§ 1.—(1) The owner of tithe rentcharge attached to an ecclesiastical corporation or benefice shall not he liable to pay, in respect of any rate made on or after the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty, and before the first day of January, nineteen hundred and twenty-six, which is assessed on him as owner of that tithe rentcharge, an amount in excess of such an amount as would have been payable by him if the rate had been made at such amount in the pound as is equal to the amount in the pound (to be ascertained in accordance with the rules set out in the Schedule to this Act) at which the corresponding rate was made in the year nineteen hundred and eighteen, and the excess shall be deemed to be irrecoverable. Where the owner of tithe rentcharge attached to a benefice, before payment of the amount payable by him in respect of any such rate as aforesaid, produces to the collector of the rate a certificate from the Inspector of Taxes that the owner has proved in manner prescribed by the Income Tax Act, 1918, that his total income from all sources for the year of assessment in which the last preceding rate for the same purpose was made, estimated in accordance with the provisions of that Act, does not exceed three hundred pounds, or, if it exceeds that sum, does not exceed five hundred pounds, the owner shall be entitled to such exemption or relief in respect of such rate as follows, that is to say: if the total income from all sources does not exceed three hundred pounds the owner shall be exempt from the rate, and if it exceeds that sum but 686 does not exceed five hundred pounds the owner shall be allowed an abatement of one-half of the amount which would otherwise be payable by him in respect of the rate having regard to the preceding Sub-section; and the amount of any relief or abatement in respect of a rate given by this Section shall be deemed to be irrecoverable.
§ Nothing in this Act shall affect the allowance to be made in respect of rates in the assessment of tithe rentcharge for any rate or tax.
§ (2) In this Act the expression "ecclesiastical corporation" has the same meaning as in the Episcopal and Capitular Estates Act, 1851; the expressions "benefice" and "owner of tithe rentcharge" and "tithe rentcharge" have the same meanings as in the Tithe Rentcharge (Rates) Act, 1899; and the expression "rate" means a rate the proceeds of which are applicable to public local purposes and which is leviable on the basis of an assessment in respect of the yearly value of property.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERThe Amendments standing on the Paper in the names of the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Rawlinson), and the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Mount), are out of order, as they propose an increased charge on the rates, which cannot possibly be done by Amendment on Report stage of a Bill.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONMy Amendment merely seeks to exempt certain persons in the same way as exemption is given in a Finance Bill, and that does not necessarily increase the charge.
§ Sir F. BANBURYThe hon. Gentleman, as well as seeking to exempt certain people, endeavours to include certain other people, and this being the Report stage, it is quite impossible to do so.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERNeither on a Finance Bill nor on any other Bill can a fresh charge on the rates be imposed on the Report stage.
§ Lord H. CECILBut this is a proposal to exempt certain people from paying a charge.
§ Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKERYes, but you obviously increase the charge on those who remain, and have to pay.
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen)I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), to leave out the words
certificate from the Inspector of Taxes that the owner has proved in manner prescribed by the Income Tax Act, 1918, that his total income from all sources for the year of assessment in which the last preceding rate for the same purpose was made, estimated in accordance with the provisions of that Act, does not exceed three hundred pounds, or, if it exceeds that sum, does not exceed five hundred pounds, the owner shall be entitled to such exemption or relief in respect of such rate as follows, that is to say: if the total income from all sources does not exceed three hundred pounds the owner shall be exempt from the rate, and if it exceeds that sum but doesand to insert instead thereof the wordsstatutory declaration made by him in a form prescribed by the Minister of Health showing that his total income from all sources for the year ending on the fifth day of April preceding the date at which the rate was made, estimated in accordance with the provisions of the income Tax Acts, did not exceed three hundred pounds, or, if it exceeded that sum, did not exceed five hundred pounds, the owner shall be entitled to such relief or abatement in respect of such rate as follows, that is to say: if the total income from all sources did not exceed three hundred pounds the owner shall not be liable to any payment in respect of the rate, and if it exceeded that sum, but did".I accepted an Amendment in Committee exempting altogether from rate on tithe rentcharge those whose incomes did not exceed £300, and also dealing with incomes which did not exceed £500. I did not accept the machinery of that Amendment, and on investigation I find that it is impossible to arrange that the Inspector of Taxes should give the necessary certificate, and therefore I have substituted a statutory declaration.
