§ It is hereby declared that for the purposes of Part I. of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, whenever the original site value is less than nothing it shall be deemed to be nothing, and in cases where the original site value is nothing, or deemed to be nothing, on the first occasion for the collection of Increment Value Duty, the increment value shall be deemed to be reduced by an amount equal to 10 per cent, of the site value on such occasion, instead of 10 per cent, of the original site value.
§ Mr. CASSELI beg to move, "That the proposed Clause be read a second time."
On the last occasion when I raised this subject I was told I did not know enough about mathematics, and that I ought to study them; but since then this same question has come before the Courts, and the Court of Appeal in Scotland has taken the same view which I then put to the House, and which was greeted with so much derision from the benches opposite. In regard to this matter, if the Govern- 2597 ment are going to accept the decision of the Court of Appeal in Scotland as final, of course I shall not say anything further, but if they do not accept it as final I am going to assume that the view which the Government have put forward is correct as to minus quantities. The other day I asked the Secretary to the Treasury how many valuations had turned out as minus quantities from the 1st April last—an appropriate day. By that date he told me that in over 60,000 hereditaments in this country the site value of them had turned out to be minus quantities, and the largest minus quantity arrived at up to that date was minus £17,000. Fancy a man being told that the site value of his land is minus £17,000! This Act is quite as productive of minus quantities as of minus revenue.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSThen why do you object?
§ 5.0 P.M.
§ Mr. CASSELBecause I object to the very large sums expended in collecting a minus revenue—large sums spent in connection with valuation not only by the Government, but by owners who have to protect their own interests. Unfortunately in respect of these valuations these people are not in a position to afford to pay for the best advice. Take the case of this man whose land was valued at minus £17,000. Supposing, if he is ever lucky enough to sell it, he sells his title for £5, the duty which he would have to pay would be £3,401. If on the other hand he gave it away there would be no duty at all because a gift is not one of the occasions on which duty is payable. Could anything more ludicrous than that be imagined? As I was attacked about this last year I desire to quote from the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Scotland by Lord Johnston. This is from the judgment:—
The clear intention of the Statute is to assess something real and not to assess an algebraic symbol of no real value, and the result of which would be to get a tax from funds derived from other purposes, It is difficult to conceive of the State sharing an increase of something which is worth less than nothing, and such a contention must be established by express enactment or irresistible implication. It is unfortunate that the word 'land' in the Act has seldom the same meaning in two consecutive paragraphs. Section 25 is found unfortunately to be couched in words which conceal rather than disclose its meaning.I was not in the House at the time this Clause was passed, but I have carefully look through what happened in the various stages, and I think this arises from an Amendment adopted on the Report stage. If the Bill had passed in the form in which it left Committee I do not think any minus quantity could ever have arisen. That 2598 arises from an Amendment on the Report stage which every Member of the House was assured was a mere drafting Amendment which would have no effect whatever in altering the provisions of the Bill. In the same judgment the judge said:—To call a minus quantity an assessable value and subsequently to assess the difference between two such minus quantities, would be to extract revenue not from site value, but from a man's development of the site by the expenditure of labour and capital.That was what the Chancellor of the Exchequer always assured us it was not his intention to do. Minus quantities very largely arose from the extraordinary definition of site value in the Act. The definition is arrived at by deduction from the total value and the total value you assume the land is subject to its encumbrances, easements, rights of way, rights of light and restrictive covenants. You deduct from that the difference between two things with reference to which you make an entirely different assumption. In one you assume those encumbrances and easements and in the other you do not. That is, of course, on the face of it absolutely absurd and ludicrous, and that is one of the things which has led to these minus quantities. