HC Deb 08 April 1913 vol 51 cc1025-95

Resolution reported.

  1. (a) A Resolution passed by the Committee of Ways and Means of this House for the imposition of any new tax, or for the variation of any existing tax, or for the renewal for 1026 a further period of ally tax which is of a temporary character, whether at the same or a different rate, and whether with or without modifications, shall have statutory effect for a limited period; and
  2. (b) where a Resolution so provides for the renewal of a temporary tax, all statutory provisions which were in force with reference to that tax as last imposed by Act of Parliament shall, during the said period, have full force and effect with respect to the tax as renewed by the Resolution; and
  3. (c) payments or deluctions on account of a temporary tax made within two months after the date of the 1027 expiration of the tax shall, subject to conditions as to repayment or recoupment in certain events, be deemed to be legal payments and deductions.

Resolution read a second time.

Mr. POLLOCK

I do not desire to move the Amendment standing in my name, as the point it raises was discussed last night, but I do wish to ask whether this Resolution might not be divided into two portions; that is to say, that Clauses (a) and (b) should be taken separately from the Clause designated (c). May I point out that the latter relates to the deductions made in respect of dividends and other annual payments, and comes within a quite different category to the provisions contained in Clauses (a) and (b). The last-named Clauses do, in a sense, form part of a coherent whole, and it is possible that while this House may he willing to pass a Resolution confined to Clauses (a) and (b), it might wish to treat (c) in a wholly different manner.

Mr. SPEAKER

It is open to the hon. Member to move to omit any one of the three Clauses. He can take the opinion of the House whether (a) should form part of the Resolution, or (b) or (e).

Mr. POLLOCK

Last night the Closure was applied to the Resolution as a whole, and there was no opportunity given to divide it, although it was submitted that that procedure should be followed. Objection was taken because the suggestion had not been made earlier in the day, and that, the Closure having been applied, that was not the time to ask that the Resolution be separated. As we are now about to proceed to the Report stage, I ask your decision whether the Resolution cannot be treated as two separate portions, quite apart from the question whether individual Motions may be made to leave out (a), (b), or (c).

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member wants two Closure Motions when one would be quite enough. It is always open for the hon. Member, if he disapproves of Section (a) to move that it be struck out and to take the opinion of the House on it, and if the House is against him he can move to strike out (b), and so on.

Lord HUGH CECIL

May I ask whether you did not yourself rule, in 1905, in respect of the Resolution on the Redistribu- tion Bill, that it ought to be moved separately. Has not such a ruling been repeatedly given from the Chair?

Mr. SPEAKER

That, of course, was a case in which only one Amendment was possible. In this case, as appears from the Paper, a number of Amendments are possible. On the Redistribution Resolution only one Amendment was possible, and that having been negatived the rest of the Resolution had to be swallowed at a gulp. That does not apply to this case.

Lord HUGH CECIL

It would apply if the Resolution were moved omitting all words after "that" at the beginning. It is perfectly possible to move an Amendment that would possibly decide the whole Resolution.

Mr. SPEAKER

That is not the proposal to-day. If the hon. Member will look at the Orders of the Day he will see there are two pages of Amendments on this Resolution.

Lord ROBERT CECIL

May I submit that it is not right to put two questions to the House in one question? I have taken your ruling on more than one occasion, and I think the result has been that if any hon. Member raises the point that two questions are embraced in the one the Chair usually allows the questions to be put separately.

Mr. SPEAKER

If an hon. Member is prejudiced by the decision of the House in consequence of the Resolution being put in a particular way then it is open to divide the Motion. But no hon. Member will be prejudiced by passing this Resolution. It is only the foundation for the Bill that is to follow, and upon that Bill there will be every reasonable opportunity for hon. Members to strike out certain Clauses or to make Amendments. That is the great distinction, I think, between this Resolution and an ordinary Resolution, such as we get on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

Sir A. CRIPPS

If an Amendment to omit a Sub-section is moved would it have to be moved before the Amendments to Sub-section (a) are taken?

Mr. SPEAKER

The Motion is "that certain words stand part of the Resolution." That disposes of that question.

Sir A. CRIPPS

I propose to move to omit Sub-section (a). Is that in order?

Mr. SPEAKER

The hon. Member has not given notice of that. I must first call on hon. Members who have given notice.

Sir A. CRIPPS

Would that not make it impossible to carry out the suggestion which you have made and which I was following, that we should move the omission of either (a), (b), or (c), as the case may be?

Mr. SPEAKER

If the hon. and learned Member will look at the Amendments he will see that the hon. Member for East Birmingham, whose name I have called, has an Amendment which comes before Clause (a).

Sir F. BANBURY

I beg on behalf of my hon. Friend, the Member for East Birmingham (Mr. Steel-Maitland) to move after the first word "That," to insert the words "where a special Resolution is passed by the House of Commons that it is expedient, in order to safeguard the interests of the public revenue, to give temporary effect to any Resolution of this House for imposing taxation." While we object to giving the Government power to impose taxation merely by a single Resolution in Committee of the House, we should not so much object to giving this power if an emergency arises. But it would have to be a temporary power, and should only be granted if the Government can advance good reasons for demanding the exceptional powers. I think one of the chief arguments in favour of this Amendment would be to provide against any emergency that might arise in the case of war. There might be a declaration of war by some European Power which might necessitate the immediate imposition of taxation and the proposals brought forward might lead to the taking of goods out of bond in order to escape the increased duties. It therefore would be necessary to take powers that the Resolution should come in force at once. Although I am myself against the Resolution—I do not approve of it as a whole—I must admit that there may be occasions when it may be necessary to give the Government powers which would not be given them under ordinary circumstances. By this Amendment provision is made for those exceptional cases. Of course, we shall later on endeavour to obtain the rejection of the whole Resolution, but pending that I am in favour of amending it in the manner now proposed. I see no reason why the Government should not accept the Amendment. If the real object of their Resolution is to give them power under certain circumstances—and that, as far as my recollection goes, was one of the arguments used in favour of it yesterday—then this Amendment will provide that the power shall only be used in exceptional circumstances in a very proper manner. We must guard against eventualities. I regret any attempt should be made by the Government to take such strong powers into their own hands as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer seeks to obtain under this Resolution. I hope I am always willing to hear both sides of an argument, and I freely admit that there is something to be said for giving that power in a temporary emergency.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

I beg to second the Amendment. Like the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), I am entirely averse to the novel scheme contained in this Resolution, and if the hon. and learned Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps) moves to omit paragraph (a) I shall certainly support him. Being opposed root and branch to the whole scheme of the Resolution, I propose to reserve what I have to say on that, and at present support its limited use to moments of national peril which the hon. Baronet proposes to accord to the Government. When this Amendment was moved yesterday by the hon. Member for East Birmingham (Mr. Steel-Maitland) there was a suggestion that it would be considered by the Government and possibly accepted. I ask the Attorney-General if he will tell us how far the Government are prepared to go in respect to this Amendment.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George)

Not only was this Amendment moved last night and discussed, but after the promise made by the Attorney-General that he would introduce some Amendments in the form of the Bill, the Mover of the Amendment withdrew it. If he had been here I cannot help thinking that he would not have moved it at all, as he was depending upon the promise given by the Attorney-General that words would be introduced into the Bill. As to whether or not those words would be satisfactory, the hon. Member who moved the Amendment stated that he reserved the right, when we get to the Committee stage, to challenge the actual words put into the Bill. I must say that I think, after the promise which was given and the conditions under which the hon. Member withdrew the Amendment, it is going beyond the usual Parliamentary practice to move the same Amendment on the Report stage before the Bill is introduced. I can only repeat the arguments advanced last night I do not know what a "special Resolution" means. I do not know whether there is anything in the Standing Orders defining a "special Resolution." A special Resolution in company law has a defined statutory meaning, but a special Resolution under the Standing Orders of the House has no meaning at all.

Sir F. BANBURY

It is quite easy to leave out the word "special."

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I cannot accept the Amendment at this stage. We have promised to introduce into the Bill something which will make it necessary to have a declaration that is intended by the House to make the Resolution apply immediately. I understood the Amendment was withdrawn last night on those terms. I do not say that the hon. Gentleman who moved it said that he was absolutely satisfied with the words suggested by the Attorney-General, but he did say that he would challenge them in Committee if they were not satisfactory.

Sir F. BANBURY

I did not understand that there was any arrangement.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I do not go so far as that, but he did withdraw it on that promise, and he said that he would challenge the words later on if they were not satisfactory.

Mr. POLLOCK

I was in the Committee at the time when this was discussed, and I remember exactly what the Attorney-General said. I think he will bear me out that this Amendment was withdrawn, but not upon a promise which bound either side. I think he made a communication to the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Birmingham, in order specially to safeguard his position, to the effect that he was not bound by any particular promise. Equally the hon. Member for East Birmingham said that while he withdrew the Amendment it was not on terms which specially bound him. That is why the matter was not pressed to a Division. I do not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer intimated that there were any terms.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

May I read the words which were used by the hon. Member for East Birmingham:— I still think it ought to be done by a Resolution of the House; but if the Attorney-General will clearly understand that it is left open to us to take this point in Committee on the Bill, I am quite willing to withdraw my Amendment now."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th April, 1913, col. 931.]

Mr. POLLOCK

I agree that there was a communication between the Attorney-General and my hon. Friend which left both parties absolutely unbound. If the hon. Baronet desired to move the Amendment, it was open to him to do so, because it was not unreservedly withdrawn on terms.

Sir F. BANBURY

I do not press the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. JAMES HOPE

May I ask you, Sir whether, if my hon. and learned Friend (Sir A. Cripps) moves to omit paragraph (a) it will be possible to put the Question so as to safeguard the Amendments to paragraph (a) which are on the Paper?

Mr. SPEAKER

Certainly.

Sir A. CRIPPS

I beg to move to omit paragraph (a).

I do so without regard to any of the Amendments, because in my view a proposal such as the Government are now bringing forward ought to be opposed at every possible stage by those who feel strongly its unconstitutional character. Certainly, within the Rules of the House, I shall take every opportunity of opposing the novel proposal introduced by the Government, which appears to upset all the fundamental principles of Parliamentary practice. The first point to which I wish to call the attention of the House is that, under paragraph (a), a Resolution passed by Committee of Ways and Means is to have statutory effect. Conceive what that really means. You are giving to this House, which already, in my opinion, has too large powers, since it has become a single Chamber, the power by mere Resolution, without any fair or just opportunity of discussion in detail, to give that Resolution the effect of a Statute. More particularly do I protest against that in respect to the question of finance. If there is one matter which this House ought to safeguard in the interests of those whom we represent, that is, the taxpayers, and if there is one duty which from time immemorial this House has particularly taken under its own care, it is the question of finance. At the present moment you first have a Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means. It was introduced, by-the-bye, not as an additional opportunity of placing a burden upon the taxpayer, but in order to protect him against any imposition being put upon him until he had had full notice. Further, the Resolution cannot be proposed except by a Member of the Government. The old idea is that as a demand has come from the Crown, therefore no private Member of this House is entitled to propose taxation, and it must be proposed by Ministers themselves. Next we have the Report stage, the introduction of the Budget and the Finance Bill. From my point of view, none of these safeguards can properly be disregarded if we are to fulfil our function of protecting the taxpayer against unfair or undue burdens. There is no single safeguard at the present time which we ought to forego if we are to carry out our public duty in this respect. There is no one more anxious than I for the honour, prestige, and privileges of this House. If we forego a great duty of this kind and neglect these duties we cannot complain if, in the public opinion, we lose the position we have held in the past, and which I am most anxious we should hold in the future. There is only one way in which this House can retain public confidence; that is by doing its duty and not shirking it, and, above all, by thoroughly investigating any proposed additional tax on the taxpayers in order that that tax may be threshed out and understood before it has statutory effect.

There is another point from which I very much object to this Resolution. It is a case where officialism, represented in this case by the Treasury, is seeking to enforce its influence and powers against the legitimate rights of the House of Commons itself. This is a Treasury proposal. It is only justified because of the difficulties pointed out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in connection with the collection of taxes. He says that it is only because of those difficulties that he justifies a revolutionary change of this kind, and that if it were not for that difficulty he, for one, would never come forward and propose in the House that a mere Resolution of Committee of Ways and Means should have statutory effect. Let me deal with that proposition for one moment. I think that the difficulty has been grossly ex- aggerated. So far as Income Tax is concerned there really need be no difficulty at all. It is not a case of forestalment; it is only a question of passing the Budget at such a convenient time that you take adequate powers before your old powers expire. That could be done by allowing the Income Tax to run for more than a year. In the old days it ran for two or three years. That is not necessary. You have only to allow the time for which you grant the Income Tax under statutory powers to be sufficiently long to get rid of any difficulty of this kind altogether. I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he comes to reply, if he can point out what is the difficulty in the collection of Income Tax by means of ordinary statutory powers if he took those statutory powers for a sufficient length of time? All you want to do is to get your new powers before your old powers have expired. One of my great objections to Resolutions of this kind is that if you once allow taxation to be carried out by a Resolution we have no guarantee whatever that the statutory power will not be postponed to some inconvenient time, when, in substance, we shall have no discussion at all.

Let Me take the other illustration—I admit it is a very difficult one—as to forestalment. The difficulties in this respect have been grossly exaggerated. I will not go into the case of other countries, although we know that in other countries where they have a great many more duties than we have—countries where they have tariffs and Protection—they do not find the difficulty in the collection of their duties which has been suggested as regards the collection of duties in this country. I do not believe there is any other country where there is any provision for collecting taxes by what I call an unconstitutional method, because you cannot get your powers of collection regularised in the ordinary way. Of course, you will always have some element of forestalment. We have that as a matter of speculation. They will have it when they are seeking to alter tariffs in America; and you will have it when you are seeking to alter duties in this country. That can be dealt with without upsetting the whole constitutional practice of this House. It has been pointed out that you are dealing with goods in bond. What difficulty would there be in a provision of this kind? After a Resolution is passed, and apart from the Government collecting the tax, you might have a general Act under which the tax might be deducted in accordance with the terms of the duty which has been sanctioned in the Resolution, and afterwards, when you had obtained your statutory powers, you could make them retrospective to that extent. That is really an easy method by which you might deal with a matter of this kind, but it is an entirely different thing to suggest that because the Treasury have got a difficulty, which has been a difficulty, so far as it is a real difficulty, which, as we are told, has existed for fifty or sixty years, but has not become critical until the Budget had been unduly delayed by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer—because you have a difficulty of that kind which has now come to the front, you should upset the whole constitutional practice of this House, which not only makes us the guardians of the public purse, but makes it our duty to protect the taxpayer against any undue burdens upon him. I am not going back to Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights and matters of that kind, but, apart from our historical evolution, I want to make my point as clear as I can.

