Sitting of 29 April 1897

QUESTIONS.

  BETTING "PLACES" (HAWKE v. DUNN).
  MR. HUBERT DUNCOMRE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce a short Bill defining a "place" under the Betting Ads, 1853 and 1854, in intelligible and unmistakable words, and in accordance with the expressed intentions of the trainers of the aforesaid Acts?
  The HON. MEMBER also asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention had been called to the fact that, under the recent Judgment in the ease of Hawke v. Dunn, any defined or undefined area may be converted into a place within the meaning of the Betting Houses Acts, should one man make, or offer to make, bets there as a matter of business: and whether, having regard to the impossibility of insuring that among a large assembly of spectators no one will bet or endeavour to bet as a matter of business, the Government will take steps to so amend the law as to enable Her Majesty's subjects to witness sports and games without the risk of finding themselves arrested, searched, and locked up?
  SIR JOHN KENNAWAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether his attention has been drawn to the statement of Mr. Justice Hawkins, in giving the Judgment of the Divisional Court in the ease of Hawke v. Dunn, that he and his learned brethren were giving effect to what they believed to be the object and intention of the Legislature in passing the Betting Acts of 1853 and 1854; (2) whether he is now in a position to state what is the effect of that judgment; and what directions in consequence of it have been given to the police; and (3) whether, considering the crime and misery which, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Judges, has ensued upon
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  the rapid increase of public professional gambling, and especially that carried on by starting or tape price bookmakers, he can hold out any hope of being able to propose legislation which, while not interfering with legitimate sport, would check and mitigate the admitted evil?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,: I will answer the two Questions of the hon. Member and that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Honiton Division of Devon at the same time. I am not prepared to suggest legislation in either of the directions proposed by the hon. Member. He appears to me, in the second of his Questions, to take an exaggerated view of the effect of the decision in the case Hawke v. Dunn, and I do not think that Her Majesty's subjects will be in any such danger as the hon. Member represents, or that any further legislation is necessary for their protection. In reply to the right hon. Gentleman, I have to say that I am advised by the Law Officers that the Judgment applies to all kinds of betting, betting on credit as well as betting for ready money, and that the Metropolitan Police, the only force directly under my control, have instructions to take proceedings against bookmakers and others who can be proved to have infringed the provisions of Section 1 of the Act of 1853. Several summonses are, in fact, now pending. As regards the evil to which he refers m the last paragraph of his Question, I am fully alive to its gravity, and, though I cannot promise anything definitely, it shall not escape my attention. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. DUNCOMBE: May I ask whether this House is in any danger of being held to be a "place" within the meaning of the Betting Acts? [Laughter.]
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: That is a question that should be addressed to the Law Officers of the Crown. ["Hear, hear!"]

  POST OFFICE GRIEVANCES.
  MR. DUNCOMBE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he will assent to the appointment of a Select Committee of this House to inquire into the grievances and causes of discontent

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  amongst the major establishment of the Post Office, especially as to promotion?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY,: There is no information at the Post Office as to the existence of the grievances and causes of discontent referred to by the hon. Member. The great bulk of the major establishment—by which I presume is meant the clerical establishment—consists of officers of the first and second divisions who enter the service on terms common to the other Departments, and the conditions of their service were dealt with by a Royal Commission only a few years ago. If anything, the conditions of the Second Division are more favourable in a rapidly-growing Department like the Post Office than in others, and promotion is more rapid. Perhaps the hon. Member will explain to me privately what are the precise grounds of the alleged complaints, and I shall then be in a better position to judge how far any further inquiry is necessary.

  EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY.
  MR. J. G. WEIR (ROSS and: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that the library of the Edinburgh University is in a neglected condition, and that the busts of Royal Princes and other distinguished personages are in a discreditable state; and whether he will call upon the University Council to put the library in proper order?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY,: If the hon. Member alludes to the condition and numbers of the books in the library, they are preserved and added to as well as the funds at command of the University for the purpose will allow. The other matters referred to by the hon. Member will receive attention when funds are available for the purpose.

