§ In lieu of the present Customs duties, drawbacks, and allowance in respect of sugar, molasses, glucose, and saccharin there shall, as from the fifth day of April, nineteen hundred and sixteen, be charged, levied, and paid the duties specified in the first column of Part I. of the First Schedule to this Act, and there shall be paid and allowed the drawbacks and allowance set out in Part II. of that Schedule.
§ Mr. LOUGHI beg to move to leave out Clause 5.
I am afraid it will seem very ungrateful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for me now to move that these duties be left out altogether, after the handsome way he has treated me over the other Amendment. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will excuse me. He knows I take a strong opinion with regard to this Sugar Tax, and whether I succeed in my proposal or not, the Committee, I think, will agree that it is a question of the greatest importance, and it is one which, I venture to say, this House has not sufficiently considered. The Clause which I propose to leave out refers to the Schedule, and proposes that certain new duties set out in the Schedule should come into operation instead of the present ones. Those changes may be all summed up by saying that a ½d. shall be added to the tax on sugar, and that makes about £7,000,000 additional tax imposed on sugar in this Budget, or a total tax on this third most important article of consumption in this country of £21,000,000 a year. Now this is a gigantic imposition, and as the price of sugar has been greatly raised, quite apart from the tax, I do think the matter ought to be carefully considered before we agree to this great additional burden. One of the points I desire to make with regard to this Sugar Duty is that this House does not know what is being made on sugar. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has admitted to us that sugar is being sold at a profit, 156 but we do not know how much profit. It is important we should be told, and we ought to have been told long since. This House has allowed for eighteen months the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Sugar Commission, a body in which I have no confidence whatever, to be the sole importer of sugar in this country, and to sell it at what price they like to the trade. I say that this has been done at a fearful cost to the nation, and the House of Commons has scarcely done its duty in allowing that to go on for so long. Beyond the duty we are imposing, the Chancellor is levying another secret duty, and has been doing so for a year past on sugar, and it is totally unconstitutional for this House to allow any burden to rest on the backs of the people without letting them know the amount, and without agreeing that its imposition is just and necessary in all the circumstances.
§ Mr. McKENNAI will explain that.
§ Mr. LOUGHI hope the right hon. Gentleman's explanation will not blind the eyes of the House into allowing any secret charge of this kind to be made without the people knowing all about it. I found amongst the letters awaiting me last night one of the monthly Returns issued by the Board of Trade dealing with the price of food. Only last week the Government appointed a Committee to inquire into the cost of food. The way the Government proceed in these matters is very mysterious, but this ought not to escape the vigilance of the Committee. One would think that the Government do not know why food is dear, but I would like to point out that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the great source of the dearness of sugar at any rate. [Laughter.] The Chancellor of the Exchequer laughs. I am very glad he is in a pleasant mood, because we are more likely to do better with him when he is in that mood. Nevertheless, I ask the Committee not to be put off any of these points by the merriment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I maintain that the right hon. Gentleman is mainly responsible for the dearness of sugar, and the Government are responsible for it since the commencement of the War. Some time ago the Prime Minister, with the feeling that lawyers know more about these matters than anybody else, secured the services of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deal with sugar, and then we heard rumours of the millions my right hon. Friend had invested in sugar. This information got 157 about, and my right hon. Friend took an easy way of settling the matter by taking charge of the supplies of sugar as they came in, and then he was in a position to do as he pleased. The result of the action of the Government in this matter has been that a burden of £20,000,000 has been placed on the backs of the people of this country. I have got here a paper showing the rates at which the prices of food have gone up. The table I am quoting from will be found on page 197 of the "Board of Trade Labour Gazette," and it is a very curious thing that whereas there have been advances in the price of everything else, sugar out-tops them all. Fourteen articles were taken, and the average shows an advance of 55 per cent., but in the case of sugar the advance is 155 per cent. When you take into account the fact that sugar is the third article in quantity, and more than that in cost, of the articles of food imported into this country, the Committee -will readily appreciate what an increase of 155 per cent, in the price means. I think lion. Members ought to think once and twice before putting another halfpenny per pound on this article.
But for the action of the Government this country would have been in an extraordinary position as compared with belligerent countries with regard to the rise in food prices. There are only fourteen articles dealt with in the table to which I have referred, and the average rise in price in small towns and villages in regard to those articles is 55 per cent., and I believe that sugar accounts for about 10 per cent, of the whole, so that the average rise might have been 40 per cent, or 45 per cent, only but for the extraordinary rise which has taken place in the price of sugar. That is a fact which I think the Committee ought to have before it in dealing with this tax. Owing to the action of the Government sugar is already so dear, and the burden on the backs of the people at the present moment is so great, that the Committee ought really to pause and consider once and twice before it adds another halfpenny per pound to this article. Supposing we were asked to place a tax of 12s. per quarter on wheat, what a fuss there would be here, and what Government could live and propose it? The Government, however, have done just as bad, for sugar is just as bad an article as wheat to tax, as far as the burden on the people is concerned. Many of my hon. 158 Friends behind me are rather suspicious about my views on this subject because I am a Free Trader, but I am sure they would sympathise with me if they thought there was anything in the nature of a tariff in my proposals; but the imposition of a heavy burden on the people, even from a Tariff Reformer's point of view, is of no good whatever to this country. It may be said that the production of sugar is not increasing and therefore the placing of a heavy burden on sugar comes as an undisguised blow on the backs of the people. When I agitated this question in reference to the Russian Sugar Convention, I remember having a conversation with the late Mr. Lowther, who was then the Member for Thanet, a man we all respected very much, although many of us differed from his opinions. Mr. Lowther used to say to me constantly, "Lough, you are perfectly right about sugar; I do not want any burden put on sugar, because we get it mostly from abroad, and we shall only be paying money into the pockets of the Germans at the cost of our own people." I do not want any burden of that kind on sugar, and Tariff Reformers, if there are any here now, ought to support me in putting in a protest against this heavy burden being placed on sugar.
4.0 P.M.
I have tried to find out broadly what the price of sugar was before the War, and I have been told that for ten years the average price of sugar before the War ranged from 1¾d. to 2d. per pound, and that was what we were paying for sugar then. To-day we are paying from 5¼d. to 5½d. per pound for granulated sugar, and 6d. per pound for cubes, and the Sugar Duty is two and a half times as great as it was then. The rise is 150 per cent., and it really means that this great article of consumption, which is the basis of many of our manufactures, has been raised in price from 2d. to 6d. per pound, and I maintain largely raised by the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have to come back once again to the merriment my right hon. Friend displayed when I first made that charge definitely against him. I want to make the matter perfectly clear to the Committee, because I want in this effort to carry everybody with me. How is it that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has raised the price of sugar to 6d. per pound? It is simply because he shuts the 159 ports to sugar. If we can get sugar cheap, what harm will it do to let us have it?