§ Lieut.-Colonel Sir SAMUEL HOAREThe Amendment carries out the spirit of the undertaking given in Standing Committee, though I am sorry the machinery then proposed could not be carried out.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Further Amendments made: In Subsection (1) leave out the word "Sub- 688 section" ["the preceding Sub-section"] and insert instead thereof the word "provisions."
§ After the word "irrecoverable" insert the words "A statutory declaration made for the purpose of this Section shall be exempt from stamp duty."—[Sir A. Boscawen.]
§
Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I beg to move at the end of Sub-section (1) to insert the following new Sub-section:
(2) Any amount paid by the owner of tithe rentcharge in respect of any rate to which this Act applies in excess of the amount which he is by virtue of this Act liable to pay shall be recoverable on demand made within six months after the passing of this Act as a debt due to him by the collector of the rate, and such amount shall be so recoverable notwithstanding that the statutory declaration required by this Act to entitle the owner to exemption or relief was not produced to the collector of the rate before payment of the rate if such declaration is so produced on or before the demand for repayment.
The Bill as drafted arranges that this concession in the matter of the payment of rates is to date from the 1st April of this year. Rates are made about that date, and are payable now, and clergy are being actually pressed to pay those rates. Having given an assurance that they would have immediate relief, it would be obviously unfair that they should not have the benefit of this date. In many cases they cannot refuse to pay the rates without running the risk of prosecution. This Amendment is with the view to arranging that they may recover, after the passing of this Act, any excess amount they have paid. That will make it easier for them and will relieve what is at the present moment a really rather hard case.
§ Sir S. HOAREI should have thought that the simpler way would have been for the Minister of Health to have given an instruction to the rate collectors that they should not collect these rates at all. I have had several letters from clergymen saying that they are put into great difficulty in having to pay rates which under the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman they will eventually recover. At the same time they are very hard up, and they have to find this money, which puts them into great difficulties. I shall be very glad if in addition to the Amendment some kind of instruction could be given to the rate collectors not to press these demands in the circumstances, and 689 I hope my right hon. Friend will use his influence with the Minister of Health to take some such action as that.
Sir A. BOSCAWENI have already done what I can in this matter, and if this Bill had gone through earlier I think we might have held up the collection in the way suggested, but considerable delay has taken place, for which I am not responsible, and the rate collectors are bound to carry out their duties. They cannot legally refuse to collect this money. As a matter of fact, I believe a notice was issued telling them not to press the matter unduly, and I believe that has been carried out in some cases. In order to make the matter perfectly clear, it is necessary that we should have this Amendment.
§ Captain W. BENNHow long will this Bill take before it becomes an Act? As it is already on the Report stage, is it necessary to have an arrangement by which a man is forced to pay rates and then to go and get the money back? Surely with the full powers possessed by the Minister of Health a short delay in the collection could be arranged for, because this Bill must become law in a very few days' time.
Sir A. BOSCAWENI do not think it can be done. I have considered this very carefully and submitted this Amendment to a number of representative clergy. My hon. and gallant Friend knows very well that this Bill has to go to another place, and when it is through there it has to wait for the Royal Commission in order to get the Royal Assent, so that it may very well be some weeks still before it becomes law, added to which some of the clergy have already paid their rates.
§ Sir S. HOARECould the right hon. Gentleman make more widely known the fact that the rate collectors need not press on this matter? My correspondence shows that it is not very widely known.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI am not certain that there is anything in this point, but I would like to ask your ruling on it, Sir. This Amendment would enable the tithe owner to avoid paying a certain amount of rates, or rather to recover a certain amount of rates which he has already paid, and that will necessitate 690 somebody else paying the amount so recovered. Under those circumstances, I am not sure whether that might not be held to be imposing a charge upon the rates, and if that is so, this being the Report stage, no charge can be imposed either upon the rates or taxes.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe House has already decided that this charge is not to fall upon the ecclesiastical tithe owners. This is only a matter of machinery, applying the decision of the House to the existing state of affairs.
§ Captain W. BENNThis Amendment, I understand, is moved in order to enable certain sums of money to be repaid, and presumably if they are repaid they will have to be made good out of the general rates, and therefore will it not impose some additional charge?
Sir A. BOSCAWENThe Bill already says that the owner of a tithe rent charge shall not be liable to pay in respect of any rate made on or after the first day of April, and, as you, Sir, have already said, that has been decided. This is merely machinery whereby money which it was not intended by the Bill should be paid, but which has been paid, should be recoverable.
