§ Section three, Sub-section (2) of the Finance Act, 1920, shall have effect as if for the words "nineteen hundred and twenty," "nineteen hundred and twenty-seven" were 1514 substituted, and as if for the words "three pounds twelve shillings and sixpence," "one pound ten shillings" were substituted.—[Mr. Macquisten.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
By this Clause I am proposing that the duty on whisky should be reduced from its present extravagant and uneconomical figure of £3 12s. 6d. to £1 10s. If I thought that that were going to affect the revenue, I would have some diffidence, in the present state of the country's finances, but it will not do so, because it will have the effect of enabling a bottle of whisky—a peculiarly Scotch product—instead of being sold at 12s. 6d. to be sold for the sum of 6s. I am satisfied that if it were sold for 6s., the consumption would be increased at least three times, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer would gain 90s. in place of his present 72s. 6d. No possible loss could accrue to the revenue. I wonder if he has got the courage to admit that? I am perfectly sure he knows it is the case. As to what I may call the well-to-do classes, the better-off classes-for I never speak of them as the better classes—I do not think it would make any difference to them. They would just drink as much or little as they are doing now, because when a man has a reasonable-sized income, he takes exactly as much of that commodity or any other excisable liquor as he feels inclined to have, and the price does not stand in his Way.
The reduction would admit to the users of this commodity a vast number of the population who at present desire to have it, but who are precluded from having it for purely financial reasons—the people upon wham prohibition is being inflicted by a method of taxation which, I think, is both unjust and unfair and a particularly wrong form of class legislation. It is all the more necessary that this abatement should be made, because of the fact that in this Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made very serious additions in the case of other beverages which have taken the place of this purely national Scottish beverage. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has put a large duty on the Spanish wine known as Spanish Red or Tarragona Port. That was an article which for some 1515 years paid only 10s. per gallon duty as proof alcohol against the duty on Scottish whisky of 72s. 6d. per gallon, with the result that the working man and the lower middle classes were driven from whisky by this excessive taxation to the consumption of Spanish Red or other commodities in order to obtain what they wanted. They are now consuming enormous quantities of this particular beverage, more especially in the industrial areas of this country. It is quite a good sound wine, but it has now been put out of the reach of the working classes by the duty imposed upon it by the Budget. It may find its repercussion on the whisky, but I very much doubt it. I do know what the effect will be on a very large section of the community who are as much entitled to have what they require in this respect as any other section of the community.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has admitted that the consumption of whisky has dropped down to about one-third of what it was when the duty was less than one-seventh of the present figure. When the whisky duty was 10s. a gallon the consumption was three times as great as it was last year. When the duty was raised to 14s. the decrease in consumption was not very great, but when it was raised to 72s. 6d. people began to realise that they could not afford to buy whisky. On this question, I cannot understand why I do not get more support on these benches and from the Labour benches. This is peculiarly a working-class question, because the effect of this duty is that the working classes are pilloried and penalised. Of course, it does not make any difference to me, but, if I were to be subjected to the same treatment as the working man in regard to this question, I should be a very dissatisfied person. I am perfectly sure that if the well-to-do classes, or the members of the Carlton Club, the Constitutional Club, the Reform Club, or the National Liberal Club or even the wealthier members of the Labour party, were to experience the same difficulty in getting what they wanted to drink as the average working man, they would all become Bolshevist in their opinions in a very short time.
I do not understand why the members of the Labour party do not see that if they could bring whisky down to 6d. per 1516 glass and beer to 3d. per pint they would at once become a very popular party in the country. If I had been Labour Chancellor and had desired to make certain of winning the last election I should have announced to the public that I proposed to reduce whisky to 6d. a glass and beer to 3d. per pint and put an extra shilling on the Income Tax and the Super-tax to make up the difference in the revenue. I should then have been in a position to tell the Super-tax people that they ought to be proud of the opportunity of standing the working man a drink, and I do not believe they would have seriously objected. If that had been done at the last election, we should have forgotten even the Zinovieff letter. Even the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) has given eloquent testimony to the fact that it would not matter if you smashed trade anions so long as you did not interfere with the working man's drink. A working man once said to me: "Mr. Macquisten, could you not get a reduction of the duty on beer, spirits, and tobacco, because they are our principal comforts." I said that I would do my best, but I asked him to recollect that those articles were the comforts of all of us. You hear a good deal of talk about golf, shooting, and fishing, but, if it were not for the little refreshment at the nineteenth hole or at the end of the day, all enjoyments and sports would be very melancholy business. Election after election has taken place in Scotland since the passing of that wretched Local Option Act, and, although the vast mass of the people in Scotland are, from economic reasons, compelled to practise total abstinence, they have solidly voted against the total abstinence point of view.
