Lords Sitting of 30 July 1914

Preamble
The LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with:

Local Government Provisional Order (No. 20).

The same was ordered to lie on the Table.

OSSETT CORPORATION BILL.
Reported, with Amendments.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 19) BILL.
Committee (which stands appointed for this day) put off sine die.
OXFORD AND DISTRICT TRAMWAYS BILL.
Reported, with Amendments.
MALL APPROACH IMPROVEMENT BILL.
Committed: The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
BRITISH NATIONALITY AND STATUS OF ALIENS BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments to be printed. (No. 204.)
MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments.
SWINDON CORPORATION (WILTS AND BERNS CANAL ABANDONMENT) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the. Commons, agreed to. with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.
MIDDLESBROUGII CORPORATION BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE CORPORATION BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
MALL APPROACH IMPROVEMENT BILL.
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Five Lords appointed a Select Committee on the Sheffield Corporation Bill and other Bills do form the Select Committee for the consideration of the Mall Approach Improvement; read, and agreed to: All Petitions referred to the Committee, with leave to the Petitioners praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill to be heard as desired, as also counsel for the Bill.
SHEFFIELD CORPORATION BILL.
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Lord Glenconner be proposed to the House as a Member of the Select Committee on the said Bill in the place of the Lord Latymer; read, and agreed to.
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT, 1911.
Special Order, entitled the National Health Insurance (Wales) (Subsidiary Employments) Consolidated Order, 1914: Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) and to be printed. (No. 205.)
HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
Second Report of the Select Committee to be printed, and to be considered on Tuesday next. (No. 206.)
OSBORNE ESTATE BILL.
To be read 2ª on Tuesday next (The Earl Beauchamp).
COUNTY AND BOROUGH COUNCILS (QUALIFICATION) (No. 3) BILL.
To be read 2ª on Thursday next (The Lord Strachie).

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 20) BILL.
*THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHIE): My Lords, in moving, in respect of this Bill and the next Bill standing in my name on the Paper—Local Government Provisional Order (No. 23) Bill—that the Order made on May 25 last

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"That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after June 25 next" be dispensed with and that the Bills be read a second time, I should like to say, as regards Bill No. 20, that this being an unopposed Bill the noble Earl the Lord Chairman does not object to the Standing Order being suspended. But with regard to Bill No. 23, which is an opposed Bill, the Lord Chairman does take objection on the ground of its coming up so late. The reason for the Bill coming up so late is that it deals with the vexed question of the extension of borough boundaries and the creation of a county borough, and it was impossible for the Local Government Board to hold their inquiry until the decision as to what was to be done with regard to such Bills was given by the Prime Minister. As the House will remember, there was a great fight over Cambridge. Therefore this is the earliest time that the Darlington Bill could be brought up. As the noble Earl the Lord Chairman objects to Bill No. 23 going beyond a Second Beading, I undertake not to proceed thither with that Bill this session.
Moved, That the Order made on the 25th day of May last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after the 25th day of June next," be dispensed with, and that the Bill (No. 20) be now read 2ª.——(Lord Strachie.)
*THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OP DONOUGITMORE): My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord has made the announcement which he has just made —namely, that if No. 23 Provisional Order Bill, which concerns the extension of Darlington, is read a second time, the Government will not ask the House to go into Committee upon it this session, but will suspend it until next session. The noble Lord has referred to the reasons for the delay in the Bill reaching your Lordships' House, and he has been good enough —I desire to acknowledge the courtesy of his Department—to provide me with a memorandum stating the facts in full. The facts show that the Bill was introduced into the House of Commons on June 24. Your Lordships' Sessional Order says that all Provisional Order Confirmation Bills should reach here by June 25. Therefore it was impossible for this Provisional Order Bill to reach us in accordance with our Sessional Order.
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I desire in a few sentences to draw your Lordships' attention to the general position in which we stand over this Sessional Order. Your Lordships are aware of the procedure which is followed in the course of Private Bills. They are all deposited in December, and the course of January the Chairman of Ways and Means in another place and whoever fills the post in your Lordships' House which I now have the honour to hold have a joint meeting and the Bills are divided. Half of them start in your Lordships' House and half in the House of Commons, and care is taken not only that the numbers are equal but also that the approximate amount of work, so far as can be judged, shall also be equal But that procedure is not followed by the Government in tie introduction of Provisional. Order Bills. There have been fifty-nine Provisional Order Bills introduced this session, three in your Lordships' House and fifty-six in the House of Commons. The result is that hem we are at the end of the session with Bills still coming up to us. A number of them—as a matter of fact, thirty-six—reached your Lordships' House before June 25 and therefore complied with the Sessional Order, and your Lordships had full opportunity for their consideration in Opposed Committee when they were opposed. But two of them were dropped in the House of Commons and in respect of the other eighteen it has been necessary to suspend our Standing Order. It is really not treating your Lordships fairly that none of these Bills should originate in this House.
In recent years all these Bills are examined in my Department even if they are unopposed, and the result of their coining up in this way is that it is impossible to guarantee that they receive proper attention. We had one glorious twenty-four hours this year in which eighteen Provisional Order Bills should have been read before they reached Committee. It is impossible to carry on work properly under such conditions. But when the Bills are opposed the case is, of course, even worse, because whereas there have been plenty of Committees sitting between March and now, it is now obviously too late to expect your Lordships to give adequate attention in Committee to opposed Bills. A Bill has gone to an opposed Committee to-day, and I am indeed grateful to have found members of your Lordships'