Major BARNESAs hon. Members know, I am strongly opposed to the principle of this Bill, but the House having decided to give this relief, it seems to me that we should not do anything that appears to be vexatious or hampering. If they are going to get the benefit of these rates it seems absurd for them to have to pay the rates and then go to the trouble of getting them back again. I am not suggesting that this Amendment should not go on, but I think some provision might be made which would suspend the payment of the remainder of the rates until these statutory declarations are ready. I say this not in any sense going back upon my views on the principle of the Bill.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."—[Sir A. Boscawen.]
§ Mr. RAWLINSONI confess to a feeling of great disappointment with this Bill. As far as it goes it is all right, but it is the attempt of the Government to deal with a grievance which has been 691 admitted on all hands for a large number of years. I have here speeches by Mr. Gladstone and the present First Lord of the Admiralty and others admitting absolutely clearly the gross injustice on the clergy in being rated as they are upon tithe rentcharge, which in effect is being rated upon their ordinary income. It has been pointed out time after time that undoubtedly it came about by a mistaken view of the law taken many years ago. Originally the tithe which became part of a parson's income was merely rateable as personal property, rateable as income which came within the particular parish. By a mistake which occurred many years ago that was confused with the tithe which belongs to other corporations and other ecclesiastical bodies. That, as I say, has been recognised by Mr. Gladstone and by successive generations of statesmen, the excuse as a rule being given that it would be difficult to make a change in one part of the rating system without making a change in the whole system of rating. That was pointed out in 1899 by the Select Committee which went into the matter then; some little remission was given, but at a much later date than that, namely, in this present year, it was admitted in another place by Lord Astor for the Government that the Government desired to say that a case for relief of clerical tithe owners had been made out. An opportunity for giving relief has arisen in this way. By an Act of 1918 there was done something which operated most hardly on the tithe owners. I was present when the Bill was introduced, and I had the privilege on two cocasions of speaking against it and pointing out what a great injustice was being done to the tithe owners, but unforunately I was not supported.
Tithe rentcharge has always varied according to the price of corn; if corn was low the amount of the tithe was low, and if corn was high the amount of the tithe was high. Further, when corn is low the general cost of living is low, and when corn is high the general cost of living goes up at once, with the result that for years and years the tithe owner was getting a very small portion of his tithe. When the War came the tithe went up, and Lord Ernle, Mr. Prothero as he was then, for certain reasons which seemed good to the Government at that 692 time, thought it highly desirable to limit the price to which the tithe could go up. He therefore brought in a Bill, which was assented to by the archbishops or bishops of the time. If they thoroughly understood what they were doing, it was an act of great patriotism on their part, but if, on the other hand, they did not understand the effect of the Bill, equally it is a matter which has operated very harshly upon those affected. The compromise was that the amount of the tithe should remain at 109 for the seven years for which the Act is effective. The tithe has already gone up far in excess of that, to something like 140, and it may go much higher, and therefore the tithe owners are suffering very greatly indeed. In regard to the technical point that by relieving them of these rates the remaining ratepayers will have a further burden imposed upon them, in a large number of cases the people on whom a slightly excessive rate may be put are the tithe payers themselves who, instead of paying 140, as they ought to be at the present time, are only paying 109. This Bill only deals with the temporary state of affairs, for it gives no relief after 1926, the date on which the Act expires, and it gives this comparatively small relief. There certainly should be a greater concession made in dealing with this injustice than has been given by this Bill. We have been unable to move the suggested alterations which I put on the Notice Paper for this stage to assist the tithe owners, but I am bound to say that both in amount and in regard to the tithe owners who should be affected, further concessions most certainly should be made, and I can only hope, after the statement made in the other House by Lord Astor, that the Noble Lord will see fit to extend the relief given by this Bill when it reaches the other House.