It is still the main duty of this House to look after this question of finance, and if you once pass a proposal of this kind and enable a mere Resolution of this House to have statutory power, you have no guarantee whatever that you can have adequate discussion in the future as regards the details of any Finance Bill which may ever be brought forward. I feel most strongly upon this constitutional aspect of the question. I do not believe any hon. Member on the opposite side beyond the Front Bench disagrees with what I am saying, but they have a sort of expectation that the powers which will be given by this Resolution will not be pressed to their logical end. We must not rely on any supposition of that kind. We must take the powers as they are and see what the effect would be if they were put into force. For instance, it was said by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Austen Chamberlain) last night, that, as regards putting powers of this kind into force, he would not do it in the case of a Tariff Reform scheme. I agree it would be a monstrous thing to do, but I am not going to guarantee that we might not have a Chancellor of the Exchequer, even on the Unionist side, who might think it was the right thing to do. He would say. "I am doing the right thing because the House has sanctioned it after full discussion." What is the answer to that? Take the case of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. Why is not he entitled, if he gets this power, to get his Resolution early in the year and then to put off any discussion of his Finance Bill until the date of August or September? Of course he will do it. It is human nature, and it is particularly human nature on the Treasury Bench, always to adopt the line of least resistance, and the line of least resistance is to take the official attitude and look on the House of Commons merely as an obstructive body. I object to that attitude altogether. We are the body who ought to determine questions of Finance, and not the Treasury. The Treasury is merely an executive body to carry out what we determine is right. I am afraid I have spoken rather warmly on this topic, because I feel warmly upon it. We are dealing with one of the primary liberties which is still left to us by means of the procedure of this House. We are constantly complaining of the power of the Government as against the power of the House itself, and yet when we get a proposal of this kind which goes to the fundamental basis of our liberty, we practically always have a party vote and a party discussion. In old days, when the House of Commons was at the zenith of its powers, people voted in order to protect the privileges and powers of the House of Commons irrespective of any party feeling, and unless we combine to do that again, gradually all our powers protecting the freedom of Debate and the supervision of Finance will be filched away from us, because officials can always find a good reason for stating that they want further powers as against our liberties. It is a question which goes to the whole basis of the liberties of this House, and for that reason, although I know the matter was not discussed in this form, but was discussed generally in Committee of Ways and Means, I move this Amendment and shall press it to a Division.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

I rise to second the Amendment.

I think my hon. and learned Friend has put his argument on the right ground. We on this side of the House have no desire or intention to do anything which would obstruct the Government in collecting the proper taxes for the year. I quite feel that it is desirable that some kind of machinery should be established to prevent any such dislocation of the financial arrangements as appear to have taken place during the current year. I think it could have been avoided, and I think the whole of it has arisen from the method in which the Chancellor has in the last few years delayed his Budget. The public has acquiesced for fifty or sixty years in the modus operandi of the collection of these taxes during the slack period after the end of the current year, because there was no particular hardship in the mode in which the Government carried on their financial business. In the old days financial business was the first business of the Session under all the great Chancellors of the Exchequer, but during the last two years the present Chancellor has deliberately and definitely abrogated that custom, and has placed his Budget towards the latter end of the Session. That has been too much for at least one member of the public, and I think it is essential to appreciate the distinction between mere acquiescence in a custom which does no harm to anyone and preserving the right of the public to object to the custom when hardships arose. The course which Mr. Gibson Bowles adopted in this case in order to test the right of the Government, I think, arose because of his general anger at the financial policy which the Government had adopted during the last few years. Mr. Bowles is a purist in matters of Parliamentary etiquette and procedure, and I take it his object was to emphasise the made in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has postponed the financial business of this country from month to month until we have been dealing with a Budget right in the latter end of the year. If this Resolution had been passed before it would have been impossible for any member of the public to bring these proceedings and force the Government to admit, as they now admit frankly, that that course of procedure would no longer be adopted, and that we should in future have Budgets introduced in a reasonable part of the year, namely, in April, as the House has been used to have them almost from time immemorial. That is one reason why the Government cannot rely upon the old custom, and I do not think they have any right to attempt to transmute that custom into an Act of Parliament as they are doing at present.

But the main reason why I support my hon. and learned Friend is because this is definitely abrogating the privileges of the House of Commons. After all the constitutional question is the main question. It is not a question whether there is a few weeks' delay in the Income Tax, or whether there are a few instalments of a few hundreds of thousands of pounds in regard to Customs. I have no authority to do so, but I made a suggestion yesterday to get the right hon. Gentleman out of his difficulties, and I still think he would have been wise if he had proposed it himself, namely, that he could pass an Income Tax Bill to deal with the particular difficulties raised in the case of Bowles versus the Bank of England—it could be passed in a very short time: it could be got through the House almost as a single-Clause Bill—then that the right hon. Gentleman should refer the whole of his difficulties to a Select Committee in order that there might be found a way out of the difficulty without such an unconstitutional method as is proposed in this Resolution. I can conceive it quite possible. My hon. and learned Friend suggested one method, and other methods were suggested yesterday by which all the financial difficulties might be got over without so tremendous an upset in the constitutional practice of this House as authorising the Committee of Ways and Means to pass an Act of Parliament, because that is really what the position comes to under this Resolution. If the Resolution is passed, and if a Bill is founded upon it, it would be possible for any Committee of Ways and Means to pass any Resolution they like dealing with finance which will have statutory force for whatever limited number of months the right hon. Gentleman may determine. The proposal yesterday was for six months. Really it seems to me that we who are sent here—and I speak not merely of the Opposition, but of all hon. Members—not merely to assist the Government in discussing the subject, our primary object in coming here is to stand up for the rights of the subject against the Crown. That is clearly the first reason why Parliaments were instituted, in order to gradually curb and fetter the strong, and in mediæval days the ever-growing power of the Crown. That is how all the liberties of the subject were gradually gained from the days of Magna Charta and of Ship Money and of the Bill of Rights and so forth against the Crown, and the right hon. Gentleman, of course, represents the Crown in this particular instance. He is actually, on behalf of the Crown, the taxing force in the land. All the rights and all the liberties which we have gained were gained through our control over finance. I think that is a proposition which hon. Members opposite will admit. The subject has never gained a right against the Crown except through finance, and it was always when the Crown wanted finance that it had to make terms with the House of Commons to give greater liberties to the subject.

5.0 P.M.

You may say, of course, those old days have quite passed and gone. I quite agree. The power of the Crown as a prerogative power has gone, but it is now exercised very strongly through the exercise of the prerogative by the Ministers of the Crown, and we are going to put into the hands of a body of men greater powers than our ancestors ever consented to give the Crown even in its strongest period. We never allowed the Crown to propose a Resolution in Ways and Means and give that the force of law. We said you must bring your Resolution in Ways and Means, report it to the House, then found on it a Bill which must go through First, Second, and Third Reading and Committee stages. We protected ourselves against the Crown in these financial matters. Now the Government comes along and says, "Because we are in a difficulty, we want you to give us, who now represent the same forces which the Crown used to represent, exactly the same powers which during all these centuries the Commons have fought to obtain out of the hands of the Crown." If we give them this power in regard to financial legislation—and, of course, finance is the most important subject—it is only another step further for the right hon. Gentleman, as he might have done in this Resolution—certainly one of his successors may include it in four or five years, and there would be nothing contrary to his principles in doing it—to get this House to pass a Resolution and a Bill giving the Resolution of the House on any subject statutory force for a limited period, or to give a Resolution of a Committee of Ways and Means statutory force with regard to the imposition of any new taxes in the whole world—far more burdensome than many Acts of Parliament which do not deal with taxation matters, and far more interference with the rights of the people. All this is to be done now under the provisions of this Liberal Government, the Government of freedom and democracy, by a simple Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means. Why not go a step further? Why not pass an Act of Parliament now and get rid of the whole farce altogether, and say that for the future any Resolution on any subject whatever, proposed and carried either in Committee of Ways and Means or in Committee of the Whole House, shall have, for a limited period of six months, statutory force? You would get out of a great many of your difficulties by doing that. It would be only going a single step further than you are doing now. I do not think you could pass any Resolution affecting the rights of the people on a non-financial matter of so much importance as you could on a financial matter. I do not think you could interfere more with the rights of the people by a Non-financial Resolution than by any Financial Resolution brought in under the provisions of this Bill. If the House pass this Resolution, and if the Bill which is to be founded upon it comes into force, they will go far beyond the needs of the case. I have great respect for the ingenuity of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his advisers at the Treasury, and I am perfectly certain that it is not beyond their wit to find a means of getting out of the difficulty without giving statutory authority to a Resolution passed in Committee of Ways and Means. I do appeal to the House not to pass this Resolution, because, by passing it, they would surrender those great liberties which have been built up for the people in generations past, and upon which so much of the freedom of the country depends.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)

I generally find myself in complete agreement with the hon. and learned Member for South Bucks (Sir Alfred Cripps) in the statements he makes on questions of constitutional practice, and, although I agree with him now so far as his observations were strictly confined to constitutional practice, I think in one particular he has not quite appreciated the meaning of the Resolution now before the House. He said he had no doubt that the powers given by this Resolution would not be pressed to their logical end.

Sir A. CRIPPS

What I said was that I had no doubt the powers would not be pressed to their logical end, but I said also that they might be.

Mr. McKENNA

In using that phrase the hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to think that this Resolution of itself is operative and effective. It is the Resolution on which the Bill is to be founded, and if this House were to enter in a Resolution into details, and put in all the safeguards and limitations which might be necessary to answer and meet the case put forward by hon. Members opposite, the only effect would be to limit discussion on the Bill in Committee long before the Bill came to be discussed. The Resolution is necessarily drawn in wide terms. It is quite a misunderstanding to suppose that because the Resolution is in wide terms the Bill will be equally wide. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed the House yesterday that he would accept any Amendment to the Bill—not to the Resolution—on any point wherein the Bill went beyond past usage.

Sir A. CRIPPS

was understood to dissent.

Mr. McKENNA

Does the hon. and learned Gentleman doubt that? If he misunderstood the statement yesterday, my right hon. Friend states now that he is quite willing to abide by what he said.

Sir A. CRIPPS

I quite appreciate that.

Mr. McKENNA

Therefore the hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks were directed to possibilities of what might happen. Although all he said might be germane to the Bill and might form ground for excellent Amendments, I respectfully submit that it ought not to form the subject of debate at this stage. The hon. and learned Gentleman stated that this proposal upsets the whole of our constitutional practice. There is much virtue in the word "constitutional." Leave out the word "constitutional," and I do not think he will say that it upsets the whole of our practice. He will admit that this merely legalises and gives formal statutory effect to what has been the practice for sixty years in the case of the Income Tax, and for upwards of a hundred and fifty years with regard to Customs. Therefore it is only by the introduction of the word "constitutional" that the hon. and learned Member is in the smallest degree able to justify the somewhat strong language he used. Is it really in fact the upsetting of our constitutional practice? What does it do? The question is treated by the hon. and learned Member as if the Bill was really going to impose taxation by a Resolu- tion of this House. It will do no such thing. It will authorise the collection of taxation as if it had been imposed. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] It has been, as I have pointed out, the practice for sixty years in the case of the Income Tax, and for longer than a hundred and fifty years in the case of Customs, to authorise the collection of taxes as if they had been duly passed by law on the passing of Resolutions in Committee of Ways and Means. All that the Bill proposes to do is to authorise the collection of taxes for a limited period as if they had been duly imposed by law, but within this limited period they must be duly imposed by law, or else the tax becomes nugatory and must be refunded. It does not really impose taxes. What it does is what I have said.

Sir A. CRIPPS

It gives statutory effect to the imposition of taxes.

Mr. McKENNA

The hon. and learned Gentleman will agree with me that this Resolution is merely a general statement, and if what he says now is true, it will be a proper subject for an Amendment to the Bill. What it does in effect is to authorise the collection of taxes as if they were legal, but they must be made legal. It has always been the practice when taxes were collected and not authorised by Statute for the amount of money collected to be returned to the taxpayers. I have so far touched on the constitutional theory, but, after all, in the House of Commons we have to have regard to the business interests of the community at large. We have not only to look after the Treasury and to see in the public interest that our finances are well managed and that the money is properly expended, but we have also in the collection of taxes to have regard to the great business interests of the country. I remember very well in the case of the delay in the collection of the Tea Tax owing to the delay in passing the Budget of 1909 very strong representations were made on behalf of the tea trade that the tax should be collected, although it was not legal. Why? For the simple reason that not to collect the tax was to give an enormous advantage in trade competition to those who had large stocks in bond at the expense of those who had no stocks in bond. What they said was, "We do not mind paying the tax so much, but what we do ask is that the moment the tax is known to be coming into force all should pay alike." Hon. Gentlemen now say, "Have a little delay." Yesterday I listened to the Debate, and one hon. Member—I think the hon. Member for Brentford—proposed that the tax should not be operative immediately, but that we should wait for the Report stage of the Resolution. What does that mean? It means that all the traders would take stocks out of bond at the old rate, and their competitors would have to compete with them when their articles were taxed at the higher rate. If the hon. Member consulted the trade of the country, he would find that that would be the last thing they would desire. Is there any real objection to the principle of this Resolution? It is said that no other country has adopted the same system as we have here. I know they have in some countries, but they have not in the United States. We all remember the effect on the introduction of the McKinley Tariff. We remember the effect on the tinplate trade in South Wales. Owing to the long delay in passing the tariff into law we were able to export to the United States enough tinplate to last, not for the first year of the new taxes, but for a considerable number of years. The result was that there was a complete cessation of imports of tinplates in the United States from South Wales at the high rate. Do hon. Members opposite wish us to suffer troubles of that kind? Parliament has always acted on the assumption…

Sir F. BANBURY

Only for sixty years.

Mr. McKENNA

Really the hon. Baronet is not correct. We have always acted on the assumption as regards Customs and as regards the Income Tax so long as we have had the Income Tax…

Sir F. BANBURY

It was imposed in 1853.

Mr. McKENNA

There was an Income Tax in 1815, but ever since we have had the modern Income Tax, as we now know it, we have always collected it on this principle. Parliament in its wisdom, with the opinion of the community behind it, has always acted in this way. Why should we change? You have to prove more than that it is contrary to some constitutional theory. I would remind the hon. Member for Brentford that what happened three hundred years ago as to the imposition of taxes is entirely out of date, having regard to modern practice. When he talks of this House having control over the Crown, he forgets that at that time, while the House had control over finance, it had no control over the Ministry. A vote of no confidence would not have turned out the Ministry in those days.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

It would not to-day.

Mr. McKENNA

If you had a vote of no confidence passed to-day, the hon. Member would see quickly enough what would happen. The majority of the House of Commons have always been entitled to speak for the House. The majority have not only control over the Ministry in finance, but control over the Ministry in other ways, and immediately on a direct vote of censure being passed it would kill the Ministry. I come, in conclusion, to the specific point upon which the hon. Member laid stress with regard to the Income Tax. He asked, "Would it be necessary to have this power with regard to the Income Tax if that tax were imposed by law for a sufficient length of time?" I agree that it would not, but it would be far harder to induce this House to pass a law imposing the Income Tax for a longer period than it would be to induce the House to accept the proposal now before it. The great argument for not imposing the Income Tax for a longer period is that it has been a very productive tax on which to come to the House of Commons for money. The hon. and learned Member for South Bucks said that there would be no difficulty with regard to Income Tax if it lasted beyond the year. So long as there is no change in that tax I agree with him, but suppose that there is a change in the rate, suppose that in the month of April, owing to a war, the rate was raised from 1s. to 2s., then the extra shilling could not be deducted by bankers. Supposing the old Income Tax ran on to October, and the new rate was imposed in the month of April, then between April and October bankers could not deduct Income Tax except at the old rate.

Sir GEORGE YOUNGER

You would pass your new Bill by that time.

Mr. McKENNA

I ant dealing with the point of the hon. Member for South Bucks. The case is not met by saying, "Take the Income Tax for a sufficient length of time and you do not need power to collect at once." You do need power to collect at once all deductions at the source. On public grounds, on grounds of practical convenience, and on grounds of traders' interests, it is most desirable that this power should be given.