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House willing to undertake the consideration of it. It is an important Bill dealing with the question of whether or not two boroughs and an urban district outside should be amalgamated. This illustrates the difficulty that there is to get your Lordships to sit on Committees at this time of the year. I was greatly indebted to the Duke of Wellington for consenting to serve as chairman of this Committee, and I am sure he will not mind my saying that he was the eleventh Peer whom we asked to preside over this Committee before we were successful in getting a chairman. I do not think it is reasonable that Committees should be asked to sit in August when they sit during the previous five months and there would have been no difficulty in dealing with Bills sent to Committees during that time.
I suggest that there are two alternatives, and I hope that the Government, between now and next year, will take the matter into their consideration with a view of bringing about a better state of things. Either cannot we have our fair share of Provisional Order Bills introduced into this House, or cannot some arrangement be made by which the Bills are deposited in the offices of this House at the same time as they are introduced in the other House, in order that they may be considered in advance. I think the better course would be that both of these alternatives should be followed, for only in that way can we guarantee that these important Bills can be adequately considered. The use of the Provisional Order system is growing, and more and more important subjects are coming under the purview of this procedure every year. It is therefore important that these Bills should receive proper consideration. I am glad that the noble Lord has decided to carry over Bill No. 23 until next year under procedure that can be adopted to secure that the important matter with which it deals should receive adequate consideration in your Lordships' House.
LORD BARNARD: The proposal not to proceed further with Bill No. 23 practically means that the Darlington Extension Order is lost for this session. If so, I think it is, speaking on behalf of the ratepayers of Darlington, a very hard case from their point of view. I believe there is only one petition against the Bill and that is from the county council, which petition was only decided upon at a
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meeting of that body yesterday morning. I do not see how any action could have been taken at an earlier stage. I should be glad to know if I am right.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: Action could have been taken at an earlier stage if the Bill had been here before June 25, when it ought to have been here. My difficulty is that it is not reasonable to ask your Lordships' Committees to sit to consider these matters at this time of the year.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: With regard to the Bill for the extension of Darlington, it is said that it is not to proceed further than Second Reading. In that case, what is the object of giving it a Second Reading? Will the noble Earl kindly tell us what good object is served by reading the Bill a second time if it is not to proceed further? It seems to me that it would be far preferable that it should be dropped altogether.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: The suggestion is not that the Bill should be dropped, but that it should be read a second time and then suspended until next session. In accordance with Private Bill precedents, we should send a Message to the other House suggesting that the Bill should be suspended. The procedure would then be that it would pass its stages quite formally in the originating House next year, and we would take it in one of the first Committee groups that sit next session. I do not think there is any great difference in our reading the Bill a second time to-day and our not doing so, but as the Government desire that it should be read a second time I see no objection.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: Perhaps the Government will tell us why they desire that Bill No. 23 should be read a second time, because it seems to me there is nothing gained. The Bill is not in any way delayed if it is suspended.
LORD STRACHIE: If the noble Earl presses his objection I will not proceed further with Bill No. 23, as I understand it could equally well be suspended having been read a first time in this House. I was under the impression at first that unless it was read a second time it would be necessary to commence again next session de novo. If that is not so, of course I do not mind whether or not the Bill is read a second time now.
*EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON: I have nothing to say about the circumstances of this particular Bill, with which I am not familiar, and the promoters of which appear to be likely to suffer for a procedure for which they have no responsibility. The point which I wish to put to the Government is this. The noble Earl the Lord Chairman spoke to us just now about the operation of the present system as it affects the partition of work between the two Houses of Parliament. From the position from which the noble Earl spoke, his observations appeared to be addressed to us on this Bench, but I submit that in reality they were intended to be addressed, and were addressed, to noble Lords sitting behind him. What I would like to ask the noble Marquess the Leader of the House is whether, in the forthcoming vacation, he will undertake to consider very seriously the matter brought before us by the noble Earl. The injustice of the present system is surely shown by the fact that of fifty-nine Provisional Order Bills only three were introduced in the first instance in your Lordships' House. That seems to me to be an obviously unfair and unwise partition of work between the two Houses. I believe the noble Earl was perfectly right in what he said, that the members of your Lordships' House are extremely good in their attention to public business of this character; and their willingness to sit. in Committee at this late period of the session is, I think, a proof of the justice of the tribute which he paid. But the noble Earl concluded by making, from his own considerable experience, two definite suggestions for the consideration of the Government, and I should like to ask the noble Marquess the Leader of the House whether he, on behalf of the Government, will undertake to consider the matter very carefully in the interval that lies before us with a view of introducing some better system in the next session of Parliament.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (TILE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, in reply to the noble Earl who has just spoken, I need not assure him or the House that anything on this subject which falls from my noble friend the Lord Chairman is certain to receive most careful attention and respectful consideration from us. It is now, I am sorry to say, some years since I have taken any part whatever in the
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private business of the House, with which at one time I was greatly engaged, and the particular circumstances mentioned by my noble friend the Lord Chairman were unknown to me. But I will certainly, in deference to his opinion, which, as we all know, is bound to carry the greatest weight here, make the inquiries which he suggests and find out whether it is possible to re-arrange this particular branch of business in the two Houses in a manner which will secure a greater equality of effort between the two; because, so far as my experience of private business here goes, although, as I have stated, it, is not recent, I should fully endorse the statements that have been made of the willingness at any rate of a considerable number of noble Lords in this House to undertake arduous duties in that connection, and also of the skill and experience which they bring to bear upon it. I shall be glad, therefore, to make the inquiries for which the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees has asked.
On Question, Motion agreed to: Bill No. 20 read 2ª accordingly.