Major BARNESI do not rise to continue my opposition to this Bill, but there has been a change in the situation since we had the Second Reading, and I think, perhaps, the Minister in charge might take this opportunity to tell us how far the change in the situation will affect dealing with this question of tithe. The hon. and learned Member who has just spoken gave a connected account of the origin of this Bill. It has arisen through the passage of the Tithe Act, 1918. I thoroughly agree with him that 693 that Act did inflict injustice on the clergy. That Tithe Act, in its turn, arose out of the Corn Production Act, which was introduced as a temporary measure. The Tithe Act following it dealt with tithe for a certain period, and the Bill here is to reduce temporarily the rates payable in respect of tithe rent-charge. I think there is a change in the situation brought about by the introduction of the Agriculture Bill, which makes the provisions of the Corn Production Act permanent. That being so, it does seem to raise the question of what the Government is going to do with regard to the whole of this question of the Tithe Act of 1918, and the present position dealing with rates. Perhaps, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman will tell us whether the Government have any intentions with respect to the Tithe Act in the Agriculture Bill, which is expected to result in very great benefit to the agricultural industry, and, incidentally, I believe, to the tithe-payer, because I believe when that Bill was before the House the right hon. Gentleman said that the real trouble in farming in this country was that land was under-rented—and I am not disposed to disagree with that—and that it was to the real interests of farming that rents must be got up, and one of the results of the Bill is expected to be that rents will rise. If that is so, that is going to improve the position of the tithe-payer, and if the position of the tithe-payer is improved, it does seem to me that the position of the tithe-owner should not be left where it is now by reason of the Tithe Act of 1918.
Therefore, the question I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman is whether the Government consider the passage of the Agriculture Bill should have any effect at all upon this legislation with regard to tithe, and whether as a corollary to that Bill we may expect a measure brought in to repeal the Tithe Act of 1918? The Government has time to repeal a good many measures, and perhaps they may find time to repeal the Tithe Act of 1918. I am sure my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Rawlinson) would agree with me that that would only be a proper consequence of the passage of the Agriculture Bill. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman expects that the very deserving section which is getting some little measure of relief by this Bill is content. So far as communications which I have received go, they do not regard 694 this Bill as giving the relief to which they are entitled, or as in any measurable degree removing the hardships from which they are suffering by the Act of 1918, and I suggest that if the position of the tithe-payer is going to be improved by the Agriculture Bill, the Government ought to take into consideration the position of the tithe-owner, and ought to give some reassurance to that class, and tell them that the benefits which the Government are intending to confer upon agriculture are not going to be confined to the labourer, farmer and tithe-payer, but that the tithe-owner is going to get his right and proper share.
§ Sir F. BANBURYMy hon. and learned Friend gave us a very interesting resumé of what took place in 1918 on the Tithe Bill of that date, and he said it was agreed to by the archbishops and bishops, but that he was not sure that they had been legally advised, and knew what they were doing. I do not know whether he intends to say that if you do not have legal advice you do not know what you are doing, because that might be taken as the meaning of my hon. and learned Friend's remarks. I remember that Act perfectly well. I am always in favour of the maintenance of contracts whoever makes them, and whatever the results are, and if I had been assured that the clergy had been opposed to the Bill, I do not know that I should have supported it. But, as a matter of fact—whether they were unfortunate in their advice or not, I do not know—we were assured that the clergy approved of the Bill.
§ Mr. RAWLINSONNot the clergy. I assure my right hon. Friend to the contrary. If he had listened to my speech on that occasion with the same zeal as he has to my speech on this occasion, he would know that I never said the clergy approved of it. It was Mr. Prothero.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI did not say that my hon. and learned Friend said the clergy approved of it, but the Government assured us, on the passing of the Bill, that the clergy were not opposed to it, and the clergy did not oppose. I do not think my hon. and learned Friend opposed it. Possibly there are hard cases with regard to the clergy, but it must be remembered they received a very large increment. I know a certain tithe-owner who, at the beginning of the War, was paid about £500 in tithe, and now is paid 695 £900, and probably every other tithe-owner is in the same position. The hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken seemed to be under the impression that every tenant farmer is going to pay his landlord a higher rent. I can assure him that is not so. During the War, in the majority of cases, rents were not raised at all, but during the last year there has been very slight increases in rent. I have not found any desire on the part of tenants to press a larger rent on their landlord. But the point I wish to make is this, that the people who have to pay the tithe-owner are not the people who will benefit by the rise in the price of corn, because the late Lord Salisbury placed that burden, 40 years ago, upon the landlord. The tenant farmer at that time took very great objection to the payment of tithe, and the late Lord Salisbury, with great astuteness, put it upon the landlord, and, being a patriotic gentleman in 99 cases out of 100, he paid the tithe and said nothing.
