 years. This very Sub-section, which I am attacking, upon the face of it demands that profits should be taxed because the latter pant of it provides that no increased value from non-liquor profits is to be taken into account, so that you are going to tax every publican in England, every publican in Scotland, and, as the Bill at present stands, every publican in Ireland, upon his brewers' profits and upon the profits which his brewer makes in his licensed house, that is to say, upon his goodwill, upon his effort, upon his expenditure. The more his trade thrives, the higher the taxation he is to be called upon to pay. We have had placed before us in 762 the course of these Debates figures as to what these increased Licence Duties will mean in individual oases which, to my mind, are positively appalling. All these figures are based on the present basis of taxation, and they all have to be very considerably multiplied again if you are going to adjust them to the proposed basis of taxation. Awful as are the figures which have been quoted, they are and will be much worse in actual practice under the new basis. In view of considerations like these it is a minor objection to this proposed new basis, but I think it is important that it will introduce yet another distinction between on and off-licences. You are to assess the on-licences on one basis and the off-licences on an entirely different and much more advantageous basis.
I think there is some obscurity as to how we stand in regard to Ireland. I gathered from the Prime Minister's speech on Wednesday that his intention is that the Irish houses shall stand permanently on Griffith's valuation. From an observation made yesterday by the Chancellor of the Duchy I rather gathered that that might not be so, and that the Irish houses, perhaps, were to stand on Griffith's valuation, while English and Scotch houses stood on their present basis. If the Irish houses are to remain permanently on Griffith's valuation, which is an annual value, I suppose this Sub-section will not be applied to Ireland at all, because I can hardly imagine that the Government would propose to put the Irish trade and the Irish taxpayer at the cost of valuing every on-licensed house in Ireland merely in order that a restaurant or an exceptional house of £500 may have the advantage, if it is an advantage, of an alternative valuation. I suppose Ireland will stand outside of this machinery altogether. I object on principle to that. I do not at all object, if a case can be made out, to the Irish publican being better treated on the question of the degree of the rate. I can understand that if a country is poor, money scarce, and prices low, he ought to be taxed at a lower rate than the publican in a richer country, but I object that the English and the Scotch publican should be taxed on one principle and the Irish publican on another entirely different. We are accustomed to somewhat startling acrobatic changes of position on the part of the Government, and I do think we have an example of these changes in their sudden warm embrace of the Kennedy judgment—in this suddenly developed and passionate 763 affection for an object which was formerly repulsive. I well remember the observations of the present Prime Minister when he introduced the Licensing Bill, and referred to the judgment of Justice Kennedy. He spoke of it, of course, with great weight and dignity, but in language which I should think is not often employed in this House of a judgment. He deliberately disapproved of it as a judgment. He disapproved of it as failing to give effect to the intention of Parliament. As a judgment I cannot understand how any lawyer can quarrel with it. It appears to me obviously right. However, that is a technical matter. Now what do we find? We find that this much-denounced judgment is not only accepted in the fullest sense, but that it is to be made the basis and foundation of the whole of the licensing system of the United Kingdom.
I venture to say two things in conclusion. The first is that the proposed change is unwise, impolitic, and unjust, because you are changing a tax upon opportunity into a tax upon effort. At present the publican is taxed, not upon what he does, but upon what he has the opportunity to do through the licence which the State has conferred upon him. That appears to me to have a good deal of natural justice and expediency in it. You now propose to shift the tax from opportunity and to put it upon effort. Let us suppose that there are two publicans who are granted equal opportunity to make money. One works harder than the other, he denies himself more than the other, and he has more capacity and thrift than the other, but he is to pay more than his brother who has given to him by the State exactly the same opportunity. We have all of us heard, and especially from the Prime Minister, many weighty speeches made in this House on various aspects of the licensing question. We have heard the right hon. Gentleman again and again base his position on the fact, which is no doubt the only logical basis, that this licence taxation is a contribution exacted by the State in return for a privilege conveyed by the State. That was thrown overboard bodily yesterday in regard to the taxation of the brewer. I do not want to go back upon that, but I would say that it is a great breach in the principle so far as the brewer is concerned. Dealing only with the publican, I venture to say that the proposed new basis is a complete breach of that fundamental principle, and that if you really believe in the principle which you put forward, and to 764 which I have referred, you ought to tax the publican upon his opportunity and not upon his effort.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYI venture to think that the Committee is indebted to the hon. and learned Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Salter) for the speech which he has made. Everybody must be interested in this question, whether Irish, English, or Scotch, and whether he be concerned in public-houses or not, because we are all interested in rates and valuation. I wish at the outset to say that I do not think the learned Solicitor-General was quite accurate last night in his construction of the first part of the Section. The hon. and learned Member for Basingstoke assumed, and I think justly, that the argument on the Treasury Bench is that there is to be a new valuation in this case. But if there is to be a new valuation, that is only to be deducted from the suggestion in the Sub-section that a register is to be prepared. It does not say more than that a register is to be prepared. I maintain that the provision from which we are to gain our intelligence as to the intention of the Government as to whether there is to be one valuation or two as affecting public-houses in future is the first limb of the Section, I say that in England this can only mean the Parochial Assessment Act of 1836, just as in Ireland it means the Irish Valuation Act.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSThe hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong. It is not the Act of 1836, but the Act of 1825.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThen I take the Act of 1825 instead of the other Act. I have them both here. What is the meaning of these words "annual value of any premises"? They are also in Mr. Gladstone's Act of 1880. The same words are in this Bill. I want to know on what principle annual value was assessed under Mr. Gladstone's Act, because if the words are the same it must be the same system of valuation under this Bill. I say that this Bill introduces no new principle, if annual value means the same in both cases. Under what Act was annual value assessed in connection with Mr. Gladstone's Act? I would like an answer to that question. The learned Solicitor-General is not so ready to get up now.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI have answered the question.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYIs the answer that annual value will be ascertained for the 765 purposes of this Clause under the same statute as annual value was ascertained for the purpose of the Act of 1880?
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI will reply later on.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYAm I wrong in asking under what statute annual value was assessed under the Act of 1880? There is no answer to that. We must find under which thimble is the pea. What I respectfully maintain is this. If the words are the same in the Act of 1880 as in this Bill, the system which flows from them must necessarily be the same. It will, therefore, be novel to me that in England the rating authority acted for the purpose of this country, not on the Parochial Assessment Act, but under an earlier Act. certainly it is marvellous to think if you pass an Act in 1836 for the purpose of the valuation that according to the learned Solicitor-General the assessing authority are still to continue to act under the Act of 1825.
I suppose it is only in England that such a thing could occur. In progressive Ireland and Scotland at all events we take the later Act, but in this backward country, in darkest Britain, they prefer the Statute of 1825 to the Statute of 1836. That is the line as laid down by the Solicitor-General. Let me assume, however, that the Government prefer the fresher statute, the fresher emanations of the mind of Parliament to the stale expressions which probably came from the Tory oligarchy rather than from the Parliaments that sat when the people had been enfranchised in the 'thirties—I mean the Parochial Assessment Act. And the point is this, that in framing their valuation for Ireland the authorities of this House, the Government of the day, took the words of the Parochial Assessment Act, and our valuation statutes are a mere replica and echo of the English of 1836. It says: "No rate for the relief of the poor in England or Wales shall be allowed upon any basis or justification which shall not be made upon a valuation of the net annual value of the several hereditaments appertaining thereunto, that is to say of the rent at which the same might reasonably be expected to let from year to year free of all usual tenant's rates and taxes and tithe commutation charge, if any, and deducting there-from the probable average annual cost of the repairs, insurance, and other expenses, if any, necessary to maintain them in a state to command such rent," and so on. That is the Act as it is in Ireland. I am 766 not surprised that the hon. and learned Gentleman above the Gangway should have assumed for the purpose of his argument that a new valuation is to be made; but, if so, I ask where is the authority for it? I say that this is a trap Section, and I say, unless it is analysed, the suggestion will go forth: There is to be one principle of law for rating public-houses and another for rating bakers' shops. Of course, I am well aware that in the Sub-section which the hon. and learned Gentleman proposes to omit, the compensation value is mentioned, but I want to know what authority is going to take it into account? In other words, I want to know who is going to be the rating authority for the publican? Is it the old rating authority, either under the Act of 1825, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred, or the rating authority under the Parochial Assessment Act, or are you to have some hybrid tribunal, a mixture of the two? As yet, so far as my researches have gone—and I have tried to follow the views of the Government—certainly I am in the dark; and I take it that the hon. and learned Gentleman above the Gangway is in the dark, because his Motion is a Motion out of abundance of caution. Let us examine this Sub-section which he proposes to omit, which I say and maintain is ancillary to the first Sub-section. The hon. and learned Gentleman, naturally having regard to the attitude of the Treasury Bench, has treated it as an independent enactment, I maintain it is but an ancillary enactment, and I maintain that the basis of valuation is the ancient basis to be made by the parochial assessment authorities. Until I am told the contrary, if I am told the contrary, I have to ask under what Act, if you do not put in this Bill, he proposes to make the valuation? The Section which the hon. and learned Gentleman proposes to omit I maintain is nothing but the creation of a register. A valuing authority is to some extent an independent tribunal. A registering authority is a wholly different thing. The census authority would be a registering authority. Take the Act passed two or three years ago—the Census of Trades Act. Anything like that would be a registering authority. There is no executive authority there.
I want to know is the hon. Gentleman above the Gangway right in his opinion that a new executive authority is being created, and if, so is it to be applied to England, Ireland, and Scotland? Because that is the whole point. I hope that hon. 767 Gentlemen do not think that I am so altruistic as to be interested in England and Scotland. I am only a parishioner. I care for nothing in the world but Ireland. Therefore, so far as my interest in this case is concerned, I am only groping through England and Scotland on to Ireland. It says, "It shall be the duty of the Commissioners"—Is this a duty which they are discharging in aid of the parochial assessment body, or is it a duty which they are discharging in aid of an alleged taxing authority which they themselves will exercise?—"as soon as possible to prepare and keep correctly a register as respects all fully licensed premises and public-houses and beer-houses respectively, of the amount to be payable as compensation in respect of the premises under Section 2 of the Licensing Act of 1904, if the premises were premises in respect of which compensation was payable under that Act and of the sum which was to be ascertained for the purpose of discharging the annual equivalent for that amount, and same shall be certified respectively by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue." To whom—and that is the whole point in this case—are you going to give that certificate? I never can understand this system of playing Blind Tom in the House of Commons, especially in a taxing statute. I maintain that a taxing statute should be so plain that the humblest man in the community should understand it. Will every-body understand this? The hon. and learned Gentleman above the Gangway has from the point of view of the Treasury Bench rightly treated this as an independent, enactment. Let us have an answer to the question: Is this an independent enactment or is it ancillary to the older method of taxation? That is a simple proposition. And are the parochial authorities such fools that they need this instruction unless it covered something occult that we did not understand? What would be their duty supposing this Sub-section was never in the Bill, and supposing I was the local Mr. Lumley, who, to my mind, embodies now the whole of the essence of the lion and the unicorn, because I am referring to the lion and the unicorn as being the whole British system. Let us suppose for a moment that Mr. Lumley has cast upon him the duty of valuing a public-house in England, and let us suppose that the compensation to be paid under the Licensing Act of 1904 for that house is £10,000. Would Mr. 768 Lumley be such an ass in relation to the directions in the statute as not to take that fact into account? I want to know, also, on what principle, in a country where this compensation question does not exist, namely, Scotland and Ireland, on what principle the Irish Mr. Lumley, Mr. O'Rafferty Lumley, will proceed. Of course, whenever one is in trouble about any question of rating in England one always turns to the most modern book on the subject, and I should like to read a sentence or two as to the principles of law on which public-houses are valued, and I will ask any man to tell me what those principles are. A learned authority, Mr. Ryde, is unable to determine them for himself. On page 420 of his book he says:—
There has been not a little conflict of judicial opinion in cases decided with reference to the rating of public-houses.The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite will answer me that it is perfectly clear; he has not a moment's doubt as to the principle. The hon. and learned Gentleman also said that this is a matter for lawyers, and that the Member for Worcester should take his instructions from lawyers. If he takes his instructions from lawyers I see in this volume there has been "not a little conflict of judicial opinion." The author then goes on to say:—Nor can it be said that the principle on which, or the way in which their rateable value must be determined, is clearly established.So that the judges themselves, including the Lords and the Court of Appeal in this country, have not yet made up their minds as to the principle on which public-houses should be valued. I now ask, therefore, what is the meaning of this new ingredient which is to be infiltrated into the question of the valuation of publicans' licences. It cannot affect the value of a publicans' licence that some man in Somerset House has a register. It cannot affect my age that somebody told a lie about it 40 years ago, except for the purpose of the census. The question is, what is to be done with this register, what operative effect is it going to have? That is the snake in the grass which, if I may respectfully say so, the hon. Gentleman above the Gangway has unmasked. I do not know what is the proper sporting term to use in this House, but, whatever it be, the hon. Gentleman above the Gangway has done good service in bringing this matter forward. He also asked a question with regard to Ireland, and that is the question which I am anxious to have settled. In reading this 769 section at the beginning, if you put before the word "It" the words "in England," which are omitted, you would make it read "In England it shall be the duty of the, Commissioners," or rather, "the Commissioners in Somerset House, to get a new jurisdiction over both Ireland and Scotland." Are they to frame this register in Scotland and in Ireland, omitting the provisions dealing with licences of the Act of 1904? These are the points on which I respectfully submit we are entitled to an answer. The law is uncertain already as to the method upon which public-houses are to be dealt with. The right hon. Gentleman said last night, as I understood him, that it was to be in future the intention of the Government that the value of the duty is not to be allowed as deduction. That is a new principle of law. It is a new principle of law both in England and in Ireland. In every rating case that has been decided in both countries the question has been what the hypothetical tenant would give. Now you have started with the rating of public-houses on a new register and on a new principle. It is not to be rent, it is not to be value, it is to be Lumley. All I ask is this: What is the equation for Lumley in £ s. d.?
§ 1.0 P.M
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSThe hon. and learned Gentleman divided his observations into two parts. In the first part, the longest, the most amusing, and the most inaccurate, he dealt with the first Subsection which was passed by the House last night. The second part is a matter which is now before the Committee, namely, the establishment of a new register and the principle of valuation in the new valuation scheme. With the last point I do not intend to deal, and, so far as it is concerned, it will be dealt with by my right hon. Friend. I have only got up now in response either to a polite request or a fierce challenge given by my hon. and learned Friend opposite, and, although it is out of order, I propose to deal with it quite shortly, and, I hope, quite fairly. The hon. and learned Gentleman has been very busy since last night.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYExcept in bed.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI was assuming that. The hon. and learned Gentleman was here until about three o'clock this morning, and it must be pretty obvious, I think, that he could hardly have been in bed at all. His speech shows that his researches during the night were researches 770 made entirely in the wrong channel. He argues that the statute which is applicable. is the Parochial Assessment Act of 1836., It has nothing whatsoever to do with the ascertainment of the annual value of public-houses for the purpose of Excise Duty—absolutely nothing to do with it. The Acts of Parliament dealing with the assessment of annual value for the purpose of Excise are the Act of 1825, and the amending Act, in small particulars, of 1834. The parochial authorities have nothing to do with the matter. The people who assess the annual value for the purpose of Excise Duties are the Commissioners of Excise. Therefore, if the foundation of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument is wrong, as it undoubtedly is, upon this question, there can be no conflict either of law or of fact. If the foundation on which he has argued is wrong, the whole of his argument falls to the ground. I do suggest that if he again, spends another sleepless night in order to get up his case for the next morning he should pursue his researches in the correct channel, and come armed with the correct law and the correct statutes applicable to the question.
§ Mr. G. YOUNGERIt is no light task to follow in this Debate after the very brilliant speeches which have been made, and particularly the last speech, which, even if inaccurate, was of the most brilliant and interesting character. It was one of those speeches which the Government heartily dislike, and which we are very glad to welcome here, as we welcomed last winter the assistance of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. T. M. Healy) when we were discussing the concrete question. I am concerned in this matter to emphasise, so far as Scotland is concerned, the objections which the hon. and learned Member for Louth made on this question in regard to Ireland. I was very much astonished last night when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, with that political instinct which is unerring, challenged the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy as to why Scotland has not been dealt with, to hear the Chancellor of the Duchy say in reply that Scotland is already dealt with under this Sub-section. All I have got to say is this: That if Scotland is already dealt with under the Sub-section, the Sub-section is very curiously inaccurate. The point has been raised already by the hon. and learned Member for Louth. The Sub-section reads: "It shall be the duty of the Commissioners, as soon as may be, 771 to prepare and to keep corrected, a register as respects all fully licensed premises and beer-houses respectively of the amount which would be payable as compensation in respect of the premises under Sub-section (1) of Section 2 of the Licensing Act, 1904, if the premises were premises in respect of which compensation was payable under that Act … "What premises in Scotland are premises in which compensation is payable under that Act? There is no such thing. The right hon. Gentleman was entirely wrong, absurdly wrong, and it is an astounding thing that he could have made such a declaration at all. He must really have risen for the first time to the knowledge that Scotland, although intended to be included, was not really included in this Sub-section, and it cannot be included without some further Amendment, which, I suppose, we shall have further on when we come to deal with the case.
The basis which it is now proposed to take as an alternative under Clause 31 to this valuation is the basis apparently of the Kennedy judgment, that judgment which the Prime Minister so effectively condemned from his point of view when we were dealing with the Licensing Bill of last year. I am really sorry for the Prime Minister in these discussions. He always has to protect himself in some kind of way against his past, or to stand up to an impossible position as he did yesterday. In this matter I am afraid the chickens have come home to roost. It is no use saying that it is not to be the principle of the Kennedy judgment, because I have got the most recent edition of the Budget speech. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was kind enough to send it to me, as I suppose he did to everyone else, and I am very much obliged to him for it. He says, "We have, therefore, come to the conclusion"—this must be correct, because it is the revised edition—"that there should be a valuation based upon the principle upon which the publicans for the time being receive compensation, and therefore generally accepted by the trade as an equitable basis for the present value of their monopoly." That is plain enough now, and there is no good in anyone on the Government Bench standing up and saying that they do not intend to apply the Kennedy judgment, because that is in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech. There is another point about this recently revised speech. The original speech was furnished 772 with cross-headings, and so is the revised edition. The cross-heading in the original speech was "Inadequate Assessment." May I point out with some interest that the word "inadequate" has disappeared from the revised edition, and the cross-heading is now "Assessment of Licensed Premises," a very harmless and different cross-heading, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer desires now that those who read this revision, and who will have forgotten the original, should forget that he was proposing this in order to get more money, land not to give the trade an advantage by taking less out of them.
I come now to consider the existing system, and I wish to say I am speaking of Scotland. I do not wish to deal with the English case; I do not pretend to be able to do that. What is the existing system of valuation in Scotland, and who makes that valuation of licensed premises? They are for the most part made by the official assessors, who are supplied by Somerset House, and they also, in certain cases, I believe, revise the assessment made by local assessors. There are a few in Scotland still appointed by the locality, but the Somerset House authorities do not accept their valuation of those premises. In the main, you may take it that the whole of the assessment, upon which at the present moment the Licence Duty in Scotland is based, is made practically by the Somerset House officials under the provisions of the Valuation Act of 1857. We have always had a complaint against those valuations, and we have a complaint against them now, because of the system of valuation being based upon the condition that the rent shall be a rent which the premises if let by the year would produce from an occupier of a free house. They are all free houses, and in these free houses any assessor you ask in Scotland will tell you quite frankly that you cannot quite carry out a principle of that kind, and wholly eliminate the element of tenant's goodwill, which the Prime Minister repeatedly told us across the floor last year he did not think was a suitable thing to include. That was what he called the local monopoly value which attached to the licence or the restrictive privilege.
§ The PRIME MINISTERPersonal goodwill.
§ Mr. YOUNGERI do not wish to convey anything that the Prime Minister did not say. The valuation of that personal goodwill inevitably comes to be included in those valuations in Scotland because a willing tenant is always ready to give a 773 part of that in taking over premises of that kind, although a very infinitesimal part, but still he is willing to give a part. In so far as he gives that part, and as that part is included in the valuation of those premises to that extent, the basis is wrong for the purpose of this duty, and to a much greater extent, of course, when the whole of the goodwill is taken in under this Kennedy judgment on the new basis. I know that the House is pretty tired of discussions on monopoly value. I do not doubt that the Prime Minister is rather sick of the question, which was a great trouble to him last year.
§ The PRIME MINISTERNot at all.
§ Mr. YOUNGERHe made a very valiant attempt to deal with it, but, in my judgment, he did not succeed, for the reason that the valuations, on which he based his belief that he had found a solution of the difficulty as to the monopoly value, included those very elements of which I have been speaking, and therefore that interest was roped in on the estimate of the value. The Prime Minister shakes his head, but I think, if he will inquire of the authorities who were responsible for the endeavour to find that monopoly value, he will find that there was, under Schedule A valuation, a certain amount of personal goodwill which I have mentioned. If he does not agree I can tell him it is the fact. I will bring half a dozen Somerset House assessors to tell him it is included, and if he will not take it from me he will believe them. If that be so, the definition cannot be correct if the Prime Minister is carrying out the elements of the valuation which he said ought alone to be considered in dealing with this matter. The idea of the Government now is to acquire the monopoly value, and again they confuse monopoly value with compensation value. They were always confusing the two last year. It is extremely difficult to get speakers on the Other side to understand that monopoly value is one thing and compensation value another, and that the value in the Act of 1904 for an old licence was a totally different thing from the value under the same Act for the granting of a new licence. The Government will have to make another trial. Again, speaking for Scotland, I do not think it is any use attempting to deal with the question on anything like the lines which Mr. Justice Kennedy adopted, because the cases are so totally different. Brewers there do not hold leased houses at all. The publicans in Scotland are 774 quite free, and in this Bill they are being seriously punished because they are free. I always understood from hon. Members opposite that it was very desirable that Scotland should be kept clear of the tied-house system as is exists in England; but now these poor, unfortunate people, of whom speaker after speaker last year used to speak in admiration, are thrown away as if they were a rotten and noisome thing, and ought to be penalised in every possible way. I think the Scottish trade will agree with me that, while they wholly object to these Licence Duties, and while the duties on the on-licence holder are so extremely onerous as to make it practically certain that many of them will be entirely ruined, if there is to be an alternative of any kind it ought to be the existing valuation as it stands on the Statute Book, with some kind of reasonable reduction for the personal goodwill, which unquestionably is roped into that valuation at present. Then it might be fairer, at all events, than it is now, although there would still be inequalities—and in any system of that kind there would be inequalities. You cannot get rid of the goodwill. That is really why it is so difficult to apply any basis of fairness or equality in dealing with this question at all. I am bound to say that in my opinion, so far as Scotland is concerned, it is no good trying to evolve an alternative of this kind. I do not think it is wanted. I believe that some such proposal as I have made would be much more satisfactory.
§ The CHAIRMANI do not know that I understand this Sub-section entirely, but as I read it it is not a taxing Sub-section unless for certain exceptional cases. Therefore it seems to me we ought not to be discussing the question how annual value in Scotland should be arrived at or what should be taxed there; it does not seem to me to be relevant.
§ Mr. YOUNGERThis Sub-section provides a new basis for the purpose of taxation. That is precisely what it does.
§ The CHAIRMANI really want to know whether that is the case or not.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThis Sub-section comes into operation immediately throughout the three Kingdoms with respect to the valuation of hotels and public-houses of over £500 a year annual value. So that in that respect it is a taxing Subsection. It further enables a basis to be arrived at on which, in a subsequent 775 Finance Bill, the whole duty may be shifted from the annual assessable value of all licensed premises to this new compensation basis.
§ The CHAIRMANIn that case the hon. Member is in order.
