CLAUSE 2.—(Alterations of Cocoa Duty.)

HC Deb 11 December 1911 vol 32 cc1947-89

(1) The duty of Customs of twopence per pound on cocoa or chocolate ground, prepared, or in any way manufactured imposed by Section three of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1879, shall cease; but nothing in this Section shall affect the power to charge duty under Section seven of the Finance Act, 1901.

(2) Drawback shall be allowed on any goods in the manufacture or preparation of which in Great Britain or Ireland any cocoa, or cocoa butter, or cocoa husks and shells, has or have been used, equal to the duty in respect of the quantity of that cocoa, or cocoa butter, or cocoa husks and shells, as the case may be, which appears, to the satisfaction of the Treasury, to have been used in the manufacture or preparation of the goods; and in allowing that drawback the Commissioners of Customs and Excise may, with the assent of the Treasury, in order to facilitate trade, relax in the case of any goods any requirements of Sections one hundred and four and one hundred and six of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, as to the giving of security and the examination of goods.

Mr. COOPER

I beg to move, to leave out Sub-section (1).

I would like to emphasise the fact that neither I nor anyone else, as far as I can see, is making any proposal to interfere with the drawback on cocoa which is proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I think it is generally recognised on both sides of the House that this is an act of justice to the cocoa industry which has been too long delayed. On the Second Reading of this Bill, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. A. Chamberlain) said, speaking from experience, this was, after all, the occasion on which the Finance Minister, as a business man, made a business statement to the country of his revenue expenditure and liability. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, I think, usually tries to be lucid and clear in his explanations to the House, but when we refer to his speech on the Introduction of the Finance Bill, on the 16th May of this year, we find a very short reference to the proposed changes in the Cocoa Duties, and there are only two facts of any importance that he brings out. The first is that there is an element of protection in this duty, and, secondly, that it was proposed to put cocoa on exactly the same footing as any other industry in the country. One is rather surprised—seeing that these duties have existed since the year 1853, and although the subject has been referred to many times in recent years—to find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer gives no explanation of this proposed change whatsoever, nor does he give any business reason why he brings it before the House in this Bill.

In the few remarks I am going to offer I wish to show the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the House very clearly the exact results that are going to follow to the country or the industry from these proposed changes. If we look at the question of revenue, it is obvious that the change is not proposed with any idea of benefit to the revenue of the country, because it has rather the opposite effect. If we consider the position of the consumer of cocoa and chocolate in this country, the difference, which I understand works out at 1½d. a pound, is perhaps sufficient to make an alteration when one is buying a shillingsworth of the article, but it certainly cannot be divided into the 1d. for an ounce of chocolate or in regard to the small quantities of cocoa which the working classes, when they buy cocoa, usually purchase. Therefore, if it is claimed that this alteration is going to be of the slightest benefit whatever to the consumers of this country, I would like the Government to state whether it is not a fact that such benefit can really only apply to the well-to-do of the country, and that it is impossible for it to apply to the working classes in general. In the industry itself I find that there are over thirty employers in this country who have petitioned the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to interfere with, or to postpone for the present, any alteration in the Cocoa Duty. In the statement which has been published, they state that they view with grave concern the proposed alteration, and they add that the fact constitutes a serious menace to the continued prosperity of the industry. Those statements, coming from thirty cocoa and chocolate manufacturers in this country cannot be ignored by either side of the House, and they do justify one's fear that some injury will inevitably happen to at any rate some section of the industry if those duties are altered. Then there arises the question of labour and employment. If the alteration of these duties is calculated by those who are in the trade to injure them, it certainly must have a detrimental effect on the labour employed in that industry. Twenty-five out of the thirty firms who composed the deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I find, employ amongst them 15,500 people, and it is a fact worth remembering that if any Members of this House took a foreign deputation to see the best-housed section of the working classes in this country, I believe they would unquestionably take the visitors to Bournville, where the people are employed in the cocoa industry. The next interest to look for benefit from the change might be the State in general, but I can find no reason to think that this alteration will benefit the State in any direction whatever. The hon. Member for York (Mr. Rowntree) last year, when speaking in this House as an expert on this matter, made the following statement: Some elaborate scheme of Import Duties would have to be made to get rid of the taint of Protection, yet at the same time not put the home manufacturer in a worse position than his foreign competitors. It is not impossible, but it will not be altogether a simple matter. This small alteration in the Cocoa Duties proposed by the Sub-section, we are told by the hon. Member for York, will require a good deal of care to avoid putting our home industry in a worse position than that of its foreign competitors. Therefore, I submit, that search how one will, it is not possible, certainly it is not easy, for any Member of this House to discover in the justification of an alteration of these Duties any advantage to the State, to the industry itself, to the workmen who are engaged in that industry, or, finally, to the consumer. Those of us who were in the House last year remember that there was a rather heated Debate in the month of July about a certain poster referring to Cocoa Duties, which I well remember the Chancellor of the Exchequer described as the most disreputable he had ever seen. On the occasion of that Debate four somewhat prominent Members opposite made direct reference to the necessity of altering the Cocoa Duties. I can find no other than those. I will take a line or two of each. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden) said:— I want the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because of my interest in Free Trade, to make a placard like that impossible. The hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. G. Roberts) said on the 30th June:— The Cocoa Duty is not a small matter from the point of view of the honour and consistency of the Free Trade movement. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood), on the 4th July, said, I do think, in the interests of Free Trade as well as sound finance, steps should be taken to wipe out this ridiculous tax on cocoa and chocolate. The hon. Member for East Northampton (Mr. Chiozza Money) said:— The Cocoa Duty has furnished them— Referring to hon. Members on this side of the House— with a weapon which they have not been slow to use on thousands of platforms throughout the country. In the absence of any reasonable suggestion of benefit to the country, or to the industry, or to the people, arising from these changes, it is impossible for us, and I think it is impossible for any honest Member of this House, to ignore these statements nor the actual facts. I do not desire to suggest for one moment that the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has been led to make this change by any unworthy political motive. I do not suggest that for the reason that I believe the ordinary duties, in a busy Session like this, of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are pretty onerous, taking a good deal of his time, and when we bear in mind the further fact that he has been giving a remarkable amount of time to the Insurance Bill, I think we may conclude that, when he was approached by a body of Liberal Members, at the end of this Session, to bring in this alteration, he probably was very glad to get rid of that deputation of his own supporters, by agreeing to the change being made, assuming of course, that they did not err in the justification for their request.

6.0 P.M.

In any case how far the Chancellor of the Exchequer is or is not guilty of using the Budget of this country for political exigencies, the fact still remains that I cannot find, and I can find no other person who can, any justifiable reason for altering these duties except the taint of Protection. If that is the purpose of the Government, let me say, speaking for myself, and I have no right to speak for my hon. Friends on these benches, I desire nothing more than that you should pass this Sub-section, for the simple reason that up to the present time we have been able to say "here is the one protected trade"—and I would like to remind the House it is the only article of food that has not risen in price during the last ten years—here is a protected industry that flourished, in which the wages are comparatively satisfactory, and where the people are the best housed in the country. If you remove this advantage that the industry has got today, give me in twelve months' time the opportunity to look at the figures of the imports of manufactured or prepared cocoa and chocolate, and I shall be only too happy to have that advantage given to us of going to the country and saying, whereas previously we have only pointed out the advantage this country would get, here to-day is an actual proof of the whole contention of Tariff Reformers and the Unionist party. There fore, from the point of view of political exigency, I ask nothing better from the Government than that they should insist on retaining this Sub-section, which, for more honest motives, I appeal to the Committee to postpone for the present. There is one point in one of the statements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the two or three minutes' speech which he made on the 16th May, namely:— We propose to put cocoa on exactly the same footing as any other industry in the country. I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what other industry of this country pays 15 per cent. duty on raw material? Until he removes that duty on raw material, he cannot, and it is a farce to, pretend that he is treating this industry on exactly the same footing as other industries in the country. As the hon. Member for York (Mr. Rowntree) is present, I want to make this remark. I spoke of thirty manufacturers who approached the Chancellor of the Exchequer and pointed out the disadvantage of the change in these duties. I think it is perfectly fair to say that two of the largest manufacturers are not included in that thirty. They are Messrs. Cadbury, of Bournville, and Messrs. Rowntree. So far as I can discover, they played a perfectly honest, straight game over the question of Cocoa Duties. I can find no case where they ever asked for what the Government are doing, and several cases where they said, "Give us absolute Free Trade in cocoa, that is what we want." They may differ from the views of other manufacturers, but at the same time it is right, I think, to point out that the proposal of the Government now before the Committee is not, so far as I can discver, what either of those two large firms has ever demanded. The hon. Member for York said, "Give us Free Trade, that is what we want. Abolish the duty on raw cocoa. Both Messrs. Cadbury and my own firm have publicly again and again asked for the duties to be abolished." This proposal does not abolish the duties. I think it is a great pity, especially when some of us at any rate anticipate that next year probably we are likely to be in power and that we are pledged, if we are, as a party to give Protection within the limits as defined by the leaders of the party. [An HON. MEMBER: "What are they?"] I do suggest that it is a mistake for the Government to be tinkering in the way they are doing with these duties, and in a way which does not meet the demands of two of the largest manufacturers, and which does not meet the wishes—or, rather, is absolutely opposed to the wishes—of thirty others out of the forty manufacturers all told in the industry. I have endeavoured to make three points. The first is, and I do appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury, when he replies on this subject, to tell the House perfectly frankly what is the reason for the alteration that justifies the Government in asking the Committee to accept this proposal. The second is, is cocoa on exactly the same footing as other industries, or is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer a little mistaken in making that suggestion? Thirdly, I appeal to the Government, in the interests of the industry, to postpone for the present the duties which are proposed. I should like to remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer of what the present Prime Minister said in this House in April, 1907, when he was dealing with the same subject:— This duty, with its Protectionist flavour, has stood the scrutiny and has been preserved, at any rate, with the connivance of Mr. Gladstone, of Sir William Harcourt, of Sir Stafford Northcote, of Mr. Goschen, and of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who slightly increased its protective character—a string, I should think, of as good and severe Free Traders as have ever been responsible for the finances of this country. I may say that what was good enough for them is good enough for me. I respectfully ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if what is good enough for the Prime Minister is not good enough for him and his colleagues.