But now it is very hard on the landlord, considering the great increase in the cost of repairs, that this very large increase in the rates should be put upon him from which he gets no advantage. I am not saying he ought to repudiate his contract, but there are hard cases, and when we remember the tithe has increased 40 per cent., if not 50 per cent., I do not think it is quite fair to make out that the clergy are in such an extremely bad position. On the contrary, I am rather sorry that the Government have exempted people whose income is not more than £300 a year from paying rates at all. Tithe is a part of the produce of the land, and rates were paid upon the land, and when part of the tithe was taken away from the owner of the land or the farmer, and given to somebody else, a portion of the rates were also imposed on the person who received the tithe. That may have been right or it may have been wrong, but it has been going on for a great number of years, and I rather fail to see the argument on the part of the clergy that they should be relieved from that which every other ratepayer has to pay. Under those circumstances, I strongly regret that the Bill goes so far as it does.
§ Major BIRCHALLI desire to say one or two words in favour of the Third Reading of this Bill. In regard to what has been said by the two previous 696 speakers, I think the 1918 Bill was accepted by the bishops, and somewhat tacitly, at any rate, by the clergy in a natural generosity, having failed to realise the enormous increase in prices and rates. Had those two things not occurred, I venture to think we should not have been under the necessity to-day of doing this act of justice to the clergy. The injustice of the present situation was brought home to me a short time ago by a case I came across of an incumbent who received the same salary as I receive as a Member of Parliament. In his case, and in my case, we each pay Income Tax of £100 on the £400, and there my liabilities to the State cease. But his liabilities, in addition to the £100, include £75, which he has to pay to the local rates, so that, while I receive £300, he only receives £225 out of the £400. I think everybody must admit that in that way a great injustice is being done. The salary in both cases was for service rendered, and in each case it was earned income.
There are only two points on which I wish the Minister in charge of the Bill had been able to meet us. I wish he had been able to go the whole way. This Bill roughly will mean about 85 per cent. of the rates payable on tithe will not be paid by the tithe-owning clergy. It will mean a good deal of confusion. A certain number will not know to what benefit they are entitled, whereas if they could be exempted from the whole of their rates I think the charge would have been very little extra on the public, and a much simpler Bill would have resulted. If that is impossible, I wish the right hon. Gentleman had stereotyped not the poundage which the clergy had to pay in 1918, but the actual amount of rates paid in that year, so that every incumbent would know exactly what his liability was. In conclusion I should like to express what I feel sure is the opinion of the great majority of the clergy, who cannot express their thanks themselves, because they are one of three remaining classes of people who are not directly represented in the House of Commons. The great majority of them feel really grateful not only for the way in which the Bill has been received by the House, almost unanimously, and especially by those who do not agree with the Church of England in its beliefs, but they are especially grateful to the Minister who has been in charge of this Bill, and who knows and 697 appreciates the personal difficulties under which the clergy have suffered. To him is due this tardy justice which we are now getting.
§ Lord HUGH CECILJust one word in reply to what has fallen from my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London. My right hon. Friend, I think, assumed an attitude of which the late Shylock would have been ashamed. The late Shylock, after all, only asked for the pound of flesh to which he was by law entitled. My right hon. Friend asks for a pound of flesh to which, I think, he could certainly give no title whatever, Tithe was commuted upon the basis of a particular scale, but for a great number of years tithe was always below par. Latterly it was very much below par indeed, and showed a very considerable falling off. Then, owing to the operation of the rise in prices during the War, it began to rise, and Parliament which had never done anything to relieve the clergy for having made their unfortunate bargain so long as it told against the clergy, now intervened. I think it was an inequitable proceeding, inequitable in substance and tactless in manner. The Government of the day went not to the clergy who derived their incomes from the tithe, but to the bishops, who got not one penny from tithe, whose property it was not and who had no sort of right to give it away. The bishops were then, as they often are, very much afraid of public opinion, for it was in those days when accusations of profiteering went about, and they were afraid of being so accused, and they did not want the clergy to be accused of being profiteers either. They made a bargain which they had no right to make with the property of the clergy, and favoured the object of the Government in passing the Bill, depriving the clergy, who had long suffered from diminution of tithe, in the way that has been described. I think that was a most improper thing to do, and aggravated the normal grievance from which the clergy had suffered so long in paying tithes on their professional income.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI am always in favour of maintaining a bargain. If I had understood the clergy were against that bargain I should have voted against it, and left it undisturbed. I cannot be responsible for the mistake of the bishops.
§ Lord H. CECILThe point is that it was not for the bishops to go into the bargain. It was not their province. What would the right hon. Baronet say if someone went to his colleague in the representation of the City of London and proposed to him to take a certain quantity of the property of the right hon. Baronet, and the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council had said, "I agree," saying he thought it was a very good bargain.