PIER AND HARBOUR. PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order): The Amendments proposed by the Select Committee made: The Report of Amendments to be received on Tuesday next.

EXPORTATION OF HORSES BILL. [SFAIOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD LEIGH: My Lords, this Bill seeks to put an end to a traffic which has been the cause of intense and abominable cruelty, and which has roused much public indignation. A large trade in worn-out and decrepit horses exists between this country and Belgium, the fact that a vast majority of these horses are unfit for further work proving that they are intended to be slaughtered on the other side for human consumption. An Act of Parliament was passed in 1910 to regulate this traffic, but it did not go far enough. Section 1 of that Act says that it shall not be lawful to ship or attempt to ship any horse which is not capable of being conveyed to such port or disembarked without cruelty. We submit

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that a horse which is unfit for further work should not be subjected to the cruelty and suffering that may be entailed on the voyage across.
It has been said that the Act of 1910 prevented weak and ailing horses being shipped, but the facts are otherwise. In November and December of 1913, 5,046 horses were shipped from Great Britain to Antwerp; of these, eight died during the voyage and four were slaughtered at the dock, whilst seventy-one were conveyed in floats from the dock, being unable to walk. All those horses had passed the inspector appointed under the Act. The Act says that no horse shall be on board if it is not capable of being conveyed without suffering or cruelty. What. I have said proves that a vast number of these 5,016 horses did undergo suffering and cruelty. So much for the cruelty on this side.
It is impossible to deny that cruelty does exist on the other side. I hope I may be allowed to read an extract from a letter written to Captain Murray, who had charge of the Bill in another place, by Miss Cole, whom Captain Murray described as a lady who has done more in the interests of these horses than any other human being and whose evidence no one would attempt to disprove. Miss Cole says—
"Every Monday afternoon when our horses leave quarantine stables marked for death (and liable to wait ten days for that one possible boon) they are beyond all protection, and are considered simply as so much living meat. On the railway some are without food and water for forty-eight hours. Some fall and are trampled under foot. On the road they go twenty-eight miles or more, and arrive sweating, limping, and exhausted. They fall. One fell in Antwerp in daylight, and the drover, who kicked it till an eye was smashed and the mouth bleeding, was not punished or even threatened. (This was not on a Monday—it was a horse leaving for Brussels on Wednesday, exhausted for want of food.) They suffer hunger and thirst before death, and are more often than not cruelly killed. Two people told me that they protested against cruelty to horses marked for death, and received the same answer that they were for killing. Nearly all our old horses 'are for killing.' They are marked for it, and that means that their suffering does not matter. Please remember that this is true of the greater number of our old horses sent here every week. From my own experience in regard to France, the cruelty to the horses there, I fear, is at least as bad."
That quotation needs no comment. It is true we are not answerable for cruelty that occurs on the other side of the water, but we can remove the cause by ensuring that these worn-out horses shall be slaughtered on this side.
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It has been said that the importers will not import dead meat if they cannot get live horses, and in that way a stop would be put to a profitable industry. But though in the case of Belgium they will not import carcases they will import dead meat. Not long ago a cargo of several hundred tons of dead meat was imported front the Argentine, a small tax being put upon it. And in the the case of Holland there are sent there some thousands of carcases of horses slaughtered on this side as being unfit to travel. If the traffic in live horses is stopped the trade will in all probability soon settle down to the altered conditions, for the Belgians will have their horsemeat. I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything more in support of the Bill, and I beg to move that it be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Leigh.)
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): My Lords, perhaps I ought to say, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, that they give cordial approval to this Bill, and I think the noble Lord and those associated with him in this matter deserve the congratulations of a great many people upon their success in bringing the Bill this session so near success as they have done, and I am sure that all humanitarians will rejoice to think that the Bill will become law at an early date. I do not know whether the noble Lord has considered the date for taking the Committee stage, but I would suggest one day in the middle of next week.