Mr. CAVE

The right hon. Gentleman began by rather minimising the effects of this Resolution and by pointing out that it was only intended to lay the foundation of a Bill. That, of course, is true, but we are discussing in this Amendment not any question of detail, but the broad principle whether there ought to be taxation by Resolution of Committee or not. That was the only point which my hon. and learned Friend raised in his speech. The Resolution does sanction taxation by Resolution. It proposes that a Resolution for imposing taxation shall have statutory effect. It is not for collection, but for imposition. If you pass this Resolution or a Bill giving effect to it, you will have for the first time in this country taxation by Resolution. I look upon this as a very serious matter indeed. Too much has been made of the practice of the House during the last few generations, because it is one thing that there should be a practice not sanctioned by law but only continuing so long as no single member of the public objects to it, and it is quite another thing that that practice should be sanctioned by law. My hon. and learned Friend is quite right in saying that this Bill would make a radical change in the Constitution of this country. Surely it is a serious matter to impose taxation by one Resolution of this House. You may get a hasty Vote in Committee. No doubt it must be a Vote asked for by the Government of the day, but still the Government of the day may snatch a Vote of this House when the House has not had time fully to consider the matter. These Committee Resolutions are, as we all know, not Resolutions even appearing on the Order Paper of the House. They are things which exist in writing, which are hastily read out at the end of the day, when it is impossible to criticise their terms, and it is a serious matter to provide that a Vote so passed shall impose taxation upon the subject. As an illustration, take a Single-Tax Resolution. The Government may propose what is, in effect, a Single-Tax Resolution, and one Vote of the House, hastily taken on a Resolution read from the Table, might impose such a tax as that upon the country at a time when the House might be so constituted that it would not for a moment, after full consideration, pass such a tax into law.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Surely that point was met when I indicated that I was prepared to accept an Amendment by the hon. and learned Member for St. Pancras, which should confine the operation of this Resolution to Customs and Excise, and Income Tax.

Mr. CASSEL

I got up to move the Amendment and the right hon. Gentleman moved the Closure.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I do not think that that is a fair interruption. I told the hon. and learned Member that I proposed to put it into the Bill. I think that he might have completed his interruption by stating that point.

Mr. CASSEL

The right hon. Gentleman told me that he would accept the Amendment. When I got up to move it he moved the Closure.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Certainly.

Mr. CAVE

At all events, what I was saying applies not only to a new tax of that kind, but applies to Customs and Excise Duties. Therefore my observations apply, although my illustration is rendered inapposite by what the right hon. Gentleman says. And the tax so imposed may last for months, and be collected for months at a time when it has never passed the House of Commons and never been embodied in any Bill. That is a very serious matter, and a novel matter altogether. I am not dealing with the distinction between the House and the Committee. That is another subject and an important one; but I am dealing only with the principle raised by my hon. and learned Friend.

A Resolution such as is here referred to does not and cannot contain those conditions and those safeguards to the subject which are often contained in the Bill itself. The Resolution is worded in perfectly general terms, generally wider than the Bill, and carefully phrased so as to cover any possible extension of the words of the Bill, and the effect may be that a Resolution, if it has statutory effect, may impose upon the subject, during the period of suspension, that is the period between the Resolution and the passing of the Act, a burden greater than that which you intend to impose by the Bill itself. Let me as an illustration take the Land Taxes of a few years ago. Is it conceivable that the Resolutions for those Land Taxes could have been intended to have statutory effect during the many months during which the Bill was discussed? When the Bill was in Committee there was Amendment after Amendment proposed and accepted which safeguarded to some extent the subject in regard to these taxes, but the Resolutions contained no such safeguard, and the effect would have been that those wide Resolutions, the very terms of which we hardly remember, but which were, I am sure, very wide indeed, would have affected the subject during all the months, possibly over six months, between the passing of the Resolution in Committee and the passing of the Bill into law. That is what you are seeking to do by this Resolution, and the Bill to be founded upon it. It is a new thing. I am sure that it is a dangerous thing. I think that it is an unnecessary thing.

It is said that the money collected can always he returned. It cannot always be returned. You cannot always find the man from whom you have taken taxes. If you collect a tax from tens of thousands of people, often in small sums, there will be a large percentage of cases in which you will never be able to find the man to repay the money to him, and all persons who have paid the tax will not take the necessary steps to recover the tax from the Government. Of course the Government will not look for the taxpayers. The taxpayer will have to make his claim. Even where you do return the tax, mere recoupment is not a full return. You have levied a tax from a man who is not responsible for it, and you do not put matters right by merely repaying without interest the sum which you have taken from him. The point made about forestalments has been dealt with fully. I will only say that as regards Income Tax it is no point at all, because it is clear to all of us that there is an easy remedy in that case. You have only to make your Income Tax year run not from the 5th April, but, say, from the 30th June, and pass your Budget before the 30th June, and that difficulty vanishes once for all. As regards Customs and Excise Duties, there is also an easy remedy there. Pass your Resolution in Committee one day and pass your Resolution on Report the next day. We have only got to deal with twenty-four hours during which forestalments may arise.

Mr. ANNAN BRYCE

That is very important.

Mr. CAVE

That, of course, applies only to the distinction between the Committee and the House; but then, when you propose your Bill, make your duty retrospective, and you can easily find a way to levy or retain your duty during the passage of the Bill. I am quite sure that on all points there are other remedies available. I do not say for a moment that the Government ought to leave matters as they are. I quite recognise there is some remedy to be found. In the pre-Bowlesian days there was a general convention under which procedure not sanctioned by law was followed. That is now impossible. You must, I agree, find some remedy. The Government should take the House into their confidence and pass some temporary measure dealing only with the next few months, which is all they want, and in the meantime refer the whole question to a Committee of this House. I am quite sure that the discussion in the House has already shown that remedies may be found for dealing with this matter effectively without resort to what I think is the serious course embodied in this Resolution.

Mr. HAYES FISHER

The Home Secretary is so accustomed to forcibly feeding the country with revolutionary proposals that a large spoonful more or less does not appear to disturb him. He evidently thinks that he is supporting to-day a most innocent proposal and one in which there is really nothing of very great importance. He supports this as merely an enabling Resolution on which a Bill will ultimately be founded. From our point of view this is a thoroughly revolutionary proposal, and we are inclined to fight it on every possible point. If the Home Secretary is right, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer does not intend to take advantage of the great width and breadth of this proposal and found a very wide measure on this Bill, then why does not he withdraw much of this Resolution from the House to-day? I do not think that the House itself does properly and adequately contemplate what has been done during the last few years to remove the proper safeguard from the taxpayer against arbitrary taxation by the Government. See how far we have travelled! When the present Government came into power no tax could be imposed upon the subject unless it was founded on a Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means. Then that Resolution was reported to the Whole House, and then a Bill founded on the Resolution was passed through its First and Second Reading, the Committee stage, the Report stage, and the Third Reading. That same Bill was then sent up to the House of Lords, where again it went through the process, at all events, of a very elaborate and full discussion on Second Reading. All these safeguards are for the protection of the taxpayer against the arbitrary conduct of any Government whatever. What is to be the position in future so far as the taxpayers are concerned, if this Resolution is passed and a Bill founded upon it? We all know that the taxpayer has been deprived of one safeguard at all events, and that is a full and elaborate discussion in the House of Lords of any fiscal measure. That has gone. The taxpayer now will be left in the pitiable position that he will be liable, on the old basis, to all the old taxes, and to any form of new taxation, by a mere Resolution passed in Committee of this House, without, any adequate discussion, or a discussion limited by the gag and guillotine.

The collectors will be authorised to collect those taxes, and the taxpayer will not know anything about them until perhaps he has seen his morning's paper; and he may be wholly unaware that they have become the law of the land. Yet the Home Secretary says, "Why waste time on such a matter as this; it is only a very small measure to legalise what is the usage and custom." He went so far as to say that his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Bill, would not go one inch beyond the past usage and custom. Past usage and custom, I think, have been confined to two sets of taxes. It has been the usage and custom to collect the Income Tax after the Resolution has been passed in Committee of Ways and Means, without that Resolution being embodied in an Act of Parliament and legalised. That is the past usage as regards Income Tax. Is that all, as regards the Income Tax, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer desires to see incorporated in this Bill? I understand it is. Let me say in reference to Income Tax that several speakers have suggested to the Chancellor of the Exchequer other ways of extricating himself from the difficulties in which he finds himself. I believe there is no exception to the principle I am going to assert to the House as now governing the usage and custom, namely, that they have only been allowed for the collection of such taxes as have been hitherto approved by this House in principle, probably after very full debate and discussion. Usage and custom have never authorised the collection of any new form of tax which has not been adequately discussed in this House.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

The Sugar Duty.

Mr. HAYES FISHER

That is a duty which has been constantly debated in this House; it has formed the subject of many a long discussion. What I want to point out to the right hon. Gentleman is that this Resolution as it is framed will enable that usage and custom to apply to any form of new taxation whatever, and however novel. I quote two instances. There was the famous Match Tax of Mr. Robert Lowe, and there was the Van and Wheel Tax of Lord Goschen. These were instances of what is called fresh and novel taxation which had never been fully considered or discussed in the House of Commons. If a Bill is founded on the terms of this Resolution it will be possible hereafter for any Chancellor of the Exchequer to impose all kinds of new taxation which has never been discussed, and of which no notice has ever been given to the taxpayer or to our constituents. The most novel forms of taxation may be imposed simply by one Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means. I am quite ready to accept the assurance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he does not mean to do that, and would not himself do it. But we are obliged to argue this case, not from the intentions of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer nor from the intentions of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Worcestershire (Mr. Austen Chamberlain), the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer; we have to argue it in regard to future Chancellors of the Exchequer, and we should not be doing our duty as the champions we ought to be of the liberties of the people, especially in matters of taxation, if we allowed wide powers such as these, to go into a Resolution out of which there may come an Act of Parliament carried by the serried phalanx of the Government, always brought up on critical occasions. From that point of view it would be possible to impose on this country novel taxes of almost every description.

But I am bound to say, quite apart from novel taxation, that I will never be a willing party to giving these powers to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or to any Government even to collect authorised and existing taxes, or taxes of a temporary character. I would not be a party to that because it would be giving power, by simple Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means, first of all, to impose Income Tax on everybody with an income of ever £2 a week—a matter which possibly might be a very proper subject for debate in this House; it would give power to any Government, by a single Resolution passed in this House, to alter the whole of the deductions and abatements connected with Income Tax; it would give power to graduate the Super-tax to any possible extent, even to taking away half a man's income, or the whole of it beyond a certain amount. Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer deny that it would be perfectly possible under this Resolution for all these things to be done? If all these things can be done, then it is going far beyond the usage and practice which has hitherto prevailed under the Constitution. There is one thing alone which carries it beyond the usage and practice under present circumstances, and that is the mere fact that you make this usage statutory. That carries you far beyond the present usage and practice. It is all very well for hon. Members to say that it is a matter of convenience having taxes collected before they are due, but that is a very different thing from saying that those taxes may be collected as a matter of absolute right because they will become statutory under a Resolution.

All kinds of inconveniences and awkwardnesses may occur. We do not know the limit of the period dining which the taxes are to remain statutory. I suggested yesterday that it was quite likely a Dissolution of Parliament might occur during the period of this limited statutory arrangement. What will be the result? All the taxes which have been collected during the period the statutory limit was running would be legal, but during the Dissolution the limit would have ceased, and the taxes could no longer be collected on a statutory basis, and I do not know that they could be collected at all. What would be the position of the taxpayer in that case? The Home Secretary just now said, "After all, if the House of Commons does not nut these taxes into a Bill and endorse them by passing the Bill, the money can be returned." Take the Van and Wheel Tax. If this Resolution had been operative at that time I have very little doubt that the Van and Wheel Tax would have been put into it, and three months afterwards the House of Com- mons might have come to the conclusion that it was a most unpopular tax, and therefore should not go into the Finance Act, so that it could not have been collected any longer. You say that the money can he returned. But the man who had paid the Van and Wheel Tax would charge it to the man who purchased the van and wheels from him. The man who has paid the duty puts it on the price of the taxed article which he sells to his various customers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am not going into a Tariff Reform argument, though I should be quite ready to do so if it were in order. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is only an admission."] It is an admission which I could qualify if this were a Tariff Reform Debate. But, for the purpose of my argument, I think it is a thoroughly sound proposition that the tax would be passed on, wherever it could be passed, by the person who has paid it to the purchaser or consumer of the article. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer will say that that is a very sound proposition. How could the money which had been collected from certain classes of taxpayers be returned? I am confident that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going far beyond anything which is necessary to extricate him from the difficulties in which he finds himself. There have been many suggestions made for meeting the present situation. I made one yesterday, to which I still attach very considerable importance, particularly as it affects the life of the Income Tax. My hon. Friend suggested that the Income Tax should be imposed for a longer period than twelve months. I believe that to be perfectly possible. The Home Secretary said it could not be applied to a state of things where the Income Tax was about to be increased, say, from 9d. to 1s., or from 1s. 2d. to 1s. 6d.

I think the House ought to meet far earlier than it does, and that the Budget, and particularly that portion of the Budget dealing with such taxes, ought to be the very first business of the House. The discussions of that portion of the Budget might well be abbreviated, and if the Government wanted the money, particularly for war, I do not believe the House would put any obstacles in the way of their obtaining it. If the House met early the discussions could be abbreviated, and the Budget might be in two parts. You could incorporate in the Budget Bill such taxes as the Income Tax, and that, I believe, would almost completely obviate the difficulty. I am not sure it would even then be necessary to make the Income Tax payable right up to the 30th June. As regards the Customs and Excise, I do not think the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has yet paid enough attention to the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. James Hope), in which he suggested that the duty might be made retrospective. I think those and other remedies ought to be tried before this House enters upon this most revolutionary of all revolutionary proposals. Whilst it is necessary to meet the present condition of things, and to help the Chancellor of the Exchequer to try to get out of the difficulty in which he finds himself, I am sure this House will be really regardless of the highest duties which it has to perform if it allows arbitrary powers to be given to this Government or any other Government. However well, and however wisely, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer might use those powers if he were to remain in his present office, those are powers which I never would entrust to any Government or any Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not think that we have exhausted the wit and wisdom of mankind, and the wit and wisdom of the Front Bench on either side, in seeking some other remedies of a more innocent character, and such as would not be fraught with very grave difficulties with which these suggested remedies are fraught.

Mr. HICKS BEACH

I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer must realise that the terms of this Resolution do arouse a good deal of interest and of strong feeling on this side of the House. I should like to urge upon him once again the desirability of passing a temporary measure to deal solely with the case of temporary taxes for this year, and then to submit this Resolution and the Bill which may be founded upon it to a Select Committee in order that the matter may be thoroughly threshed out, and an appropriate Bill brought in to deal with the subject next year. I think he must realise that the actual terms of this Resolution do really go beyond what he himself intended. He has told us that the Government have no intention of going beyond the ordinary practice and custom. I fully appreciate that, but I would respectfully point out that he stoutly declined to accept any Amendment to this Resolution, because he said there would be opportunity during the discussion of the Bill to amend the Resolution if we desired. I think we should be glad if t he right hon. Gentleman would give us some definite assurance that we shall have the opportunity of really discussing all the points that may arise on this Resolution in Committee, because last night we were rudely shocked suddenly to discover the whole Resolution closured before more than two Amendments had been discussed. We naturally are afraid when this Resolution takes the form of a Bill, and when we arrive in the Committee stage, we may find the same rude application of the Closure applied to the passage of the Bill in that stage. I do therefore hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give us some assurance that we shall have full opportunity of fair discussion on each one of the Sections of the Bill when it is set out. I do not for a moment suggest that we should be given the opportunity to seriously obstruct the passage of the Bill, but I do respectfully say that there ought to be full and ample opportunity for real and careful discussion on the actual terms of the Bill. Unless we get that assurance, surely the right hon. Gentleman might meet us some way and amend some of the objectionable features in the terms of the Resolution.