§ Mr. YOUNGERI have been trying all through to show the inapplicability of this basis as compared with the existing system. There are faults in that, and there are certainly grievous faults in this. The monopoly is charged upon a basis which includes everything which the Prime Minister says ought to be excluded when you are trying to find out the monopoly value. Whatever my English friends may say, I think everyone admits that the proposal is totally inapplicable in Scotland. We do not desire the Government to attempt to apply this Sub-section in Scotland; we shall be glad to be left alone, on condition that they make some honest and fair attempt to take out of the existing valuation those elements, including personal goodwill, which the Prime Minister has said ought not to be included.
§ Mr. CHARLES ROBERTSHon. Members on the other side have not, I think, sufficiently appreciated the importance of this Sub-section. I, for my part, wish to express my thanks to the Government for providing in the future this new basis of taxation, which is, I think, of real value and importance. I can quite understand that the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. T. Healy) does not wholly appreciate its value, but that is because, I think, to use his own phrase, he sees the lion and the unicorn all over. Apart from the Irish suspicion of British treatment of Ireland, I really believe that this new basis has some considerable element of value which I should have thought would have been appreciated on the other side. It has been described as a very novel basis of valuation. But what has the other side been saying during previous Debates? It has been complaining about the basis of annual value. It says that the present basis is unfair, and that if you carry annual value into the higher range of licensed premises you are taxing not merely the privilege or the monopoly of the supply of alcohol, but also the site value and the structure. That was put very forcibly in the case of London houses. The Government have attempted in the Bill to meet that to some extent. I have 776 always admitted, as everybody who looks into the subject must admit, that the basis, of annual value is unfair, and is doing something which we do not want to do. We do not wish to penalise the genuine hotel business. If a hotel keeper or a publican, develops other branches of his trade, and erects stables ox a motor garage, on the present basis of annual value, you tax him more highly. What we want to get at is to tax on the basis of alcoholic trade done. I think there has been a very genuine desire shown in the Amendments put on the Paper to get away from the basis of annual value on to the basis of alcoholic trade done. Various suggestions have been made—sales, purchases, and what not. I myself, in thinking about the subject, found myself driven to the opinion that this compensation basis is, perhaps, on the whole, the fairest way for the purpose of taxation if what you wish to tax is the basis of the alcoholic trade done. An hon. and learned Member described this as being an entirely novel basis. After all, it is the basis on which you tax the publican for the purpose of the Death Duties. It is not so absolutely novel as all that. It is the basis, again, which, rightly or wrongly, was made the ground of compensation when licensed houses are taken away. It is really pretty familiar as a basis. If you, therefore, wish, as I say, to tax these houses on the basis of the alcoholic trade done, the first idea which occurs to everybody is to tax the publican on his sales. Quite apart from the objection which has been mentioned that such a tax would include goodwill, it is exceedingly difficult to take this basis, because many publicans in the country do not keep accounts, and you would have the unfortunate Commissioners of Inland Revenue wrestling with the individual publican's till all over the country. You would have inextricable confusion, and a very large chance of evasion, if you take it on the basis of the publican's sales. If you are really going to tax on the basis of the alcoholic trade, aparently you will have to tax both on the basis of the rent and on the basis of the trade profits; and that is practically what you do in this basis which is taken in this measure. Therefore, I think, if you wish to tax on the basis of alcoholic trade done, this new basis which is proposed in this Sub-section, to be applied immediately in certain cases, and perhaps in all cases in some future Budget, is on the whole the best plan which can be taken. Then it has been 777 charged upon us that we accept, whereas a few months ago we criticised, the Kennedy judgment. Apparently all sides of the House may in this Debate be changing weapons and rapiers. At all events, it does not come well from the other side to attack the Kennedy judgment. They said in many speeches that it was the only way at which you could get at the real market value of the premises. They said—they quoted the Courts as saying—that it was not merely a fair way of getting the market value, but it was the only way by which, at all events in England and Wales, you can get at the real market value. The Leader of the Opposition claimed that the principles of the Kennedy judgment were absolutely impossible to upset. He said:—
There had been laid down unmistakeably two principles on the face of the Act of 1894; first, that the Inland Revenue should value a man's property for compensation exactly as for taxation; and, secondly, that the proper principle for dealing with all questions of valuation was the market value of the property they were going to take away.And he urged over and over again that you must:—Compensate and tax on one and the same basis.This Clause secures one and the same basis for Death Duties, for compensation, and now for Licence Duty. Surely you can take the same basis in trying to get at the market value? I withdraw from no criticism I have made on the Kennedy judgment. The principles may be all right, but the actual way in which it works out is it gives for the purposes of compensation too much. I believe the factors are estimated too highly. The capitalisation is put too high, but in this case the capital sum is to be translated into terms of annual value, and any error due to over high capitalisation will be adjusted. The hon. Member for the Ayr Burghs says, How is it going to apply to Scotland? Well, he remembers perfectly well that it was Lord Justice Kennedy who said where you have a true rack rent you need not look into the brewer's profit. You could simply capitalise the true rack-rent, and find the true market value by that. I understand he claims that the present valuation in Scotland does give you a true rack rent of the premises.
§ Mr. YOUNGERI am sorry to interrupt. It gives unquestionably the rack rent. That rent includes an element which the Prime Minister says ought not to be included.
§ Mr. C. ROBERTSThat is according to the principles of this judgment interpret- 778 ing the Act of 1894. It gives you the true rack rent by which you will be able to find the true market value.
§ Mr. YOUNGERYou get the personal goodwill.
§ Mr. C. ROBERTSI will come to that shortly. Lord Justice Kennedy's judgment says:—
You may be able fairly to find the market value by a capitalisation of the annual value based upon a true rack rent. Such an owner presumably gets, not merely the normal rent appropriate to the character of the hereditament, but also an addition to such rent attributable to the existence of the licence.That, I imagine, would apply to Scotland.
§ Mr. YOUNGERIt would be a wrong application.
§ Mr. C. ROBERTSIf there is one thing perfectly plain in the Kennedy judgment as interpreting the Act of 1904 it is this: In arriving at the market value the element of the goodwill of the publican must be excluded. It always is excluded. It is absolutely laid down in the Kennedy judgment that it should be excluded. Lord Justice Kennedy said:—
I proceed now to consider the propriety of the inclusion in the amount of compensation of a sum representing that which is called the interest of the tenant of the licensed premises. I do not think that any such addition is authorised by the statutes which govern these proceedings.It is true, when you have arrived at the market value under this judgment, you find out what is supposed to be the total of the market value of the brewer and owner. You then carve out, by a very illogical method, a certain amount of money which you hand over to the tenant, not in substitution of his interest. It has no relation to it. It is quite clear, even if you take the Kennedy judgment, that the personal goodwill of the publican cannot be included. He is expressly excluded by the terms of that judgment. I am quite ready to admit that the local goodwill which arises, which passes into the rent, and which goes into the hands of the brewer, would be included, and is quite rightly included, because that is part of the monopoly, part of the privilege which accrues from the existence of the licence; but the whole interest of the tenant, the publican, is not included. I want to point out really what the value is. It is the just and fair, but also the correct, value that we all desire to get at. When we get away from the annual value to the basis of the trade done we find the more exclusively the publican devotes himself to the alcoholic trade the more you tax 779 him. The more he develops any other branch of industry, such as a genuine hotel business, the business of providing food as distinct from that of drink, the less you tax him.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYWhere does that appear in the Bill?
§ Mr. C. ROBERTSIt does appear in the Bill, for it says it shall be the duty of the Commissioners to keep a register of value of all those premises.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThe pledge of the Prime Minister was that Ireland was to be governed by Griffith's valuation.
§ Mr. C. ROBERTSI want to deal with England and Scotland; and I say that in arriving at the compensation value you deduct from the market value the unlicensed value—the value which the premises would bear for any other purposes except those of the alcoholic trade, and therefore we have these premises valued for any other trade which does not require a licence, and the value attributable to that is deducted before you put on the tax. Therefore it will be distinctly in the interests of the publican to develop the other side of the licensed trader's business on the non-alcoholic side, and so far as he devotes himself to that branch, exactly in so far will his taxation be lessened, and therefore you are giving the greatest possible encouragement to the publican to restrict his alcoholic trade and to develop other branches of his industry. It is for that reason the House may really welcome this, and they will, I think, express their thanks to the Government for having made this preparatory attempt to reach a much sounder foundation for taxation.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHI think the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is somewhat sanguine in assuming an expression of thanks either from these benches or any other to the Government for the proposals contained in the Sub-section which my hon. and learned Friend has moved to omit. Indeed, it has now become quite clear that the Committee is discussing one of the most momentous and, I venture to say, one of the most unconsidered proposals of all those contained in this remarkable Budget. Before I approach the main objection to this Sub-section there are one or two small points of which, perhaps, some explanation might be helpful. 780 I myself attempted to construe the Section with such small skill as one can find, and I had considerable difficulty in disentangling the various functions of the two bodies of Commissioners. We find, in the first place, it is provided that it shall be the duty of the Commissioners, as soon as may be, to prepare and keep a register. Now I assume if one reads Sub-section (2), Clause 74, that the Commissioners here are the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, because, looking at that Sub-section, it is there provided any reference to the Commissioners in Part II., Part VI., or Part VII. of this Act, shall be construed as a reference to the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, and any reference to the Commissioners in any other part of the Act shall be construed with reference to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. It appears to follow from that the Commissioners of Customs and Excise are to keep a register of the compensation value and the annual compensation value of licensed premises. On that we find that in the Section and Sub-sections I have read that these values are to be certified by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. Does that mean that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue are to ascertain and certify the valuers and that the Commissioners of Excise have then to register them? I think that is so; if not, what is the object of the certificate of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue? If, on the other hand, by Sub-section 3 of the Clause w e are now considering it is the Commisioners of Customs and Excise who are to ascertain the value, it is clear that even in these few lines there is certainly need of some emendation. Of course, the real importance of the Sub-section goes very much further than any question of the machinery of the Commisioners. The point is, and let the Committee face it clearly, and let the country understand it clearly, that the arrangements which are made under this Sub-section show the same recklessness and crazy methods in regard to the valuation of licensed premises as that which was shown in connection with valuation under the Land Clauses of the Budget. The words of the Subsection are, "all the Commissioners are to do is, as soon as may be, to prepare and keep a correct register." It is to be quite inexpensive, is to be a matter of the greatest simplicity. You send down a few representatives and you prepare and keep a register showing the value. As my hon. and learned Friend pointed out, that is not the object of the Chancellor of the Ex- 781 chequer, and it is not the purpose disclosed by him in the speech introducing the Finance Bill. He says we have come to the conclusion that it is essential in order to ensure fair treatment between one publican and another that there should be a valuation upon the principles upon which the publicans for the time being receive compensation. Let the Committee face this point. There is going to be a valuation of all the licensed premises in the country on a novel and hypothetical basis and with no estimate given to the Committee or the country as to what the cost of this valuation is to be. That is a proposal which everyone will conceive is a bold and a, startling one in dealing with a fiscal Bill for raising revenue which is difficult to find. What is the justification for this new valuation? The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told the Committee perfectly plainly what the justification of the valuation means. I say its object, as far as the present financial Bill is concerned, is insignificant and contemptible. It has two objects only. They are as inconsiderable as the immediate yield of the Land Clauses of the Budget, but it can be immediately invoked to two purposes, and to two purposes only. The first is to apply an alternative method of calculating the Licence Duty in hotels and restaurants, and the second is to apply an alternative method of arriving at the duty to be paid for ordinary on-licences and to the provisions applicable to retailers' on-licences. So that this valuation, as to the cost, complexity, and the oppressive incidence of which I will say a word later, is justified so far as the present financial year is concerned on these two grounds: that it applies an alternative method of calculating the duty in hotels and an alternative method of calculating the duty on on-licences.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has stated clearly that the real justification for this valuation is that it will furnish a method in future financial years for taxing the publican upon a new basis. What evidence has been given up to now that the Government have appreciated in any way the difficulties lying in the way of making this valuation? There is to be a register showing the amount which would be payable as compensation under the Licensing Act if the premises were premises in respect of which compensation is payable. Some hon. Members who do not happen to be cognisant of these matters professionally might imagine it was a very simple thing to determine in any par- 782 ticular licensed premises what the amount of compensation payable would be. Such a conclusion is wholly unjustified by the facts. I have been engaged in these cases and many of them have gone up on appeal. But they went up on appeal because we were construing a new provision in a new Act, and many principles of the law had to be determined. Even now, after many inquiries, after all the principles have been clearly defined by the Kennedy judgment, in respect of new houses to-day, it always takes weeks and sometimes months for the highly experienced compensation authorities to determine the value of licences under this Section. What is the extent of the burden imposed on valuers under this Clause? There are 120,000 licences to which this Sub-section will apply, and the conclusion is that the Government have to make a valuation the subject-matter of which will be the compensation value of 120,000 licences, although it is common knowledge among valuers and those engaged in this compensation business that it takes individual consideration for each case of a very protracted character. Those familiar with this subject know that the compensation value is not steady, but is constantly fluctuating. I could take hon. Members to licensed premises in streets in Liverpool and point out houses in respect of which the compensation value three years ago was totally different from what it is today. We are told that it is right that the compensation levy should be paid by the trade, but why? Because, when you take away one licensed house, the value of the remaining houses in pounds, shillings, and pence is increased to the survivors, and it is right that they should pay. There will have to be not only an original valuation of 120,000 houses, but you will also have to revalue those licensed premises. I do not say that it will be necessary to have a revaluation every year, but it would be necessary to have it at periods of two or three years. But that does not exhaust the difficulties. You have to determine what is the equivalent in annual value of the compensation values. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken said that a somewhat anomalous result has followed, viz., that hon. Gentlemen opposite are now recommending the Kennedy judgment and we are impeaching it. That is somewhat of a paradox, and, in a sense, there is an element of truth in it. The Government said: "We will determine the Equivalent in annual value of the capital compensation 783 values by calling in aid the Kennedy judgment." They have not done that to call in question our arguments of last year—they have done it for one reason, and one reason only. They have done it because it is the only method of providing and determining the equivalent in annual value of the capital compensation. The hon. Gentleman developed an argument in which he attempted to show that the Kennedy judgment did not include personal goodwill. I agree with him. There is a sense in which the Kennedy judgment did not include personal goodwill, but I need hardly point out that the line between personal goodwill—that is the value due to the personal popularity of a given individual, and such goodwill as may be stated in the terms of the enhanced value of the licensed premises because of the assiduity of the business methods pursued—is extremely shadowy. When all these deductions are made the conclusion follows that if you take two men with two premises, the value of which is precisely equal, in which the facilities for doing business are equal; if one of those two men, by his devotion to business, by adopting better business methods, and by his assiduity and popularity has made his business a flourishing one, so that the results are twice as good as those shown by the other man with equal opportunities because he has not shown the same business capacity; under the Kennedy judgment terms, if you use that as a means of reducing compensation values to annual values, you are going to tax goodwill. That, I contend, is a profoundly erroneous method of dealing with a question of taxation. There is another point which certainly deserves more consideration, and that is the farcical absurdity of this proposal in its application to Scotland. The hon. Member for Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy) stated that he was only groping through England to find his way to Ireland. I hold, in this respect, no more a brief for Ireland than he holds for England. When we are dealing with Ireland and the grotesque absurdities which have been exposed by the hon. and learned Member, I am astounded at the indifference with which those anomalies appear to be received by every representative from Ireland except the hon. and learned Member for Louth. What is the position as far as Ireland is concerned? It is common knowledge that the provisions of our licensing laws, so far as compensation is concerned, do not apply 784 to Scotland or Ireland. If you wish to arrive at a new method of valuing either Irish or Scotch property for the purposes of taxation the last method that would be adopted by any clear-headed financier would be to say we will arrive at the value of licensed premises in Ireland by assuming not that a state of things applies today which everybody knows does not apply to-day; the Government have thought proper to take another course. The position is this. Your valuers are not only concerned with going to the 120,000 on-licensed premises in England in order to discover what the compensation value would be, but they are also to go to Ireland where there is none of that machinery existing for ancillary purposes which exists in this country. Your representative in Liverpool is a highly trained official accustomed to dealing with licensed premises, and he can give you the benefit of the experience he has had for the past three years. Since the Compensation Act was passed a number of licenses have been taken away under the provisions of that Act. You have the benefit of that experience to go upon. But take the case of a Gentleman who has to make a journey to Ireland to discover the compensation value of licensed premises, in order to discover what is to be the new compensation value of these licensed premises in Ireland which have never received compensation and were never involved in the provisions of our Bill, I do not know the number which will be affected, but nobody will deny it is very considerable. We will say, for the sake of argument, it is 17,000. You are going to send your valuer to Ireland and to Scotland, and are going to ask him to take 17,000 licensed premises in Ireland and an equal number in Scotland, and prepare a register which is, in fact, a valuation, upon the double hypothesis that those licences have been taken away and compensation paid, when, in fact, the Act does not apply at all to either Scotland or Ireland. What becomes of the statement made by the Prime Minister a short time ago that, so far as Ireland is concerned, there was going to be no valuation, but they were going to deal with Griffith's valuation? It is perfectly clear this valuation is to be applied to Ireland just as much as to Scotland and England. If we are going to have a valuation of all the licensed premises for this purpose in Scotland, Ireland and England, is it unreasonable to ask the Government if they have prepared any estimate of the cost of this valuation regis- 785 ter for each of the three Kingdoms? Are there any data they can place before the Committee before asking it to consent to this register which, in dealing with the simpler problem, though the very much larger problem numerically, will enable them to say, "We estimate the taking of the register in this country will cost such and such a sum." If they have such estimates they will, no doubt, influence the Committee in dealing with the Amendment. Have you any such information in your possession with reference to Ireland and Scotland? What is going to be the cost in the case of Ireland and Scotland? Many thousands of licences have been taken away in England, and you can here say, "We have got 120,000—
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANS120,000 was the figure I gave for the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHI am very much obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman, who has kindly pointed out that 120,000 is the number for the United Kingdom. I think I am right in saying that the English number is 90,000. You have had some experience which will give you some data so far as England is concerned, but in the ease of Ireland and Scotland you have no data at all, and the Government at a time when they are saying they cannot raise the necessary revenue for the year, for two entirely subordinate purposes, namely, to provide alternative methods of calculating the duty on "on" licences and hotels, are going to plunge the whole licensing trade of England, Scotland, and Ireland into unrest, and to turn loose an army of officials to make inaccurate calculations of the amount of duty to be paid; and they are going to involve the taxpayers of the country in a burden wholly disproportionate to the results to be obtained in the present year or any other year.
§ 2.0 P.M.
§ The CHANCELLOR of the DUCHY of LANCASTER (Mr. H. Samuel)The hon. Member for Basing-stoke (Mr. Clavell Salter), in a very interesting speech which he made a little while ago, asked what, after all, was the justification and purpose of this Sub-section. It is included in the Bill because the Government frankly re-cognise that the annual gross rateable value of licensed premises is far from being an ideal basis for the levying of Licence Duties, and when the Licence Duties are increased—in some cases considerably increased, as they will be under this Bill—the anomalies of the present sys- 786 tem become more and more apparent, and the hardships which the present system may involve become necessarily increased. The hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Clavell Salter) admits this contention is sound, and that the annual value is far from being an ideal method of arriving at the subject on which you wish to charge a Licence Duty. At present the annual value, of course, depends very largely upon the worth of the buildings as buildings. The effect of that is that the more you improve the buildings of your licensed premises the more heavily you are charged for Licence Duties. The consequence is the heaviest charge falls upon the best houses, upon those that while all most wish to encourage, while the lightest charge falls upon the worst houses, upon the small, inconvenient premises in back streets, which may, nevertheless, be doing an extremely large liquor business, and which ought to be charged a higher sum than other substantial and well-managed houses in another part of the town. Furthermore, the present system tends to discourage publicans from enlarging their premises in order to do restaurant business, or the old business of an innkeeper, or enlarging their premises in order to provide accommodation for motorists, building garages, and so forth. The system of merely taking building value plus licence value has that effect. That, I think, will be generally admitted on all sides.
We, therefore, propose that the entire basis for levying these Licence Duties should be changed. What the State really ought to tax is not the value of the premises licensed, but the licence value itself. That is the real subject with which the State ought to endeavour to deal. The valuation, however, necessarily cannot be completed within a brief period. It is a process that must take time, and therefore it is obviously impracticable in the present Bill, which deals with the taxation of the year up to 31st March next, to shift the basis of this taxation from the present system to an entirely new system throughout the country; but we do propose straightway to make this new valuation in respect of certain classes of premises with regard to which the hardship on the present basis would be specially great. The hon. Member for the Walton Division of Liverpool (Mr. F. E. Smith) said so far as the taxation of this year is concerned the application of this Clause would be insignificant and contemptible. That is far from being the case. The hotel and restaurant interest is a great interest 787 indeed, and, if we were to make no distinction in their case, but were merely to charge them in reference to their annual value, we should undoubtedly be imposing upon them an intolerable hardship. Consequently we propose this new system should come in at their option at once. This is mere justice, and it is a very great difference for the advantage of hotels and restaurants. No one can seriously contend it is an insignificant and contemptible concession. Further, all the public-houses throughout the country which have a rental value of £500 can claim straightway to be assessed on compensation value instead of annual value, and pay one-third of compensation value in taxation. That fact is of very great importance. It affects a very large proportion of the houses in London and no insignificant portion of the houses throughout the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYIs the right hon. Gentleman speaking of the three Kingdoms?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELYes, I am. When the register is completed, it is the intention of the Government to apply this principle generally as being a more just and equitable basis of taxation. The hon. Member for Ayr said he was unable to understand why Scotland was not included in this Sub-section.
§ Mr. YOUNGERDoes the Sub-section cover all the three Kingdoms?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELYes.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYHear, hear. How can we believe the Prime Minister? It is contrary to the undertaking given in reference to Ireland.
§ Mr. YOUNGERMy complaint was that the Section was wholly inadequate.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI understood the hon. Member to say that it would not apply to Scotland, and I thought he was making an error in that interpretation. The Sub-section says it shall be the duty of the Commissioners to keep a register in respect of all fully-licensed premises and beer-houses. Obviously, the term means "all fully-licensed premises to which this Act applies" and is not in any way limited to England and Wales. It covers the three Kingdoms, and, consequently, the effect is the application of this Clause to licensed premises throughout the three Kingdoms.
§ Mr. YOUNGERBut, if you take the words of the Section, you will see I am not far wrong, because it is limited to premises in respect of compensation. I say there are no such premises in Scotland.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe Subsection does not say it shall apply to premises which are entitled to receive compensation under the Act of 1904; it is to apply to all premises, and they will be assessed in the manner set out. The hon. Member for Louth, who cheers very vigorously every word I utter, surely must have realised that the plain application of this Sub-section is not limited to those licensed premises which now come within the purview of the Act of 1904. It applies to the whole of the three Kingdoms principles which are embodied in the Act of 1904.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThat is not what the Prime Minister said.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI will deal presently with the pledge given by the Prime Minister.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYA pledge which sent all the Irish Members home.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will not persist in these interruptions. The pledge given by the Prime Minister was given in a discussion on the first Sub-section of this Clause, and it related solely to that Subsection, which declares that the annual value of any premises for the purpose of any duty charged in the first Schedule shall be determined in the same manner and subject to the same conditions as the annual value of premises is determined for the purpose of a publican's licence. That would have repealed the present system of valuation in Ireland for this duty. Undoubtedly it would have introduced the English system.
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYNo, no. Where is the English system introduced?