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says how very few appeals there are, but on this one appeal some 60,000 cases depend. If an equal number of cases depend upon every one of the other appeals it would explain the fact that the appeals are not as numerous as one would otherwise have expected. There are in regard to this valuation a large number of primary points which have to be decided before men can safely settle their valuations at all. The unfortunate thing is that the people who cannot afford to take advice on the matter settle their valuation before these points are decided. With regard to minus quantities, are the Government really going to take the unfortunate subject up to the House of Lords and try to enforce this taxation upon minus quantities? I should have thought they might have spared themselves that trouble and inconvenience. It ought to be recognised that if land gives you a minus quantity it means that there is no value in the land. The minus quantity merely means that there is a burden of liability upon the individual, independently of the land, and it must be a personal obligation on the individual. The land itself cannot be a security for anything more than its value, and if its value is nothing it is not a security for anything, and the man who has it simply has 2599 a personal liability. How can you tax a man on that personal liability? Why cannot the Government adopt this new Clause, which would simply say that you would start your taxation with the value of the land? If the land is worth nothing you would start with nothing, and you would not begin taxing a man on a minus quantity. That the minus quantity ought not to be taxed is made clear by the fact that in regard to increment value, so far as 10 per cent. is concerned, the subject is let off. How can you give a man the benefit of that 10 per cent. on a minus quantity? I do not know whether two minuses make a plus. Perhaps my algebra again is at fault. I was told of one case where Undeveloped Land Duty has been claimed on a minus quantity. How can Undeveloped Land Duty be applicable to a minus quantity. I ask the Government to recognise that through a change made on the Report stage there has arisen a thorough muddle in connection with the valuation, and the best thing they can do is to put it right as soon as possible.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSThe hon. and learned Gentleman has thoroughly enjoyed himself, and I do not grudge him the pleasure which he has had and has given to the Opposition in respect of this new Clause. It is not a very difficult matter, if you have the judgment before you, to give vent to these pleasantries. But judgments do not always stand when taken to a Supreme Court. This case is on its way to the House of Lords, in order that the House of Lords may determine whether these valuations are right or wrong. Even if the House of Lords should decide in accordance with the view of the Court of Appeal, it is not going to have anything like the terrible effect which the hon. and learned Gentleman thinks. The whole point of the minus quantity is that it is a point of comparison. There is no great difficulty in the matter, for if you cannot use the minus quantity you can use another quantity to arrive at a standard of comparison. Really, the whole of the amusement derived out of this is, I venture to think, simply from the fact that the hon. and learned Gentleman, I will not say does not understand the minus point, but he is shielding himself behind the judgment of Lord Johnston in Scotland. We cannot dispose of these matters in this way in this House; neither is it possible for us to go 2600 on to argue a point before a Committee of the House of Commons which we shall have to argue in the House of Lords before a judicial tribunal. It will be quite against precedent. In fact, it would be against the sense of what has been understood to be the right view in this House if this were to be argued.
§ Mr. CASSELI am assuming that the Government's Bill was right, and in assuming that the Government's Bill was right I asked them to put in this necessary Amendment. I did not discuss the legal aspect.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSI really fail to understand what the hon. and learned Gentleman means when he says that he assumes that the Government Bill is right. I do not intend to argue the thing at the present moment when there will be an argument in a few months in the House of Lords and a decision will be pronounced upon the matter. All the argument which he addressed to us about the impossibiltiy of dealing with these minus quantities simply arises from the fact that it is not realised that it is not a value but a standard of comparison—that you are dealing with a difference which may increase or decrease. It is not a very inexplicable problem, and I should have thought that the hon. and learned Gentleman would have been quite capable of understanding and grappling with it. But all I desire to say is that the way in which this matter stands at the present time makes it impossible to discuss it. We will leave it until the House of Lords decides whether we are right or wrong.
§ Mr. CLYDEI have no intention of developing any argument upon that, which, as the right hon. Gentleman says, would be out of place at present in view of the case as to the true construction of the Section. On the other hand, I think it would have been only fair if the right hon. Gentleman himself, instead of taking cover behind that technical objection, had looked the question a little in the face.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSI decline to go into the matter.
