Lords Sitting of 16 July 1936

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The EARL OF ONSLOW on the Woolsack.
The Earl Beatty—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (ADDI- TIONAL POWERS) BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
LONDON AND MIDDLESEX (IM- PROVEMENTS, ETC.) BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments: further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Viscount Halifax, I beg to move the Motion standing on the Paper in his name.
Moved, That Standing Order No. XXI be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of giving precedence to the Order for the Third Reading of the Finance Bill over other Notices and Orders of the Day.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

FINANCE BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVI- SIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (RIPON) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

TITHE BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2:
Compensation by issue of stock.
(3) For the purposes of this Act the gross annual value of a rentcharge shall be taken to be the amount which bears to the amount of the rentcharge the same proportion as the following sum bears to the sum of one hundred pounds, that is to say—
(a) if any of the land out of which the rentcharge issued immediately before the appointed day was on the first day of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, agricultural land, ninety-one pounds eleven shillings and twopence;
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved, in paragraph (a) of subsection (3), to leave out "ninety-one, pounds eleven shillings and twopence" and insert "ninety-seven pounds fifteen shillings." The noble Earl said: In moving this Amendment and my next Amendment to Clause 3, following what occurred on the Second Reading, I am actuated by one primary motive—namely, the object of mitigating in some way the tremendous hardship and harm which may be done to higher education as a result of this Bill. In the interests of saving time I think I might explain, in regard to these two Amendments, that they stand together. The second is necessary if the first is passed, but if the first is not passed I shall not trouble your Lordships by moving the second. I can sum up the objects of the Amendments in a few sentences and I presume it will be to your Lordships' convenience that I should state the case now for the two Amendments.
The first would raise to £97 15s. the gross annual value for £100 tithe rentcharge, so that the net income of the tithe-owner on which he receives compensation is increased for an incumbent from about £76 12s. 6d. to about £82 4s. 2d., and for the lay tithe-owner from about £51 19s. 9d. to about £55 18s. 2d. These Amendments would not wipe out the effects of the Bill but would mitigate the harm which is done. They leave the tithe-payer still paying £91 11s. 2d. and still enjoying the increased Schedule B remissions proposed in the Bill, and find the money to pay for the extra stock
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issued to the tithe-owner by leaving the redemption period at the seventy-five years still left of the period laid down by the Act of 1925. With regard to raising the gross annual value from £91 11s. 2d. to £97 15s., I will not repeat the powerful argument of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ipswich on Second Reading. I adopt them entirely, and they are the justification for what I now propose. I agree with him emphatically that in arriving at the value of tithe there is no justification for omitting the years under War conditions, and in any case £97 15s.. is the correct figure. The statement that war conditions are exceptional is entirely contrary to history. In the last three centuries there is no other period of eighty years in which there has not been a world war in which we have been involved. I would remind your Lordships in one sentence that whilst the Bill refuses to consider the War years in connection with ascertaining the value of tithes, when we come to rates the War years are included, so that the Government in the Bill take the best of both worlds and gives us the worst. My noble friend the Under-Secretary for Agriculture—
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: For Education.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: He is certainly agriculturally-minded. The noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, in the very good-natured speech in which he wound up the Second Reading debate, did not in any way mitigate the unpalatable things he was saying to us. The pill was beautifully gilded, but its inside was as bitter as we know that pills can be. He takes consolation, however, in the fact that as both sides are attacking him he probably finds himself in a fair position as between the two. Your Lordships were taught when you were young that two minuses make a plus, and we accepted that doctrine because probably we were punished if we did not, but I have never been taught that two wrongs make a right. My emotions do not come solely from one side, for I think both sides are being badly treated. First of all, there is the very unfair treatment of the lay tithe-owner, and I illustrated this by figures supplied by seventeen Oxford colleges representing the whole. These colleges, which lost £15,800 a year by the Acts of 1918 and 1925, are to lose another £10,000 a year by this Bill. They

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are almost certainly in every case, with perhaps one or two exceptions, going to receive in future an income from this source lower than in any year in the last century. These institutions, your Lordships will remember, all over the country are said to have £577,000 a year from tithe, and of that they lose roughly 20 per cent., or one-fifth, £115,400 a year.
These institutions indeed are given a severe fall, and that fall has not been broken in any of the ways in which, quite rightly as I think, Parliament has come to the relief of the Church. This loss is occasioned by letting many people off amounts of tithes which they can well afford to pay and which they always have paid honestly and punctually, while the relief given in the really bad cases in the distressed agricultural areas is in my view nothing like sufficient. And the keynote of the whole position is the period selected of sixty years. Therefore, I press for the retention of the redemption period of the Act of 1925, because this shortened period now is responsible for a quite outrageous sinking fund, and it is the burden of this sinking fund which causes the cutting of the lay tithe-owners to the bone and the insufficient relief to these distressed areas.
Your Lordships will of course remember that one of the reasons for this is that the sinking fund is fixed at a time when we have to contemplate 3 per cent. interest. In the good old days when we got 4 per cent. it would have been much better. If your Lordships will look at page 6 of the Government White Paper you will see that the tithe-payer will pay in future in round figures £2,800,000 a year. Of this £422,000 is sinking fund. That is to say, when the tithe-payer pays £24 in tithe he will pay £4 in sinking fund; in other words of every £91 11s. 2d. £14 is sinking fund, which is a colossal figure. The longer period suggested would lower the sinking fund enormously. Over 76 years I am told that it comes to £274,520 a year, instead of the £420,000 which is suggested. This reduction in sinking fund would be sufficient to pay for this Amendment and to pay for the Amendment which we are moving later with reference to what has been erroneously called by myself and others 5 per cent. It is not 5 per cent., it is £5, which
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is another story altogether. And even then the Government will have a surplus of £24,000 a year, which would give my noble friends below me a very pleasant addition of 12 per cent. to the £200,000 which is set aside for hard cases.
If I thought the Government scheme was squeezed dry I would not claim so much, but I, like my noble friend Lord Hastings in his speech on Second Reading, am convinced that there are large hidden reserves which either the Government do not know about or which they have not disclosed. The Commission, it is quite true, suggested forty years. The Government have already disagreed with them on this point. I do hope that they will disagree a little more. And, finally, I would point out to my tithe-paying friends that it will not be doing an unwise thing in putting this further burden, not on themselves but on future generations, who will profit by the maintenance of the present educational facilities, who will suffer if these facilities are diminished, and who will be able to undertake this duty when doubtless, owing to the optimistic action of the Government now and in future times, agriculture will be in a very much better state and they feel the call on themselves very much less.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, leave out (" ninety-one pounds eleven shillings and twopence ") and insert (" ninety-seven pounds fifteen shillings ").—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: I rise to support this Amendment. The noble Earl has explained the matters educational involved in it. I revert to what was said on the Second Reading, the position of the clergy, and I have no hesitation in doing so owing to what fell from the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, in his very friendly speech. He quoted Lord Melbourne as a primary authority on Church history; I should scarcely have put him in that position. On the other hand, of course I am well aware that Parliament is perfectly competent to deal as it pleases with rent and tithe and possessions and positions of all kinds. I am not questioning that, but I would suggest that under the present Bill the clergy are being treated with quite needless severity. In any case great sacrifices are being demanded of

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them. I should like to see the Amendment accepted so that those sacrifices might in some small degree be mitigated.
I believe the Amendment does offer us a just solution of an admittedly complicated question. By changing the period of redemption from sixty years to seventy-five the noble Earl has explained that the sum miscalculated at £105 in the 1925 Act could be put on a firmer, sounder, and perfectly just basis of £97 odd. It is that £97 odd that I am asking your Lordships now to be good enough to consider. Take it how one pleases, this Bill does confer great advantages on the tithe-payer. I do not see that it is giving anything to the tithe-owner except security, for which he is asked, in my humble judgment, to pay a very large sum. But there is one security that he does get; this I think does no good to anybody, either to the individual or the community. It is the security given to a man who does not leave his present incumbency, and I find already it is being recognised all over the countryside that a man holding a certain benefice on October 2 will never dare to move from it unless something very much better is put within his reach. That kind of security of tenure, which means permanency of tenure, I certainly for one very much deprecate. I said on the Second Reading that I have great sympathy with a great, many of the tithe-payers—not all of them, because a great many of them neither need nor ask for sympathy. It is only in a certain portion of the country that the tithe question pinches, and where the tithe question pinches I do not think this Bill is giving adequate relief.
The noble Earl has explained that to extend the period from sixty years to seventy five years would meet a very large number of these objections and inflict far fewer sacrifices upon the tithe-owners, while, as he has indicated, it does no harm whatever to the present tithe-payer. Any injury, if it is an injury, that is to be inflicted will not come into operation for sixty-one years. Land is constantly changing hands, and it is impossible that any one sitting here will feel the pinch in the sixty-first year. What I should prefer is that the Committee should accept some or all of the Amendments standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, my fellow county man. These reliefs would
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be of some relief to the present tithe-payers, and I must say I am more interested in them than in what may happen in the days of my grandchildren.
If this permanent settlement—I emphasise the word "this "—is to last for sixty-five years, I think it might very well last for seventy-five years. The proposal of the noble Earl would inflict no hardship whatever on the taxpayer. Already the tithe-payer is to get a considerable reduction, and when we come to Schedule B, as it stands, he is to get a good deal of help. If the Amendment of Lord Hastings is carried he will get more help. I should like to express the humble hope that we shall hear, if this extension of time is not accepted by His Majesty's Government, what is the reason why sixty years has been fixed. When one considers that the change from sixty years to seventy-five years would do so much good, it is important to learn exactly why there is sanctity about the term of sixty years. We all mean to be reasonable, and we all know the Government have been put in a difficult position in the post-War years. I should be the last person to make more than a smiling reference to what has been said about the settlement which has now been discarded. A great deal has happened in the last fifteen years, but I see no reason why the Government that stood behind the settlement of 1925 should throw over more of that arrangement than is positively necessary. I cannot myself agree that the change from sixty years to seventy-five years, as advocated by the noble Earl, is an unreasonable demand for consistency from the Government, and I beg to support the Amendment.
LORD CRANWORTH: I am bound to say I feel the deepest sympathy with the noble Earl who moved this Amendment. I think that lay tithe-owners, and more especially the colleges, have had a very raw deal in this matter. I should very much like to support the Amendment, but I find it quite impossible to do so. I would remind your Lordships of this point, that I do not think any of the tithe-owners raised any objection when we asked that a Royal Commission should be set up and that the position as between payer and owner should be put to arbitration. That Commission sat for eighteen months, and after its award was

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made the Government weighted that award with some hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum, and decided that the whole of that weight should be paid by the tithe-payer. Since this is stated to be a balanced scheme, one would have thought this burden would have been equally divided, but it was not; the tithe-payer was asked to bear it all.
Some £2,000,000 of that sum was to augment the income of the poorer paid clergy, an aim with which we are all in sympathy and agreement, and I am sorry we have not had more gratitude for that enforced gift. I want to point out that in spite of that extra weight, in spite of the fact that the whole of this extra burden is being borne by the tithe-payer, there is not one single Amendment down from those who speak for the tithe-payer which imposes a single penny of extra burden on the tithe-owner. I submit in that case that surely the tithe-owners might treat us in the same way because, as matters stand, it is really like the request of Oliver Twist over again. I regret I cannot support the Amendment.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (EARL DE LA WARR): I think the whole Committee, like Lord Cranworth, must feel the very deepest sympathy with the case which has been urged by the noble Earl and the right reverend Prelate, but on the other hand the noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, has shown very clearly the difficulty in which the Government find themselves in dealing with this question. It is quite clear that this is a question either of takng more from the tithe-payer or of doing nothing to help the tithe-owner, and in that case the Government come down on the basis of the Royal Commission's Report. I think your Lordships will agree that is really all we can do. When I say we come down to the Royal Commission's Report, I must make a qualification, because noble Lords will remember that actually the Report said forty years and we have gone up to sixty years. Therefore already the tithe-payers have been let in for an extra period.
Before I continue with this argument I might touch on one point that the noble Earl, Lord Donoughmore, mentioned, and that is the question of the educational institutions about which the noble Earl is so very concerned and with which,
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again, we have all particular sympathy. I think the noble Earl will find he is under some misconception because he has twice given us the figure that the University of Oxford is going to lose £10,000 a year. The figures which I have—and since the Second Reading I have had them carefully checked to make quite sure they are right—are these. In the case of Oxford University, at the present moment, the par value of their tithe rentcharge is just over £48,000, but their present net income, taking into account rates and various necessary deductions, is £31,500. Their future income will be £25,347. That amounts, in round figures, to a difference of just over £6,150. But some of these colleges are also tithe-payers, and from that sum of just over £6,000 you have to deduct a sum of approximately £1,500 which they will save, leaving them with a net loss of something just over £4,500. I do not say that that is a figure of no importance, but at the same time your Lordships will agree that it is a good deal less than the sum which the noble Earl has mentioned.
In addition to that, there is the point made by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House on the Second Reading, that it should be possible for the colleges to improve their investment position. The noble Earl, Lord Donoughmore, complained that the Leader of the House was suggesting that he was engaging in speculation. This was a point that was put to the Royal Commission by one who was speaking on behalf of the tithe-owners, although it is true he came from the rival institution to Oxford. He said:
"I assume, that tithe-owners would be entitled…to exchange the guaranteed stock into other approved investments, in so far as they desired to do so. By gradually reinvesting the proceeds of some part in other suitable assets, less liquid and without the special attractions of a Government security, it should be possible in present conditions largely to reinstate the existing income, with a degree of security and a freedom from anxiety not inferior to what is now enjoyed."
I know that that suggestion was one that came from Cambridge, but there is another which came from one who, I think the noble Earl, Lord Donoughmore, would admit was a very prominent member of his own University—the most reverend Primate. The most reverend Primate said the other day in his speech that he had great hopes that at least this loss might be substantially mitigated,

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apparently by the investments which the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty might be able to make of stock transferred to them by the Government. I think we can assume that the most reverend Primate thinks there is something in this point. Of course it is a hypothetical point and one does not know to what extent it might actually work.
Perhaps I might now return and give a more detailed answer to the particular Amendments set out before us. The two Amendments are, first, that the sum should be increased from £91 odd to £97 odd and, consequently, that the period should be increased from sixty to seventy-six years. I have already ventured to deal with the question of the periods. There is the question also of raising the amount from £91—I use round figures—to £97. Again the suggestion is that we should depart from the Report of the Commission. That Report has actually suggested, and we have adopted the suggestion, a higher figure than would be justified by the price of corn in the last seven years. For certain very good reasons that have been given by the noble Viscount, we have adopted that figure, and, although I do not think the tithe-payers for a moment can be accused of accepting it, they have, in so far as they have not proposed any Amendments to it at this stage of the Bill, said that they are ready to proceed on that basis.
Shortly, the reason for raising the figure is that in assessing the figure what the noble Lord would describe as vital years have been left out. I do not think any of us would suggest for a moment that in taking any sort of average over any period whatsoever you would be justified in including in that average the price of corn during the War years. There could be no justification whatsoever for that. But I look at it from a more practical point of view, one I ventured to mention on the Second Reading, and that is that His Majesty's Government are pledging the credit of the taxpayer to the amount of £70,000,000, and, therefore, they hope to see the scheme launched on a basis on which the money is likely to be collected. I think your Lordships who know the tithe-paying areas, particularly the heavy tithe-paying areas, would admit at once that £97 odd would not in fact be accepted by the tithe-payers. This Bill is an attempt to bring some appeasement to
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the countryside, and to make it more possible than it is at the moment to get a complete and full collection of the liability. I think we all would say that there was very little likelihood of collecting a sum of £97. Therefore, on purely practical grounds, I would say that the sum of £97 would take us back, to the position which we are trying to get away from at the present moment, would take us back to a liability based on a sum which the tithe-payers are not prepared to accept. For that reason, amongst others, but for that reason particularly, I hope your Lordships will not give your consent to the insertion of this Amendment.
LORD HASTINGS: I would only detain the Committee for one moment with reference to the practical reasons for the non-acceptance of this Amendment which have just been given by the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr. I did endeavour to show the House on Second Reading that the maximum benefit which would accrue to the tithe-payer as taxpayer would be £3 18s. per £100 of the tithe. If £6 were add to his liability his loss under the Bill would be £2 2s. Earl De La Warr reminded us in his speech on Second Reading that really my figures provided an argument for doing nothing in respect of tithes. So far as it went that argument was quite sound, but, as practical people, we have got to regard the net financial effect of any proposals put before us by the Government, and in these days of high taxation it is taxation which more than anything else decides the financial effect upon payers of this kind of charge. I need hardly do more, I think, than draw the attention of your Lordships to the effect which this proposal would have, inasmuch as the benefit would completely disappear and would be turned into a net liability. That fact alone, I think, would justify me in inviting the tithe-owning interests, whose hardships under the Bill are recognised in many directions, not to press this particular Amendment, for it would have the inevitable effect of very gravely sharpening the points of difference between the two parties interested in this Bill.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: May I say two or three sentences before I respond to the appeal which has been

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made by my noble friend behind me? First of all I must defend my figures. £10,000 a year is based on the evidence given before the Royal Commission. It was in a memorandum submitted by Oxford bursars which was sent, I understand, to the Minister of Agriculture in April, 1936. If those figures were wrong the Minister of Agriculture has taken a long time to find it out. Anyhow I would claim that the bursars of colleges have an intimate knowledge of this matter and are responsible enough to see that their figures are correct. I shall go on saying that this Bill does in fact mean a loss to certain Oxford colleges of £10,000 a year. My noble friend referred to Mr. Keynes. Mr. Keynes is a very eminent financial expert, and he is the only man who showed that the Versailles Treaty was wrong in face of the financial experts of the world. Mr. Keynes gave most interesting evidence before the Royal Commission practically the whole of which has been rejected by the Government. They appeal to him on one or two small points; but I shall perhaps say more on that subject before the debate closes. Had the Government accepted Mr. Keynes guidance in everything I should have been grumbling much less this afternoon.
I quite appreciate the point as regards the investment powers of Queen Anne's Bounty. I am advised that they have much wider powers of investment than the Oxford colleges. The Oxford college investments are controlled by the Ministry of Agriculture which is an unimaginative body. I would not choose them myself in place of my stockbrokers. I am informed that the colleges are confined to trustee securities and the prospect therefore of any improvement from their point of view is not at all a hopeful one. I, of course, cannot fail to realise the force of the appeal made by my noble friend behind me. I have much too much sympathy with the way in which tithe-payers are being treated to do anything which their protagonists think might injure them. Therefore, I will not divide on this Amendment, although I may have something else to say later. I beg leave to withdraw.
EARL DE LA WARR: I can only speak again by leave of your Lordships, but I should like to be allowed out of courtesy to the noble Earl to say that I should
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not like him to think for a moment that we are questioning his figures. It is probably a matter of what deduction should be made to arrive at the net figure. I think he has been rather more generous to himself than we have.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clauses 3 and 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Obligation of owners of rentcharges to give particulars thereof to the Commission]:
EARL DE LA WARR: The Amendment to this clause is little more than a drafting Amendment, but it has been thought right that we should include the words "or otherwise howsoever" at the end of paragraph (d) in subsection (1), as it is just possible that some of these charges referred to can only be established by relying on the doctrine of presumed loss of grant.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 44, after (" disposition ") insert (" or otherwise howsoever ").—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6:
Documents to be placed at the disposal of the Commission.
6.—(1) A person having in his custody or control any collecting list or similar document relating to tithe rentcharge, shall place it at the disposal of the Commission on being required by them so to do:
(2) Any person having such a list or document in his custody or control who fails to place it at the disposal of the Commission on being required by them so to do or who fails to transmit to them a copy thereof which he is under obligation to transmit within twenty-eight days after the obligation is incurred, shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, in subsection (2), after the first "who," to insert "wilfully." The noble Viscount said: It seems to me that this is a reasonable Amendment because a very short time is allowed—only twenty-eight days—and there are plenty of precedents for saying "wilfully" failed. It is quite possible that a man may have lost his list or document. I hope therefore my noble friend will accept the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 20, after (" who ") insert (" wilfully ").—(Viscount Bertie of Thame).
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX): Almost all the Amendments which my noble friend moves are reasonable, but I do not think that in this case the insertion of the word "wilfully" would really improve the subsection. I would ask my noble friend to look again at what the subsection really proposes. It proposes that any person having a document in his custody who fails to place it at the disposal of the Commission on being required to do so, or who fails to transmit a copy which under the previous subsection he is under obligation to transmit, shall be liable to a penalty. I suggest that a person will only be liable to conviction if he has got the document in his possession, and therefore it is quite impossible for him to commit an offence under the subsection other than wilfully. With regard to the transmission of a copy, which is dealt with in the second Amendment on the Paper in the noble Viscount's name, he will see if he looks at the proviso immediately preceding this subsection that a person must submit a true copy when required." When he is required" presumably postulates that he has been invited by letter or otherwise to do so, and therefore he will know it is an obligation. It cannot be an obligation of which he is ignorant.
I should like to add that I am advised that the words of the subsection are perfectly usual. Indeed, during the last few weeks they were accepted in another case—the Cotton Spinning Industry Act—on which as my noble friend will remember he moved an Amendment that it should only be an offence to make a false return if it was done knowingly and recklessly. He himself at that time took no exception to failure to make a return being an offence without the word "wilful." In view of that explanation, and of the advice that I have been given that in fact the offence cannot be alleged against a person without the protection he desires, I hope he will not press the Amendment.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I think my noble friend has shown that I have been guilty of some carelessness, and I can only excuse myself on the ground that the provisions of the Bill are so complicated that they are very
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difficult to understand. I will not waste your Lordships' time, but will ask leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Issue of stock and provisions as to beneficial interests therein]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: This is a drafting Amendment which has to be read with the next Amendment to insert a new proviso at the end of subsection (1).
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 41, leave out from (" shall ") to (" be ") in line 43.—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX VISCOUNT HALIFAX moved, at the end of subsection (1), to insert:
"Provided that the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall have effect subject, in the case of stock to be issued to Queen Anne's Bounty, to the provisions of Part II of the Third Schedule to this Act, and subject to the provisions of this Act relating to the issue of stock in certain cases in respect of liabilities to repair chancels of churches or other ecclesiastical buildings."
The noble Viscount said: This also is a drafting Amendment. The provisions in the Bill as to the issue of stock under Clause 31 to the diocesan authorities are, as the Bill stands, inconsistent with the provisions of this clause as to issue to the persons specified in Part I of the Third Schedule. For that reason the proviso is required to introduce safeguards.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 5, at end insert the said proviso.—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The next is also a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 16, leave out subsection (3).—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8 [Transitional provisions as to interest on stock]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX VISCOUNT HALIFAX moved to insert at the end of subsection (5):
" enforceable against the person to whom the stock is issued in like manner as if the rentcharge in respect of which the stock is issued had been subject immediately before the appointed day to a mortgage to secure the amount charged, with priority aver all other interests so enforceable.