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYAnd what was the consideration for the abstention of 80 Irish Members last night?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe effect of this Sub-section (1), coupled with the Schedule—if the hon. and learned Member will examine the Bill he will find I am correct—would have been to repeal that provision of the Act of 1880 which applies to Ireland a different basis of 789 assessment for public-houses from that which is adopted now in England. That was very strongly objected to by the Irish Members, and the Prime Minister said he would not insist upon that provision in Ireland, and he consequently accepted an Amendment to that effect. Sub-section (2) is an entirely independent matter, and was not referred to by the Prime Minister in the undertaking he gave. I quite agree that in Ireland there may be special difficulties, not on the ground raised by the hon. and learned Member but on the ground that so many of the premises there are mixed premises, and it would be a matter of some difficulty to assess what is their present value under a clause of this kind. I would answer one or two remarks which have been made by hon. Members with reference to the machinery of this Sub-section. We have been asked who are to make this register, and why we have included in this part of the Clause two different sets of Commissioners. It is a matter of no general public importance; it is purely for administrative convenience that the Commissioners of Customs are to make the register and collect the information, and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue are to determine the amount of the valuation. The reason is that the Commissioners of Customs and Excise issue the licences, and it is natural that they should keep the register. They have their officers throughout the country, and have all the machinery for collecting information. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, on the other hand, have been dealing with the Act of 1904 ever since its passage, and there are officers in that Department familiar with all its provisions. That is a simple explanation of the reason why the information should be collected by one subordinate branch of the Treasury and the valuation made by another subordinate branch. I should like to make it plain that it is proposed there shall be an appeal from any decision under this Sub-section to the courts of law. If the right hon. Gentlemen opposite prefer the words which have been put down by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dublin University (Sir E. Carson) to those which stand in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer we shall make no difficulty in accepting them. Now let me come to the substance of this Sub-section. In it we accept the words of the Act of 1904 as the basis of assessing the licence value. Certain questions will naturally arise. The hon. and learned Member for Basingstoke 790 (Mr. Clavell Salter) devoted a large part of his very interesting speech to an examination of this question of valuation. He said that at the present time you levy your tax on a building plus the licence, but in future you propose to levy the tax on the licence plus the goodwill. I demur to both those proposals. We do not now exclude from the valuation all elements of local goodwill. Suppose in a market town you have two inns in the immediate neighbourhood of the market-place. One is and has, perhaps, for centuries been known as the chief inn of the town; the other has always had an inferior reputation. Unquestionably the rental to any hypothetical tenant of the former would be higher than that of the latter.
§ Mr. CLAVELL SALTERThe actual rental would undoubtedly be higher.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI am advised that it would be so in such a case. At the present time we do charge a certain amount for the element of local goodwill. In future we do not propose to charge any tenant's goodwill under this Sub-section. I dispute absolutely the proposition advanced from the opposite side of the House that the effect will be to impose a heavier charge upon the publican who conducts his business well, and thereby raises the value of the house. If you have a popular football player or some well-known boxer take a public-house he attracts a certain amount of personal custom—that is simply a concrete instance of what is meant by personal goodwill That is not charged, of course, under the present system of taxation, nor is it compensated for under the Kennedy judgment. If that is fully agreed, I need not quote the passages from Lord Justice Kennedy's, judgment, which most clearly declare that any circumstances such as this should not be included in the compensation value, and we recognised that in our Bill of last, year. That is an element which in our view ought to be compensated for, but it is not compensated for under the Act of 1904. That statute gives compensation on what Lord Justice Kennedy calls a property basis.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYI should like to know whether the popularity of an Irish; publican, who had been in gaol, would not be taxed?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe Kennedy judgment gave compensation merely on a property basis, and it does not take into 791 account the publican's interest. The publican does get his compensation, but it is carved out of the owner's compensation, to the whole of which the owner should be strictly entitled. In our Bill of last year we recognised that, and we proposed under the provisions of the Bill that not only should the owner receive compensation for the licence value of the premises—the difference between the two Schedules A—but over and above that, that there should be paid out of the Compensation Fund an additional sum to the publican, the tenant himself, in respect of his personal goodwill, and the loss he might suffer by the closing of the house. This is the same principle which we include here as the basis of taxation. You will have a small element of local goodwill, which is now being charged under the present valuation and under the existing law. You will not be charged anything in respect of other elements of local goodwill which attach to the premises, or any value which is given to them by the skill with which the house is conducted, or the popularity of the man to whom the house belongs.
§ Mr. E. B. BARNARDHow will you calculate it?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELYou will calculate it on the same principle as compensation is now calculated.
§ Mr. BARNARDThe goodwill of the tenant?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe goodwill of the tenant, I have already explained, is excluded from our Bill. The hon. Member for Ayr Burghs (Mr. Younger) raises the question of Scotland. He says the personal goodwill is now included in the valuations for Scotland. Very well, then, as soon as we apply this new principle the Scotch licensee will get that justice which he asks for. He will no longer be charged Licence Duty on the present value in that respect. If there is an element of personal goodwill in the present value, the tenant's goodwill will be eliminated when we come to the application of this Sub-section, and the hon. Member will be getting all that he asks for. I turn to what really is the purpose of Section 2 of the Act of 1904, and on that right hon. Gentlemen opposite have greater knowledge than Members of this Bench, because they were responsible for its drafting and enactment, and we had 792 very little opportunity of ascertaining their views on the subject and obtaining explanations from them as to what Section 2 meant, for the whole of it was passed without discussion under the guillotine, with the exception of the first line. However, the Clause does explain that the basis of compensation is to be the same as the basis of taxation for Death Duties. We have heard ad nauseum in all these discussions that one of the reasons why it is right to give publicans compensation for the loss of their licences is that the State taxes them under the Death Duties, and on precisely the same principle on which they are now taxed under the Death Duties they will be taxed for licence purposes, and if hon. Members say that the basis of the Death Duties is just, then they must agree that the basis for this taxation is just.
I hope that one further observation which I should like to make will, to some extent at least, remedy, or in some degree dissipate, the degree of controversy which exists between the two sides of the House in regard to this Clause. I am aware that what is in the mind of hon. Members opposite is that we want to get this new compensation basis because we believe that it may produce more than annual value, and that, consequently, this Sub-section is in intention a weapon for getting a higher sum out of the trade than would otherwise be obtained. This Subsection, it is thought, is not merely a question of valuation, not merely a question of getting a fair basis of your taxation, but it is to be used as a means of getting more taxation out of the trade than would otherwise be obtained. That is not the intention of the Government, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has never advanced any such argument. The hon. Member for the Walton Division (Mr. F. E. Smith) was not quite fair to the Committee. He read a brief passage from the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget speech, but he stopped short of what really are the relevant words. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in making his Budget statement said:—
This assessment when it is complete will be translated into the terms of annual value, and the licence will be levied accordingly. The burden of some publicans will be lightened, that of others will be increased, but on the whole justice will be done, as each man will be called upon to pay according to the value which he receives and the privilege which the State confers upon him. It may. well be, however, that it will have the effect of so considerably raising the whole level of contribution required from the publican as to make it appear oppressive. In that case, we undertake when the valuation is complete to reconsider the whole scale in the light of the more accurate and scientific figures, 793 which will have been secured by the operation of this new assessment. This new valuation will, however, take some months to complete, and in the meantime we propose to levy our duties upon the basis of valuation upon which present duties are chargeable.Therefore, if it is found that the new valuation so raises the general basis of valuation of the trade, that to apply the same rates would amount to a substantial increase of the burden, then those rates will be modified. In the case of the low-class public-house with inferior buildings, no doubt its valuation will be raised. In the case of the high-class public-house doing a restaurant business, its valuation will be lowered, and it will secure greater justice as between one set of licensed premises and another. It is not intended to be a vehicle of extracting any burdensome taxation from the trade, and I hope, in view of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said and my assurance, the discussion will be conducted on that basis. The hon. and learned Member who spoke last said that the Government are now in an illogical position. I have no doubt the Leader of the Opposition, if he follows me, would very naturally desire to lay emphasis on an apparent inconsistency. No one is better fitted to deal with such a point, than he is. He would say, probably, "Here you were last year denouncing with all the vigour which you possess the Kennedy judgment as an excessive valuation, but this year you virtually turn round and you accept that very basis as being a fair assessment of the licence value. Either it is fair or unfair, and you cannot hold one view one year and another view another." But what would be the reply to the right hon. Gentleman's argument? Last year it was a matter of great importance to secure what we regarded as a non-excessive basis for the payment of compensation. The compensation paid, which was in many cases, in our view, too large, had the effect of slackening the rate of reduction that could be effected by means of the Compensation Fund. If you give a public-house 50 per cent, more than its real licence value, the consequence is that fewer public-houses can be dealt with from the million of money which goes into the Compensation Fund. That was our object in trying to amend the compensation basis. Now the position is different. It matters not for our purpose, so long as the valuation is fair between house and house—it matters for this purpose in no degree, whether the valuation is half, or two-thirds, or ten times the licence value, or even a hundred times the licence value; all you would have to do would be to 794 merely alter your scale accordingly. If this gives a very high basis for taxation then you would have a low scale. If it gives a low basis for taxation then you would have a high scale.The matter would be dealt with in that manner, and it ceases to be of such importance as to lead us to reopen the whole of the controversy of last year. There is no purpose to be served by reopening that controversy. If the trade says, "This, is the right basis, this is the real value, this is what we declare to be the real value of our licence," we say, "Very well, we will accept your position. Let the taxation be upon that basis, it being understood that that taxation shall not be substantially greater than that which we propose to exact by this Budget." I think therefore, if the Opposition view the matter fairly, they will see that although, there is an apparent contradiction, there is in the application, when you take into account the entirely different circumstances and the facts I have just mentioned—there is no reason why this basis should not be adopted in this particular case. I should like to ask, finally, what is the contention of the Opposition in this matter? Do they say that the Act of 1904r as interpreted by the Kennedy judgment, represents the real value of the licence or not? If it does represent the value of the licence why should you not base your taxation upon it? If it does not represent the value of the licence how can you claim compensation upon that basis?
§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURI am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down for one thing. It is that he has more than once in the course of his speech admitted that there may be such a thing as. oppressive taxation, that confiscation can be possible by taxation, and he has even referred to His Majesty's Government and showed that it is not beyond the power of imagination to suppose that even their own Bill may contain oppressive taxation, and that its provisions may press with: undue severity and harshness upon the individual trader. That is a concession in the direction of reasonableness and moderation—the first concession of the kind we have heard in this Debate, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having made it.
The right hon. Gentleman anticipated that I should follow my hon. Friends in criticising the inconsistency of the Government in respect of their treatment this. year of the Kennedy judgment and their 795 criticisms on that judgment passed last year. The point had escaped me, and I was not going to refer to it, but as he has brought it to my notice I will make one or two observations upon the particular defence which he has chosen to make of what he himself admits to be, prima facie, a gross and palpable inconsistency. His defence is this: "It is quite true that we are going to make a valuation of the property of the publican on a new system. It is quite true that by our own criticisms of last year the basis of that valuation is a false basis; but what does that matter?" So long as it is equally false for every publican, it is quite clear, according to the right hon. Gentleman, that no injustice is done. I do not know whether anyone who is paying a 1s. Income Tax, and is then told at the same time that he has £10,000 a year when he has only £5,000 a year, will find any consolation in the statement that everyone else with £5,000 a year has his property nominally doubled by the authorities of Somerset House, so that in fact, though it is true that he is paying 2s. in the £ instead of 1s., everyone else was In the same position, and, to use the phrase borrowed from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, justice is done all round. It really is an incredible view for a responsible Government to take of the way of dealing with property. They seem to think everything is right, and you can call property what you like, and you may give it a different value in your Bill from whatever one gives it in the market, and your estimate of its value may be wholly different from that which any business man would make out; but so long as your error is universal, and it applies to everyone paying a particular tax, why should you trouble your head as to whether the thing is right or wrong? "Justice is done on the whole."
Let us consider what the position of the Government is in regard to these valuations. They have introduced, I think most illegitimately, into this Bill valuations dealing with many different kinds of property. Some of these valuations have a relation to taxation, and some of them have no relation to taxation, that I can discover, at all. The Bill is full of valuation, and the Government have been telling us all along that, however much we may groan over the expenditure involved in the valuation, nevertheless the advantage of having an accurate valuation of the property of the country is so great that even the objection that you have put a 796 Valuation Bill within the limits of the Finance Bill and put an immense charge on the public for carrying out these valuations, is more than outweighed by the immense advantage of having a really accurate valuation of the property of the country. But they have given up all interest in accuracy of valuation, and this new valuation which is going to come into operation apparently at some future period, even in the opinion of those who are making it, is an unfair valuation, and is made upon a wrong estimate, and their only apology for it is that the injustice, the inequality and the error are spread over the whole of the class affected. Let us consider the position of these unfortunate publicans, who are told they Lave a larger corpus of property than, as a matter of fact, they have. You are going to tax them on that property not as between publicans but as between citizens of equal wealth. Then there will be an appeal made, as to the value of their property, to this valuation, a valuation which you admit is wrong, which you spent hours last autumn in explaining to us was wrong, which you say is swelled to an undue amount, and which you are going to make not merely the basis of this inter-publican taxation but of any possible future taxation as between publicans and other members of the community. The apology which the right hon. Gentleman has made for his system of taxation condemns it root and branch, and if we thought it bad when we had only its critics to listen to, I, after hearing the defence made for it by the responsible Minister in charge of the Bill, think it even worse than I thought it before. Now we have, for the first time in the fiscal history of this country, a Government coming forward and saying that for purposes of taxation they are deliberately going to overvalue the property of certain classes of the community, and the right hon. Gentleman thinks he has made some reply and some defence to the critics who tell him that is a most outrageous way of treating the property of the subject.
May I ask what the Government are really going to do in regard to Scotland and Ireland? Do the Government know themselves? I am quite sure we, on this side of the House, who have listened most attentively and anxiously to the statements of the Government, are still in doubt as to what they mean to do, and I cannot make out that hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway representing Ireland are any better informed than we are. As I 797 understood the matter, the concession made to the Irish Members for not putting the Government in a minority on the Budget was originally that the Irish publican was to have an advantage over his Scotch brother and his English brother in for all time having his valuation based on the Griffith's valuation plus the 20 per cent, referred to in the Act of 1880. I have thought that was a very substantial concession, and that hon. Gentlemen from Ireland had not disposed of their votes at too cheap a rate, especially when I reflected that the whole basis of this tax was that it was a tax upon a Government monopoly, and when I remembered that the monopoly is a much stronger monopoly in Ireland than it is in England, because Sharpe v. Wakefield does not apply in Ireland, and every Irish publican has practically a right of renewal. If the basis of this taxation be, as the Government tell us it is, merely a. question of taxing the monopoly value created by the State, it is evident that the publican in Ireland is in a worse case than the English or Scotch publican. Nevertheless, I understood that the Government had given to the Irish a very substantial concession, seeing that the valuation on which the taxation was to be based was the valuation which was enforced nearly 30 years ago. Now it appears that is not so. Am I wrong in saying that the upshot of the speech we have just heard is this: That the system of taxing upon the rateable value, whether it be the 1880 value or the basis in England, is a mere temporary stop-gap, and that it is not to apply at all, except at the will of the licensee, to buildings of over £500 in value, and that, in any case and for all kinds of public-house property in all the three Kingdoms, it is to be the basis in future as soon as it can be brought in, and that the Griffith's valuation vanishes? Is not that so? I begin really to think that the Irish party have been done.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYNot all.
§ Mr. BALFOURI think more of the astuteness of hon. Gentlemen on that [the Irish Nationalist] bench than I ever thought before. They are the only people in my experience who have succeeded in making a bargain so successful for themselves, and which gave so transitory a pleasure to those with whom they were dealing. So much for the case of Ireland and the nominal concession made to Ireland. Now let us consider the case of Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman is going, without any concession, to apply 798 his scheme to Scotland. I do not believe the Scotch aspect of this Bill has ever been thought out at all. I do not think they have ever given it a moment's consideration. They are going to apply the Act of 1904 for this purpose in Scotland and Ireland. I daresay it can be applied to Ireland, because, broadly speaking, the system of law in Ireland and England is identical. In England and Scotland the system of law is not identical, and you cannot even in imagination transfer the provisions of the Act of 1904 to Scotland without making special arrangements in your Bill for doing it. And you make no special provisions in your Bill. For example, in dealing with the land, there is an appeal to the High Court in the Bill, and accordingly in respect to one of the Bills you define what you mean by the High Court as applied to Scotland, and, by the definition, High Court means the Court of Session. You have not thought of putting in any similar definition with regard to this part of the Bill. You have not thought it worth while. You have forgotten that Scotland existed. That is not all. Under the Act of 1904 quarter sessions are brought in as a legal body dealing with all the problems of division and so forth which arise under that Act. That is perfectly right, because quarter sessions in England are the licensing authority, but in Scotland they have nothing to do with it.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThere is no question of the division of compensation.
§ Mr. BALFOURYou cannot apply the Act of 1904 straight off without making some provision. I quite admit that the particular class of difficulty I am now dealing with can perfectly be met if the Government will hasten to put down the necessary Amendments, and I do not think it ought to be beyond the skill of the Scotch Law Officers to do so. I come from matters which can be cured by the Bill to matters which cannot be cured by the Bill. What nonsense all this is about the application of an English Act in imagination to Scotland, When the Government brought in, as they did bring in, in the earlier clauses of the Bill the question of a hypothetical market I thought they were driving hypothesis rather far, but not content with that they are now bringing in hypothetical legislation. It appears that henceforth we are to put ourselves in the position of supposing that the Act of 1904 applies to Scotland and to Ireland, when, in fact, as 799 every human being knows, it applies to neither the one nor the other. I think that is most absurd. That is not legislating by reference. It is legislating by imagination, and I am bound to say that in trying to extend by this imaginative effort an Act which for its working requires the practised officials in England to Ireland and Scotland, where the officials have not and can have had no practice whatever under that Act, I should have thought they were trying to carry out what would prove to be a practical impossibility.
There is another point. It relates to the question whether you ought, or ought not, to tax a man for goodwill. I listened with interest to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and I join in it with some diffidence, because, as has been pointed out, these questions of rating are full of pitfalls and complications which could scarcely be tolerated but for the fact that they are historically embedded in our whole system of rating; but I venture to tell the right hon. Gentleman that his account is really not tenable. The right hon. Gentleman appears to hold the view that under the Kennedy judgment, and under the law of rating, goodwill is included. Well, it really is not included.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELLocal goodwill is included.
§ Mr. BALFOURLocal goodwill, in the sense in which it is used by the right hon. Gentleman, is not included. He brought forward a case, which I am unable to test, of some particular inn which had some historical and traditional hold on a large country population, which may have been a traditional place of resort of the Tory party or the Radical party, and which may have had a particular value owing to this long descended and ancestral claim. I do not argue that point, but that is not the ordinary thing that happens. The ordinary thing that happens is different. I will put this case to the right hon. Gentleman. We have side by side in a new street, which has no historical associations attached to it, and around which there are none of these clinging traditions, two buildings fully licensed and exactly the same size. One of them, owing to the fact that it is ably managed, is doing a much larger trade than the other. It is inaccurate to say that these two houses would be rated at a different rate, and the right hon. Gentleman's appeal to the Kennedy judgment in this case is an inaccurate 800 appeal, because the Kennedy judgment, though it included certain kinds of personal goodwill, excluded such a supposition as that the owner of a public-house had a special method of brewing beer. It did not include, as I understand its terms, the case of a man who was able to carry on a much greater trade under exactly similar circumstances than another man. He is not charged on his goodwill. Do you or do you not call that personal goodwill? I do not know whether that is local or personal goodwill, but it is goodwill, and it is due to the person, and that is not, and ought not, to be taken into account in the rating, because that does not come under the Kennedy judgment. Therefore, I say you are by your new method of dealing with the matter bringing in for the first time a kind of goodwill which is not strictly speaking local goodwill. It may not be the personal goodwill referred to by Mr. Justice Kennedy, or the right hon. Gentleman, but it does depend on the personality of the trader or his business capacity and powers. It is not taxed now under the Licence Duties at present imposed. It will be taxed under the Licence Duties proposed by the Government.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELindicated dissent.
§ 3.0 P.M.
§ Mr. BALFOURI say that is absolutely unjust and novel. The Government pretend that they are going upon the old lines. They are not. They are going on new lines. It is a new kind of duty on a new kind of property, and after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Government are not, in my judgment, in a position to deny that. That is not really all.
There is one more criticism which I must make. No one will deny that the new duties are immense in amount. Be they just or unjust they are very heavy and press immensely upon a certain limited class. The least that you can do when you impose these duties is to see that the basis on which they are imposed is a fair one. This basis, even on the admission of the Government themselves, is not a fair basis. They are going to impose duties so heavy that they know that they will squeeze out of existence a large number of public-houses. They know it, they admit it, they are proud of it, and they have boasted that it is one of the incidental advantages this fiscal provision will have. Is it not outrageous that a Government which is putting on a tax which has these collateral effects should 801 put it on on a basis which they admit to be unjust in the present, because hey have put down an alternative which is to obtain in the future, and even as regards the future they will wait to see whether it is so unjust as to be absolutely intolerable, and then they will alter the scale? This is not my account of the Government scheme. It is the right hon. Gentleman's own account. He admits that this is a new tax, and that it is so heavy that it will squeeze out a certain number of public-houses. That is proposition one. Proposition two is that the basis on which we must impose the tax for some time to come is a basis which we know to be unjust. Proposition three is that we have in the Bill a new scheme, and that we do not know how that scheme will turn out. It may be that it will turn out much more simple than the existing scheme, but if it is proved by experience that it is so grossly unjust that we cannot tolerate it, we have always the alternative of altering the scale. I do not think that more is required than the speech of the right hon. Gentleman when I venture to say that it is a perfectly accurate comment to make upon it that it condemns root and branch the whole scheme of taxation contained in this portion of the Bill.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI do not rise to reply to the remarkable version of our doctrines just given by the Leader of the Opposition, but merely to deal with his remarks with reference to the matter of goodwill. I know that it is of the greatest interest to the trade, which is most concerned in this matter. It is also of interest to all the Members of the Committee, and therefore I will read one passage from the judgment of Mr. Justice Kennedy which the right hon. Gentleman opposite has omitted to read. I understood it was agreed on both sides that personal goodwill was not included in the Kennedy judgment. The right hon. Gentleman says that personal goodwill is included in the judgment, and that therefore it will be taxed under our scheme. Mr. Justice Kennedy said in the course of his judgment:—
But I entirely agree with the learned Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, that such evidence as to profits must not include facts of personal or special character. The evidence as to profit must be evidence of the profit which would be made ordinarily and normally, if I may be allowed the use of the expression, in the brewing trade, not of profit arising from purely personal or other peculiar advantages, such as the possession of secret processes of brewing or of special plant, or the proximity of the brewery to the licensed premises.802 There are two elements that must be excluded. You are to take the profit which would be made ordinarily and normally, but you are not to take into account any personal element in the case, or any special or peculiar advantages, such as proximity of the brewery to the licensed premises.