Mr. PETO

I rise to second the Amendment of my hon. Friend. In doing so I should like to ask the indulgence of the House if I go into a little more detail than the hon. Member did in the very clear and lucid speech in which he has put his Amendment before the Committee. Whether this be important or unimportant, it is certainly one of the most intricate questions connected with the raising of the revenue of the country as it still remains. There are at least four different duties concerned, and a great many different interests in the country and different branches of the trade whose interests are not one, but which are essentially varying in varying degrees. I am personally very sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not see his way to be here and to take part in this Debate, because I know that it is the desire of those with whom I have spoken and connected with the trade, to get some opportunity of putting their case frankly and fairly before him as a business proposition, quite apart from any political bias whatever, and they had hoped that at least this afternoon that so far as I could do so, I should have had the opportunity of having the Chancellor here. That, apparently, is not to be the case. I would commence by saying that in the remarks I intend to address to the Committee I am not going to deal with the political side of this question at all, or with the relative merits of the two schools of finance represented by right hon. Gentlemen opposite and right hon. Gentlemen on this Front Bench. I want to deal with the matter as a plain business proposition and to ask the Committee to consider what are the various interests affected, and so directly affected, by the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and whether those proposals will be for the benefit of the trade of the country as a whole, and whether they will be for the benefit of the employés in the trade and, above all, and I am sure right hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree with me as to this, whether they are for the benefit of the whole people of this country regarded as consumers.

I will just say one word with regard to the revenue side of the question. I asked a question this afternoon as to what the estimated loss of revenue would be by the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that is to do away with the duty upon the manufactured article coming into this country, except in so far as you calculate a percentage of the raw material there is in the article, in which case it will be calculated as a percentage of one penny in the pound, and the second proposal to grant a drawback to all goods exported which contain cocoa, with which I entirely agree and with which none of us want to interfere. If this tax, which we do not defend, on the raw material or the industry is to be kept on, the very least the Government can do is to grant a drawback on the exports. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told me that he anticipated a loss of revenue on Sub-section (1) of this Clause of £70,000, and on Sub-section (2) by the drawback about £30,000. I have had the advantage of a somewhat elaborate calculation made by an expert in the trade who puts the loss of revenue at £74,000. Consequently we are closely agreed, while as to the £30,000, that is 2d. per pound on 3,500,000 lbs. of cocoa, which the Chancellor told us was the quantity of manufactured chocolate and cocoa exported for the year just past. We cannot possibly consider the result of this proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer unless the Committee will first consider what are the three trade interests affected. I divide them into three: first of all, we have the interests of the foreign manufacturer who has got a very very large and direct interest in this ques- tion before the Committee. The second, is of the cocoa manufacturer, mainly two great firms, whose speciality it is to manufacture cocoa; and thirdly, of a large number of much smaller people, whose main business it is to manufacture chocolates and sweets and other things of that sort. The interests of Nos, 2 and 3, of the large firms in this country and the small ones are entirely different. I will take, first of all, what are the elements of protection in this tax, and see how they affect, and how differently they affect, those two branches of the trade. There are two elements of protection at present in the Cocoa Tax. The first is the tax on the manufactured goods—cocoa coming into this country, and the second is the tax about which we heard very little in these Debates on cocoa butter, which was only put on in 1896. I believe I am right in saying that it was put on then at the direct request of the great cocoa firms of this country, and it was put on by a Unionist Government, the Chancellor of the Exchequer being Sir Michael Hicks Beach. I believe I am also correct in saying that the Cocoa Butter Duty was not as large as the cocoa trade in this country would have liked to have had it. The hon. Member for York, speaking in the Debate last year on this subject, told the House that it was necessary, in order to consider the question, to go into some of the details of manufacture. His remarks were:— I should like to say a few words on the subject as a manufacturer of cocoa. I will try to do so without being too technical, and I will certainly try and not give away any trade secrets. I am quite sure the hon. Member succeeded most admirably in that part of his intention. With regard to cocoa the present trade in England consists almost entirely of pure cocoa powder"— I think the hon. Member rather forgot the smaller people in the trade— and we find that 2 lbs. of raw cocoa will produce 1 lb. of pure cocoa powder, the difference being due to the loss in manufacture. We pay a duty of 1d. per lb. on raw cocoa. The foreign merchant pays a duty of 2d. per lb. on the prepared article he imports into this country, and that counterbalances the duty which the home manufacturer has paid. So far in a large measure I agree with the hon. Member. A little further on he says:— It is true that a certain proportion of the loss in manufacture is a valuable article of commerce known as cocoa butter, and that a duty of 1d. per lb. is levied on cocoa butter coming into this country. It might be argued on this account cocoa powder is protected; but to show how trifling that is, the duty received from cocoa butter yields to the Treasury less than £4,000 a year."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th July, 1910, cols. 1679–80.] I cannot congratulate the hon. Member on his last argument. It seems to me that nothing could possibly be clearer than that the small amount of revenue collected and the small amount of cocoa butter that comes into this country is a pretty obvious proof of the efficacy of the protection. Let us go a little further into these trade secrets. I have here—and I do not think the hon. Member will contest it—what might be termed a fair average out-turn of the raw cocoa introduced into this country. It is calculated that 212 lbs. would yield 179 lbs. of dessicated and clean cocoa. That would give 112 lbs. of cocoa powder. So far I am in entire agreement with the hon. Member's statement that out of 1 lb. of raw cocoa you get little more than 50 per cent. of cocoa powder. You also get on the average about 67 lbs. of cocoa butter. So that if the cocoa powder duty counterbalances the duty on the raw material, you have to account for the duty on 67 lbs. of cocoa butter. A penny a pound, it being exactly one-third the out-turn of the raw material, gives you a clear protection of one-third of a penny on every pound of raw cocoa. I do not want the Committee to imagine that we in any way grudge the duty on cocoa butter or think that the cocoa trade ought not to have it. I see no reason whatever why they should not have it. But I would point out that, although cocoa butter is a by-product of the manufacturer of cocoa powder, it is one of the ingredients in the manufacture of chocolate, and in some kinds of chocolate—milk chocolate, for instance—there is pound for pound, the same weight of cocoa-butter as of cocoa powder used in the manufacture. Consequently what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is doing is to leave on the duty which is of some assistance to those firms who manufacture cocoa powder, overlooking the fact that cocoa butter is what hon. Gentlemen opposite would call a raw material, though I do not agree with the term, of the manufacturers of chocolate in this country. Hence he is doubling the burden on the chocolate, while trying to do something to make up to the cocoa trade for maintaining on the raw material a tax which they do not ask to be maintained and which no section of finance in this House believes is a good thing.

I would like to call the attention of the Committee to a curious fact. I notice in the answer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to-day, in reference to the im- ports of cocoa butter into this country, that when the tax was put on in 1896, under 250,000 lbs. were brought in in the year. In 1897, the year after it was put on, the quantity was 1,600,000 lbs. Hon. Members may say that that was due to its being rushed ill beforehand in anticipation of the new tax. But that is not the answer, because in 1898 the quantity was 1,200,000 lbs. So that the imposition of 1d. per lb. did not keep the cocoa butter out, but it seems to have had an extraordinary stimulating effect on the import of the article. When we come to the present year there is an import of only 715,000 lbs. That shows conclusively, to my mind, what a magnificent hold the cocoa industry has over the home trade of this country, and these great firms are responsible for it. I recollect—and probably the recollection of other hon. Members will be the same—that when I was a boy at school if any learned medical man recommended cocoa as a strengthening and refreshing beverage instead of tea, which was supposed to have rather deleterious effects, it was always Van Houtens, Sweitzers, or some other foreign brand. The cocoa made in this country was certainly very far from defying competition in those days. Now the case is different, and, as far as that branch of the trade is concerned, I congratulate them on the magnificent progress they have made under the existing order of things. Now take the case of the smaller firms who manufacture chocolate. Undoubtedly, under the existing scale of taxation—I will make the frank admission—they get a larger share of protection than falls to those who manufacture cocoa powder—a very much larger share—and it appears to be likely that the course of trade will make it an increasingly larger share. Take, for instance, one of the principal articles of competition. Seven million five hundred thousand pounds a year of chocolate is brought into this country from Switzerland. Practically the whole of that is what is now called milk chocolate. In a hundredweight of that article there is only 18 lbs. of cocoa powder, 17 lbs. of cocoa butter, 35 lbs. of milk solids which pay no tax at all, and 42 lbs. of sugar. The duty payable is, on cocoa powder, 1s. 11d., on cocoa butter 1s. 5d., and on sugar 8d., making 4s., which they have to pay to manufacture a hundredweight of that particular class of chocolate in this country. The foreigner has to pay 18s. 8d. to import it. Therefore, the protection is 14s. 8d. a hundredweight.