A point on which a good many hon. Friends of mine lay stress is the first part of the Resolution in which it is laid down that a Resolution passed only in a Committee of Ways and Means shall have statutory effect for a limited period. I strongly object to the words "have statutory effect." It does seem to me to be a very tall order to lay down in black and white upon the Journals of this House that in future any Resolution which is only passed in Committee of Ways and Means is to have all the effects and powers of an Act of Parliament. Surely it would meet the right hon. Gentleman's point if those words were altered into such a phrase as "authorises the collection of the tax." It may not be a very large point, but there does seem to me to be a great deal of difference in saying that a Resolution shall have the same effect as an Act of Parliament, and saying that a Resolution shall authorise the collection of any tax for a short period. As regards the words "limited period," those could have a very wide interpretation, and I think the right hon. Gentleman admitted that the "limited period" should be defined. Could he not also alter the terms of his Resolution by taking out the words "limited period" and insert, say, a period of six months. That would give us the power of reducing the period to a period of three months if the House thought it desirable to do so. I do hope the right hon. Gentleman will give further thought and consideration to the proposal of my hon. Friends to get over this difficulty by simply making the collection of the tax retrospective. I believe that the real difficulty arises chiefly in the collection of new Customs Duties. Ithink we all realise that if you are imposing a new Customs Tax, that it is very important that the payment of that, tax shall be due from the first day it is announced, so as not to give a preference to the large trader over the small trader, and not to give the opportunity to some firms to take out of bond a large amount of the particular article while the people who deal in it in a small way are not given the same opportunity and privilege.

It is also in the interests of the trade itself to get the tax settled as quickly as possible, and to make the payment of it equal on all parties concerned. Cannot that he got over by saying that when a tax is imposed, it shall date back from the date when it is announced. I believe it is purely a matter of administration, and that the present Custom House, and Inland Revenue too, have all the machinery for carrying it out, and that they actually did so during the time of the 1909 Budget. I understand that then a large amount of spirit was cleared from bond on the understanding that the full amount of the tax should be paid. All I wish to suggest is that it is perfectly simple in future for the Government to announce the imposition of a new tax after four o'clock in the evening when the Customs is closed, and in the Bill to say when a new tax is announced it authorises the payment of that tax from the date on which the tax is announced, although the actual law which authorises the collection is not then actually passed into law. I contend it would be only a matter of administration, and I believe it would get over all the difficulty as to the large trader and the small trader, and also over the difficulty, which is a serious one, of the Treasury losing a large amount of revenue owing to the tax not being payable from the day it is first announced. I do trust the right hon. Gentleman will give a little more consideration to these proposals suggested from this side, and that he will also see his way to modify some of the far-reaching terms of his Resolution without prejudicing that which he intends to carry out, and which I think the House probably might be quite prepared to accept.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE (who was very indistinctly heard)

The hon. Gentleman has made a very reasonable speech and has appealed to the Government to modify the terms of the Resolution. I indicated generally to the House yesterday the kind of Amendment which the Government is prepared to accept. I said then and I still say that this is not the opportunity, the proper and appropriate opportunity, for discussing those details and limitations. It has been the practice of the House always to take a very wide enabling Resolution, in order not to unduly restrict the limits of debate when the Bill is introduced. Besides, there are many things which you cannot possibly foresee from a drafting point of view, and an injudicious word introduced in the course of a discussion of this kind might very seriously hamper and limit discussion in a way which both sides of the House would sincerely deprecate. Therefore I think it is very undesirable that Amendments should be adopted or introduced at this stage. Speaking yesterday, I said: On this point, however. I wish to make a general observation. Hon. and right hon. C1entlemen opposite are lust as interested in this matter as we are. If Amendments are moved on purely enabling Resolutions, it means that you have two money stages for every Money Bill, and that is a very serious departure from precedent. I would suggest, not merely in the interests of the Government, but in the interests of the Opposition as well, that it is undesirable that an enabling Resolution, drafted in the broadest terms to give full play in Committee of all moving Amendments, should be limited at this stage by all sorts of Amendments."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th April, 1913, col. 840.] Later on I said, dealing with an Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West St. Pancras (Mr. Cassel):— That Amendment I propose to accept, although I should very much prefer to accept it on the Committee stage or embody it in the Bill to haying it inserted here, because it is a serious departure from precedent."—[OFFICIAl REPORT, 7th April, 1913, col. 841.]

Mr. CASSEL

After having said you would accept my Amendment, when I came to move it I was not given the chance of doing so.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I do not want to discuss that, but the hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well the conditions under which the Closure was moved. We discussed the matter at great length, and we were not allowed to come to the Amendments for reasons which the hon. and learned Gentleman knows. We were only allowed to come to the first couple of Amendments. It is quite contrary to every precedent that a debate of this kind on an enabling Resolution should take even that length of time. I am sorry to have to say so, and of course we cannot discuss any application of the Closure either in Committee or in the House, but the hon. and learned Member has drawn that observation from me. I still say it is a great mistake, and a very serious departure from precedent, to move a series of detailed Amendments on an enabling Resolution and to treat it as if it were a Bill. The hon. Member who spoke last has illustrated what I mean. He suggested that the words "limited period" should be omitted, and that we should introduce, say, a number of months, giving a wide scope so as to enable the time afterwards to be reduced. I would have no objection at all to that Amendment, none, except that I think if you begin amending in that form you are not providing an enabling Resolution, but you are really fashioning a Bill which is not convenient. Enabling Resolutions have always been treated as a First Reading Debate. They are practically two First Reading Debates, one in Committee and one on the Report. Now there is an attempt to convert what has hitherto been a First Reading into the Committee and Report stage of the Bill itself.

Mr. HICKS BEACH

May I respectfully remind the right hon. Gentleman that that has obviously arisen because we are so accustomed to have the Closure on every passage of every Bill for the last few years that we recognise, unless we make use of every opportunity, in all probability we shall be cut out of the discussion of relevant points?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I was a Member of a Parliament in which I think I was subjected to the Closure.

Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON

Never like this.

6.0 P.M.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

And the hon. Baronet opposite always voted steadily for the Closure then. I do not remember an occasion when he did not support the Closure on my right hon. Friend and myself; it always gave him the greatest satisfaction. If he can give any instance when an enabling Resolution of this kind was given more than two whole days I shall be very much surprised. If any attempt had been made to take two days for such a Resolution in that Parliament the Closure would have been applied ruthlessly and, I say now, properly. However, I do not mind indicating once more what the intentions of the Government are with regard to the Schedule of the Bill, still safeguarding myself by saying that I am referring to the Schedule. It is suggested that we should indicate an exact date. I have indicated that we propose to embody in the Bill substantially an Amendment already suggested in that direction. There is also the Amendment with regard to Customs and Excise and Income Tax, which I said I was prepared to accept, but would prefer to accept it in Committee on the Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman, if he looks at the precedents, will see that his Amendment is much too wide. I have indicated quite clearly that there is no idea of seeking powers beyond those which were asserted by the Executive before the Gibson Bowles decision. I will give an indication of what I mean. Take Licence Duties. Licence Duties mean Excise. They were never collected in the past until the Bill had been carried. We shall be perfectly prepared to accept any Amendment limiting the powers of the Executive in future as far as Licence Duties are concerned. As to the Amendment of the hon. Member, this is not the proper time for discussing it. It should come when we are dealing with the Bill itself.

The hon. Member for East Birmingham (Mr. Steel-Maitland) suggested that when it was proposed to levy under a Resolution there should be some special words inserted indicating that that was to be done. But in regard to increased Stamp Duties or increased Licence Duties, the Inland Revenue do not collect. That would be a departure from the precedents of the past. We are quite prepared to accept any Amendments to make it clear that we do not intend to go beyond that. But you cannot discuss questions of that sort on an enabling Resolution. If you did, you might introduce words which would seriously embarrass you when you came to the preparation of the Bill. It has been suggested that, under such a Resolution, we might levy the single tax. I pointed out yesterday that that would be impossible. The same remark applies to the Land Taxes. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Fulham (Mr. Hayes Fisher) said that this was the most revolutionary of all revolutionary proposals. I do not know what he means by that. If he means that it is a revolution to give statutory recognition to what he himself has called the general practice of this country for sixty years, that is a very new definition of a revolution.

Mr. HAYES FISHER

It goes very far beyond that.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

If the right hon. Gentleman can show that our proposals go beyond anything which has been done in the last sixty years, I shall be perfectly prepared to accept an Amendment restricting them within those limits. Therefore they cannot be revolutionary, because a revolution means a change.

Mr. HAYES FISHER

The Bill may not be revolutionary, but I have not seen the Bill. I have to examine the Resolution, and I say that the Resolution is most revolutionary.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

The right hon. Gentleman has been at the Treasury, and he knows that Resolutions of this kind are always framed in much wider terms than the Bills which are based upon them. They are framed widely in order that the draftsman may not be embarrassed and hampered in the preparation of the Bill. I hope, after this explanation, the House will agree to the Resolution in order that the Bill may be introduced at once, because it is an urgent matter. Everybody acknowledges that something ought to be done. It is not only in the interests of the collection of taxes, but in the interests of the taxpayers as well. If bankers and others are not given statutory authority for these deductions, they will undoubtedly be placed in a very difficult, delicate, and embarrassing position. Here you have a practice which, although without statutory authority, was accepted by the community to such an extent that for sixty years no one thought it worth while to challenge it, and then it was Mr. Gibson Bowles who did so. I do not think you could possibly have a better argument as to the general convenience of the practice than the fact that it was accepted for at least two generations without challenge on the part of the community.

Sir F. BANBURY

The right hon. Gentleman this afternoon has developed a most extraordinary affection for precedent. He says that he can find no precedent for a Resolution having been debated at such great length as the one now before the House. My answer is that the right hon. Gentleman cannot find any Resolution in any way comparable to the one now before him. Therefore, if former Resolutions have not been debated at such great length, that is by no means an argument for saying that this most extraordinary Resolution should not be debated fully and carefully both in the Committee and in the House. The only argument advanced by the right hon. Gentleman for not accepting Amendments which have been proposed is that he is going to accept certain Amendments, but this is not the time at which they should be moved. I did not wish to interrupt the Home Secretary on that point, but I was perfectly well aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that if it could be shown that the Bill in any way went beyond the past usage of the House he would accept any Amendment to prevent it. The past usage in the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the usage of sixty years. The past usage in my mind was the usage of the last three hundred or four hundred years, which, in my opinion, is very much more important. When we have the Chancellor of the Exchequer present on the Treasury Bench we are bound to take advantage of that fact to put our arguments before him and to press our Amendments. How do we know that when the Committee stage of the Bill is reached he will agree that we have shown reasons for our Amendments in reference to the usage even of sixty years? The right hon. Gentleman is a master of language, and he may say that the language which we have used to enforce those Amendments has not convinced him. Further, is the right hon. Gentleman going to stand or fall by such Amendments? Supposing hon. Gentlemen behind him say that they do not like those Amendments, and will not accept them, what is the right hon. Gentleman going to do? As my hon. Friend reminds me, we may find present only the Financial Secretary, who would not be able to accept Amendments without consultation with and the authority of his chief. All these circumstances tend to prove that when we have the right hon. Gentleman present we ought to insist on our Amendments being moved. Supposing the right hon. Gentleman accepted the Amendments which have been proposed, in what way would he have been injured? He says he is going to accept some of these Amendments later. He would have shortened discussion, and he would have been in exactly the same position by accepting the Amendments now as by accepting them later; because if our Amendments had been accepted we could not possibly get up later and say that we did not like them! We would have been obliged to accept the Amendments which we had proposed; therefore the right hon. Gentleman would have lost absolutely nothing by having accepted these Amendments.

There is, however, a habit in this House—I do not know that it is confined to right hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side—it is a habit on both Front Benches—of putting off the evil day, of saying that there is a further stage, and that matters put forward will be considered later. They say we will not accept the Amendment now, but we do not shut the door upon it; we will consider it later. When the later time comes something has intervened in the meantime, and very specious excuses are made that the situation has changed, and that therefore the statement previously made can hardly stand. Under these circumstances, in connection with a Resolution of this very vital importance, I do not think that my hon. Friends—I am certain that I could not agree to do so myself—should do other than use every opportunity to either get the measure rejected or amended; and to get it amended now while we have the Chancellor opposite to us. My right hon. Friend the Member for Fulham remarked that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that he was not going to do anything which would in any way be unusual. My right hon. Friend, with an innocence at which I was rather surprised, said he did not expect that the right hon. Gentleman would. I cannot go so far as my right hon. Friend. I am not at all sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer under pressure might not do all sorts of things. I certainly should not pick out the right hon. Gentleman as a Minister to whom it is desirable to give exceptional powers or exceptional opportunities of imposing taxation. I note that my opinions are shared by hon. Members below the Gangway on the opposite side, than whom no one knows—[HON. MEMBERS. "No."] One hon. Member agreed…

Mr. C. DUNCAN

No, I did not agree; I did not hear what the hon. Baronet said.

Sir F. BANBURY

Well, the hon. Member who did hear what I said agreed. I think I have shown very clearly that we ought not to allow this proposal to go, and that we should endeavour either to have this Resolution rejected or amended. May I say to the Home Secretary that I think surely he was wrong when be said it was only a modified Income Tax which was in force before 1853? I have not been able to look the matter up, but my recollection is that when Mr. Pitt, in 1793, imposed the Income Tax it went up to over a shilling, and I am not sure that it was not two shillings.

Mr. McKENNA

I did not say "modified" Income Tax. I said it was a modern one. Of course the hon. Baronet knows that it was a very high tax. I said under modern conditions.

Sir F. BANBURY

I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I understood him to say "modified," but I do not know what difference there is between modern conditions and old conditions. My idea is that, whether under modern or old conditions, the Income Tax is always an extremely objectionable tax. Modern conditions do not make it any better. But I only rose to point out that we must not lose the opportunity we have at present. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," and when we have the right hon. Gentleman in our hand do not let us lose our opportunity.

Mr. BUTCHER

We have listened to a speech of some duration from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I do not think I will be misstating the case when I say that hardly one word in that speech was directed to the Amendment really under discussion. What was that Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend? It challenges the principle that a Resolution of this House in Committee of Ways and Means shall have statutory effect for the purpose of the imposition of taxes. The Amendment, therefore, is not one dealing with details, or with possible Amendments in the Resolution; it is one which challenges the Resolution itself. We say to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "What reason have you for establishing this far-reaching principle that a Resolution of the House in Committee of Ways and Means is to have the statutory effect of an Act of Parliament to impose taxes?" We shall be no doubt told, and with some show of reason, that it ought not to be possible that a large leakage of revenue should take place in regard to taxes under consideration, namely, the Income Tax, the Customs, and certain, though not all, of the Excise Taxes. We quite agree, and accept that view; but we say that it is possible to avoid the leakage without having recourse to this very drastic, and to adopt the language of my right hon. Friend, this revolutionary change proposed by the Government. What are the proposals that we make? We say that any possible leakage in regard to Income Tax could be met by any one of these proposals which have been made from these benches. As a matter of fact, no really serious reasons have been adduced against our proposals, because, supposing the tax is not collected at the source by deduction from dividend or interest, or whatever it may be, it can be collected under Schedule D. We have not had a word from the benches opposite to tell us why that process would involve any leakage.