I do not believe in the view which is often expressed in leading Conservative circles, and always in Liberal circles, that the working man should not be allowed to have anything to drink. It is like the state of things which has been described as existing in the United States, where employers sit down with their friends drinking Johnny Walker and John Dewar's whisky, bootlegged to them, and at the same time express the highest approval of prohibition as reflected in the increased output and better timekeeping of the men they employ. That makes me, as a friend of the working 1517 man and a democrat, exceedingly angry every time I hear it, because I believe in the working man having exactly the same opportunity on a question like this as I have myself. A working man once told me that a glass of whisky was the only thing that gave a working man a feeling of independence, and, when he used to go to his favourite place for a drink, he asked for "a glass of independence." That reminds me of the story told by a certain Scottish singer who said that he belonged to Glasgow, but, when he had had a couple of glasses of whisky, Glasgow belonged to him. The same view is expressed by one national poet in the lines:
Kings may be bles't but Tam was gloriousO'er a' the ills o' life victorious.Why should the working man be denied these opportunities, and why should we bully him in regard to these matters when we here can drink as long as the House sits? A working man is just the same as we are, and he possesses the same amount of self-control.In the next place, you ask us to consider the effect of drinking upon the health of the people. Whisky was first invented by the clergy in the twelfth century, and the clergy generally find out most of the good things. At that time, whisky was very largely used as a medicine. We read of James V giving so many bushels of barley to the monks of Dryburgh to make the spirit medicine. Whisky now is still very largely used as a medicine, although some people take more of it than others. It is a poison, but a very slow poison, which kills the microbes of diseases. I remember in the year 1918 an influenza epidemic taking place in a mine in South Africa with which I was connected, and during that epidemic we lost over 100 of our coloured labourers, and none of the white staff. I said to the doctor: "You have a wonderful record in regard to the white workers; why could you not save the blacks?" and he said: "I had not enough whisky to save the black men. By the time I had poured it down the whites there was very little left for the negroes, although a few of them were saved who got some for acting as undertakers." In 1920, when the Local Veto 1518 Bill was before Parliament, a constable in this House said to me: "A dreadful thing is going to happen in Scotland. We live 50 miles away from a doctor, and my mother always keeps a couple of bottles of whisky in the House. If any members of the family are taken ill, we get half a bottle of whisky, and they get better." We may not get it now.
§ Mr. J0HNSTONWill the hon. Member explain to me why it is that insurance companies will insure a man's life at 10 per cent. less premium if he is a total abstainer?
§ Mr. MACQUISTENYes, I will explain. I would like to give that statement a flat contradiction, because it is a mere emanation from the hon. Member's mind. Those who insure their lives may give an undertaking to be total abstainers, but it never gets any further than the undertaking. I am aware that some so-called temperance insurance companies make that statement, but the vast number of them agree with me that it is not the case at all. At the last Budget I was attacked by the temperance party, true though I had not dealt with their views, and I wish to say a little about them, but not much to-night. Not only is this duty doing a great wrong to Scotland, and to the Customs and to the consumers of this particular commodity, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer is killing a very great industry. He is doing an enormous harm to agriculture, because the present duty upon alcohol, upon whisky made of barley, is equivalent to between £300 and £350 of duty on every acre of barley grown. In regard to foreign barley there was a promise given of a duty thereon, but it has not been carried out. You could not do anything better than to secure that the duty was at such a figure that the barley growers would again have an opportunity of growing it.
There is not only an injury being done to the barley-growing industry, but also to the Scotch distillers. When the strength of whisky was reduced to 30 under proof, it was claimed to be a victory for temperance. It was really a trade ramp by the patent still makers. You were really paying for more water. Good whisky was made out of barley, and made what you call pot-still whisky of 1519 good sound substance. Then came in the patent still whisky which is made of maize and is not whisky at all. At 30 under proof there is not enough whisky in it to keep the malt, the stuff goes bad, and you have to mix more of the patent still in it, and it helps to preserve it. It has been said that whisky must be kept for three years, but there is no real difference between whisky three days old and whisky three years old, and that was another trade ramp by those who had large stocks. The distillers are like the brewers. We all know that brewery shares were drugs in the market, but as soon as the extravagant duty was put on the shares and profits went up. All the large distillers are members of the nobility were ennobled by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) at the time he was making speeches about the "lure of drink." I thought that all these gentlemen were justly entitled to be ennobled, because any man who makes a large quantity of good whisky deserves a title on account of the number of lives he saves by preventing people drinking the bad stuff, but he should not get his title from a Prime Minister who orates about the "Lure of Drink." During his Premiership, if one made a large quantity of whisky it was difficult to escape a title. Out in the East there is a very large trade for whisky, for sanitary reasons. It is a disinfectant, and everybody consumes it. There are no teetotallers there because they all die very quickly. Any hon. Gentleman who doubts that statement can go out there, but I am afraid he will never return. The teetotallers die first, and then the gentlemen who over-consume, and then the moderates survive.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODWhat do you call the moderates?