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"(6) Nothing in this section shall affect the Bank of England, or a person purchasing in good faith and for valuable consideration stock in respect of which any such charge as aforesaid exists, with notice of any such charge."
The noble Viscount said: This also is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 8, line 33, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 9 and 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Compulsory redemption of certain annuities]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: There are three drafting Amendments to this clause and with your Lordships' permission I will move them en bloc. The object of the Amendments is to make it clear that the reference to land in a case where two or more annuities are charged is a distributive reference to each piece of land on which the annuity is charged. I am advised that the point that requires to be safeguarded is the point that without these Amendments it might be thought that there could be compulsory redemption only where there are two or more annuities if they are both or all charged on the same land.
Amendments moved—
Page 11, line 14, leave out (" any of ").
Page 11, line 15, after (" or ") insert (" any of ").
Page 11, line 16, leave out (" or are ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 11, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 12:
Transfer of management of annuities from Commission to Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
(3) A direction under this section shall specify a date on which the direction is to take effect and as from that date the annuities charged in respect of land in the district to which the direction relates shall be under the management of the Board and shall be ascertained, recovered and applied by them.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, in subsection (3), after the first "date," to insert "not being earlier than the expiration of seven years from the appointed day." The noble Lord said: This Amendment,
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which appears in the Marshalled List for the first time to-day, has taken the place of another which stood on the Amendment Paper for some days. On consideration and after having had certain discussions, I came to the conclusion that this was the better place for the Amendment. The Amendment does not affect the finance of the Bill but it is an Amendment of very great importance. It has a three-fold purpose. Your Lordships will be aware that there exists at the present time a small but worthy community which has for some years past and more particularly under the Act of 1925 devoted itself to tithe collection, and that some persons have been at the expense of setting up special offices and others have surrendered the work which they had been previously doing in order to devote themselves to this.
As the Bill is drawn, there is no certainty whatever in respect of the date upon which the work of tithe collection will be taken over by the Inland Revenue. Those persons who have made it their business to establish organisations fit and competent to collect the tithe were naturally very much disturbed at the prospect of their work being lost to them, and in the other House of Parliament strong arguments were advanced with the object of inducing the Government and the Minister to give them a certain security of tenure in those employments. Not unreasonably that security which was asked for was declined, but I think in the mind of the Government themselves, and certainly in the mind of the Minister, there remained a definite sense of obligation to these persons, and in the course of the debate it was made clear that, so long as the Tithe Redemption Commission remained in the position of tithe-collectors, these persons, or such of them as were worthy, would be certain of employment by the Tithe Redemption Commission.
The first purpose of my Amendment is to fix a date before which it will not be legal for the Inland Revenue to take over the work of the Tithe Redemption Commission, and the purpose of that is to give some reasonable security, or some prospect of security, to these persons who are now employed in the work. With a minimum of seven years before them it is obvious that the men who anticipate losing a particular form of employment will have ample time in which

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to make other arrangements. For that reason this Amendment is most strongly desired by those who represent the land agency branch of agricultural endeavour, and I hope that for that reason alone it may appeal to the Government.
But there is a second reason which is really more important, because it affects an infinitely larger number of persons. The House will be aware that there has been in another place—as there will be later in this House—much debate upon the question of grace being given to the tithe-payers for payment of their tithe. The three months' grace which is usually—in fact, invariably—given by landowners to their tenants for the payment of rent is felt to be of vital importance to the tithe-payer in restricting the demands of the Inland Revenue upon himself. The fixation of a date seven years from the date of the passing of the Act gives the tithe-payer a certainty that during the period in which the Tithe Redemption Commission will be functioning he will have that three months' grace. It is not sufficient, it is very far from being sufficient, but seven years is better than uncertainty, and this Amendment will ensure that for seven years that three months' grace will prevail.
There is yet another purpose in this Amendment. At the end of seven years, when the Tithe Redemption Commission may be expected to be winding up its operations, if a date of the character I have in mind and have put upon the Paper is adopted, it will give an opportunity to Parliament for revising in the light of knowledge the whole of the operations of the Tithe Redemption Commission in relation to the collection and disposal of the tithe. There is only one other point which I should like to mention in this connection. If the Government could possibly see their way to the acceptance of this Amendment, which does not affect their finance, they will be encouraging a class of the community whose assistance they will find most valuable in the collection of tithe. They will be to some extent removing from the whole tithe-paying community the sense of difficulty and even of grievance which it now feels in respect of its deprivation of the three months' grace, and they will be giving to those who are interested, as we all must be, in the finances both of the Church and of the State an opportunity for revision at the
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end of a specified period. I do most greatly hope that the Government may see fit to accept this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 7, after (" date ") insert (" not being earlier than the expiration of seven years from the appointed day ").—(Lord Hastings.)
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The Amendment that my noble friend has moved has taken the place of an earlier Amendment that he had on the Paper and is, I think, if I may respectfully say so, a great improvement on the earlier form. It is quite true that, as he said, this matter was debated at some length in another place, and in the course of that debate my right honourable friend who was there in charge of the Bill indicated to the Committee that it was in fact unlikely that this transfer with which we are here concerned would, to any great extent at least, take place before the expiry of seven years. There is considerable force in what my noble friend has said as to the desirability of certainty in this matter so far as it can be arrived at. This being so, and having regard to the strong feeling that has been expressed on this matter by those for whom he speaks, and having regard also to a fact which the Government, I am afraid, must constantly have in their minds, that this is not an Amendment which affects the financial structure of the Bill, I do not think that there is any insuperable difficulty in accepting it. Accordingly I shall be very glad to meet my noble friend in this matter—the more so as I shall be unable to meet him in some of the other matters which he will shortly be moving.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The Amendment in my name is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 29, after (" apportionment ") insert (" extinguishment ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Clause 14:
Remission of excess of annuity over one-third of annual value of agricultural land.
14.—(1) Where one or more annuities is or are charged in respect of land wholly comprised in an agricultural holding, then, if

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the amount of the annuity, or the aggregate of the amounts of the annuities, as the case may be, exceeds one-third of the annual value, for the twelve months ending on the fifth day of April in any year, of the holding exclusive of any part thereof in respect of which no annuity is charged, payment of an amount equal to one-half of the excess shall, subject to the provisions of this section, be remitted, in proportion where there are two or more annuities to the amounts thereof respectively, in the case of each instalment payable in that year.
(2) In this section the expression "annual value" means annual value for income tax purposes under Schedule B as specified in a certificate issued in accordance with the provisions of the Fourth Schedule to this Act, subject to any amendment which may be made in such a certificate for the correction of any clerical or arithmetical error.
(4) Where an owner has made an application for a certificate with a view to a remission under this section in the case of an instalment which becomes payable on a date before the certificate is issued, the instalment shall be recoverable in full on or after that date, but on the issue of the certificate the owner shall be entitled to recover from the appropriate authority an amount equal to any remission to which he may then appear to have been entitled under this section in the case of that instalment.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "one-third" and insert "one-fifth." The noble Lord said: I wish I could think this Amendment could be discharged in a few words, but I fear that it cannot. The Government will bear with me, I hope, if I refer to what might at first sight appear to be an irrelevance but which as I continue I hope they will realise is by no means irrelevant. It is a fact that this Bill places upon the tithe-payer a personal obligation for the payment of tithe, an obligation which has hitherto rested exclusively upon either the produce of the land or upon the land itself. When I was venturing to address the House on the Second Reading I said that, although I fully recognised, and those who act with me fully recognised, the necessity under which the Government were placed of insisting upon this really revolutionary change, yet I felt that for that very reason it was proper that the tithe-paying community should receive greater consideration in other directions than the Bill offered to it.
It is Clause 14, with which we are now dealing, that touches—and it is the only part of the Bill which touches—the hard cases from which this Bill has sprung.
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Clause 14 is what we may describe as the Remission Clause. As the Bill is drawn it limits the liability of the tithe-payer to one-third of the amount of the Schedule B assessment of the land upon which the tithe is paid. As the law now stands that limit of liability is two-thirds of the Schedule B assessment, and the Bill proposes to reduce that two-thirds to one-third. It would be exceedingly ungracious if I failed to acknowledge the great value of that concession. Admittedly it is of the greatest value, but the question that we have to debate and decide is whether one-third is enough—enough in two senses. Firstly, is it enough to give justice? Secondly, is it enough to give reasonable satisfaction? Justice is a thing which Governments and Parliament should always be ready to accord. Satisfaction does not come into the same category, but in a matter of this kind the giving of satisfaction to the largest possible number is what we are all aiming at, for unless that is done the disabilities which the incidence and collection of tithe have imposed for a number of years on the work of the Church of England will be continued, and our main purpose in discussing this Bill is to remove those disabilities and create an atmosphere of peace where one of dissension now exists.
There are areas in England tithed at a very high figure, for reasons which were fully gone into on the Second Reading, and which had their origin in the valuation of 1836, and whereas a reduction of the maximum liability from two-thirds to one-third clearly gives much relief in those high tithed areas, it is yet possible, and indeed in certain cases certain, that the amount for which the tithe-payer will be liable will be much greater than he can afford when he is in occupation or ownership, or both occupation and ownership, of lands let for low values because, under the circumstances, the lands themselves are of low value. Your Lordships can very well visualise valuable land letting at £2 or 50s. per acre, with tithe limited to one-third of Schedule B assessment, leaving a good balance in the hands of the owner, but when you come down to land in certain parts which is let as low as 5s.—or shall we say 6s. peracre, because 6s. is easily divisible by three—and that land is carrying a tithe equal to or even greater than Schedule B assessment, as it frequently is, this Bill

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Limits the assessment to one-third, and the owner or occupier will not be required to pay more than 2s. in tithe, but what does that mean? It means 4s. left to the owner.
It is in such a case as that that real hardship arises. One-third of a large sum leaves a large sum in hand. One-third of a trifling sum reduces that trifling sum to such a figure as to make the opportunities which the owner may possess of continuing to maintain his land almost negligible. It is to meet such hard cases that I have ventured to put this Amendment on the Paper. My noble friend beside me, Lord Cranworth, has an Amendment next on the Paper which in a sense I prefer to my own. I wish I could think that the Government would accept it, but unless we have; such an assurance I feel that something concrete, in the form which I have put upon the Paper, is necessary in order to extract from others an expression of opinion upon this vitally important matter, and more particularly from the Government. When a reply is made I trust it will not be exclusively confined to a discussion of the merits of the actual figure, but that it will be borne in mind that this Bill does impose upon the tithe-payer an obligation such as has never been imposed upon him before, and that it is of vital importance to the settlement of this whole question that as small a number of dissatisfied persons shall be left when the Bill becomes an Act as we can manage. I think I have said all that requires to be said in respect of this Amendment, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 18, leave out (" one-third ") and insert (" one-fifth ").—(Lord Hastings.)
LORD CRANWORTH: I will only say one or two words in support of my noble friend in this matter. This Amendment seems to me in a way to be largely a matter of finance, and to a certain extent I am bound to say I share the views of the noble Earl behind me that there are still some funds available in this scheme. Of course I am bound to agree with my noble friend on my left that it does make one a little suspicious about this when we have the Government's own admission in regard to Clause 13. It makes one feel that they have been rather generous in other parts of the Bill. I would like to point out that this
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sum of £200,000, which this remission of one-third is going, it is said, to cost, is after all a supposititious figure. No one can say what it really is. It depends upon the state of agriculture in the future. If the policy of the present Government is carried out, and is a success, and the position of agriculture improves, so will Schedule B go up, and that figure of £200,000 will come down, and it may well be there will be room within the scope of this Bill for this further benefit for hard cases.
In his winding-up speech last week the noble Earl said that there were only two sources from which this money could come. He said his contention was that it could only come from the tithe-owners or the State. He said that twice, so I think he made a great point of it; but is it in fact true? I do not think it is. There is another source from which it could come. It could come from the tithe-payer, and that I venture to think is the source from which it should come. The noble Viscount who leads the House said that if it was found that there were savings in this Bill they would be used to reduce the time of redemption. I venture to suggest that if you accept the Amendment of my noble friend, and find there are not sufficient funds fully to meet that Amendment, then you should extend the time of redemption and pay for it in that way. I think if you have it one way it would surely be fair to accept the other.
EARL DE LA WARR: This Amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, has quite rightly said, is a matter of finance, and, as far as we have been able to estimate it there would be a sum some-think like £300,000 to be found if this Amendment were inserted in the Bill.
LORD HASTINGS: In addition?
EARL DE LA WARR: Yes, in addition, and I will tell the noble Lord in a moment how we arrive at that computation. The noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, has put forward a proposal which is something quite new and, as far as I can see, would fundamentally alter the structure of the Bill.
LORD CRANWORTH: The noble Earl cannot say it is very new: I took it from himself.
EARL DE LA WARR: No, I said something quite different. The noble Lord in making this proposal quoted from a speech of my own, but at that moment I was assuming—I think rightly—that the tithe-payers were not ready to pay any more, and therefore I said any increased assistance to the scheme must come either from the tithe-owners or from the State. The proposal of the noble Lord—that is where it is quite new—is that it should come from the tithe-payers by, I think, actually increasing the period, which is a proposal that has just been made and has been rejected—I am glad to say with the noble Lord's own assistance.
The proposal therefore is that the £300,000 should, on the basis of this Amendment, be somehow found in the scheme. In an otherwise gloomy world it is always a welcome thing to meet an optimist, and it is quite clear that certain noble Lords are convinced that there are enormous hidden reserves in this scheme. But let me assure them that, while I do not like to class myself as a pessimist, we have been into these figures again and again and, whilst admitting that of necessity a certain number of these figures are based on estimates, nevertheless, we are quite convinced, after a careful consultation with the best authorities on these questions in the Government, that these figures are the closest approximations that we can lay before Parliament and the country. At the same time I made it clear on the Second Reading, and I wish to repeat this assurance, that if in fact there are these reserves, then the Minister in another place has already said that they will be put at the disposal of the scheme. More than that I do not think the noble Lord could possibly ask from His Majesty's Government.
I mentioned the sum of £300,000. I think on the Second Reading Lord Cranworth felt that we had rather exaggerated the amount that was already to be saved to the tithe-payers by the existing reduction of one-third. He thought that the sum of £200,000 that we then gave was excessive. I think he made that statement on the basis that under the existing exemption of two-thirds the sum of relief amounts only to £3,000, and he therefore made the very natural calculation that if there is a saving to the tithe-payer of £3,000 on the
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basis of two-thirds, then there would be approximately twice as much on the basis of one-third, and no more than twice as much. But it is quite wrong to base figures on the assumption that the amount of remission is in any way proportionate to the actual fraction.
I think the easiest way of trying to explain my point is to take an example. I have taken a parish in Essex where the average rate per acre of the tithe is 6s. 6d. par value and the estimated average annual value per acre is 17s. In that parish of thirty-one landowners whose property is subject to tithe only two landowners would qualify for remission under the old basis, and the remission would amount only to £18 per annum. But on the basis of remission of the redemption annuity in excess of one-third of Schedule B the number of landowners who would qualify for remission rises from two to eight, the amount of remission being estimated at £103 per annum. But if the remission were anything in excess of one-fifth of the Schedule B value then the number of landowners who would qualify would jump to sixteen, and the estimated amount of remission would jump then to over £230. Your Lordships will therefore see at what rate the amount of remission does, in fact, increase.
But there is a third point, and that is that as the amount of the possible remission increases, so it becomes increasingly worth while to apply for it. Therefore at the present moment there are probably quite a number of landowners who do not bother to apply for the comparatively small remission that they get under the existing law, but who will most certainly apply when it becomes as considerable as it is under this Bill. The proposal is that we should increase this remission from one-third to one-fifth. What basis have we for saying that that is a demand that is really made by those who represent the farming and land-owning interest? I have turned up the evidence given by the National Farmers' Union to the Royal Commission, and I find there that they suggested in their evidence that:
" one-third of the Schedule B value should be substituted for the two-thirds under Section 8 of the Tithe Act, 1891, and special consideration should be given to cases where the owner-occupier tithe-payer shows by his Income Tax return no profit on the year's fanning operations."

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Our figure is one-third too, and the noble Lord, against the evidence of the National Farmers' Union, suggests that it should be one-fifth.
Then I turn to the evidence given by the Central Landowners' Association, a body with which I believe the noble Lord has some connection, and I find that their proposal was that the remission should be based on one-third of Schedule A. But Schedule B is actually more favourable to the tithe-payer than is the gross annual value of Schedule A. Therefore the Government are in fact granting the full remission that has been asked for both by the National Farmers' Union and the Central Landowners' Association. And, generous as are the Government, and anxious as they are to assist the tithe-payer, I do not think anybody would suggest that we ought to go further than the National Farmers' Union and the Central Landowners' Association have themselves asked. On these grounds I ask your Lordships not to accept this Amendment.
LORD HASTINGS: The noble Earl has asked me on what basis I have fixed this one-fifth. If the noble Earl will carry his mind back to 1836 he will know that the commutation of tithes was made upon that very fraction, and that one-fifth of the annual value was then assessed and considered to be a very fair commutation of one-tenth of the production. Then, in substantiation of that same principle, I would remind him that the settlement of the Scottish tithes—tiends—was based on one-fifth of the annual value. These are two fairly useful precedents on which to found a request for one-fifth to-day. In answer, so far as I am able, to the noble Earl when he quoted from the evidence placed before the Commission, I would remind him, without the slightest intention of depreciating the importance of the National Farmers' Union in all directions which concern agricultural production and the well-being of the agricultural community, that tithe is a landowner's and not a farmer's question. In regard to the evidence given by the Central Landowners' Association, I would say that the hope of the Central Landowners Association was that the one-third would be based on the net Schedule A, and net Schedule A, is of
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course a very different thing to gross Schedule B.
But I really think all that is not of very great importance. What is important is to try to meet these genuinely hard cases which are greatly diminished by the existing proposals of the Bill but not entirely abolished. I confess I am not altogether happy about this suggested reduction of one-third to one-fifth, because there will be plenty of cases—as is evidenced by the astonishingly large figures quoted by the noble Earl—where the balance left to the owner after the one-third maximum liability has been discharged will be ample for the purpose; and it is not the purpose of myself or those who act with me to reduce that liability in such cases, which, of course, my Amendment would do. But there will always remain a balance of persons whose Schedule B assessment is exceedingly small and the deduction from which of one-third will be far too much. It is these persons whom my Amendment was really designed to serve. I admit its weakness, and although I am strongly of opinion that there are plenty of hidden reserves in this scheme—we shall come to them in due course—I am not suggesting that there is as much as £300,000 to be given away where it is not exactly required.
I prefer to take whatever there may be for genuinely hard cases, and not to spread it over where it is not required. Therefore I would ask the Government very sincerely whether they themselves, in the interests of peace and of the success of this Bill, could not devise some means of giving greater relief to the relatively few who really need it. If they could, they would be doing a good deal to prosper the. Bill in the countryside and give justice where justice is required. I admit my Amendment is too wide, and therefore, with the permission of the Committee, I shall withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD CRANWORTH LORD CRANWORTH moved to insert at the end of subsection (1):
"Provided that no payment of an annuity shall be enforced which does not leave a residuum sufficient for the reasonable maintenance of the land charged."
The noble Lord said: Although this Amendment appears to involve a minimum of money, if it involves any at all,