What is the meaning of this translated into the figures of all the imports of these articles into this country? We have an import of manufactured chocolate of 15,000,000 lbs. Seven million five hundred thousand pounds comes from Switzerland, and the differential part of the duty amounts to £50,000 on the Swiss imports alone. The imports from the Netherlands amount to 6,750,000 lbs., mainly cocoa, at 5s. 11d. per cwt., which the Committee may take as being an extremely accurate calculation of the protective amount of the tax on cocoa. So that there is £7,500 difference to the manufacturers in Holland if the duty is taken off. Then there is about 400,000 lbs. from Germany, 150,000 lbs. from France, and the rest in negligible quantities, the total amount of the protective duty being £74,000. There is no question that the employés in this country benefit by the work being done here. It is certainly in their interests to keep this great home trade to ourselves. In regard to the foreign trade I will have something to say presently. The effect of this Clause 2 will be practically to kill the smaller manufacturers of chocolate in this country. It will leave them to compete, not on level terms, but on very unequal terms with the great Swiss combine of chocolate manufacturers abroad.

Next I want to consider how this question affects the general public. The hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. Cooper) said that there was no evidence that cocoa had increased in price in the last ten years. I do not think he went so far as to say that it was rather the reverse. I have had this question looked into, and I find from the statistical trade abstracts, comparing last year with 1900—the very period during which we have seen general necessaries go up 10 per cent. in price—cocoa and chocolate, taken as a whole, have dropped from 100 to 77 per cent., a fall of 23 per cent., so that I cannot see that there is any justification for the proposal from that point of view. The large number of small firms that we have in this country at present compete with one another for the home trade; they practically do not attempt to do the export trade at all. When we consider whether it is wise in the interests of the consumer to pass a Finance Bill which will practically sweep these firms away and leave our market perfectly open to the import on unfair terms of Swiss chocolate, it is certain that in so doing you are not acting in the interests of the consumer. As long as you keep alive the firms who are competing with one another here you will have a low price for these articles; but if you leave it in the hands of foreign importers—particularly when, as in the case of Switzerland, it is a great chocolate combine—I have no belief that these large tablets which are offered as an inducement to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take off this tax will remain large tablets, or that the chocolate will remain cheap chocolate very long. The agent in this country has stated perfectly frankly to one of the Scottish chocolate manufacturers that it will make an enormous difference to the people he represents. He put the figure at £40,000. As £50,000 represents the total duty on the imports from Switzerland, the interest of the combine is probably very accurately represented by £40,000. Hon. Members opposite will probably make the point: could not that be used to reduce prices? It will not necessarily mean increased profits to the foreign trade; it may mean a cheaper chocolate for the consumer here. If it results in killing your home competition, I do not believe that it does or will mean cheaper chocolate. At any rate, you have no guarantee whatever that it will. You are maintaining your duty on the raw material. You are not putting the cocoa and chocolate trade on the same terms, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, as all other trades in the country, but you are putting them in the extraordinary position of having a duty upon their raw material and no duty upon their manufactured products at all. Does that mean that the manufacturers in this country will compete on equal terms? So far as the duty is concerned they certainly will not, because there is no duty on the raw material of our greatest competitor in the trade on the Continent, Holland; and there is only some tiny registration duty in the case of Switzerland. These two countries are responsible for practically the whole of the imports into this country. With regard to rebate, I would like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that that does not concern the smaller firms. They do not do any export trade worth talking about, and they do not expect to be able to do it on account of the high protective tariff abroad. It will perhaps assist to some extent the manufacturers of the cocoa. Apart from that, I do think they are not on equal terms in trading, and they are not trading on equal terms for this reason: the two countries they have got to compete against are not Germany and France, or any of the other great countries in Europe which have to maintain great armies and navies, and be under the burden of very heavy taxation. The two countries are Switzerland and Holland, which have got no great armies and no navies at all to maintain, and whose direct taxation is not a great burden upon the trade. The burden upon the Swiss manufacturer is infinitely lower than the burden placed upon the manufacturers of this country.

I want the Committee to look upon one other point in regard to these imports, and that is that it seems to me a most curious time for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to propose to take off this duty. One would imagine that the reason that would be given for doing such a thing would be that it was depriving the people of this country of a very valuable food that might and ought to be imported from abroad—that it was keeping out foreign imports. What do I find when I look at the figures for the last two years. In 1908 the imports were 10.8 million pounds. In 1910 the figure was over 15,000,000, an increase of imports into this country in two years of very nearly 50 per cent.

Sir A. MOND

Weight?

Mr. PETO

Yes, pounds weight. Look at the raw material. In 1909 we imported seventy-seven million pounds. In 1910 we imported seventy million pounds, so that our imports of raw material went down by 10 per cent. at the very same time that our imports of the manufactured article went up by nearly 50 per cent. Let us go back for a longer period. Since 1889 the imports of the manufactured article have increased seven and a-half times and the imports of the raw material have increased three and a-half times. It cannot, therefore be alleged that the existing duty has kept out the manufactured products from abroad to an undue extent or has discouraged the import trade. Another thing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer gave me some figures in answer to a question to-day. This duty of 2d. in the pound was put on in 1879. I asked what were the imports of manufactured cocoa and chocolate. I think that the classification is cocoa paste or chocolate. In 1878 it was 136,000 lbs. In 1879—we put on the duty of 2d. in the pound—the imports were 682,000 lbs. In 1880 they were 895,000 lbs. When you come to 1889 the importation was three and one-third millions. Again, I say the imposition of the duty of 2d. in the pound and the imposition of a duty of 1d. in the pound on cocoa butter did not keep out manufactured chocolate and cocoa. I really am beginning to feel that there are very few headings on which hon. Members opposite can argue that we must, from the purely business point of view, in the interests of the trade, of the people who are employed by the trade, and in the interests of consumers—the only people that I will consider in this connection—alter this tax.

I want to say one word about the cocoa butter part of the question. I want particularly to ask the hon. Gentleman the Member for York (Mr. Rowntree) to give me an answer to one question that I cannot work out for myself, seeing that I am not in the secrets of the business. I find that he regards this as a very little and negligible question. When I say that the imports of cocoa butter into this country, allowing for re-exports, were only 671,000 lbs., and that we bring in 70,000,000 lbs. of raw material, that we export 14,000,000 of them, leaving 56,000,000 lbs. net, the cocoa butter contents of which are 14,000,000 lbs. if all extracted, I cannot help thinking that those concerned have got a most meritorious and most magnificent hold and control of the trade of the manufacture of cocoa butter in this country. That is, remember, a very large ingredient used by the chocolate maker. I think it is important to know, because I absolutely refuse to measure a question of this kind by the amount collected at the Customs House. I think it is very important to know just how much these different little duties are worth to the trade of the country, and I think there is evidence that that one little duty of 1d. in the pound on cocoa butter is worth a very great deal to the trade of this country. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman the Member for York will tell us how many million pounds of cocoa butter they and Messrs. Cadbury make?

The only other subject of detail that I want to deal with is the question of the drawback on the cocoa exported. I know that the hon. Gentleman the Member for York considers that a very valuable thing for his trade. I do not know whether he told the right hon. Gentleman opposite that he is quite satisfied that the trade should continue to pay 1d. a pound duty on the raw material, provided it could get a drawback on the exports. Since 1889 the exports of cocoa and chocolate from this country have been practically a constant quantity. They have not increased. They have only increased from three and one-third millions to three and a-half millions. That is not worth calling an increase in twelve years. But I want to know where this great increase of foreign trade is going to be done when we have got what, after all, is merely what amounts to the abolition on the tax on the raw article so far as the export trade is concerned? The hon. Gentleman the Member for York, in the same speech that I have quoted from, referred just briefly to this subject. He said:— Look at it from a commercial side for a moment. There is the manufacturer who desires to export cocoa to other countries. There are preferential rates, I admit, in one or two places. I think there is in regard to South Africa and Canada. He is handicapped to the extent of 12½ per cent. compared with his Dutch competitor. The English manufacturer wishing to export chocolate may have to pay, I think, up to 5 per cent. more than his Dutch or Swiss competitor. That, of course, is because of the larger proportion of cocoa, I suppose, in the cocoa than there is cocoa in the chocolate. That, I take it, is the explanation of the difference between 12½ and 5 per cent. The hon. Member, I am sure, did not mean to be otherwise than candid with the House, but I do not think he was quite fair as to the enormous advantage that is given to the cocoa and chocolate trade by our Colonies. I find that in South Africa, for instance, we have got a preference of ½d. per lb. on cocoa, and ¾d. per lb. on chocolate. In Canada it is ¾d. per lb. preference on cocoa. But perhaps I ought to give the figures to show the proportions of the Duty. In Canada the Duty is 2¼d. from England, and 3d. from other foreign countries. In Australia it is 2½d. from England, and 3d. from other foreign countries. In New Zealand it is 3d. and three-fifths. Therefore every one of our Dominions and the Commonwealth of Australia gives us this substantial Preference as it is. I quite admit that the rebate will assist the cocoa manufacturers of this country to keep perhaps an even larger share, if it is possible—the hon. Member the Member for York will know—even a larger share of the Colonial markets. So that to that extent it may be of importance. But where are we to build up this enormous increased trade which will make up to us—taking the trade as a whole—for the enormous risk we run of losing our home trade, or a very large portion of it? Where are we going to send this enormous amount of cocoa to? Certainly not Holland or Switzerland, the great countries which send it out! I do not think you are going to do a very largely increased trade owing to this small drawback with any of the great protective countries of Europe. Therefore I think it is a good thing to leave well alone. Recollect that we are importing 56,000,000 lbs. net per year of raw material, and only 15,000,000 lbs. of the manufactured product. There are very few trades in this country which can show such a favourable comparison between what we do for ourselves at home and what we leave to the foreigner to do for us.