§ Mr. CLYDEThen, Mr. Whitley, I am going to try, notwithstanding the right hon. Gentleman's objection, to induce him to look in the face, not the legal, but the real question. I do not think we have anything to do with the legal question directly. I do not think it would be any service at the present to put forward any argument, 2601 learned or unlearned, in reference to this matter, but I should still like to induce the right hon. and learned Gentleman, notwithstanding his unwillingness to look the point in the face, to do so. The recurrence of these minus values and of these minus valuations has happened so far as I know with much greater frequency in Scotland than in England, and the reason why that happens, and the reason why there is a genuine difficulty in the administration of the Act as it exists is because the Statute was made applicable to Scotland without any consideration for the peculiarities of a land tenure, which, when introduced into the question of valuations, really brings the statute to an absurdity. No lengthy explanation is required to make the point quite clear. I would like to do it in the first instance by means of a perfectly concrete case which has nothing to do with minus valuations, and which I happened to see in a Scotch paper in a report of sales of real property. It was a sale of a piece of tenement property, I think in Leith, but I cannot be sure of the locality, under the hammer. It was not a prosperous piece of property; very much the reverse. The annual rental which the building was capable of yielding, and upon which you asked people to buy was £260 a year. It was very much less than the rental that would have been yielded by the property as built if it was fully occupied, but it was not in a good place or doing well, and £260 a year was the rental which it was advertised to yield. The house sold for £100. That seems ridiculous, but it is not a bit more ridiculous than the application of this Act to Scotland. The house on this property with a rental of £260 a year sold for £100. The reason was this. There was on this piece of property a feu duty of £250, and if you deduct £250 the feu duty from £260, the total rental, you get £10 a year, and £10 a year for ten years gives you £100. That is the point I invite the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General to look at.
The reason why in Scotland these valuations are not only leading to the absurd, but with respect to the Act are leading to confusion in practice, is this. The total value, roughly speaking, that is the ordinary market value, is taken less the fixed charges. Unhappily for the system of the Act in Scotland, the fixed charges in the form of feu duties in nine cases out of ten in building development represent part of the value of the building and are not restricted to the value of the land, and the result of this is that 2602 your whole system of valuation intended to arrive at site value is broken to pieces at the beginning, because you start with a deduction from the total value, which covers both the charge representing, it may be, the price of the original site when sold to the builder, which actually represents part and parcel of the actual rental of the property. That is the difficulty, and that difficulty is not met in the very least either by saying that there are legal questions involved, or is it met in the least by saying you choose this only as a datum line. The difficulty is a real one, arising from the facts of the situation. It is not that the point was not put during the Budget discussions, because it was put more than once. I was not thinking of the legal point, but the practical point, which was raised here by myself and many others. I remember at the time my point was met quite cavalierly by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said that nothing of the kind was possible under the Act, and that nothing of the sort was contemplated. Now that is exactly what has arisen, and that is precisely what has produced all this confusion in Scotland. The reason is that you never get two cases with regard to which you can say that there is the same proportion of building value in regard to the feu duty. It is not enough to say that there is a decision of the quarter sessions, or that the decision may be revised by the House of Lords. This is a question of making this Bill a practical Statute, and if this Amendment were accepted this grave inequality and disparity would cease.
§ Sir ALFRED CRIPPSI wish to raise the same objections in regard to England which my hon. and learned Friend has raised with regard to Scotland. I think I can make it clear to the Attorney-General that we are not discussing a matter of law which may go to the House of Lords, but a very different point. What the hon. Member who moved this Amendment pointed out was that you are dealing with total value. In the first instance, you deduct from the valuation certain liabilities which for the moment are attached to the land, just as in the case given by the hon. Member who spoke last, who mentioned the case of the feu duty, which covered not only the value of the land, but a certain amount of the value of the buildings. You cannot possibly get the minus value of land, except in respect of outside or personal, or some 2603 other liabilities attached to it. As a matter of fact, the mere possession of land is not capable of being defined as a minus value at all. You can only get the position of a minus value by attaching certain outside liabilities of the nature of the feu duty, or such personal liabilities as were referred to by the hon. Member who moved this Amendment. Consider the injustice of that. You, first of all, get the total value of land, then you take away from it in order to get the site value certain deduction in respect of which you do not take into consideration the same liabilities. Apart from any question of legal interpretation, is not that an essential injustice?