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I am not going to deny for a moment that it is an Amendment of major importance. It is designed to provide that when a tithe-payer is hauled into court for non-payment of tithe, if he has effected the necessary repairs, works, and maintenance, and paid any Land Tax and rates that he may have to pay, and if he proves there is nothing left to pay tithe, that shall be a valid defence. In some cases, like the case quoted by my noble friend just now, it will be obvious if that state of affairs exists. The man will have to produce figures to prove it. They will be simple, direct figures, and I do not think there will be any difficulty or hardship involved if he has a real case.
During the Second Reading debate I asked the Government if they would give me an answer to this question: Was it really the intention of the Government to take from a man that which he had not, and to use the new powers which this Bill gives them against a man who, with the best will in the world, is unable to pay? I asked that, and the noble Earl who wound up the debate, with his usual courtesy and eloquence, answered me, but unfortunately as I come from the country I was not entirely able to understand whether his answer was in the affirmative or whether it was in the negative. After the debate was over I went to one of my town friends, and he told me: "Oh, his answer was neither negative nor affirmative; it was Parliamentary." I suggest, in all seriousness, that there are a great many people besides myself who in this matter will want something more than a Parliamentary answer.
I believe that under the Bill as it stands there is almost certain to occur a case of grievous wrong. A perfectly good and honest man will be had up and will be made bankrupt. It is my wish, if I can possibly do so, to avoid the grievous harm that that will do, not only to the Government, but to the Church. I do not think there will be any appreciable loss of revenue under my Amendment. The most reverend Primate in his speech pointed out—I believe with great truth—that the great bulk of the tithe is paid readily and willingly, and it will go on being so paid, but if under this Bill you enforce the non-keeping-up of land, and you enforce its depreciation, many of your Lordships know what the result will
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be. It will take years to put that land into such a state as will attract a tenant of any sort or kind, and that tithe will be lost, not for one year but, may be, for nine or ten years. Little and possibly no loss of revenue would be involved if my Amendment were accepted.
The most reverend Primate made a moving appeal on behalf of those poor clergymen who had an income below £500. I am appealing to your Lordships on behalf of a smaller number of men who in some cases have not an income either of £500 or £300, but who, through no fault of their own, have no income at all. It is on behalf of those people that I appeal. This Amendment may not be in the right words, it may not be in the right place, but I venture to say that it is in accordance with the spirit of the tithe from its very inception. It is in accordance with the spirit of every word of the Commission's Report, and I humbly suggest that it is in accordance with the spirit of Christian charity, and I assert that it is in accord with principles of justice.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 26, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Cranworth.)
LORD HASTINGS: It occurs to me that the Amendment which has just been moved by my noble friend really meets the case that we both have in mind better than the proposed fixation of a fraction that was contained in my Amendment. My noble friend's purpose is to make it certain that these comparatively few persons who would find the one-third limit a liability insufficient to enable them to carry on should be in a position to prove their circumstances in a Court of law and to be given the relief which those circumstances would in the view of the Court entitle them to. The principle underlying the Amendment appears to be one which I can hardly think His Majesty's Government would care to deny. They have to find a better way of ensuring the effectiveness of that principle, and I am certain my noble friend would welcome their co-operation, but I would appeal to the general sense of the Committee in this matter. I feel confident that the Government and the Committee alike would not wish, for the sake of the exactitude of the finance that is in the scheme, to occasion a continuance of real hardship, amounting to

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injustice, upon however small a body of the community.
I revert again to what I have stated more than once I regret to say already, that the tithe-payer is being asked, and indeed compelled under this Bill, to give away certain highly valued privileges, and the scheme has; been squeezed at his expense in a way which we are not resisting but which some tithe-payers do greatly resent. I am most anxious, if possible, that that resentment should be allayed. Here is the opportunity for doing it. If this Amendment is not acceptable in these terms or in the place where it now appears, might I not ask the Government if they could themselves meet the case of grave hardship by some Amendment drawn up by themselves for insertion on Report? Really the case brought forward by my noble friend is too strong to be refuted on mere grounds of finance. He himself has expressed the opinion, which I share, that the cost of this Amendment would be so small in money and so great in kind that it would be well worth including, and that such action might be taken without the risk of adding anything of a grave nature to the cost of the scheme.
LORD MARLEY: May I say one word in respect of this Amendment on behalf, particularly, of the small occupiers who are suffering in many cases very much? I have been surprised at the very large number of letters which I have received from individual farmers all over the country giving cases—and these are particularly from poor people—of terrific hardship in this matter from which they are unable to emerge to carry on their farming if they are not protected. I think there is a very great deal in the argument, if I may venture to say so, that in the end, if we by some concession are able to allow the land to continue to be cultivated especially in marginal cases, the gain in the collection of tithe may be greater than the loss occasioned by an Amendment such as this. The cases which I have received one cannot quote, but many are from friends engaged in agriculture and are heartrending. I have a case of a naval petty officer who served with me many years ago. He says that he is only able to pay his tithe out of his naval pension if he is to carry on at all, and that he has no profits sufficient to pay the amount of the tithe. Then I
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have the case of a man who gives me his exact balance sheet for the last four years. There is a payment of tithe of rather more than £10 on his little holding, and this has to be paid out of a total income of something between £40 and £60. It is very hard that he has to find such a heavy amount as that, and he says he cannot carry on. That means that his little holding, which is a few acres in extent, will go out of cultivation. Then he will have merely his pension to live on, and he will not be producing something which is of real value to the country. There are hundreds of other cases which I could quote, and I hope very much that the Government will see their way to accept the spirit of this Amendment even though the exact wording may be altered.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH: May I say a word on this Amendment, although it does not really, I think, directly affect the interests of tithe-owners? As the Bill is drafted it is provided that the tithe-owners will have stock and the Government will get the proceeds of tithe annuities. If there is to be any Amendment I hope that any loss there may be will fall upon the Government. If the Government say: "We accept this Amendment, but our only way of accepting it is that we must inflict a loss upon the tithe-owners," then the tithe-owners will certainly have something to say about it. I cannot think that the Government would say that, because, by the Bill, they are going to determine the amount of stock which every tithe-owner is to have upon the basis of his holding. I do not suppose that if in hard cases a little allowance was made now and then, that would really affect the scheme. We all feel, if there are cases where a man is getting nothing at all, that it is very hard he should have to pay tithe, and from that point of view there is certainly sympathy in the minds of all of us who represent the Church. As the Bill is drafted I do not quite see how, even if the Government could concede this point, it would involve the tithe-owners in a loss, but I would rather like to see the form of words by means of which the Government propose to treat that loss of the tithe-owners before expressing a decided opinion about it.
EARL DE LA WARR: Up till now there have merely been occasional glances between the Benches on which the noble Lords representing the Central Landowners' Association sit and the Benches on which the right reverend Prelates sit, but now we have got a little nearer to the danger that I ventured to mention in my Second Reading speech of the two sides who are in disagreement uniting on their one common basis of disagreement to get as much as they can out of His Majesty's Government. But I think the right reverend Prelate who has just spoken is a little optimistic, because the Government have laid it down quite definitely as a principle—and there is no question whatsoever of withdrawing from it—that they are not prepared that this scheme shall be financed at the expense of the taxpayer. Therefore if it is your Lordships' wish that the Bill shall be amended in this way we would be bound most unwillingly to find some further Amendment whereby the charge was kept within the bounds of that principle. That is merely to say that we should have to find some way of putting it on the tithe-owner. I hasten to assure the right reverend Prelate that we have not the slightest intention of doing that and for that reason we really cannot accept this Amendment.
It is perfectly true, as my noble friend Lord Cranworth said, that less money is needed under this Amendment than under the last, but that does not affect the principle. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said surely we would not turn down the Amendment on the mere question of finance. But this scheme is a financial scheme and therefore quite definitely, if the financial basis of the scheme is knocked out of it, we cannot shirk the issue by saying that we are not going to be affected by mere matters of finance. I am sorry if I have to repeat one or two arguments, but really this Amendment is so very similar to the last in principle that it is difficult to reply without doing so. I come back to the point that this is more than is asked for by the representatives of the farmers and landowners. It is all very well for the noble Lord to say that this is not a farmer's question but a landowner's question. Technically, that is perfectly accurate, but surely everyone who has thought about the subject for a moment
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must recognise that the reason why it has become such a serious matter and why the Government have been prepared to intervene, is that to a very large extent, through farmers purchasing their own land, it has become partially a farmer's question. Therefore I suggest to the noble Lord that we should not too much question the right of the National Farmers' Union to pronounce on these matters.
Coming back to the point of the noble Lord's preference for this method of procedure instead of the procedure under the last Amendment, I would say quite frankly that if we had to have either I would have preferred the first Amendment. I do not say that merely because the first Amendment is now out of the way, but for the reason that it is going to be very difficult, and almost impossible, to decide the extremely contentious question of whether the payment of an annuity in any particular case would in fact result in an insufficient residuum being left for the reasonable maintenance of the land. That is a purely hypothetical question which it would be quite impossible to decide. It was for that reason, I think, that the Royal Commission arrived at the conclusion that if in fact further remission was necessary it should be on a definite flat-rate basis. For that reason they proposed and we accepted the proposal that the remission should be changed from a two-thirds basis to a one-third basis.
The noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, put a question to me on Second Reading and he has accused me of giving a Parliamentary answer. My reply to the noble Lord is that sometimes Ministers are faced with Parliamentary questions and then they demand Parliamentary answers. We all know the question that is sometimes put to learners of logic, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"—a very difficult question to answer. I therefore answer the noble Lord entirely on my own basis and do not accept the basis of his question. I say that tithe is a liability, a debt, which is admitted by every single member of your Lordships' House. We were able to comment at the end of the Second Reading debate that no one had questioned that it is a liability. But it is generally recognised that there is certain hardship as the result of the conditions under which that liability has to be fulfilled at present.

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This Bill proposes to meet that hardship in two ways—first, by making a general flat reduction from £105 to £91, and secondly, by giving a special remission in specially hard cases. The noble Lord opposite will be pleased to think that his friend the naval officer will benefit from both these reductions. Liability was there when he either inherited the land or bought the land, and the only difference in his position after the passage of this Bill will be that that liability is very considerably reduced. If, after this assistance that has been given to him, he is still unable to meet his recognised liability, then I answer the noble Lord by saying that he is in precisely the position of any other citizen when he is unable to meet his just debts.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I would ask your lordships' leave to say a word or two on this Amendment although I am not qualified to say how far it can be fitted into the structure of the Bill. I am not very fond of the Bill, for in many respects it seems to me a Bill which is going to take from the tithe-owners money which really belongs to them and which ought to be left to them unless strong reason can be shown to the contrary. It is because this Amendment touches the very heart of the point whether that strong reason can be shown, that I have considerable sympathy with the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Cranworth. After all, why should the Government have approached this tithe question at all? It is because in certain cases great hardship is felt in the payment of tithe, and my noble friend seeks to provide by this Amendment that where the hardship is really so grave that the actual cultivation of the land is interfered with there is a case for remission. In my judgment, it is the only case for remission.
The tithe-owner has as much right to his tithe as the landlord to his rent, but when the landlord asks for his rent he in practice always makes a remission if he finds that the rent is so high as to interfere with the cultivation of the land. I think the same principle might be applied so far as possible by the tithe-owner. Where the tithe is so high that it interferes with the cultivation of the land there is a case for remission, but where the tithe can be quite readily paid there is no more reason to interfere
910
with the tithe-owner's rights than there is to interfere with the landowner's rights. My noble friend says he wants to bring this actually to the test and to put in an Amendment saying that where tithe does actually interfere with the cultivation of the land it ought to be remitted, and I am bound to say that I think his argument is perfectly sound. I do not say it is possible to put the Amendment into the Bill in the form in which it now stands. That must be a matter for the Government, and I am not prepared at this moment so far as my humble vote is concerned to interfere with the structure of this Bill. But I do not think that the answer of the noble Earl is adequate. He sought to show that the Government had dealt with that by a flat-rate principle. I hate these flat-rate principles which interfere with absolutely established rights. Why should you have a flat-rate principle if the rights of the tithe-owner are what my noble friend describes them to be—admitted? You want exceptional treatment, treatment where there is hardship, and not a flat-rate treatment at all. Therefore I venture to hope that between this and the next stage of the Bill the Government will see whether they cannot make a better approach to meet my noble friend's Amendment.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: I should like to support the last words that have fallen from the noble Marquess, It may be perfectly true that this Amendment, as it stands at the moment, cannot be satisfactorily implemented, but I think that there are a good many considerations that we ought to bear in mind. From the beginning I have maintained that one of the chief faults in this Bill is that it gives help to those who do not need it and do not ask for it, and does not give adequate help to those who do need it and do ask for it. They will go on needing it and go on asking for it. When we were told on the Second Reading debate that the odium would be removed from the Church because the clergy would be receiving annuities and no longer receiving tithes, I felt all the time that still on the countryside the man who is sold up because he honestly cannot maintain the land that is charged with the tithe will complain that it is all through the resident parson that this has come about. It appears to me

911
to be quite impossible now to change the annuity arrangement. That would be such a complicated financial business that I do not think it is worth discussing or considering at all.
But we have not found this question such an extraordinarily difficult thing as the noble Earl has suggested, in our administration of Queen Anne's Bounty. We have had eight men, whom we have called "investigators," who have gone round and visited the farms concerned. They have not been local people, and the whole thing has been confidential. One of the very reasons why Queen Anne's Bounty has been such a complete success, during the last year since the law has been clarified, in getting in tithe has been that these investigators, with good knowledge and good sympathy, have learnt the actual nature of the ease and discovered the very thing which we have been told it is impossible to discover—namely, whether the owner-occupier can or cannot pay his tithe and whether it is impossible on the produce of the land for him to pay his way.
A point which has been mentioned, but which I think is such an important thing that it ought to be said again, is that we all have a wider interest in all this than that of the mere tithe-owner or the tithe-payer—namely, the cultivation of the rural areas of England. It would be a dreadful thing if, for the sake of what I venture to think is rather a pedantic view of the finance of the matter, we should see here and there the ground going out of cultivation. I believe it to be our duty to prevent any such catastrophe as that would be. I venture to suggest to His Majesty's Government, if I may respectfully do so, that they should take all this matter into consideration and find whether there may not be some way in which these admittedly very few people to whom the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, applies could not be helped. It does not seem, from what we have heard, that anybody is going to produce a rough-and-ready solution now, but I should be extremely sorry if the door were slammed, and I think it may be the desire of the Committee that when this matter comes forward on Report the Government should be gracious enough to see whether they can devise some way of helping these hard-pressed people, of
912
preventing the odium that would necessarily attach to the clergy, and of maintaining the land of our country.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: The noble Earl in charge of the Bill stated the case for the Government with the utmost clearness and, in a general sense, most fairly. It will, however, have been evident to His Majesty's Government from the speech of the right reverend Prelate who has just sat down, and also from that of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and from that of the noble Lord speaking from the Opposition Benches, that the Committee in general received his statement with considerable disappointment. It seems to me that in one sense the change brought about by this Bill has not been quite apprehended by His Majesty's Government. The payment of tithe becomes a State liability of the same nature as the taxes which we, willing or unwilling, pay, and the possible cases of hardship which have been so clearly set out by different speakers assume a different aspect when the liability which the tithe-payers are unable to meet is a State liability whereas, before, they were able to argue—rightly or wrongly, but they did argue—that the payment was one to a corporation, if that is the proper word, an institution, and therefore a payment which is not precisely on all fours with a liability to the Government.
I trust, therefore, that the noble Viscount opposite will agree to the suggestion, which seems to me a very reasonable suggestion, that before the Report stage the Government should give full consideration to the possibility of some means by which these hard cases can be met and that they should produce their solution. It is hardly, I think, reasonable for His Majesty's Government to put the onus of suggesting a way out of this very obvious difficulty upon the shoulders of the noble Lords interested in agriculture, or the National Farmers' Union, or any other body. After all, this is a Government Bill, and it has got to be made acceptable to the country by the action of His Majesty's Government. I trust, therefore, that this suggestion for further consideration will not be altogether put aside by the noble Viscount who leads the House.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I cannot but say a word in response to the very courteous invitation addressed to me by the noble

913
Marquess opposite. Nothing, of course, would be easier for me on behalf of the Government than to say that we would, between now and Report, undertake to examine by what means the feeling that has been generally expressed by those of your Lordships who have taken part in this discussion can be met, and to leave on the minds of your Lordships the impression that I share with you the conviction that it can easily be met within the four corners of the Bill. I will say a word in a moment as to why I do not think that that would in fact be possible, and why, that being my judgment, I do not think it would be frank with your Lordships to leave you in possessing of a different conclusion. There is no dispute between any of us as to the desirability and the importance of making fail-provision for remission in what I may for brevity's sake call hard cases arising under the Bill. The case for remission is, of course, generally admitted, and the Royal Commission, as has been said move than once, after going into the whole of this question and having all the points that have been raised in this debate before them, came to the conclusion that there was no other effective way of meeting what they desired to meet than by having some general arrangement, sufficiently generous as to bring in the hard cases which might be expected to arise.
My noble friend Lord Salisbury said that he has a great distaste for flat rules, and so have I, but with every respect for him I think that this rule which is suggested by the Amendment is the flattest rule which could be devised. I think so for this reason. You will observe that the Amendment says that "no payment of an annuity shall be enforced which does not leave a residuum sufficient for the reasonable maintenance of the land charged." The test in my noble friend's mind is, is the land itself capable of bearing the burden which is placed upon it, or rather upon the owner of it? It is quite evident that there may be plenty of cases in which a comparatively wealthy man will be the owner of comparatively poor and derelict land and in such a case it is proposed to exempt. I cannot conceive the justice of devising a rule which will cover with one umbrella the millionaire with poor land and the hardworking farmer on good land who happens to be struggling with adversity
914
—bad seasons, bad prices, and so forth. Therefore I cannot for that reason think that this Amendment is wholly justifiable. Then, apart from that, let me for a moment dot the i's of my noble friend's argument. Who is to decide what is sufficient for the reasonable maintenance of the land charged? The yield of the land entirely depends upon how it is farmed, and there is no authority in heaven or on earth who can decide with strict finality whether land is uneconomic because it is badly farmed or because the payments are too high. For all these reasons I suggest that there is no better way of meeting these hard cases than by making your rules general enough to bring them in. That, I suggest, has been done.
There is one other word which I must say. It is not pedantic, as my noble friend has said, to point this out, that if the Amendment were included in the Bill it would be only included in the Bill for one reason, and that was that it was going to give greater remission to tithe-payers. That means that it is going to cost more money to the scheme, and I am bound to repeat, whether it is approved in all quarters or not, that the only condition on which the Government introduced this Bill is that they were not prepared to charge the taxpayer with further charges under it. Therefore if any remission were made it is evident that a consequential Amendment of the whole scheme would have to be made, by which the money required would have to come out of the pocket of the tithe-owner, and I do not think that tithe-owners are so indirectly concerned with the Amendment as the right reverend Prelate so light heartedly seemed to think. Therefore your Lordships will appreciate that it is with those reasons in mind that I should feel considerable reluctance to give any undertaking that I would look into the matter between now and Report, in order to produce a result which, however much I tried, I do not think it is possible to produce within the four corners of the Bill without the undesirable consequences which I have mentioned.
LORD CRANWORTH: I can only, naturally, express the very greatest disappointment at the answer which the Government have given to my Amendment, and thank those on both sides who

915
have supported it in spirit. As I said before, I have nothing to be proud of in the wording of it. It may be worded entirely wrongly, or it may be proposed in the wrong place, but I believe that the spirit of it is entirely right. I have only heard two arguments against it. The noble Earl who replied said that I had only a few behind me. That is contrary to my information. Then we have the other view put forward by the noble Viscount who asked who could say what
Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved to insert at the end of subsection (2):
" after deducting from such annual value (a) the amount charged on the land by any
was sufficient for reasonable maintenance of the land. Surely there is a little bit of misapprehension there because the maintenance is not a matter of farmer's repairs, but entirely a matter of owner's repairs. I am deeply sorry at the Government's answer, and must regretfully put your Lordships to a Division.
On Question, Whether the proposed words shall be there inserted?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 41; Not-contents, 73.

CONTENTS.

Wellington, D.

Bledisloe, V.

Fairfax of Cameron, L. [Teller.]

Goschen, V.

Camden, M.

Hambleden, V.

Faringdon, L.

Crewe, M.

Hereford, V.

Hare, L. (E. Listowel.)

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Hastings, L.

Albemarle, E.

Ker, L. (M. Lothian.)

Denbigh, E.

Sidmouth, V.

Lawrence, L.

Hardwicke, E.

Tredegar, V.

Marley, L.

Lichfield, E.

Mendip, L. (V. Clifden.)

Macclesfield, E.

Norwich, L. Bp.

O'Hagan, L.

Onslow, E.

Redesdale, L.

Poulett, E.

Arnold, L.

Snell, L.

Scarbrough, E.

Brocket, L.

Somerleyton, L.

Stratford, E.

Cranworth, L.

Stanmore, L.

Elphinstone, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Bertie of Thame, V. [Teller.]

Ernle, L.

Woodbridge, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Canterbury, L. Abp.

Ullswater, V.

Greenway, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Halifax, V. (L. Privy Seal.)

London, L. Bp.

Hunsdon of Hunsdon, L.

St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, L. Bp.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Argyll, D.

Iliffe, L.

Winchester, L. Bp.

Jessel, L.

Bath, M.

Lamington, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Latymer, L.

Dufferin and Ava, M.

Askwith, L.

Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

Bayford, L.

Merthyr, L.

Bradford, E.

Bingley, L.

Mildmay of Flete, L.

Cavan, E.

Camrose, L.

Mount Temple, L.

De La Warr, E.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Palmer, L.

Feversham, E.

Playfair, L.