It is quite true that deduction at the source is probably more convenient, but there is no reason to suppose that any serious leakage would occur by collecting the tax under Schedule D. Therefore, as regards Income Tax, there is no reason for adopting this particular method. There are other methods less revolutionary which would do just as well for the collection of the Income Tax. Let me take the case of the Customs. Is there any reason why, when and if the House resolves upon a Customs Duty, it should not by statutory enactment be able to say to the persons importing the dutiable articles, "Before you take these articles out of band, you must give security for the payment of the tax. We will not force you to pay the tax until it is actually leviable under Act of Parliament, but you must give security for payment, so that if the tax becomes embodied in an Act of Parliament we will desire to enforce payment." There may be some reason against this course, but at the present moment I do not see any. If that would suffice for the purpose of the collection of taxes, would not a similar process suffice for the collection of the duties on Excise? For instance, on alcohol and beer and other consumable articles you say to the persons concerned, who would ultimately have to pay, "Give security for payment and you need not pay at once; if the Act passes imposing the duty, then pay." It seems to me that these proposals of ours are reasonable. At any rate we have had no answer from the Government Benches why these proposals would not be equally effective for the purpose of collecting the taxes with the method embodied in this Resolution. I should like to hear from the Chancellor why the alternative proposals we have made would not be at least equally good in the Government proposals, while certainly less revolutionary! The Chancellor confined himself to the question of what Amendments he would either now or at some future time accept. That is really no answer whatsoever to the Amendment of my hon and learned Friend. I trust before this Debate concludes that some Member of the Government will tell us why these alternative proposals would not be equally effective for the collection of taxes with the method proposed by the Government, while at the same time it is undoubted that they will not be of the revolutionary character proposed by the Government; therefore they would have advantages which certainly the Government Resolution has not.

Mr. JAMES MASON

Both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary dwelt with some insistence on the fact that this was not the proper time to discuss details. That opportunity, they said, would arise when the Bill is brought in. That is our case. We say that the Resolution is not, and cannot be, the proper time to discuss this imposition of taxation, and that the proper mode of imposing taxation is by a Bill. It is quite true that the Resolution proposed to the House limits the tax to its collection; that is to say, that it imposes the obligation that the Bill shall not include any tax of a higher amount than that suggested in the Resolution. But it does not limit the tax in the downward direction. It is always possible in the Bill to reduce a tax mentioned in the Resolution. For that reason it seems to me that the passage of the Resolution becomes, in the interests of the people, of less importance than the passage of the Bill, because the Bill can always, after consideration of any injustices which may arise, fix the tax at a lower figure than that contemplated or passed in the Resolution. But if the Resolution is made operative in the imposition of a tax, then the case for safeguards is obviously serious. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to a great extent, base their contention to a very great degree on the suggestion that this proposed Resolution is to legalise the collection of taxes—that is to say, the collection of taxes as has been the custom for several years past. But if the Resolution is to legalise the collection of taxes only, why do you draft it in such a way as to legalise the imposition of taxes? There is not a word in the Resolution about collection. The Resolution states that the imposition of new taxes shall have statutory effect. If the Resolution is to make the imposition of taxes of statutory effect, what is the use of defending it by long arguments to show that it is necessary in the public interests that the collection of taxes should commence at the earliest possible moment?

The Resolution does mention that there is a time limit—that is to say, that within some particular time to be mentioned, I understand, in the Bill, the Budget will have to be brought in. I cannot help thinking that once this principle that taxation shall be imposed by Resolution has been accepted that there will become a serious danger of that time limit being altered gradually and prolonged, so that the time between the passing of the Resolution and the passage of the Bill which will confirm that Resolution may gradually become continuously extended to such a point that it will be feasible, and very often will result, that the Budget habitually will be brought in later and later. We all know that if the Budget is brought in towards the close of the Session the finances of the country cannot, and will not, receive that amount of attention which this House ought to give to them. Let us come to the point of how far this Resolution is needed. To begin with, I say if it is merely necessary to legalise the collection of taxes a much less drastic Resolution could have been proposed which would have legalised the collection without legalising the imposition of taxation. The imposition of new taxes has been mentioned. Again, it has been intimated to us that the Resolution is merely, not to legalise the imposition of taxes, but only certain taxes, namely, I understand, Customs Duties, Excise, and Income Tax. If that is so, why not say so? Why not have a limitation in the Resolution? Why make the Resolution to extend to taxes which embrace a field we can hardly grasp at the moment? We cannot contemplate what possible taxes may come within its reach. If that is only intended, and if the suggestion is to apply to a certain number of limited taxes, why not say so in the Resolution, and remove all doubts from our minds. I admit it is regarded as a necessity in reference to Customs Duties, and that there is a great deal to be said for the imposition of Customs Duties at the earliest possible moment, because of the danger of forestalment. That aspect was considerably debated yesterday, but I think it has been exaggerated, and I very much doubt that the danger of forestalment is half as great as the Government says it is, but I admit there are dangers, though I do not see why this power to impose Income Tax by Resolution is necessary at all. It seems to me that the only thing necessary is to change the Income Tax date, to change the date at which Income Tax begins, and to take a reasonably late date from which the Income Tax should be imposed for the year, say, from July to July. Once that is done, once Income Tax is imposed from July to July, all the necessity for taxation by Resolution would be obviated. The only thing I desire to say on the general question is that it seems to me to be very imprudent and a very improper action for this House to pass the power of taxation into the hands of the Committee of Ways and Means. After all, in these matters of finance, this House now remains as the only authority. The other House has been precluded from interfering in taxation and from going into the question of finances. Surely, if that is so, it throws a far greater obligation on this House to see that the forms and processes by which financial measures, and especially taxes, are imposed should be retained in the power of the body of the House itself, and that this form should provide that all proposals for new taxation, or the alteration of old taxes, should receive adequate discussion and should not be imposed by any short cut, such as, I believe, would inevitably result from imposing taxes by Resolution.

Mr. J. HOPE

No answer has been given, either in the Debates yesterday or to-day, to the suggestion urged by my Friends and myself as to why not do all you wish to do by putting a retrospective provision in the Bill when you bring it in. Surely that is not impossible, and I invite the Attorney-General to say something upon that point. Let us take the case of an existing Customs Duty on tea. In a case like that it is simplicity itself. If you take the case of tea when withdrawals take place, a certain amount of duty will be paid. You know who is withdrawing the tea, and why not take some deposit on the amount to be paid? In case of a Customs Duty, you know who the importer is; you can take a bond from him that he will pay the tax if necessary, and if he does not pay enough, you could have power by a general Customs Act to issue a general Order, so that you will get your taxes afterwards. That suggestion was made yesterday and it was repeated to-day, and I ask the Attorney-General to deal with it as no other Member of the Government has done.

Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON

From the point of view of procedure I confess I am in a certain amount of agreement with the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to what is said as to the imposition by this Resolution. I think this is an occasion when matters of principle are more properly debated than matters of detail. This is a matter of principle and not a matter of detail at all, and it ought to be kept in mind by the House that Resolutions of this kind have been debated at great length in the past. I do not think that anyone would say we occupied too long in debating the enabling Resolution of the 1909 Budget. We debated an enabling Resolution on Home Rule, and I have not the slightest doubt that if the Government were a little more awake to the situation we would have debated it longer. Therefore I do not think anyone need object to debating the principle of an enabling Resolution, and especially an enabling Resolution of this character. Unfortunately I was not able to be here yesterday, but I informed myself of the course of the Debate, and the thing that struck me on reading yesterday's Debate and hearing to-day's Debate is this, that although this situation in respect to which this Resolution is required arises from an action of Mr. Bowles with regard to Income Tax, and although the question of Customs and Excise Duties was not before the Court, and I think was not decided by the Court, this Resolution which is moved by the Government is not defended at all from the point of view of Income Tax. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, it is perfectly easy to get over the Income Tax difficulty by changing the date of the year. All the difficulty is from the point of view of Customs and Excise, and this is rather remarkable considering the circumstances that called this Resolu- tion into being. On the question of Customs and Excise I think it is true that there is a difficulty, but I think it is possible to exaggerate the difficulty in respect of forestalments. On the other side you have a difficulty which is greater I think than the difficulty of forestalment.

A tax may be passed in a Resolution of this House and yet this House may subsequently decline to confirm the Resolution at which it arrived. Now, if that is the case, and if it happens to be a tax on Customs, what will happen? Supposing the Chancellor of the Exchequer came forward this year and proposed an Excise duty upon British-grown sugar. If this Resolution was passed the tax would run as from the date of that Resolution being introduced. Suppose the House afterwards, on reviewing the circumstances, came to the conclusion it was not desirable, the Government say you could repay it, but how are you going to repay it to the people? There is no one, no matter what view he takes on economic subjects—I noticed there was some amusement about the statement made by my hon. Friend that the consumer pays the tax—there is no economist ever heard or dreamt of who does not say that if you have a Customs Tax and an Excise Tax on the same article the wretched consumer has not to pay it. That is precisely the complaint we make against our existing fiscal system. Assuming this tax has been put on, how can the Government say you could repay the people? Supposing the grocer extracted a farthing in respect of the tax, how is that to be subsequently remedied? That is a very real danger, and I think you ought to set that against the risk of loss to the Treasury on forestalment. I think the risk of loss, owing to forestalments, has been rather exaggerated, and I think there has been rather a failure to discriminate between the different classes of forestalments. I have had a little to do with these cases in various business capacities of which I have had some experience, and I know a little of what is going on. The right hon. Gentleman, it is true, put the matter from the point of view of the Treasury, and put it very clearly, but that only applies to cases of increase in the existing Customs Duties. In the case of the imposition of a new Customs Duty, there is no question of someone having more in bond than somebody else; they all start from scratch, as it were

Mr. McKENNA

The Bill does not apply to such cases.

Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON

I do not say that the Bill does, but the Resolution does.

Mr. McKENNA

My right hon. Friend said that the Bill would not apply in cases of new taxes.

Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON

In that case I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. It is clearly a case where the argument would not apply. There remain other classes of cases, forestalments in cases of increase upon existing duties, and the right hon. Gentleman must know that at the present moment there is a very large amount of what I may call intelligent anticipation. People engaged in the sugar trade and in the tea trade have a pretty good idea of whether there is or is not going to be an increase, and when anybody in the trade thinks there is likely to be an increase he takes very good care to keep his bonded store up to the very limit of its capacity. If there is no increase, then he has to pay a little more for warehousing, and, of course, he is stocked up for rather a longer period than usual, but if there is the slightest risk of increased duty, everyone fills up to the utmost limit of their capacity, and I think the right hon. Gentleman is rather exaggerating the difficulty. What I cannot see is what is his objection in principle to the suggestion urged by my hon. Friends. I cannot see any objection in principle or in practice. Why not take the point in respect of these particular taxes which you propose by Resolution, but which are not yet confirmed by the House? There may be some objection, but we have not heard any objection in principle or in practice to-day from the Treasury Bench, and unless some such objection is taken and sustained by argument I venture to think there is no objection, and that that is the right principle which the Government ought to adopt.

Mr. CASSEL

T had an opportunity of stating my general views upon the Resolution, and I shall certainly not repeat them, but the Home Secretary said the Bill was not applicable to new taxes. If that is so, there has been a gross breach of faith on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to what he said to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcester, and I will tell him why. When an Amend- ment was moved to leave out new taxes from the Resolution, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he refused to accept it because there ought to be an opportunity for discussion, and if that is riot in the Bill nobody can raise it, because no private Member can move anything which would increase the charge.

Mr. McKENNA

If I said it was not in the Bill I corrected myself immediately afterwards. I said the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it would not be in the Bill.

Mr. CASSEL

In regard to this Bill I think we have been treated most unfairly, or we will be after a statement of that kind that there are not going to be new taxes in the Bill, which is a gross breach of faith.

Mr. McKENNA

That is not so.

Mr. CASSEL

The right hon. Gentleman said so now.

Mr. McKENNA

I said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said yesterday that this would not apply to new taxes. I did not say it would not be in the Bill as originally introduced. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said it would not apply.

Mr. CASSEL

What the right hon. Gentleman said just now was that it would not be in the Bill. If he means that it will not be in the Act, how can he tell? When a Motion was made by an hon. Member on this side of the House to omit new taxes, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said:— In stating certain objections earlier, I indicated the view of the Government on this particular Amendment. I do not think it would be fair to accept this Amendment, for reasons indicated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcestershire. He pleaded for at least the opportunity for further discussion upon the Second Reading or the Committee stage. He was strongly of opinion that when the powers, whatever they were, were finally accepted, that they should be extended to new duties and new taxes. For that reason, and also for other reasons, I cannot see my way at this stage to accept the Amendment. I adhere to the views I stated earlier in the evening, and I stand by what I said then. I think there is a good deal in what the right hon. Gentleman said, that at least there might to be a farther opportunity for the house to consider that point later on."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th April, 1913, col. 953.] I wish to enter my protest against the treatment which has been meted out to me. In his opening statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, with regard to my Amendments, he made a distinction between those he would accept in the Resolution and those he would accept in the Bill. When I came to move the first of those Amendments, which he said explicitly he would accept in the Resolution, he moved the Closure. With regard to my Amendment to introduce the words "of Customs, or Excise, or Income Tax" in the Resolution, he said:— That Amendment I propose to accept, although should very much prefer to accept it on the Committee stage or embody it in the Bill to having it inserted here…

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Will the hon. and learned Member read on.

Mr. CASSEL

Certainly I will: because it is a serious departure from precedent. The right hon. Gentleman stated first that although he preferred the other course, he was willing to adopt the course of putting it into the Amendment, and I say he is going back upon his word by not consenting to put it in the Resolution. We ought to press our Amendment because we have no guarantee that the right hon. Gentleman may not take a similar course with regard to the Bill. With reference to my Amendment dealing with the time limit, I agree that he accepted that only in the sense of putting it into the Bill.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

The hon. and learned Gentleman has suggested that I have not kept my word. Does he infer that if the discussion had gone on for two or three days, I was not bound to move the Closure?

Mr. CASSEL

Will he promise now to accept those Amendments on the Report stage? I suggest that as a way in which he can carry out his word. Another of my Amendments which he distinguished as being acceptable in the Resolution as distinct from the Bill was the one with regard to two months, and he agreed to accept one month. He stated that my proposal would be putting a premium on late Budgets. He said that my twenty-one days' proposal was too short, and he agreed that two months was too long a period, and if I would agree to one month, instead of two months, he thought that would meet the case. He said that quite distinctly with regard to the Resolution. The right hon. Gentleman distinctly agreed that, although the period I proposed was too short, he would accept one month. I had not the opportunity yesterday of stating my opinions, but I will accept his suggestion at once, and I want to know if he is going to carry out that suggestion. He can carry it out to-day by simply accepting it, and I invite him to carry out his pledge. I quite agree that the Resolution is necessarily more wide, but there are limits even to the terms of a Resolution. Supposing the Chancellor of the Exchequer put upon the Table a Resolution to the effect that it is expedient that in future the Chancellor of the Exchequer shall have power to levy taxation in any manner he thinks fit, with or without the consent of the House of Commons, and then asked us to pass that Resolution because he was going to modify it in the Bill, would this House ever pass it? That would be ridiculous, and this Resolution is ridiculous on the admission of the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. He admits that all he wants is the Customs and Excise, and this Resolution applies to every form of tax. It would apply to the payments under insurance and to the Sinking Fund.