  METROPOLITAN AND METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAYS.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, having regard to the inability of the Board of Trade to prevent overcrowding in the carriages of the Metro-
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  politan and Metropolitan District Railways, he will consider the advisability of seeking powers in regard to railway carriages similar to those which he now possesses in the case of public conveyances in streets carrying more passengers than they are authorised to hold?
  SIR MATTHEY WHITE RIDLEY: I am afraid the matter is not one which comes within my jurisdiction.

  EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the number of persons in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, respectively, licensed to practise vivisection, and how many of them hold certificates to dispense with anæsthetics?
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: The number of persons licensed at the present time in England is 145, in Scotland 52, in Wales one; the number holding the certificate dispensing with anæsthetics is, in England 86, in Scotland 30, in Wales none. The only figures in my possession as regards Ireland are those for 1895; in that year the number of licensees was six, of whom one held a certificate dispensing with anæsthetics. In giving the hon. Member these figures I may remind him that the certificate in question is never given for operations involving serious pain, but only for such operations as inoculations or hypodermic injections.

  ARMY QUARTERS (REMOVAL).
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he can inform the House of the cost of moving the furniture of officers' and sergeants' messes and quarters, and also of married soldiers' quarters, regimental libraries, etc., from station to station within the United Kingdom last year; and if the Secretary of State will consider whether a saving could be effected by furnishing such messes and quarters, and charging the occupants a rental, instead of carting about, so much furniture, and cause an inquiry to be made if such a change would conduce to the comfort of officers, sergeants, and soldiers, and add materially to the mobility of the Army?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. POWELL-WILLIAMS,: Sergeants' messes and the quarters of married soldiers are already furnished to a considerable extent; and the libraries belong to garrisons and not to regiments. An regards officers, the heavier furniture of mess-rooms and quarters is already provided by the public, so that when a regiment moves it is only the lighter furniture, with the plate, crockery, glass, and bedding which accompanies it, the bulk of the cost incurred being for the personal baggage of the officers and men. A few years ago a Committee considered the question of supplying, at the public expense, such articles of furniture or equipment as are not now so supplied; and they found that while the capital outlay would be nearly a quarter of a million, the cost of transport saved would give a most inadequate return. It is doubtful whether an uniform mess equipment would give general satisfaction.

  WATERSHEDS.
  MR. WALTER HAZELL: On behalf of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. H. BROADHURST), I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he will consider the desirability of taking such action as may be necessary to prevent any one local authority monopolising the sources of water supply from the great watershed of the country, in order to insure equal opportunity for all communities to avail themselves of a share in this great and natural necessity of the people?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. HENRY CHAPLIN,: I am not aware that any local authority is seeking to monopolise the sources of water supply from the great watershed of the country, nor am I quite clear as to what watershed it is that the hon. Member refers to, but such a scheme as that referred to would require express Parliamentary powers, and I have no doubt that Parliament would give any such scheme very careful consideration before assenting to it, and would have due regard to the interests of communities other than those of the authority by whom it was proposed that the water supply should be appropriated.

  MUZZLING DOGS.
  MR. DUNCOMBE: On behalf of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. A. DRUCKER) I beg to ask the President of: the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware of the fact that the majority of local bodies have not adopted the system of muzzling dogs recommended by the Departmental Committee, and also that many recognised authorities are against such compulsory muzzling; whether the said Committee took steps to ascertain the views of well-known breeders before making their Report: and if, considering the fact that muzzling entails serious inconvenience upon the owners of dogs and grave injury to the health of the animals, he will facilitate further inquiry?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. WALTER LONG,: I find it somewhat difficult to understand what my hon. Friend means by his first Question, inasmuch as the Departmental Committee recommended that muzzling orders should be made in future not by local, but by the central, authorities. I am aware of course that compulsory muzzling does not commend itself to everyone, but the question was fully discussed from all points of view before the Committee, who also took evidence from breeders. This being the case, I cannot assent to the suggestion that further inquiry is necessary.