If I might give an illustration, let me assume for a moment that owing to liabilities attached to the land it is worth less than nothing, and has a minus value of £17,000. Supposing that in order to induce someone to take these liabilities off your hands you paid him £l,000. In other words, that land was sold for minus £1,000. In addition to giving someone £1,000 to take those liabilities off your hands you would have to pay £3,000 in taxes for the difference between the minus value or £17,000 and the minus value of £1,000. Is that not absolutely absurd when dealing with valuation and taxation as regards land and the Finance Bill? I am glad to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer here. I went all through the discussion which took place upon the Budget, but did the Chancellor of the Exchequer ever really contemplate getting the minus value as regards the site value of land, because he took into consideration the outside liabilities attached to it? Did he ever really mean, if land was sold either for a minus quantity of for £5, that a person on the sale of his land should have to pay a tax to the extent of several thousand pounds. It is so manifestly unjust that I am quite sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer could never have had an illustration of that kind in his mind. It may be it is a mere legal proposition that you will have absurd results of that kind, but that it not what we are discussing. Let us assume for a moment the Government are right and that the Scotch Courts were wrong. It is all the more necessary under those conditions to admit the Amendment because, if the Government are right and you are to have these minus quantities, you produce these absurd injustices.
2604 I should like again to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can possibly assume a case where land per se and apart from outside liabilities attaching to it can really give a minus quantity. The lowest possible position to which it can come is that the land is worth nothing and you abandon it. You cannot come to a condition in which the value of land, or at least you ought not in any case to come to a condition in which the value of land per se is a minus quantity. If you are going to attach these outside liabilities it is a gross infringement of the whole principle of the Finance Act, which was to differentiate land and separate it from these other liabilities and all other questions in order that we might get at the value of the land apart from all outside considerations. I do ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, apart from any question of the case going to the House of Lords, to answer the question put by my hon. and learned Friend, and say whether he thinks or whether he ever intended, in arriving at site values and dealing with land alone, you could possibly arrive at a minus valuation, and whether a minus valuation is not the necessary consequence of taking into consideration outside matters which again and again he stated in this House ought not to be taken into consideration if you are really to ascertain the true site value of land. On those grounds I shall certainly most heartily support the Amendment if we are to go to a division.
§ Mr. JAMES MASONI do not know whether I rightly understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say it did not matter dealing with minus quantities because you are only using them for the purpose of comparison. He went on to say it is quite reasonable on one occasion to take a minus quantity of £1,000, and on the next occasion £900, and deal with that as an increment of £100. Surely that is an extraordinary position to take up when you consider these quantities are the basis of taxation. Taxation is generally based upon something real, and not upon a purely imaginary quantity. Is there not a good deal of similarity in these two cases? To charge Increment Duty on the difference between these minus quantities seems to me very much the same sort of thing as charging Death Duties in the case of a man who dies bankrupt on the difference between his liabilities and his assets. You are charging there a duty on something which does not exist at all. Of course, the whole difficulty 2605 arises, and these minus quantities arise from the extraordinary processes through which you go in order to arrive at the various quantities with which you have to deal and to get at the assessable value. In arriving at your gross value, on the one hand and your total value on the other, you take two totally different kinds of deductions, and then make a comparison, which is not a reasonable one, to work upon.
The particular point I wish to call attention to is that the Clause proposed by my hon. and learned Friend does not go far enough. He suggests that where the original site value is less than nothing on the first occasion when the collection of Increment Value Duty arises the increment value shall be deemed to be reduced by an amount equal to 10 per cent, of the site value. That still leaves this possibility, that on the first occasion on which the question of increment value arises you are likely to still have a minus quantity. If there is a minus quantity on the original valuation on the first occasion on which the question of increment arises, although the minus quantity may not be so great as on the original occasion, still there is likely to be a minus quantity. Take the very ordinary case in which, in the first place, in order to arrive at the assessable value, you have deducted from the difference between the gross and the net value certain amounts for redemption of land tax, enfranchisement, etc. We will assume that, in a particular case, the result is a minus quantity of £50 on the first occasion on which the increment question arises. It is possible that after making like deductions for enfranchisement, etc., you will get somewhat lower figures. The result may be a minus figure of £40 instead of £50. So long as you have a minus quantity you never get the 10 per cent., and, therefore, I suggest that the 10 per cent, should be allowed on the first occasion on which you get the plus value.
For that purpose it will be necessary to insert in this new Clause, if it be read a second time, after the word "first" the words "or any subsequent occasion." On the first occasion on which you get into that position yon should then allow the 10 per cent, deduction which, as the law now stands, is only to be allowed if originally deducted from the original value. The original valuation having been a minus quantity, it is obviously impossible to deduct it, and it is therefore only just unless you have the intention of having two totally different sets of figures that you 2606 should allow the 10 per cent deduction to be made on the first occasion, which may not necessarily be the first occasion, on which you get a plus value. In order to make that clear I shall at the proper time move to amend this new Clause.