§ Mr. LEIF JONESThe Leader of the Opposition has thoroughly enjoyed himself this afternoon, and when he enjoys himself the whole House generally shares in that enjoyment. He has trounced the Government and repeated the whole case against them with respect to vindictive taxation, and he has charged them with having deceived Ireland. I will not say that he has wilfully misrepresented everyone who supports the Government proposals, but what he has in effect done is to caricature them and represent them in such a way that they would not recognise their own portraits. I venture to say that the scale of taxation has nothing to do with the matter we are discussing at this moment, and a great many of the speeches from the other side which have been made under the fear of vindictive taxation have not been addressed to the real issue now before the Commitee, which is: What is to be the basis on which the taxation is to be levied? The scale of taxation is a matter for separate consideration, but I should like to point out that we have not yet come to the Clause which deals with the relation which the taxation is to bear to the value which we are now trying to determine, and, therefore, it is too soon for the right hon. Gentleman to assume that it is vindictive or otherwise. The proportion to the established valuation, which will naturally vary according whether the valuation is high or low, is a matter which we cannot determine until we have settled the basis of our valuation. I submit that nobody practically defends the present basis of valuation. It is full of anomalies, which have been admitted in the Debate over and over again within the last two or three days. It has been pointed out that under the present system you are positively deterring the holders of licences from effecting improvement in their premises and in their method of carrying on business. Special concessions are to be made to Ireland because of the Irish case. What is the gist of the Irish case? That you could not apply to Ireland the same principles of assessment as you do in this country, and that you must have a different minimum there from what you have in 803 this country. The Irish Members actually moved that there should be no minimum at all. Why was there the necessity of the special pleading in the case of Ireland? Was it not because the present method of assessment and the taxes operate differently in Ireland from what they do in this country; and that the very case which Ireland has presented with such force in the House rests upon the fact that the present system of assessing taxes, the basis upon which they are levied, is unfair to Ireland as it is also unfair in this country?
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYIreland has not got anything.
§ Mr. LEIF JONESThat remains to be seen. I am dealing with the case presented by Ireland rather than the case made by the Government, and, I submit, there is a general agreement that we want a new basis for the assessment of this Licence Duty. It was suggested that the rental should be obtained—that would be, I suppose, the rack rent. That was the principle on which Mr. Justice Kennedy went. He said he would ascertain the rack rent in the local market, and then he would have the general basis of compensation, and I think there he would have the proper basis of Licence Duty. [An HON. MEMBER: "They have that in Ireland."] Let us forget Ireland for a moment. I am an English Member. But the tied-house system in this country immensely complicates the problem. If we take rent as our basis, everybody knows that rent is not a fair measure of the value of the house in the case of tied houses. It is obvious that if we took rent for our new basis the brewers have it in their power to depress rent to any extent by increasing their charges for what they supply. Take the other case. Take the trade done. If fairly estimated it would, perhaps, furnish another reasonable basis for the Licence Tax. But, if the value of the trade done is taken as the basis of the tax, equally the brewers have it in their power to increase the rent and to lower the price of supplies to the tenants; and in that way also, if you took the value of the trade done, you would have another means by which in all these tied houses in the country the Licence Duties might be evaded. What we have to do is to get a combination of those two things—the trade done and the rent paid—so that by increasing one and lowering the other no advantage would be gained. Then you 804 will get a fair basis on which to levy your duty.
The Kennedy judgment furnishes such a fair combination; or at any rate it does combine those two elements. It was a method of capitalising the rent of the house at so much and the wholesale profits-at so much. The trade done and the rent were the two elements that made up the sum total in the Kennedy judgment. The judge ruled out the personal goodwill of the tenant. He declined to consider it at all. He said that his duty was to ascertain the market value, and that into that personal goodwill cannot enter; and he not only specifically ruled it out, but, on the basis he laid down, he ruled out the personal goodwill, and I do not think that is dealt with in the value as dealt with under the Kennedy judgment. He made the combination of the trade done and the rent paid, and you find that that is the combination under which the compensation value is to be paid under the Kennedy judgment. It is thrown in our teeth, that we did not like the Kennedy judgment last year, and that now we are basing our proposals upon it. The Kennedy judgment, like the toad, carries a precious jewel in its head in combining these two bases. We argued that it was too high, and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has been very severe on the Chancellor of the Duchy because he said it did not particularly matter for this purpose whether the compensation value was really the accurate value of the licence or not. It is very easy to caricature a saying of that kind, but I take what the Chancellor meant to convey was, I think, a tenable proposition, that while there was a difference of opinion as to whether the Kennedy judgment compensation value was an absolutely just value, in the value of a licence it did not matter for the purpose of this particular tax whether that was so or not. If you are going to take as your tax a percentage of your value; if, in your judgment, the valuation erred on the side of being too high, you must take a lower percentage than if you were dealing with a valuation which is fair and correct, and therefore I think that the Chancellor of the Duchy was perfectly right in saying, that it did not really affect the argument whether or not the compensation value was too high. It is, at any rate, based on the principle of taking into account the two elements in the value of the licence, the rent of the house and the trade done, and therefore they do furnish a basis, and 805 a reasonable basis, for levying the taxes. It was objected by an hon. and learned Member that this compensation value was a varying value, and therefore the assessment would have to be done all over and over again. That is perfectly true, but it is true of every basis of valuation.
§ Sir E. CARSONYour basis is a very different thing from the rent of the house.
§ Mr. LEIF JONESThe elements which alter the value of houses are also elements which alter the nature of the liquor business done in the house, so that the questions which affect the rateable value of the house are very apt to affect the liquor trade business done in the house in a somewhat similar way; and I do not believe that this new value contains a more variable element, though it contains some artificial element, than you have under your present system of valuation; and from every point of view, from the point of view of the trade as well as that of the publican, the new basis proposed is fair and reasonable.
§ Mr. A. LYTTELTONThe statement of the Chancellor of the Duchy, which has been referred to by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, is a very important one. It is obvious from the admissions which have been made from the other side that if it is in point of fact the goodwill of the tenant which is to be taxed in the future the assent of the entire Committee would be that such a method of assessment is the wrong method. It clearly would be a tax on the skill and industry of the trader. Therefore the whole of this very expensive and costly method which has been adopted is to change the present system of valuation. It is admitted on all sides that the present system is not perfect, but that which is now proposed, it was admitted by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, was denounced last year from his side of the House, and denounced in an unqualified manner by the Prime Minister in his Budget speech, and therefore it would require an extremely strong case, as I submit, to be able to bring forward before the House of Commons this year as a basis of valuation, that which in point of fact last year was denounced by those who are now bringing it forward. I do not pause to consider the expense of the project, for obviously it must be a very great expense. You have got, I think, a valuation of something like 120,000 houses to be made. Only this week we have had another effort made in this House on behalf of hon. Members below the Gangway 806 to provide in the Housing Bill that a general register should be made of all the houses in the Kingdom below a certain value. The proposal was strongly criticised and thrown out by the Government on the ground of expense and ineffectiveness, and one of the grounds on which that valuation was thrown out was that there were certain particulars of these houses which were required to be taken into the valuation which were constantly changing, and you would therefore have a constantly shifting subject. You have precisely the same thing here.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSNo.
§ Mr. LYTTELTONThe Solicitor-General says "No," but it must be plain to him if he thinks out the matter for a moment that there are constant reductions being made under the system set up by the 1904 Act, and where you have public-houses B and C in one street reduced, manifestly it has a plain effect on the public-house A in the same street, and if that be the case every time public-houses are reduced in a town it has an effect upon the valuation of those which remain, and consequently the valuation you make to-day has constantly to be revised. That will make the process immensely more expensive, and, as I think, more futile than apparently is considered.
More than that, you are applying this system of valuation to Ireland and Scotland. Neither in Ireland nor Scotland has the principle of compensation under the Kennedy judgment or under the Act of 1904 ever been applied. The whole machinery, therefore, and the whole principle of this valuation, would be strange to Ireland and to Scotland, and would involve, I submit without fear of contradiction, additional expense. I quite grant that these considerations would be largely minimised if you were to attain the result of getting substantially a better assessment by the new process than you would by the old. That brings me back to the question with which I began: Does or does not your valuation offend against the fundamental canons of taxation, namely, that you should not tax the skill and industry of people, and, therefore, that you should not tax the goodwill of any trade? Does or does not the method which has been suggested by the Government involve the taxation of goodwill? The principle of the Kennedy judgment cannot be disputed, and the facts cannot be disputed. What endeavour was made? The endeavour in the case was made, and successfully made, to submit, not the 807 general profits of the trade of the house, but the particulars of that trade. In that case the tenant was allowed to submit in detail to the tribunal the particulars of the barrels of beer supplied to him by the brewer. Is it possible when you allow to be laid before the tribunal the actual trade which the tenant is doing, not merely in a general but in a particular way, to avoid measuring that which is skill and industry? If the tenant is a bad tenant, why, of course, the barrellage and the profits of the house will be small. If the tenant is a good tenant the barrellage and the profits which he makes will be large, and, therefore, according to the principle of the Kennedy judgment, the tribunal is entitled, and not merely entitled, but is actually bound to look into these circumstances, in which, necessarily, are involved the skill, industry and energy of the tenant.
The hon. Member who has just preceded me (Mr Leif Jones) quite fairly admits that if the new basis does tax the skill, industry, and energy of the tenant, then the tax is so far bad. I have this further illustration on the point. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition put the case of two public-houses in the same street. He said, I think absolutely rightly, that according to the rule of rating which has long prevailed, no matter what the trade was which was being done, the two houses being absolutely identical in capacity to do the trade, the assessment must be the same. Take two theatres almost side by side and practically identical in structure. Supposing at one theatre there is a series of long runs—clearly the rental which you would obtain for one would be greater than that obtained for the other, where there was not the same successful run. That greater rental would be due to the skill or good fortune or industry of the lessee, but the rating would be the same. I therefore claim to have established that, in regard to the profits on barrellage under the Kennedy judgment, and on the facts which the judge decided to be right, the particulars of the barrellage and the particulars of profits put before the tribunal necessarily involve the skill, energy, and industry of the tenant, and not merely have the Government brought forward as the basis of valuation that which they denounced last year, but they have further admitted as the basis of valuation in future something which necessarily involves the goodwill of the tenant 808 If I am right the whole basis of this change falls to the ground, and the tax, which admittedly may be much too high, is also based on a wrong principle, because it is based on a principle which taxes the skill, energy and industry of people in the trade.
§ Mr. PATRICK WHITEI think it is very unfortunate that for the first time in the history of Ireland since the Union this Parliament should be debating a question affecting that country in the absence of the vast majority of Irish Members. Why are they absent, why are they not in their places? They are absent upon the strength of the pledge given by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister stated distinctly the other night—at all events, it carried conviction to my mind with absolute clearness, and also to the minds of representatives from Ireland—that there was to be no new valuation in Ireland, and that the valuation in that country, outside Dublin and Belfast, is to remain is it is now. We say the pledge given by the Prime Minister to Irish Members the other night was such as I have described; yet a Cabinet Minister stands up to-day, and says that under this Clause Ireland is to be revalued upon the system which is to be applied to England. I say that announcement is not consistent with the declaration made by the Prime Minister, and certainly we are entitled to an explanation as to which of the two statements represents the mind of the Government. Having regard to the importance of this measure and to the circumstances in which we are debating it, having regard to the fact that Irish Members are almost entirely absent, having regard, further, to the circumstances that the Government is speaking with different voices—
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSNo.
§ Mr. PATRICK WHITEI beg the hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon. The Chancellor of the Duchy stated that the new valuation was to operate in Ireland, a statement that is an absolute contradiction of that which was made by the Prime Minister. As I was saying, having regard to the absence of Irish Members and the importance of this measure, to mark my sense of the action of the Government, and to give them an opportunity of studying the Bill and expressing what is in the minds of the Ministry, I move to report Progress.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYI was waiting until you, Sir, returned to the Chair. I think 809 you have placed Ireland under a deep debt of gratitude by your action on this Bill, because when the question in regard to Scotland was being discussed by my hon. Friend in order to ascertain from the Government whether Scotland or Ireland were to be brought under this Clause, we would have been left in absolute ignorance and have remained practically deceived but for the question which you, Sir, put. I speak for myself when I say that it was not merely the Irish Members who were deceived, it was the Chairman of this House who was deceived, because you, Sir, were sitting in that chair and you called the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs to order until you ascertained the view of the Law Officers of the Crown and the Chancellor of the Duchy as to whether or not this Section applied to any part of the United Kingdom except England. Therefore, Sir, when a man of your skill in dealing with these clauses—it is a thing which a man usually gets rusty about when he has been out of the House for any length of time—was left under that impression by the declaration of Ministers, is it any wonder that my hon. Friend and myself should have been left under that extraordinary mistake. As my hon. Friend the Member for Meath (Mr. Patrick White) has said, the Irish Members have folded their tents like the Arabs and silently stolen away. Why? Because they conceived—and I think this is a reason for moving to report Progress—every one of them conceived that this Section was not intended to apply to Ireland, and they hold that belief on the pledge of the Prime Minister. You also know, Sir, that last night the hon. Member for Dublin had an Amendment about Irish land valuation, and that Amendment was received by the Government, although it was not on the Paper. Notwithstanding the operation of what is called the Kangaroo Rule, enabling you to select Amendments, this Amendment was actually received and welcomed, though it was not on the Paper, and upon it you, the Chairman, had no chance of passing judgment, because it was cordially welcomed by my hon. Friend the Solicitor-General for England, who, in the bounty of his heart, indicated to the very comma where it could be actually dovetailed and mosaiced. The Irish Members under the spell of the hon. and learned Gentleman's kindness have left the House, though there is still time to bring them back like giants refreshed, and my hon. Friend, speaking as he does on their behalf, has made a Motion that is absolutely un- 810 answerable. The Prime Minister said yesterday that we were not to be kept here longer than what he called the dinner-hour—I suppose the English dinner-hour, not the Scotch dinner-hour. Now we are at the moment when I think we all have that week-end feeling upon us, and, in addition to that, there are a number of hon. Gentlemen absent. The Solicitor-General absolutely complained that I sat up all night, and that instead of the concession of the Government having the effect of producing peaceful dreams, that it gave me a nightmare, and that the deceptive nature of the Government engaged in deceiving our country kept me awake. That is not quite true. I do not intend to answer that, or to take up the time of the Committee at this moment except to deal with the other point.
I wish to say that the Chairman of this House has placed Ireland under an obligation to him, and I say that but for him we would have been all under the impression the Irish Members left this House in last night. Now the Motion for Progress has been made. I do not know whether my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General is even allowed to accept a Motion to report Progress? I know he is allowed to accept what now turns out to be drafting Amendments. He assumes great cheerfulness when he accepts them and when we receive them. Can he see any reason why this present discussion should not be continued with the presence of the entire 80 Members? There is one other reason, I say, the gratitude of the Government to those 80 Members. Why, Sir, if they had voted against them last night their Bill would have gone. But I say that the transaction was an open and an honest one, because no secret was made about it. The Treasury Whip crossed over here in the full flare of the House, so that there was nothing like conspiracy or darkness or anything like that. It was a plain, honest deal. Now, like the eminent President Roosevelt, I am still in favour of the square deal. The Irish Members not being present at the moment, in order to enable them to return in their proper numbers, and, I am sure, whetted with anxiety, if no other feeling, by the declaration which the Government have made, I cordially second the Motion to report Progress.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI hope the House will not assent to the Motion that has been made, and which has been seconded in an amusing speech by my hon. and 811 learned Friend. In one part of that speech, by way of making an appeal to me, which came with much greater force than the other part he mentioned that he had the week-end feeling, I do not think that any ground better than that could be made for the Motion made from those Benches. The hon. Member said that the Irish Members have been deceived. I do not believe any single Irish Member other than the one who has moved the Motion and the hon. Member who has seconded would say that.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYI was not deceived. I object to that. I was not deceived.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI did not say that the hon. Member was deceived. I said that the hon. and learned Member said that the Irish Members were deceived. Does he deny that? That was his statement. Now I say I do not believe anybody except the hon. Member who moved this Motion and the hon. and learned Member will say that the Irish Members were deceived. I will tell the Committee exactly how it was that the concession was made last night. I accepted an Amendment which was moved by the hon. Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy), and the hon. and learned Member for North Louth complained that I indicated exactly where the Amendment was to be put, even to a comma. Apparently, the view of the hon. and learned Member is this, that whatever ground there may be in justice or otherwise for accepting any Amendments moved from those benches, no Amendment should be accepted if it does not come from himself, and that they ought not to be listened to. He said as well that this Amendment was not upon the Paper. That is a mere quibble. It was upon the Paper, and I defy the hon. and learned Member to get up and say that there was any difference in the effect of the Amendment which was on the Paper and the Amendment which I had the honour to accept on behalf of the Government. It was a mere question of where the Amendment was to be put. There was not a title of difference between the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for North Dublin as it appeared and as it was accepted. Of course I was wrong in accepting an Amendment coming from the Leader of the Irish Members. I was wrong in accepting an Amendment coming from a colleague of the hon. and learned Gentleman. Now that is the sum total of the crime of which we have been guilty.
812 Let me test again whether there is any foundation for the extraordinary allegation of the hon. and learned Member, that we only deceived, purposely deceived, the Irish Members. I cannot myself quite conceive the mind, at any rate, or the spirit of the person who always thinks that there is deception abroad. I remember the last speech of any note which the hon. and learned Member delivered was laid upon the pretext that he thought that the Government had been guilty of a breach of faith. Very few people make allegations of that kind constantly and quite believe them. I give the hon. and learned Member credit for that, and I do not believe he believes them himself. The concession that was made by the Prime Minister was a concession made upon the first Sub-section of this Clause, and let me see what that was. The first Sub-section of this Clause deals entirely with the assessment of the annual value of premises for the purpose of attaching the duties according to our present proposal. When the suggestion came from Ireland, and from the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond), that Ireland was so differently situated from England so far as assessment of the annual value of the premises was concerned, for the purposes of the present rates of duty, the concession was made by the Prime Minister. The hon. and learned Gentleman will not say that he himself was deceived. He knew all about that, and that this Sub-section intended to apply to Ireland and to Scotland, that is Sub-section (2). By way of a sort of covert compliment to the Chairman, for which he hopes to gain something—
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSHe pretends that Sub-section (2)—
§ Mr. F. E. SMITHOn a point of Order Is it in order for the learned Solicitor-General to say that a Member of this House has used an argument in the course of Debate in order to gain an advantage from the Chairman?
§ The CHAIRMANThat is not exactly what he said, but I do think the phrase used was undesirable.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI withdraw it unreservedly.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYNot on my account.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI was dealing with the difference between Sub-section (2) 813 and Sub-section (1). I was pointing out that Sub-section (1) dealt with the assessment of annual value for present purposes. Sub-section (2) deals with the establishment of a register, and with the preparation of a new valuation entirely, upon which the Licence Duty may be enforced in future. I repeat again that the hon. and learned Gentleman never was under any misapprehension at all as to the applicability of Sub-section (2) to Ireland. Did he not know all along that Sub-section (2) applied to Ireland? I assert that he did, and he will not deny it. If he thought and knew Sub-section (2) applied to Ireland, why did he not consult with his colleagues, and tell them "You had better remain until to-morrow, because if you object to Sub-section (2) you must make a fight against it"? [An HON. MEMBER made a remark which was inaudible.] I do not ask that that word should be withdrawn. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is true."] There never has been any doubt from the beginning that Sub-section (2) was intended to apply to Ireland, and it is clear on the face of it. The hon. and learned Member does not deny that he knew it was applicable to Ireland, and we may assume there was some intelligence on the benches around him, or, if not, he would have told the hon. Members with whom he was acting that they had better take care that Ireland was included. I submit there is no doubt at all on the point, and I must, on behalf of the Government, ask the Committee to support us in going on with these proceedings until some reasonable hour.
§ Sir E. CARSONI am inclined to agree with the Solicitor-General that the Irish Members, as the Members below the Gangway are usually called—there never is any regard paid to any other of them—I am inclined to agree with the Solicitor-General that the Irish Members were not deceived. I know perfectly well the Irish Members are play-actors. They have been play-acting since this Budget was introduced, and all this great gratitude that was expressed last night with reference to the concession, which turns out to be a very trumpery and very temporary one, all that is done in order that it might appear in the "Freeman's Journal" as a great victory and a great triumph for the Irish Members in getting for the Irish people relief from taxation under this part of the Budget. I, therefore, entirely agree with the Solicitor-General that there has been no deception in the matter. It has all been a transparent farce, and how anybody, except, perhaps, an absolute Eng- 814 lishman, if such a thing exists, could be in the slightest degree deceived by the transparent farce that has been played from those benches ever since the Budget was introduced I entirely fail to see. I do think there are other grounds upon which this Motion might be received by the Government. I defy anybody to explain to the House how it is that Sub-section (2) is to apply to Ireland and Scotland without drastic Amendments, elaborate Amendments setting up proper machinery for the purpose, because you are applying a Bill which was never meant to apply to Ireland and Scotland, and in relation to matters where the systems are absolutely, different. You have not put down a single Amendment on the Clause since you made up your minds to apply it to Ireland.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSAlways.
§ Sir E. CARSONThat is a wonderful thing. It makes the matter really worse; the negligence of the Government in not putting down a single line to show how you are going to apply it. When we come to the consideration of it I will show how impossible it is. You have not put a line in it in order to make it workable as regards Scotland and Ireland, while you had it all along in your mind that you were going to apply it—that passes my conception. If, instead of our trying in Committee to elaborate Amendments making the subject-matter of the Act of 1904 applicable, the Government would adjourn the House, and the Solicitor-General, putting off for once his "week-end feeling," would go quietly to the office of the draftsman, and, taking with him the Act of 1904 and the whole of the licensing legislation from the commencement of the last century, for both Scotland and Ireland, go carefully through it section by section, they would do for the country and the time of the House far more profitable service than by insisting on the continuance of the Debate this afternoon. Under the circumstances, I submit that it would be far better for the Bill and for the progress of business if, before we proceed to discuss the details of the Sub-section, some steps were taken to set up machinery applicable to Scotland and Ireland, as well as to England, which country alone is affected by the Act of 1904.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELrose in his place, and claimed to move "That the Question be now put."
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
816§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 168;. Noes, 92.
817| Division No. 590.] | AYES. | [3.55 p.m. |
| Abraham, W. (Cork, N.E.) | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | O'Malley, William |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Gulland, John W. | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Agnew, George William | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) | Paul, Herbert |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Hart-Davies, T. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Haworth, Arthur A. | Pointer, J. |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Hayden, John Patrick | Radford, G. H. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.) | Reddy, M. |
| Barnard, E. B. | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Rees, J. D. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Holland, Sir William Henry | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Hudson, Walter | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Robinson, S. |
| Beale, W. P. | Illingworth, Percy H. | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Rowlands, J. |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport) | Jardine, Sir J. | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Branch, James | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Seely, Colonel |
| Bright, J. A. | Jowett, F. W. | Shaw, Sir Charles E. (Stafford) |
| Brooke, Stopford | Kekewich, Sir George | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Brunner, Rt. Hon. Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Kilbride, Denis | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Laidlaw, Robert | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Lamont, Norman | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Snowden, P. |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles | Lehmann, R. C. | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Byles, William Pollard | Levy, Sir Maurice | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Lewis, John Herbert | Summerbell, T. |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Lupton, Arnold | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Cleland, J. W. | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Clough, William | Lynch, H. B. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Clynes, J. R. | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Toulmin, George |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.) | Maclean, Donald | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Wardle, George J. |
| Cooper, G. J. | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Waring, Walter |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Macpherson, J. T. | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | M'Callum, John M. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Markham, Arthur Basil | Watt, Henry A. |
| Crooks, William | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Whitbread, S. Howard |
| Cullinan, J. | Massie, J. | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Micklem, Nathaniel | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Molteno, Percy Alport | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Duffy, William J. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Morrell, Philip | Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Morse, L. L. | Williams, Sir Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Elibank, Master of | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Evans, Sir S. T. | Myer, Horatio | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Nannetti. Joseph P. | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Nussey, Sir Willans | |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Nuttall, Harry | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | O'Grady, J. | Joseph Pease and Captain Norton. |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Gretton, John |
| Balcarres, Lord | Clive, Percy Archer | Guinness. Hon. R. (Haggerston) |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Clyde, J. Avon | Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edm'ds) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Hamilton, Marquess of |
| Baring, Captain Hon. G. (Winchester) | Craik, Sir Henry | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | Harris, Frederick Leverton |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Hay, Hon. Claude George |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Faber, George Denison (York) | Healy, Maurice (Cork) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Faber, Captain W. V. (Hants, W.) | Healy, Timothy Michael |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Fell, Arthur | Helmsley, Viscount |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Fletcher, J. S. | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert |
| Cave, George | Forster, Henry William | Hill, Sir Clement |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Gardner, Ernest | Hills, J. W. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) |
| Hunt, Rowland | Newdegate, F. A. | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Joynson-Hicks, William | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Kimber, Sir Henry | Oddy, John James | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) |
| King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Lane-Fox, G. R. | Peel, Hon. W. R. W. | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Pretyman, E. G. | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham) | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Rented, Leslie | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Long, Rt Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.) | Ronaldshay, Earl of | Winterton, Earl |
| Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Salter, Arthur Clavell | Young, Samuel |
| MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Younger, George |
| Magnus, Sir Philip | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.) | |
| Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir |
| Morpeth, Viscount | Stanier, Beville | A. Acland-Hood and Viscount |
| Morrison-Bell, Captain | Starkey, John R. | Valentia. |
§ Question put accordingly, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
818§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 94; Noes, 185.