LORD LEIGH: I will put it down for Tuesday.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.

FINANCE BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
*THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, your Lordships will remember that it has not been for many years past the custom, in introducing the Finance Bill in this House, to make anything in the nature of a

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Budget statement. In fact, the usual procedure which I have myself often followed, and which I have seen followed by others for many years, has been simply to move the Second Reading of the Bill; and in case any noble Lord, as generally happened from the Front Bench opposite, has desired to make certain observations of a general character, then to reply on whatever may have been said; but anything like a protracted or continuous debate has been unusual in your Lordships' House. On this particular occasion, however, as the Finance Bill contains certain provisions of a novel character some of which are of particular interest to your Lordships' House owing to the composition of our Assembly, I think my best course will be to make one or two short observations of a quite general character and then to touch upon one or two points in the Bill which may be taken to be of especial interest to your Lordships.
The marked fact which must strike everybody in connection with our national expenditure during the period of the last five or the last ten years has been its perpetual increase. During that period the increase in our national expenditure has amounted, roughly speaking, to something like £50,000,000, of which, also speaking roughly, some 00,000,000 may be put down to extra expenditure on national defence, and some £30,000,000 to expenditure on various schemes of reform. Against this has to be set a certain repayment of Debt which has taken place. So far as the repayment of Debt is concerned we, as a Government, have nothing of which to be ashamed. Going back to the latter years of the last century it will be found that on the different sides the Chancellors of the Exchequer —taking Mr. Goschen and Sir William Harcourt as instances—achieved about the same measure of success in the repayment of Debt, something over £6,000,000 a year on an average. Of course, I leave out all the financial complications which ensued from such events as the South African War or some other occasions on which special Loans and expenditure were necessary. But, speaking generally, the credit to be claimed by the Chancellors of the Exchequer of either Party was about equal. During the last ten years we have as a Government paid off somewhere about £9,250,000 a year of Debt, amounting in the gross to something over £100,000,000;
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and therefore, as I have stated, we do not feel that we have anything to be ashamed of in that respect.
As to how far the country can bear this increase of £50,000,600 in expenditure it is most natural and proper that questions should be asked. But on the evidence of those statisticians who are best competent to judge, pant passu with that increase has gone on a colossal increase in the national wealth. It is estimated, I think, that the national income since the year 1909—that is to say, since the imposition of the fresh taxes in the Budget of that year—has gone up by something like £150,000,000; and I think the evidence of all our eves tends to bear out that fact. There can be nobody, I think, in this House who has reached even middle life who would not say, with the certainty of not being contradicted, that since his youth the evidence of general wealth diffused practically through all classes in the country has become more and more marked as the years go on. I do not know that there is now any elms in the country of whom that cannot be said. There was a time when we should have been tempted to. except the agricultural community, in particular the farmers, in making such a statement; but during the last ten years or so nobody, I think, who has had an opportunity of judging can doubt that in that business, too, there have been renewed and increasing evidences of prosperity.
In the meantime, however, in this Budget, as the House is well aware, various new liabilities have to be met. The task of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been to find something between £9,000,000 and £10,000,000 for the expenditure of the current year, with the certainty that, except in some special items, that expenditure is not likely to be decreased in the following years. And the House is doubtless generally aware of the methods by which that large increase has to be met. For the current year an addition of a penny is made to the Income Tax. In speaking of the 1s. 3d. Income Tax it is important to note that the proportion of Income Taxpayers who pay the total amount of 1s. 3d. is an exceedingly small one. There are about 1,250,000 payers of Income Tax in this country, and of those only 160,000 pay the full rate. of 1s. 3d. And that is a fact which has to be borne in mind in view of the principle which now, I think, is