Why need we have this wide form of words? I agree it is unusual to have a discussion with regard to the limitation of these Resolutions, but this Resolution is so extraordinary and wide that it goes far beyond anything which the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself admits to be necessary, and it is an unreasonable thing to put upon the Journals of the House of Commons. There is another Amendment which, unless it is accepted, it will be found impossible to frame the Bill in the way we desire. This is a point upon which I should like to take your ruling, Mr. Speaker. There is an Amendment on the Paper standing in the name of the hon. Member for Kingston (Mr. Cave) to leave out the words "The Committee of Ways and Means of." Supposing those words are left in the Resolution, it would be impossible to frame the Bill without inserting the words in the Bill. In my opinion they are very undesirable words to put in any Act of Parliament. The Committee of Ways and Means relates merely to the internal management and procedure of this House, but assuming the words were in the Resolution, it would be impossible to frame the Bill without inserting those words. If you put in merely the Resolution of this House, it might mean some other Committee or perhaps not any Committee at all, but if those words are in the Resolution then it would be impossible for us to narrow the Bill in such a way as to exclude the words "The Committee of Ways and Means of." I intended yesterday to say it was undesirable to have in an Act of Parliament words relating merely to the internal procedure of this House, which might be changed from time to time. The words "Committee of Ways and Means" are entirely unknown to the law, the only reference to an Act of Parliament being through a Resolution of the House and that is known to the law. If the words remain in the Resolution, I want to know whether it would not be taxing the subject differently if in the Bill you said by a Resolution of the House, because it would not follow that it would need to be set up in Committee of Ways and Means?

Mr. SPEAKER

I do not think I can agree with the hon. and learned Member. If in the Bill the words state "A Resolution of the House," that means it must have come from the Committee of Ways and Means first. The procedure of the House is that Money Resolutions of the House must go through Committee of Ways and Means before they can be reported to the House. With regard to the hon. and learned Member's statement that the term "Committee of Ways and Means" has never found expression in an Act of Parliament, I do not think he is quite right. If he will look at the Scottish Provisional Order Procedure Act he will find those words are there.

Mr. CASSEL

If you say, Mr. Speaker, that we can still move in the Bill to leave out the words, "Committee of Ways and Means," that meets my particular point. There is another matter upon which I had not another opportunity of saying what I wished to say yesterday, and it related to the way in which the last paragraph is drafted. I do not know whether I should be in order in making any observations with regard to paragraph (c), but I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to keep his word by accepting those Amendments in the Resolution which he said he would accept. With regard to those Amendments which he said he would accept in the Bill, I do not, of course, press him at this stage.

Lord HUGH CECIL

I should like to understand exactly what is to be in the Bill and what is not. I do not quite follow the assurances which the right hon. Gentleman has given from time to time. At one time he seems to say that no new taxes, or no tax which is new in character as well as in amount, can be imposed under this provision, and at another time he seems to say, simply Customs, Excise, and Income Tax.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

With regard to new taxes, I have promised that I would accept an Amendment moved by my hon. Friend behind me. I stated that I would allow the new taxes to have an opportunity for further discussion on the Second Reading. The Bill would be reduced to the form in which it was introduced, with new taxes included, but the Government propose to accept the Amendment to leave out new taxes altogether, but not, of course, the variations of taxes, because we should stand by that, but with regard to absolutely new taxes, we propose to accept the Amendment.

Lord HUGH CECIL

I think the right hon. Gentleman said he proposes to accept an Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for West St. Pancras, which confines the Resolution to Customs, Excise, and Income Tax, and that is quite a different proposal.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

The hon. and learned Member made the suggestion that my proposal might lead to an increase in the Land Tax, and stated that if I accepted his Amendment that could not be done.

7.0 P.M.

Lord HUGH CECIL

Then I understand there is to be a limitation in regard to increasing any taxes, and there is to be an exclusion of new-taxes altogether? The discussion has recently turned on what Amendments are desirable either in the Resolution or in the Bill, but, strictly speaking, what my hon. Friend raised was the principle of the Resolution, and I confess I think it a pity that the Government have not addressed themselves more exclusively to the principle of the Resolution because it really is a very grave principle. When the Government say that we are debating this at unnecessary length, though it is quite fair to say this is a First Reading Debate, it is not unusual to take two days for the First Reading of an important Bill, and this is a Bill of great importance indeed, because it is one to substitute for a limited period a Parliamentary degree for a Bill. Observe how tremendously extensive are the powers. A Government and a majority might coerce the whole of a minority into accepting their proposal on whatever subject by coming down with a drastic penal tax which hit the majority hard, and carrying it through in a single night; and, if you include the extreme case, you also cover the more moderate cases. Supposing the Conservative party were resisting some Bill which they believed to be an attack on property, there would be nothing to prevent the Radical Government of the day coming down and proposing a 5s., 10s., or 20s. Income Tax, and carrying it in a Resolution, saying, "If you go on with your opposition to our Bill we shall enforce this tax, and you will be ruined." There would be nothing if the Home Rule Bill passed, and an altercation arose between the Irish Government and the English Government, to prevent the Government coming down here and putting a prohibitive duty on all cattle brought from Ireland to England. [HON. MEMBERS: "That would be a now tax."] Yes, that is quite true; it would be outside the Bill. But there would be nothing to stop them using any existing tax to injure the Irish Government as much as they could. There would be no difficulty in putting on any special increase of duty differentiating between one part of the Kingdom and another.

Mr. MURRAY MACDONALD

The provisions of the Government of Ireland Bill would prevent that.

Lord HUGH CECIL

No, this overrides the Irish Bill. This has statutory effect, and nothing in the Government of Ireland Bill can restrain it. It is specially provided in the Irish Bill that the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is to be safeguarded, and this would be an exertion of the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. Therefore, there would be nothing to stand in your way. You could multiply instance after instance of extremely violent things which could be done by imposing taxation, and you are going to give the House of Commons power to do that in a single evening. I do not know whether prorogation would kill this power or not. That is an important point, because otherwise the Government might propound their tax and prorogue Parliament the next day, and nobody would be able to say anything for months together.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

That would be an extension of usage.

Lord HUGH CECIL

Certainly. Usage has always been the temporary exercise of

unlawful power, and you extend usage when you make it statutory and legal. It was known or it was conjectured that in all probability if the matter were tried in the Courts the Government would be defeated. There is all the difference in the world between a statutory and legal power and a power allowed as a matter of usage and custom. Above all, I do think the Government ought to have met the two points to which their attention was drawn yesterday. The first was why we need to deal with this matter when foreign countries do not need to deal with it, and the other was that there is no safeguard that the Budget will not every year be crowded out to the very last days of the Session and carried through with no real Parliamentary control. The Government would always have an overwhelming answer against any criticism. They would always be able to say, "However well founded your criticism may be, it is too late now; we have not the time to recast our financial proposals." These are criticisms which go to the root of the Resolution, and I do not think it reasonable to ask us to pass the First Reading of the Bill unless you give us an answer on the principle and show us, first, that the thing is really necessary when it is not necesary in any other country; and, secondly, that you are going to safeguard us against the real dangers that threaten us. When you turn an elastic system into a fixed system, you must put in an additional safeguard. I think we have been abundantly justified in the protest that we have made. I do not think the Bill is likely to have an easy course through Parliament. It goes to the root of the liberties of the subject, it extends the power of the Government of the day into a new sphere, it sets a new precedent which is almost certain to be extended, and it marches one stage further in the direction of diminishing the power of the House and increasing the power of the Government.

Question put, "That the words, 'a Resolution passed by,' stand part of the said Resolution."

The House divided: Ayes, 265; Noes, 115.

Division No. 32.] AYES. [7.10 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) Agnew, Sir George William Arnold, Sydney
Acland, Francis Dyke Ainsworth, John Stirling Baker, H. T. (Accrington)
Adamson, William Alden, Percy Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.)
Addison, Dr. Christopher Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark)
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. Armitage, Robert Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple)
Barran, Sir J. N. (Hawick Burghs) Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry Pearce, William (Limehouse)
Beale, Sir William Phipson Hayden, John Patrick Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)
Beauchamp, Sir Edward Hayward, Evan Phillips, John (Langford, S.)
Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. Geo.) Hazleton, Richard Pollard, Sir George H.
Bentham, George Jackson Henderson, Arthur (Durham) Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine Henry, Sir Charles Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)
Black, Arthur W. Herbert, General Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.)
Boland, John Pius Higham, John Sharp Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)
Booth, Frederick Handel Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. Pringle, William M. R.
Bowerman, Charles W. Hodge, John Raffan, Peter Wilson
Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North) Hogge, James Myles Raphael, Sir Herbert H.
Brace, William Holmes, Daniel Turner Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)
Brady, Patrick Joseph Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) Reddy, M.
Brocklehurst, W. B. Hudson, Walter Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Brunner, J. F. L. Hughes, S. L. Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)
Bryce, J. Annan Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus Rendall, Athelstan
Buckmaster, Stanley O. John, Edward Thomas Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)
Burke, E. Haviland- Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Burns, Rt. Hon. John Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)
Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)
Buxton, Rt. Hon. S. C. (Poplar) Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe) Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)
Byles, Sir William Pollard Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) Robinson, Sidney
Carr-Gomm, H. W. Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts., Stepney) Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)
Cawley, H. T. (Lancs., Heywood) Jowett, Frederick William Roche, Augustine (Louth)
Chancellor, H. G. Joyce, Michael Roe, Sir Thomas
Chapple, Dr. W. A. Keating, M. Rose, Sir Charles Day
Clancy, John Joseph Kellaway, Frederick George Rowlands, James
Clough, William Kelly, Edward Rowntree, Arnold
Clynes, J. R. Kennedy, Vincent Paul Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Collins, G. P. (Greenock) Kilbride, Denis Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J. King, J. Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Condon, Thomas Joseph Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton) Scanlan, Thomas
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir C. E.
Cory, Sir Clifford John Lardner, James C. R. Seely, Rt. Hon. Col. J. E. B.
Cotton, William Francis Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, West) Sheehy, David
Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th) Sherwell, Arthur James
Crawshay-Williams, Eliot Leach, Charles Shortt, Edward
Crooks, William Levy, Sir Maurice Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook
Crumley, Patrick Lundon, T. Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)
Davies, Ellis William (Elfion) Lyell, Charles Henry Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)
Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) Lynch, A. A. Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)
Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardiganshire) Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) Snowden, P.
Delany, William McGhee, Richard Soames, Arthur Wellesley
Denman, Hon. R. D. Maclean, Donald Spicer, Rt. Hon. Sir Albert
Devlin, Joseph MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) Strauss, Edward A. (Southwark, West)
Dewar, Sir J. A. Macpherson, James Ian Sutherland, John E.
Dickinson, W. H. MacVeagh, Jeremiah Taylor, John W. (Durham)
Donelan, Captain A. M'Callum, Sir John M. Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)
Doris, W. M'Kean, John Tennant, Harold John
Duffy, William J. McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald Thomas, James Henry
Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) Manfield, Harry Thorne, William (West Ham)
Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) Marshall, Arthur Harold Toulmin, Sir George
Esslemont, George Birnie Meagher, Michael Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Falconer, J. Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander
Farrell, James Patrick Middlebrook, William Verney, Sir Harry
Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles Millar, James Duncan Wadsworth, John
Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson Molloy, Michael Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)
Ffrench, Peter Molteno, Percy Alport Walton, Sir Joseph
Field, William Montagu, Hon. E. S. Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)
Fitzgibbon, John Mooney, John J. Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)
Flavin, Michael Joseph Morton, Alpheus Cleophas Wardle, G. J.
Furness, Stephen Muldoon, John Waring, Walter
Gelder, Sir W. A. Munro, Robert Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd Murphy, Martin J. Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Gill, A. H. Needham, Christopher Webb, H.
Ginnell, L. Neilson, Francis White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)
Gladstone, W. G. C. Norman, Sir Henry White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Glanville, Harold James Nugent, Sir Walter Richard Whitehouse, John Howard
Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.
Goldstone, Frank O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) Wiles, Thomas
Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
Greig, Col. J. W. O'Doherty, Philip Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Griffith, Ellis J. O'Donnell, Thomas Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)
Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke) O'Grady, James Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) O Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)
Hackett, J. O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Hall, Frederick (Normanton) O'Malley, William Wing, Thomas
Hancock, John George O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)
Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) O'Shaughnessy, P. J. Young, William (Perth, East)
Hardie, J. Keir O'Shee, James John
Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) O'Sullivan, Timothy
Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) Outhwaite, R. L. TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Gulland.
Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) Palmer, Godfrey Mark
Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) Parry, Thomas H.
NOES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Goldman, C. S. Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.
Baird, John Lawrence Goldsmith, Frank Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Grant, J. A. Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F.
Baring, Maj. Hon. Guy V. (Winchester) Greene, Walter Raymond Perkins, Walter F.
Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S. Edmunds) Peto, Basil Edward
Barnston, Harry Haddock, George Bahr Pollock, Ernest Murray
Barrie, H. T. Hambro, Angus Valdemar Pretyman, E. G.
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton) Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) Randles, Sir John S.
Bigland, Alfred Hewins, William Albert Samuel Rawlinson. John Frederick Peel
Bird, Alfred Hibbert, Sir Henry F. Rawson, Cal. R. H.
Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) Hickman, Col. Thomas E Rees, Sir J. D.
Boyton, James Hoare, S. J. G. Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Bridgeman, W. Clive Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)
Bull, Sir William James Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)
Burn, Colonel C. R. Horne, E. (Surrey, Guildford) Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood)
Butcher, J. G. Hume-Williams, William Ellis Sanders, Robert A.
Campbell, Capt. Duncan F. (Ayr, N.) Hunt, Rowland Sassoon, Sir Philip
Cassel, Felix Ingleby, Holcombe Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l, Walton)
Cave, George Kebty-Fletcher, J. R. Stanier, Beville
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Kerry, Earl of Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) Kimber, Sir Henry Steel-Maitland, A. D.
Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North)
Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W. Lane-Fox, G. R. Talbot, Lord Edmund
Clay, Captain H. H. Spender Lewisham, Viscount Terrell, G. (Wilts, N.W.)
Cooper, Richard Ashmole Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)
Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lieut.-Colonel A. R. Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)
Craik, Sir Henry Lonsdale, Sir John Browniee Tryon, Captain George Clement
Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) Weston, Colonel J. W.
Dalrymple, Viscount MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh Wills, Sir Gilbert
Dalziel, Davison (Brixton) Mackinder, Halford J. Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.)
Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M. M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A. Winterton, Earl
Faher, Captain W. V. (Hants, W.) M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) Wolmer, Viscount
Falls, Bertram Godfray Magnus, Sir Philip Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Fell, Arthur Mason, James F. (Windsor) Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey Mildmay, Francis Bingham Yate, Colonel C. E.
Forster, Henry William Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas Younger, Sir George
Gastrell, Major W. Houghton Mount, William Arthur
Gibbs, George Abraham Newman, John R. P. TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir A. Cripps and Mr. Hayes Fisher
Gilmour, Captain John O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid)
Glazebrook, Captain Philip K.
Mr. CAVE

I beg to move, in paragraph (a), to leave out the words, "the Committee of Ways and Means of."

The effect of this Amendment would be that binding force would be given, not to a Resolution of the Committee of Ways and Means, but to a Resolution of the House, which in most cases would be a Resolution to agree with the Resolution of the Committee. I want to point out to the House that the proposal that a Resolution of a mere Committee of the House shall have statutory effect, is entirely new its our law. No doubt it is provided by Statute that a Resolution of the House shall have a certain effect; for instance, in the Exchequer and Audit Act, 1866, a Resolution of the Whole House has an effect as regards Supply. So, too, the Customs Act of 1870 gives the Resolution of the House an effect as regards Ways and Means. Thus there is a precedent confined, as I proposed to confine it, to a Resolution of the House itself. There is no case where a Resolution of a mere Committee of Ways and Means has statutory effect so as to enable taxes to he levied. But let me deal with the difference in principle. The Committee of Ways and Means merely advises the House. The effect of the Committee Resolution is that "it is expedient" that a certain thing should be done. It is intended to be the foundation of a Bill. It is merely advisory. It never was intended to have operative effect. It is a preliminary to legislation. It is mere permission for a Bill to be brought in. I suggest that to enable a mere advisory step, passed in very general terms, to have the effect of law is not only novel but is an absolutely undesirable measure for this House to adopt.