§ Mr. PRETYMANI do not want to add anything to the case so admirably made on behalf of this Clause, but there is one particular point in regard to it which has not so far been stated, and that is the use of the site value for any subsequent purpose. The effect of these minus valuations and the methods in which they are calculated is to totally destroy any kind of uniformity in the valuation. I believe this actually occurs in practice. In Lancashire towns there are two systems on which building takes place. One is the system of what are called cheap rents, where there is a permanent annual charge; and the other is a system of long leases for 999 years, which are not technically fixed charges under this Act. The consequence is that you have on two sides of the same street houses facing each other of exactly similar character and similar value, those on the one side built on the cheap rent system and those on the other side built on the 999 lease system; and under the system of valuation adopted by the Government, although the cheap rent houses and the ground rent houses are identical in value, the houses on the one side are brought out at a minus valuation, while those on the other side are brought out at a considerable plus valuation.
That is the great uniform valuation which is to be entered in Domesday Book, and on which rates and taxes are to be levied in future. I suggest that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer desires to get any approximation to uniformity he is bound to accept this Clause or, if he cannot do so, to undertake to introduce words which will secure uniformity in site value. We have a right, if he tells us that he is going to use this site value for some future purpose, to watch and, if possible, save the great waste of money that is going on in regard to these valuations. The right hon. Gentleman told us the other day that he had spent £686,000 on this valuation. By this time it is a great deal more, yet this valuation is not uniform, and it is absolutely useless for any future purpose of any sort. It is neither just, uniform, nor practical. As to the absurdity which will arise out of the valuation, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will remember that the hon. Member for one of 2607 the Divisions of Belfast stated that with regard to his own house, just outside Belfast, he was served with a valuation containing a minus £1,000 agricultural value and a minus £5,000 site value. As the Undeveloped Land Duty is to be charged on the difference between agricultural value and site value, and as two minuses make a plus, he would have to pay Undeveloped Land Duty on £6,000. That is the kind of absurdity which is likely to bring these valuations into disrepute. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will accept this Clause or substitute for it some different form of words.
§ Mr. WATSON RUTHERFORDThe reply that we have had from the Attorney-General was that he declined to go into the merits of the new Clause because there was a case of appeal pending in the Scottish Courts. Those of us who took part in the discussions on the Budget in 1909 with regard to these valuations have been watching these cases very carefully, and anyone who has studied the case in the Scottish Courts must have realised that the point has nothing on earth to do with the merits of this Clause. Therefore it is no answer on the part of the Government to say, "We will not discuss the case at all and we will not discuss your new Clause because the subject is sub judice. Whichever way that case is decided when it comes on appeal to the House of Lords, will not affect the question that it is exceedingly desirable, to got rid of these anomalies and difficulties with regard to minus values. In Lancashire we are frequently met with the case of a minus value. I had one myself the other day when the leave of the Court of Chancery was obtained to transfer a mill, subject to a chief rent, to a pauper in a workhouse. The necessity for such a proceeding sounds rather absurd, but in winding tip an estate under the direction of the Court, where you have a chief rent more than the value of the property as it stands, the practice is to get leave to transfer a hereditament to a pauper. That is the case of a minus value. It is quite true that these anomalies and difficulties have principally arisen in Scotland, but they are arising more or less seriously—less seriously probably than in Scotland, but they are arising all over the country. Valuations are proceeding to-day at great expense under the Act of 1909, and the very earliest opportunity should be taken of putting these valuations upon a reasonable 2608 and a sensible basis, and this Clause is an effort to cure this particular piece of absurdity, which is only one of, I should say, over 100 similar pieces of absurdity arising out the valuations under the 1909 Act. It was pointed out in the discussion of this particular Clause that these difficulties would arise.