I cannot help wishing that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was here. I can only hope that the Committee will agree with me. If they do agree with what I have said, or any substantial part of it, they will possibly agree with me that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer insists upon the exact proposals that he makes in this Clause that he, of all men, is the most miserable sinner. We all say that from time to time in church. We say that we have left undone precisely what we should have done, and that is the case of the Chancellor, if he does not repeal the duty on raw cocoa, and he will have done precisely what he ought not to have done if he repeals the duty on the manufactured article. I have mentioned Mr. Bernhardt, the agent of a Swiss firm. I think that whatever may be our motives in either refusing to agree to the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or making the alterations that he proposes—if it turns out to be that we are going to do that—that the Committee in every part of the House will wish to do whatever they do in the interests of the trade and the people of this country, and will certainly not wish to do it in response to pressure brought to bear by the agent of one of the firms which has an important amount at stake in this matter. Before the Committee comes to a final decision in this matter it is of great importance that they should know exactly the part played by Mr. Bernhardt in our own domestic politics. Go back to the by-election of Kilmarnock on September 26th. I have no doubt that many hon. Members opposite were very indignant at the exhibition of certain posters. They had every opportunity of knowing exactly what was going on, because copies of these posters were given in the "Daily Graphic" and the "Daily Mirror." I do not know whether they know exactly how it came about that there was this tremendous display of posters at Kilmarnock, but it was a prodding of the Chancellor of the Exchequer so that he might do something that he otherwise would not do. The substance of this poster is:— Mr. Lloyd George makes concession to Tariff Reformers by postponing the removal of the protective Chocolate Duties. I wish to tell the Committee how this poster came to be put out and who paid for it. The advertisement sheet in the "Daily Mirror" contained a statement on top in small letters, "Advertisement announcements." I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite would like to look at these pictures, but if they care to do so I shall be happy to let them have them. I am prepared to tell the Committee that this Mr. Bernhardt, who is a member of the Constitutional Club, and who poses as an ardent Tariff Reformer, puts in this advertisement in aid of Messrs. Nestle, Kohler, Cailler, and Peter, and that while he appears on the one side to be an ardent advocate of Tariff Reform, and is prepared to pay for these posters and for these advertisement sheets, he was exceedingly anxious to get the official imprimatur of the Tariff Reform League in London; and as he could not get that, he tried by a very ingenious manner to get the imprimatur of one of its branches. He went up to Scotland on his own and tried and failed to get a Scottish branch to agree with him, but he could not get the Kilmarnock branch. When he arrived there he found a Scotchman who was as cute as the little Welsh girl we heard about some time ago, and who, though assured by Mr. Bernhardt that the Tariff Reform League would be most anxious to give their name, told him the Kilmarnock branch was dissolved, and therefore had no secretary at all. There was no Kilmarnock branch, and therefore this gentleman could not have their name to his leaflets, but there were posters put out and sent round by sandwichmen for the purpose of trying to ginger up the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to prod him to take off these duties by which this gentleman and his combine stood to win £40,000 a year. In December last year, before the last General Election, this ardent Tariff Reformer sent round to every retailer in the place a post-card to this effect. The pose-card read: If you are in favour of the removal of the present highly protective duties on chocolate, which severely hamper the confectionery trade, please sign the obverse side of the card and post it to the candidate for the constituency. It would also be of great assistance if you could attend and put this question to Free Trade different speakers, and on the other side to be addressed to the candidate. You are doubtless aware that the existing highly protective duties on chocolate are resented by all traders. Will you pledge yourself to use your influence to obtain their abolition? This gentleman was playing the part of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This was rather a cute dodge to insure by very shady methods that our market could be invaded by the foreigner as soon as the Chancellor of the Exchequer took off this duty. I understand that when a deputation saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer in August last, he was good enough to say to them that the year was going on and that if the trade could show any strong reason why this alteration should be postponed he would consider it. I wish to tell the Committee what some of the reasons are. The whole of my speech has mainly been a summary of the reasons why, at any rate, it should be postponed. There is one other very strong reason why this is a most inopportune moment for making this alteration, and that is that there has been an enormous rise in the price of all raw material for chocolate at the present time. Sugar is up 60 per cent. in the last twelve months; cocoa is up 14 per cent.; milk 25 per cent.; vanilla is up 45 per cent.; packing tinfoil, and so on, is up 5 to 20 per cent.; wages are up generally, and coal has risen 15 per cent.

Mr. W. E. HARVEY

What kind of coal?

Mr. PETO

I do not think it is necessary to state what kind of coal. Coal generally is very much dearer. The hon. Gentleman, I am sure, will not dispute the fact that sugar has gone up enormously, and that is infinitely more important than coal, which really supplies only the motor power, and only comes in as a secondary consideration. All the ingredients or raw materials of chocolate are gone up enormously in the last twelve months, and when you add up all these articles I hope, at any rate, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, before finally adopting his proposal contained in Section (1) of this Clause, now that we have come to the month of December, will take a few months more and go into the whole question for himself, particularly as he has not done us the honour of attending this Debate, and then if he does decide that the proposals are for the benefit of the trade and the consumers, then, and only then, should he make the alteration incorporated in that Clause.

Sir A. MOND

I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman into all the technical points of his speech, but I do thank him candidly for the shameful exposition he has made of the methods of some of the members of the Tariff Reform League.

Mr. PETO

I did not say anything about the methods of the Tariff Reform League. Nothing whatever.

Sir A. MOND

I thought he said Mr. Bernhardt was a member of the Tariff Reform League.

Mr. PETO

No, no; he was a member of the Constitutional Club.

Sir A. MOND

I understood he was a member of the Tariff Reform League, but I see now he is merely a Tariff Reformer.

Mr. PETO

He is a Dr. Jekyll, the Tariff Reformer, and Mr. Hyde, the Free Trader.

7.0 P.M.

Sir A. MOND

He has a dual capacity. Apparently he wants the assistance of the organisation to further his private business, but that is what all Tariff Reformers are driving at. That is what they are doing in every protected country. We are only beginning to learn a little of the methods that we should be very familiar with if they succeeded. If hon. Gentlemen attended in protected countries, at Berlin, Washington, or Paris, they would find these methods are not the exception but the ordinary familiar methods of Protectionists all the world over. The hon. Gentleman was rather hard upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I will tell him why. For many years now the Tariff Reform League has been attacking these duties. I have seen hoardings covered with posters declaring that the Liberal party have been giving Protection for the benefit of Messrs Cadbury, Rowntree and Fry, and I have had hundreds of papers sent to me showing what the Protection was that was given to chocolate. We have had it suggested in speeches, pamphlets, and posters, that the Liberal party deliberately left these duties on because some of the chief manufacturers in the trade were Liberals and supported the Liberal fund. That accusation has been made over and over again. Now, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer comes forward and shows the effect, hon. Gentlemen opposite say, "You must not do that." It is the hon. Gentleman opposite who is playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He abused the Chancellor of the Exchequer for keeping these duties on, and attributed corrupt motives; but now Tariff Reformers are ready to take the opposite view. I congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his efforts to remove this last remnant of Protection. It is not a very important matter or a very big one, but, at any rate, it is the last rem- nant of the protective system which Mr. Gladstone swept away, and the right hon. Gentleman is to be congratulated on being the Chancellor to remove it. The hon. Gentleman gave a curious definition of Protection. We always understood it to mean good prices for the home manufacturer. But, in view of the argument of hon. Gentlemen apposite, I do not know what benefit it is to be to the manufacturers of this country. The hon. Gentleman seemed to think that, in spite of tariffs, the importation of chocolate was increasing. I thought one of the objects of a tariff was to keep out foreign imports. The hon. Gentleman opposite gave us the information that the import of chocolate amounted from ten to fifteen millions. There has been Protection, but Protection has not been successful in keeping out imported manufactured chocolate. What they want is a prohibitive tariff. We always understood that what they wanted were moderate duties, and that moderate duties would do this. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are learning their lesson very quickly. Small duties do not affect their object, and, of course, they cannot; and then they would immediately go to the American tariffs, denounced in eloquent speech by the hon. Member for East Worcester. The Liberal party are now sweeping away the last remnant of Protection, and giving the English manufacturer and chocolate trade a chance. The hon. Gentleman opposite does not seem to know where the markets of the world are to which we send chocolate. The markets of the world are very large, and include the whole of the American Continent, India, the Far East, and the great part of the Continent of Europe along the Mediterranean. This is not a question of increasing British exports to British Dominions. I do not see how the home trade will suffer by this proposal. The hon. Member seemed to indicate that if we take this duty off prices will go up.

Mr. PETO

Ultimately.

Sir A. MOND

At any rate it is a very curious result of introducing more competition if prices do go up, for it simply means that tariffs lower prices and the introduction of Free Trade raises them. Such arguments as those make me a more confirmed Free Trader than I was before.

Mr. PETO

My argument was that it threw the whole business into the hands of a great combine.

