"That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £5,250, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1910, for expenses in connection with international exhibitions."
§ MASTER of ELIBANKmoved: "That this House do now adjourn."
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEI think it a little unfortunate that the Government have not seen their way to allow the question raised in the Resolution in my name to be brought before the House in a definite manner, and it is, I think, a little difficult for the matter in question to be adequately stated on the Motion for the, adjournment.
§ Mr. SPEAKERNot only can it not be adequately stated, but it cannot be stated at all. The hon. Member is precluded from raising it on the question of the Adjournment by having given notice to raise it.
§ Mr. HOPEI wish to utter a protest against the Government having moved to adjourn, and thereby prevented this 1055 question from being brought before the House. Had they not moved to adjourn, this question would have been brought on, and would have been debated in the normal course. By the action they have taken, they have prevented that, and I can only conclude that they had some motive for preventing it. The only motive they can have had cannot be connected with a desire to expedite the business of the House. It can only have arisen from the wish that this matter should not be thoroughly debated after the experience they have had of the course which Debates on this Motion have hitherto taken; and the country, reading to-morrow that the Debate on this was stifled by the action of the Government, will judge that they have deliberately burked discussion on an indictment accusing them of throwing away huge sums of public money for no other motive than to gratify their vanity.
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe hon. Gentleman has used very strong language, and language singularly inappropriate to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. As a matter of fact, this matter has been debated at considerable length during the last two days, and can be debated again to-morrow on the Third Reading of the first of the two Financial Bills. The Government would have been delighted to spend the whole of the remainder of this evening in discussing the hon. Gentleman's Motion. Nothing would have given them greater pleasure, because the further the matter is discussed, the more they are convinced the strength of their position becomes apparent. We should have been very glad for the House to come to a considered judgment upon it, but it is necessary for any Government which has taken, with the assent of the House, for itself the whole time of the House, and which has therefore deprived private Members of their ordinary opportunities of bringing their Motions forward by ballot, at the conclusion of Government business, to make this invariable Motion for the adjournment of the House. There was no Division on the Motion to take the time of the House, and if we were to make an exception of a particular Motion put down late last night by a private Member we should be doing the greatest injustice to the great bulk of the private Members of the House who have, on the faith of the Government having taken the whole of the time themselves, not obtained the opportunity they otherwise would for ventilating 1056 subjects. On that ground only the Government now make this Motion for the adjournment, but they will welcome fuller discussion of the matter such as will be afforded on the Third Beading of the Bill to-morrow.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINI recognise that there is force in the argument which the right hon. Gentleman has used for adjourning the House before any private Member's Motion is reached under the circumstances in which we now stand. It is true that the Government was given the whole time of the House up to Easter with the usual understanding that that time would be used only for Government business, but then with the understanding that it would be used and that every moment of it was required for Government business which was urgent. On that understanding the House acceded to the Prime Minister's Motion without a Division. What has happened? For the third evening running since the Government have obtained the full time of the House they adjourn the House when only half a Parliamentary day's work has been done. For the third day running half a Parliamentary day is wasted, and this is the time when the Government themselves admit that money is being lost and expense being caused by the non-collection of taxes. Why do they not use the time which the House gives them for the purpose—
§ The PRIME MINISTERFor the Budget?
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINYes, use it for the Budget if you like. I am very glad to accept the offer of the right hon. Gentleman. Will they put down the Budget? That is better than I expected, and if the Prime Minister was going to do that, of course no one would be more gratified than we. The request I was urging was a more modest one. They have explained over and over again that their great financial difficulty arises from the non-collection of Income Tax.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe right hon. Gentleman is now raising the point which is raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Hope). He is precluded from raising that.
§ Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINOf course, my object in so doing is to show how inexcusable it is in the Government under such circumstances and in such a condition of the national finances to waste the time which the House has generously placed at their disposal; and everyone 1057 knows that they are doing it as part of a long series of manœuvres, the object of which is, if possible, to avert defeat in this House, and, if they are defeated, at any rate to leave financial confusion for their successors.
§ Lord HUGH CECILThough it is quite true that this matter has been repeatedly discussed, it is also quite true that the explanations of the Government are each time different and each time wholly unfounded. Indeed, the explanations of the Government are like the assurances of the Government—they always vary and they always turn out to be untrue. [Cries of "Oh!"] They often turn out to mean something different. I am glad to hear that the right hon. Gentleman would like to discuss the matter, and I hope we may have an opportunity of discussing it, but I am quite sure that the longer the Government go on with the policy of shuffling out of their difficulties and evading the issues which they dare not face, the deeper will be the discontent of the country and the greater the contempt for their action.
§ Adjourned accordingly at a Quarter before Right o'clock.