Then there is this consideration, that a decision in Committee may, of course, be reversed or varied by the House. It has been more than once. If the Committee Resolution is varied or rejected by the House, what effect has it? If the Resolution is not adopted by the House, or if it be rejected, it will nevertheless have had effect during the period intervening between the two stages. But what will be the effect of the Resolution of the Committee after it has been reversed? Nothing is said here about the Resolution dropping when rejected by the House. You have a mere provision that a Resolution in Com- mittee, a merely deliberative Resolution, shall have the effect of a Statute in imposing taxation. There may be a delay of weeks or months between the two events. You may have the mere Ways and Means Resolution operating for months, so as to authorise millions of pounds to be levied, and then the Resolution may be rejected or varied or dropped, so that the whole of the transactions which took place upon it will ultimately be found to be outside the law, and there will have to be a most elaborate process of recoupment. Then you will have to begin over again. I do not think hon. Members realise how searching the effect of such a Resolution as this is. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that if he wants taxation by Resolution it should be not by Resolution of the Committee merely, but by Resolution of the whole House. That would give, at all events, some little time for consideration. As I said previously, the terms of the Committee Resolution are very wide, and they are hardly known when it is passed in Committee. If it has to be passed by the whole House we shall have a chance of seeing it in print, and we shall have a little more time for considering its effect.

As regards the only argument used in favour of the Resolution which has much weight—the argument of forestalling—I think there is very little in it from this particular point of view. I am not one of those who favour having the Report stage on the same day as the Resolution is passed in Committee. I think we ought to have a little more opportunity of knowing what the Committee have decided before the Report stage is taken. It has become a very common practice of the House for the Report stage to follow on the next day, so that there is at least an interval of twenty-four hours. In the case of an increase of duty, I do not think there would be any objection to the goods being retained in bond for twenty-four hours. They are now retained for a very much longer period. Further, if the Resolution were agreed to by the House on the following day, it could be made to take effect from the day it passed in Committee. The Bill would sanction that, and, this Amendment being accepted, the Resolution of the House itself would have statutory effect. To that I think there is less objection, although there is still a great deal of objection, than to giving that kind of statutory effect to a mere Resolution in Committee. The change may appear small, but it is important. It postulates some considered action, the action of the whole House, not of a Committee of the House, and I think the least that can be done is decide that a Resolution having statutory effect in taxing commodities shall at least have the sanction of the House itself, and not be a mere deliberative Resolution in Committee. I hope that, either to-day or later on in the Bill, the Government will accept the principle of this Amendment.

Mr. CASSEL

I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

This point was debated at very great length yesterday in another form. The hon. and learned Member has very clearly stated his grounds for moving the Amendment, but there is one thing the hon. Gentleman overlooked, and that is that he is really proposing a departure from the precedents of the last 150 years, because the Treasury, the Inland Revenue, and the Customs and Excise have always acted on Resolutions in Ways and Means, and if you look at Sir Erskine May's book you will find he says:— An anticipatory authority is imparted by usage to the Resolutions of the Committee of Ways and Means which impose or alter taxation. There is a very good reason why if you have got the Resolution in Ways and Means it should have immediate force. There is at least a whole day, and it might be two or three days, before your Resolution can be acted on if this Amendment be adopted. Meanwhile, dutiable commodities will have been cleared out of bond at a great rate. I am told, for instance, taking the increase of duty on spirits imposed in 1909, that in the course of a single day there might have been cleared goods to the value of anything between half a million and a million. That involves an increase of trouble to the officials. It is also inconvenient to the trade, and I am perfectly certain that, looking upon this as a purely business question, the trade would infinitely prefer the Resolution to come into operation immediately. It would be very much better for it. It has been the custom for at least 150 years, and it has been found to be convenient both to the trade and to the Exchequer. It would be a great mistake to depart from that in order to give further opportunities for forestalment of duty. Last night exaggerated importance seemed to me to be attached to the Report stage. The idea is that when you come to the Report stage the House decides, whereas in the other case it is only the decision of a Committee. That is rather a pedantic objection. After all, the Committee is a Committee of the Whole House. It is composed of the same Members. Every Member of the House may be present, and there is this additional advantage, that there is a much freer discussion, because Members can speak more than once. It is really a decision of the House, although it is called a decision of the Committee. The Report stage is an opportunity for revising rather than one for discussing the whole question over again. I remember the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), when Prime Minister, proposing in this House to eliminate the Report stage altogether, or to confine it merely to a revision of the Amendments made in Committee. There was a good deal to be said for that. The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil) last night spoke in favour of doing away with the Report stage altogether. I am not sure that that is not carrying it too far. I think there was a good deal to be said for the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London that the Report stage should not be opportunity for travelling over the whole of the ground again, but rather an opportunity for considering Amendments already made in Committee. If you give the country an opportunity to bring pressure upon the House of Commons, that means you must allow more than twenty-four hours to elapse. The few hours which elapse between Eleven o'clock one night and Three or Four o'clock the following afternoon, would not give anybody an opportunity of collecting the opinion of the electorate upon the question. There would have to be at least two or three weeks interval. In that time a good deal of material would be cleared out of bond, and it would make the tax perfectly futile, at any rate for that year.

Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON

Why not take a deposit?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

What right would you have to take a deposit?

Mr. PRETYMAN

I understood my hon. Friend's proposal to be that the duty shall be retrospective to the date of the passing of the Resolution in Ways and Means, and that the Bill should provide for that. If that were carried out, I cannot see that any of the difficulties the Chancellor of the Exchequer points out would arise.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Suppose you make it retrospective, how are you to follow the suggestion made by the hon. Member (Mr. Mitchell-Thomson) and demand a deposit? If you demand a deposit that presupposes that your Committee Resolution has some regular effect. In that matter there is very little between the hon. Gentleman and ourselves. I am not sure that I would not be prepared to consider that on the Committee stage of the Bill. I am not sure that the trade would prefer that method; on the whole I think they would prefer to pay for the commodities they took out. At any rate, there is very little between that and the proposal of the Government. It does mean that the Resolution would have some operative effect the moment it is carried, otherwise you cannot demand a deposit. You must have a right to demand a deposit. That is the proposal made now, I think, for the first time, and I should not like to reject it without further consideration. It is not the proposal which is before the House. The proposal before the House is that the Resolution should have no operative effect until agreed to by the House itself. That will really be a serious departure from the usage and custom which has been found to be so much to the convenience of the public, and I cannot accept it.

Mr. PRETYMAN

The House will largely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is not a great deal in comparison between a single decision of the Committee of Ways and Means and a single decision of the House on Report stage. The proposal is not to substitute the one for the other. It is a question of one being additional to the other. If this Amendment is accepted, you will have both. It is obvious that a decision on Report must be preceded by a decision of Ways and Means, and it is not a question of comparing the relative authority of a decision in Ways and Means with that of the Whole House.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

It means waiting until you get your Report stage, and, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows very well, you could never get the Report stage of these Resolutions until some days after the Committee stage.

Mr. PRETYMAN

I am not dealing with that point, but, with the point raised by the right hon. Gentleman as to the comparative weight of a decision in Ways and Means and of a decision on Report. I say they are cumulative. When we come to look at the question as between the administrative importance and what I may call the political importance, we see that the latter is more important than the former. When we are dealing with a totally new legislative and statutory proposal we must have regard to the larger aspect of it, and by accepting this Amendment you do make quite certain that this House will not, by a majority on a mere snap vote on a single occasion, upon a proposal which is not properly known to any single Member in this House or to a single individual outside this House, exercise the power of imposing taxes upon the subject. I agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it would not be a very great safeguard if it were supposed that the Report stage were to follow the Committee stage within one day. I agree that there would be no time for the country to consider the question, and that a week at least ought to elapse if public opinion is to have any real effect upon a proposal made in Committee and afterwards brought forward on Report. What we have to do now is to make the best of a bad business. It is not wholly satisfactory to the House or to the country even if the Amendment were accepted or not, but on the whole, taking into account the administrative side and also the constitutional side, I submit that on balance it would be an advantage to accept the Amendment on the distinct understanding that in the Bill which is to be founded upon this Resolution the duty would be made retrospective to the date of the passing of the original Resolution in Committee of Ways and Means.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

What about collection?

Mr. PRETYMAN

The difficulty of collection seems to be very much exaggerated. I speak with all deference on that point, but the right hon. Gentleman's expert advisers could deal with it. I do not see that there can be any great difficulty in collecting the duties. Why should there be any more difficulty than there was under the old arrangement? When a Resolution in Ways and Means was passed by general consent the duties were not paid for months. Now you would ask that the good sense of the community should do for a week or ten days what they have been previously in the habit of doing for months. There can be no insuperable difficulty about that. If there were, it would only be in certain minor cases, which would he very few and far between. The very small difficulties which might be created in regard to collection, provided the duty were made retrospective, would be a far less evil than that this House should assent to a tax being imposed on the whole of the subjects of the Crown by a mere single Resolution in a Committee of Ways and Means, without any single Member of the House knowing before the Resolution wet introduced what the nature of the new tax was to be. If the Amendment is accepted, and the Bill is founded upon that basis, so as to provide the greatest possible security for collection, it would be a very great advantage. I am glad to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer has agreed to consider this matter very carefully.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

The question of deposit.

Mr. PRETYMAN

It would be better to accept the Amendment subject to deposit than not at all. There was no difficulty in the old days with regard to deposit.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

Nobody knows better than the hon. and gallant Gentleman that in the old days there was a general assumption that it was legal. It is true that after the prorogation it was known not to be legal. It was only assumed to be legal during the particular Session. In 1909, although we continued collection, we lost a considerable sum.

Mr. PRETYMAN

Would it be worth anybody's while to wait for a week after the Resolution was passed, when they knew they would have to pay? The risk is very small, and cannot be weighed in the balance against the very undesirable constitutional consequences of passing this Resolution without the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS

I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer has failed to grasp the argument of the Mover of the Amendment. I understood his object was to provide a safeguard against a mistake. If a Resolution of Ways and Means were carried by a very small majority, it might be necessary to test the real feeling of the House upon a second Resolution taken the next day or upon the Report stage. That would be a safeguard against a mistake being made. Very great care has been taken with regard to financial procedure in this House. There is no procedure in this House with regard to which greater pains have been taken to safeguard against mistakes. We all know that before the Budget Bill can be brought in we have to go through the procedure of passing Resolutions in Committee and on Report. Then the Finance Bill is introduced, and it has to go through all its stages. That has been done to guard against mistakes and to give the House a fair opportunity of correcting any mistake. I do not see any objection to the operative part of this proposal waiting until the

Resolution has been confirmed on Report. You might have to wait perhaps only a day, and there would be no inconvenience if the operative part is dated back to the date of the Resolution passed in Ways and Means. If that is done, I do not see how any revenue can be lost. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will reconsider his decision not to accede to the request of my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Cave), but will accept it when the Bill is introduced.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided: Ayes, 233; Noes, 91.

Division No. 33.] AYES. [7.45 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) Devlin, Joseph Illingworth, Percy H.
Acland, Francis Dyke Donelan, Captain A. Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus
Adamson, William Doris, W. John, Edward Thomas
Addison, Dr. Christopher Duffy, William J. Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)
Agnew, Sir George William Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe)
Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney)
Armitage, Robert Esslemont, George Birnie Jowett, Frederick William
Arnold, Sydney Falconer, J. Joyce, Michael
Baker, H. T. (Accrington) Farrell, James Patrick Keating, Matthew
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles Kellaway, Frederick George
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson Kelly, Edward
Barnes, George N. Ffrench, Peter Kennedy, Vincent Paul
Beale, Sir William Phipson Field, William Kilbride, Denis
Beauchamp, Sir Edward Fitzgibbon, John King, J.
Beck, Arthur Cecil Fiavin, Michael Joseph Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)
Bentham, George Jackson Furness, Stephen W. Lardner, James C. R.
Black, Arthur W. Gelder, Sir William Alfred Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)
Boland, John Pius George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd Leach, Charles
Booth, Frederick Handel Gill, A. H. Levy, Sir Maurice
Bowerman, C. W. Ginnell, L. Lundon, T.
Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North) Gladstone, W. G. C. Lyell, Charles Henry
Brace, William Glanville, Harold James Lynch, Arthur Alfred
Brady, Patrick Joseph Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)
Brocklehurst, W. B. Goldstone, Frank McGhee, Richard
Brunner, J. F. L. Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland) Maclean, Donald
Bryce, J. Annan Greig, Colonel J. W. MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)
Buckmaster, Stanley O. Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) Macpherson, James Ian
Burke, E. Haviland- Guilaed, John Wiliam MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Burns, Rt. Hon. John Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) M'Callum, Sir John M.
Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas Hackett, John M'Kean, John
Byles, Sir William Pollard Hall, Frederick (Normanton) McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Carr-Gomm, H. W. Hancock, John George M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.)
Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood) Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) Manfield, Harry
Chancellor, H. G. Hardie, J. Keir Marshall, Arthur H.
Chapple, Dr. William A. Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) Meagher, Michael
Clancy, John Joseph Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Clough, William Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.E.) Middlebrook, William
Clynes, J. R. Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) Millar, James Duncan
Collins. G. P. (Greenock) Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry Molloy, M.
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J Hayden, John Patrick Molteno, Percy Alport
Condon, Thomas Joseph Hayward, Evan Montagu, Hon. E. S.
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. Hazleton, Richard Mooney, John J.
Cotton, William Francis Henderson, Arthur (Durham) Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Cowan, William Henry Henry, Sir Charles Muldoon, John
Crawshay-Williams, Eliot Higham, John Sharp Munro, R.
Crooks, William Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. Murphy, Martin J.
Crumley, Patrick Hodge, John Needham, Christopher T.
Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) Hogge, James Myles Norman, Sir Henry
Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) Holmes, Daniel Turner Nugent, Sir Walter Richard
Dawes, J. A. Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Delany, William Hudson, Walter O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)
Denman, Hon. R. D. Hughes, S. L. O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)
O'Dohorty, Philip Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) Toulmin, Sir George
O'Donnell, Thomas Robertson, John M. (Tyneside) Trevelyan, Charles Philips
O'Grady, James Robinson, Sidney Wadsworth, John
O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)
O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) Roche, Augustine (Louth) Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)
O'Malley, William Roe, Sir Thomas Wardle, George J.
O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) Rowlands, James Waring, Walter
O'Shaughnessy, P. J. Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
O'Shee, James John Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
O'Sullivan, Timothy Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) Webb, H.
Outhwaite, R. L. Scanlan, Thomas White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)
Pearce, William (Limehouse) Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir C. E. White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph (Rotherham) Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B. Wiles, Thomas
Phillips, John (Longford, S.) Sheehy, David Williams, John (Glamorgan)
Pollard, Sir George H. Shortt, Edward Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) Simon, Sir John Allsebrook Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)
Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe) Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
Pringle, William M. R. Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton) Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)
Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Reddy, M. Snowden, Philip Wing, Thomas
Redmond, John E. (Waterford) Taylor, John W. (Durham) Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow)
Redmond, Wiliam Archer (Tyrone, E.) Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) Young, William (Perth, East)
Rendall, Athelstan Tennant, Harold John
Richardson, Albion (Peckham) Thomas, J. H. TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Wedgwood Benn and Mr. W. Jones.
Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Roberts, Charles H, (Lincoln) Thorne, William (West Ham)
NOES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Gilmour, Captain John Perkins, Walter F.
Baird, John Lawrence Glazebrook, Capt. Philip K. Peto, Basil Edward
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Goldman, C. S. Pollock, Ernest Murray
Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) Grant, James Augustus Pretyman, E. G.
Barnston, Harry Greene, Walter Raymond Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Barrie, H. T. Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds) Rawson, Colonel R. H.
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton) Haddock, George Bahr Rees, Sir J. D.
Bigland, Alfred Henderson, Major H. (Berks) Rolleston, Sir John
Bird, A. Hewins, William Albert Samuel Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)
Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) Hibbert, Sir Henry F. Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)
Boyton, James Hickman, Colonel T. E. Sanders, Robert Arthur
Bridgeman, W. Clive Hoare, S. J. G. Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l, Walton)
Bull, Sir William James Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Burn, Colonel C. R. Hume-Williams, Wm. Ellis Steel-Maitland, A. D.
Butcher, J. G. Ingleby, Holcombe Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, N.)
Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.) Kebty-Fletcher, J. R. Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)
Cassel, Felix Kerry, Earl of Talbot, Lord E.
Cave, George Kimber, Sir Henry Terrell, G. (Wilts, N. W.)
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) Lewisham, Viscount Thomson. W. Mitchell- (Down, N.)
Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) Tryon, Captain George Clement
Chaloner, Col. R. G. W. M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A. Weston, Colonel J. W.
Clay, Captain H. H. Spender M'Neill, Ronald, (Kent, St. Augustine's) Wills, Sir Gilbert
Cooper, Richard Ashmole Magnus, Sir Philip Winterton, Earl
Craik, Sir Henry Malcolm, Ian Wolmer, Viscount
Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian Mason, James P. (Windsor) Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Dalrymple, Viscount Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Falle, B. G. Newman, John R. P. Yate, Col. C. E.
Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey Norton-Griffiths, J.
Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A. TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Fell and Mr. S. Roberts.
Forster, Henry William Peel, Lieut.-Colonel H. F.
Gibbs, G. A.