Iveagh, E.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Cromwell, L.

Rennell, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Daryngton, L.

St. Just, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Desborough, L.

Sandhurst, L.

Midleton, E.

Doverdale, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

Munster, E.

Ebbisham, L.

Stafford, L.

Plymouth, E.

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Radnor, E.

Rothes, E.

Eltisley, L.

Strickland, L.

Sandwich, E.

Elton, L.

Templemore, L.

Selborne, E.

Foxford, L. (E. Limerick.)

Teynham, L.

Stanhope, E.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Wakehurst, L.

Glanusk, L.

Waleran, L.

Swinton, V.

Glenravel, L.

Wolverton, L.

public rate or assessment in respect of draining, fencing or embanking or, in cases where the sums expended have not been so charged, the amount expended by the owner of the land on an average of the twenty-one preceding years in respect of such works and (b) the amount expended by the owner of the land on an average of

917
the twenty-one preceding years in the making or repairing of sea walls or other embankments necessary for the preservation or protection of the land against the encroachment or overflowing of the sea or any tidal river as the same shall be."
The noble Lord said: I come now to an Amendment which really requires reference to a clause which the Government themselves have put into the Bill. It will be found that in Clause 33 the Government adopted a recommendation of the Royal Commission—a very reasonable one—that where land had disappeared under the sea it should no longer be titheable. It would appear to me not unreasonable that those persons who are preventing their land from going under the sea should receive some consideration. The setting up of catchment boards has brought this matter into the realm of practical politics, and although persons who are subject to the rates for drainage and sea defence are not very numerous, at the same time those who exist are, I think, entitled to some special consideration. Schedule B assessment would not, otherwise than by direction of Parliament, include that consideration. We might have, and shall have, cases of land-owning tithe-payers who will find themselves charged in excess of the charges levied upon the ordinary land owner for this special purpose.
It will be seen from the Amendment that regard is to be had to the rate now charged for drainage, fencing, or embanking, and, where no rate is charged, to an average expenditure of the twenty-one preceding years in the making or repairing of sea walls or embankments. This Amendment really does not require very much advocacy, because it stands to reason that if these expenditures were not embarked upon the land would become waterlogged, and therefore derelict. It might remain titheable but it is certain that tithe would not be collected upon it, either by the Inland Revenue or by anybody else. The natural effect of this proposal must be so trifling as to be of no account. Even if it were not so, I would like to remind both the noble Viscount and the noble Earl that although they keep on telling us that the scheme is such-and-such, and that anything we propose will involve a charge on the taxpayer, neither of them has as yet answered our contention that there is in the scheme a reserve of money.
It is not unreasonable to claim that while they are, quite properly, unwilling to place a charge on the taxpayer, they ought to tell us they are equally unwilling to make a profit. We have had no answer to the figures I produced on Second Reading, no answer to the figures produced by other speakers as well, but merely the statement that anything we do must involve placing a charge upon the taxpayer which the Government will not accept—the mere obiter dictum of the Treasury, that is all. It is inconceivable to my mind, in this particular case, that the charge on the taxpayer would be noticeable, as I hold that no charge would be involved at all. There are, in the fen areas and in certain coastal areas, a limited number of persons to whom this Amendment would do but justice, and I trust the Government will see their way to accept it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 33, at end insert the said new words.—(Lord Hastings.)
EARL DE LA WARR: The noble Lord complains that the spokesmen of the Government keep on repeating their points, but it is really very difficult for us not to do so as the noble Lord goes on repeating his. He continually makes the remark that his proposals will have no real financial effect on the scheme; at any rate, that the effect will be so trifling that it will not count. If that is the way that the noble Lord deals with his finance, he must forgive me when I say it is not the way in which His Majesty's Government deal with the national finances. The noble Lord keeps on talking about these hidden reserves in the scheme, and says that neither the noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, nor myself has yet answered his contention that there are hidden reserves. If the noble Lord is really anxious, I am quite prepared to bring in on Report a pile of documents with all the figures which the Treasury has gone into, and take your Lordships through them. Unless the House is anxious for me to do that, if the noble Lord says that the Government figures are wrong, it is up to him to prove his contention. He has not made a single attempt to do so except to throw out as a general impression that there is something being kept up our sleeve.

919
I had rather hoped, after the last Amendment, that the noble Lord might withdraw this Amendment, for the simple reason that it is a very ingenious way of bringing about very much the same result. It is a simple endeavour to get more remission than that which was recommended by the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission recommended that the remission should be based on one-third, instead of two-thirds, of Schedule B. The noble Lord now suggests we should alter, in certain cases, the basis on which Schedule B is calculated in order to get a further remission. On what basis does he suggest that? On the basis of those who have to pay a public rate or assessment for draining, fencing, or embanking against the danger of sea erosion, and also where, apart from having to pay a public rate for that purpose, the owner has himself to maintain a sea wall or undertake some such similar expense.
Why should he choose that particular form of maintenance of land for special relief? There is not a landowner in the country who has not got some peculiar form of maintenance of his own particular piece of land which he has either inherited or bought. Some of us had the misfortune to inherit land, perhaps, with buildings in a bad condition. That was a form of maintenance we had to meet. Others of us do not have the sea coming in and invading our land, but we have the rain coming down from above, and possibly we have soil that does not readily let that water away, and we have to undertake an expensive scheme of land drainage ourselves. There is a vast number of kinds of land maintenance which would have to be allowed for under Schedule B if we were to adopt this principle.
I suggest to your Lordships that we have arranged for a very considerable concession already by reducing from a two-third basis to a one-third basis. I am sorry to have to repeat this point, but if this Amendment is worth having at all it means a reduction of the money going into the scheme. That difference is not going to come out of the pockets of the taxpayer, and I again must tell the noble Lord that the only way it can be got hold of is by a consequential Amendment at the expense of the tithe-owner. That may be a very unpleasant piece of
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reality to face, but it is a reality, and as such I suggest we really must face it. For these reasons I am afraid the Government cannot accept the Amendment.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: I venture to participate in the discussion of this particular Amendment because I cannot help thinking that the noble Earl is under an illusion in endeavouring to place this particular charge upon land on the same footing as various other charges in respect of which the owner or his predecessors in title have incurred obligations resulting largely either as a matter of history or in consequence of their own neglect. Here is a charge which is imposed upon land under a regional scheme and in respect of which the owner of the land, or indeed the occupier, may be wholly unable to prevent the damage which the charge is imposed to relieve.
I speak as having been Chairman of the Royal Commission which reported in favour of the establishment of these catchment areas and the imposition of this class of rating in order to improve the drainage of land over the whole of the catchment area of any particular river. I realise the difficulty in which the Government find themselves, and I realise the extreme difficulty in which this House finds itself, in moving any Amendment to this Bill in consequence of the contention that this is a carefully designed financial scheme which cannot be altered in any way because it would impose an extra burden—so it is alleged—on the Exchequer. I know my noble friend Lord Hastings tells us that after very careful calculation he is satisfied that the Exchequer has something, so to speak, up its sleeve which will enable it to make concessions. If there is any such amount, I cannot imagine any purpose in respect of which, as a matter of equity, the Government could more usefully make a concession than in respect of this particular charge for the drainage of land under a catchment area scheme.
I have intervened in this debate only because I feel there is a very great distinction in principle between a charge that is passed over by inheritance or purchase with the land and a charge which has been imposed from outside under entirely new conditions which, in most cases, have not existed in days gone

921
by, and in consequence largely of the greater utilisation of water in the higher altitudes of catchment areas, and more particularly the improved methods of drainage under which water runs much more rapidly down beneath the surface of the soil into those water-logged areas than ever it did in former days when these super-civilised customs did not exist. I hope that in this case at any rate, if there is anything available under the scheme, it may be applied to the purpose and that an exception will be made.
EARL DE LA WARR: The noble Viscount speaks with very great authority on this matter, and his point cannot, therefore, be allowed to go without a reply. There is no one who knows more about this subject from his general experience and from the experience which he has mentioned of presiding over the Royal Commission on Land Drainage as a result of which we had the Land Drainage Act. But I would venture to bring this particular point to his notice. In so far as the expense which is mentioned in the Amendment has a special position—I freely admit that it has to some extent a special position—the difference in its position really is on the whole a point in favour of the Government's case. After all, if he or I have to repair buildings or undertake a piece of work of private land drainage, we have to pay everything ourselves, whereas a rate paid for this purpose is a rate for which a very much greater benefit is received than the landowner has to pay for. He only pays a proportion of the expense. Very heavy grants for this type of work are made at the public expense from the Exchequer to the catchment boards, and rates are levied on the boroughs and county boroughs in the area as a contribution to this ex-pence. Therefore, in so far as there is a special position, I venture to suggest that it strengthens the case of His Majesty's Government.
LORD HASTINGS: The noble Earl has really brought us to a point where discussion has ranged wider than upon this particular Amendment. The noble Earl has said that I continually repeat, without producing any evidence or specifying what I mean, the assertion that there are within this scheme hidden reserves, and that my constant repetition of this induces him to follow my example and repeat his statement that there are no
922
such hidden reserves. I would remind the Committee and the noble Earl that on Second Reading I did specify quite a number of directions in which I had figures and statistics to show that there was in fact within the scheme a hidden reserve—or a prospect of profit, shall we put it that way?
I ask the noble Earl if it is really likely to be a fact, as the Inland Revenue say, that the cost of collection would amount to 5 per cent.? Really a statement of that kind is not one which could possibly be substantiated. Is it suggested that 5 per cent. of the revenue of this country is expended upon the cost of collection? It really is not reasonable to suggest that such is true. Yet 5 per cent. is taken out of this scheme to provide for that particular charge. I produced figures to show that the amount of increase in respect of the Income Tax alone would account for a greater sum than is allowed for in the scheme as the balance at the time of the White Paper balances, and I pointed out that the figures I gave still took no account either of the Surtax or of the Death Duties. These are only a few of the instances which, I venture to assert, show that there is a probability of profit in the scheme. Every Amendment which we have to deal with is based upon the truth or upon the irrelevance or lack of truth of those assertions, and if it really is true that there is no margin whatever within the scheme, clearly anything that is moved and carried in this or the other House of Parliament must have the effect either of increasing the balance left to the tithe-owner, or increasing the payment made by the tithe-payer, or inducing the taxpayer to find some sum. Really that is what we come down to.
It would be very easy for the Treasury to make a profit, because there is no limit to the amount they can spend, if they wish, on the Tithe Redemption Commission and the general costs of setting this scheme on its feet. I suppose the Treasury would find the greatest difficulty in estimating what those costs really will be within the first two or three years, and, with the wisdom of Government Departments, they have left themselves an ample margin. We feel that there are certain aspects of this Bill which require amelioration either in the interest of the tithe-payer or of the tithe-owner, and we

923
do hope that there are these balances available within the scheme, and that the Government will release them for the particular purposes we have in mind. It seems to me that everything we say in this House is now, so to speak, overruled or over-weighted by this particular argument that there is or is not money within the scheme, and that the merits of the particular Amendments go by the board because of that reason. The noble Earl's argument in respect of the particular Amendment which stands on the Paper may be good or may be bad, but I think it is really not well that the merits should be over-weighted by the other argument, which relatively has nothing to do with the subject.
On this particular Amendment I admit that the noble Earl has arguments which, although they do not convince me, and do not really over-weight mine, yet are of a kind which are sound. I have not met with any support in respect of this Amendment in other quarters of the Committee, and I do not propose to pursue it on that account, not because the noble Earl has told me there is no money in the scheme. He must sooner or later produce figures to prove to us, if he can, that there is no money within the scheme, and not till then will we be content.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX VISCOUNT HALIFAX moved to insert at the end of subsection (4) "and for the purposes of the proviso to subsection (6) of the last foregoing section that amount shall be deemed not to have been paid." The noble Viscount said: This is in fact a drafting Amendment. Clause 13 provides that the reductions for Income Tax purposes in respect of liability for instalments are not to be allowed in so far as the liability is extinguished by remission, and the Amendment is moved to cure a defect in the drafting to effect that purpose.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 7, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved to add to the clause:
"(7) The provisions of this section and of the Fourth Schedule to this Act shall extend and apply (mutatis mutandis) in respect of any annuity payable under an agreement made under Section four of the
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Tithe Act, 1918, for the redemption of tithe rentcharge on land wholly comprised in an agricultural holding and accruing due after the appointed day."
The noble Lord said: I apologise that these Amendments in my name are coming so rapidly one after the other, but that is the fault of circumstances not of myself. This Amendment is one that I put down more with the purpose of explaining it, or the circumstances which gave rise to it, than for any other reason. It was contended before the Royal Commission that the persons who redeemed their tithe under the 1918 Act on the annuity basis with a currency of fifty years, should be given the opportunity of benefiting by the Remissions Clause which it was proposed and supposed would be inserted in any ensuing Bill. It certainly was not due to any desire to upset or alter in any way the agreement arrived at voluntarily by the tithe-payers, although I did remind your Lordships on Second Reading that these agreements, voluntarily in themselves, were in the nature of snatching at a floating straw by drowning men in the hope that they might save something for themselves instead of all going to wreck.
That we will leave. The point really is that those who redeemed their tithe in 1918 converted voluntarily their liability into a personal one, and the Royal Commission felt that, that having been done, it was difficult to bring them within a scheme such as we are now discussing. Personal liability or no personal liability, tithe had never except in these instances come from any but one source and that is the rental of land where land is let and the profits of farming where the owner-occupier is liable for the tithe. Redeemers under the 1918 Act, whether they let their land or were owner-occupiers, had equally felt the extreme hardships and difficulties of the depression which settled upon agriculture following the action of redemption. They had an equal difficulty with those who were compulsorily paying tithe and a sinking fund under the 1925 Act, and it was felt by myself and by those for whom I speak and who act with me, that it would be unfair in practice to deprive them of any advantages which the general body of tithe-payers may be accorded by this Bill merely because of the fact that they had made their liability a personal one and that it was no longer a charge upon the land.
There are not a very large number of persons who would be affected by the Amendment which I have on the Paper, and taking the basis of the remission, as I have done at 6¾ per cent. of the whole value of tithe to be collected and applying that same percentage basis to the balance of 1918 tithe which is paid on the fifty-year annuity basis, and omitting such tithe as was redeemed for capital payment, I find that the annual cost of including these redemptions under the 1918 Act within Clause 14 would be £11,700, which we may put at £12,000 as a maximum. The old argument will no doubt be brought forward that the Royal Commission did not recommend the inclusion of these redemptions in this Bill. The noble Earl has reminded us from time to time that the Royal Commission did this and the Royal Commission did the other. I would say to the noble Earl that if the Royal Commission's Report had been accepted in toto by His Majesty's Government in all probability this debate would not be taking place, because having appealed to Caesar we should be disposed to accept the ruling of that potentate and would not be arguing the Bill framed by His Majesty's Government. But where the Government feel so disposed they disregard the Commission's Report, and where they choose to maintain the Report they constantly refer to it. I trust that this particular case may be argued on its merits, and not upon the fact that the Royal Commission did not recommend inclusion of these, persons who are affected by the 1918 Act. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 25, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Hastings.)
THE LORD BTSHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH: The noble Lord, Lord Cranworth, if I understood him aright, said that no Amendment moved by him or by those who were in agreement with him would inflict any loss upon tithe-owners. That is certainly not so with respect to this Amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, spoke about the total figures involved, but we must remember that tithe annuities belong to particular benefices and particular tithe-owners. Any reduction in the amount of tithe annuity must fall upon the particular person who owns that annuity or what arises from it. These tithe annuities
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arising under the Act of 1918 are a bargain and a bargain made by the tithe-payers. They invited the bargain in order that they might get rid of the liability to pay tithe. Some of them made bargains by paying lump sums. If they did so that money was invested by or on behalf of the particular tithe-owners who enjoyed the benefit of it. If they found that not convenient they proposed that they should pay the sum which they were going to pay by agreement for extinction of tithe by annuities over a number of years. The average number of years was about 18 or 19.
Now at this time, because the tithe question is being again considered, they ask that they may go back upon their bargain and have some special allowance made. It does not seem to me any more fair to deal with this particular bargain in that way than any other bargain. It seems to me beyond question that these tithe annuities ought to continue in force. As the noble Lord said, the Royal Commission recommended that they should so continue. I have no doubt the reason for the Commission's recommendation was that they felt this was a bargain entered into deliberately at a certain date. If it had been entered into now the tithe-payer might have got better terms, but no one can foresee what the future is to be in that respect. If a bargain is made and an undertaking entered into to pay so much, that bargain must be held to, and I would point out that if it is not it will inflict what seems to me unjustifiable loss upon the tithe-owner who is the owner of the annuity in question.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The noble Lord who moved this Amendment said that he was doing so rather by way of explaining the situation in which he was interested than for any other reason, and that of course he was fully entitled to do. But I am quite sure, after listening to what has just fallen from the right reverend Prelate, that he will realise that were he to press his Amendment it would carry consequences that would, I think, carry him in turn rather farther than he himself would probably wish to go. In the course of the Second Reading debate the noble Lord who moved the Amendment went, I think, rather farther than he was perhaps fully justified in doing in regard to the degree to which the Royal

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Commission had in fact considered and reported on this matter. I well realise that it is only under sufferance from him that I must quote or refer to the Royal Commission, but I think that I am entitled to say that, although it is of course true that the Government have departed from the Royal Commission, as is now familiar to us all, in the matter of the period, yet it is not illogical or unreasonable to maintain the position in argument that this particular class of payers of redeemed tithe rentcharge does constitute such an entirely separate problem in the general question of tithe rentcharge redemption to-day that we are entitled to claim the guidance of the Royal Commission on this matter, although in regard to another matter we felt obliged to depart from what they advised.
Without wearying your Lordships with what the Royal Commission said about it, I think it would be not an unfair summing-up of their attitude on this question, and I do not think that my noble friend behind me would consider that it was at all unfair, to say that it amounted to a conclusion that it would be both impossible and inequitable to review those arrangements that were entered into, all of them more than fifteen years ago, under conditions that were then thought generally to be fair to the parties who had entered into them. For those reasons, as indeed for the reasons that have just been advanced by the right reverend Prelate, I would hope that my noble friend, having ventilated the question, would not think it necessary to ask your Lordships to accept the Amendment.
LORD HASTINGS: There is only one word I would add. I think the Committee will remember that in this particular case I spoke about and quoted the Royal Commission and I did not speak about the scheme. This is about the only Amendment on the Paper that is not within the scheme and on which we are not held up by Financial Resolutions and the like. I am very much obliged to the right reverend Prelate for drawing the attention of the Committee in general to the fact that this concession, if granted, would not come out of the scheme but out of the funds at the disposal of Queen Anne's Bounty. That is the fact. When the right reverend Prelate said that an agreement was an agreement and quoted those who had lent
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or borrowed money, I would remind him that where any person has borrowed money on mortgage at high-interest-bearing times, he will be entitled to receive, and doubtless would receive, a reduction in that rate of interest when money became cheaper, as it would be bound to do. Of course under the agreement of the 1918 Act there is no such prospect. But it does not appear that noble Lords desire to pursue this particular subject, and I respond to the appeal of the noble Leader of the House, and withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 14, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 15 [Procedure for redemption of annuities]:
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN moved to insert after subsection (6):
" .( ) Redemption of stock or any part thereof may be made by means of endowment policies on the lives of the tithe-payers to be taken out with approved insurance companies for any period up to sixty years and for such amounts as may be fixed by the Tithe Redemption Commissioners, always provided that the interest on capitalised sums fixed for the redemption of the said tithe is paid to the Commissioners.
Any premiums paid in respect of such policies shall be eligible for rebate of Income Tax on the same basis as at present allowed for insurance premiums, and in the event of the death prior to the maturity of the policies, the capital sums shall not be subject to Estate Duty.
In the event of ordinary whole life policies being taken out on the life of a tithe-payer, where the capital sum for the redemption of such tithe stock is payable at death for the extinguishment of the tithe stock the foregoing provisions for rebate of Income Tax and exemption from Estate Duty shall also apply.
It shall be a condition that any such policies taken out for the purpose of this Act shall be made payable to and held by the Tithe Redemption Commissioners who shall make such regulations as they may think fit for the variation of the scheme provided for by this Act, so as to give effect to the foregoing provisions for the substitution of insurance policies for the whole or part of the redemption of the capital sums."
The noble Marquess said: This is a proposal which I hope will improve the Bill neither at the expense of the tithe-owner nor at the expense of the tithe-payer nor at the expense of the Treasury. It is an attempt to bring the principle of insurance to bear upon the problem with which this Bill is mainly concerned to deal. I think most noble Lords have