Sir A. MOND

If a great combine raised prices it would find smaller manufacturers would cut them out. What has been put forward would be an extraordinary effect of competition between Swiss chocolate manufacturers and the firms which exist to-day. I think that argument will not be borne out by those who know the facts, and although there may not be a considerable reduction of price by this proposal there certainly will be some reduction, and it will be for the benefit of the consumers. Speaking on behalf of the consumer, I am afraid that he is only going to derive a small benefit. I should have been much more pleased if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done what I think he ought to have done, and that is sweep away the whole of these duties. It is a very small duty, and brings in very little money. All these small duties are an expense to collect, and a considerable amount of trouble, and all duties such as these ought to be abolished as soon as they can be. I regret that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not seen his way to abolish the whole of these duties. I am very glad to think that he has made some start, and I hope in future Budgets he will see his way to accede to the demand made by hon. Members on this side by sweeping these duties away altogether.

Mr. STANLEY WILSON

It seems to me a most extraordinary thing that in a Debate like this the Government should take no part or make any attempt to answer the arguments which have been brought forward. The Government have put up a back-bencher to reply, but he has made no real attempt to answer the speeches made by my hon. Friends. It is admitted that this tax does give a certain amount of protection to certain industries in which many people of this country are interested. Everybody also admits that these industries are in a most flourishing condition. As the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. Cooper) pointed out, those engaged in this industry get the very best wages, they are thoroughly satisfied with their lot, and they have no complaints to make. Are the manufacturers satisfied? I should like to ask the hon. Member for York (Mr. Rowntree), who has taken no part in this Debate, that question, because he is vitally interested in this industry. I remember a speech which he made on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill, in which he said he had no objection to the removal of this tax—in fact, I think, as a rule, genuine Free Traders rather welcome the removal of it. The hon. Member for York himself headed a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of manufacturers consisting of his own colleagues in this great industry, and what was the object of that deputation? Simply to implore the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to carry out this policy, and not remove this tax. The hon. Member for York was at the head of that deputation.

Mr. COOPER

No, not at the head of it.

Mr. S. WILSON

The hon. Member for York introduced the deputation, and the object of it was to urge the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to carry out this policy.

Mr. COOPER

I think that is hardly fair to the hon. Member for York. I happen to be the only Member of this House who was with the hon. Member for York at the time when he undertook to take that deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was pointed out to me that he had the ear of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it was known that there had been a meeting of the Liberal party to approach the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was also pointed out that it would not be quite fair, seeing that there were thirty manufacturers who appealed on the 24th May to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to receive a deputation, that the right hon. Gentleman should see the Liberal Members and refuse to meet the thirty manufacturers. The hon. Member for York recognised the injustice of it, and said, that although I am not in sympathy with these thirty manufacturers, I will myself introduce the deputation.

Mr. S. WILSON

I have listened to the explanation made by the hon. Member for Walsall, but I am afraid that I do not agree with his view.

Mr. COOPER

I was there and I ought to know.

Mr. S. WILSON

If an hon. Member of this House introduces a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my view is that he is expressing himself in favour of the views of that deputation. Most certainly I should take no deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer unless I agreed more or less with the views of the members of that deputation. That is my view of the situation, and I should like to have the views of the hon. Member for York with regard to this point. There is another point upon which I cannot agree with the hon. Member for Walsall. The hon. Member said he felt sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not removing this tax for political purposes, but I disagree with him entirely, for this is solely a sop to his conscience, because he thinks this tax is of a protective character, and he wishes to remove it. Can any hon. Member get up and explain where there is going to be the slightest advantage if this tax is removed in the way the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes? What will the advantage be and who will get it? I think we are entirely justified in insisting upon one of the hon. Members now representing the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Treasury Bench to state his views and the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon this subject.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson)

I think the hon. Member has complained a little prematurely that no representative of the Government has taken part in this Debate.

Mr. S. WILSON

The question was being put from the Chair.

Mr. ROBERTSON

On this particular question, the larger proportion of the talk has always been done by hon. Members opposite and it is not surprising that that proportion has been continued to-night. There shall be no lack of attention to the case put by hon. Members in the reply I am about to make, and if I should not cover all the points, perhaps I shall be excused because I am speaking for the first time. The case resolves itself into two aspects. We have had an argument on the merits of the case, and we have had a very interesting argumentum ad hominem dealing with a certain mysterious and Machiavellian Bernhardt. The hon. Member for Walsall made quite a lucid and interesting speech in proposing this Motion, and he affected surprise at the resort to the policy that has been followed in the Finance Bill in the matter of Cocoa Duty. He said the Cocoa Duty was an old one dating back as far as 1853, and he asked why it should be touched now. The hon. Member did not appear to understand how a Government could think of touching such an almost sacred institution which had become one of the ancient institutions of this country by sheer antiquity. The hon. Member produced an interesting pamphlet on this question which did not point to any clear policy but pointed to two policies. He showed that it was wicked on the part of the Government to keep this duty on and he also showed it would be equally wicked to take it off. At any rate that was the only conclusion I could come to after a very careful perusal, and I was struck with the ingenuity and I might also say the impartiality of his argument.

The hon. Member is very well aware that he and his associates have conducted for several years a very determined propaganda outside this House apparently with the object of forcing the Government to do precisely what is now being done. This is where the mystery first arises. The hon. Member for Wiltshire (Mr. Peto) discussed certain episodes at the Kilmarnock election. It appears that there a Machiavellian Bernhardt came into the controversy, and although he was a member of the Constitutional party, he was merely posing as a Tariff Reformer. The previous propaganda was entirely carried on by the Tariff Reform League in its leaflets and handbills, and Liberal speakers in every constituency had to meet them, and I have myself had to meet them in many parts of the country. Was the foreigner doing all this? I put the question with some diffidence, because I fancied the foreigner was doing some of it, but I want to be quite fair to the Tariff Reform League. I fancy that long before the Kilmarnock election a certain association called the Tariff Reform League was doing this and then comes along this Machiavellian Bernhardt, so they were acting together until the Kilmarnock election. Then the Tariff Reform League began to take fright. They saw they had gone too far. They saw their propaganda was actually leading to action being taken, and then they repudiated the man who had been their guide, philosopher, and friend for a number of years. That I take it to be the case. I do not know how it stands on the financial side. I do not know whether the foreigner was financing the Tariff Reform propaganda. Possibly other hon. Members will make further disclosures covering that point. I have only to say this: It does not seem to me to matter anything to the merits of the case to-night whether the Tariff Reform League were fooled by the foreigner all along or only for part of the time. If they played the game of the foreigner who wanted the tax on during all those years, well, that experience should surely chasten the Tariff Reform League and cause them to reflect whether they do really see the movements of trade and the effects of taxation. Who knows whether other foreigners are not exploiting them? Who knows how much foreign money is being expended in this way? I do not suggest it is the hon. Member for Wiltshire (Mr. Peto) who has forced this question on the House——

Mr. S. WILSON

Tell us a bit about the tax now.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I have only to say that the argument ad hominem from Bernhardt has really nothing to do with the merits of the case as regards the alteration that is being made in levelling the Cocoa Duty. On the other hand, the fact remains that those very Members who are now appealing to the Government not to alter the duty have for years been taunting and denouncing the Government for not altering it. Now the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. Cooper) showed, on the one hand, that it is wicked to keep it on, and, on the other hand, that it is wicked to keep it off.

Mr. COOPER

No.

Mr. ROBERTSON

Well, let us say grossly inconsistent to keep it off. The argument of the hon. Member is now something to this effect: "You, on the Free Trade side, have hitherto offered us a most welcome target. It was about the one point on which we could get at you. Much capital have we made out of it in the past. Many a vote has been won by telling English voters that the Cocoa Duties as they stand are maintained for the express purpose of enriching Liberal magnates who run Liberal newspapers."

Mr. COOPER indicated dissent.

Mr. ROBERTSON

No, I am not saying the hon. Member has said that in his pamphlet or in the House. I do not know what he actually says in the pamphlet. That, however, was the main, line of the propaganda, and it was on that ground Members on this side of the House—at least it was largely on that ground—appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. They said, among other things, "This unscrupulous and nefarious propaganda is injuring the whole cause of Free Trade." That argument was certainly urged on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not suppose it will be said it was inconsistent on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he asked himself whether it was worth while keeping the duty as it stood and injuring Free Trade. The hon. Member, in effect, appeals to us now, "Pray continue your policy."

Mr. COOPER

The hon. Member is really misrepresenting my speech to-night, at any rate, because I absolutely devoted myself to the question, "What are the reasons for this change? What are the Government reasons for it?" At the end, I said, "If it is political exigency, I ask nothing but that you follow out the Bill, because from the platform point of view in twelve months' time we can make use of it."

Mr. ROBERTSON

I have no doubt the hon. Member has had much experience in making good use of matters, Bernhardt among other things. I think, again, he is a little premature. He may find the result of that past propaganda, taken with the attitude now adopted, may not make it so easy for him to make good use of these matters. At all events, this fact remains. He knows the Cocoa Duties, as they stood in the past, were an easy target for himself and his friends, or let us say for his friends, and he says, "Pray continue to offer us that easy target; continue to be inconsistent; continue to put it in our power of accusing a Free Trade Government of keeping on duties to enrich Liberal magnates who run Liberal newspapers." When we come to the merits of the matter—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I suppose hon. Members are sorry the argument ad hominem was raised. I think they have cause to be. The hon. Member for Wiltshire apparently considered it a most important argument. The hon. Member for Walsall and the hon. Member for Wiltshire both argued that the alteration of the duty would do no good to the consumer. I am entirely unable to reconcile this argument with the other statement that the alteration of the duty will have the effect of killing the small maker here. How can he be killed unless foreign goods can be made against him at a lower rate? They say the smaller maker, who appears to us to be the one person—and not the cocoa magnate of the Liberal Press—who benefited, will be killed. The hon. Member for Walsall even suggested Bournville is the product of the Cocoa Duty.