Question put accordingly, "That the words 'The Committee of Ways and Means of stand part of the Resolution."

The House divided: Ayes, 230; Noes, 90.

Division No. 34.] AYES. [7.55 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) Beale, Sir William Phipson Bryce, J. Annan
Acland, Francis Dyke Beauchamp, Sir Edward Buckmaster, Stanley O
Adamson, William Beck, Arthur Cecil Burke, E. Haviland-
Addison, Dr. C. Bentham, G. J. Burns, Rt. Hon, John
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. Black, Arthur W. Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Agnew, Sir George William Boland, John Pius Byles, Sir William Pollard
Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) Booth, Frederick Handel Carr-Gomm, H. W.
Armitage, Robert Bowerman, C. W. Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood)
Arnold, Sydney Boyle, D. (Mayo, North) Chancellor, H. G.
Baker, Harold T. (Accrington) Brace, William Chapple, Dr. William Allen
Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) Brady, P. J. Clancy, John Joseph
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) Brocklehurst, W. B. Clough, William
Barnes, G. N. Brunner, John F. L. Clynes, J. R.
Collins, G. P. (Greenock) Illingworth, Percy H. Phillips, John (Longford, S.)
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus Pollard, Sir George H.
Condon, Thomas Joseph John, Edward Thomas Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)
Cotton, William Francis Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) Pringle, William M. R.
Cowan, William Henry Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts., Stepney) Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)
Crawshay-Williams, Eliot Jowett, Frederick William Reddy, Michael
Crooks, William Joyce, Michael Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Crumley, Patrick Keating, Matthew Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)
Davies, E. William (Eifion) Kellaway, Frederick George Rendall, Athelstan
Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) Kelly, Edward Richardson, Albion (Peckham)
Dawes, J. A. Kennedy, Vincent Paul Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)
Delany, William Kilbride, Denis Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)
Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas King, Joseph Roberts, George H. (Norwich)
Devlin, Joseph Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) Robertson, John M. (Tyneside)
Donelan, Captain A. Lardner, James C. R. Robinson, Sidney
Doris, William Lawson, Sir W. (Comb'rld, Cockerm'th) Roch, Walter F.
Duffy, William J. Leach, Charles Roche, Augustine (Louth)
Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) Levy, Sir Maurice Roe, Sir Thomas
Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) Lundon, Thomas Rowlands, James
Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) Lyell, Charles Henry Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter
Esslemont, George Birnie Lynch, Arthur Alfred Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)
Falconer, J. Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs) Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Farrell, James Patrick McGhee, Richard Scanlan, Thomas
Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles Maclean, Donald Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir C. E.
Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) Seely, Rt. Hon, Colonel J. E. B.
Ffrench, Peter Macpherson, James Ian Sheehy, David
Field, William MacVeagh, Jeremiah Shortt, Edward
Fitzgibbon, John M'Callum, Sir John M. Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook
Flavin, Michael Joseph M'Kean, John Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)
Furness, Stephen McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton)
Gelder, Sir William Alfred M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)
George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd Manfield, Harry Snowden, Philip
Gill, A. H. Marshall, Arthur Harold Taylor, John W. (Durham)
Ginnell, L. Meagher, Michael Taylor, Thomas (Bolton)
Gladstone, W. G. C. Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) Tennant, Harold John
Glanville, H. J. Middlebrook, William Thomas, J. H.
Goldstone, Frank Millar, James Duncan Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland) Molloy, M. Thorne, William (West Ham)
Greig, Colonel J. W. Molteno, Percy Alport Toulmin, Sir George
Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) Montagu, Hon. E. S. Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Gulland, John W. Mooney, John J. Wadsworth, J.
Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) Morton, Alpheus Cleophas Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince)
Hackett, John Muldoon, John Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent)
Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton) Munro, R. Wardie, G. J.
Hancock, John George Murphy, Martin J. Waring, Walter
Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) Needham, Christopher T. Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
Hardie, J. Keir Norman, Sir Henry Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) Nugent, Sir Walter Richard Webb, H.
Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)
Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.) O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Havelock-Alan, Sir Henry O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) Wiles, Thomas
Hayden, John Patrick O'Doherty, Philip Williams, John (Glamorgan)
Hayward, Evan O'Donnell, Thomas Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Hazleton, Richard O'Grady, James Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)
Henderson, Arthur (Durham) O'Kelly, Edward P, (Wicklow, W.) Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)
Henry, Sir Charles O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)
Higham, John Sharp O'Malley, William Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) Wing, Thomas
Hodge, John O'Shaughnessy, P. J. Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)
Hogge, James Myles O'Shee, James John Young, William (Perth, East)
Holmes, Daniel Turner O'Sullivan, Timothy
Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) Outhwaite, R. L. TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Wedgwood Ben's and Mr. W. Jones.
Hudson, Walter Pearce, William (Limehouse)
Hughes, Spencer Leigh Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)
NOES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Cassel, Felix Glazebrook, Capt. Philip K
Baird, J. L. Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Goldman, C. S.
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford Univ.) Grant, J. A.
Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) Greene, Walter Raymond
Barnston, Harry Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W. Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds)
Barrie, H. T. Clay, Captain H. H. Spender Haddock, George Bahr
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton) Cooper, Richard Ashmole Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon)
Bigland, Alfred Craig, E. (Cheshire, Crewe) Hewins, William Albert Samuel
Bird, A. Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian Hibbert, Sir Henry F.
Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) Dalrymple, Viscount Hickman, Colonel Thomas E.
Boyton, J. Falle, Bertram Godfrey Hoare, S. J. G.
Bridgeman, W. Clive Fell, Arthur Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian)
Bull, Sir William James Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey Hume-Williams, W. E.
Burn, Colonel C. R. Forster, Henry William Ingleby, Holcombe
Butcher, J. G. Gibbs, G. A. Kebty-Fletcher, J. R.
Campbell, Capt. Duncan F. (Ayr, N.) Gilmour, Captain J. Kerry, Earl of
Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) Pollock, E. M. Talbot, Lord E.
Lewisham, Viscount Pretyman, Ernest George Terrell, George (Wilts, N. W.)
Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)
M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A. Rawson, Col. R. H. Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North)
M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) Rees, Sir J. D. Tryon, Captain George Clement
Magnus, Sir Philip Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) Weston, Colonel J. W.
Malcolm, Ian Rolleston, Sir John Wills, Sir Gilbert
Mason, James F. (Windsor) Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen) Winterton, Earl
Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby) Wolmer, Viscount
Newman, John R. P. Sanders, Robert A. Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Norton-Griffiths, J. Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l, Walton) Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Orde-Powlett, Hon. G. W. A. Stanley, Han. G. F. (Preston) Yate, Colonel C. E.
Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F. Steel-Maitland, A, D.
Perkins, Walter F. Strauss. Arthur (Paddington, North) TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Cave and Sir H. Craik.
Peto, Basil Edward Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)
Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

claimed "That the Main Question be now put."

Main Question "That the House doth

agree with the Committee in the said Resolution" put accordingly.

The House divided: Ayes, 226; Noes, 86.

Division No. 35.] AYES. [8.4 p.m.
Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) Esslemont, George Birnie Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade)
Acland, Francis Dyke Falconer, James Lardner, James C. R.
Adamson, William Farrell, James Patrick Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th)
Addison, Dr. C. Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles Leach, Charles
Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson Levy, Sir Maurice
Agnew, Sir George William Ffrench, Peter Lundon, Thomas
Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) Field, William Lynch, Arthur Alfred
Armitage, R. Fitzgibbon, John Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)
Arnold, Sydney Flavin, Michael Joseph McGhee, Richard
Baker, H. T. (Accrington) Furness, Stephen Maclean, Donald
Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) Gelder, Sir W. A. MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South)
Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd Macpherson, James Ian
Barnes, George N. Gill, A. H. MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Beale, Sir William Phipson Ginnell, Laurence M'Callum, Sir John M.
Beauchamp, Sir Edward Gladstone, W. G. C. M'Kean, John
Beck, Arthur Cecil Glanville, H. J. McKenna, Rt. Hon, Reginald
Bentham, G. J. Goldstone, Frank Manfield, Harry
Black, Arthur W. Greenwood, Hamar (Sunderland) Markham, Sir Arthur Basil
Boland, John Pius Greig, Colonel James William Marshall, Arthur Harold
Booth, Frederick Handel Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) Meagher, Michael
Bowerman, C. W. Gulland, John W. Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)
Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North) Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) Middlebrook, William
Brace, William Hackett, J. Millar, James Duncan
Brady, P. J. Hail, Frederick (Normanton) Molloy, Michael
Brocklehurst, W. B. Hancock, J. G. Molteno, Percy Alport
Brunner, John F. L. Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) Mooney, John J.
Bryce, J. Annan Hardie, J. Keir Morton, Alpheus Cleophas
Buckmaster, Stanley O. Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) Muldoon, John
Burke, E. Haviland- Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) Munro, R.
Burns, Rt. Hon. John Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.) Needham, Christopher T.
Burt, Rt. Hon, Thomas Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry Norman, Sir Henry
Bytes, Sir William Pollard Hayden, John Patrick Nugent, Sir Walter Richard
Carr-Gomm, H. W. Hayward, Evan O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Chancellor, Henry George Hazleton, Richard O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)
Chapple, Dr. William Allen Henderson, Arthur (Durham) O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)
Clancy, John Joseph Henry, Sir Charles O'Doherty, Philip
Clough, William Higham, John Sharp O'Donnell, Thomas
Clynes, John R. Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. O'Grady, James
Collins, G. P. (Greenock) Hodge, John O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.)
Compton-Rickett, Rt. Hon. Sir J. Hogge, James Myles O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.)
Condon, Thomas Joseph Holmes, Daniel Turner O'Malley, William
Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)
Cotton, William Francis Hudson, Walter O'Shaughnessy, P. J.
Cowan, W. H. Hughes, Spencer Leigh O'Shee, James John
Crawshay-Williams, Eliot Illingworth, Percy H. O'Sullivan, Timothy
Crooks, William Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus Outhwaite, R. L.
Crumley, Patrick John, Edward Thomas Pearce, William (Limehouse)
Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham)
Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) Phillips, John (Langford, S.)
Dawes, J. A. Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) Pollard, Sir George H.
Delany, William Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts., Stepney) Price. C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)
Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas Jowett, Frederick William Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)
Devlin, Joseph Joyce, Michael Pringle, William M. R.
Donelan, Captain A. Keating, Matthew Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)
Doris, William Kellaway, Frederick George Reddy, Michael
Duffy, William J. Kelly, Edward Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) Kennedy, Vincent Paul Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.)
Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) Kilbride, Denis Richardson, Albion (Peckham)
Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) King, J. Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven)
Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton) Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Roberts, George H. (Norwich) Smyth, Thomas F. Leitrim, S.) Webb, H.
Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) Snowden, Philip White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston)
Robinson, Sidney Taylor, John W. (Durham) White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Roch, Water F. Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) Wiles, Thomas
Roche, Augustine (Louth) Tennant, Harold John Williams, John (Glamorgan)
Roe, Sir Thomas Thomas, J. H. Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen)
Rowlands, James Thorne, G. R. Wolverhampton) Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough)
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter Thorne, William (West Ham) Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) Toulmin, Sir George Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.)
Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) Trevelyan, Charles Philips Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)
Scanlan, Thomas Wadsworth, John Wing, Thomas
Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles E. Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.)
Seely, Rt. Hon. Colonel J. E. B. Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) Young, William (Perth, East)
Sheehy, David Wardle, George J.
Shortt, Edward Waring, Walter TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Wedgwood Benn and Mr. W. Jones.
Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John Allsebrook Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay
Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe)
NOES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Gilmour, Captain John Peto, Basil Edward
Baird, John Lawrence Glazebrook, Captain Philip K. Pretyman, Ernest George
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Goldman, C. S. Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) Greene, Walter Raymond Rawson, Col. Richard H.
Barnston, Harry Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds) Rees, Sir J. D.
Barrie, H. T. Haddock, George Bahr Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Bathurst, Charles (Wilts, Wilton) Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) Rolleston, Sir John
Bigland, Alfred Hewins, Wiliam Albert Samuel Rutherford, John (Lancs., Darwen)
Boyton, J. Hibbert, Sir Henry F. Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)
Bridgeman, W. Clive Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. Sanders, Robert Arthur
Bud, Sir William James Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'pool, Walton)
Burn, Colonel C. R. Hume-Williams, William Ellis Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Butcher, John George Ingleby, Holcombe Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, N.)
Campbell, Captain Duncan F. (Ayr, N.) Kebty-Fetcher, J. R. Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central)
Cave, George Kerry, Earl of Talbot, Lord Edmund
Cecil, Everyn (Aston Manor) Law, Rt. Hon, A. Bonar (Bootle) Terrell, George (Wilts, N. W.)
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) Lewisham, Viscount Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North)
Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North)
Chaioner, Colonel R. G. W. M'Calmont, Major Robert C. A. Tryon, Captain George Clement
Clay, Captain H. H. Spender M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) Weston, Colonel J. W.
Cooper, Richard Ashmole Malcolm, Ian Wills, Sir Gilbert
Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe) Mason, James F. (Windsor) Winterton, Earl
Craik, Sir Henry Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas Wolmer, Viscount
Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian Newman, John R. P. Wood, John (Stalybridge)
Dalrymple, Viscount Norton-Griffiths, J. Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Falle, Bertram Godfray Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A. Yate, Colonel C. E.
Fell, Arthur Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey Peel, Lieut.-Colonel R. F. TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Pollock and Mr. Cassel.
Forster, Henry William Perkins, Walter Frank
Gibbs, George Abraham

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Whitley, Mr. Masterman, and Sir Rufus Isaacs. Presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time to-morrow (Wednesday), and to be printed. [Bill 86.]