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some doubt as to whether this Bill is going to achieve its primary object, to end agitation about tithe, but I think that it might do a great deal to remove the objections if it were possible by adopting the principle of insurance to enable the tithe-payers to get rid of their obligations within their own lifetime, or at the end of their life-time, and thus free their land when their successors inherited it altogether from the obligation. That is the principle, though I do not say that it is very perfectly applied in the Amendment which I venture to move to-day.
The proposal is, in effect, that any tithe-payer may enter into an arrangement with an insurance company with regard to payments which are already being made by way of redemption, together with such additional payments as the insurance company may think to be necessary in order to meet the risk of the individual's death long before the sixty years has expired. The insurance policies so arrived at are to be handed over to the Tithe Redemption Commissioners as their property, while the tithe-payer goes on paying the premium, and automatically become their property on the death of the tithe-payer. In those circumstances the tithe-payer, as I say, will free his land from the tithe at his own death. On a number of calculations I estimate that if such an arrangement were entered into at about the age of fifty, he would have to pay a premium about equivalent in amount to that which he would have to pay in tithe. At the age of thirty it would be something not very much more than half that. In addition, the fact that the land will be free of tithe at his death will be an inducement, for the heir will have an additional revenue, which he otherwise would pay as tithe, annuity or whatever the new term is, to help him to meet the obligations of Death Duties.
There should be no objection to-day by the tithe-payer, because it is purely at his discretion whether he adopts the principle of insurance or not; and no objection can be raised by the tithe-owner, because it does not affect in any way the payments which he is to receive under the Bill. The objection, if any, will be raised by the Treasury. The Treasury's objection will be that it is part: and parcel of the agitation which has sprung up in
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different parts of the country for some time that individuals should be allowed to insure against Death Duties, and that such insurance payments, when they mature, should not be assessed with the rest of the deceased's estate for the purposes of Death Duties. I venture to think that this arrangement does not come under that ban. In the first place the policies, as I see it, mature in respect of the property at the death of the tithe-payer, the person who takes out the insurance; therefore the Treasury will in effect get exactly the same Death Duty as they would otherwise get if no insurance wore taken out.
On the other hand, this plan does not come under the Treasury ban which is applied in the case of ordinary Death Duties, because it is simply another way of bringing about the redemption of annuity. The principle is already applied in the Bill, because presumably no Death Duties are paid on that proportion of the tithe payment which represents commutation or redemption of annuities, and this is simply a way of anticipating that redemption by wiping out the liabilities to tithe in ten, fifteen, twenty or thirty years instead of at the end of sixty. Therefore it seems to me that the objections which the Treasury might otherwise have reasonably made on general grounds do not arise in this case. The Treasury will lose nothing, because they will get exactly the same Death Duties as they would otherwise get, the Death Duties being payable on the value of the land as it was held by the person who has died; and they will benefit by the fact that, when the second owner dies, the value of the land will be so much more for Death Duties. I venture to move this Amendment, therefore, on the ground, as I say, that it does not damage the tithe-payer nor the Treasury, and it provides a means by which, by introducing the principle of insurance, a great many of these liabilities, which are very onerous and which have caused a great deal of agitation and defection, can be paid off within; the lifetime of a single tithe-payer, if the tithe-payer is willing to undergo the course of adding to the annuity payments so that the Tithe Commission receives at his death a sum which provides for the total wiping-out of the tithe claim. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 16, line 34, at end insert the said new subsection.—(The Marquess of Lothian.)
EARL DE LA WARR: The noble Marquess has moved this Amendment, and I am really not quite sure what he hopes to gain from it. I tried to listen very carefully to what he said, but I could not see exactly who was going to gain from this very complicated new machinery.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: It is not complicated machinery, for he simply makes an arrangement with the insurance company whereby on his death the land would be free from payments.
EARL DE LA WARR: He pays out heavy premiums to the insurance company directly instead of paying first to the Tithe Commission and then later to the Inland Revenue.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: The land becomes free of tithe on his death.
EARL DE LA WARR: It is merely a method of trying to hurry up the redemption. You might just as well have a provision in the scheme for immediate redemption, and there is in fact nothing to prevent redemption. So far as I can see, what the noble Marquess feels is this, that the payment of the annuities will not in fact be a solution of this problem of doing away with tithe rentcharge and his anxiety is to get rid of it at a quicker rate. With this object in view he feels that if landowners can only be encouraged to take out life policies in favour of the Tithe Redemption Commission, to provide a capital sum for extinguishment of the charge on death, or within a limited period, it will be all to the good, and that the attraction which should be offered to the landowner to do so is that a capital sum should not be liable to Death Duties. Here, I think, we come to the important point in the noble Marquess's mind—that the sum should not be liable to Death Duties, and also that during the payment of the premiums there should be provision for counting the premiums against Income Tax return.
Of course the Amendment as it is drawn deals with the redemption of stock by the tithe-payer. I do not quite understand the drafting of the Amendment, because
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it refers to the tithe-payer, but I think the noble Marquess really means the payer of the annuity. Similarly, the reference to the stock should be to the annuity, unless the noble Marquess's reference there to stock is intentional, in which case it is quite inappropriate, because one of the main principles of the Bill is the separation of the annuities from the stock, and the drafting of the Amendment therefore cuts right at this principle, but I think we can agree upon that as a matter of drafting. I think the real intention of the Amendment is to enable the payer of the annuity to pay the sum fixed for redemption not down but by means of this insurance policy, which will mature at some future date, interest in the form of premiums being payable meanwhile. I do not know that I contend that this is necessarily, theoretically, absolutely impracticable. I think it might be practicable. It would be possible to fix the amount of the redemption money and provide that instead of being paid at once it should be payable either at death or in a period of time, say twenty years hence, and of course it would bear interest at the rate assumed in calculating the amount which would be payable. The payer of the annuity might then take out a life policy maturing on death or in twenty years and assign it to the Tithe Commission. Of course provision would have to be made for the premium on the policy to be a charge on the land, and a personal debt in the same way as the annuity would have been. So far, I think we have got to a point where very little would be gained either way.
Then we get to the next part of the Amendment, which deals with the provision for relief from Income Tax and Estate Duty in respect of premiums on life insurance policies and of the sums received from those policies. The Amendment provides that the premiums paid in respect of endowment policies on the lives of tithe-payers or ordinary whole life policies thereon, shall be "eligible for rebate of Income Tax on the same basis as at present allowed for insurance premiums." That is quite unnecessary. No one asks to-day for what purpose a life insurance has been taken out, and to that extent this Amendment is quite unnecessary. Similarly, dealing with the provision for Death Duties, the Amendment says that "in the event of the death (of the tithe-payer) prior to the maturity of the policy, the capital sums

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shall not be subject to Estate Duty." I think the noble Marquess must have, overlooked the point that while the amount of the insurance policy forms part of the assets of the estate for purposes of Estate Duty, a deduction would be allowed for the debts of the deceased tithe-payer. Such debts will include the capitalised sum fixed for the redemption of the annuity if still outstanding at the date of death.
The relief sought by the noble Marquess therefore would be automatically assured. If, however, the noble Marquess desires that the insurance money should be excluded from the estate, but that at the same time a deduction shall be allowed for the capitalised sum which is payable in redemption of the annuity, he is obviously making an unreasonable request, but I gather from the way in which he looks at me that it had not occurred to him. Of course Amendments on this point have been frequently moved on Finance Bills, and I think the noble Marquess will admit, if he is dealing with the general question, that that is the place wherein to move it. So, generally speaking, in so far as this Amendment might do anything, it is applicable to the Finance Bill, but on the whole I repeat what I have said before, that it is a very complicated way of doing: something which could be done in quite a direct way. There is a good deal in hurrying up redemption, and much has already been done to facilitate redemption, in particular by allowing the annuity payer to pay in a round sum (£25 and upwards), as and when he likes, and have the annuity proportionately reduced. I suggest therefore that this Amendment is either unnecessary or undesirable.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: Do I understand that really in principle the noble Earl accepts the Amendment?
On Question, Amendment negatived.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The next three Amendments are drafting.
Amendments moved—
Page 17, line 2, leave out (" on ") and insert (" in respect of ")
Page 17, line 19, after (" and ") insert (" the annuity ")
Page 17, line 20, leave out (" the annuity ") and insert (" it ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 15, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 16:
Recovery of annuities from owners of land.
(2) A payment required by a redemption notice or by a notice served under subsection (7) of the last foregoing section, together with interest thereon at the rate of five per cent. per annum from the date on which the payment is thereby required, shall be a debt due to His Majesty from the person on whom such a notice is duly served.
(4) A debt due to His Majesty under this section may be recovered by the Board either by proceedings in the High Court or in the county court or by any other means whereby a debt due to the Crown may be recovered, and where the sum claimed in respect of a debt to His Majesty under this section is less than fifty pounds that sum may be recovered by the Board summarily as a civil debt in proceedings commenced in the name of some person authorised in that behalf by the Board.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX VISCOUNT HALIFAX moved, in subsection (2), to leave out "at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum." The noble Viscount said: This Amendment, which is not down on the Paper, is an attempt to meet in rather different form a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, on an Amendment which stands in his name. There is a further consequential Amendment, which I apologise for not having been able to put on the Paper. in line 11, after the words "the date on which the payment is thereby required," to insert "at the rate fixed under subsection (2) of the last foregoing section for the purpose of the determination of the amount of the consideration money." The point that I think Lord Hastings had in his mind when he put-down an Amendment to leave out "five" in order to insert "three" was that five was an excessively high rate of interest to apply to these cases; and indeed that was readily admitted by His Majesty's Government, inasmuch as it was their intention to make five a slightly penal rate of interest in cases when these sums were wilfully in arrear. But on reconsideration my right honourable friend in charge of the Bill thought that there was perhaps some force in the arguments that he expected my noble friend to use on this matter and accordingly placed himself in communication with his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the

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Exchequer. As a result of that consultation I am bringing forward these Amendments, which I hope may generally seem reasonable to the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, and may commend themselves to the House.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 9, leave out (" at the rate of five per cent. per annum ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
LORD HASTINGS: My noble friend the Leader of the House has given me the opportunity of considering the alternative Amendment that he has now moved and, with the consequential Amendment, I find that it does meet the case that I had hoped to make by the alteration of the wording. I shall be prepared not to move the Amendment which stands in my name and to accept that which he has proposed instead.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I beg now to move the consequential Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 11, after (" required ") insert (" at the rate fixed under subsection (2) of the last foregoing section for the purpose of the determination of the amount of the consideration money ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The next is a drafting Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 29, leave out (" requests ") and insert (" request ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD MARLEY LORD MARLEY had on the Paper an Amendment to insert at the end of subsection (4):
"Provided that, if the sum due on account of an instalment of an annuity is in arrear for less than eleven weeks, no such action for recovery shall be taken."
The noble Lord said: This is a unique Amendment because it does not affect either the tithe-payer, or the Church, or the Treasury; in fact everybody is going to benefit, because all that it says is that there will be eleven weeks before action can be taken on account of an instalment of an annuity due from the tithe-payer. I think that the Church will benefit because we have heard that there will be a sort of residual odium applying to the Church on the enforcement of these annuities. However unreasonable
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it may be, yet there will be this residual odium, and therefore any mitigation of that should, I think, meet with the support of the Church. It applies really only to very poor people, the poorest of all the small owner-occupiers, and the letters that I have received indicate that these people would appreciate even this modicum of modification.
I have a case of a man who says that when he has paid his tithe he has nothing at all for himself; he is owed money and he has to try to pay before the money comes in which is due to him for his produce. As I say, there is a sort of odium to the Church which will continue, because nearly all these letters attack the most reverend Primate. The Archbishop of course said that he did not mind being burnt in effigy. His predecessors were unfortunately often burnt in reality on a number of occasions. I do not suggest that; on the contrary, that would give great pain to your Lordships as well as to the Archbishop. We want to remove any clanger of this from him, and therefore we hope that this modification may possibly be accepted. On the other hand, when I look down the Amendments I see that there is one by Lord Hastings, the next one following this, which seems to me to include the sort of thing I am trying to get, and even to go a little bit further.
LORD HASTINGS: It does include all that the noble Lord requires.
LORD MARLEY: In that case I think I would rather not move this Amendment, but support the noble Lord when he comes to move his Amendment.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, after subsection (6), to insert:
"(7) No application to the court for an order for recovery shall be made, and no proceedings under subsection (5) or (6) of this section shall be taken, in respect of an instalment of an annuity payable on any payment date until the expiration of three months from that date."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is one that I and those who act with me regard as really of the most vital importance. There are two separate reasons which may be advanced in advocacy of this Amendment. The first is that under the existing law, and ever since tithe became protected by Statute law in 1836, there has been given to the tithe-payer the period of grace which is by this

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Bill removed from him. Therefore this Bill proposes to take away from the tithe-payer a statutory right which he now possesses, and in asking that the statutory right should be replaced in the present Bill I am not asking for a concession, but merely for the re-statement of the existing law.
Now I come to the second reason for this Amendment. Your Lordships will be aware that throughout England there has been for a great number of years the invariable practice—a practice which has become so much a part of the custom of the country as almost to have the force of law—that rent shall not be collected until the period of three months' grace has been given. Although there are many cases which I could quote where a much longer period than three months is given, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to find one where less than three months' grace is given. This collection of tithe is going, in due time, to pass from the hands of Queen Anne's Bounty into the hands of the Tithe Redemption Commission, and thus into the hands of Inland Revenue. Inland Revenue, by the Bill as it now stands, is going to be empowered to collect immediately tithe that becomes due at the statutory periods, approximate to Michaelmas and Lady Day.
The landowner who lets his land can, in the vast majority of instances, only pay his tithe out of his collected rents, and if he is unable by immemorial custom to collect those rents until he has given three months' grace to his tenants, it follows that he cannot, in the vast majority of instances, have the means with which to pay his tithe until his rents have come to hand. There is therefore an irrefutable case for continuing to the landowner the three months' grace which he now enjoys by law. In the case of an occupying owner who does not pay his tithe out of his rent but pays it out of the produce of the land, it will be common knowledge to all those who practise farming—more often than not to their loss—that it is not as a rule possible to commute harvest into cash so early as Michaelmas, nor bullocks into cash so early as Lady Day. Therefore, the case of the owner-occupier is as strong as the case of the landowner who cannot pay because he has no rents; the owner-occupier cannot pay because he is not able to convert his produce into cash.
If the Bill were to pass into law as framed, there would be up and down the country the possibility of overwhelming and really terrifying injustice. It is not suggested that Inland Revenue would prosecute wholesale persons who were dilatory in the paying of their tithe, but, when powers are vested in it, we never know, and it is not fair and proper to the countryside and to the tithe-paying community that they should be subject to such an appalling risk as that to which this Bill as now framed will unquestionably subject them. To continue the rights which tithe-payers now possess, to gain from Inland Revenue three months' grace before they may be prosecuted for non-payment of tithe—if that is granted, and can be granted by the Government, they will, without question, remove from the tithe-paying community a source of fear and indignation which now obsesses them. I do not think any single feature of this Bill has caused so much excitement and so much fear in prospect as the possibility that, immediately upon the tithe falling due, the unfortunate tithe-payer, unable in fact to produce the cash, would be liable to prosecution by the officers of Inland Revenue and inevitably to penalties at the hands of a court of law.
I trust that the Government will see its way to listen to the arguments which I have ventured to advance. The position of those to whose advice tithe-payers occasionally listen would really be impossible if this injustice were embodied in the Bill now under discussion. The arguments which have been used would be undermined, and it would be impossible to convince the tithe-paying community in general that they were not, at the hands of the Treasury, being subjected to the gravest and most improper hardship. I do hope that these arguments which nearly succeeded, but did not quite succeed, in another place will have better fortune here, and that the noble Viscount who leads the House, and noble Lords generally, will be inclined to support the view that here is a case where peace can be earned and where peace is assuredly deserved.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 34, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Hastings.)
EARL DE LA WARR: The noble Lord is perfectly right in saying that there is

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probably as much feeling on this particular point as there is on any other. It is of vital importance, but perhaps I might put before your Lordships some of the difficulties which there are in accepting it, as indeed we should like to do. To begin with, it is the essence of this scheme that part of the inducement to the tithe-owners to come into it is that they are going to receive their money on the very first day it is due. It is proposed now that that money shall not be paid into the fund until three months after it is due. That means, if not on every occasion, at any rate very frequently, that the fund will be faced with the problem of borrowing for a period of three months in order to pay the tithe-owners at once. That is a difficulty though I do not think it is necessarily an insuperable one.
Then there is the much larger question of principle which must at once arise in all your Lordships' minds. It is here being proposed to lay down the principle that a debt due to the Grown shall be made irrecoverable until three months after the date on which it is due. It is not really a matter of prosecution, because all of us know in fact that Inland Revenue does not prosecute within three months of a debt becoming due. If it did, I do not know where some of us might be in the matter of Super-Tax; but this Amendment virtually means that this particular debt shall be irrecoverable for three months after the proper date. Although of course the Government look at the country as a whole, we have got also to look at this question from the point of view of Inland Revenue and the Treasury, which have been brought into this scheme with the sole and simple object of enabling tithe-owners and tithe-payers to benefit by their cheap credit. They are justified, therefore, in saying: "If we are being brought into this scheme in order to make it possible by pledging our cheap credit, surely we are entitled at least to have our security made valid and be able to collect the money when it is due." Those are some of the reasons that seem to me to make it very difficult to accept this Amendment.
On the other hand, the noble Lord has made. I think, what we must all admit to be an extraordinarily strong case in its favour. He has shown how this particular
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form of payment is, as it always has been in the past, and to some extent will always be in the future, in a different category from the ordinary debt due for taxation. He has shown how, since the Act of 1891, the tithe-payers have in fact had this statutory right. He has also shown how under the Bill, and particularly under the Amendment for seven years which we accepted, for the next seven years, while the Commission is sitting, that right will in fact continue. I do not think he mentioned, but it seems to me quite a strong point, the fact that after all the whole of this scheme is automatically wiped out in sixty years and, therefore, to that extent it cannot be said that we are laying down a permanent principle with regard to the relations between the Inland Revenue and the taxpayer. He also mentioned the very real difficulty with which landlords are faced, that they do not in fact get their rents until at the very least three months after they are due. Although that does not particularly apply to the owner-occupier, yet the owner-occupier is dependent on the sale of his cattle and crops and to that extent he really is in the same position.
Over and above all those reasons for accepting this Amendment, there seems to me to be one even stronger than any one of them, and it is one that has been mentioned on another matter by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich. I think he used the words "surely there is something wider than just the financial scheme." That is a matter which the Government have to consider. We have to realise, considering the matter from the purely financial side, that quite apart from improved methods in collection and so on, one of the main reasons why we hope we are going to be able to get the money in better in future is that of the greater good will that we hope to establish in the countryside. Surely the whole case of this Bill is that we may, by passing it into law, at least make a contribution to healing a real sore that is present now. Therefore His Majesty's Government, in spite of the very strong reasons which I have ventured to lay before your Lordships against its acceptance, have decided to let what we might call reasons of State overrule what may be called technicalities and to accept this Amendment as a real contribution not merely to the passage of

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this Bill but, what we feel to be very much more important, its future smooth working in the country.
LORD HASTINGS: I only rise to express my very sincere thanks to His Majesty's Government for having given way upon this vital point and to assure them chat it will very greatly ease the situation with which I and those who act with me have to deal.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

HIS MAJESTY THE KING.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: As your Lordships know it is necessary to interrupt our proceedings on this Bill for a short space for the purpose of having a Royal Commission, and I thought it might be convenient to your Lordships at this juncture to have such information as is available with regard to the incident that occurred this morning which is, I have no doubt, very much in your Lordships' minds.
NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The House will be deeply moved to learn that during the return journey of the Royal Procession from the presentation of the Colours to the Brigade of Guards in Hyde Park this morning a man pushed his way to the front of the crowd near the Wellington Arch in Constitution Hill. Exactly what followed has not yet been precisely ascertained but a revolver fell in the roadway between the King and the troops following him. The man was immediately arrested and taken to Hyde Park Police Station. No shot was fired, but the revolver was found to be loaded in four of its five chambers. The man will appear at Bow Street this afternoon, when it is probable that a remand will be applied for. The whole House will be profoundly thankful that the risk to which His Majesty was exposed has been so promptly averted.
Noble Lords: Hear, hear.