  WATER SUPPLY (LONDON).
  MR. B. L. COHEN: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can state to the House the names of the Members who will form the Royal Commission on the Water Supply of London?
  MR. WHITMORE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can now give the names of those who will compose the Royal Commission to inquire into the question of the purchase and regulation of the London Water Companies; and when it is his intention to introduce the Bill for strengthening and improving the position of water consumers in the Metropolis?
  MR. CHAPLIN: The names of the Members of the Royal Commission on the Water Supply of London are as follows: The Right Hon. Lord Llandaff, chairman; the Right Hon. T. W. Mellor, M.P., Sir

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  John Dorington, M.P., Sir G. 15. Bruce, C.E., Major-General A. de Courcy Scott, R.E., Mr. A. de Bock Porter, C. B., Mr. H. W. Cripps, Q.C., and Mr. Robert Lewis. I may add, with reference to the Question of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea, that I hope to bring in a Bill dealing with the water question as soon as I see any prospect of making progress with the Measure.
  MR. S. WOODS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, in view of his promise to introduce a Measure this Session for the purpose of strengthening and improving the position of the water consumers of the Metropolis, whether he is aware that the East London Waterworks Company have introduced, a new condition in their latest demand notes, namely, that it will be unlawful to use water in, the future for garden use except through meters; whether in his promised Measure he will make provision protecting the consumers against this prohibition of the use of water in gardens; and, if he is aware that the Company in question have admitted that no reliable water meter has vet been invented?
  MR. CHAPLIN: I am informed by the Company that, owing to the excessive use and waste of water by reason of garden hose and other apparatus being employed and frequently left running day and night, the directors have given notice for determining the arrangements entered into for garden supply. The fixed charge has been abolished, and the supply for garden purposes will be furnished through meters. I must defer any statement as to the provisions of the proposed Measure until it is introduced by me. As regards the last Question, the company state that they are not aware that they have ever "admitted that no reliable meter has yet been, invented." They also state that it is physically impossible for more water to be registered than passes through the meter, although it may happen that the whole of the water passing through the meter is not registered.

  ILLEGAL TRAWLING (MORAY FIRTH).
  GENERAL RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) whether his attention has been called to the fishing depredations of foreign trawlers in (he Moray
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  Firth, and the proceedings which occurred in Aberdeen last Friday, when one of the trawlers in question attempted to land its cargo; (2) whether it is lawful for trawlers of foreign Powers to visit fishing grounds on our coast, which, in the interest of the fishing industry, have been closed to all trawlers of our own country; and (3) whether the Government intend to take any action in the matter?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. GRAHAM MURRAY,: The answer to the first paragraph of the hon. and gallant Member's Question is in the affirmative. As regards the remainder of his Question, as action has been taken in the Court of Session by the master of the trawler in question against the fishery authorities and myself, and the whole proceedings will consequently be submitted to judicial decision, I do not think it advisable to give any opinion in the matter.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate (1) whether he is aware that on Friday last the German trawler Alster attempted to land at Aberdeen fish caught within the prescribed limit in the Moray Firth, and was only prevented from, so doing by a detachment of bluejackets and marines; and (2) whether, if the law of Scotland provides no effective civil means for enforcing the legal prohibition of the landing of such fish, he will consider the propriety of remedying the defect?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE: The landing of the fish referred to in the first paragraph of the Question was prevented by the crew of H.M.S. Jackal, which, as the hon. Member is aware, is at the orders of the Fishery Board, and employed in the execution of the Fishery Acts. This employment is strictly in terms of the 8th Section of the Herring Fishery Act of 1880, under which action was taken. If the crew of the Jackal had not been available I do not doubt that other and civil aid might have been made available; and I consequently am unable to see any defect in the law which requires remedy.

  MILITARY MANŒUVRES.
  GENERAL RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, as it is announced that no Manœuvre Bill will be introduced this Session, and as the ground to be acquired on Salisbury Plain is not yet available, and as he has

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  informed the House that Manœuvres are absolutely essential to secure efficiency, he will stale what description of exercise it is proposed to give the troops in this country this season?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. BRODRICK,: I can only answer that the military authorities propose to give the troops the best tactical exercises which the nature of the ground at their disposal will allow.
  GENERAL RUSSELLasked whether the right hon. Gentleman proposed to bring in any Measure dealing with the subject tit is Session?
  MR. BRODRICKsaid that the hon. and gallant Gentleman must be perfectly aware that the authorities at the War Office were earnestly desirous of such a Measure as he indicated being passed, but that the state of public business would not allow it to be done.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether legislation will be proposed this Session, or early next Session, to enable those large manœuvres to take place in 1898, which both the Commander-in-Chief and the Government have declared to be important for the efficiency of the Army; and whether a Manœuvres Bill will be put before the Reserve Forces Bill?
  THE FIRST LORD Of THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,: The Government fully recognise that the provision already made as to a large manœuvring ground on Salisbury Plain does not really exhaust all the necessities of the case, though it goes some way towards it. In these circumstances we hope to introduce a Manœuvres Bill which shall meet with general approval in all quarters of the House.