Mr. COOPER

I did not put it that way. I made no such statement whatever. I merely said, "If you were to show the place in this country where workmen were best housed you would go to Bournville." I made no insinuation of any kind.

Mr. ROBERTSON

The hon. Member was then dealing with the merits, and he surely implied that Bournville had something to do with the Cocoa Duty.

Mr. COOPER

Oh, unquestionably; so it has.

Mr. ROBERTSON

The strange thing is that Bournville has never asked to keep on the Cocoa Duty. It is the small man who is the friend of hon. Members opposite who has been getting the high protection. Hon. Members opposite are perfectly accurate on that point. The big producers whom they have reviled as men profiting by the Cocoa Duties—these large producers, gentlemen associated with the Liberal Press—have had the minimum benefit possible, and the maximum benefit went to the small producers, who are apparently politically on the side of hon. Members opposite. So the very campaign of hon. Members opposite or of their party, the campaign carried on by the Tariff Reform League, has been for the purpose of vilifying at once the Free Trade party and the Government and certain leading Members of it as having been in a corrupt plot to keep up duties for the advantage of certain Liberals, when by their own showing the main part of those duties was going into the pockets of tarifist manufacturers. I think it is impossible to believe that the alteration in the duties is going to kill the small cocoa manufacturers who have hitherto had the larger benefit, and, at the same time, is not going to reduce the price. The argument resolves itself into the old Protectionist argument, and, even although you may reduce prices at the start, you play into the hands of the combine. They will sell you cheap goods at first, but when they have got hold of the market they will either raise the price or reduce the size or quality of their goods. It is the old story of Tariff Reform based on prophecy; it can never be based on experience. [HON. MEMBERS: "Foreign countries."] Has the cocoa trade been killed in the past elsewhere? If so, why did not hon. Members give us that experience? If they have arguments from experience, why do they so perpetually rely on prophecy? Surely, for practical purposes, and, above all, for the purposes of this House, an ounce of experience is worth a ton of prophecy. We have had no experience to-night, but we have had the usual bluff.

The hon. Member for Walsall argued further that the alteration of the duty would give no benefit to the State. I think it would not be unreasonable to argue it is a benefit to the State that the fiscal policy in vogue at the moment should be made as rigorously consistent as possible. I think it is a benefit to politics. Hon. Members may claim the main benefit will go to the Government and to the Free Trade party, but they cannot expect us to regard that as an injury, and that particular argument, I think, may be put aside. The hon. Member, however, put this point. He said we had committed the crime of using the Budget for political exigencies. After his party have been doing it all these years, he should not be startled, if he believes the charge, by seeing the Government do it once in a way. All this unscrupulous propaganda is to be forgotten and counted for nothing against those who use it for the purposes of winning votes, but the moment the Government, under pressure of its own supporters, yields to the demand that the fiscal system at this point should be made consistent and the moment we seek to rectify it and meet it the charge is levelled against us, and the hon. Member ingenuously tells us we are using the Budget for political exigencies. If I understood the hon. Member aright, his main contention was that if we meddled with the duty at all, we should wholly remove the duty on raw cocoa. Am I right?

Mr. COOPER

My whole point was: What was the business reason for making the change?

Mr. ROBERTSON

If the hon. Member is again implying that to rectify the fiscal system and make it consistent is not a business reason, I think it may fairly be stated it is a business reason. We do not pretend the object is to put money into the pockets of British producers. That is never a Free Trade purpose. That is the kind of purpose hon. Members opposite advocate. With regard to his suggestion that employment is at stake in this matter, I have pointed out already that Bournville does not ask for protection. It has done very well with a minimum of protection. There is not the least reason to suppose, even on the argument of the hon. Member himself, that the great bulk of the cocoa and chocolate making business in this country could be affected in the least degree, even from his point of view. It is only the small men, we are told, that are going to the wall, so the argument of employment covers a very small ground. When we come to the question of abolishing the duty altogether, the hon. Member says: "In what other case have you a duty on raw material?"

Mr. COOPER

Except tobacco. [HON. MEMBERS: "Sugar."]

Mr. ROBERTSON

Did the hon. Member never hear of the duty on sugar which was put by his own Government at a much higher level than 25 per cent? I grant him there is always an argument for the removal of any duty that is both a tax on goods and on raw material. The Chancellor of the Exchequer to-night indicated his general sympathy with the whole line of argument against this tax, but the question is really one of finance. Many hon. Members on this side of the House hope to see all of those taxes removed. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] I do not pretend to prophesy. I leave that to hon. Members opposite. Hon. Members opposite indicate only one way in which they think it can be done, and that is by imposing a very much worse tax than the one we are asked to take off. If the tax is imposed as purely direct taxation, if the money required to be made up is ultimately to be got by purely direct taxation, I, for one, should not be sorry, but I venture to think that hon. Members opposite would be very sorry indeed. There comes in the difficulty. It is not for me to dwell on the necessity of continuing the revenue as it is. We are face to face with an expenditure which is being added to, and this is not the time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer can afford, there being no prospect of any other duty, to throw over even a small amount of £300,000. The hon. Member for Swansea argued that the duty might be abolished, but I would ask hon. Members to realise the fact I have just mentioned. When this matter was discussed in June last year the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Croft), a most active and zealous exponent of Tariff principles, debated the subject in this House, and one of his arguments was that it was extremely unfair, as a result of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's finance, that a small amount of alcohol should be taxed while the proprietors of cocoa, who finance the press of the Liberal party, were permitted to go almost scot free. If that does not mean that we should tax cocoa I do not know what it means. It is quite true that the same hon. Member a little while previously had declared that Liberals ought to give a free breakfast table. Thus we had two propositions laid down in absolutely opposite directions. The fact stands the hon. Member for Christchurch told us last year it was grossly unjust, when taxing alcohol, not to put an extra tax upon cocoa, and now the party he represents says that the only decent thing to be done is to take the duty off cocoa.

What would happen if the Government took the duty off cocoa altogether? Would not the hon. Member for Christchurch resume his crusade and tell us that the one thing the Government will take the duty off is that particular raw material which enters into business of the gentlemen who finance the Liberal Press! At any rate, that is the line the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. Cooper) would take. I do not think the case is a very strong one, although we all agree it is a duty that might be dispensed with. But if you are dispensing with breakfast-table duties it will be difficult to make out a good case for dispensing with the smallest first and doing nothing to relieve the consumers of tea and sugar rather than those who partake of coffee and cocoa. The removal of the duty altogether would do nothing to benefit the small man. May I urge this consideration on the attention of hon. Members that, on their own showing, the complete removal of the duty would only affect small men. But if you alter the duties and remove protection, the small man is going to suffer badly.

Mr. PETO

You do not relieve him of the duty on cocoa butter.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I deny that there is any protection in that case. It is rather the other way. It is the small man who is going to suffer by being put on an equality with the foreigner, and if you remove the duty altogether he will still remain at a disadvantage. Now I come to the observations of the hon. Member for East Wilts (Mr. Peto). He admits there has been very heavy protection in the past, but the proposition we put in that connection is that no benefit accrues from levying the tax on cocoa butter. It is of no advantage to the home producer. The fact is that cocoa butter probably costs little more to get out of the bean than it costs if it is brought in from abroad. The hon. Member admits that £4,000 worth of it comes in, and, therefore, it does seem that it is worth while to bring it in to some extent. If you take away that part of the case for the hon. Member for Wiltshire, I do not think there is much left to answer.

Mr. PETO

Does not the hon. Gentleman admit that cocoa butter is one of the ingredients used in the manufacture of chocolate?

Mr. ROBERTSON

It may be a valuable product, but I deny that there is any essential protection in this matter. The hon. Member went on to argue that the rebate will be of no use to the small man. Surely if the suggestion is that the rebate is going to be an advantage to the trade the suffering small man would do well to go in for the export trade. Will the representatives of the cause of Tariff Reform ask us to specially help the less enterprising section of a particular trade which could make money if it would only go in for export trade like other producers in the same trade? I do not agree with the hon. Member as to small men being killed. I do not know why they should be. The suggestion I know is that it will be done by the process of dumping. In that case the foreigner is going to pay, and it is a strange thing that, whenever the foreigner proposes to pay, it infuriates the Tariff Reformers.

Mr. PETO

What is he going to pay?

Mr. ROBERTSON

He will pay through the process of dumping; that is the only way.

Mr. PETO

But what will he pay?

Mr. ROBERTSON

I think the hon. Member cannot have quite followed my argument. When hon. Members opposite argue that the effect of taking a particular course is that the foreigner will have to pay, I say there is only one way in which he will pay.

Mr. PETO

That is a duty you are taking off.

Mr. ROBERTSON

The hon. Member is telling us that the foreigner is going to dump. Is not that paying? Does he not realise that the foreigner by dumping pays. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] I think he pays, but I suppose we shall not all agree on that. We have got the candid admission of hon. Members opposite, that in the past the Cocoa Duty has not kept out foreigners' goods. It is the fact that in spite of the protective duty foreign chocolate does come in in increasing quantities, and that is another proof apparently of the failure of the tariff to keep foreigners' goods out. Surely one is justified in arguing that the tariff has been a failure in this direction—in this little bit of protection—it has failed to keep the foreigners' goods out.

Mr. COOPER

A penny keeps them out to-day.