§ Mr. McKENNAWhere from?
§ Mr. LOUGHAnywhere. I am not going to answer that question. If I begin to answer the right hon. Gentleman I put myself on a level with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a thing which I entirely protest against doing. Who is it that manages the supply of sugar? The right hon. Gentleman has the assistance of one or two small committees mainly composed of lawyers, but I believe in experts in dealing with sugar.
§ The CHAIRMANThis is not the occasion for that criticism. The proper occasion to criticise the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer administratively is when we are in Committee of Supply. I have no objection to the right hon. Gentleman bringing in the question of sugar control as far as it is relevant to the additional tax, but he must not use this occasion for criticising the Chancellor's action as Chairman of the Sugar Commission.
§ Mr. LOUGHI think your interruption is most reasonable. I was led into this digression by the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, because when a short time since I asked him when we should have an opportunity of discussing the sugar question he said, "On the Budget." I admit that answer was not binding, but you. Sir, have already given me all the liberty I desire. You have admitted that as far as it is relevant the matter may be mentioned. I do not want to push it one bit further. What good would I do my argument by pressing it further? The Government, instigated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has shut the ports of this country to sugar, and therefore he ought to hesitate before he puts on a tax of ½d per pound. Let us not get back into the argument whether the Government's handling of sugar since the War broke out has been all that it should have been. The question this afternoon is: Shall we add another halfpenny to the price? Shall we add this seven-million blow to our industries and this very heavy burden on the people of this country? I say that we ought to hesitate, and I will close by merely dealing with one argument which may be used against me. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will say that we must have 160 money. In the first place, you need not have the money. I believe that without this tax the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have £500,000,000 this year, and at any rate he is putting on other heavy burdens. There are many ways of getting the money besides this way, and whatever other means the Chancellor of the Exchequer might resort to, this is an exceedingly bad method, because, looking at the blow given to our manufactories as well as to the burden on the people of the country, it will probably cost a great deal more than the £7,000,000 which it will produce. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is in a very pleasant mood. Perhaps he has made up his mind to abandon the tax. If so, I should be very glad to hear that he is prepared to abandon the Clause.
§ Mr. ARNOLDI desire to associate myself with the right hon. Gentleman in his protest against this tax. All taxation should be equitable, economically sound, and productive. This tax is productive, but in so far as it is productive it is to a large extent inequitable and economically unsound in its incidence. Leaving out of account questions of equity as between rich and poor, the tax is inequitable as between poor and poor because the amount of a man's contribution through it depends not upon his ability to pay but upon the size of his family. The Sugar Duty now amounts to a charge of about 10d. a week on the working man with an average family, and all the food duties, including sugar, come to about 1s. 6d. a week. I do not think it requires very much imagination to realise that those are very heavy items for poor households, where every penny has to be watched. We are told, however, that all such considerations should be set on one side because we are at war, but I submit that is a reason why all the more attention should be paid to them. Sugar, as everybody knows, is a great producer of physical energy, and this tax is trenching on the margin of subsistence in hundreds of thousands of families, and is tending to reduce the efficiency of the workers, and it is doing that at this critical juncture when it is most important that the physical capacity of the workers should be maintained at a maximum level, because it is vital that the productive output of the country, not only in munitions but in many other industries as well, should be as large as possible, and, indeed, the successful prosecution of the War depends in no small degree on this being 161 accomplished. Moreover, this is not a War Tax in the sense that it will terminate when the War ends. We should constantly bear in mind that we are budgeting, not only for the present year, but in all probability for many years ahead. For my part I see small prospect of any substantial reduction in any of the War Taxes which have been imposed for a long period to come, and therefore it is all the more wrong to impose on the poorer classes this heavy burden, a burden which will remain when the lean days have come upon us. I recognise, of course, that money must be got for the prosecution of the War. As much money should be raised from revenue as can wisely be obtained, but money may be got too dearly if it means any lessening of health or efficiency, and however great the emergency it is not right to increase the Sugar Duty to the level which is proposed. This is all the more true in view of the great increase which has taken place in the cost of living. That increase is, of course, proportionately a much heavier burden on the poorer classes than on other classes. The rise in food prices alone now amounts to a charge of nearly 10s. a week on the working man with an average family. That is a very serious matter, especially for the poorer households, say, for the man with 30s. a week.
I hold that in principle no taxation on the necessaries of life should be levied on those who are below the level of subsistence, and owing to the prevailing high prices many of the poorer classes are having a hard struggle to make both ends meet. It is true, on the other hand, that large numbers of the workers are, for the time being, earning high wages and their position has been improved, but such improvement will, in all probability, only be temporary. The prosperity is likely to pass away, but the Sugar Duty is much more likely to remain. If the Chancellor could impose this tax for the period of the War solely on the better-paid workers well and good, but that is exactly what he cannot do, and it is the inherent vice of the Sugar Duty and all kindred taxes that they fall alike both on those who can afford to pay and on those who cannot afford to pay, and in levying these taxes the Chancellor is creating much more inequity than equity. Whereas, as I have said, many of the workers are enjoying a period of temporary prosperity, it is a great mistake to suppose, as some people seem to do, that all the poorer classes are 162 rolling in wealth. Nothing could be more untrue. As a matter of fact large numbers of them, owing to the increased cost of living, are no better off in real wages than they were before the War. Amongst these are the old age pensioners, who number nearly a million, some sections of industrial workers, particularly in the printing and building trades, and in certain branches of the textile trades, many railwaymen, post-office servants, policemen, and municipal employés, despite war bonuses, and the vast majority of the clerk and shop-assistant class and lodging-house keepers, especially on the East Coast, and tens of thousands of widows and spinsters and people with very small fixed incomes, and lastly, though by no means least in importance, the families of many of the better-paid artisans who have gone to the War. In the case of the better-paid workers the separation allowance does not equal the wages previously earned, and also, be it remembered, the separation allowances were fixed in the autumn of 1914 to meet a cost of living which was very much lower than it is now. Owing to the high prices at present ruling many of these persons I have enumerated have been driven near or below the level of subsistence, and they ought not to be called upon to bear certainly not on the necessaires of life, and sugar is a necessary of life, such a heavy indirect tax as is involved in this duty, and I say this quite irrespective of whatever tax may be levied on the direct taxpayers, for all of them have a considerable margin above the subsistence level. Further, I should like, in passing, to point out that a great majority of the direct taxpayers, who pay Super-tax, or who pay Income Tax at the higher rates, are men above the military age, and a few are ladies. Neither of these classes can go to the War, and therefore it is only right that they should contribute heavily in money, and should continue to contribute heavily in money when the War is over. Moreover, if, owing to the war, their income in reduced, or, again, if the income of direct taxpayers who are fighting in the War is reduced, they get corresponding relief from liability for Income Tax. I am not complaining of that. It is only just, but it is very different with the Sugar Duty. This tax goes on all the time, however much income is reduced. It is a hardship now on the families of many of our soldiers who 163 are fighting at the War. They cannot avoid or evade it. It eats into separation allowances, and it will remain a burden on our soldiers when they return from the War.