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accepted by all parties and by most people in reference to taxation—namely, that taxation cannot now be only levied in respect of the particular services which are performed by the State in its different capacities and the results enjoyed by different individuals, but it also has to be levied with some reference to the ability of the person who pays to hear an extra burden of taxation.
Then there is, as the House will remember, a new impost which has become the subject of a good deal of criticism in regard to some of its details, into which I will not, or course, attempt to enter— - namely, that of charging Income Tax on income accumulated abroad. Hitherto it is only such proceeds of foreign investments or foreign property as have been remitted home that have become chargeable for Income Tax; but in view of the general principle which I have stated it is now recognised that it is only the wealthier members, at any rate con paratively speaking, of a community who can afford to reinvest the proceeds of foreign securities or foreign property, and it is those who have been able to escape this burden of taxation and not the smaller holders of property even though they hold in some foreign country or in some parts of the Empire outside these islands.
On this matter of Income Tax there are one or two facts of special interest to this House where so many of us derive our incomes from land. In the first place—and I think this should be regarded as a really valuable change in the system of levying Income Tax—the limit of 25 per cent. which was imposed upon improvements is now swept away altogether, and a landowner is entitled to deduct for purposes of Income Tax and Super-Tax whatever outlay he may make in the improvement of his property. That is one change of an important, and to many of your Lordships, I am sure, a substantial character. And in the same relation there is a further change the importance of which will be recognised by most landowners—namely, the change from £8 a year limit for cottage property to £12 entitling the owner to similar remission. It was found—I am sure a great many of your Lordships have found—that the £8 limit did not give the landowner the benefit in a great number of cases of houses
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inhabited by those who might not be actually agricultural labourers but who were fully engaged in the business of agriculture, such as blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and many others, and it will be found, I hope, that this change is also a substantial advantage.
I have no desire to go through the whole Bill, and I need say nothing on the subject of the further graduation of the Super-Tax, which must seem to many a formidable alteration. But it is again important to remember that of all the payers of Super-Tax there are only a half, it will be found, who will pay more than 1s. 6d. in the £ both in respect of Income Tax and Super-Tax put together, and therefore the more humble class of Super-Tax payers will not find that this heavy demand makes much difference to them. Then we have also heard comments of a highly critical character upon the steeper graduation in Death Duties, and we know there are not a few who consider that Death Duties are an altogether undesirable form of taxation, and that it would be both fairer and simpler to raise by way of Income Tax, or possibly of Super-Tax and Income Tax combined, the whole sum which is produced annually by means of Death Duties. I think it is not impossible that some day, although it may not be a very near day, some kind of Income Tax applicable both to rich and to the quite poor, including the wage-earning class, may be practically the only direct tax levied throughout the country. It is not, I think, inconceivable that such a state of things might be arrived at, although there are complications and difficulties which are well known to all those who have studied these subjects. But so far as existing taxpayers are concerned, the substitution of Income Tax or Super-Tax payments to raise the whole amount now available from Death Duties would involve so serious a diminution of income to many people that I greatly doubt whether any Chancellor of the Exchequer could be found who would he prepared to face it. On the other hand, there are certain cases in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been able in this matter of Death Duties, too, to attempt to meet hard cases. He has endeavoured to do something in the difficult and vexed matter of rapid succession. We have all recognised the hardship belonging to frequent successions. There are few of us who have not had under our own personal observation some cases of our