Mr. ROBERTSON

The hon. Member is quite impervious to logical demonstration. I have only to say one word further, and that is in regard to the hon. Member for Holderness (Mr. Stanley Wilson), who made an attack on my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Rowntree), to which he may, or may not, accordingly as he thinks it worth while, reply. In respect of that I may say there still seems to be some connection between the operations on the Tariff Reform League and those of a Machiavellian foreign gentleman. It is part of the attack; he is apparently in co-operation with the hon. Member for Holderness. The hon. Member for Walsall honourably admitted that my hon. Friend the Member for York chivalrously introduced a deputation with whose views he did not agree. It was this same Machiavellian personage who made the attack on the hon. Member for York that was endorsed by the hon. Member for Holderness. This foreigner has been a very useful partner in the Reform League for several years. The Tariff Reform League has been taken in by him. It has been unable to see that his activities could have but one result, forcing a Free Trade Government to introduce a change of duty which, by their own account, would be very injurious to a number of their own men. They paid us the compliment of thinking we would not do so, and discovered that their eternal attacks on Free Trade had had the effect of making Free Traders call upon their own Government to make the required alteration. It is far from certain whether such a policy will be vigorously advocated in the future.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

The hon. Member began his speech by asking for the indulgence of the House on the ground that it was the first occasion on which he spoke in an official position. Gentlemen who seek the indulgence of this House are generally careful to avoid any unnecessary offence to their opponents, but the hon. Member has studiously striven to be as offensive as he could.

Mr. CHARLES DUNCAN

Is this the "heavy father" style?

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

The hon. Member's interruption is about on a par with his usual language. The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken on behalf of the Government has sought to connect the Tariff Reform League and the party to which I belong with an individual whose name has played a large part in this Debate. What do we know about him? He is an agent for a foreign firm. He appears to have represented himself as the emissary of the Tariff Reform League, but he was refused acceptance by the Tariff Reform League in England and Scotland, and especially in a particular place where an election was going on. [An HON MEMBER: "Kilmarnock."] He acted on his own authority; he had been expressly refused authority to act.

Mr. ROBERTSON

At what date?

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

I do not know the date. Unless the hon. Member has facts which he has not disclosed to the House it was scarcely in keeping with the usual courtesy to try and use that man in order to tar the whole Tariff Reform League. What is it that he has been doing? I do not know this Mr. Bernhardt, although I may have seen letters of his in the papers.

Mr. ROBERTSON

It had been represented to me that this Machiavellian foreigner had made a catspaw of the Tariff Reform League; that is, he befooled and deceived them. That is the case brought forward in defence of the League.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

I believe it is quite untrue to say that he had been using the League for years as the hon. Member suggests. It is totally untrue.

Mr. ROBERTSON

It is from your side that I got it.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

In any case, what is it that this man is alleged to have done? He is alleged to have posed as a Tariff Reformer being, in fact, in favour of the Free Trade movement which the Government are carrying out. He is not a supporter of our movement, he is a supporter of their movement, and in order to advance that movement he masqueraded in our dress. If that reflects discredit on anyone it reflects discredit on the party opposite. Now I come to some other observations of the hon. Member which were a little more pertinent. I believe he has taken a large part on his side in the discussions on Tariff Reform and Free Trade, and I am sorry he has so little appreciated the views of the Tariff Reform party. He appears to think that a duty like the Cocoa Duty, which admittedly has raised a certain amount of revenue, which at the same time has enabled prosperous trades to exist in this country, that as yet are admittedly in competition with outside, and which has not prohibited the import trade, has failed to realise any of the advantages that Tariff Reformers expect from their policy. It has realised everything. It has protected trade at home, it has not stopped foreign trade, it has given us revenue, it has found work for our own people, and it has done all that without injury to the consumer, who has bought his cocoa and his chocolate cheap. The hon. Gentleman goes on to say that as a result of the change in the duty, of the abolition of the duty as proposed by the Government, that either prices cannot be reduced, or no home industry will suffer. I do not agree. Suppose the prices remain at practically the same level. In the first place, the hon. Gentleman says on that argument that it is like all the arguments of the Tariff Reformers, that it is founded not upon experience but upon prophecy. We cannot deal with the effect of a change in duty which has not yet been made, by reference to experience drawn from that particular duty or from that particular change, and to that extent we are obliged to prophesy, if he likes to call it so; we are obliged to form the best conclusions that we can from experience in other ways as to what the effect of that change will be. Does he think he is answering us by asserting that this has never been the result of changes in any duty.

I remember the present Leader of the Opposition giving a case from the nail trade. He told how a particular branch of the nail trade with which he was dealing—the particular class of articles made by it—was crushed out of this country by dumping. There were dumpers, both German and American, who had dumped for a certain length of time. They first kept the prices low by competition between themselves, but after a time they did not see why they should do that to the advantage of the English people, so they combined and raised the prices to our consumers. My right hon. Friend had, on the date on which he made his speech in this House, verified the prices in the City of London. He had asked the price for these articles as they were sold in England, and was given a price so much a ton. He then asked the price for supply to Japan, and he was given a price so much less per ton from the same manufacturer. What was the reason of that? The immediate reason was that there was competition in Japan with native manufacturers. The ultimate reason was that that competition had been kept alive by the protective tariffs of the Japanese, so that the Germans and Americans had not been able to crush out the Japanese manufacturer as the English manufacturer was being crushed out. If we cannot argue from the experience of England in this particular trade, we have at least experience to guide us as to the probable consequences of action of this kind. The hon. Gentleman then says that my hon. Friends have contended that the consumer will not benefit. How can he benefit? How is it possible, asks the hon. Gentleman, that the consumer should not benefit if the British manufacturer suffers? I think I put his question differently, but I think I put it rightly.

Mr. ROBERTSON

No.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

May I try once more? He says that if prices do not fall the British manufacturer cannot be injured; and that, if prices do not fall, the consumer does not get the benefit. The only case in which he can benefit is if prices do fall, but that is not the only case in which the British manufacturer can be injured. Suppose that at the present time there is a very large trade to be done, and that it is done at a certain price, and that foreign manufacturers do it at a certain handicap which limits the amount of trade they can do. If you take away that handicap, which is the preference to the British manufacturer, then they are in a much better position to compete with the home manufacturer for that trade, and without reducing the prices the British manufacturer may be seriously injured by finding the trade going from him and being transferred to the foreigner, especially in so far as the duties on these articles are prohibitive now. Where they cannot send in the stuff now they will be able to send it in in future. Even without any reduction of prices, there is a much greater competition in the market, and a much less chance for the home manufacturer. The hon. Member asks would they not reduce prices. It is possible that prices may be immediately reduced, but only until the supply, which owing to these changes has become greater than the demand, is reduced to an equality with the demand again. Then it will be these small manufacturers who will be crushed out. The moment they are crushed out prices will bound up again, and the only change will be not that the consumer is benefited for more than a temporary interval, but that the profits will go to foreign manufacturers and the employment to foreign workmen.

The hon. Member began by finding great fault with us for what he considers to be our inconsistent attitude on this matter. If it is any satisfaction to him, I am perfectly willing to admit that our party attacked his for maintaining these duties, and it now criticises them for taking these duties off. I make a further admission to the hon. Member: that his party is consistent now with their general sentiment on trade policy in removing these duties. That is only to say they have never been consistent heretofore. For my own part I have never—although it is dangerous when one has spoken so much to make a general assertion—I think I have never used Cocoa Duties as a weapon of attack, and I can certainly say with confidence that I have never attacked any particular firm, but I think I have attacked the Government in the past for inconsistency. They were perfectly inconsistent. The hon. Member admits it. They maintained the inconsistency year after year, and they did not care a rap about it. Why have they ceased to be inconsistent? Because it hurts their consciences as Free Traders to maintain a Protective Duty? Because they are really ashamed to do it? It is not because it hurts their consciences, but it is because they are ashamed of being found out. They said the consumer may have gone hang for his money for as many years as we like. The hon. Member says I do not do it to please the manufacturing industry as a whole; I do it because you have made the situation so inconvenient to the Members of my party that they go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and beg him to remove this reproach from us.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I said that was one of the reasons.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN

And is it not obvious, whether the hon. Member said so or not? I do not know the exact emphasis he laid on it, but he said that we had won many votes on this side on the subject, that we had boasted that injury was done by it to Free Trade, and I think he said that was the reason why many Members went to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I will add any qualification to his own statement he would wish me to make. Whether he laid more or less stress upon it or not, everybody knows that this change is now made, not as part of a wide policy, not on a consideration of its merits, but for purely political reasons, regardless of its effect on the country or the trade, because it is inconvenient to hon. Gentlemen opposite. My hon. Friends were entitled, and we are all entitled, to accuse the Government of inconsistency. I do not think they deserve much credit for a consistency which is only practised when the preaching of it is both politically and electorally convenient for themselves. I say it is deplorable that the interests of trade should figure so little in the thoughts and speeches of Members of the Government, and that their political and party interests should figure so largely.