819| Division No. 591.] | AYES. | [4.2 p.m. |
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F. | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Peel, Hon. W. R. W. |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edm'ds.) | Pretyman, E. G. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Hamilton, Marquess of | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Renton, Leslie |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Banner, John S. Harmood | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Baring, Capt. Hon. G. (Winchester) | Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Helmsley, Viscount | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Hill, Sir Clement | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hills, J. W. | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Hunt, Rowland | Stanier, Beville |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Joynson-Hicks, William | Starkey, John R. |
| Cave, George | Kimber, Sir Henry | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r) | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham) | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Clyde, J. Avon | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Whitbread, S. Howard |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Winterton, Earl |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Morpeth, Viscount | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Fell, Arthur | Morrison-Bell, Captain | Young, Samuel |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Newdegate, F. A. | Younger, George |
| Forster, Henry William | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | |
| Gardner, Ernest | Oddy, John James | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | P. White and Mr. T. M. Healy. |
| Gretton, John | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, W. (Cork, N.E.) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Branch, James | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. |
| Agnew, George William | Bright, J. A. | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Brooke, Stopford | Crooks, William |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Brunner, Rt. Hon. Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Cullinan, J. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Bryce, J. Annan | Curran, Peter Francis |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Duffy, William J. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Byles, William Pollard | Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) |
| Barnard, E. B. | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Elibank, Master of |
| Barnes, G. N. | Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Evans, Sir S. T. |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Faber, G. H. (Boston) |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Cleland, J. W. | Ferguson, R. C. Munro |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Clough, William | Ffrench, Peter |
| Beale, W. P. | Clynes, J. R. | Field, William |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace |
| Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R. | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.) | Fuller, John Michael F. |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport) | Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John. |
| Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.) | Cooper, G. J. | Glendinning, R. G. |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Gulland, John W. | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) | Macpherson, J. T. | Rowlands, J. |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Hart-Davies, T. | M'Callum, John M. | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | M'Kean, John | Seely, Colonel |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Shaw, Sir Charles E. (Stafford) |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Maddison, Frederick | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Markham, Arthur Basil | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Massie, J. | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Hogan, Michael | Micklem, Nathaniel | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | Molteno, Percy Alport | Snowden, P. |
| Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Hudson, Walter | Morrell, Philip | Summerbell, T. |
| Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Morse, L. L. | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Myer, Horatio | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Nolan, Joseph | Toulmin, George |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Nussey, Sir Willans | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Nuttall, Harry | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Jowett, F. W. | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Joyce, Michael | O'Grady, J. | Wardle, George J. |
| Kavanagh, Walter M. | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | Waring, Walter |
| Keating, M. | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Kekewich, Sir George | O'Malley, William | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Kilbride, Denis | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Parker, James (Halifax) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Lamont, Norman | Paul, Herbert | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Pease, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Saff. Wald.) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Pirie, Duncan V. | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Levy, Sir Maurice | Pointer, J. | Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Radford, G. H. | Williams, Sir Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Raphael, Herbert H. | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Lundon, T. | Reddy, M. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Lupton, Arnold | Rees, J. D. | Wood, T. McKinnon |
| Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) | |
| Macdonald, J. B. (Leicester) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Captain |
| Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) | Norton and Sir E. Strachey. |
| Maclean, Donald | Robinson, S. |
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELrose in his place, and claimed to move "That the Question be now put."
§ Question put, "That the Question,
820§ 'That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause,' be now put."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 158; Noes, 91.
821| Division No. 592]. | AYES. | [4.10 p.m. |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) |
| Agnew, George William | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Cleland, J. W. | Hart-Davies, T. |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Clough, William | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Clynes, J. R. | Haworth, Arthur A. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.) | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Holland, Sir William Henry |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Cooper, G. J. | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) |
| Barnard, E. B. | Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Hudson, Walter |
| Barnes, G. N. | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | Hutton, Alfred Eddison |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Crooks, William | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Beale, W. P. | Curran, Peter Francis | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Jones, Leif (Appleby) |
| Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R. | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport) | Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Jowett, F. W. |
| Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.) | Elibank, Master of | Lamont, Norman |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Evans, Sir S. T. | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Branch, James | Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) |
| Brooke, Stopford | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Levy, Sir Maurice |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Fuller, John Michael F. | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Glendinning, R. G. | Lupton, Arnold |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes |
| Byles, William Pollard | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Lynch, H. B. |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Gulland, John W. | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Pointer, J. | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Maclean, Donald | Radford, G. H. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Raphael, Herbert H. | Toulmin, George |
| Macpherson, J. T. | Rees, J. D. | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| M'Callum, John M. | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Maddison, Frederick | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) | Wardle, George J. |
| Markham, Arthur Basil | Robinson, S. | Waring, Walter |
| Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Massie, J. | Roe, Sir Thomas | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Micklem, Nathaniel | Rowlands, J. | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Molteno, Percy Alport | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Morrell, Philip | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Morse, L. L. | Seely, Colonel | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Shaw, Sir Charles E. (Stafford) | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Nussey, Sir Willans | Sherwell, Arthur James | Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Nuttall, Harry | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Williams, Sir Osmond (Merioneth) |
| O'Grady, J. | Silcock, Thomas Ball | Wilson, Henry (York, W.R.) |
| Parker, James (Halifax) | Sloan, Thomas Henry | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Paul, Herbert | Snowden, P. | Wood, T. McKinnon |
| Paulton, James Mellor | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) | |
| Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Summerbell, T. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Captain |
| Pease, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Saff. Wald.) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Norton and Sir E. Strachey. |
| Pirie, Duncan V. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) |
| Balcarres, Lord | Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edm'ds.) | Peel, Hon. W. R. W. |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Hamilton, Marquess of | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Pretyman, E. G. |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Baring, Capt. Hon. G. (Winchester) | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Renton, Leslie |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecciesall) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Healy, Timothy Michael | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Helmsley, Viscount | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hill, Sir Clement | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Hills, J. W. | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.) |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) |
| Cave, George | Hunt, Rowland | Stanier, Beville |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Joynson-Hicks, William | Starkey, John R. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Kimber, Sir Henry | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r) | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) |
| Clyde, J. Avon | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lanarkshire) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Winterton, Earl |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh | Young, Samuel |
| Fell, Arthur | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Younger, George |
| Fletcher, J. S | Morpeth, Viscount | |
| Forster, Henry William | Morrison-Bell, Captain | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir |
| Gardner, Ernest | Newdegate, F. A. | A. Acland-Hood and Viscount |
| Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Valentia. |
| Gretton, John | Oddy, John James |
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
822§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 185; Noes, 94.
825| Division No. 593.] | AYES. | [4.20 p.m. |
| Abraham, W. (Cork, N.E.) | Barran, Rowland Hirst | Burns,Rt. Hon. John |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Barran Sir John Nicholson | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Agnew, George Wiliam | Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Beale, W. P. | Byles, William Pollard |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Carr-Gomm, H. W. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport) | Channing, Sir Francis Allstoa |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. George) | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Clancy, John Joseph |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Cleland,J. W. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Brace, William | Clough, William |
| Barnard, E. B. | Brooke, Stopford | Clynes,J. R. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Brunner, Rt. Hon. Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Collins, Sir Wm. J. (St. Pancras, W.) | Lamont, Norman | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Reddy, M. |
| Cooper, G. J. | Lehmann, R. C. | Rees, J. D. |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | Levy, Sir Maurice | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Lewis, John Herbert | Robertson, Sir. G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Robinson, S. |
| Crooks, William | Lundon, T. | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Cullinan, J. | Lupton, Arnold | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Rowlands, J. |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Lynch, H. B. | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Duffy, William J. | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Scott, A. H. (Aston-under-Lyne) |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Maclean, Donald | Seely, Colonel |
| Elibank, Master of | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Shaw, Sir Charles E. (Stafford) |
| Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Macpherson, J. T. | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Faber, G. H. (Boston) | MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.) | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro | M'Callum, John M. | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Ffrench, Peter | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Maddison, Frederick | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Markham. Arthur Basil | Snowden, P. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Stewart, Halley (Grecnock) |
| Glendinning, R. G. | Massie, J. | Summerbell, T. |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Masterman, C. F. G. | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Micklem, Nathaniel | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Gulland, John W. | Molteno, Percy Alport | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) | Mooney, J. J. | Thorne. G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Toulmin, George |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Morse, L. L. | Villiers, Ernest Alexander |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Nolan, Joseph | Wardle, George J. |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Nussey Sir Willans | Waring, Walter |
| Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Nuttall, Harry | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Hogan, Michael | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | O'Grady, J. | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Hope, John Deans (File, West) | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Hudson, Walter | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Hutton, Alfred Eddison | O'Malley, William | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Isaacs, Rufns Daniel | Parker, James (Halifax) | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Paul, Herbert | Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Paulton, James Mellor | Williams, Sir A Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Pease, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Saff. Wald.) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Joyce, Michael | Philips, John (Longford, S.) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Kavanagh, Walter M. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Wood, T. M'Kinnon |
| Keating, Matthew | Pirie, Duncan V. | |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Pointer, J. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Captain |
| Kilbride, Denis | Radlord, G. H. | Norton and Sir E. Strachey. |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Rainy, A. Rolland | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F. | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.) |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Fell, Arthur | Lonsdale, John Brownlee |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fletcher, J. s. | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Forster, Henry William | MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Gardner, Ernest | Mildmay, Francis Bingham |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Baring, Capt. Hon. G. (Winchester) | Gretton, John | Morrison-Bell, Captain |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Newdegate, F. A. |
| Belloc, Hilalre Joseph Peter R. | Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edmunds) | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hamilton, Marquess of | Oddy, John James |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Peel, Hon. W. Robert Wellesley |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Pretyman, E. G. |
| Castlereagh Viscount | Healy, Timothy Michael | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Cave, George | Helmsley, Viscount | Renton, Leslie |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Hill, Sir Clement | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r) | Hills, J. W. | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Clyde, James Avon | Hunt, Rowland | Smith, F. E. (Liverpool, Walton) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Joynson-Hicks, William | Stanier, Beville |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Kimber, Sir Henry | Starkey, John R. |
| Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-shire) | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham) | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) | Younger, George |
| Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) | Winterton, Earl | |
| Whitbread, S. Howard | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| White, Patrick (Meath, North) | Young, Samuel | Salter and Mr. Staveley-Hill. |
| Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
§ Mr. STAVELEY-HILLmoved, in Subsection (2), to leave out the words "as soon as may be." The Amendment needs no words Lo support it, and I would merely content myself by hoping that the Government would withdraw these words. They are quite unnecessary. If the Government do not withdraw them perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy would explain what is their meaning and object.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe words are not of any particular importance, and if the hon. Member presses for their omission they can be omitted, but I see no objection to the words as they stand.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEI desire, if I am in order, to move the next Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Staffordshire (Mr. Staveley-Hill), which is to leave out from Sub-Section (2) the words "and to keep corrected." These words illustrate the enormous difficulty of the tax which the Government set itself to do. There are 120,000 licensed premises in the United Kingdom, and each of these is to be not only valued in the first instance, but it is to be watched by the Commissioners from year to year. It is quite certain from the explanation of the Government that what may be called the local goodwill will be valued under this Clause, and it is obvious that this goodwill must vary enormously from year to year. The departure of an efficient and businesslike tenant, and various other local circumstances, such as the destruction of neighbouring property or a change in the character of the neighbourhood, must affect the goodwill of the house a great deal, and therefore the value of the premises must vary from year to year. This will be a matter of enormous difficulty, and will involve the greatest possible labour to keep this register from year to year, so that at any moment the compensation value could be ascertained. It is a stupendous task, and I want to know who is going to perform it? Are the existing staff of the Inland Revenue going to perform it or not? If they are not, who is going to be entrusted with this new task; and I "would like to know what provision is there for providing a new staff? On 826 taking up the consideration of the value of the Land Clauses the Prime Minister made a statement that there was to be no less than 500 officers under the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to undertake that task. Surely the Government will want a certain number of new officers here. If in England and Wales the thing could be done with the present staff, it is impossible that the present staff can also undertake the duty in Scotland and Ireland. There must be new officers. I should like to know how many, and what is the cost? I presume if there is an increase in the number of officers there would be an increased charge, and I imagine a Resolution would be necessary, such as we have had in the case of the expenses in connection with the, valuation of land. If so, when will this Resolution be introduced? Apart from these questions, which are purely administrative, there will be a very great treatment that trade is subject to by to be an annual calculation of their valuations for compensation. The kind of treatment that trade is subjected to by these sudden attacks is worse than the taxation itself. Every year they have to be on their defence. It was the Licensing Bill last year, and there were three or four other small Bills that they had to watch, and now they are threatened with a valuation from year to year, which they will also have to watch. I think you are not treating the trade fairly in exposing them to this continual worry and annoyance, and I protest against their being kept from year to year on tenter hooks, not knowing what taxes they will have to meet. They will always be kept in fear that the omnipotent and omnipresent Commissioners of Inland Revenue will suddenly change the basis on which they are to be taxed. For these reasons, and on the ground that it is an unnecessary piece of vindictiveness and persecution, I move that these words should be omitted. I maintain that a quinquennial valuation would be quite enough.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe hon. Gentleman moves an Amendment, the object of which is to omit words which provides that a corrected register is to be kept. Although the register is to be made according to his views, it is not to be kept corrected.
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEI said it could be corrected every five years.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe hon. Member proposes to leave out the words that the register is to be kept corrected. It is hardly necessary to say more than merely to explain the purpose of this Amendment in order to prove its unreasonableness. It is not suggested that there should be an annual revaluation or valuation of the licensed premises. A valuation would be made, and until circumstances occur to give ground for believing that the true valuation has changed that valuation stands. There is nothing in the Bill to require annual valuation, and an annual valuation is not contemplated. With regard to the staff, it is assumed that this valuation is not to be made all at once, and, therefore, the increase of the staff will be exceedingly small. The Amendment was not moved by the hon. Member in whose name it stands, because, evidently, he did not think it was defensible.
§ Sir E. CARSONI quite agree with the right hon.- Gentleman that if you are to have a register you will probably have to keep it correct, but that very fact shows the absurdity of the system you propose to adopt for this valuation. There is no machinery in this Clause set up for correcting the register. At whose bidding has the tenant a right to have a correction made, when is it to be corrected, and who has to correct it? The Clause does not say anyone has to correct it. The whole Clause is left in a bald manner, and simply applies the Act of 1904, which is absolutely inapplicable to any correction, because there is there only the ascertained sum for the payment of compensation. How is that done under the Act of 1904? The parties when licences are refused go before quarter sessions, and if they agree as to the amount of compensation that is the settled sum. How is that provided for here? Have the parties to go before quarter sessions when there is to be a correction? Are they to be placed in the same position as they would be if the licence had been refused? There is no machinery at all for this, and no consideration or anything pointing out how, when, or by whom this has to be done. While I agree you should have the register corrected I certainly think the Clause is framed in the most slovenly way.
There is another point made by the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment 828 which is well worthy of consideration, and that is the great embarrassment and interference you are going to have with the trade of the licence holder, if you are going to have these corrections made at the mere will of a Government Department. All this shows the vast inconvenience which will be caused by the system you are trying to set up. If you have this-register you will have to have it correct, and that fact alone shows that the system you are setting up is ridiculous. At any moment the Commissioners, whoever they may be, will have a right to say to a man, "Let us examine into your goodwill. Is it as valuable as it was two years ago? Is your trade as good as it was two years ago? Bring up your books and let us go into every detail of your business for the purpose of finding out your annual value." That is an oppressive system which will interfere with the carrying on of the business of the publican. The more you consider this Clause and go into the method of applying the Act of 1904, the more you will realise that the system you are getting up is an absolutely impracticable method of ascertaining the valuation; whilst I admit that you must correct the register from time to time, that ought to be provided for by the most ample machinery, and you should take care that it is properly done with the least inconvenience to the trade.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYMay I point out that the authority which has hitherto made the corrections has been quarter sessions. As regards Ireland, this is a proposal to substitute as the correcting authority a new jurisdiction which has-never existed in the country before. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General is always very ready to answer criticisms when he has the Closure behind him. He is always ready to contradict when he can prevent any reply by relying on the Closure. This is a proposal, so far as Ireland is concerned, to substitute a new authority for the old authority. That is my first point. My second point is that hitherto the old valuation board was kept in the country to which it belonged, and here, as I understand it, one register is to be kept for the United Kingdom, because it speaks all through of the register in the singular. It says that the Commissioners shall keep a register, so that when an Irish or a Scotch publican wants to see the original roll or the corrected one, he must come to Somerset House for that, 829 purpose. Whenever you take up a point on this Bill you are told that the Government are going to make a new proposal, or a drafting Amendment will be made, and yet we are attacked for pointing out these defects in the Clause. Where is this register to be kept, and what is the reason for proposing to substitute a new authority for the old one? Until we get an answer to that point I do not propose to develop my argument further.
§ Mr. GEORGE CAVEI hope we shall have an answer given to the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dublin University (Sir E. Carson). As I understand it, the intention of the Subsection is that the Commissioners of Excise are to collect the information, and then pass it on to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and the latter Commissioners are to certify the compensation value. Does that mean they are to ascertain and fix the value, or are they merely to perform the Ministerial office of certifying? When they have certified the value, they have to tell the Commissioners of Excise what they have done, and those Commissioners are to put it into the register. Are the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to be the authority not only for certifying, but also for fixing the compensation value? Is it intended to oust quarter sessions once and for all, not only for the purposes of this register, but for the purpose of fixing compensation under the Act of 1904? That is a very material point on which I should like to have some more information. If that is not the case, what is intended to be done? Is the register to have no operation for the purposes of compensation under the Act of 1904? The Clause does not provide that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue may correct. How can the Commissioners of Excise correct the register without a corrected certificate from their brother Commissioners? There is not the least machinery provided for all that, nor is there any machinery provided for ascertaining the original compensation. It seems to me that this matter has not been fully thought out by the Government. All these matters are of great importance, and we ought to be told something more than we know as to what are the intentions of the Government in regard to the operation of this Sub-section.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSIt is not intended in any way to interfere with the operation of the Act of 1904 where licences have been refused. We only take the value as provided in the second Section of the Act of 830 1904 for the purposes of this annual value. The Inland Revenue are the people to ascertain the value. The Commissioners of Excise have no office staff or valuers to do that work. That staff belongs to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and, so far as the ascertaining of the annual value in each house is concerned, that is the duty of the Inland Revenue. Having been made by them, they certify it, and the register is kept by the Commissioners of Excise. There is no staff for this purpose in the Excise and Customs Department, and that is the reason why it is necessary to proceed in this way. In answer to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I may explain that we do not propose that there shall be any alteration in the procedure of quarter sessions for the purposes of this Bill. That procedure will still remain for the purposes of the Act of 1904; but for the purposes of this Bill the value will be ascertained by the proper set of Commissioners, and there will be a provision incorporated in the Clause either by the acceptance of the Amendment standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman or some other Amendment to be proposed. There will be in this case a power of appeal from the Commissioners' decision granted just the same as was provided for in the case of the ascertained value. The ascertainment of the value in every case, both for the purpose of the original register and correction, is to apply to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
§ Mr. CAVEAt whose instance have the corrections to be made? Have the Commissioners to make inquiries themselves, or only when somebody complains?
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSIf they are aware of any circumstances which they think renders a revaluation necessary, they will make inquiries and inform the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSYes.
§ Sir E. CARSONThe Solicitor-General has told us a great deal as to what is going to be done, but it is not in the Bill. He says that the whole procedure before Quarter Sessions is not to be incorporated. Where is that provided for in the Bill?
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSThe procedure of Quarter Sessions with regard to licences, taken away is not interfered with by this Bill.
§ Sir E. CARSONWhat I am putting to the Solicitor-General is that under the Act of 1904 the way you ascertain the amount is by going before Quarter Sessions, where the parties can agree as to what is the amount of compensation. Where is that provided for here? You have to ascertain the compensation under this Clause, but it is not provided for anywhere in the Clause itself. I have read this Clause over and over again, and all it says is, "That amount and sum shall be certified respectively by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue." That does not say they are to ascertain, and it may just as well be ascertained by Quarter Sessions, and then the Commissioners can certify. There is no machinery set up at all for the purpose of either ascertaining the original value or the correction. The only way provided is that you are driven back to the Act of 1904 to see what the machinery is there. The machinery under that Act is that you are to go before Quarter Sessions, where, after the evidence has been heard, if they think the amount suggested is a fair amount, and the parties come to an agreement, it goes to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, the Solicitor-General says a part of that is taken away and a part remains. I say it is not in the Bill, and nobody can make it out from the Bill.
§ Mr. CAVEIf I understand the statement correctly, it comes to this, that the compensation value on which you pay duty may be wholly different from that on which you receive compensation if the licence is refused. The matter arises in this way. According to the learned Solicitor-General the compensation value for the purposes of this Act is fixed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue without any reference to Quarter Sessions. Suppose that to be £5,000 and then the licence to be refused. The parties go to Quarter Sessions and fix the compensation value for the purpose of the Act of 1904 at £6,000. They agree on a sum larger than the amount certified by the register. That agreement is allowed by The Quarter Sessions as the compensation value to be paid. It therefore follows that you pay Licence Duty on one sum and get compensation on a totally different sum.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThe logical mind of the Solicitor-General does not enable him to appreciate my poor point, but still I think it deserves some answer. I put to him this question. There is to be a correct register. We heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of 832 Lancaster that it would be possible that there would first be an extremely excessive assessment, more perhaps, he said, than really any reasonable person would think worth while to enforce. After the man has been made bankrupt under that system he is to have an opportunity of having a revision. I suppose that is what the word "correct" applies to under this Subsection. After a man has had a great deal of money extracted from him, there is to be a correct register. My humble question is this: Where is that correct register to be kept, and, if this Sub-section is to apply to the three Kingdoms, why should there not be three registers? If you will not give Dublin Home Rule and a Parliament, at least give it a register. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Now we are agreed upon that, and I hope that promise at all events will be kept.
My next point is as to the operation of the Quarter Sessions. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster told us half an hour ago that the Government were quite willing to accept the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson). I at once read that Amendment, and I quite see my right hon. Friend put it down under the supposition that this Sub-section does not apply to Ireland. The Government are willing to accept these words: "Shall be ascertained in the same manner and subject to the right of appeal as if the same was being ascertained under the Licensing Act, 1904." That Act does not apply either to Scotland or to Ireland, and I therefore humbly ask where is the correction for these countries to come in, and by what authority is it to be made? Of course you may need a new Bill to make the correction for Scotland and Ireland. That may be the answer; but as Ireland and Scotland are the brightest feathers in the Government's licensing cap, I want to know why you always forget them? Whilst you are giving England an appeal, Ireland is being deprived of its ancient appeal, because the Solicitor-General says we do not propose to have any appeal to Quarter Sessions. Under the Irish code, there is not only appeal to Quarter Sessions, but there is also the power to state a case to the High Court of Justice in Dublin, and, though the Member for Trinity College is to have his Amendment accepted for England, the suggestion is that Ireland is to lose its appeal even to the humble County Court. I really cannot understand it. Of course, I quite agree you may want a new 833 Bill, but we have to Debate this Bill. This is the Bill we are talking about, and not some Bill and some valuation that is yet in embryo. Therefore, with great humility and with all that respect which attaches to the office of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and craving his pardon for addressing him in his now high office, I venture to put these questions.