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friends who have suffered severely, and one cannot help thinking unfairly, in that respect, and I should hope that the relief which is promised in this Finance Bill may prove to be, as far as it goes—and it goes tolerably far—a real relief. That Applies both to real property and to many kinds of business in which the hardship of repeated payments at short intervals is not less marked than it is in connection with land.
Then there is another point which I have no doubt will have exercised the minds of many members of this House, and that is the complete abolition of the benefit which in the case of realty was allowed to attach to settled property. I think it will be admitted that speaking in a mixed assembly it would be difficult to offer any logical defence of the difference which, since the early 'nineties—since Sir William Harcourt's Budget—has been permitted to exist in respect of settled property, and specially, of course, of settled land. The arguments in favour of such an arrangement are of a general or social character appealing forcibly to some, but it can hardly be supposed that they would appeal to the ordinary man who is not himself interested in landowning. I will not trouble the House with a description of how the Chancellor of the Exchequer has endeavoured to avoid anything which can be described as a breach of faith towards those who settled their property in consequence of the former legislation on the subject, but merely state that the method in which that is done is to treat the property as having been franked by the settlement to the present date—to the 15th of August next, in fact—and from that time until the next duty becomes payable the trustees of the settlement will be entitled to receive three per cent. simple interest upon the amount paid under the first settlement.
In respect of this matter of Death Duties there is another point on which I should expect to find that many members of this House would feel strongly. It cannot be disputed that where the assets of an estate are not liquid, not easily realisable, the difficulty of meeting the sum payable for Death Duties, particularly on the higher scale, may in some cases be exceedingly great and in a few almost impossible. I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
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has been very anxious to find some method of meeting that hardship. It might possibly be met by a further extension of the time of payment or by some method of facilitating by State assistance the raising of the sum required, because it is the raising of the money which is often the practical difficulty for the successor to the estate. I am well aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is anxious to meet this if he can, and he is giving his attention, although the matter is by no means an easy one, to various methods that have been suggested for meeting this particular hardship.
I need only say a word on one more subject, and that is upon the relation between local and Imperial finance, with which it is attempted to deal in this Finance Bill. I see sitting above the Gangway my noble friend (Lord Balfour of Burleigh) who is so honourably remembered in connection with the Commission which sat from 1896 to 1901 on this question of local rating. Ever since then successive Governments have tried to deal with the question. I am sorry to say that I myself, standing at this Table four years ago, stated quite categorically that we would attempt to deal with the matter in the following year. That, I am afraid, is a case in which, though I was fully authorised to make the statement—I hope noble. Lords opposite will admit it is the only case—we have rot been able to act precisely up to the letter of the pledges we have made. The matter is, of course, one of extreme complexity; but every year the necessity for some such dealing has become more and more patent. We have gone on year after year placing a load of fresh duties upon the different grades of local authorities. The policy which has inspired the imposition of those loads will in some cases have the enthusiastic approval of noble Lords opposite, because they themselves have been responsible for a large part of the imposition. In other cases they will no doubt criticise the action of those who placed those burdens on the localities. But the fact remains that the burden is on the shoulders of the local authorities and of the ratepayers whom they represent. We have always held, and we are proposing to act on our belief, that the only possible method of proceeding is to alter the basis of rating, and to relieve as far as possible improvements, Is such, from a rating charge.