Look at the absurdity in which we are placed if the Clause is not passed. At the present moment numerous pieces of land are being valued at a minus quantity. On occasions when the Increment Duty arises there is a reduction allowed of 10 per cent, of the original site value. Supposing the original site value was minus £1,700, it means that on every subsequent occasion there is to be a deduction of minus £1,700. That means that £1,700 has to be added to the duty. Anything more ridiculous than the state of affairs arising out of the Clause it would be almost impossible to imagine. This Clause is very much more important than we might be led to expect from the observations of the Attorney-General. I do not coincide with the observation which has been made in the way of criticism on this Clause, because the Clause distinctly refers to the first occasion upon which Increment Duty is payable, and Increment Duty would not be payable at all unless there was something to be paid on. Of course, the difficulty is that if the answer is what the Attorney-General says, that this is merely a datum line, and that for the purpose of the duty you have to take the difference between two sums, if you deduct one minus quantity from another, and the second minus quantity is a bigger one, you add the first quantity, but if the second minus quantity is a smaller one you have still a minus quantity, and so the difficulty would go on. Every time the Increment Duty had to be assessed the margin would become worse. In the attempt to assess increment duty on property originally valued at a minus quantity, and where that valuation had been raised at one time and reduced at another, the confusion would be exceedingly great. What is the very sensible proposal we have now before us? It is that for the purposes of Increment Duty, if you have a minus quantity, at all events start with nothing. Call it nothing, and later on if there is Increment Duty, that will be payable when the property has become worth something over zero. Then you can allow 10 per cent, for the increase. I think this is the most sensible proposition that has been made. Of course, the whole proposition in regard to this valuation is 2609 the most stupid and illusory that ever emanated from any Government, but we have got it in an Act of Parliament which was forced down our throats. The Clause before us is the first sensible suggestion that has been made with the view of meeting one of the stupidities arising out of the Act.
§ Mr. JAMES HOPEI wish to ask the Attorney-General what he meant by the words "standard of comparison." He said it did not matter what the original value was, and that it was the standard of comparison that did matter. You may call the temperature 32 degrees Fahrenheit or no degree centigrade. That might be true in considering Increment Duty, but for the purpose of a true valuation what
§ does the Attorney-General mean by saying that this is only a standard of comparison with something that arises afterwards. I think the purpose of the Act was to get a true and accurate valuation. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) used to say that the valuation is the thing and that enormous results would follow. If the statement of the Attorney-General is right, it really does not matter. The hon. and learned Gentleman knocks the whole bottom out of the case as it was put by him. Let the hon. Member from the Potteries see to it.
§ Question put, "That the proposed Clause be read a second time."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 113; Noes, 190.
2611| Division No. 195.] | AYES. | [5.45 p.m. |
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Gardner, Ernest | Newton, Harry Kottingham |
| Aitken, Sir William Max | Gibbs, G. A. | Paget, Almeric Hugh |
| Ashley, W W. | Gilmour, Captain John | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington). |
| Bagot, Lieut.-Col. J. | Goldsmith, Frank | Peel, Hon. W. R. W. (Taunton) |
| Baird, J. L. | Gordon, John (Londonderry, South) | Perkins, Walter Frank |
| Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.) | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Peto, Basil Edward |
| Barnston, Harry | Grant, James Augustus | Pole-Carew, sir R. |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Greene, W. R. | Pollock, Ernest Murray |
| Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton) | Gretton, John | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Beach, Hon. Michael Hugh Hicks | Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S.Edmunds) | Pryce-Jones, Col. E. |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Gwynn, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Quilter, Sir William Eley C. |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Haddock, George Bahr | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Benn, Ion Hamilton (Greenwich) | Hall, Fred (Dulwich) | Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)> |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Hamersley, A. St. George | Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) |
| Bird, A. | Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington) | Sanders, Robert A. |
| Boscawen, sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Harris, Henry Percy | Spear, Sir John Ward |
| Brassey, H. Leonard Campbell | Helmsley, Viscount | Stanier, Beville |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) | Stanley, Hon. Arthur |
| Burn, Col. C. R. | Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.) | Starkey, John R. |
| Campion, W. R. | Hewins, William Albert Samuel | Steel-Maitland, A. D. |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Hills, John Waller | Stewart, Gershom |
| Cator, John | Hill-Wood, Samuel | Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy | Talbot, Lord Edmund |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) | Hope, Harry (Bute) | Terrell, George (Wilts., N.W.) |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.) |
| Chambers, James | Hunter, Sir C. R. (Bath) | Thynne, Lord Alexander |
| Clyde, James Avon | Jessel, Captain H. M. | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall |
| Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanee) | Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr | Touche, George Alexander |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Kerry, Earl of | Valentia, Viscount |
| Cripps, Sir Charles Alfred | Larmer, Sir J. | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud |
| Dairymple, Viscount | Lewisham, Viscount | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Denniss, E. R. B. | MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh | Winterton, Earl of |
| Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. S. | Macmaster, Donald | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| De Cros, Arthur Philip | McNeill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | Yate, Col. C. E. |
| Faber, George D. (Clapham) | Malcolm, Ian | Younger, Sir George |
| Falle, Bertram Godfray | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | |
| Fell, Arthur | Middlemore, John Throgmorton | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. |
| Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas | Cassel and Mr. Watson Rutherford. |
| Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert | Neville, Reginald J. N. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Dublin Harbour) | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Boland, John Plus | Condon, Thomas Joseph |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Booth, Frederick Handel | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. |
| Alden, Percy | Brace, William | Cotton, William Francis |
| Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbarton) | Brady, Patrick Joseph | Crawshay-Williams, Eliot |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) | Burke, E. Haviland- | Crooks, William |
| Arnold, Sydney | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Crumley, Patrick |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Cullinan, John |
| Baker, Harold T. (Accrington) | Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich) | Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Chancellor, Henry George | Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) |
| Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanary) | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Dawes, J. A. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Clancy, John Joseph | De Forest, Baron |
| Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George) | Clough, William | Delany, William |
| Denman, Hon. R. D. | Kellaway, Frederick George | O'Shee, James John |
| Dickinson, W. H. | Kelly, Edward | O'Sullivan, Timothy |
| Dillon, John | Kennedy, Vincent Paul | Outhwaite, R. L. |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Kilbride, Denis | Palmer, Godfrey Mark |
| Duffy, William J. | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Lansbury, George | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) |
| Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) | Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | Pointer, Joseph |
| Elibank, Rt. Hon. Master of | Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West) | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rid, Cockerm'th) | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Leach, Charles | Pringle, Wm. M. R. |
| Essex, Richard Walter | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Radford, G. H. |
| Falconer, J. | Lundon, T. | Raffan, Peter Wilson |
| Farrell, James Patrick | Lynch, A. A. | Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields) |
| Ffrench, Peter | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) |
| Field, William | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) | Reddy, Michael |
| Fitzgibbon, John | McGhee, Richard | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. | Richardson, Albion (Peckham) |
| George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd | MacNeill, John G. S. (Donegal, South) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Gill, A. H. | Macpherson, James Ian | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Gladstone, W. G. C. | MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Glanville, H. J. | MacCallum, Sir John M. | Roche, Augustine (Louth) |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | M'Kean, John | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland) | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton) |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) | Sheehy, David |
| Guest, Major Hon. C H. C. (Pembroke) | Mason, David M. (Coventry) | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Gulland, John William | Meagher, Michael | Shortt, Edward |
| Hackett, John | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Simon, Sir John Allsebrook |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Molloy, M. | Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton) |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Molteno, Percy Alport | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim) |
| Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.) | Mond, Sir Alfred Moritz | Snowden, Philip |
| Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) | Mooney, John J. | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Morgan, George Hay | Thomas, James Henry (Derby) |
| Haydn, John Patrick | Morison, Hector | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Hayward, Evan | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Muldoon, John | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Henry, Sir Charles S. | Munro, R. | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Hinds, John | Murray, Captain Hon. A. C. | Wardle, George J. |
| Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay |
| Hodge, John | Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Holmes, Daniel Turner | Nolan, Joseph | White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston) |
| Hope, John Deans (Haddington) | Nugent, Sir Walter Richard | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Horne, Charles Silvester (Ipswich) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir T. P. |
| Hudson, Walter | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Hughes, Spencer Leigh | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.) |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | O'Doherty, Philip | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus | O'Donnell, Thomas | Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.) |
| Jones, Rt.Hon.Sir D.Brynmor (Sw'nsea) | O'Dowd, John | Young, W. (Perthshire, E.) |
| Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) | O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) | O'Mally, William | |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. |
| Joyce, Michael | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | G. Howard and Captain Guest. |
| Keating, M. |