§ Sir E. CARSONMay I say one word with reference to the observations of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. T. M. Healy). When I put this Amendment down, not merely as regards appeals, but also as regards procedure, I certainly was under the impression that this second Sub-section did not apply to Ireland. The whole machinery set up under the Act of 1904 applies purely to England, and I did not consider the second Sub-section of this Clause applied to Ireland at all. I can assure the hon. and learned Member that in putting down the Amendment I never for one moment intended in any way to deprive Ireland of the right of appeal. The one thing we should prevent the Government doing is to deprive us of the right of appeal. The Government seem to have as much respect for the courts as the burglar has for the Old Bailey.
§ 5.0.P.M.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI think the right hon. Gentleman will admit we have met him fairly and fully in the matter of appeal. We have certainly no objection to having an appeal wherever it is proper, and, as the Clause has been challenged, we have come to the conclusion we will allow an appeal. I am much obliged to the hon. and learned Member (Mr. T. M. Healy) for the information he has given me and for the spirit in which it was imparted. Whatever may the spirit be in which information is given, we are always glad to receive it from whatever quarter it comes. There will, of course, be an appeal in the three Kingdoms. The Clause having been framed without giving any right of appeal, it will, of course, be necessary to have words to adopt the process of appeal not only to England, but also to Ireland and Scotland. It was never intended that there should be any procedure at Quarter Sessions. The intention was to give an appeal from the Commissioners in the same way as an appeal lies from the Commissioners now upon any determination by them for the purposes of the Estate Duties or for the purposes of compensation under the Act of 1904. I do not know whether I have answered the whole of the questions 834 put to me by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. M. Healy).
§ Mr. GRETTONThere is just one point which has escaped the attention of the learned Solicitor-General. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) expressed the fear that there might be some confusion between the appeal under this Sub-section and the appeal for the purposes of compensation under the Act of 1904. The Solicitor-General said they intended in no way to interfere with the process of valuation and judgment for compensation. It appears to me it must have escaped his notice that, by a subsequent Amendment, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is striking out the very words which apply this process for the purpose of this Bill, and the very confusion which he wants to avoid will be promoted.
§ Mr. J. S. ARKWRIGHTI took down a phrase of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and I should like to ask for some elucidation of it. This register has got to be corrected. The right hon. Gentleman said it would be made, but would not again be corrected until circumstances occurred to give ground for the belief that a new valuation had become necessary. I think, when you propose to institute a register dealing with the three Kingdoms, a register which is part of the machinery of a totally new system of valuation, that we ought to have some more explanation than the contemptuous dismissal of the matter by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in a phrase of absolutely no meaning. It may be assumed we understand the circumstances under which the revaluation and reconstruction of the Bill becomes necessary. We see the process going on from day to day and from minute to minute. It is possible that is the assumption of the Front Bench opposite, but in all seriousness I do think we ought to have some sort of an explanation whether this register is to be corrected at will, whether it is to be corrected at any moment or at stated intervals, and what the conditions and circumstances are which are to occur for somebody not yet specified to set to work to correct it.
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEI should like to say one word about what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said in answer to my Amendment: "You admit you must have a register," he said, "but you do not wane to keep it corrected." I cannot help thinking that reply was somewhat cheap. Of course, a register must be corrected, 835 but, by keeping in these words, you will expose both the owner and the tenant to considerable uncertainty and hardship. The right hon. Gentleman offers no explanation in answer to the point made by my hon. Friend (Mr. Cave). It seems pretty clear that some Commissioner, in the course of his perambulations about the country, may at any time think any particular premises are under-assessed for the purposes of this Sub-section, and he may proceed to start a revaluation, in order to contest which it will expose the owner or the tenant to a lot of complications and difficulties. Would the Government accept, as an Amendment, to add at the end of the Sub-section the words "at intervals of not less than five years"? That would mean that once the assessment is fixed they would not be at liberty to change it within five years. If the Government will not accept that Amendment I shall divide upon the Amendment I have moved.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe question was raised earlier as to how this duty of keeping the register corrected would be discharged, and who would be the Commissioners to do it. I understood the representative of the Government to say that it would be the duty of the Commissioners of Excise, and that, if any information reached them at any time that an assessment was incorrect it would be their duty to approach the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to certify a new value. I have no doubt they will do it when they have the slightest suspicion that they have under-assessed any tenant; but, supposing by a change of circumstances the assessment has become an over-assessment, what right does this Sub-section give to a tenant to appeal or to move in the matter at all? Are the Commissioners bound to take any notice of any representation he makes? The Commissioners, as I read the Subsection, are not obliged to listen to him or to explain why they do not act upon his representations. He has, so far as I can see, and subject to what the Government may say, no remedy whatever against what is obviously an injustice.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI should have thought it was obvious that the Commissioners would not have been performing their statutory duties to register correctly if they ignored a representation on the part of the very person who is affected showing an over-estimate.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINWhat is the remedy of the citizen, and what would be the penalty on the Commissioners for neglect?
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe right hon. Gentleman is asking a question which ought to be addressed to a lawyer. Speaking as a layman I should say they might proceed by way of mandamus.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThe Prime Minister is always in good humour, no matter what provocation he gets, and I thank him for the spirit he has always shown. May I ask him this question? Supposing a new licence is granted on October 10th, would it be a just thing to make the correction on October 9th and double a man's assessment? There is not a word of protection for the publican in the Bill. That was why I raised the point about this register being-kept 500 miles away from the countries it concerns, and I think it was a just subject for alarm to think that this correction may be made, with its tremendous consequences, in some secret office by a clerk without notice, and probably on the very eve of the time when a man was preparing the amount he would have to pay. The Clause is drawn in a most wide and sweeping manner, but it is almost a crime now to get up and call attention to this inspirationally drafted measure. More Clauses have been dropped and more Bills have been promised in connection with this measure than in connection with any other measure I can remember in the 29 years I have been in this place. I never spoke on this Bill in Committee until we came to the licensing Clauses. I never said a word about your land Clauses, but it seems a petty treason to the Prince of Wales to open your mouth about these Clauses.
§ Mr. W. R. W. PEELOught there not to be some limitation to the action of the Commissioners with regard to these alterations? My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. James Hope) suggested an interval of five years. Whilst they might be wanted more often than that, surely there ought to be a limitation of one year; otherwise the corrections might be vexatious. There is at present no limitation and no security at all so far as I can see. Of course, the Commissioners might do it perfectly fairly, but there is no protection for any licensee or publican who. might be irritated.
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYThe word "correction" has not the value given to it on either side. You use the word "correction" in connection with mistakes and errors. If you have a valuation which is originally correct, and because of a change of circumstances you want to alter it, that is not a correction, it is a revision. The last thing which entered into my head when I read this Clause was that the word "correction" was used for the purpose of enabling the Commissioners to change the valuation as often as they thought fit, and my alarm is all the more by reason of the announcement of the Prime Minister that that correction might be made practically at any time. I agree the Prime Minister made that announcement in favour of the publican. I agree it is right if the Commissioners of Inland Revenue are to alter the valuation because they think the circumstances have changed and the assessment is too low, and that it necessarily follows they will be bound to consider any application made to them in the contrary sense. It necessarily follows that, upon any application made to them by a licence holder in the contrary sense, there may be, a change in any other direction. Allow me
§ to say that if, on the one hand, an individual may apply on any day of the week or in any week of the year to have his valuation altered it necessarily follows as a correlative proposition that on any day of the week or in any week of the year the revenue can claim to have another valuation made. It may be that this expression "to keep corrected" may apply to something like a change in the name where an error has been made or a change in the description of premises which have been incorrectly described. I know of no Act of Parliament in which the word "correction" has been used in this sense. I challenge the use of the word. I say it is not the kind of verbiage often followed in taxing statutes, and certainly if it is to be used to denote a small change made, to correct an error may involve enormous consequences at the will of the Inland Revenue authorities at any time.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 143; Noes, 83.
839| Division No. 594.] | AYES. | [5.15 p.m. |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) |
| Agnew, George William | Elibank, Master of | Massie, J. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Evans, Sir S. T. | Masterman, C. F. G. |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Micklem, Nathaniel |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Gulland, John W. | O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid) |
| Barnard, E. B. | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) | O'Grady, J. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | O'Malley, William |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Hart-Davies, T. | Paul, Herbert |
| Beale, W. P. | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye) |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Haworth, Arthur A. | Pease, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Saff. Wald.) |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport) | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Benn. W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.) | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Pointer, J. |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Holland, Sir William Henry | Radford, G. H. |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Illingworth, Percy H. | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Branch, James | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Rees, J. D. |
| Brooke, Stopford | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) |
| Brunner, Rt. Hon. Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Kekewich, Sir George | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney Charles | Laidlaw, Robert | Robinson, S. |
| Byles, William Pollard | Lamont, Norman | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Rose, Sir Charles Day |
| Cleland, J. W. | Levy, Sir Maurice | Rowlands, J. |
| Clough, William | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Clynes, J. R. | Lutpton, Arnold | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Cooper, G. J. | Lynch, H. B. | Seely, Colonel |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Shaw, Sir Charles E. (Stafford) |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Maclean, Donald | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Crooks, William | Macpherson, J. T. | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Crosfield, A. H. | M'Callum, John M. | Snowden, P. |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Maddison, Frederick | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) | Williams, Sir Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) | Waterlow, D. S. | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) | Watt, Henry A. | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Toulmin. George | White, Sir George (Norfolk) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) | |
| Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Captain |
| Waring, Walter | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) | Norton and Sir E. Strachey. |
| Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. | Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F. | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Pretyman, E. G. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Gretton, John | Renton, Leslie |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edm'ds) | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hamilton, Marquess of | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford) | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, E.) |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Stanier, Beville |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Healy, Timothy Michael | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Hill, Sir Clement | Starkey, John R. |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Hills, J. W. | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Cave, George | Hunt, Rowland | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Kimber, Sir Henry | Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham) | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Clive, Percy Archer | Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Clyde, J. Avon | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Whitbread, S. Howard |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Winterton, Earl |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Morpeth, Viscount | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Morrison-Bell, Captain | Young, Samuel |
| Faber, Captain W. V. (Hants, W.) | Newdegate, F. A. | Younger, George |
| Fell, Arthur | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| Forster, Henry William | Peel, Hon W. R. W. | James Hope and Mr. Arkwright. |
| Gardner, Ernest | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
§ Mr. YOUNGER moved,in Sub-section (27), after the word "respectively" ["a register as respects all fully-licensed premises and beer-houses respectively"] to insert the words "in England and Wales."
I have no intention of making a speech, as I covered the ground before. The Committee know precisely what is the Amendment. This Clause applies to Scotland. It is inapplicable, and we do not want it.
§ Mr. GRETTONThe point which I have to raise is an entirely new one. The Irish Members have taken possession of the Government upon Clause 29 as to the estimation of annual value for the purpose of the scale contained in the Schedule, and Griffith's valuation is to apply to Ireland. This new valuation which Clause 30 sets up applies to something of which we have not yet been told, "the annual compensation value," whatever that may mean. It is clear that the compensation value under the Act of 1904 must come into the valuation, so far as it proceeds from the volume of trade done on the licensed premises, and also as to the annual value of those licensed premises. It stands to reason that if you take the value on the trade done, and you make a large reduction, it causes a higher valua- 840 tion on the premises, and the charge will be less than the licence under this Clause 30. But if you take a lower valuation, as is proposed to be done under the Griffith's Valuation, the remaining sum would be larger and the tax will be a great deal heavier than it would have been under the original proposal of the Bill. I am sure this subtle point has escaped the attention of hon. Members from Ireland. The Government has succeeded in overreaching them, and they are proceeding on lines which will ultimately extract more taxation from Ireland than they contemplated in the original draft of the Bill.
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYI submit to the Government that the application of the English system to Ireland would be monstrously unfair—unfair to the country as a whole and unfair to the individual publicans. I submit that for this reason: that the tenure of the Irish publican of hip licence is a wholly different tenure from that on which the English publican holds. The proposal is to substitute for the existing method of valuation, at some future time, and by virtue, as I understand it, of a future Act, which has been loosely and incorrectly called Griffith's Valuation, a wholly new system. It was not Griffiths 841 who made the valuation under which Irish public-houses and Irish hereditaments are now generally valued. The valuation under which we are now acting is a later one than that which Griffiths made. But apart from that, there is another and more important error than the error in name, because it has been assumed that it was an old valuation. That is not so. In the case of Irish land it is perfectly true that the tenement valuation is an old valuation, but the valuation of houses in Ireland is liable to be revised every year, and that is constantly done where any change takes place in the physical condition of the premises. I wish to get it out of the heads of Members generally that when we speak of Griffiths' Valuation it necessarily follows that the existing valuation for Irish houses is old and obsolete. At any rate, I will adopt for the purpose of convenience the description which has been hitherto used, and say that in Ireland at present we value on Griffith's valuation. The proposal is to alter that, and to substitute for it a valuation based upon this compensation value, which only exists in England, and, as I understand, the compensation value is the difference between the house with a licence and the house without a licence. That gives you a lump sum from which, by regulations, the Treasury are to find out the annual sum, and I understand a third of that is to be taken as the valuation. When you are dealing in that way with the English publican you treat his licence on a false and fictitious basis. You treat it as being still what I call a licence at will, though it has ceased to be a licence at will. The English publican, until the Act of 1904, according to Sharpe v. Wakefield, had a licence at will, but since the Act of 1904 his licence is no longer a licence at will. It is a licence which can only be terminated if he gets compensation.
But for the purposes of this Act you still value the English publican's licence as if he was getting no compensation. By this Bill, when you are estimating the value of the tenant's licence for the purpose of his taxation, you treat the licence as a licence at will. In that way, of course, you lessen his compensation, and that is the object of the proposal, and by so doing you lessen his taxation and that may or may not be fair. But the point is that when you come to deal with the Irish publican you will be treating his licence as a freehold, and accordingly the basis on which you will tax the Irish publican and the basis on which you will be finding his 842 hypothetical compensation value will be a wholly different basis from that on which you are finding the compensation value of the English publican. That is unquestionable and undeniable. You fix the compensation value for the English publican on the basis that his licence was a licence at will, which can be terminated every year, and as though he can get no compensation, though in fact he can get compensation. When you fix the value of the Irish publican's licence you will be bound to treat his licence as a freehold. That is the law. Accordingly you will be magnifying the compensation value for the Irish publican and you will be assessing his compensation on a wholly different and a much higher basis than you are assessing the taxation of the English publican. You may say, in reply that that is perfectly fair, because we do not treat the English publican's licence as a freehold, because it is not a freehold, and we treat the Irish publican's licence as a freehold, because it is a freehold. That might be a very fair and proper argument for an Irish Parliament to make. If an Irish Parliament was taxing the Irish publican they would be perfectly entitled to tax him on the basis that his licence was a freehold; but how is it fair for this Imperial Parliament in a Finance Bill, which is supposed to act equally over the three Kingdoms, to assess the taxation which you are going to levy on the Irish publican as a class on a much higher scale than in the case of the Englishman? I fully believe that the distinction to which I am calling attention was not in the minds of the Government when they drew their clause. There remains the fact that we are to be governed by the first Sub-section of Section 2 of the Act of 1904. I accordingly say, in the first place, that that is an injustice to our country as a whole, because it assesses Irish publicans as a class on a higher basis of taxation than English publicans. But there is more than that. You assess the English publican on a fictitious basis. You assess him on the basis that his licence is of less value than it is. Before the Act of 1904 his licence could be taken from him without compensation. You assess him on that basis, notwithstanding that he has an Act which gives him compensation. Accordingly England has a double advantage by this enactment. She has, first, the advantage derived from the fact that every Irish licence is a freehold, and, secondly, the advantage that an English licence has to be valued by statute 843 on a fictitious basis, lower, in fact, than what the value really is. I do think that the Government did not advert to these important distinctions between the two countries when drawing the Clause. I was one of the innocent persons who, on first reading the Bill, assumed that it did not apply to Ireland at all. It was only in the course of the Debates that I realised it was intended that this Clause should apply to Ireland. I would ask the Prime Minister to say whether the application of this Clause to Ireland does not reduce to a nullity the concession he made yesterday to the hon. Member for Dublin County (Mr. Clancy).
§ The PRIME MINISTERindicated dissent.
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYDoes it not limit the value of that concession to the period between the passing of this Act and the making of a new valuation? That, at any rate, cannot be denied. If that was the extent of the concession, I certainly did not realise it when the Prime Minister was making his statement and when the Amendment was being accepted. I certainly do not think that the great body of the Irish Members realised it. The Chancellor of the Duchy said that we ought to assume from the first Sub-section that it is intended to change the basis of valuation in Ireland. Nothing of the kind. The first Sub-section of this Clause, even with the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Dublin County, does not change the valuation in Ireland, and it is not altered by anything in the Schedule. You cannot make a change in the method of valuation merely by repealing an Act of Parliament. You must go on to substitute a new method. It cannot be suggested that the first Sub-section of this Clause, even coupled with the repeal provided for at the end of the Bill, substitutes any new method of valuation for the existing method. But if you do not substitute any new method of valuation, the valuation will stand as at present. I say, therefore, that the acceptance of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dublin County was practically a nullity, giving us really nothing, unless it is to be covered by a further enactment excluding Ireland from the remaining portions of the Section.
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe point which the hon. Member has made is, I think, a new one, that there is a difference between the tenure of the Irish as com- 844 pared with that of the English publican. The great objection which we on this side of the House had to the Act of 1904 was that, for the purpose of compensation it practically treated the English publican as if he had something analogous to a freehold. Compensation has been awarded to him on that footing. [An HON.MEMBER: "NO."] It has been awarded to him on the footing that unless there is some cause which would lead to the disturbance of his licence, he was entitled to be considered as a person to whom the licence would be renewed. That, to all intents and purposes, puts him in the same position as the Irish publican. It appears to me that Ireland has a great deal to gain from the adoption of this alternative in the second Sub-section. The Irish publican's trade, as has been pointed out repeatedly, is a mixed trade. It is carried on in premises which are not exclusively devoted to the sale of drink. Other forms of merchandise are also sold on the premises, and, therefore, when you are going to assess under the alternative scheme compensation value for these premises elements of value will have to be taken away before you can arrive at a fair estimate. These elements do not come into the question at all in England. Time alone will show what will happen, but the best forecast I can give from such facts as are in our possession is that Ireland stands to gain very considerably by the adoption of this Sub-section. At any rate, if I were an Irishman—
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYThen we were ruined by the Amendment accepted last night?
§ The PRIME MINISTERNot at all; on the contrary, the Amendment accepted last night puts Ireland in the position that until a fresh Act of Parliament is passed she has got the existing Griffith's valuation. That is the effect of the Amendment passed last night.
§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYObviously, if we gain by the new method, we will lose by not adopting it immediately.
§ PRIME MINISTERYou would lose a great deal more if we had not accepted the Amendment, because then the valuation would have been the same valuation as in England and Scotland. You gain for the moment the continuance of the status quo, and you are not worsened until a fresh Act of Parliament is passed, and 'I believe, according to the best estimate 845 that I have been able to form, by the application of this Sub-section Ireland will be much better off in future.
§ Sir EDWARD CARSONAlthough I myself voted the other evening against the exemption of Ireland when it was proposed that Ireland should be left out of the first Sub-section, if the hon. Member goes to a Division on this Amendment I shall certainly support it, and for this reason: In my opinion, the whole of this system which you are setting up under the Act of 1904 is absolutely inapplicable to Ireland, and I do not think it safe to set it up without proper machinery. You are taking away what has always been regarded as the ordinary safeguard in Ireland, namely, the quarter session procedure, to which everybody was accustomed, and you are trying to apply a system without having thought it out which is entirely inapplicable to the conditions of the licensing law in Ireland. In addition to that, there is the point which has been made by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. M. Healy) in relation to the difference of tenure of licences in England and Ireland. The Act of 1904 and the particular Sub-section you are going to apply took care to preserve the compensation being fixed in accordance with the actual tenure of the licence, and I may remind the hon. Member who has moved this Amendment that it was not merely put in for the purpose of keeping down the compensation to be paid, but for another purpose. The ante -1869 licence stood in a different position from the ordinary licence, and, therefore, by putting in that the quarter sessions was to take into account the actual tenure, you were at the same time preventing the licensee being turned into a freeholder. That was the object of the Government in putting that in. But the result of this proposal will be that you will have the same effect in England as regards the ante-1869 licences as the hon. Gentleman has already pointed out it will have in Ireland as regards the general body, namely, that in England upon this method of assessment the ante-1869 licences will pay on a higher valuation than the ordinary licences. That, I think, when we come to a matter of annual value, is a very extraordinary result—that these houses which, in the main, are very small houses, will have to pay on a higher basis of valuation than will the ordinary licences, which are the general body of valuable licences in this country. The Prime Minister said that we ought to be 846 grateful for all this in Ireland, and that it is going to do a good deal of good. I do not agree with him. The Prime Minister seemed to think that all the public-houses in Ireland carried on a mixed trade.
§ PRIME MINISTERSo we are told.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGESeventy-nine per cent.
§ Sir EDWARD CARSONYou will find that all the more valuable ones in Dublin, Belfast, and Cork, where there is a very large number of houses, are carried on simply as public-houses and nothing more. My own impression is that where the mixed trade is carried on it is nearly always by the small trader, but, so far as I can see—and I have some experience of the licensing laws in Ireland—this proposal is setting up a procedure which will militate, particularly having regard to the freehold interest of the publican, against the publican, and not in his favour.
Mr. SCOTT-DICKSONI cannot think that sufficient attention has been paid to the provisions of the 1904 Act and to the nature of the licensing law in Scotland, or it would never have been proposed to apply this Sub-section to Scotland without proper machinery; because what it says is that the Commissioners are to keep a register showing the amount which would be paid as compensation under the 1904 Act, and if the amount is agreed on, it may be approved of by the Quarter Sessions, or in default of such agreement and approval it is to be determined by the Commissioners. So the parties would have a chance of coming to an agreement and doing that before the Court of Quarter Sessions, and it is only in default of their agreement to do that, and getting the approval of Quarter Session that the Commissioners come in at all. Looking at the matter as a lawyer, it seems to me that unless you make some proposal to apply that machinery to Scotland, what would be done would be this, that the parties may agree. If they do they may go to the Quarter Sessions, and if that is approved of there is an end of it, and it is only after that that they may go to the Commissioners. As the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Balfour) said, as matters now stand, the Court of Quarter Sessions has really nothing to do with licensing matters in Scotland. So far as licences are concerned, they are not the Court of Appeal. There are different Courts of Appeal. So, if this is to be applied, you must give us 847 some machinery if it is to be intelligible. If the right hon. Gentleman will look at Section 38 of the Bill, which is an interpretation Section for this part of the Act, he will see that the only words that relate to Scotland are "registered club," on page 26 of the original print. If this is to be made a workable Bill, you must either take out the reference to the Licensing Act of 1904 altogether or put in what would be the body corresponding to the Quarter Sessions, namely, the Court of Appeal. As it stands now, it is unquestionably in a way in which it cannot be worked according to the Scottish licensing system, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether the different position of the Scottish licensing system was sufficiently taken into account before the entire of this Section was framed?