One of the main reasons given by the Chancellor for increasing the Sugar Duty was to bring the price of sugar more in conformity with the quotation in New York. He said that we were selling sugar wholesale in bond at a slightly lower price than in New York, and therefore he must impose this duty to adjust the matter. Personally, I am not impressed with this argument, and I think it will be small consolation to the poorer classes to be told that, although their sugar is costing them more, it is not costing them more than it would do if they lived in New York, though I am not sure that the retail price of sugar in New York is as high as here. But, however, that may be, I think the poorer classes are entitled to ask, not only what is the price of sugar in New York, but what is the price of all other articles of food in New York now as compared with before the War. If this inquiry is made the reply must be that, although sugar has risen in price in New York, the general rise in food prices has been infinitely less than here. According to the latest returns the general rise in food prices in the United States during the War has been about 4 per cent., as against 59 per cent. here. Why, then, should sugar be singled out for this exceptional treatment? If New York is to be the standard I should have thought that sugar should be taxed as little as possible, in order to do something to adjust the general average of food prices as between the two countries This contention has, I think, all the more force because, after all, the Government has not shown any very great zeal in attempting to arrest the upward cost of food prices in this country. I know the difficulties of the problem, but I do think they might have done more than they have done, and apparently they now think so themselves, because they have at last appointed a Committee to investigate the matter. Meanwhile, it is certainly unfortunate that, in the case of sugar, that is the one article where the Government do control the price, they raise it very materially by this duty. So much so that sugar has risen much more in price than any other article in the Board of 164 Trade list of food commodities. In fact, it is now about two and a half times the price it was when the War broke out. [An HON. MEMBER: "No, no!"] If my hon. Friend will refer to the "Labour Gazette" he will find that fact stated officially. I think the Government policy should have been to have taxed sugar as little as possible, so as to have done something to reduce the general upward tendency of food prices here.
I have one further point. When introducing the Budget the Chancellor said that the additional ½d. to be got from sugar would be imposed on the price, and he would take it in the form of duty, as if it were a matter of indifference whether the ½d. were put on the price or on the duty. In point of fact there is a most important difference. If the ½d. had been put on the price I should still think it, in all the circumstances, a wrong thing to do, but in the long run it would be far less burdensome to put the ½d. on the price rather than on the duty, because later on, when the War is over and the sale of sugar is not in Government hands, the price will adjust itself, but having put the £d. on the duty the burden is likely to remain. Clearly, if it is sought simply to make the quotation conform more nearly with New York, the ½d. should have been put on the price instead of on the duty. The fact is the whole of this New York argument will not bear serious investigation, and it only shows that the Chancellor is hard put to it to justify a tax which he has been most eloquent in denouncing in past years. The Chancellor has also sought to defend his policy on the ground that the increased price and higher duty have not materially reduced the consumption of sugar, but I do not think that means that the increased price is little or no burden. On the contrary, I think the correct conclusion to be drawn is that the great bulk of sugar used in the country is an absolute necessity and the people must have it, although the price has risen, just as they must have bread, and if bread were taxed I should not expect to see the consumption reduced, and I should be sorry if it were reduced.
It is true that a small proportion of the total sugar consumed in the country is used in what may be termed luxury trades for the making of confectionery, sweets, and so forth, and if the Chancellor desires to see the consumption of sugar reduced on sound lines here is his opportunity. Let 165 the Government further curtail the amount -of sugar supplied to these trades. This is a practical proposition, and if it is given effect to some of the labour engaged in these non-essential occupations would be freed for other and more useful purposes, a certain amount of mercantile tonnage would be saved, consumption of sugar would be somewhat reduced, and the price of sugar required for the necessary needs of the people might be slightly lowered. I do venture to hope that he will at least give favourable consideration to the proposal I have made.
§ Mr. McKENNAMy right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Lough) and my hon. Friend who has just spoken (Mr. Arnold) have made speeches in opposition to the proposed increase of duty of ½d. on sugar. My right hon. Friend did not confine himself to his Motion, but he addressed the major part of his remarks to the activities of the Sugar Commission. It is true he was ruled out of order, and was informed that while it might be proper to make a reference to the activities of the Commission it would not be proper to enter either into a general attack or a general defence of the work of that body. I therefore will only make this reference in passing, to the prices of sugar sold duty free—the present prices of sugar in bond, and having stated that I shall have done with that part of the question. At this moment the wholesale price in bond of sugar in this country is lower than the wholesale price of sugar in America, also in bond.
§ Mr. OUTHWAITECan the right hon. Gentleman tell us the price in America?
§ Mr. McKENNA30s. 6d. to day. I think there is some duty.
§ Mr. OUTHWAITECan the right hon. Gentleman give us the retail prices?
§ Mr. McKENNAI hope I may be allowed to go on with my argument. The wholesale price in bond is cheaper to-day in London than in New York. It appears to be overlooked by my right hon. and hon. Friends that before the War our main source of supply of sugar was beet sugar obtained from enemy countries. We were, in fact, exclusively supplied with German and Austrian sugar, and the price which they have given us as the pre-war price of sugar represents the price of German and Austrian beet sugar. The withdrawal of German and Austrian beet sugar from the world's market has greatly restricted the 166 supply of sugar for the general consumption of the world outside Germany and Austria. We have to remember that those two countries were almost the biggest exporters of sugar in the world. I say "almost," because more sugar was obtained from Cuba than refined sugar from Germany and Austria. The outbreak of War withdrew at once from the world's supply of sugar an enormous source in the German and Austrian output. The effect was immediately a rise in the price of sugar. What my right hon. and hon. Friends overlooked is this great fact, that to-day it is no longer German and Austrian beet which governs the price of sugar for consumption in this country. At this moment it is the price of Cuban sugar which governs the price of sugar in the American markets. Cuban sugar is now the great source of supply during these months of the year—the great source of supply of raw sugar—and it is the price of Cuban sugar which governs the price of American refined sugar in the American market. When my hon. and right hon. Friends complain of the price of sugar in this country, they must remember that we do not produce sugar, either in our own country or in any of our Colonies, in any appreciable degree. We have to depend on foreign supplies.