ROCHESTER CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The Royal Assent was given to the following Bills:—

Finance,

Solicitors,

Pilotage Authorities (Limitation of Liability),

Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Lancaster),

Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Ramsey and Saint Ives Joint Water District),

Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Tees Valley Water Board),

Tring Gas,

Rochester Corporation.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

TITHE BILL.
House again in Committee:
[The EARL OF ONSLOW in the Chair.]
Clause 16:
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved to insert, after subsection (6):
"( ) No sum to the recovery of which this section relates shall be recoverable unless proceedings for such recovery have been commenced before the expiration of two years from the date at which it became payable."
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to continue in the new Bill that which is the present practice. Your Lordships will be aware that Inland Revenue is governed only by the Statute of Limitations, which extends to a period of six years. Presumably—I speak, of course, subject to correction—the Inland Revenue would be empowered under the general Statute to make retrospective any endeavour at recovery of tithe which they desired in a whole period of six years, a somewhat alarming prospect for the tithe-payer, in view, particularly, of the practice which has prevailed hitherto. I do not think I need argue this Amendment at any length, except, of course, just to say what I have said and to hope

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that, if the Government are not able to give way on the Amendment, they will at least explain their reasons for not doing so, because I find it difficult to understand what their reasons could now be.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 34, at end, insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Hastings.)
EARL DE LA WARR: I quite understand why the noble Lord should move this Amendment, because after all this is a right, as I think he said, which the tithe-payers have had in the past. On the other hand, I would ask him not to press us further with regard to revolutionising the relations between the taxpayer and the Inland Revenue. It is not likely that this case will occur, because the whole stability of this scheme is going to depend on the prompt collection of what is due by the Inland Revenue. In fact, the last Amendment on which His Majesty's Government gave way was a concession to exactly the opposite fear to that expressed by the noble Lord: the fear that the Inland Revenue would be too prompt in their methods of collection. I say I do not think it is likely to occur. The only period of the scheme at which it might possibly occur is towards the beginning, when the map, the register, and some of the particulars of ownership and so on are not quite clear, and it may take some time to get the matter straight.
If we passed this Amendment, beyond breaking a principle, which is an important thing in itself, I cannot say to the noble Lord that very dire things would necessarily result, but it does suggest to me a danger that you might get certain owners who delayed the taking of legal proceedings for a long time by con-ducting quite unnecessary legal disputes about ownership and so on. Your Lordships may say that that is not very likely, but I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, who speaks for the tithe-payers, would himself say that there are a very funny lot amongst them! They are perhaps a small minority, but they have shown a most uncanny capacity for finding small legal means of evading their just dues. Therefore I would ask the noble Lord not to press this Amendment, which might really do more harm than good.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: Before my noble friend Lord Cranworth moves the Amendment in his name with regard to the position of trustees, it might perhaps save time if I told him that, while we cannot accept the Amendment as it is in his words on the Paper, we recognise that there is a valid point in his Amendment. If it were convenient for him, I would propose that between now and the Report stage we should put down words on the Paper which he might have the opportunity of considering, and then he could say whether he was satisfied with them at that stage.
LORD CRANWORTH: I thank the noble Viscount very much. I am bound to say that I am dissatisfied myself with this form of words, and I will not now move it.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: Might I make one suggestion to the noble Viscount the Leader of the House? Ought not the word "executor" to be included as well as "trustee"?
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I will think that suggestion over.
Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 17:
Definition of "owner" in relation to land.
(5) "Where under Section nine of the Administration of Estates Act, 1925, the estate of a person who died intestate is vested in the Probate Judge, that Judge shall not be deemed to be the owner of any land comprised in the estate for the purpose of any action required or authorised by this Act to be taken by or against the owner of the land, but upon administration being granted the administrator shall be deemed for those purposes to have been the owner thereof as from the date of the death.
EARL DE LA WARR: The Amendment which I move is purely drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 20, line 21, leave out (" and ' lessee ' has a corresponding meaning ").—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN moved to leave out subsection (5). The noble Marquess said: I desire to call the attention of the Leader of the House to what he has just said, and to ask him whether he will consider the point which I really have in mind on this Amendment. If

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he will read the last few lines of the subsection he will find that the meaning, as far as I can understand it, is that the Probate Judge shall not be deemed to be the owner of the land, "but upon administration being granted the administrator shall be deemed for those purposes to have been the owner thereof as from the date of the death." As I read it it means that, with some qualification under Section 9 of the Administration of Estates Act, 1925, supposing an individual is a trustee or appointed by the Court to be an administrator of an estate, and supposing that estate is unable to meet its obligations of tithe, he becomes liable to tithe in his own personal estate. That seems to me to be the meaning of the words, owing to the fact that tithe obligation is applied to the owner of the land, and for the purposes of this Act the administrator shall be deemed to be the owner of the land. I do not imagine that this is possible. It is surely never true that a trustee, except for reasons of abuse of his trust, becomes responsible in his own estate for an obligation which arises in respect of the estate which he administers. It is merely that I want that matter considered so as to be quite reassured that trustees may not one day wake up and find out that they are responsible for tithe in respect of estates which are unable to pay, and they are personally responsible in their own estates for the payment of the tithe.
Amendment moved—
Page 21, line 19, leave out subsection (5).—(The Marquess of Lothian.)
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: What the noble Marquess has just said with regard to his Amendment puts rather a different light on it from that in which I have hitherto seen it. I do not pretend that I completely follow the point which he has made, and I think perhaps the most convenient course would be, as it is not a matter which is likely to be of any controversy between us, that he should withdraw his Amendment at this stage and I should undertake to have it considered between now and the Report stage without, of course, giving any undertaking to accept it.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: It is just the same kind of point which, as the noble Viscount has just said, was brought up by Lord Cranworth's Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 17, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 18 and 19 agreed to.
Clause 20:
Ascertainment and registration of owners of land.
(6) If the tithe-payer satisfies the Committee on a reference to them under this section that his financial circumstances are such as to render it fair and reasonable that a part or the whole of the arrears should be remitted, or that any order made for the recovery thereof should provide for the recovery thereof by instalments, the Committee, after giving to the tithe-owner an opportunity of making representations, may direct accordingly.
(7) Where a tithe-payer serves notice on the Commission claiming to have the matter of the recovery from him of arrears referred to the Committee, he shall be deemed thereby to admit legal liability for the payment thereof, and as soon as the matter has been disposed of by the Committee the Commission shall pay to the tithe-owner an amount equal to the arrears in respect of which the notice was served, less an amount equal to any remission directed by the Committee.
(9) For the purposes of the Tithe Act, 1925, sums received by a tithe-owner from the Commission under this section in respect of any arrears shall be deemed to be sums received by him on account of tithe rentcharge for the year in which the arrears became due.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: This is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 1, after (" tithe-payer ") insert (" duly ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CRANWORTH LORD CRANWORTH moved in subsection (6), to leave out "his financial circumstances are" and insert "the annual profit arising out of the land out of which the tithe rentcharge issues is." The noble Lord said: This is a small Amendment which I, as usual, hope the Government will see their way to accept. I venture to think that it will be found not a very satisfactory—indeed, rather an invidious—operation for the Arrears Investigation Committee to inquire into the financial circumstances of a man after the manner of a Bankruptcy Court. I think it should be avoided if possible. Moreover, I would point out that at the present time tithe is not a personal debt. It may be in the course of a few days, but at present it is not, and when the arrears were

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incurred it was not a personal debt. This clause would have the effect of making this personal indebtedness retrospective, and frankly I do not think that it is quite fair. I venture to hope that the noble Viscount will see fit to accept this small Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, lines 9 and 10, leave out (" his financial circumstances are ") and insert (" the annual profit arising out of the land out of which the tithe rentcharge issues is ").—(Lord Cranworth.)
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I find considerable difficulty in meeting my noble, friend on this Amendment. The Amendment proposes to alter the reference to the Arrears Investigation Committee from the simple question as to whether the tithe-payer's financial circumstances justify a remission to the question whether the profit arising out of the particular land charged with the tithe rentcharge does in fact justify such remission. That is a rather substantial change and the noble Lord will recognise that, apart from the difficulty of dealing with cases from that new aspect, the difficulty would also be involved that it would be necessary to ascertain the annual profit that arises out of a particular inclosure, or indeed even parts of inclosures, as distinct from the annual profit arising out of the holding as a whole. It must be remembered that the arrears in question will consist of sums already legally due and payable by the landowners and in some cases sums that have already been ordered to be recovered by the County Court. For that position the Bill, as your Lordships are aware, takes what from that angle is the rather drastic course of providing an Arrears Investigation Committee, for the purpose of leaving them discretion to mitigate hardship in the case of tithe-payers who are unable to pay.
I suggest that the structure of the Bill is based on the principle that the question of hardship does not depend upon the profit or loss made from particular fields charged with tithe rentcharge but rather upon the general financial circumstances of the tithe-payer. I am well aware that that principle is one to which Lord Hastings takes great exception, but I am afraid that that is the principle on which the Bill is based and I would therefore ask the noble Lord if he is unable to agree with my argument to recognise that it is a least a valid one.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH: I think it is quite evident that if this Amendment is accepted it might have other results than that which the mover would necessarily anticipate. You have a number of people who deliberately let their land go because they want to shoot over it, and it would be easy enough to show that there was no profit on that land, that year. That might be done, too, by persons who were perfectly capable of paying tithe and who certainly ought not to be let off on that ground. The Bill as drafted gives very considerable powers or possible powers to the Arrears Investigation Committee, and if when tithe is claimed the tithe-payer gives reasons for thinking it is excessive the Committee has to adjudicate. No particular lines are laid down and therefore it seems to me that to leave the clause in the Bill as it stands is the wisest course to pursue.
LORD CRANWORTH: In view of the answer, which is one that I expected, and in view of the majority which went against me on a similar Amendment, though of a far-reaching nature, I feel that I have no alternative but to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
EARL DE LA WARR EARL DE LA WARR moved to insert at the end of subsection (7):
"Provided that this subsection shall not have effect as respects any arrears which are irrecoverable by the Commission by virtue of proviso (a) to subsection (10) of this section."
The noble Earl said: This Amendment is necessary to cure a technical defect in the drafting. The Bill provides that arrears are not to be recoverable, notwithstanding that the tithe-payer is legally liable in other respects, if the arrears became due more than two years before the commencement of proceedings to recover them. A tithe-owner might serve notice on a tithe-payer claiming payment of arrears which have become so irrecoverable, and the tithe-payer might, either inadvertently or possibly by collusion with the tithe-owner, require a reference to the Arrears Investigation Committee as to the arrears. If this were to happen the position under Clause 20 (7) as at present drafted would be that the Commission would have to pay an amount equal to the arrears (subject to

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any remission ordered by the Committee) to the tithe-owner, although the arrears would be irrecoverable by the Commission.
Amendment moved—
Page 26, line 24, at end insert the said proviso.—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH moved to add to subsection (9):
"and a proportionate part of any remission directed by the Committee of arrears of a rentcharge, to which the provisions of Section four of that Act relating to sums payable by way of sinking fund payment apply, shall be treated as attributable to the sum so payable for that year."
The right reverend Prelate said: The object of this Amendment is a simple one and I have no doubt it will commend itself to your Lordships. Supposing the Committee allows a considerable concession, say, of £20 or £30 in respect of arrears. That is a concession upon a debt which was based upon a collection at the rate of £109 10s., £4 10s. of which was for sinking fund. It is obvious that if a concession is made, that ought to be equitably apportioned between the part which goes to the sinking fund and the part which goes to the owner and the owner ought not to suffer all the loss. The effect of the Amendment is to enable the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty to deal with the matter and decide what proportionate part of any remission should be charged to the sinking fund.
Amendment moved—
Page 27, line 3, at end insert the said words.—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmunds-bury and Ipswich.)
EARL DE LA WARR: I think this is a very reasonable Amendment. It seems only obvious and natural that if a remission is directed by the Arrears Investigation Committee it should be treated in the same way as if the remission were under the Act of 1891.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 20, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 21 [Provisions as to tithe rentcharge vested in owner of land charged]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The two Amendments to this clause are drafting.
Amendments moved—
Page 28, line 17, leave out (" issued ") and insert (" issues ")
Page 28, line 21, leave out (" Section one ") and insert (" Sections one and thirty-one ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 21, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 22 to 29 agreed to.
Clause 30 [Provisions as to corn rents, etc.]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: These two Amendments are drafting.
Amendments moved—
Page 37, line 18, leave out (" with the approval of the Treasury ")
Page 37, line 21, at end insert (" with the approval of the Treasury ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 30, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 31:
Liabilities to repair chancels, etc.
(2) In respect of liability to repair arising from the ownershp of a tithe rentcharge extinguished by this Act in respect of which stock is to be issued under this Act, the diocesan authority shall be entitled to receive a part of the stock to be issued in respect of the rentcharge equal in amount to such a sum (in this section and in the Seventh Schedule to this Act referred to as "the sum required for repairs ") as may be reasonably sufficient, having regard to the condition of the chancel or building at the appointed day, to provide for the cost of future repairs thereof and to provide a capital sum the income of which will be sufficient to insure it for a sum adequate to reinstate it in the event of its being destroyed by fire:
Provided that where the rentcharge was vested immediately before the appointed day for an interest in fee simple in possession in any of the following corporations or bodies, namely, Queen Anne's Bounty, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, a spiritual rector, an ecclesiastical corporation, or a university or college to which the Universities and College Estates Act, 1925, applies, the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall not have effect, but the corporation or body shall be subject to liability to repair in like manner as if the rentcharge had continued in existence and in the ownership of the corporation or body.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH moved, in the proviso in subsection (2), after "rector," to insert "of a rectory with cure of souls." The right reverend Prelate said:

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It may interest the Committee to know that even at the present day there are about nineteen rectors with no cure of souls, who are "sinecure" rectors. They could take up their stock and then disappear, and there would be no means of tracing them.
Amendment moved—
Page 38, line 22, after (" rector ") insert the said words.—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
EARL DE LA WARR: I think it is quite clear that it is desirable that rectors in the position of holding sinecures should be required to commute their liability in exactly the same way as the lay proprietor, and therefore we are prepared to accept the Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 31, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 32:
Furnishing of information by rating authorities.
(2) A rating authority shall, on being requested by the Commission so to do, inform the Commission whether any land in their area is or is not land in respect of which rates may be assessed.
EARL DE LA WARR EARL DE LA WARR moved, in subsection (2), to leave out all words after the second "Commission" and insert "as respects any land in their area whether it was on the first day of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, land in respect of which rates were assessable." The noble Earl said: This is a drafting Amendment necessitated by the fact that the Bill has been amended at an earlier stage, so as to render the material date for ascertaining whether land was or was not agricultural land, and consequently was or was not assessable to rates, the 1st of April, 1936.
Amendment moved—
Page 39, line 40, leave out from the second (" Commission ") to the end of the subsection and insert the said words.—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 32, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 33 agreed to.
Clause 34 [Application to Crown lands, etc.]:
EARL DE LA WARR: This Amendment's drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 40, line 13, after ("Crown") insert "or of the Duchy of Lancaster or belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall."—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 34, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 35 agreed to.
Clause 36 [Enforcement of charges created by this Act in respect of stock]:
EARL DE LA WARR EARL DE LA WARR moved to leave out Clause 36. The noble Earl said: This is consequential.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 36.—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 37 [Adaptation of references to amount of tithe rentcharge]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX VISCOUNT HALIFAX moved to add to the clause:
"(2) In the case of a testamentary instrument executed before the commencement of this Act, a disposition referring to tithe rentcharge shall be construed and have effect in relation to a rentcharge extinguished by this Act as if the reference had included a reference to the stock issued in respect thereof."
The noble Viscount said: This is a drafting Amendment to re-insert in the clause subsection (3) of Clause 7 of the Bill.
Amendment moved—
Page 41, line 19, at end insert the said subsection.—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 37, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 38:
Power of Queen Anne's Bounty to make consequential adjustments.
38. For the purpose of making adjustments, consequential upon the extinguishment of tithe rentcharge in relation to rentcharges vested in Queen Anne's Bounty by the Tithe Act, 1925, and to the collection thereof and to the emoluments of benefices and corporations to which such rentcharges were formerly attached, Queen Anne's Bounty shall have the powers specified in the Eighth Schedule to this Act.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH moved to leave out" in relation to rentcharges vested in Queen Anne's Bounty by the Tithe Act, 1925, and to the collection thereof and to the emoluments of benefices and corporations to which such rentcharges were formerly attached, Queen Anne's Bounty "and insert" Queen Anne's Bounty shall give effect to the

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provisions of Part II of the Third Schedule, and." The right reverend Prelate said: This can hardly be described as drafting, but it is not much more, because the Bill has been amended since it was first drafted and the words as they appear in the Bill do not quite fit the case. The words which it is proposed to substitute do fit the case adequately.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 22, leave out from the beginning to (" shall ") in line 26 and insert the said new words.—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 38, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 39 [Powers for determination of questions in performance of functions under this Act]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: This Amendment is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 2, after (" Board ") insert (" for the purposes of this Act ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The next Amendment is almost drafting. The Arrears Investigation Committee will not have a staff of its own but will be served by staff of the Commission assigned for the purpose. Consequently it is necessary to provide for the proof of copies of directions given by the Committee by means of a certificate of a person properly authorised by the Committee.
Amendment moved—
Page 42, line 31, leave out (" the Board, or ") and insert (" or of the Board, or by a person authorised in that behalf by ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 30, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 40 and 41 agreed to.
Clause 42 [Serving of notices]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The next Amendment is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 43, line 30, leave out (" their ") and insert (" its ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL DE LA WARR EARL DE LA WARR moved to add to the clause:
" (2) In relation to any document issued by or under the authority of any Government department for the purpose of this
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Act, the Documentary Evidence Act, 1868, as amended by the Documentary Evidence Act, 1882, shall have effect as if the Commission and the Board were included in the first column of the Schedule to the first-mentioned Act, and any person authorised to act on behalf of the Commission or the Board, as the case may be, were mentioned in the second column of that Schedule, and the regulations referred to in those Acts included any such document as aforesaid."
The noble Earl said: This Amendment is merely a piece of machinery for enabling documents to be provable in evidence.
Amendment moved—
Page 43, line 33, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 42, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 43 to 46 agreed to.
Clause 47:
Interpretation.
47,—(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the meanings hereby respectively assigned to them, that is to say:—
"agricultural land" means agricultural land as defined in Section two of the Rating and Valuation (Apportionment) Act, 1928, and buildings (including dwelling-houses) occupied together with such land and used primarily in connection with agricultural operations thereon;
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, at the end of the definition of "agricultural land," to insert "and includes agricultural property as defined in paragraph (g) of subsection (1) of Section twenty-two of the Finance Act, 1894." The noble Lord said: This clause affects the definition of agricultural land and becomes of importance because of the fact that non-agricultural land has to pay at the rate of £105 by general agreement instead of £91 11s. 2d. which would be paid on agricultural land. It is clearly very necessary that agricultural land should be clearly defined, and if a certain deficiency in the definition shoud find its way into Clause 47 this would be rather undesirable. Section 22 of the Finance Act, 1894, which is referred to in my Amendment, reads as follows:
(g) The expression "agricultural property" means agricultural land, pasture and woodland, and also includes such cottages, farm buildings, farm houses, and mansion houses (together with the lands occupied therewith) as are of a character appropriate to the property.
Under the definition in the Bill "agricultural land" would exclude land which

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is used in connection with a mansion house, and where a park is charged in connection with tithe, as the great majority of parks are, it would, I think, effectively under the Bill be reckoned as non-agricultural land and be paying tithe at the rate of £105 instead of £91 11s. 2d. I agree that that would defeat the object of the Government, and it certainly would be unfair to the rural tithe-payer.
Amendment moved—
Page 44, line 34, at end insert the said new words.—(Lord Hastings.)
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH: I should like to point out that if the Amendment were accepted it would be virtually impossible to collect the tithe on October 1. If you go back to the Finance Bill of 1894 you have to apply that to all the land for which tithe is collected, and it would be an extraordinarily complicated thing to get that all ready by October 1, as would be necessary for Queen Anne's Bounty. I am not at all sure whether a house or mansion house should be regarded as agricultural land or not. But at any rate here is a definition in the Bill which has been carefully considered. It includes building and dwelling-houses occupied together with land used primarily in connection with agricultural operations, and that definition ought, I think, to be sufficient for the purpose.
LORD ROCHE: I should like to say a word in support of the noble Lord and to assure the right reverend Prelate that the definition of the Bill merely refers to one Act of Parliament. He desires to refer to another. The labours of the body he mentions will not be increased. The definition which the noble Lord desires to insert is perfectly plain. Whether it is right to insert the Amendment is another matter. From a lawyer's point of view I should not like your Lordships to think that the course suggested by the noble Lord would be any more difficult than the course indicated by the Bill.
EARL DE LA WARR: This does represent a further concession and a reduction of the flat-rate base and of the one-third remission. I rather tremble when I look at my brief and see the familiar words that the Amendment would reduce the receipts of the Redemption and Annuities Account, and that the effect of the Amendment would be to throw an additional
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charge on the Exchequer—words which we have heard many times before. If parks are used for agricultural purposes the case is met, but if they are not being used for agricultural purposes then it is very hard to contend that there is any case for this further remission. With regard to mansion houses, they have never been taken into account, not even in 1891, for the purpose of tithe remission, and therefore this Amendment is not merely asking for increased reduction on the basis of this Act but for a further reduction than was even given under the Act of 1891. It is now proposed to introduce an entirely new definition of agricultural land into tithe legislation and that can only result in further difficulty. For that reason I am afraid the Government cannot accept the Amnedment.
LORD HASTINGS: That is a most incredibly unsatisfactory answer. The noble Earl will be good enough to bear in mind that the inclusion of non-agricultural land in the Bill to pay £105 instead of £91 11s. 2d. was a concession over and above that which was proposed in the Royal Commission's Report. It was a concession which was accepted by the tithe-payers' representative organisation and agreed to by them, and it was regarded by them as a proper gesture to make towards meeting the difficulties of the tithe-owners. It never occurred to the tithe-payers or to those who were entitled to advise them that the Govern-men intended or even thought of including the headquarters of the property which paid tithe under the description of non-agricultural land. That suggestion would have been regarded as outrageous, as I now regard it. Mansion houses have never been titheable. The reason why I had to read out the word "mansion house" was because it occurs in the Act of 1894. What it really affects is the park lands and such like that surround the mansion house. Mansion houses have never paid tithe and they have not been liable to tithe, but they and their parks are the natural headquarters of the estate on which tithe is paid. That the latter should now be classified as non-agricultural land seems to me one of the most outrageous things I have ever listened to, and I should hope the noble Earl will withdraw what he has said.
EARL DE LA WARR: I really cannot understand the indignation of the noble