§ PRIME MINISTERThere is no distinction in the manner of fixing compensation between England and Scotland. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will look at the end of the second subsection he will find that it is the duty of the Commissioners. It is not a question of the parties first going to the Quarter Sessions, and then going to the Commissioners on appeal. It is the duty of the Commissioners in the first instance to prepare and give a certificate of the amount which will be payable as compensation.
§ PRIME MINISTERIf the right hon. and learned Gentleman looks at the last sentence he will see that the amount is to be certified by the Commissioners of the Inland Revenue. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue are to ascertain and certify. They go upon the materials found in the register, and they certify what is the amount of compensation. Where the right hon. Gentleman's criticism does come in is that in the Bill as originally drawn, there was no appeal at all, and therefore no necessity for putting in the definition Clause either the Court of Session in Scotland or the High Court in England. But in consequence of the Amendment put down by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, giving the right of appeal, if that Amendment be passed, it will be necessary in the definition Clause to insert words both as to the Court of Session in Scotland and the High Court in Ireland.
§ 6.0 P.M.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThe Prime Minister in his speech dropped a word with great dexterity which has not been used in this Debate, and I have attended, I think, during every moment of these discussions. The right hon. Gentleman has said that this is an "alternative" system, and it cannot come into operation until a new Act is passed. We heard for the first time from the Chancellor of the Duchy about the new Act. The right hon. Gentleman says this Clause cannot come into court without a statute so providing. As I understood the statement of the Prime Minister, he said that as regards Ireland. Griffiths' valuation will continue until the statute is passed. I notice that the Government have already dropped the words "as soon as may be," and they have now supplemented these words by the statement that the Clause is imperative as regards Ireland without the new statute. I do not know exactly where we are. If I understand the Government aright as regards Scotland and Ireland, we have no ground for apprehension as to the alternative Clause, and Ireland is to remain undertone Griffith's system until the new statute-is passed. I do not propose for a moment to leave the Government under any misapprehension as to what I think will be the consequence. The consequence of that will be that we shall remain under the existing, valuation, though, of course, there may be a question afterwards as to the amount to be assessed, which is another matter. We also know that under the Griffith's valuation we must take into account rent, rates, and insurance; and when the Government bring in their new Bill they will have to state what is the basis for Ireland upon which this new valuation is to be made. That suggestion, I think, is not an unfriendly one, and, if I interpret the right hon. Gentleman correctly, the Government lose nothing by it. The right hon. Gentleman has used the words "alternative Clause," and, in fact, he tells us that when-this Clause is developed in subsequent legislation it will put Ireland in such a much better position that we ought to be tumbling over one another in order to accept for the first time since the Union that which the Government will bring in, namely, a Bill to lighten Irish taxation. That is a prospect I cheerfully and gladly welcome, but until I hear what the Government propose in terms, I abstain from saying anything further in the matter.
§ Mr. J. A. CLYDEIf the duty of the Commissioners is to certify the amount, 849 and this really means that they not only certify the amount which is in the register, but they themselves ascertain and fix that amount, then, no doubt, the answer is complete. But I would point out in regard to the English system that you use the words in Sub-section (2) as to the amount which would be payable under Sub-section (1) as compensation under the Act of 1904. They must mean, of course, the amount payable under Sub-section (1) as ascertained in the manner prescribed by Sub-section (2). The result would be that you would have two compensation values to ascertain. I venture to doubt whether the framers of the Bill intended that there should be two compensation values, one to be ascertained by the Commissioners and the other to be ascertained in the normal way under the Act of 1904. Whether I am right or wrong in thinking that this was not intended,primâ facieI think I am probably entitled to say it must mean that the amount payable under Sub-section (1) must be ascertained in the manner prescribed by Sub-section (2). I do not want to press the matter if the Government assure me that the meaning of "certify" by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue is that the Commissioners ascertain the amount which they certify. It does seem to me that a court of law would very likely take another view of it, and that the whole thing would be absolutely unworkable.
§ PRIME MINISTERI am anxious there should be no misunderstanding as to this. As my hon. and learned Friend well knows, the present compensation only becomes payable under the Act of 1904, when licence comes to an end. Therefore it only applies where the justices put an end to the licence, and it does not seem to us businesslike to apply that procedure to cases where there is no determination of the licence, and where you ought to ascertain by some simpler method. It appears to us that the Commissioners who are the ultimate court of appeal in the other case are the natural and proper tribunal. My law is extremely rusty, and the hon. Gentleman's is very green and fresh, and I would not put mine against anyone's. [An HON. MEMBER: "Ripe."] I meant verdant. I should have thought that the word "certifies" sufficiently expresses that idea, and if it does not we must put in another word. If there is any ambiguity, that can easily be put right. That is the intention. With reference to what the hon. and learned Member for Louth said, 850 I think he is under somewhat of a. misapprehension as to the effect of the Subsection. The Sub-section cannot come into force without a new Act either in England, Scotland, or Ireland. It is absolutely unnecessary to put in words "that unless and until" an Act of Parliament is passed. As regards two options—the cases of hotels and public-houses over £500—no-doubt it comes into force at once, but with, those two exceptions it does not until Parliament has definitely said by some subsequent Act. The object is to provide for the case of hotels and higher class public-houses, which are urgent cases, and which, will enable Parliament, if it is so minded, to have a more consistent valuation than as present. When that comes I need not tell the hon. and learned Member that whether it is a right basis of valuation or more favourable to Ireland is a matter which will be much more capable of being ascertained, and on which we shall hear the voice of the Irish Members.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYI wish to ask, is it understood now, as regards this Clause, that, except for the hotel, as I understand, of all valuations, and restaurants of all valuations, and public-houses valued at over £500 for which this Clause will come immediately into operation, all other classes of licensed property will wait for the purposes of taxation?
§ PRIME MINISTERCertainly.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYMy suggestion is this. The amount of additional revenue you will get from hotels in Ireland and from public-houses valued at £500—I do-not think there is one—there may be—
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSSix.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThat shows how closely the razor of the Treasury has been; drawn over Ireland. He has got them on the list. The matter is not a large one; it is capable of adjustment, and my suggestion is to leave the whole thing over, and if you do not you will have this extraordinary effect, which cannot be got over. By the hotels and the public-houses over £500 vast principles will be laid down, and the Commissioners will say we have rated Mooney's as £500, and can we rate Rooney's on different principles. Therefore the Government are, in my judgment, in order to net a very small income, placing the Commissioners in a position from which they cannot escape. Let me take the case of valuing a farm of land, and in one case the price of beef, mutton, 851 potatoes, and the other things which govern the making of the valuation will be so much. They go, say, for the county of Carlow, and can they in Wexford, where the prices are different, place a very different valuation on any farm. I do not think the return from this will be £20,000, although the Chancellor of the Exchequer would probably say £50,000; but is it worth your while? You have the Solicitor-General, who was very learned to-day in explaining the vast difference there was in the English method of valuation under the English Act of 1825 and the Irish—
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI did not say anything of the kind. I said that the hon. and learned Member was wrong in saying that the valuation for Licence Duty was under the 1836 Act.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYI examined the statute and the error was due to the wrong book. The English section was in italics and I assumed it was repealed. As regards England, my contention this morning was, and is still, that you are bound to take what your hypothetical tenant would give, and that with the Commissioners of Excise the hypothetical rent is what governed the entire matter. We now have to deal with a country in which there are wholly different considerations to those that are now to be started and planted in the country for the first time. Will you be able to say, once you put your Act in force,quoad£500 men and hotels, that the ordinary publican can escape? I think not. Once you launch this vessel she will have to pursue her course into port. I think, therefore, that my suggestion is not an unreasonable one, whether it be for Ireland or for Scotland. On Tuesday night the Prime Minister said that the durability of the tenure in the case of the Irish publican was an additional ground for taxation. Now he says that the English publican is being valued on practically the same principle, although he has no durability of tenure at all. Is it reasonable to assess one man on a basis of compensation which he is certain to get if he
§ is evicted, and to assess another man on a basis of compensation which he will never get at all? The thing is perfectly ludicrous. It is perfectly right to take the basis of compensation for disturbance for the man in England, because at all events if that man is put out he can reckon on this nest-egg which has been provided for him. But is it right to value an Irishman on the ground of compensation for disturbance which does not exist at all in that country? I respectfully say that, for a very small purpose, to bring this new method into being in Ireland without, I think, the knowledge of the great bulk of the Irish Members, is an unwise procedure on the part of the Government. However, my position will be entirely met if the Government postpone this Clause. They have nothing to gain by anchoring themselves to this unfortunate proposition, which took so many of my Friends by surprise. I contend that the Government can, if they want to do so, make this register without a statute at all. Cannot this register be compiled without a statute? What is to prevent it? What advantage will this Clause give? Without it the Commissioners of Excise can spy round any public-house they like and enter the details in a book. In Ireland they actually keep an account. I have known witnesses come forward and say, "I saw such a number of persons going into such and such a public-house or club; so many men and so many women; so many went in at such an hour, and came out at such an hour," so that you can estimate the amount of drink they consumed in the interval. You have the minutest details in preparation for this new publicans' Domesday Book, therefore you do not want a statute for it. In the Interests of peace, being always strictly a man of peace and in favour of compromise, I suggest to the Government that it 's far better that they should post-pone the operation of this Sub-section.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ Committee divided: Ayes, 76; Noes, 135.
853| Division No. 595.] | AYES. | [6.20 p.m. |
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F. | Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Castlereagh, Viscount | Craik, Sir Henry |
| Banner, John S. Harmood | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Dickson, Rt. Hon. C Scott- |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- |
| Bull, Sir William James | Clyde, J. Avon | Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Faber, George Denison (York) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Cochrane, Hon. Thomas H. A. E. | Fell, Arthur |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dublin, S.) | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Forster, Henry William | Lyttleton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Gardner, Ernest | M'Callum, John M. | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) | Morpeth, Viscount | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Gretton, John | Newdegate, F. A. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edm'ds.) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford) | Peel, Hon. W. R. W. | Whitbread, S. Howard |
| Harris, Frederick Leverton | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Pretyman, E. G. | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Hills, J. W. | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Renton, Leslie | Winterton, Earl |
| Hunt, Rowland | Ronaldshay, Earl of | Young, Samuel |
| Kimber, Sir Henry | Salter, Arthur Clavell | |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | |
| Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham) | Stanier, Beville | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk) | Younger and Mr. T. M. Healy. |
| Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Starkey, John R. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Pease, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Saff. Wald.) |
| Agnew, George William | Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Glendinning, R. G. | Pointer, J. |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Radford, G. H. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. L. (Rossendale) | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Rees, J. D. |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Barnard, E. B. | Hazleton, Richard | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Holland, Sir William Henry | Robinson, S. |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Illingworth, Percy H. | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Beale, W. P. | Jardine, Sir J. | Rose, Sir Charles Day |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devenport) | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Joyce, Michael | Seely, Colonel |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Kekewich, Sir George | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Branch, James | Kilbride, Denis | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Brooke, Stopford | Lamont, Norman | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Brunner, Rt. Hon. Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Burns, Rt. John John | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Snowden, P. |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Levy, Sir Maurice | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) |
| Byles, William Pollard | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) |
| Charnning, Sir Francis Allston | Lupton Arnold | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Lynch, H. B. | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Cleland, J. W. | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Clough, William | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Toulmin, George |
| Clynes, J. R. | Maclean, Donald | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Macpherson, J. T. | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | M'Kean, John | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | WcKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Maddison, Frederick | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Crooks, William | Massie, J. | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Crosfield, A. H. | Masterman, C. F. G. | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Montgomery, H. G. | Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Mooney, J. J. | Williams, Sir Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Elibank, Master of | O'Grady, J. | |
| Evans, Sir S. T. | Parker, James (Halifax) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Captain |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Paul, Herbert | Norton and Mr. Fuller. |
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Caldwell)The next three Amendments [those of Mr. Hicks Beach, Mr. Lane-Fox, and Mr. Cave] are not in order. That of the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Salter) has been decided by a previous Amendment.
§ Mr. SALTEROn a point of Order. May I ask whether in refusing to omit this Subsection the Committee did more than allow 854 that this valuation should take place? Have the Committee in any way decided that in making a register under this assessment that this element or that should be excluded?
DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member must be aware that that is a matter which formed a very important part of this discussion.
§ Mr. YOUNGEROn a point of Order. The Question was put by the Chairman, I think, to the second line ["to keep…a register "]. It has nothing whatever to do with the valuation.
DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member must remember that in putting a Question the first time it is not known to what extent the discussion will go on then and afterwards.
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEMay I ask whether the discussion has decided anything upon the point put, and whether this Amendment will not give me my only opportunity of bringing the point up?
§ Mr. WILLIAM PEELI think it is really a solid point, because it is quite possible that the Committee might be in favour of this new method of compensation generally, and it is also quite possible that the Committee might desire only that the one element of goodwill should or should not be included.
Mr. G. D. FABERmoved, in Subsection (2), to leave out the words "and of the sum which is to be treated for the purposes of this Act as the annual equivalent of that amount (in this Act referred to as the annual compensation value.)" I merely move this to get at the mind of the Government in this matter. We have arrived now at the stage when we have passed what I may call the capital compensation value. Now you have got to decide what is the annual compensation value upon which the licence, under the term of this Bill, is to be based—by what factor the Committee propose that the capital value shall be divided, and what proportion go to one and the other. Is it to be done on the basis of the Kennedy judgment, which has been so roundly abused by Ministerialists. I agree that in the Kennedy judgment it is impossible to arrive at the annual compensation value. You are confronted by the Act of 1894, which applies to neither Ireland nor Scotland. Again, I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what relation is the annual compensation value likely to bear to the gross annual value of a licensed house? At present we are entirely in the dark, as neither the Clause nor the Bill 856 says anything whatever about it. Since I put my Amendment upon the Paper two Government Amendments have been put down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The second one says: "That equivalent being determined in accordance with regulations made by the Treasury." That may be everything or nothing. I do not want to have this discussion twice over. To save time, if discussion can be taken upon the Amendments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am perfectly willing to withdraw. Therefore, I will content myself, having asked for information, by moving my Amendment.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELIt is, of course, obviously impossible to leave out the words proposed. We must get the annual equivalent, as a Licence Duty cannot be charged upon a lump sum. The hon. Member asks by what process and what formula the lump-sum compensation value will be converted into the annual compensation value? It is impossible to lay down any formula which is of universal application. Circumstances differ. In the case, for example, of hotels and beerhouses, and in Scotland and Ireland, the circumstances may differ as to the number of years' purchase. It is impossible to lay down a universal rule as to the number of years' purchase that should be taken in every case. It must necessarily depend, to some extent, upon the local valuation of licences, and other matters. It is proposed by a later Amendment that this matter should not be left solely in the hands of the Inland Revenue Commissioners, but that the Treasury should make regulations which will be binding upon the Inland Revenue Commissioners in this matter; and in order that Parliament should have control over the Treasury, the regulations they make, by a clause which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already announced he will put down to apply generally to the regulations-under the Bill, all these regulations will be submitted to Parliament.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe announcement which the right hon. Gentleman has just made is the most disquieting statement for those who are concerned in this tax that we have yet had during these discussions. The whole procedure by which the Government propose to arrive at this compensation value or annual compensation value appears to me to be extremely complicated, and such as one is surprised to find sensible people proposing in an Act of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman 857 was asked what relation does the annual compensation value bear to the compensation, and his reply is no general answer can be given to that question. It will depend in each case upon the particular circumstance. Will not the same thing apply then to each group of cases? The right hon. Gentleman said a different number of years' purchase would be applied in Scotland to what is applied in Ireland or in England. He expects that the number of years' purchase applicable to one portion of the United Kingdom will not be applicable to other portions of the United Kingdom. I think he must also be aware that within certain parts of the United Kingdom the number of years' purchase in one place will not necessarily be the number of years' purchase applicable in another, and I think he will find that is the result of the decisions already given in various cases in the courts. That brings me to the first point as to the calculation in this method of procedure which the Sub-section involves. You are to deduce from the compensation value something that is the annual equivalent. What is the compensation test? It is the annual value multiplied by a certain number of years. That is how you arrive at it. You take two factors: the value of the building and the value of the trade, and you multiply them by a different number of years' purchase. You apply one number of years' purchase to the building and another number of years' purchase to the trade, and you arrive at the compensation value. I have, at any rate, the assent of the Solicitor-General, although the Chancellor of the Duchy does not assent.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELYou have to arrive at the capital sum before you arrive at the annual sum. In order to arrive at the compensation you deduct the value of the building, and it is because you have two different scales, one for the building and the other for the licence, that a difficulty is involved.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINYou proceed by a fairly fixed rule to arrive at that capital sum. Are you to proceed by the same rules to deduce the annual value? The Chancellor of the Duchy says no general rules could be laid down; no man could know when he votes for this Section how it is to be applied, or on what principle it will be used, and therefore to protect the taxpayer the Government have left the Treasury, the taxing authority, to lay down these principles, which it is impossible for this House to lay down. Talk 858 of sending a cat to guard the cream—it is like sending a cat to guard over the interests of the mice. You choose the taxing authority as the person who is to frame the regulations to prevent injustice arising from their taxation. I think I am right in saying that this is the most disquieting declaration that we have had from the Government. It is worse than that. I am bound to refer to the Amendment standing in the name of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Paper. We cannot settle that Amendment on this Clause unless the Government announce its intention of not proceeding with it. Just look at what it is. The Government in the first instance propose to allow the Commissioners to settle what was to be the amount of the tax, which Parliament did not define. That was a bit too strong, even for this House of Commons, and the Government accordingly have undertaken to put in a right of appeal. What is the value of the right of appeal when you reach the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? This annual equivalent is being determined in accordance with the regulations made by the Treasury. The aggrieved party takes his case into court, saying the sum fixed by the Commissioners is not the annual equivalent of his compensation value. The court is disposed to agree, but the Treasury counsel intervenes, and says to the court "The principles upon which you are proceeding are not the principles laid down in the Treasury regulations, and the annual equivalent, as stated in the Bill, shall be determined in accordance with the regulations made by the Treasury." These words will destroy the whole value of the right of appeal as to the annual equivalent. You will still have the right of appeal as to what the total compensation value is, but as to the value on which you are to be assessed for taxation the right of appeal is destroyed by the new Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It rests with the Commissioners of the Treasury—that is to say, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer—to decide what is to be the annual equivalent on which he will be pleased to levy each of these taxes upon those unfortunate people.
§ Mr. CAVEAre we not to have an answer to the speeches which have been made? This is absolutely indefensible. It is proposed to provide that the compensation value of a house shall be ascertained in the manner with which we are familiar. I will assume that the value was ascertained at £10,000, the tax is not going to 859 be levied upon capital compensation value—it is going to be levied upon the annual equivalent. Taking the annual equivalent at, say, £1,000, or one-tenth of the capital, then, of course, your tax is levied upon £1,000 a year. If you take one-twentieth, it is levied upon £500 a year. Your tax depends not upon the manner in which you ascertain the compensation value, but upon the ascertainment of the annual equivalent. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster says: "I cannot lay down rules for ascertaining either the one or the other, because the methods will be different in different cases. "Therefore the owner or the licensee cannot tell beforehand what his tax is going to be. What is the machinery suggested for ascertaining the tax? I could have understood a reference to an actuary or to a Court, who might be able to say that the licence is worth so many years' purchase, and in that way they could obtain the annual equivalent by reference to the number of years' purchase. What is suggested, however, is not that at all. It is suggested that in all cases they shall be governed by Treasury rules. I have exercised my imagination to ascertain what you are going to put in these rules. How are you going to prescribe by rules the methods for making these calculations in different cases? The Chancellor of the Exchequer says you may have a thousand different considerations affecting a thousand different houses in different counties, in town or country, in large or small houses, and in each case the circumstances may be different. Can you by rules conceivably prescribe with certainty how these various calculations are to be made? I do not think you can, and I support most strongly the argument that in view of this proposal the right of appeal is of very little, if any, value at all. The effect of the proposal is that the amount of the tax will depend first upon the rules laid down by the Treasury and then on the carrying out of them by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. It has often been said that the amount of a tax ought not to depend upon the Treasury officials. That is an argument which comes in with great force on this part of the Clause. The case has been put so strongly by my right hon. Friend that I will not enlarge upon it, but I insist that we ought to have this point cleared up and an Amendment promised which will make it impossible for this valuation to depend upon the sweet will of the Treasury.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELIt is not to be left to the taxing authority to declare what these principles shall be, and it will not be left at their own sweet will. The fact has been overlooked that these rules will be wholly under the control of this House. [Cries of "Oh, oh"] Hon. Members opposite may think the control of the House is of little importance and that the House is incapable of exercising a sufficient control over these rules, but I do not think that view is widely shared. These rules will be placed upon the Table of the House, and those interested in them will be able to scrutinise them very carefully.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThere are two observations I must make after the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman. To tell the subject who is going to be taxed that his interests are amply protected because these regulations will be laid upon the Table of the House of Commons, and if they can get an hon. Member to move he can have them discussed some time after 11 o'clock at night is really a mockery. My second observation will be directed to the right hon. Gentleman's statement that it is impossible to lay down general principles. What will these regulations be? You are to have these regulations. As a general rule regulations of this kind are only used for the purpose of applying perfectly clear and definite general principles to the details of varying cases. When the right hon. Gentleman begins by telling us that no general principles are applicable, and therefore he is going to leave the whole thing to be settled by Treasury Regulations, then they must be unequal in their effect, and the only control the House of Commons has over them will be an entirely inefficient and useless control.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYWhat about the House of Lords? We have been told that the duty of imposing taxes upon the subject belongs to the Commons of England. Now it is to belong to some unknown body whose very names we do not know. We know the names of the Irish, the Scotch, and the English peers, and, as several Members of this Government are admirers of Dr. Johnson, and one of the most distinguished of them has written his life, I turn to Dr. Johnson for a definition of the word "excise," which I think is admirably adapted to this Amendment. Dr. Johnson defines "excise" as "a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom the 861 excise is paid. "We never knew before that he (Dr. Johnson) was a prophet. The moment you make these regulations you will make them when Parliament is not sitting. That is always done. You make them when Parliament is not sitting, and, having made them, we will assume that some publican takes his case to the Court. Supposing that he hits a flaw in these rules. By the modern system of regulation, any rule or regulation that is made is a regulation made "from time to time," so you have not merely taken the power to make regulations to be submitted to Parliament, but if your judges hit upon a flaw there will be another regulation to-morrow morning, and then the register is to be corrected accordingly. It is like you treat people in India. The moment any of these black people make themselves disagreeable and attack any point in any of the Indian Statutes, the Indian Council assembles and makes a new Act of Parliament. For the first time, as far as I am aware, this taxing power is now being given to the Treasury. I have been asking, ever since I came into this House, who on earth is the Treasury? I will give it the best construction I can. It means the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. Is there a man in England, Scotland, or Ireland content to give up the British Parliament for the unit of the Czar? The Czar's Council is known, but again I ask: Who are the Treasury? Take the Bed-Book—the only book from which it is possible to get any information on the subject. No greater gathering of nondescripts is it possible to imagine. Why, I would not trust some of them with the totting up of a washing-bill. Some hon. Gentlemen here may be perfectly familiar with the Treasury. I am not; I only speak for the country with which I have to do; but I say the Treasury would have no more hesitation in breaking a Statute than it has in imposing taxation. From whom do we get the condemnation of this Clause? From the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), who for years himself presided over the Treasury. Why should the Irish and Scotch Members—why should the Members of the Labour party—have a better opinion of these highly paid officials than an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer?
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI must not be dragged into an attack on the permanent officials of the Treasury. For the purposes of these Regulations the Lords of the Treasury are the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Junior Lords.