§ Mr. McKENNAThere is no export of Indian sugar; they consume their own. We have to depend for consumption in this country on foreign sugar. We get a certain amount from the West Indies and Mauritius, but in the main we have to depend on Cuba and Java. Consequently, the price of sugar is entirely outside the control of the Sugar Commission, or, as my hon. Friend seems to think, my control. It depends entirely on the price of the raw material in Cuba and Java. The raw material has risen in price owing to the restricted supply by the destruction of the German and Austrian sources. Owing to that restricted supply the price has risen all over the world. It has risen, as my right hon. Friend correctly points out, to a greater degree than the price of any other article. Obviously that would be the case, because in no other instance were Germany or Austria the main sources of supply. As this source of supply has been closed to the world we have, necessarily, a greater world demand for the limited product. We now, as I say, sell in this 167 country, wholesale in bond, sugar cheaper than it is sold in America in bond. We cannot continue to do that. We can only do it now because in the past we have bought large quantities of sugar at prices far below the present prices. We anticipated there would be a great rise in sugar, and consequently bought as much as we could while prices were still low. But I warn the Committee if there is no fall in the price of sugar we cannot continue to sell it below cost price. So far from anticipating a drop in the price of sugar, I anticipate there will have to be a rise in the price of sugar sold by the Sugar Commission. My hon. Friend asks, "Do we sell it cheaper here retail than do the Americans?" You have to add to our wholesale price in bond our duty of 1-Jd., and as our duty is far higher than the American duty we cannot, of course, sell it cheaper retail than the Americans do. But I will say this, that if the markets were open, having regard to the existing American wholesale prices, having regard to the existing freights, and having regard to the existing retail profit on sugar, if there were no duty—if the ports were open, there would still be no profit on the price of sugar to-day in this country. We sell it, having regard to the cost of freight and insurance—we sell it at a price lower than the American price, and the difference is very nearly the equivalent of the whole of that duty. Now I come to the duty itself, and to the question whether sugar is a proper subject for a Customs Duty. If we realised the whole of the sugar which we now hold at existing prices our profit would be something like £2,000,000, and it is because of that profit that we are enabled to sell the sugar cheaper than we are actually buying it at the moment.
§ Mr. LOUGHDoes the right hon. Gentleman mean that, suppose the account was closed now, and the balance of the stock sold, the amount of profit realised by the Government deal would be £2,000,000?
§ Mr. McKENNAYes, if ail our stocks were sold at the present price and the business closed, the amount of the profit would be £2,000,000. It is necessary to keep some profit of that kind in hand, because in going out of business we shall have to sell off our stocks and be at the mercy of the market. Now, as to the tax itself. Sugar was sold before the War at from 2d. to 2¼d. per pound. At that price there was a total consumption in this 168 country of about 1,800,000 tons—an enormous consumption! It was a consumption far greater than that of any other European country. It cannot therefore be said that a consumption of that magnitude was necessary for health. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Because the health of the other countries, both of colder and warmer climates in Europe, was maintained with a consumption varying from something like one-fourth to one-half of ours.
§ Mr. OUTHWAITEDid that include sugar used in manufactured articles and exported from this country?
§ Mr. McKENNAThat included the whole of the sugar used in manufacture and exported, which is not a very large proportion of the whole. The price has now risen from 2d. or 2¼d. up to 5d. or 5¼d. Notwithstanding that enormous increase in price the consumption has not been very greatly reduced. So little has the consumption been reduced that for other reasons, namely, of freight and now of exchange, we have found that we have had to use compulsion to reduce consumption. That is to say, that putting up the price has not been a sufficient inducement to cut down consumption from that enormous pre-war level, far higher here than in any other country in Europe, and we have had to reduce the consumption by limiting the amount which we will sell week by week. Let us see what that really means, and if it can possibly mean, as my hon. Friend suggests, that the masses of the people in this country are being seriously affected by the Sugar Duty. We know, according to experience, that whenever the price of sugar rose owing to the ordinary fluctuations of the market there was a great reduction in consumption. For instance, in 1911, owing to the comparative failure of the beet crop, sugar went to a price not very much below the price in bond to-day. The duty then, of course, was very much smaller. My right hon. Friend will remember that fact. Immediately on that increase of price the consumption was greatly lowered. But it has not been lowered to-day to that level,, showing, as proved beyond the possibility of contradiction, that the power to purchase sugared articles to-day is greater than it was in 1911. I quite admit that my hon. Friend can make an excellent case against this or any other tax in individual cases. He is a champion of the Income Tax as 169 against the Sugar Tax. He says the Sugar Tax is inequitable not merely as between the rich and poor, but as between poor and poor, and he gives the case of a poor man with a large family who has to spend more on sugar than a poor man with a small family. But that is just as true of the Income Tax.
§ Mr. W. ROCHThe Income Tax payer gets abatement.
§ Mr. McKENNAYes, he gets abatement for children under a certain age. The man who has a great many children, who is also a poor man, may be supporting his sisters, or his father and mother, and has other expenses which he cannot get rid of. It is just as true of the Income Tax and can be shown to be just as true of every tax. The only answer to all these arguments is, "Do not tax at all." We have to raise a revenue to the amount of £500,000,000. We must raise a revenue even of that gigantic total if we are to maintain our credit, to finance ourselves and to assist in financing our Allies in the War. If we are to undertake that great burden we cannot help imposing taxes upon every class. I readily admit that all the taxes we impose will operate, in individual cases, with great hardship and great inequity. I make my hon. Friend a present of that admission, but I may assure him that if he stood in my place he would never dream of giving up this tax. He would know that with an Income Tax of 5s. in the £ the burden of the inequities which exist in that tax operates far more unfairly than the inequities which I admit exist in the case of the Sugar Tax. If the Income Tax were 1s. in the £ and I had to choose between the addition of another 2d. or 3d. to the Income Tax or a ½d. to the Sugar Tax, I would unhesitatingly say, "Add to the Income Tax." When the Income Tax is at 5s. in the £ my hon. Friend does not know, or does not appreciate, the extraordinary hardships which necessarily arise. I would appeal to the Committee not to be led away by the force of the argument, which is undoubtedly true when the Income Tax is low, into believing that we can get a remedy for all our tax evils by adding to an Income Tax which is already 5s. in the £.