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Lord. It is perfectly clear that a park not in use for agricultural purposes is non-agricultural land.
LORD HASTINGS: For the purpose of rates and no other.
EARL DE LA WARR: It is not agricultural land if it is not used for agricultural purposes. What is the definition of "agricultural land"? It is land used for agricultural purposes. That is a perfectly clear definition. There is a good deal of park land in this country used for agricultural purposes. Then it comes under the remission. That is a perfectly clear definition, and I really cannot see why the noble Lord is complaining.
LORD HASTINGS: It is not a question of remission. It is a matter that is to continue for sixty years. There is no remission about it. Non-agricultural land is going to pay tithe of £105 per £100 of commuted value, and agricultural land is going to pay £91. That makes an important difference.
EARL DE LA WARR: I overlooked that point, but the noble Lord has also overlooked one. Not only is he asking for a reduction of the flat rate but actually for a remission under Clause 14. In both cases he is trying to get a flat rate reduction and a remission under Clause 14.
LORD HASTINGS: I can only say that if the noble Earl is not going to meet us on this point, it will be a lesson to landowners to be more careful in future. They will have to be more careful in acceding to requests from other authorities, and in agreeing not to resist concessions that have been asked for and given by them as a matter of grace.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I should be sorry if we disposed of this Amendment in any atmosphere that left strained feelings in any quarter of the House, most of all in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, who has been so very helpful, to us so far in the passage of this Bill. I do not intend to restate the arguments of the noble Earl. I think myself they were well-founded, and I think there is perhaps some misunderstanding between the noble Lord and my noble friend beside me. I shall undertake to have the point examined again between now and Report. I do not think I can meet my noble friend, but I will have the matter inquired into.
LORD HASTINGS: I am glad that my noble friend is willing to try. That satisfies me completely, and I would ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH: The Amendment standing in my name is a purely drafting Amendment. The proper expression is "in" and not "under".
Amendment moved—
Page 45, line 15, leave out ("under") and insert ("in").—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL DE LA WARR: The next two Amendments are drafting Amendments.
Amendments moved—
Page 46, line 6, after (" includes ") insert (" a certificate of capital value sealed under the Extraordinary Tithes Acts, 1886 and 1397, and ")
Page 46, line 7, after (" instrument ") insert (" or certificate ")—(Earl De La Warr.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 47, as amended, agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
Schedule 1:
FIRST SCHEDULE.
PART I.
Deductions from Gross Annual Value of a Tithe Rentcharge for Determination of Amount of Compensation.
For the purpose of determining the amount of stock to be issued for compensation in respect of the extinguishment of a tithe rentcharge, the following deductions shall be made from the gross annual value thereof, that is to say:—
2. In respect of land tax, a sum equal to the average of the amounts which would have been payable on account of that tax for the years ending on the twenty-fourth day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, thirty-five and thirty-six (due regard being had to any exemption or abatement under Section twelve of the Finance Act, 1898, as amended by any subsequent enactment), if the sum payable in respect of the rentcharge in each of those years had been equal to the gross annual value of the rentcharge:
Provided that no deduction shall be made under this paragraph in the case of a rentcharge if the land tax in respect thereof was redeemed before the twenty-sixth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-six.
3. In respect of rates, subject to the provisions of paragraphs 4 and 5 of this Part:—
(c) in the case of any other rentcharge a sum to be calculated in the following manner, that is to say, the Commission shall ascertain as regards each of the three years ending on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, thirty-five and thirty-six—

(i) the poundage rate at which general rates were levied;

(ii) the poundage rate at which any rates, in respect of which tithe rentcharge was rated on a proportion only of its rateable value, were levied; and

(iii) particulars of deductions from net annual value in arriving at rateable value;

5. In the case of a rentcharge which was subject to a lease, or was held in trust for persons entitled in undivided shares, immediately before the appointed day, the deduction in respect of rates shall be such amount, calculated by reference to sub-paragraph (c) of paragraph 3 of this Part, as the Commission may determine to be just having regard to the circumstances.
6. In respect of losses in collection, of remissions, and of the benefit resulting in relation to security of income from the replacement of the rentcharge by stock, a sum equal to one-twentieth of the amount of the rentcharge.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved, in the proviso to paragraph 2 of Part I, to leave out "was" and insert "has been". The noble Earl said: This is the first of three Amendments which I am moving from the same point of view as I moved the first Amendment this afternoon, in the hope of getting some slight lubrication of the position from the point of view of the lay tithe-owners, in whom I am so much interested. The object of the Amendments in one sentence is to preserve for a reasonable time the existing right to redeem Land Tax. I need not remind all your Lordships, out I ought perhaps to remind some, that Land Tax is now assessed on a quotum fixed on the parish, and under the law at present Land Tax can be redeemed at twenty-five years' purchase. But under this Bill, to arrive at the tithe-owners' compensation, the Land Tax is deducted from the gross annual value, with the result that the tithe-owner loses thirty-three and one-third years' purchase for what the law says is only worth twenty-five. Further than this, as the law stands, redemption reduces the quotum
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by the amount of the tax redeemed. This Bill does not do so, so that though the tithe-owner will have to pay an extravagant price to redeem, the Land Tax will not be extinguished. Therefore, the assessment of the rest of the parish will be raised by the amount of the tithe, and the Treasury will continue to collect the tax from the tithe-owner if he happens to be, as he often is, an owner of land in the parish.
I do not think there is any justification for this state of affairs, and the obvious remedy is to allow tithe-owners to redeem the Land Tax now. Why should they be deprived of their rights under the general law? It may be possible, from the point of view of the finance of the Bill, for something to be done reasonably soon to meet the circumstances brought about by the Bill. At any rate, the tithe-owners should have reasonable notice. We did not know until this Bill was introduced of this intention by His Majesty's Government, and this is really retrospective legislation. I would remind your Lordships that when the White Paper was issued in February, full notice was given that tithe, was no longer to be redeemed, but redemption of Land Tax was not mentioned in the White Paper at all, and the tithe-owners therefore thought they had a perfect right to deal with the situation. It is not, I submit, unreasonable that this right should be preserved to them until the date I have mentioned in my next Amendment—1938. That is the whole case for this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 48, line 25, leave out (" was ") and insert (" has been ").—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
LORD ROCHE: I should like to detain your Lordships for a very few moments with a few observations in support of the noble Earl. As a lawyer I can add nothing to the lucidity of his explanation. It simply comes to this. Under the general law tithe-owners, like other people, can redeem their Land Tax by paying twenty-five years' purchase—that is to say, they can get 4 per cent. on their money. This Bill, no doubt inadvertently, takes away 8 per cent. of that privilege by taking away from them the power to redeem. In order to satisfy the Land Tax, it takes thirty-three and one-third years' purchase of the Land Tax on the tithe. I make out if the arithmetic is

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right—I do not think the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, will question the arithmetic—that that means that the Government will in that respect do what they do not want to do, make an 8 per cent. profit out of the transaction. That does not seem to me to be right. But I want to make a submission on rather wider grounds. The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are vitally interested in tithe, and inasmuch as that has been going on since the date, I suppose, of Henry VIII their interest has no clerical taint attached to it.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Much earlier sometimes.
LORD ROCHE: The point is this. I am told that there are several colleges in Oxford and Cambridge to which this will make a difference of the amount which will provide a scholarship a year. As one who went to Oxford simply on the strength of scholarships, and but for them I should not have the privilege probably of addressing your Lordships now, I do ask your Lordships to pay attention to the rights and claims of the educational endowments of the Universities or which this tithe forms part.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: This is a very difficult matter, and I am very glad that the noble and learned Lord who has just spoken has made the contribution to its discussion that he has. He will, I hope, be willing to admit that I am not wholly disinterested in the cause of education, and that I am fully alive and anxious, to the limit of my power, to try to meet the difficulties that he and my noble friend, who has spoken for the Oxford colleges, have in mind. It is perhaps not quite irrelevant to remind your Lordships that so far as the matter of interest in education may be treated in isolation His Majesty's Government, in conformity with all other Governments for a long period of years, have shown their real interest in University education by grants on a very large scale indeed to the Universities, through the University Grants Committee, which, directly or indirectly, help the causes that the noble and learned Lord has at heart. I say that because it is well to remind ourselves that the Universities and tithe-owning colleges, while their interests are naturally of great importance, are not, and cannot be, the only interests that under
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this Bill we have to try to consider and to treat with such measure of equity as we can.
I want to say a word if I may about this very complicated question of mathematics that has been referred to. It is a matter on which I think it is important we should see quite clearly what the actual facts are. Under the Land Taxes Acts as they exist to-day, a Land Tax payer, as has been truly said, is able to redeem his liability on the basis of twenty-five years' purchase. That being so, it will be evident to your Lordships that, as this tithe extinguishment scheme is based on the interest rate of 3 per cent., it would obviously be to the financial advantage of tithe-owners to redeem their Land Tax by paying twenty-five years' purchase and by that means increase the amount of redemption stock that they would hold by a sum 33⅓ times the amount of the Land Tax. They would thus, if I understand the problem correctly, gain a capital amount to the extent of 8⅓ years' purchase of the Land Tax. I do not think that is the intention of the noble Earl who moved the Amendment, nor, I think, would it be an intention that would commend itself to your Lordships. If they made that gain the loss would of course fall upon the Exchequer.
The noble Earl who moved the Amendment spoke with considerable strength, if I heard him aright, as to the lack of warning that had been given to those who might be affected by these provisions. As a matter of fact in the White Paper that he referred to and in which I think he said that no warning sufficiently explicit was given to such persons, it was stated quite clearly by the Government, and it was stated for this purpose, that they could not view with indifference arrangements which may be made for the voluntary liquidation of the assets in the interval before statutory effect is given to the scheme. Your Lordships will recognise that the plain purpose of that warning was to protect the position having regard to the fact that the whole scheme was financially based on figures which were in turn based upon the charges that then existed on the various kinds of tithe rentcharge.
Further than that, there is the action taken by the Government, because, when the White Paper had been issued, it was

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brought to the notice of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there was some doubt in the minds of tithe-owners as to whether that warning was or was not intended to be applicable to redemption of Land Tax, and accordingly, on the 9th April, a question was asked in another place to which the following answer, which perhaps your Lordships will allow me to read, was given:
"The proposals set out in the White Paper…provide for the issue to tithe-owners of an amount of stock determined by reference to the net amount of tithe rentcharge after deduction, inter alia, of Land Tax on the existing basis."
I emphasise those words.
"It is the intention that the forthcoming legislation should provide for the issue of stock on this basis, and that the amount of stock to be issued to a tithe-owner should not be increased by reason of his having redeemed Land Tax after the issue of the White Paper."
With all respect, I submit that the words could hardly be more plainly stated than that, and that tithe-owners have had perfectly adequate notice of the line which would be taken in the Bill with regard to this matter.
There is perhaps one other thing that I might usefully add. The purpose of the compensation given under the Bill for the extinguishment of tithe rentcharge is in order to try and yield to tithe-owners an annual income equal to the income which, if there was no scheme of extinguishment, they would have obtained from a tithe rentcharge of the new, revised, gross annual value after making allowances for the improved security represented by the change to a Government guaranteed stock. If tithe-owners were allowed to redeem their Land Tax between now and 1938, as my noble friend suggests, with a view to increasing the amount of stock to be issued to them, the result of course would be to give the tithe-owners a greater net income from the stock, which my noble friend wants, and also a greater income than would be received from tithe rentcharge even if it had been freed from Land Tax, and in the absence of increased payments by landowners would again result in a loss on the scheme and therefore a liability on the general taxpayer. It would further be likely to involve: delay in getting the whole scheme working, inasmuch as until 1938 the position would
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be left uncertain, and the arrangements would be for that reason impossible to apply. I hope that my noble friend will not press the Amendment.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OR THAME: The noble and learned Lord on the Cross Benches, Lord Roche, made a charge that the Government are going to make 8 per cent. out of this. My noble friend the Leader of the House has neither said how pleased he is to hear that nor disclaimed that that is a fact.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: If my noble friend desires an answer to that, the answer would be that I am surprised to learn it, and if it were true nobody would be more pleased because it would enable the introduction of the Bill under which it is hoped to make further remission possible at an earlier date than I anticipated.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE: I need not say how very disappointed I am at the answer of the noble Viscount. It almost colours the atmosphere as regards further Amendments. I know that Parliament does make grants to the Universities but it makes no grants of any kind to any college. Therefore the mitigation which he suggests on that point does not apply in this case. The noble Viscount quoted a reply given in the House of Commons which I think does entitle me to say that it was pardonable for three months that a number of people should imagine they had a right to redeem Land Tax. The Government found out that some people were contemplating redeeming Land Tax, and this Bill has stopped them. I am only quoting rumours, but I believe the rumours to be true. I believe one person who intended to do so was Mr. Keynes. For once in a way he was not the favoured child of the Government. I will not trouble your Lordships to divide, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved, in sub-paragraph (c) of paragraph 3 of Part I, after "the Commission shall ascertain," to insert
"in respect of land:

(aa) any of which was on the first day of April nineteen hundred and thirty-six agricultural land, as regards each of the three years ending on the thirty-first day of March nineteen hundred and fourteen, fifteen and sixteen; and

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(bb) none of which was on the said first day of April agricultural land."

The noble Earl said: I think we can picture—at any rate I picture to myself—what happened when some mysterious person set to work to devise the scheme on which this is founded. When it came to proposing what amount of stock the tithe-owner was to receive in compensation the first thing he said was "Let us get a nice low average." For that reason the War years were excluded. The second thing he considered was how much less the tithe-owner should receive because he no longer had to pay rates. He said in that case "Let us take the highest years, 1934, 1935 and 1936." Those were the years when the rates were full of swollen expenditure as the result of the War. So War results were excluded when they tell in favour of the tithe-owner, but they are included when they tell against him, That is not fair. I therefore move that there should be taken into calculation the rates of the last three years in the eighty years period which has been suggested by the Royal Commission. I have here a chart showing the amount of rates paid in the case of my own college. They fluctuated very little from 1900 to 1915, but from 1916 to 1918 they went up with a rush and since 1918 they have been consistently higher than before the War.
So much for the figures. After all, it is common knowledge that the War has brought into being a number of new things which are being financed out of the rates. I can think of two possible answers and perhaps can save time if I try to anticipate them. I shall be pointed to the evidence given before the Commission. In 1925—I am sure the noble Viscount who leads the House will remember this—the Government recognised the injustice of fixing an arbitrary figure for tithe but leaving the rates unfixed. Therefore he as Minister of Agriculture made a concession, which was at the time very much appreciated, that only two-thirds of the rates were deducted in computing the redemption value of the tithe. In their evidence, witnesses from Oxford offered to forgo this concession as part of a scheme which retained tithe at £105. The Commission accepted the offer to forgo but reduced the tithe from £105 to £91 11s. 2d. I have been informed this afternoon that this point appeared in a Memorandum submitted to the Commission but that they
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never examined witnesses viva voce and asked why they had made this voluntary offer. It is now abolished. That is the first point I would urge in pointing out that some such Amendment as this is necessary.
The second thing that I may be told is that there would be difficulties in ascertaining the rates in 1914, 1915 and 1916. I have here a complete list of the rates paid by Christchurch and New College, Oxford. The list was asked for on Thursday afternoon and arrived in London by the first post on Friday morning. I think the case may be summarised by saying that what is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 49, line 3, after (" ascertain ") insert (" in respect of land:
(aa) any of which was on the first clay of April nineteen hundred and thirty-six agricultural land, as regards each of the three years ending on the thirty-first day of March nineteen hundred and fourteen, fifteen and sixteen; and
(bb) none of which was on the said first day of April agricultural land ").—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
LORD RANKEILLOUR: I most sincerely hope that for the sake of the colleges at Oxford, and indeed at Cambridge, an absolute refusal will not be given to this Amendment. I cannot help feeling generally that the tithe-owners have had a very poor compensation given them, but in this particular instance I should like to speak for my own College of Christchurch. That, I believe, will be harder hit that anybody else. I am perfectly certain that the noble Viscount is not one of those persons who have a perverted conscience which would make him deal more hardly with Oxford colleges because he is Chancellor. I believe that if he considers this proposal on the merits, he will see the justice of it. I know the great complications of this matter, and I do not suggest that he should accept these words, but I do ask him to keep an open mind before he comes to the Report stage, and if his mind should be closed I hope the noble Earl who moved this Amendment will divide.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I certainly am not insensitive either to the just claims of Christchurch or to the wider claims of Oxford. The noble Earl who moved

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this Amendment did so, as he always does, with great persuasiveness and with a great array of reason. I should like him to take it from me that in the motives that he attributed to the Treasury he was, as I shall hope to be able to show in a moment, less than just to those who devised the scheme. Here again I cannot help thinking that there is a little misunderstanding in the minds of some as to the precise operation of the words in the Schedule and of the scheme on this point.
Let us be quite plain about what the proposal is. The proposal made by my noble friend is that the reduction for rates in the case of all tithe rentcharge, except that which is vested in Queen Anne's Bounty under the 1925 Act, issuing out of land which was on April 1, 1936, agricultural land, should be fixed on the average poundages for the years 1914 to 1916 instead of the years 1934 to 1936. The deduction for rates in the case of land which on April 1, 1930, was non-agricultural land would be on the basis of average poundages of rates for the years 1934 and 1936, and I am advised that the difference between those two figures—between the average poundages over the whole country for those two periods—is as near as may be 4s., the earlier period 1914 to 1916 being, of course, the lower of the two. If that reduced rate of poundage be applied over the whole country to all tithe rentcharge except Queen Anne's Bounty, and an allowance be made of half in the case of the Welsh Benefice tithe, the result would be that were the Government to accept this Amendment; we should be involved in an increase of the Redemption Stock by approximately £3,600,000, taking one-twelfth of the total tithe rentcharge affected as issuing from non-agricultural land. The noble Earl can estimate as well as I can the consequences of that immense increase in the stock amount.
The noble Earl states with great force, as justifying his proposal, that there is an evident injustice involved in the fact that as the gross annual value taken for the purposes of this scheme is the average of pre-War rates of payment on tithe rentcharge, it would only be equitable that the deduction for rates should be also an average of pre-War poundages. As stated by the noble Earl, that sounds
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a very reasonable and attractive proposition, but in fact, if I may say so to him with great respect, I conceive it to be founded upon a fallacy, for this reason. The object of the whole calculation upon which we are engaged is to endeavour to arrive at what will be the tithe-owner's future perpetuity net income from tithe rentcharge, and it is quite evident that that income would not in fact depend upon any calculation of pre-War poundages, but upon what calculations and estimates we can make of what are going to be the poundage rates in the future. It is quite obvious that the best guide we can get to the future rate poundages are the rate poundages which have prevailed in recent years, of which we have taken the average rate.
Lastly—and this is a small point, though I think it is not unworthy of mention—I do not think it is really a reasonable proposition to adopt, as the basis of the deduction for your rates from a gross annual value of tithe rentcharge of £91, the rates calculated on average poundage that was current when the gross annual value of tithe rentcharge on the basis of the seven-year average of corn prices was only £78. For these reasons, which I do not think are bad reasons, I would hope that the noble Earl will not feel it necessary to press his Amendment. I have another note on my paper, but in view of what the noble Lord has said I am not sure that it is worth mentioning. My attention has been drawn to the fact that it might, in a good many cases, be difficult actually to discover the official records of the rates as they were levied in 1914, 1915, and 1916, more especially having regard to the fact that, in the rural districts, the then acting authorities have in many cases been abolished. In view, however, of what the noble Earl has said on that point, I do not lay much weight on that suggestion, although I am not sure that it might not be more difficult than he has been led to suppose.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH moved, in paragraph 5 of Part I, after "day," to insert "or which was vested for an interest less than a fee simple in possession in Queen Anne's Bounty by the Tithe Act, 1925." The right reverend Prelate said: This Amendment is intended to bring under the rating provisions what I believe the Bill intends to