§ Mr. MACQUISTENSuch as myself I discovered at Shanghai you could buy a bottle of whisky for 5s. 6d. or 6s.
§ Mr. KIRKWOODBefore the War?
§ Mr. MACQUISTENNo, in January last. In the cheapest place the price was 5s. 6d. In Singapore it was 6s. That is why there is so little discontent among the white population. It was a very shocking thing when I came home and got 1520 back to the old figure of 12s. 6d. I expect I will get from some hon. Gentlemen on the other side stories as to the gaols and lunatic asylums being all filled with drunkards. I was talking in the North to a leading alienist, and I put that up to him, and he said, "It is all nonsense. Feeble-minded people take to drink because they are feeble-minded. They are not feeble-minded because they have a drink. It is the mark of the feebleminded person to be wanting in self-control." Of course they cannot stand up to it. A great many people escape the consequences of the feeble-minded by being total abstainers. One can realise a number of Members even in this House who have little self-control, and are yet known as total abstainers. What would happen to them if they ceased to be total abstainers? After all, there is a very small percentage of the population who over-indulge, and come to an untimely end. Would it not be better to give them all they want and get them in a happier sphere where they will not be subject to temptation? It may not be what they want, but it will probably be in the interests of the race. To allow them to over-indulge to the point of extinction might be a good thing, anyway it would only be a form of postponed birth control such as the Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) supports, with this advantage that this doctrine if practical might lead to the destruction of some great man while here the victims have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
When I was in the East I met a young man who had come from Ireland. He had been farming, and I made it my business to inquire—I am always anxious to get information, because there is a terrible amount of ignorance on this subject—about what is ultimately going to defeat this extravagant taxation. He told me that when he was in Ireland he used to take one pound of brown sugar, a cupful of treacle, half an ounce of yeast, mix them in water, blood-heat, and put them through a retort or kettle, and make half a pint of whisky; and it was very sound stuff. He said: "They are all doing it in Ireland. I do not think the Government mind. because the men who make it cannot afford to buy it so the Government are not really losing in revenue." I said, "What about the 1521 police?" and he said, "I had not a still. and so they would need to have caught me in the act, but, as a matter of fact, the police never bothered me, because I made it rather well, and they used to come in and have some—the Irish policeman is a very intelligent fellow and thinks it a fearful piece of impertinence for any Government to say to a man who has got his own treacle, sugar and yeast that he shall not mix it." I have not tried it myself, but I am not at all sure that I will not try an experiment and treat the Chancellor to a little of it, and show him what is going to happen to his duty. And it is happening. It is happening in Canada, where they are making their own stuff. There are a great many Scottish people there, and they are making their own whisky. You may not know, but I know that there is a great deal being made in Scotland.
Every now and again you manage to catch them, but to nothing like the extent that it is going on, and it will increase, and the Chancellor will have to learn that he has got to make his duty so reasonable that it is not worth anybody's while to bother to make it. I know it is said there is a great destruction of food if this is allowed, but whoever says that has never thought it out. Is it not realised that if it were not the fact that these commodities were desired by the people the food would never be grown? No nation grows more corn than it thinks is enough to supply them for one year. The economic reason is that if you plant too much the whole crop becomes worthless, because the price sinks to an unremunerative value. But if you have an alternative means of using it, such as distilling or brewing material, which will enable it to be kept indefinitely, you have a kind of safety valve, and what is the effect of that? The effect is to guarantee the people of the country against famine.
In places where the population as a whole have the right to get what they want to drink, there is always a larger area, and 40 to 50 per cent. more land in cultivation, than would otherwise be the case, and so there is plenty of food. In a year of shortage, there is no brewing, and the result is that the nation can fall back on an area of cultivated ground 40 or 50 per cent. larger than would otherwise be the case. You can test that 1522 in countries like India, where the people have a little opium but no alcohol. There you have had a famine or shortage every five years since Warren Hastings, with thousands or tens of thousands of people perishing. With famine you get pestilence, and if you go down through the ages to the time of the Black Death, you will see that that was broadly the result of famine, through total abstinence preventing adequate grading of grain. This acreage gives a huge reserve of food for the masses of the people. If you look at Russia, when the late Czar proclaimed total prohibition from vodka, the peasants had all their grain thrown back on their hands. That prepared the way for the revolution and for the destruction of the Russian people.