I have endeavoured to show, first, that sugar is an article which is consumed in this country now to an amount greater than is consumed in any other country in Europe. Secondly, I show that it is consumed to a degree greater than our freight, 170 or our power to find foreign exchange—it all has to be paid for abroad—can allow; and, thirdly, I have shown that it has been necessary to cut down the consumption, not merely by adding to the tax, but by limiting the amount which comes into the country and by limiting the sales and consequently making people go short altogether. When we find these three conditions existing in regard to an article, I put it to the Committee that it is proper that taxation which has to be imposed should be imposed in respect of an article of that kind. We must cut down the consumption because we carry the sugar; we must cut down the consumption because we cannot, except with difficulty, pay for the sugar. Paying abroad is not the same thing as paying at home. When we pay abroad we have to pay with our capital securities. There is no other means of paying. There is a limit to the amount of our capital securities. We, therefore, have to cut down the consumption of the articles we import. There are two methods open to us in cutting down consumption of sugar—raising the price or prohibiting the sale. In either case the poor suffer; in either case they have to go short. Somebody has to suffer if we cut down the sales. [An HON. MEMBER: "Ration them with sugar!"] I wish my hon. Friend had to deal with the sugar-using trades, with the retail traders, with the wholesale traders and the manufacturers; he would then begin to know something of the difficulties of rationing. Rationing in this country is a very different thing from rationing in Germany. We have a great import and export trade to carry on. We are not self-contained, and the conditions are absolutely different. We may have to come to that, among other expedients, but do not let us come to an expedient of that kind before we must. If we have to cut down, as we must, the consumption of sugar, is there any better way than by raising the price by an increase of the duty, giving us at once a revenue and leaving the cutting down to the ordinary operations of supply and demand? I admit, of course, that it affects the poor. All taxation on necessary foodstuffs affect the poor; but we believe, and I put it to the Committee that the whole graduation of taxation, with this enormous Income Tax, has been based upon the assumption of making everybody and all classes pay according to their ability, and in that belief I beg the Committee to accept this additional tax of a ½d. on sugar.
§ Sir A. MONDThe right hon. Gentleman has made a very interesting speech on the subject before the Committee. We all sympathise with him, of course, in the difficulties in which he is placed. His speech fell into two parts, not altogether consistent. The first part of his speech was occupied with a great defence of the Committee he has set up and the sugar operations it has carried on. The right hon. Gentleman first prided himself on being in the position of being able to sell sugar cheap.
§ Mr. McKENNAIn bulk.
§ Sir A. MONDQuite so. He then prided himself on being in a position of being able to make it artificially dear. What is the object of buying it cheap? He has revenue to get, I know, but he cannot pride himself on the one hand upon having bought cheap, and on the other hand of producing artificial scarcity. The other part of his speech dealt with the question of production in the British Dominions.
§ The CHAIRMANI do not think the right hon. Gentleman was in the Committee when I dealt with that part of the subject earlier in the afternoon. There will be another occasion for a general sugar discussion. The question before the Committee is only whether the tax is justified in the present circumstances of the case.
§ Sir A. MONDI will not venture further on that point, except to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer went into it at great length, especially as to the sources of the supply. After your ruling, Sir, I will not pursue that subject. I will now deal with the question of the tax. The right hon. Gentleman says that we must curtail the supply of sugar and, therefore, must curtail the sale of what he has in hand. He lays down an extraordinary proposition which I was astonished to hear, namely, that whatever policy he adopts for raising the price or curtailing the supply, the poor must suffer. It is a doctrine which I am amazed to hear laid down by a member of a responsible Government. Imagine what an expression of opinion of that kind is going to carry outside the walls of this House. Enormous as the difficulties undoubtedly would be, the Government will have to overcome them before the people of this country will acquiesce in the doctrine that if suffering is to be imposed those least able are to bear it and the rich people 172 are to be excused. The proposition will not hold water that if anyone is to go short of sugar the poor must go short and the rich must have as much as they want and more than is good for them.
§ Mr. McKENNAI never said that.
§ Sir A. MONDThat is the logical conclusion.
§ Mr. McKENNAEvery rise in price of an article of general consumption obviously affects the poor more hardly than it does the rich. All other conclusions of my statement than that are entirely erroneous. That is a conclusion which I should have thought would be obvious.
§ Sir A. MONDIt is perfectly true that the conclusion is obvious. If owing to economic laws over which the Government has no control there is a rise in price it is obvious that those with the least purchasing power will suffer. Surely that is very different from the case of an article over which the Government has entire control and to which the ordinary economic laws therefore no longer apply. It is in the power of the Government to equalise what is always a hardship—a hardship sometimes produced by natural laws, but always a hardship, and one which the Government ought to endeavour to modify and not to intensify. The right hon. Gentleman is intensifying the economic difficulty by his tax. He has said that sugar would be dearer still, but he overlooks a growing danger, and that is the growing dissatisfaction of the mass of the people of this country at the increased cost of living. That is a difficulty which the Government apparently have realised by appointing a Committee of which my right hon. Friend (Mr. J. M. Robertson) is the chairman. It is apparently appointed in order to consider how to obviate the rise in the price of food. I should think their first recommendation would be that this tax should be taken off. That is the only practical recommendation they could make. What is the object of appointing a number of eminent people to discuss the question of how food is to be cheaper if this House on the other hand sits down solemnly and makes food dearer? This question is naturally becoming a very serious one. I come in contact with it perhaps in some ways more practically than my right hon. Friend as an employer of labour who gets claims for advances of wages based on the increased cost of living. These claims 173 are based on this contention, that the cost of living is going up, and therefore wages must be advanced, and when you get wages advanced you get back in the eternal vicious circle. You are not making these people pay the revenue. They are passing it on to the employer, who passes it on again. This is one of your fallacies, that you distribute it among people who can compel higher wages. You are placing the burden on the helpless people, on the old age pensioners, on women and children, on the people who are not enjoying higher wages. The curious position is that the better wages people are receiving the more they are in a position to pass on these duties, and the lower wages people are receiving, and the worse off they are, the more defenceless they are. The right hon. Gentleman says he must have this money for the purposes of our trade. We are not balancing our Budget at all. No one knows better than the right hon. Gentleman that all the increased taxation he is raising is a very small fraction indeed of the money which is required to pay for the War or to finance the Allies. All he is doing, and all he can do, is to raise as large an amount of taxation as may be reasonable during the War, in order to pay off as much of the War as he can. There is a huge balance that he has to borrow, and his choice is not necessarily between Income Tax and Sugar Tax, but between Sugar Tax and loan. The consideration that arises in my mind is this. Is it reasonable, in the middle of a great War like this, to intensify the burden on a large section of your population in order to avoid a trifling increase in your floating debt or your permanent loan?