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We hope that for this year, with an increasing amount for subsequent years, somewhere about £4,000,000 will go to the local authorities in relief partly of education charges, and partly and not inconsiderably for main roads, in addition to a large sum in respect of public health, an almost equivalent sum, not to mention a smaller amount for such items as cattle disease, and so on. I hope that when the time comes we shall have the full cooperation of the Party opposite in achieving this great and most necessary reform in relieving the ratepayers of the vast and most unequally distributed burden which rests upon their shoulders. The case of both the urban ratepayer and the rural ratepayer is one which needs close attention, although in quite varying degrees according to the part of the United Kingdom in which the ratepayers live. When we proceed, as I hope we soon shall be able to do, with the further details connected with these proposals, details which will have to be carefully thought out in order to ensure for one thing that the money is wisely distributed, and, in the second place, that it is not likely to be wasted, we shall have an opportunity then of going into a great number of questions which I will not attempt to touch upon to-day. All that I will do now, having run over some of the most salient points of this Finance Bill, is to ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading, and, in view of the necessities of the situation, to suspend the Standing Order in order that it may pass through its different stages.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(The Marquess of Crewe.)
*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I trust that the noble Marquess will not think us wanting in courtesy on this side of the House if we abstain from following the lengthy observations which he has addressed to us on the subject of this Bill. There are on this side of the House many noble Lords who have an expert knowledge of finance, and who would have been perfectly competent to take a distinguished part in a financial discussion upon this measure. But we came to the conclusion that as our opportunities of moulding it, of altering it, in any manner were virtually non-existent, little good could result from such a discussion. And if I wished to accentuate that proposition I would do so by remind-
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ing your Lordships that the noble Marquess has just moved the suspension of the Standing Orders in order, I imagine, that the Bill may go through most of its stages this evening, and it is no 'doubt from the Government's point of view essential that it should receive the Royal Assent within the next two or three days. In these circumstances it seems to us quite obvious that nothing we can say could alter the course of events. Therefore we do not propose to offer any comments upon the Bill. But our silence certainly must not be taken as admitting the whole of the propositions which the noble Marquess has submitted to the House in regard to the manner in which the taxation for which his colleague is responsible operates on those who are called upon to bear the burden.
On Question, Bill read 2ª.
Committee negatived: Then Standing Order No. XXXIX considered (according to Order) and dispensed with: Bill read 3a and passed.

GOVERNMENT OF THE SOUDAN LOAN BILL.
Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.
POLICE (WEEKLY REST-DAY) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
Read 3ª (according to Order), and passed.

TRADE MARKS BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SOUTHWARK: My Lords, I ask your Lordships to give a Second Reading to this Bill, the object of which is to amend Section 64 of the Trade Marks Act, 1905. This Bill was introduced into the House of Commons by my hon. friend Mr. Needham, the Member for South-West Manchester, on behalf of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, which is a statutory authority under the 1905 Act for dealing with cotton trade marks. The object of the Bill is to clear up a doubt which exists as to whether some registrations which have already taken place under the Act of 1905 are valid. The Bill is of a retrospective

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nature. The question dealt with is of a technical trade character, and all parties are agreed, including the sewing cotton trade; and the Bill also has the approval of the President of the Board of Trade. The Bill was backed by Members of the House of Commons sitting in all parts of the House, and it has received all-round support. In fact, there has been no opposition to it. Therefore I need not trouble your Lordships with any further remarks at this stage. Should any of your Lordships want further information or think that any of the clauses are unsatisfactory, an opportunity will be afforded for considering them at the Committee stage. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2ª.—(Lord Southwark.)
THE EARL OF GRANARD: My Lords, the noble Lord has very justly said that the Board of Trade offer no opposition to this Bill. The Bill has passed through the House of Commons without amendment, and I trust that it will pass through this House in a like manner.
On Question, Bill read 2ª, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.