§ 7.0 P.M.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYThe Whips at the table! In other words, our taxes are in future to be imposed upon us by the Gentlemen who tell at the doors of the Division Lobby! Really, I prefer Mr. Lumley. I beg of the Government to hesitate before they make this proposed change. The extraordinary thing is this. It is so in everything connected with this Bill. The moment you hit on a blot the Government at once say, "Oh, yes, in some of the dark recesses or pigeon-holes of the Cabinet we have a new Clause. You must not mind the Bill which has been before the House for months: You must salute the Empire!" That is how this is commended by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He says, "It is perfectly true you do not like the Treasury at all, but you have not the slightest idea of the Clause we have in preparation for you; it will be put on the Table, perhaps next week or the week after." Is that the way in which Budgets are constructed? In the days of the old Election Petitions, when counsel was opening his case he had to state all his facts, and he was barred going into fresh ones afterwards. In other words in this case the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to throw his cards on the Table. Every subject of the Crown, every Member of this House, ought to be informed of the actual extent, of the levy that is to be made. Talk about ship money, for which this House stood up in ancient times. At all events they did know the amount of the demand. This is represented as new ship money; it is demanded for "Dreadnoughts." This is what the Government tell a particular class against whom they and their supporters have the deadliest enmity, and it is their intention to wipe them out as if they were so many cockroaches. So, as regards this particular section of His Majesty's subjects, they are not to have even the ordinary protection of knowing what the law is. Lastly, we know that resolutions may be changed from day to day; that the register may be corrected from time to time, month by month, and that a man may be assessed at £100 in August and at £300 in October. Let me put this case: Suppose I was Chancellor of the Exchequer—which is, after all, a far-off proposition—and I sat for an Irish borough in which a number of the publicans had been causing me the greatest annoyance of my life. How do you think they would like my method of assessment? How would they like to leave it to me? 863 Yes, there is to be a register. I respectfully say the Government do not even know what course they are entering upon, and of all the unhappy, calamitous projects this is one which will certainly justify the House of Lords in any action they may take, because it is a proposal to levy taxation on England, Scotland, and Ireland, not through its Parliament but through a gang of officials, to whom I think the words of Dr. Johnson, at least in Ireland, are not inapplicable.
§ Mr. YOUNGERI agree with every word which has fallen from the hon. Gentleman on the subject of leaving irresponsible people to impose taxation, and I equally disagree with the principle which withholds from a man the information as to what taxes exactly he has to pay. I have, however, risen to make a suggestion to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He, in his defence of these words, said it was impossible to lay down general principles, because of the manner in which the number of years' purchase varies. With that I quite agree. But the number of years' purchase is only employed in the and having exhausted this element, in of years' purchase only arises in estimating the capital amount due. What difficulty is there, having got the capital amount, and having exhausted this element, in taking a percentage of that capital? Why cannot it be 4 or 5 per cent. of the capital value to arrive at the compensation value? I may remind the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster we have had a very analogous case. What did the Government do the other day with their Land Values Bill? They had to ascertain the capital value, and they proposed that 4 per cent. on that capital value should be the annual value in one case, and in another 5 per cent. In what respect does that differ from this particular valuation? Why should not the same percentage be taken of the capital value obtained after due consideration of the elements which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned? Surely that would not present any particular difficulty?
§ Sir E. CARSONI really think no justification has been given for the proposal in the Bill, and I could not help wondering, as the discussion went on, what, if it was a Unionist Government who had made the proposal that the Treasury should be the taxing authority and not the House of Commons, the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench opposite would have said. 864 We would not have been attacked by one Irish Member, but by every Irish Member who sits below the Gangway. Why have we been spending the afternoon discussing the amount to be paid for licences at all? It would have been far better and simpler to have enacted "the amount to be paid by a publican for his licence shall be fixed by regulations of the Treasury." It is exactly the same thing. We would then have had our week-end free. It is exactly what you are proposing to do now as regards this register upon which you are going to raise the tax. I do not know whether the House is really going to create this precedent of allowing taxation by regulations of the Treasury. It will be certainly very interesting to see how it works. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer proceeds to regulate, how is he going to tax, the man he considers a blackmailer or the man he considers is swindling the public? It will be extremely satisfactory for the subject to know that his taxation entirely depends, not upon the House of Commons, but upon the man who all the time is looking upon him as a blackmailer or a swindler. I desire to ask this question: Will the subject have any voice in the settling of these regulations and this tax? I do not get an answer, so, I suppose, he will not.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEYou will get an answer.
§ Sir E. CARSONCan I be told now? We are to have the Government's answer in a few moments. We are told he will have a right of appeal, an appeal against what? Not against the Treasury regulations. There is no right of appeal there, and, as has been pointed out already by the hon. and learned Member for Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy), if your regulations do not suit you, you can alter them, and there is again no appeal. If anyone has succeeded in upsetting any one of the regulations or any portions of them, all you have to do to override what the court has done is to withdraw your regulation and put another down. That is a nice system. I do not think I am using the language of exaggeration when I say it is gross tyranny. It leaves the subject without any protection whatsoever from the very parties who are interested in the collection of the particular tax in question and in increasing the revenue. All I can say is that if the House of Commons swallow this they will swallow anything. What is the reason for the great hurry with which you do this, without even having any indi- 865 cation of what the regulations are to be? As regards the bulk of the licences in the country, it is not to come into force until there' is another Act of Parliament. Meanwhile, the subject is to be put to the expense of helping this register to be made, of bringing his appeals, and of correcting it time after time. Yet we have not time to put into the Bill the principles on which the tax is levied. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster says, "We cannot tell the subject the principles on which we tax him; there is such a variety of principles, we cannot tell them all." He did not even tell one. It would, at all events, be something to give us some outline of what the regulations will be. I suppose these questions have been considered. Is the annual compensation value to be fixed on a percentage? Is that one of the regulations? If so, will the percentage vary, or, having made up your compensation value in the method already explained of so many years' addition of the annual rental value and so many years added up of the amount of the trade done in the House, are you to proceed to perform some sort of sum in regard to that? Give us, at all events, some idea or some outline of what it is you propose by these Treasury regulations. Do not leave us altogether in the dark. You have thought it out. You might let us know something about it. After all, do remember this is the great concession; this is the great alternative. What really is the alternative? I do submit to the House of Commons that we have come to a point here that raises principles, perhaps more foreign to our constitution than we have hitherto discussed. The moment comes when we have to say that this House is the taxing authority, and allows no Department to do the work of the taxing authority. All I can say is that we have come to a pass which I believe would make taxation intolerable. We are told that instead of a solemn, serious examination of these matters in Committee and on Report, under the Rules of Procedure, carefully framed for the guidance of this House, that all that is to be set aside, and you may rest perfectly satisfied that the fact that these regulations will be laid upon the Table will not have any effect. Everybody knows the effect of laying Government regulations on the Table of the House. They come on at eleven o'clock at night, when everybody is going home, and you have a discussion in a perfunctory way, and we all know the manner in which they are dealt with. If anybody tells me that that is to 866 be an efficient substitute for the proceedings in this House, I would say he is only throwing dust in the eyes of those he pretends to inform.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSTo the doctrine enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman in the closing sentences of his speech, I think we are all ready to subscribe. Nobody is prepared to give away the authority of Parliament in respect of any matters of taxation. I would, however, submit to the Committee, without any heat at all, that this is a very small and simple matter. The right hon. Gentleman says that he did not indulge in any language of exaggeration when he said that this simple proceeding of regulations being made by the Treasury is a gross tyranny. I suppose by using strong language of that kind, which I abstain myself from doing as much as I can, you may whip yourself up into the belief that there really is something in the language you use. So far as I can see, there is no length of exaggeration to which they will not go above the Gangway opposite when they lend themselves to the leadership of the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy). All you have to talk about, under those circumstances, is ship money, inroads by the Treasury, and cockroaches, and end up with an apt quotation from Dr. Johnson. Then you can talk any exaggerated language you like. We have been told that these few men at the Treasury are to tax the people of this country. First of all, let me say this: supposing this taxation was going to be imposed, how does it differ, in any degree, from the principles of taxation already adopted? I will make my point good. The taxation of public-houses at the present moment is upon annual value of the licensed premises, to be ascertained by whom? To be ascertained by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. That is the process now.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINIn accordance with rules and regulations.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSI will come to that in a moment.
§ Mr. WYNDHAMInterpreted by a court.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSDoes the right hon. Gentleman really say that?
§ Mr. WYNDHAMI will reply.
§ Sir SAMUEL EVANSThe taxation now is on the annual value, and is to be ascertained by the Commissioners of Inland 867 Revenue, and the only difference from the observations which have been made in this Debate would seem to be that the cockroaches would be at Somerset House and not at the Treasury. Except for the purpose of allowing an option in two classes of case, which are well known to the Committee, and which I therefore will not detain the Committee by describing, this so-called taxation of all the subjects of this realm, by these hacks at the Treasury, cannot take place at all. The right hon. Gentleman asked me two questions, or said he would do so, but I think he rolled them into one. He asked, will the subject have a say in drawing up the regulations or in fixing the taxation? First of all, so far as regards the drawing up of the regulations is concerned, these regulations will be laid upon the Table of this House, and everybody knows that they will be discussed. Everybody also knows that the regulations will be made as reasonable as anybody can make them, and here I observe the right hon. Gentleman will not allow himself to be dragged at the hinder part of the cart of the hon. Member for Louth. Then the regulations will be laid before the House of Commons, and can be discussed and will be discussed. The second question asked is, Will the subject have a say in fixing the taxation? Of course he will, first of all as regards the two options are concerned he will have the right, and is exercising the right today, and with regard to all the other subjects of the King, a very large majority, they will have a further right, because not a single penny can be levied upon any one of them, under these regulations, until Parliament is asked to vote the sums of money and fix the taxes. I daresay the right hon. Gentleman will have his full say before that taxation can be fixed.
I only want to say one thing further, What are we to do? There is no complaint now of the method of ascertaining the compensation value. All this pother has been about the division of the compensation value, in the fixing of the annual equivalent, of what we are going to call the annual Licence Duty. It is only in regard to this question of divisor that there is any question, and it is a very small one. The divisor may be ten years, ten and a half years, or it may be eleven. That is a matter upon which principles are to be laid down under the regulations made by the Treasury and sanctioned by this House. I venture to say, in conclusion, as I said in the beginning, there has been a large 868 amount of exaggeration; there is no difference in principle from the principle now adopted, because you must have somebody to fix the annual value, the hypothetical rent—you must have someone to do that, because it is an uncertain amount, as you have said. Of course it is an uncertain amount, and we shall have this advantage, that before this can become a general basis of taxation we shall have this register, we shall have these regulations, and we shall have seen these regulations in operation, before any taxation can be imposed upon the subjects generally in accordance with this Clause.
§ Mr. CLAVELL SALTERThe Solicitor-General's short point is that we are putting the subject in no worse position than that which he occupies at present. What is the present position of the subject? His assessment is fixed, no doubt, by officials; but he has, most certainly in London, an absolute public right of appeal, a common right of recourse to the open courts of law, and I fully believe he has it throughout the country. The officials are to make an estimate, which involves two steps. First, they are to ascertain the capital sum and then they are to annualise that sum. In regard to the ascertainment of the capital sum, I have no complaint to make, because, as regards that, there is to be an appeal. The annualising of this sum is the vital point. It is that on which the taxation is based, and it is practically useless to give a man an appeal on the first step if he has no appeal on the second. Technically, of course, he has an appeal in the sense that the doors of the court are open; but what will happen? These rules have been made by the taxing authority themselves. We have no sort of information as to what these rules will say or what kind of rules they will be, but this, to me, novel process of annualising, whatever it may mean, and I have great difficulty in knowing exactly what it does mean, must depend very largely upon the period, call it years' purchase if you like, which is taken for the purpose of computation. If these rules say. "in every case you shall take ten years," the Treasury officials obey the rules. Suppose that the grossest and rankest injustice is done. The man appeals. He says, "I have no complaint to make in regard to the ascertainment of the capital sum, but I complain that it has been annualised on a grossly wrong basis, and I am being overtaxed two or three times." What is the answer which the court will and must give? "The 869 authority has been instructed to assess not at what it regards in its own mind and conscience as the real value, but at an arbitrary annualisation about which it has no option. It has carried out that instruction. We have heard what you have to say, but we cannot deal with the matter. It has been decided by statute." This is a great crisis, and if the Committee passes words of this kind it will be for the first time, so far as I know, in the history of this country, not merely devolving the power of taxation on officials, but
§ devolving it on officials without any right to appeal, and for the first time in our modern history closing in the face of the taxpayer the open doors of the courts of law.
§ Mr. H. SAMUELrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
§ Question put, "That the Question be now put."
§ Committee divided: Ayes, 117; Noes, 64.
871| Division No. 596.] | AYES | [7.30 p.m. |
| Agnew, George William | Evans, Sir S. T. | Radford, G. H. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Glendinning, R. G. | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Rees, J. D. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Gulland, John W. | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Hazleton, Richard | Robinson, S. |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Holland, Sir William Henry | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Beale, W. P. | Illingworth, Percy H. | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Jardine, Sir J. | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport) | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Seely, Colonel |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Branch, James | Kekewich, Sir George | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Brooke, Stopford | Laidlaw, Robert | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Brunner Rt. Hon. Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Lamont, Norman | Snowden, P. |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) |
| Byles, William Pollard | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwick) | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Channing Sir Francis Allston | Lupton, Arnold | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Lynch, H. B. | Toulmin, George |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| Cleland, J. W. | Maclean, Donald | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Clough, William | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Clynes, J. R. | Macpherson, J. T. | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | M'Callum, John M. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | Maddison Frederick | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Massie, J | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Crooks, William | Montgomery, H. G. | Williams, W. Liewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Crosfield, A. H. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Williams, Sir Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) | Wilson, P W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | O'Grady, J. | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Parker, James (Halifax) | |
| Edwards, A. Clement (Denbigh) | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Elibank, Master of | Pointer, J. | Joseph Pease and Captain Norton. |
| NOES. | ||
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | Lambton, Hon. Frederick William |
| Balcarres, Lord | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Du Cros, Arthur | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Bull, Sir William James | Faber, George Denison (York) | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Fell, Arthur | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Ferguson, R. G. Munro | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Fletcher, J. S. | Peel, Hon. W. R. W. |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Forster, Henry William | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Cave, George | Gretton, John | Pretyman, E. G. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford) | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Salter, Archur Clavell |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thomas H. A. E. | Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Salter, Archur Clavell |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Healy, Timothy Michael | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Hills, J. W. | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormsklrk) |
| Crean, Eugene | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Starkey, John R. |
| Dalrymple, Viscount | Hunt, Rowland | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Whitbread, S. Howard | Younger, George |
| Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) | |
| Thornton, Percy M. | Winterton, Earl | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir A. |
| Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George | Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) | Young, Samuel |
§ Question put, "That the words 'and of' stand part of the Clause,"
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINmoved that the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 116; Noes, 61.
871| Division No. 597.] | AYES. | [7.40 p.m. |
| Agnew, George William | Evans, Sir S. T. | Radford, G. H. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Gladstone, Rt Hon. Herbert John | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Glendinning, R. G. | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Rees, J. D. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Gulland, John W. | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Hazleton, Richard | Robinson, S |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Holland, Sir William Henry | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Beale, W. P. | Illingworth, Percy H. | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Jardine, Sir J. | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport) | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Seely, Colonel |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Branch, James | Kekewich, Sir George | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Brooke, Stopford | Laidlaw, Robert | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Brunner, Rt. Hon. Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Lamont, Norman | Snowdsn, P. |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) |
| Byles, William Pollard | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Lupton, Arnold | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Lynch, H. B. | Toulmin, George |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| Cleland, J. W. | Maclean, Donald | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Clough, William | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Clynes, J. R. | Macpherson, J. T. | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | M'Callum, John M. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Waterlow, D S. |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | Maddison, Frederick | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Massie, J. | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Crooks, William | Montgomery, H. G. | Williams. W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Crosfleld, A. H. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Williams, Sir Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)+ |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | O'Grady, J. | |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Parker, James (Halifax) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Edwards, A. Clement (Denbigh) | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Joseph Pease and Captain Norton. |
| Elibank, Master of | Pointer, J. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hon. Sir Alex. F. | Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Pretyman, E. G. |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Fell, Arthur | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fletcher, J. S. | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Forster, Henry William | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Gretton, John | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Bull, Sir William James | Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk) |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford) | Starkey John R. |
| Carlile. E. Hildred | Harris, Frederick Leverton | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Healy, Timothy Michael | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Cave, George | Hills, J. W. | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Valentia, Viscount |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Hunt, Rowland | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Lambton, Hon. Frederick William | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thomas H. A. E. | Law, Andrew Bonar (Dulwich) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Morpeth, Viscount | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Crean, Eugene | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Young, Samuel |
| Dairymple, Viscount | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | |
| Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- | Peel, Hon. W. R. W. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | G. D. Faber and Mr. Younger. |
| Du Cros, Arthur |
§ I rise to move an important Motion, to which, I think, the Prime Minister will assent. The next Amendment, which 873 stands in the name of one of our hon. Friends, I understand, the Government will accept. Then we come to a very important Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, raising a very big subject which we have just touched upon; and now, I think, it will be admitted, that we are approaching the mystic hour which the Prime Minister indicated yesterday as the proper time for us to adjourn. The hon. and learned Gentleman raised some question as to what the dinner hour was, but I think we may take it that the time which the Prime Minister indicated has come. May I mention, as an additional reason, that I understand the Kitchen Committee, relying on the statement of yesterday, have permitted the waiters to take their week end, and have not provided any food. We have long ceased to enjoy liberty in the House, but if we can have neither food nor liberty our condition would be miserable.
§ PRIME MINISTERIn referring to the hour of rising, to which I was careful not to pledge myself to any definite hour, and I purposely used a somewhat loose phrase, I agree that we are now approaching the time at which we should usually expect our dinner, and I am very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should find an empty cupboard. Therefore I think we might bring our proceedings to a close with the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to regulations. I shall then be prepared to agree to report Progress.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThat Amendment is a very big one. We had a very short discussion, and it was brought to an abrupt conclusion. I will be perfectly frank. I will confess that I have spent quite enough time here to-day. Whatever my sense of public duty would make me think right to do, my sense of private convenience makes me accept the Prime Minister's offer.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEmoved to leave out the words "the sum which is to be treated for the purposes of this Act as."
§ Mr. GRETTONThe words which are being left out are very important. There is another process for ascertaining compensation value for the purpose of obtaining compensation, and I do not think anyone in this House will disagree with me that it is necessary in your Act to explain that process which is being set up. I do 874 not want to oppose this Motion; but I put in a word of protest against these words being left out.
Question, "That the words proposed to foe left out stand part of the Clause,' put, and negatived.
An Amendment stood on the Order Paper in the name of Mr. CLAVELL SALTER to leave out from Sub-section (2) the word "compensation," ["in this Act referred to as the annual compensation value "], and to insert instead thereof the word "licence."
§ Mr. CLAVELL SALTERI do not propose to move the Amendment which stands in my name.
§ The PRIME MINISTERI will accept it.
§ Mr. CLAVELL SALTERI do not propose to move it. If the thing "licence value" had any meaning at all, I would be glad to take it.
§ Mr. LLOYD-GEORGEmoved, after the word "value" ["in this Act referred to as the annual compensation value"], to insert the words "that equivalent being determined in accordance with regulations made by the Treasury."
§ Viscount CASTLEREAGHmoved, after the word "determined" in the proposed Amendment, to insert the words "for the purpose of this Act." These words were in the Bill a short time ago, but the Government have changed their minds. The reason I move this Amendment is that I should like to know exactly from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what has been the reason which has prompted the Government to remove from the Bill these very important words.
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThere is no objection to accepting these words. The words were omitted because they were unnecessary and superfluous, but there is no harm in them.
Question, "The words 'for the purposes of this Act' be there inserted in the proposed Amendment," put, and agreed to.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe Solicitor-General now said that this provision had no immediate application for taxing purposes, except as an alternative offer to hotel-keepers and to men assessed at over £500. That is true. But that alternative has been over and over again represented by the Government as an 875 enormous concession to those people, and a safeguard for them. The Government are taking power by putting in these words to make that alternative what the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day pleases: "Make your taxes what you like if you give me power to make binding regulations as to how the value on which the taxes are levied shall be determined?" Take the case of a man whom it is proposed to assess at £10,000. He disputes the assessment; he takes you into court and the assessment is reduced to £8,000. What have you to do to get back your own? You are going to take one-tenth. By your regulations you take one-eighth, and by making your regulations in this manner the alternative which has again and again been put forward as such a great relief may become no relief whatever. There are duties in regard to which the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and I think the Commissioners of Customs, certainly the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, act in a semi-judicial capacity, and where the Treasury
§ have no control over them—cannot properly exercise any control. When you come to the rules made by the Treasury under a taxing Statute that means rules made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being, and signed by him and a Junior Lord of the Treasury when he requests that Junior Lord to do so. That is placing power in the hands of the Minister of Finance to decide what individual taxation shall be—a proposal which has never yet been made in this House.
§ Mr. CAVEIt would be a great convenience before the Report stage if a draft of the rules could be placed in the hands of Members. It has been done on other occasions, and it would assist very much in considering the Clause.
§ The PRIME MINISTERWe will consider that.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 104; Noes, 50.
877| Division No. 598.] | AYES. | [8.0 p.m. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Glendinning, R. G. | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Gulland, John W. | Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Barran, Sir John Nicholson | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Beale, W. P. | Holland, Sir William Henry | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Illingworth, Percy H. | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonport) | Jardine, Sir J. | Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester) |
| Bethel, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea) | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne) |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Seely, Colonel |
| Branch, James | Jones, William (Carnarvoshire) | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Brooke, Stopford | Kekewich, Sir George | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Brunner, Rt. Hon. Sir J. T. (Cheshire) | Laidlaw, Robert | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Simon, John Allsebrook |
| Byles, William Pollard | Lamont, Norman | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Snowden, P. |
| Cherry, Rt Hon. R. R. | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Stanley, Albert (Staffs. N.W.) |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Lupton, Arnold | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E.) |
| Cleland, J. W. | Lynch, H. B. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Clough, William | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Toulmin, George |
| Clynes, J R. | Maclean, Donald | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | M'Callum, John M. | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead) | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Maddison, Frederick | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | White, Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Crosfield, A. H. | Massie, J. | White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire) |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Montgomery, H. G. | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Williams, Sir Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Edwards, A. Clement (Denbigh) | Parker, James (Halifax) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Elibank, Master of | Paulton, James Mellor | |
| Evans, Sir S. T. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Pointer, J | Joseph Pease and Captain Norton. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John | Radford, G. H. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Castlereagh, Viscount | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) |
| Balcarres, Lord | Cave, George | Craik, Sir Henry |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Crean, Eugene |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott- |
| Bull, Sir William James | Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Cochrane, Hon. Thomas H. A. E. | Du Cros, Arthur |
| Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan) | Hunt, Rowland | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staffordshire) |
| Faber, George Denlson (York) | Lambton, Hon. Frederick William | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Fell, Arthur | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Thomson, W. Mitchell-(Lanark) |
| Fletcher, J. S. | Morpeth, Viscount | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Forster, Henry William | Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield) | Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire) |
| Gretton, John | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston) | Pretyman, E. G. | Winterton, Earl |
| Harris, Frederick Leverton | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Ronaldshay, Earl of | Younger, George |
| Healy, Timothy Michael | Scott, Sir S. (Maryione, W.) | |
| Hills, J. W. | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir A |
| Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Starkey, John R. | Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia |
§ Amendment made, in Sub-section (2), to leave out the word "sum" ["That amount and sum "], and insert the words, "The annual equivalent thereof."—[Mr. Lloyd-George.]
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again Tuesday, 7th September.
§ Adjournment: Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Joseph Pease.]
§ Adjourned Five minutes after Eight o'clock, till Monday next, 6th September.