§ Mr. McKENNAmade an observation which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
§ Sir A. MONDThat does not make it any better or any worse. It is not a good argument. The right hon. Gentleman is not financing the whole War out of revenue. His division must be an arbitrary one at the best, and therefore I think it is a perfectly legitimate consideration as to whether it is a wise thing at a moment like this to increase the difficulty, which is a growing difficulty, and to increase discontent, which is growing, at a critical moment of the War in order to raise a day and a half's cost of the whole War. That to my mind is a serious financial consideration, and I think it is a mistake to go on 174 piling taxes in this manner for what is only alter all in the long run a very trifling percentage of the total cost of the War. I quite understand the right hon. Gentleman feeling that he ought to raise as much taxation as he possible can, and that he has a willing public ready to make sacrifices, but there is a danger of driving a willing public too far. There is a danger of loading the patient donkey so far that the burden will become too great for him to carry. Automatic increases in cost will occur; all over the country you have petitions that old age pensions should be increased; you have a demand growing in volume and becoming more and more irresistible every day; you have increased demands for wages; you have increased demands in other directions. You are endeavouring to find means of reducing the cost of living, and it seems to me that it is flying in the face of the whole tendency of the present movement to go out of your way to increase the price of an article artificially which is of such enormous value as a foodstuff. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imply that because the British people consume more sugar than people in Continental countries, therefore they can do with a great deal less and maintain their present level of subsistence. The right hon. Gentleman makes a very great assumption. He assumes that all the people on the Continent have always been properly nurtured. That is the first time I have heard such an assumption made. It is a notorious fact that in all countries in the world, even in this country, but especially in highly Protectionist countries, a good many people are living under the proper margin of subsistence, and the fact that they did not consume more sugar did not show that they did not physiologically require more sugar in order to produce a better state of efficiency, but that they could not afford to buy the sugar.
The right hon. Gentleman now says you must cut down the people's sugar consumption and ration them, as Germany, Austria, and Hungary have done. You could do the same with meat and arrive at even more striking figures, and also with bread, when you would probably discover that the British people have been in the habit of consuming more foodstuffs of every description than any country ort the Continent. That argument is absolutely unsound. Has the right hon. Gentleman had any real expert advice from skilled hygienists in this country that 175 a diminution in sugar consumption would not be a bad thing either for growing children, to whom sugar is a most important food, or for people who are working hard and who have a natural tendency to eat more sugar at a time when the price of meat is rapidly rising? That is a thing the right hon. Gentleman must not forget—that the rapid rise in the price of meat will have a tendency to keep up the consumption of sugar, because sugar and meat in many physiological respects have the same effect on the human system. Therefore I do not think that argument of the right hon. Gentleman, effective as it may be from the debating point of view, will stand very much scientific investigation. The right hon. Gentleman says, as far as I can understand him, firstly, that he has not got the sugar, and therefore he must curtail its use. If you must curtail its use, curtail it as equitably as you can. Secondly, he says that everyone must bear burdens throughout this War. I have pointed out that, war or no war, it is not sound finance to throw burdens on shoulders least able to bear them, to endeavour in a concentrated period to overload those who are bearing the present struggle for the benefit of future generations for whose emancipation we are fighting. Thirdly, you are tending to endanger that very efficiency of the people of this country at a moment when you are asking them to make the greatest physical effort in order to continue the War. The points made by the right hon. Gentleman are not good points. All the objections urged against his increase of tax are unanswerable, and I think he would be well advised even at this moment to sacrifice his dearly beloved revenue and withdraw this increase on an already heavy tax.
§ Mr. McKENNAI will ask hon. Members to excuse my absence for a short while. There is a War Committee which I have to attend. I will come back.
§ 5.0 P.M.
§ Mr. DAVID MASONThe Chancellor of the Exchequer has made a speech ostensibly in support of this addition to his tax, but it was a most convincing speech in opposition to the arguments which he submitted. He gave the most eloquent and most convincing testimony that this increased tax should not be proceeded with. Austria and Germany have been big exporters of sugar in the past. The crop from Cuba varies, of course, but I think the average is under a million tons. The 176 right hon. Gentleman would have the Committee support him in his increase of this tax because the supply is limited. If the supply of an article is limited I cannot see what advantage is to be gained by increasing the tax upon it. It seems to me that is an argument in favour, not of increasing the tax but of letting it come in as freely as possible. To retard the import is not, surely, to improve the position. He has argued that his object is that this might perhaps decrease the consumption, but he admitted that, owing to the high level of wages and this great prosperity which we are at present enjoying, largely an artificial prosperity, the consumption had not decreased. He condemned himself out of his own mouth by saying that the high wages which the better working classes are enjoying have not led to any reduction, and that we were the only people who are suffering, and that this proposed addition falls most heavily upon those least able to bear it and those who are quite unable to stand a further increase. He referred to the old age pensioner. We know that a pension of 5s. per week is only worth about 3s. or 2s. 6d. compared with what it was worth previously, and we all know that there is to be an increased number of people in receipt of old age pensions and other pensions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself admitted that. He said that the better paid worker was not affected. We know that there are higher wages being paid on the average to-day than ever before in the history of the country, and it seemed to me that his argument, instead of convincing any single Member of the Committee to his view, was rather calculated to convince the Committee that it is a very serious crisis at which we have arrived. It seems to me that even at this eleventh hour we might appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to reconsider this proposal as to whether we should proceed with this increased duty. I hope that the proposer of this Amendment will proceed to a Division, because I am convinced that there is a large section of Members of this House on both sides who, while holding quite different fiscal opinions, are averse at this particular period to placing an increased burden upon the poorer classes of the community.
The right hon. Gentleman who moved this proposal and, I think, the right hon. Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) argued 177 that the only alternative to proceeding with this duty would be to increase the amount of money borrowed by Loan or by Treasury Bills, or some other form, and did not seem to think that that meant very much, because it was so small in comparison to the large amount which the Government have to raise in the shape of Loans. I did not quite follow the right hon. Gentleman in that argument. While I agree that the amount here involved, some £7,000,000, is not a very large amount, still it is a considerable item. I am entirely with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in raising as much revenue as possible from taxation which will not in any sense militate against the productive power of the country, but I do not agree with him that all taxation is alike, and that, all taxation would have the same effect. There are undoubtedly certain taxes which are sound taxes, but I think my hon. Friend (Mr. Arnold) showed that this tax particularly, because it is not equitable, and because it is not economically sound, is one which we are justified in opposing. I suggest that a much better method of raising the necessary revenue would have been to carry out the suggestion which I think was made by a former leader of the Labour party, who is now the Minister of Education, and that is to have a graduated Income Tax upon wages. Then you would have tapped the higher paid workmen, and you would not, as you will by this increased duty, penalise the poorer, underpaid worker. I do, therefore, ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the Government to reconsider this proposal, both in the interests of equity and in the interests of sound finance, because the fact that at a time like the present we are increasing the duty upon sugar, which is very likely to become a permanent part of our machinery, means that we are accentuating rather than alleviating the increased cost of living, and we are doing something which I believe to be both economically and financially unsound and unjust.