I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the Committee to realise that this class legislation is causing the greatest possible amount of discontent. It is not very largely vocal, because the working man has been so preached at and talked at that he does not like to protest when he is against a thing such as this. No man likes to stand up in a large crowd and protest in this matter, because people laugh and make gibes at him. We are a very hypocritical nation, and in nothing more so than in this particular matter. We must realise the the equality of all classes in the community, and that the working men have the same rights as those who are better off. Now that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has closed up the tide of Spanish wines, he will not lose a single shilling of revenue if he accepts this Clause. He will certainly regain some of the popularity he has lost through the Betting Duty and one or two other things, and he will establish a debt of gratitude in the hearts of vast numbers of people for at least reducing an iniquitous, penal and prohibitive tax to a reasonable figure.
§ Mr. McNEILLMy hon. and learned Friend who has just spoken is of all people qualified to bring before the Committee the particular Clause which he has moved.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENMay I mention this fact, that in Campbelltown there are 18 empty distilleries not working, and several thousands of people unemployed as a result of this duty.
§ Mr. McNEILLI was going to observe that my hon. and learned Friend represents probably the best whisky-producing area, with one exception, in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but he appeared just now to be rather representing the interests of the consumers instead of the producers. The aspect of his speech which troubled me most was that he entered upon so many entertaining and amusing topics, and interspersed them occasionally with some very shrewd observations upon physiology, psychology and various other sciences, that I was terribly afraid lest the Committee should think it necessary to follow my hon. and learned Friend into all those ramifications of the sciences. I was afraid that it was almost too much to hope that the Committee would regard his entertaining speech as something for which they might be grateful, and immediately pass on to other business. I did not know whether the Committee would take that view, but I had my eye on the clock, and thought of the small hours of the morning in which we should probably have to carry on our labours unless we could get a little further forward.
I can give a very short answer, indeed, to my hon. and learned Friend. I am not called on, as representing the Treasury, to go into the various questions as to the comparative virtues of whisky and other commodities. I look at the thing from the purely, sternly financial point of view. A little earlier this afternoon, I had to resist, and to ask the Committee to resist, a Clause moved to abolish the duty on sugar, because that would have cost the Exchequer about £19,000,000 in a full year. The Clause which my hon. and learned Friend now asks the Committee to accept would involve a loss to the Exchequer of something over £18,000,000.
§ Mr. MACQUISTENNot a bit!
§ Mr. McNEILLI have no doubt that I shall incur the complete contempt of the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I must risk that, when I say that if I had to choose between losing £18,000,000 on sugar or on whisky I would a great deal rather do away with the Sugar Duty than with the Whisky Duty. It would have been very gratifying if it had been possible to accept the proposal to do away with the Sugar Duty. My hon. 1524 and learned Friend says that we shall lose no revenue. The only way by which you can avoid losing revenue if you reduce taxation on a commodity is by an increase of consumption. In order to neutralise the financial loss which this Clause would bring upon us, we should have to have an increase of 130 per cent. in consumption. I look on my hon. and learned Friend as a humourist but, nevertheless, he is a very shrewd man of the world, and I would really ask him, if he can be serious for two minutes, to consider—I am not asking him to say it, because I do not want to invite him to speak again—whether seriously anybody can stand up in the House of Commons and say that he can look with equanimity on an increase of 130 per cent. in the consumption of whisky next year? The proposition only requires to be stated in that way to convince the Committee that the proposal of my hon. and learned Friend should be rejected, and I most respectfully repeat the hope that the Committee may silently pass a vote of thanks to my hon. and learned Friend for his entertainment, and let us get on to something else.
§ Question, "That the Clause be read a Second time," put, and negatived.
§ Sir H. CAUTLEYDo I understand that you have passed over my Clause—[Amendment of Section 15 (1) (a) of Finance Act, 1926]?
The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe effect of the new Clause would be to alter the rate of the duty from 3½ per cent. to 2½ per cent. At the present time the tax on what is called course betting is at the rate of 2 per cent., and to raise that tax to 2½ per cent. would increase the charge to that extent on certain individuals and is consequently out of order.
§ Sir H. CAUTLEYCredit betting is about 80 per cent. of the whole betting, and the tax on that is 3½ per cent. My proposal is to reduce this to 2½ per cent. I do propose to increase the 2 per cent. on course betting to 2½ per cent., but on the whole there would really be a considerable reduction.