8.0 P.M.

Mr. PEEL

I listened with great interest to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, and I have never heard any Minister less anxious to come to grips with the subject. I want to put a question to him. I want to know whether he considers that these duties are, or are not, protective? On that he said nothing. If you look at the statements made by Cabinet Ministers during the last three years, you will find that they practically say that these duties are not protective at all. First of all, there was the Prime Minister. He said these duties had the flavour of protection. The flavour of protection surely is not protection. No one is going to take off his coat, even on behalf of the most theoretical of Free Traders, against a duty which has the flavour of protection. Then there was the right hon Gentleman (Mr. Churchill) who only supported the Prime Minister and said the duties had the flavour of protection. Again, is that a reason for putting the House to the trouble of a long discussion on the subject? Then there is the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Runciman). He says the protection is infinitesimal. Is it worth while troubling yourself about infinitesimal duties? Is Free Trade so weak that it has to be protected even against an infinitesimal suggestion of some sort of protectional duty. Last of all, there is the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hobhouse). Speaking at Bristol he said:— The cocoa and chocolate industry is supposed to be protected. I am pretty well convinced that, the amount of Protection, if it exists at all, is very small. So that during the last three or four years Members of the Government have been maintaining that there is either no protection at all, or that protection was infinitesimal, and it is not worth while talking about. Now I want to know why the hon. Member says these protective duties must go. Apparently he seems to admit that they are protective. It was his duty, in attacking the Tariff Reform League, to show why the view of the Government has changed, and why they thought these duties were not protective, and now have come to the conclusion, after mature consideration and after a number of speeches made by our side on the platform and elsewhere, that they are protective and ought to go. The hon. Member showed an extraordinary misinterpretation of the propaganda carried on on our side. He says, "You have been attacking these duties all along, and then when they are going to be taken off you are not satisfied." I really never saw anyone so obtuse, if I may say so without offence, as the hon. Member in understanding the motives of other people or trying to throw himself into their position. Of course he is entirely mistaken. We criticised the duties because they were kept on by people who professed to be strong and almost extreme Free Traders, but no one wanted to take them off. All we tried to suggest by our criticism was, if you had a trade which prospered so exceedingly under a small protective duty, do not take the duty off but extend that system of Protection, or limited Protection, which has been so prosperous in the case of cocoa, to other businesses, and you will have in those other businesses the same success you have had with the Cocoa Duties. That is a more consistent interpretation than the one the hon. Member suggested. I would really ask him, if he is going to try to penetrate the motives of his opponents, to throw a little more imagination and sympathy into them before he tries to understand them.

Mr. ROBERTSON

The hon. Member accuses me of obtuseness, and I have also been accused of being offensive. I shall perhaps best treat that charge by neglecting it.

Mr. PEEL

I particularly said I said that not in any offensive sense.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I do not mind. I did not wish to be offensive to anyone, and I will not take offence at that. But the hon. Member is certainly mistaken in the propaganda of his party if he thinks that all they have suggested is that if the Cocoa Duties do good to certain trades, they should be extended to all. If he seriously tells us that is the whole drift of their propaganda in the past few years he must know very little about it. I have met with that propaganda on many platforms and in many places. There have been many advertisements, many letters, and many articles written about it, and the constant line of the propaganda, was, "the Free Trade people knew very well what a great benefit there is in the duty, and they maintain it expressly in order to benefit certain cocoa manufacturers who run newspapers." He further asked me the question, whether I think these duties are protective? I thought there had never been any hesitation or doubt as to that. We have all said—and that is the whole trouble—that the duties are protective. The Prime Minister said in 1907:— I think there is a good deal of the flavour of Protection about the present scale of Cocoa Duties, but at the same time it is a very small tax. That is where the confusion seems to have arisen in the hon. Member's mind. The hon. Member (Mr. Stanier), in reply to me last year, pointed out that I must be aware that the Protection varied from 20 per cent. to 50 per cent., and other Mem-

bers have argued in the same way. It is true that though the whole yield of the duty was very small the amount of protection actually given at certain points in the percentage was very high. So you get two propositions, which, put together, may account for the hon. Member's confusion. The heavy protection went to the small man and never to the Liberal cocoa newspaper proprietor. But that is a small matter. I have always understood these duties had a distinctively protective action, and the defence we gave in the past was that the whole matter was very small, and that it did not seem worth while taking the serious trouble to derange the fiscal system to that extent. It was a bagatelle. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) tells us we were grossly inconsistent. He knows very well what our reason was. It did not seem worth while to change the Budget for the sake of so small an amount of duty as actually was involved. But the percentage of protection nevertheless was high, and that has never been disputed.

Question put, "That the word 'The' ["The duty of Customs"] stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided: Ayes, 157; Noes, 76.

Division No. 437.]	AYES.	[8.10 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour)	Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey
Adamson, William	Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of	Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus
Addison, Dr. C.	Essex, Richard Walter	Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Esslemont, George Birnie	Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton)	Falconer, J.	Jones, Leif (Notts, Rushcliffe)
Allen, Charles Peter (Stroud)	Ferens, T. R.	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)
Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.)	Ffrench, Peter	Jowett, F. W.
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)	Furness, Stephen	Keating, M.
Barnes, G. N.	Gelder, Sir W. A.	Kellaway, Frederick George
Benn, W. W. (T. H'mts., St. George)	George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd	King, J. (Somerset, N.)
Bentham, G. J.	Gill, A. H.	Lambert, George (Devon, Molton)
Bethell, Sir J. H.	Gladstone, W. G. C.	Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West)
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Glanville, H. J.	Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rlnd, Cock'rmth)
Black, Arthur W.	Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford	Levy, Sir Maurice
Bowerman, C. W.	Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland)	Low, Sir F. (Norwich)
Brady, Patrick Joseph	Griffith, Ellis J.	Lundon, T.
Bryce, J. Annan	Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.)	Lynch, A. A.
Buckmaster, Stanley O.	Gulland, John William	Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester)
Burke, E. Haviland.	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway)	Macpherson, James Ian
Buxton, Noel (Norfolk, North)	Hackett, J.	M'Curdy, Charles Albert
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar)	Hail, Frederick (Normanton)	McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Cameron, Robert	Hancock, John George	M'Laren, Hon. F. W. S. (Lincs., Spalding)
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis (Rossendale)	M'Micking, Major Gilbert
Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood)	Hardie, J. Keir	Marks, Sir George Croydon
Clough, William	Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds.)	Masterman, C. F. G.
Clynes, J. R.	Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.)	Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J.	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)	Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)
Condon, Thomas Joseph	Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry	Montagu, Hon. E. S.
Cotton, William Francis	Hayden, John Patrick	Munro, R.
Crooks, William	Hayward, Evan	Murray, Captain Hon. A. C.
Crumley, Patrick	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)	Nannetti, Joseph P.
Davies, E. William (Eifion)	Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.)	Nolan, Joseph
Davies, Timothy (Louth)	Henry, Sir Charles	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Higham, John Sharp	O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)
Dawes, J. A.	Hinds, John	O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)
Doris, William	Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich)	O'Doherty, Philip
O'Dowd, John	Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)	Wadsworth, John
O'Malley, William	Rowlands, James	Wardle, George J.
O'Shee, James John	Rowntree, Arnold	Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)
Palmer, Godfrey Mark	Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)	Watt, Henry A.
Parker, James (Halifax)	Scanlan, Thomas	Webb, H.
Pearce, Robert (Staffs., Leek)	Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B.	White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)
Pearce, William (Limehouse)	Shortt, Edward	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)	Simon, Sir John Allsebrook	Whitehouse, John Howard
Power, Patrick Joseph	Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)	Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.
Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)	Snowden, P.	Wiles, Thomas
Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)	Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)	Williams, P. (Middlesbrough)
Reddy, M.	Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)	Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Taylor, John W. (Durham)	Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)
Richardson, Albion (Peckham)	Tennant, Harold John	Young, William (Perth, East)
Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)	Thorne, William (West Ham)
Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Toulmin, Sir George	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Dudley Ward.
Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford)	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)
NOES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte	Gilmour, Captain J.	Rutherford, W. (Liverpool, W. Derby)
Ashley, W. W.	Gretton, John	Salter, Arthur Clavell
Astor, Waldorf	Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne)	Sanders, Robert A.
Baldwin, Stanley	Haddock, George Bahr	Sanderson, Lancelot
Barlow, Montagu (Salford, South)	Hall, Fred (Dulwich)	Sandys, G. J. (Somerset, Wells)
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton)	Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington)	Smith, Harold (Warrington)
Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish	Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)	Stanier, Beville
Boyton, J.	Hope, Harry (Bute)	Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell	Horne, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)	Stewart, Gershom
Bridgeman, W. Clive	Houston, Robert Paterson	Swift, Rigby
Bull, Sir William James	Kerry, Earl of	Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)
Burn, Col. C. R.	Knight, Captain E. A.	Talbot, Lord Edmund
Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred	Larmor, Sir J.	Tobin, Alfred Aspinall
Cassel, Felix	Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston)	Valentia, Viscount
Castlereagh, Viscount	Mackinder, Halford J.	Walker, Col. William Hall
Chaloner, Col. R. G. W.	McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine)	Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r)	Mason, James F. (Windsor)	White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport)
Courthope, George Loyd	Mount, William Arthur	Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.)
Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet)	Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.	Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)
Croft, Henry Page	Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)	Wolmer, Viscount
Du Cros, Arthur Philip	Peel, Hon. W. R. W. (Taunton)	Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Duke, Henry Edward	Perkins, Walter F.	Yate, Col. C. E.
Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M.	Pollock, Ernest Murray	Younger, Sir George
Fell, Arthur	Pretyman, Ernest George
Fletcher, John Samuel (Hampstead)	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Cooper and Mr. Peto.
Foster, Philip Staveley	Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Gardner, Ernest	Rolleston, Sir John

Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Amendment proposed: In Sub-section (2), after the word "on" ["drawback shall be allowed on any goods"], to insert the words "the exportation or shipment for use as ship's stores of."—[Mr. McKinnon Wood.]

Mr. FELL

May I ask what is the effect of this Amendment?

Mr. McKINNON WOOD

It is purely a drafting Amendment in order that the words of the Sub-section may follow precedent.

Amendment agreed to.