§ Sir J. D. REESIt does not seem to me to be quite honest to sit here and listen to the speech of the right hon. Member for Swansea (Sir A. Mond) without making a protest against the tone and substance of that speech. Any hon. Member could get up with the greatest ease and protest against any tax, particularly any indirect tax, on the ground that it affects the poor. I believe that every hon. and right hon. Member of this House as much regrets 178 every increased tax, and every additional burden placed upon the poor as the right hon. Member for Swansea, but they would not get up at a time like this and address the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the House in the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman did. It is very easy to make the difficult task of the Chancellor of the Exchequer more difficult at a time like this, but there is not one hon. Member who has spoken in the tone of the right hon. Gentleman and asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to sacrifice a miserable day's beloved revenue. How can the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the difficult task he has to perform, possibly apportion taxation, and endeavour to levy it all over the country fairly when he is met in that way by the right hon. Gentleman. I am unwilling to sit behind the right hon. Gentleman and listen to such a speech without entering my protest against it, although it is merely by accident that the right hon. Gentleman and I happen to be sitting together again. He says it is only a day's revenue. Is a day's revenue a small matter? Is five millions, six millions, or seven millions a small matter at a time like this? Is not the principle a thing of moment? The right hon. Gentleman's speech amounted to a claim that everything should be transferred to the Income Tax payer. Does not the Income Tax payer pay now? In all conscience, does he not pay as heavily as he possibly can? It is not that the Income Tax payer is objecting to pay more, but it amounts to this, that the right hon. Gentleman gets up and protests against this tax, which anybody else could have done. Every other hon. Member sympathises quite as much with the poor as does the right hon. Gentleman, but perhaps they have more conscience and are unwilling to embarrass the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his exceeding difficult task at a moment like this. The right hon. Gentleman spoke as an employer of labour. I do not know whether he has any proof that large numbers of people in this country are living under the margin of subsistence, or whether he spoke for his own employés, and in that sense was a special representative of people in this country. I protest against such a statement coming from such a quarter. The right hon. Member for Tyneside (Mr. J. M. Robertson) who sat beside the right hon. Gentleman exercised an exceedingly wise discretion in preserving silence on the subject. Had he 179 followed in the same sense it would have emphasised the objection raised at Question Time to his appointment on the Price of Food Committee.
§ Mr. SHERWELLEven at the risk of offending the susceptibilities of my hon. Friend (Sir J. D. Rees), whom the accident of political fortune and political changes of opinion have separated from me, I feel bound to enter one word or two of protest against, this particular tax. It is perfectly true, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has reminded us, that there is great pressure upon all classes to bear special burdens of taxation in consideration of the enormous and almost incalculable cost of this War, but I am always of the belief that while there is at all times, even under normal conditions, a most urgent need that the character and incidence of every proposed tax should be analysed and carefully weighed, that need is never more urgent and never more imperative than when it is the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, under quite abnormal conditions, to ask for special contributions in aid of the national revenue. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not attempt to meet the very weighty points made by the hon. Member for Holmfirth (Mr. Arnold), who pointed out the essential inequitableness of this tax, especially in its incidence. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's reply to that was that all taxation is inequitable, and that even in the Income Tax there was inequity in its incidence as between man and man. By that reply the Chancellor of the Exchequer showed that he had not appreciated the point made by my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend was dealing with those who are not liable to Income Tax, but who have a very slender margin of subsistence, and whom it is the imperative duty of every Chancellor of the Exchequer, in time of war or in time of peace, to protect to the utmost of his capacity and power. Some of us feel very strongly that the inequitableness of this tax in relation to large classes of the population, whose condition is not materially benefited by the abnormal prosperity due to the War, does present a case to which we are bound to give very special emphasis and very special consideration.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer laid very special stress, in supporting this duty, upon the fact of the maintenance of a high level of consumption in this parti- 180 cular commodity, sugar. If he were here now, and if this were the proper time, I should like to analyse the causes and explanation of the maintenance of the high level of consumption in this particular commodity. He would not for one moment suggest seriously that the large consumption of this particular commodity is explained by the ordinary consumption of the people of this country in their ordinary domestic life. He knows perfectly well that the Government itself has done an enormous amount to maintain a high level of consumption in connection with the needs of the Army. He is also aware—he must be aware—that there has been quite an abnormal demand for sugar in connection with gifts sent out to the troops. I doubt whether, despite the abnormal prosperity of large classes of the industrial population to-day, the real bonâ-fidedomestic consumption of sugar has been at such a high level during the last fifteen months as in the years preceding the outbreak of war. If the right hon. Gentleman feels that the national interest demands that by some process or other he should reduce this high level of the consumption of sugar, is the imposition of a tax the only or the best way in which to bring about a lower consumption? He says it is necessary in some way arbitrarily to reduce the demand for sugar, and the only way that he sees presents itself is that of raising the price. He did not meet the point raised by my hon. Friend (Mr. Arnold), who seemed to me to offer a very weighty suggestion when he drew a sharp distinction, I believe a perfectly just distinction, and, economically, a perfectly legitimate distinction between the relative injustice of the tax and the increase of the price of the commodity. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer desires to restrict the consumption of sugar or to restrict the demand for sugar by increasing the price of the article, why not, while he has extraordinary power in respect of sugar, at once raise the price of the commodity directly rather than raise it in the form of a duty? There are vices inherent in a duty which are not inherent in the mere raising of the price of the commodity.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer must be well aware that in connection with every tax imposed you not merely force the consumer to pay the amount of the tax but you force him at the same time to pay something extra in the way of interest on capital advanced in the payment of duty- 181 We all know in the ramifications of ordinary trade to-day that what happens is that the ordinary consumer of the article that is subject to the tax pays in his retail price an enormously greater sum than the amount of the tax. I have repeatedly urged as one of the essential duties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in imposing any tax upon an article of ordinary consumption he should take steps not merely to procure his revenue but to see to it that the consumer who pays the tax does not pay more by an undue increase in the price of the commodity, than the amount of the tax which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has imposed. I must protest against the idea which has become an accepted axiom of the procedure of the Treasury, and that is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's sole duty is to impose a tax without paying any regard to its actual effect in retail prices to the consumer. No Chancellor of the Exchequer at any time, whether in peace of war, has the right to select a particular article as the subject of additional tax without setting up machinery at the same time to protect the consumer against abuse in the shape of undue increase of the price. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not meet the point in contrasting the wholesale price in bond in the United States with the price in this country. After all, the question that really matters is not the wholesale price in bond but the retail price to the ordinary consumer. I entirely endorse what the right hon. Member for Swansea has said as to the effect of attempting by an economic process to diminish the consumption of an article like sugar. It is unquestionably in the highest interests of the State to secure the physical interest and development of the people in all possible legitimate ways. This House will be making a profound mistake if, under pressure of needs of the War, it lends countenance to anything which may lower the permanent efficiency and stability of the people. This War will count for something worse than disaster in the ordinary sense if we win it by permanently lowering the physical health of the people of this country. While it is right that the Government should be supported and provided with all the sinews of war which are required, neither
§ this Committee nor the country as a whole should give any support to the idea that the Government may be provided with the-sinews of war at the cost of a permanent effect upon the physical health and fitness of the whole people.