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be brought under them. Except by such an Amendment as this, they may slip out. There are certain tithe rentcharges subject to leases, and certain others held by trustees in favour of owners of benefices. Those are met by the words of the Schedule. There are, however, a certain number of trustees who hold the tithe in favour of benefices on some such terms as these: "Unless and until the Church be disestablished." That phrase does not, in the legal phrase, confer an interest in fee simple in possession vested in Queen Anne's Bounty. Such tithes would slip out unless they were brought in under this Amendment. The Amendment is therefore that the same provision as regards rates should apply to these rentcharges as apply to ecclesiastical rentcharges in general.
Amendment moved—
Page 49, line 44, after (" day ") insert the said new words.—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE moved, in paragraph 6 of Part I, to leave out "amount" and insert "gross annual value." The noble Earl said: This is the last of the three Amendments which I move, hoping to get some small sympathy for the Oxford colleges and those which do similar work. I now move this, which I think is a very strong case for something being done. I move to leave out "amount" and insert "gross annual value," with consequential words later on. I construe the word "amount" here as meaning "commuted amount" and the object of my Amendment is to have the £5 deduction for improvement of security calculated on the net income of the tithe-owner after deducting rates, Land Tax and cost of collection, and not on the nominal commuted amount of the tithe rentcharge. It is obvious that the tithe-owner gets no improvement in respect of that part of his tithe which goes to other persons.
Your Lordships will notice that the Commission recommend that
"having regard to the fact that the tithe rentcharge would theoretically be easier to collect and be better secured if the gross annual value were £91 11s. 2d. instead of £105 per cent., we think that it would be sufficient that a deduction of £5 per £100 tithe rentcharge (par value) were made from the income yielded by the Government security."
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Then the tables show what they mean, and this is what is meant. This £5 is a fixed figure taken off the value for compensation of every £100 of commuted value of tithe rentcharge, irrespective of the net income which the tithe-owner gets. Thus the incumbent after deducting rates and costs of collection and Land Tax from the £91 11s. 2d. to which the £100 is reduced, has a net income of £81 12s. 6d., from which £5 will be taken, but the lay tithe-owner after the same deduction has only £56 19s. 9d., say the Commission, and from that also this £5 is deducted. That is to say, for this so-called improvement of security 6½ per cent. is deducted in the case of the incumbent, and 8¾ per cent. is deducted in the case of the lay tithe-owner.
No reason has been given why the lay tithe-owner's security is improved more than the ecclesiastical, and this Amendment puts them both on the same footing It is a fair footing, and one which will bring about that the Government will provide the same price in two parallel cases in perhaps the same parish. Again, we have been told that this is in accordance with Mr. Keynes' evidence, but I would remind the Government that they have discarded some 95 per cent. of what he suggested. I would point out that Mr. Keynes' 12 per cent. and 10 per cent. included the cost of collection as well as the improvement of security, and that at the time when he gave his evidence Queen Anne's Bounty was claiming cost of collection at 3 per cent., whereas the cost in the case of lay tithe was put at 5 per cent.—hence the 2 per cent. difference. The main point is that Mr. Keynes always made the deduction with tithe at £105, which he claimed should not be altered. The Government having decided upon £91 11s. 2d., Mr. Keynes' evidence is of course inappropriate. It is quite unjust that this large sum should be taken off in these circumstances, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved.
Part I, page 50, line 4, leave out (" amount ") and insert (" gross annual value ").—(The Earl of Donoughmore.)
EARL DE LA WARR: I think that what the noble Earl is asking is perfectly clear. The object of this and the consequential Amendment is to reduce the deduction in respect of improvement of security from £5 per £100 tithe rentcharge par value to 5 per cent. of the net annual

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value of the tithe rentcharge, which in the case of a lay tithe-owner would average about £52, and in the case of a benefice tithe rentcharge would be about £76 12s. 6d. The amount that is to be deducted for improvement of security would therefore be reduced by the Amendment in every case, but, as the noble Earl has said, the reduction would be greater in the case of the lay tithe-owner. It might be thought from this that there is something to be said for a proposal to base the amount charged for improvement of security on the income which the tithe-owner gets from, the tithe rentcharge, so that the greater the income the more would be charged for securing it, but the Royal Commission in paragraph 105 of their Report explained that this deduction was recommended in view of the fact that an income from a Government security is not liable to diminution by bad debts and statutory or voluntary remissions, and is not exposed to the same difficulties in collection and management.
The Commission recommended a flat-rate deduction of £5 per £100 tithe rentcharge par value, and the reason for recommending a flat rate, and not one based on the net income of the tithe-owner, is obviously that the risks in respect of which the allowance is made do not vary with the net income. The prospective loss by bad debts and by statutory
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
First Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
SECOND SCHEDULE.
Constitution, Procedure, Staff and Expenses of the Commission.
7. The Commission may hold such inquiries as appear to them to be necessary
or voluntary remissions in respect of a unit of tithe rentcharge is exactly the same whether the tithe-owner receives a net income of £76 or £52 per £100 of the amount of the rentcharge, and it is therefore proper that the deduction should be related to the gross amount of the rentcharge and not the net income. The effect of the Amendment would actually be to increase the amount of stock that would have to be issued to tithe-owners, by an amount estimated at approximately £1,753,000, and consequently you would have to increase the sums necessary for interest on the stock and for sinking fund to redeem it. I hesitate to say, because I have said it so often, that this does bring us up against this wretched point: Where is the extra money to come from? I see that Lord Hastings is half smiling, half sighing, but it is a point which we cannot get round, however we try to juggle with the figures. That money will have to come from somewhere. It is a point which has got to be faced in the consideration of this question, and it is a reason really why, quite apart from the merits of the case, which I have tried to deal with, it is impossible for the Government to accept the Amendment.
On Question, Whether the word proposed to be left out shall stand part of the paragraph?
Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 26; Not-Contents, 13.

CONTENTS.

Halifax, V. (L. Privy Seal.)

Brentford, V.

Doverdale, L.

Swinton, V.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.) [Teller.]

Bath, M.

Hampton, L.

Dufferin and Ava, M.

St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, L. Bp.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Mildmay of Flete, L.

De La Warr, E.

St. Just, L.

Feversham, E.

Bayford, L.

Sandhurst, L.

Grey, E.

Bingley, L.

Stafford, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Cromwell, L.

Templemore, L.

Munster, E.

Daryngton, L.

Waleran, L.

Stanhope, E.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Onslow, E.

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Fairfax of Cameron, L. [Teller.]

Selborne, E.

Glanusk, L.

Bertie of Thame, V. [Teller.]

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Hastings, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Digby, L.

Lawrence, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Roche, L.

or desirable for the purpose of the proper discharge of their functions.
Before holding any such inquiry the Commission shall give such notice as appears to them best adapted for informing persons affected of the date on which and the place at which the inquiry will be held.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME moved, at the end of paragraph 7, to insert "and

973
all persons appearing to the Commission to be interested shall be entitled to attend and to be heard by themselves or their agent." The noble Viscount said: There are very many precedents for what I propose. This indeed is quite a reasonable Amendment, and I hope the Government will see their way to accept it.
Amendment moved—
Page 51, line 27, at end insert the said words.—(Viscount Bertie of Thame.)
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: While I have every sympathy with my noble friend I do not really think that his words are necessary, because he will observe that the wording of the Schedule is
" as appears to them best adapted for informing persons affected of the date on which and the place at which the inquiry will be held."
It is quite evidently implicit in those words that the whole purpose of giving them such information is that they may be able to attend, and on the principle of not cumbering Acts of Parliament with unnecessary language I do not think these words should be inserted.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I would much sooner have it explicit than implicit, because this has appeared in a good many Acts, and I think these people really have the right to be represented, by themselves or by an agent. What I propose to do now is to withdraw the Amendment and get my authorities, and perhaps come here with a whole Library on Monday.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I do not want to put my noble friend to unnecessary trouble of that kind, and if he would between now and Report place himself in communication with me, I have every confidence that I shall be able to satisfy him that his words are unnecessary. If, however, I fail, I believe I could, with respect, suggest better words than his.
VISCOUNT BERTIE OF THAME: I am sure the noble Viscount could produce better words, and I hope that he will.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Second Schedule agreed to.
Third Schedule: Part II [Provisions as to stock to be issued to Queen Anna's Bounty]:
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH moved,
974
in Part II, to leave out paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 (1) down to and including the words "corporation concerned" and insert:
"1. Stock issued to Queen Anne's Bounty in respect of tithe rentcharges which immediately before their extinguishment were vested in Queen Anne's Bounty for an interest in fee simple in possession and held on account of a benefice, or were attached to a benefice for such an interest, together with any securities representing sums carried or to be carried to the sinking fund in relation to any such rentcharges under Section five of the Tithe Act, 1925, shall be held by Queen Anne's Bounty on their general corporate account, with the same powers of sale and reinvestment as if the stock or securities had been purchased by them out of moneys standing to the credit of that account, and no part of such stock or securities shall be appropriated to, or he at the individual risk of, any particular benefice.
2. Queen Anne's Bounty shall, subject to the provisions of paragraph 1 of the Eighth Schedule to this Act, appropriate to each benefice concerned a sum of money equal to the aggregate of—

(a) the amount of the stock issued to Queen Anne's Bounty in respect of such of the rentcharges aforesaid as were held on account of or attached to that benefice; and

(b) the value, as estimated by Queen Anne's Bounty, of such of the securities aforesaid as are held on account of that benefice.

3. The sum appropriated to a benefice under the provisions of the last foregoing paragraph, together with any securities representing investments of sums received for redemption or merger which are held on account of that benefice under the proviso to subsection (2) of Section six of the Tithe Act, 1925, shall be applied and disposed of by Queen Anne's Bounty as money or securities in their hands appropriated for the augmentation of the benefice should by law and under the rules of Queen Anne's Bounty be applied and disposed of.
4.—(1) Where any such rentcharge as aforesaid was immediately before its extinguishment charged with an annual money payment, the charge shall pass to the sum appropriated as aforesaid to the benefice: "
The right reverend Prelate said: This is purely domestic to Queen Anne's Bounty.
Amendment moved—
Page 53, leave out lines 13 to 44 and insert the said paragraphs.—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
EARL DE LA WARR: I accept this Amendment.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: The next Amendment is drafting.
Amendment moved—
Page 54, line 9, leave out (" include ") and insert (" included ").—(Viscount Halifax.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Third Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Fourth Schedule:
FOURTH SCHEDULE.
Certification of Annual Value of Land in Agricultural Holding.
2. If the owner of any charged land makes before the first day of March in any year to the surveyor of taxes for the parish in which the land is assessed or situate an application in the prescribed form for a certificate of the annual value of the charged land for the period of twelve months ending on the fifth day of April in that year, the surveyor shall—

(a) if the charged land is land assessed for income tax purposes under Schedule B by reference to annual value for that period apart from other land, furnish to the owner and, if the annuity or annuities is or are under the management of the Commission, to the Commission, a statement in writing of the annual value as ascertained for the purposes of assessment;

LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, at the end of sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph 2, to insert "such statement showing separately the amount of the assessment on the house and buildings and on the charged land." The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment of substance, and may be regarded as of very great importance. Its purpose really is to prevent the evil of what is known as "growing tithe." Normally speaking, buildings are not titheable and only land is titheable, but Clause 14 of the Bill provides a link between tithe and Schedule B, and obviously of course buildings form an important part of the assessment of Schedule B. If at the present time a Schedule B assessment, including of course the value of the building upon the land, is taken, as it will be taken under Clause 14, as the basis for the maximum liability for which a tithe-payer is due, then equally, if the Schedule B assessment increases, so also will the maximum liability of the tithe-payer increase in those cases where he would otherwise be able to claim remission.
In practice the owner of land who, by capital expenditure, improves the value
976
of the farm land, or by such capital expenditure maintains the value of the farm—and that, I think, is the more important point of the two—if he thereby attracts to that farm, as he presumably would, a higher Schedule B assessment, then the maximum liability of the tithe-payer would increase automatically with the increase of the Schedule B assessment. The Inland Revenue would have the means at hand of not only increasing the amount of the tax due to the Revenue under Schedule B, but of automatically increasing the amount of tithe which they would be able to collect. I think that would be a wholly undesirable combination of circumstances, entailing also a hardship upon the tithe-payer in high tithe-paying areas whom this Bill is designed to benefit. The growing tithe is not, I suppose, a matter which is familiar to many, and it so happens that this particular Amendment was neither raised nor debated in another place. It is, in a sense, quite new. Relying upon the surely obvious desire of the Government not in any way to undermine the effect of their intention in Clause 14, I am hopeful that it will be found possible to accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 54, line 29, at end insert (" such statement showing separately the amount of the assessment on the house and buildings and on the charged land ").—(Lord Hastings.)
EARL DE LA WARR: I wish very much the Government could accept this Amendment, but, as I see it, it is really based on a misreading of the position. The noble Lord has used the phrase, "the evil of growing tithe" as being something that has caused very great concern and resentment. I am not quite sure that that phrase, as applied to this particular question, is quite fair. It is not a question of a growing tithe as the result of expenditure in this case. What the noble Lord fears, surely, is that by virtue of money being spent on a property the remission may be reduced. The noble Lord may say: "That is all very well, but the cheque has to be paid out, and it has to be the same increased cheque whether it is actually in respect of an increase in tithe or a decrease in remission." But there is this difference—and surely it is a big difference—that the remission is based

977
on the assumption of inability to pay; of poverty. But here we are assuming on one basis or another—and the noble Lord is assuming—the ability of the owner to spend money on the property.
For what purposes does he spend money on the property? As I see it, he can only spend his money for three reasons. In the first place he might spend it on the house for amenity purposes. He might spend money on it for the purpose of increasing the rent, or he may be spending that money—and certain landlords frequently have to do this—simply in order to mantain the rental value of the holding. I do not think anyone would suggest that if he is spending it for amenity purposes he is entitled to a remission which we know to be based on poverty. I do not think any one would suggest that if he is able to get an increased rent for the holding as a result of this expenditure he should be entitled to remission. The noble Lord will say: "Ah, but in many cases we spend this money in order to maintain the rents and do nothing more." If the expenditure is simply for the purpose of rent, then Schedule B is not increased, and therefore there is no case of what the noble Lord has described as "the evil of growing tithe." For these reasons, and because I think this point of the noble Lord is based on a misconception, I very much regret the inability of His Majesty's Government to accept the Amendment.
LORD HASTINGS: This matter is of vital importance to landowners and tithe-payers, but the hour is so late that I do not think I would be justified in arguing the point further. But I can assure the House that this is a really vital matter, and if I can possibly get it altered in the Bill I shall do so. It will be my duty to divide the House, but if the Leader of the House would prefer that this matter should be further debated on Report, I am perfectly willing to withdraw my Amendment now.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: I am afraid I cannot go further on this matter, as far as the merits are concerned, than my noble friend went, but if the noble Lord were willing to withdraw the Amendment now on the understanding that he would be free to raise the matter on Report, I should be very happy to fall in with that course.
LORD HASTINGS: That would also give me an opportunity of reporting back, and of deciding whether we proceed with the matter or not. From that point of view it would be of great advantage to me. On this understanding I would ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Fourth Schedule agreed to.
Fifth Schedule agreed to.
Sixth Schedule [Method of ascertainment of compensation for redemption of corn rents, etc.]:
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH: The Amendment in my name is one with which I understand the Government are in agreement.
Amendment moved—
Page 60, line 12, at end insert:
"Provided that no deduction in respect of cost of collection and management shall be made in a case in which the consideration money for the redemption is to be discharged by an annuity ").—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Sixth Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Seventh Schedule agreed to.
Eighth Schedule [Powers of Queen Anne's Bounty]:
THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY AND IPSWICH: With the permission of the Committee I should like to move all the Amendments to this Schedule standing in my name en bloc.
Amendments moved—
Page 63, line 18, leave out (" such emoluments so long as they retain such benefices ") and insert (" the emoluments to which they were respectively then entitled, so long as they respectively remain entitled to receive those emoluments or any part thereof,")
Page 63, line 27, after (" emoluments ") insert (" or to receive emoluments as members,")
Page 63, line 29, leave out from the beginning of line to end of line 33 and insert (" the purpose of having available in relation to each corporation such amounts, calculated by reference to the value of the interests of those persons in those emoluments, as may be required for making such payments, to apply—
" (a) such part of the amount or amounts to be issued to Queen Anne's Bounty under paragraph (g) of subsection (4) of Section twenty-five of this Act as

979
they estimate to have been so issued in respect of tithe rentcharges held by them on account of the corporation; and
" (b) so much as may be necessary of the stock issued to Queen Anne's Bounty under paragraph 2 of Part 1 of the Third Schedule to this Act and held by them in trust for the corporation absolutely.")
Page 63, line 33, at end insert:
(" 3. Power, in the case of any tithe rentcharge vested for an interest in fee simple in possession in Queen Anne's Bounty by the Tithe Act, 1925, which was formerly attached to an ecclesiastical corporation, to hold and dispose of any securities representing sums carried or to be carried to the sinking fund in relation to the rentcharge under Section live of that Act, together with any securities representing investments of sums received for redemption or merger which are held on account of that corporation under the proviso to subsection (2) of Section six of that Act for the like purposes as if the securities had been stock issued to Queen Anne's Bounty under paragraph 2 of Part I of the Third Schedule to this Act in respect of the extinguishment of the rentcharge.")
Page 64, line 18, after the first (" and ") insert (" incumbents of ")
Page 64, line 31, leave out from the first (" the ") to the end of line 32 and insert (" Loans (Incumbents of Benefices) Amendment Act, 1918, and the Acts to be construed therewith; or ").—(The Lord Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Eighth Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
Ninth Schedule [Enactmentsrepealed]:
VISCOUNT HALIFAX VISCOUNT HALIFAX moved to leave out the Ninth Schedule and insert the following new Schedule:
NINTH SCHEDULE.
Enactments Repealed.

Session and Chapter.

Title or Short Title.

Extent of Repeal.

6 & 7 Will. 4. c. 71.

The Tithe Act, 1836.

Sections fifty-seven, sixty-two, sixty-nine, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, eighty and eighty-six.

7 Will 4 & 1 Vict. c. 69.

The Tithe Act, 1837.

The whole Act so far as unrepealed

2 & 3 Vict. c. 62.

The Tithe Act, 1839.

Sections fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, twenty-one and twenty-eight.

3 & 4 Vict. c. 15.

The Tithe Act, 1840.

Sections seventeen, twenty and twenty-three.

5 & 6 Vict. c. 54.

The Tithe Act, 1842.

Sections three, six, seven and eight.

14 & 15 Vict. c. 25

The Landlord and Tenant Act, 1851.

Section four.

14 & 15 Vict. c. 50.

An Act to amend an Act of the Third and Fourth Years of King William the Fourth in respect of the Assessment of Tithe and Tithe Rentcharges for certain Rates.

In section one, the words "tithe rentcharges".

Session and Chapter.

Title or Short Title.

Extent of Repeal.

14 & 15 Vict. c. 104.

The Episcopal and Capitular Estates Act, 1851.

In Section eleven, the words "and tithe rentcharges".

17 & 18 Vict. c. 116.

The Episcopal and Capitular Estates Act, 1854.

In Section eight, the words "or tithe rentcharges" where they secondly occur.

23 & 24 Vict. c. 93.

The Tithe Act, 1860.

Sections one, two, four to nine, thirty-one, forty-two and forty-three.

The Schedule.

32 & 33 Vict. c. 67.

The Valuation (Metropolis) Act, 1869.

In Section four, in the definition of "gross value", the words "and tithe commutation rentcharge, if any."

45 & 46 Vict. c. 37.

The Corn Returns Act, 1882.

Section ten.

49 & 50 Vict. c. 54.

The Extraordinary Tithe Redemption Act, 1886.

The whole Act so far as unrepealed.

60 & 61 Vict. c. 23.

The Extraordinary Tithe Act, 1897.

The whole Act.

10 Edw. 7 & 1 Geo. 5. c. 24.

The Licensing (Consolidation) Act, 1910.

In Section thirty-nine, in subsection (2), the words "and tithe commutation rentcharge (if any)".

8 & 9 Geo. 5. c. 54.

The Tithe Act, 1918.

Section ten.

The First Schedule so far as unrepealed.

11 & 12 Geo. 5. c. 35.

The Corn Sales Act, 1921.

In Section two, in subsection (3), the words "and in Section ten (which relates to the application of the septennial average to the Tithe Commutation Acts)".

14 & 15 Geo. 5. c. 21.

The Finance Act, 1924.

In Section twelve, in subsection (1) (b), the words "and tithe commutation rentcharge, if any".

15 Geo. 5. c. 20.

The Law of Property Act, 1925.

In Section one, in subsection (2) (d), the words "tithe rentcharge".

In Section one hundred and ninety-one, in subsection (12), the words "tithe rentcharge or".

In Section two hundred and one, in subsection (1), the words "tithe and".

15 Geo. 5. c. 21.

The Land Registration Act, 1925.

In Section seventy, in subsection (1) (e), the words "tithe rentcharge".

15 & 16 Geo. 5. c. 87.

The Tithe Act, 1925.

In Section one, subsection (1).

Section two.

In Section four, subsections (1), (2), (4) and (5).

Sections six, nine and eleven.

In Section twelve, paragraphs (a) and (c).

In Section thirteen, subsections (2) and (4).

Section seventeen.

In Section twenty, subsections (3) and (4).

15 & 16 Geo. 5. c. 90.

The Eating and Valuation Act, 1925.

In Section three, in subsection (2), the words "or tithe rentcharge" and the words "tithe rentcharge" where the last-mentioned words secondly occur.

In Section twenty-two, in subsection (1) (b), the words "and tithe rentcharge, if any'.

In Section sixty-eight, in subsection (1), in the definition of "gross value ", the words "and tithe rentcharge, if any", and subsection (2).

Session and Chapter.

Title or Short Title.

Extent of Repeal.

19 Geo. 5. c. 17.

The Local Government Act, 1929.

In the Third Schedule, in paragraph 2, the words "any tithe rentcharge or" where they first occur, and the words "tithe rent-or", where they secondly and thirdly occur.

20 & 21 Geo. 5. c. 24.

The Railways (Valuation for Rating) Act, 1930.

In Section four, in subsection (1) (b) and subsection (3) (ii), the words "and tithe rentcharge (if any)"."

The noble Viscount said: This is really drafting. Several alterations were necessary in the Schedule in another place, and we thought it more convenient to leave out that Schedule and introduce a new one. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 65, leave out the Ninth Schedule and insert the said new Schedule.—(Viscount Halifax)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

SHOPS (SUNDAY TRADING RESTRICTION) BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments (according to Order), and passed, and returned to the Commons.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT HALIFAX: My Lords, before we adjourn I have to suggest that the House should meet on Monday next, when the Report stage of the Tithe Bill will be taken, and the Committee stage of the Air Navigation Bill. In addition my noble friend Lord Peel has a Motion on the Paper with regard to China. I understand that next week it will be convenient that the House should meet every day at 3 o'clock.
House adjourned at half-past eight o'clock.