§ Sir F. BANBURYMy right hon. Friend is not my superior officer!
§ Lord H. CECILNo, but he is just as little connected with your property as the bishops were connected with the property of the clergy. Therefore I think hon. Members will see it was improper and aggravated the grievance. This is not a perfect remedy. These Bills very seldom are perfect remedies; but I think the clergy will be grateful for this comparatively small mercy.
§ Sir S. HOAREThe grievance has been remedied up to such a point that it seems to me a matter of regret that it has not been remedied altogether. With the Amendments which have been accepted in the Standing Committee, I suppose the whole amount that will henceforth be paid in rates by the clergy will not amount to £100,000 per year.
§ Sir S. HOAREOn tithe. This is a very small amount when it is remembered that the total agricultural rates amount to £20,000,000. In view of that it does seem to me to be rather niggling with the question to leave this small amount, from the point of view of the Exchequer, but a very serious amount from the point of view of the poorer clergy, and not to remedy the grievance altogether. I know my right hon. Friend himself has been very sympathetic to the cause of the clergy. He has tried to meet us and has done so in certain directions. At the same time I feel sure that he will agree when I say that the grievance is not remedied. These deserving clergy are the only class of the community which will continue to pay rates on their professional incomes. They have a grievance, and that will go on, and they will go on agitating until the whole of that grievance is removed. On that account 699 cannot help taking this opportunity to say that I think the Government would have done far better to have dealt with the whole grievance and to have removed it, thereby stopping the agitation which will certainly continue, and owing to the strength of the grievance will certainly end in complete success, and in the removal of the grievance altogether. Having said that, I wish to thank the right hon. Gentleman himself for the manner in which he has dealt with the question both in the Standing Committee and in the House to-day.
§ Mr. MARRIOTTI join with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge in expressing the hope that in another place this Bill will be so far enlarged as to meet the real grievances of the clergy. I gratefully recognise that this Bill goes a very considerable way towards remedying grievances, and I think we shall be very grateful, those of us who speak on behalf of a considerable number of the clergy, to the Government for the way in which they have met various proposals on this Bill. I none the less regret that they have not seized this opportunity to go further. After all, it may not recur. It is all very well for the hon. and gallant Gentleman to say that the clergy will agitate. I am inclined to think that the clergy are the last body in the country to agitate, and it is for this House of Commons and Parliament as a whole to remedy an admitted grievance—for it is not denied that it exists. The clergy have for many years past been suffering from a reduction of the tithe below the normal. This was owing to economic causes over which no one had any control. These economic causes began to operate in the other direction. The moment these causes began to operate in favour of the clergy, Parliament intervened to deprive the clergy of the advantage which they would otherwise have obtained. Glad as I am that this Bill is about to go through this House, grateful as I am to the Government for the measure, I still regret that they have not taken the opportunity of remedying the whole grievance, and I hope it will be remedied elsewhere.
Sir A. BOSCAWENOne word before this Bill is finally disposed of here. 700 First of all, I want to thank my hon. Friends for the kind expressions they have used. I have endeavoured to enlarge the Bill so as to meet all the harder cases, and I can only say that I regret that it has been impossible to deal with the whole matter in a final and comprehensive manner. As I pointed out before, we are really dealing with a grievance which has been seriously aggravated in consequence of the Act of 1918. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge University, and others, have based their case for Amendment entirely on the effect of that Act. That is a temporary Act. This is a temporary Act dealing specially with a grievance which has arisen in consequence of the first Act, and for the period during which that Act will be in operation. I fully agree that the matter will have to be dealt with in a comprehensive manner; but that will arise when the Government deals with the incidence of rating generally. After all, I do not think you can, having regard to the grievances of other classes of ratepayers, deal with this matter finally and on a permanent basis unless you deal with the whole question. My hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Marriott) said the opportunity will not recur. I venture to think that an opportunity is bound to recur.
§ Mr. MARRIOTTI hope it will.
Sir A. BOSCAWENFor this simple reason: the Act of 1918 comes to an end in 1926. So does this Act. It will then be absolutely necessary to decide what is to be the future position. Therefore I think the opportunity is bound to recur. Meantime, this is merely a temporary measure of relief, as a natural consequence of what was done in 1918. I can only express the hope that the relief given will be found to be substantial, especially in the case of the really poorest clergy who are specially dealt with.