§ My hon. Friend put a point which should be seriously considered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer even at this late hour of the day. Why not raise the price, if it is desired to restrict consumption or merely to raise revenue? With the complete monopoly of the sugar market, which the right hon. Gentleman possesses, it is open to him to know to a farthing the yield which he will get by yielding the price to the consumer. In that way he secures his revenue. He does what he desires to do. He exercises a restraining force upon the consumption of this commodity; but to free the country, and particularly the poor, from the very serious danger that in order to secure a certain amount of revenue and in order to restrict consumption he imposes a duty upon the consumer as to which there is no guarantee that it will be taken off at the close, of the War. I know perfectly well, as everybody knows, that this duty will not be taken off when peace is declared. We have all experience to guide us in this matter. My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury knows that already demands are being made upon various Departments of the Government for the maintenance of certain conditions which will make a very large demand upon the Exchequer, and that these demands are likely to grow in the coming twelve months. This will mean the maintenance of a high scale of taxation in this country in order to provide the revenue for these exceptional purposes. I share fully the scepticism of my hon. Friend as to the taking off of this duty at the close of the War, and I join my appeal to his that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should get his revenue and exercise his I restraining influence by means of an increase in the price rather than by additional taxation of this kind.
§ Question put, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 170; Noes, 37.
183| Division No. 36.] | AYES. | [5.19 p.m. |
| Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D. | Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, London) | Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir F. G. | Beauchamp, Sir Edward |
| Allen, Arthur A. (Dumbartonshire) | Banner, Sir John S, Harmood- | Beck, Arthur Cecil |
| Bellairs, Commander C. W. | Hibbert, Sir Henry F. | Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E) |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. | Prothero, Rowland Edmund |
| Bentham, George Jackson | Hill, James | Pryce-Jones, Colonel E. |
| Bethell, Sir John Henry | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Radford, Sir George Heynes |
| Bigland, Alfred | Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy | Randies, Sir John S. |
| Bird, Alfred | Holmes, Daniel Turner | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) |
| Bliss, Joseph | Horne, Edgar | Rees, G. C. (Carnarvon, Arfon) |
| Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, E.) |
| Broughton, Urban Hanlon | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincol[...]) |
| Brunner, John F. L. | Ingleby, Holcombe | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) |
| Bull, Sir William James | Jackson, Sir John (Devonport) | Robertson, Rt. Hon. John- M. |
| Butcher, John George | Jacobsen, Thomas Owen | Robinson, Sidney |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Jones, William S. Glyn- (Stepney) | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Cochrane, Cecil Algernon | Joynson-Hicks, William | Rowlands, James |
| Collins, Sir Stephen (Lambeth) | Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement | Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry (Norwood) |
| Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole | Larmor, Sir J. | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Layland-Barrett, Sir F. | Samuel, Samuel (Wandsworth) |
| Cory, Sir Clifford John | Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton) |
| Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe) | Lloyd, George Butler (Shrewsbury) | Shortt, Edward |
| Craig, Col. James (Down, E.) | Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee | Smith, Sir Swire (Keighley, W.R.) |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Egbaston) | Spear, Sir John Ward |
| Currie, George W. | M'Callum, Sir John M. | Stewart, Gershom |
| Dairymple, Hon. H. H. | MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh | Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, North) |
| Dalziel, Davison (Brixton) | Macdonald, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Falk. B'ghs) | Sykes, Col. Alan John (Krutsford) |
| Davies, David (Montgomery Co.) | Macleod, John Mackintosh | Sykes, Sir Mark (Hull, C[...]tral) |
| Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) | Macmaster, Donald | Thomas-Stanford, Charles |
| Denniss, E. R. B. | M'Micking, Major Gilbert | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Dixon, C. H. | Magnus, Sir Philip | Toulmin, Sir George |
| Dougherty, Rt. Hon. Sir J. B. | Marks, Sir George Croydon | Turton, Edmund R. |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Walker, Colonel William Hall |
| Duncan, Sir J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley) | Meux, Hon. Sir Hedworth | Walters, Sir John Tudor |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Millar, James Duncan | Walton, Sir Joseph |
| Essex, Sir Richard Walter | Molteno, Percy Alport | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Eyres-Monsell, Bolton M. | Money, Sir L. G. Chiozza | White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston) |
| Fell, Arthur | Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S. | Whiteley, Herbert J. |
| Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson | Morgan, George Hay | Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P. |
| Fletcher, John Samuel | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Wiles, Thomas |
| Gilbert, J. D. | Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Glanville, Harold James | Newman, John R. P. | Williams, Aneurin (Durham, N.W.) |
| Goddard, Rt. Hon. Sir Daniel Ford | Nuttall, Harry | Williams, Col. Sir Robert (Dorset, West) |
| Greenwood, Sir G. G. (Peterborough) | O'Malley, William | Williams, Thomas J. (Swansea) |
| Greig, Colonel J. W. | Paget, Almeric Hugh | Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.) |
| Gretton, John | Parkes, Ebenezer | Wing, Thomas Edward |
| Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence | Pearce, Sir William (Limehouse) | Yate, Colonel C. E. |
| Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington) | Yeo, Alfred William |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-Shire) | Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham) | Young, William (Perth, East) |
| Harris, Percy A. (Leicester, S.) | Pennefather, De Fonblanque | Younger, Sir George |
| Henderson, Rt. Hon. Arthur (Durham) | Perkins, Walter Frank | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Henry, Sir Charles | Peto, Basil Edward | |
| Herbert, Maj.-Gen. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Pratt, J. W. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Hewins, William Albert Samuel | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk E.) | Gulland and Mr. Bridgeman. |
| NOES. | ||
| Adamson, William | Hogge, J. M. | Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) |
| Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset) | John, Edward Thomas | Roch, Walter F. |
| Barnes, Rt. Hon. George N. | Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) | Rowntree, Arnold |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Jowett, Frederick William | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Byles, Sir William Pollard | King, Joseph | Snowden, Philip |
| Chancellor, Henry George | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Stanton, Charles Butt |
| Clynes, John R. | Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester) | Sutton, John E. |
| Crooks, Rt. Hon. William | Mason, David M. (Coventry) | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | O'Grady, James | Whitehouse, John Howard |
| Finney, Samuel | Outhwaite, R. L. | Williams, W. Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Gelder, Sir W. A. | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | |
| Goldstone, Frank | Pringle, William M. R. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) | Raffan, Peter Wilson | Lough and Mr. Arnold. |
| Hinds, John |
Question put, and agreed to.
§ CLAUSE 6 (Increased Excise Duties on Sugar) ordered to stand part of the Bill.