MINERAL HICIETS DUTY.
LORD LAMINGTON: My Lords, I rise to call attention to the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons that the Mineral Rights Duty was the only contribution made by the owners of mineral rights in respect of the income from land. where every other interest had contributed to the local expenditure, and whereas this statement is not true in the case of Scotland, to ask His Majesty's Government to give relief from the tax to Scottish owners of mineral rights.
It will be within your Lordships' recollection that when this Mineral Rights Duty was first imposed it was done on the plea of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that mining royalties made no contribution to local taxation; and the other day, when a debate was raised in another place upon a request that payments made in respect of that duty and the Undeveloped Land Duty should be deducted for the purpose
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of Super-Tax, the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeated his observation. He said—
"it is not Income Tax in any sense of the term. The position is that it is a contribution made by the owners of these mineral rights in respect of the income from land. 'Where every other interest in land is contributing heavily to local expenditure they are contributing nothing. You may have a colliery proprietor plying about five, six, or seven shillings in respect of what lie has risked his capital on, while the owner of the mineral rights is only contributing his shilling."
That may be perfectly true in England but it, is not the case in Scotland, where mining royalties are assessed for local taxation like any other form of income from land. It is an unjust and oppressive tax in any form, as you are singling out a special part of the community for taxation and carrying it by the votes of thousands against hundreds. The very plea for which this tax is imposed—namely, that mining royalties pay nothing to the rates—is absolutely untrue in regard to Scotland, and therefore I hope the Government will give some answer to my Question which will be favourable to the owners of mining royalties in that country.
*THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHIE): My Lords, I do not think it is necessary to go further back than the speech which has been referred to by the noble Lord. The noble Lord said that the Mineral Bights Duty was first imposed on the plea of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that owners of mining royalties made no contribution to local rates. I sat through most of those discussions in the other House, but I cannot remendier that statement being made. But as regards this particular point to which the noble Lord takes exception, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did undoubtedly make the statement of which the noble Lord complains. No doubt it was a slip which any man not a Scotsman might make. I might have made the same slip myself as an owner of English royalties, as I do not pay towards local rates on my milling royalties.
It is unnecessary for me to go into the incidence of local taxation in Scotland. I am not sure that I am competent to do so. But it is true, as the noble Lord says, that local rates in Scotland are charged upon royalties or rent paid for a colliery. Though that is so the noble Lord has overlooked this, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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had his attention drawn to the fact that the royalty owner in Scotland who paid rates was in a worse position than the royalty owner in England, and therefore he introduced into the Finance Act of 1912 a clause which is now Section 11, which provides that—
"The amount of rent taken to be the rental value under sections twenty and twenty-one of the Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, of a right to work minerals (where the right is the subject of a mining lease), or of a mineral way leave shall, in cases where the lessor is liable under any Act to pay any sum on account of rates, be the sum which would be payable as rent if the lessee were liable instead of the lessor."
The effect of that is, putting it shortly, that the proprietor, when he has to make his return for assessment of his mining royalty, is allowed to deduct the estimated amount of the local rates from that royalty. Therefore he does not pay upon the full amount of the royalty he receives, but only upon the net amount after deducting the local rates he has had to pay. Consequently he is put in exactly the same position as the English royalty owner or an owner who rents his coal at a fixed rent to a colliery company. So that the position at the moment is this, that the proprietor in Scotland is in no worse position than the royalty owner in England.
LORD LAMINGTON: I do not quite understand the answer of the noble Lord. Take the case of a mining royalty of the value of £100 a year, on which the local taxes come to £15 a year. The Scottish owner would only pay on £85, I understand?
LORD STRACHIE: The noble Lord says £15. If he means that £15 is the proprietor's local rates, and if it was estimated that that amount was the amount the lessee would pay as in England, where the lessee pays the whole of the rates, then that amount would he deducted.
LORD LAMINGTON: What the noble Lord says may be correct, but I cannot quite follow the point. The English royalty owner has never paid the £15 in rates at all.
LORD STRACHIE: I am sorry if I have not made myself clear. What I was trying to explain was that in the case of the Scottish landlord, supposing the royalty was £100, he would not pay Mineral Rights Duty on the whole of that
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£100, but only on so much of it after the estimated amount of the rates had been deducted.
LORD LAMINGTON: Meanwhile the English royalty owner pays nothing at all in rates, and he pays on the £85 as I understand?
LORD STRACHIE: No. The English royalty owner, I know to my cost, pays on the full amount of his mineral royalties. He pays the duty, less, of course, the Income Tax, which under the decision in the Duke of Beaufort's case he has the right to deduct. The English owner can deduct Income Tax, but nothing else.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I beg to move that, except for Judicial business, the House do adjourn until Tuesday next.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before Six o'clock, till Tomorrow, half-past ten o'clock.