  LAND COMMISSION.
  DR. ROBERT AMBROSE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the large number of applications for the fixing of fair rents in the County Mayo, he will direct an immediate sitting of the Land Commission for that purpose?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. GERALD BALFOUR,: A list of cases from the County
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  Mayo has only recently been disposed of; a further list containing cases from the Unions of Ballina, Killala, Belmullet, and Westport has been prepared, and will shortly be issued, and the cases on this list will, I hope, shortly be disposed of. The Executive have no power to give the direction mentioned.

  CARLOWAY ROAD (LEWIS).
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the road between Carloway and Stornoway, island of Lewis, initiated by the last Conservative Government, remains unfinished in consequence of the original grant being insufficient; and whether arrangements will be made to provide the sum required for the completion of the road?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE: No arrangements can at present be made in regard to the road in question.

  PUBLIC DEPARTMENTS (SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY).
  MR. EDWARD MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that, whereas in certain public departments a half-holiday is granted every Saturday, in others the half-holiday is on alternate Saturdays only; whether there is any regulation precluding these latter departments from granting a regular weekly half-holiday; and whether he will take steps to procure uniformity of practice in this respect throughout the service by authorising a general Saturday half-holiday?
  MR. HANBURY: The rule laid down by the two great Orders in Council of 1890 for the higher and second divisions is that—
  "Officers who are required to attend seven hours a day shall be allowed a half-holiday on alternate Saturdays, provided that the heads of the Departments in which such officers are serving are satisfied (hat the slate of public business will permit."
  This rule does not debar heads of Departments from granting in their discretion occasional half-holidays at other times if the state of the work admits. The Treasury would be very unwilling to interfere with the exercise of this discretion. To modify the Orders in Council

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  by substituting a general weekly half-holiday for the present conditional fortnightly one, would in many Departments not only seriously delay public business, but also necessitate increases of staff to deal with the work now done on Saturdays, and, therefore, the discretionary system now in force appears to be best adapted to the conditions of the Service.

  QUEEN'S DIAMOND JUBILEE.
  MR. J. F. HOGAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Hon. G. H. Reid, Premier of New South Wales, has stated that subjects of vast importance to the Colonies and the Empire would be discussed during the visit of the Colonial Premiers to London; and whether this statement is correct; and, if so, whether there is any objection to specifying the subjects referred to?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,: I have not seen the statement referred to. As regards the last part of the hon. Member's Question, I can only refer him to the answer given to the Question addressed to me by him on March 29. I then stated that there was no intention to hold anything in the nature of a formal Conference, but, of course, we shall be most happy to discuss, either as a whole or in an individual capacity, any question that may be raised.
  MR. HARRY FOSTER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether any of the Irish Militia will be employed in London upon the public celebration of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee, as well as English and Scotch Militia?
  MR. BRODRICK: The arrangements are not yet definitely settled, but it is proposed that the Irish Militia shall be represented at the Jubilee.

  TELEPHONE SERVICE (GLASGOW).
  MR. FAITHFULL BEGG: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he can now give an answer to the repeated demands by the Corporation of Glasgow and others for fresh telephone licences; and
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  whether, in view of the number of such demands, and the confusion in the telephone service which might arise from granting them, he will consider the advisability of taking advantage of the break which occurs in the existing licences in the present year, and thus by purchase concentrate the sole control and working of the telephones in the Post Office Department.
  MR. HANBURY: The Government are willing to agree to a public Inquiry, not conducted by officials of the Post Office, into the complaints made by the Corporation of Glasgow with reference to the existing telephone service, including in such Inquiry the grounds upon which the Corporation decline to allow the National Telephone Company the privilege of taking up the roadways for laying their wires. The Government have definitely decided not to purchase from the National Telephone Company, as suggested in the Question.
  MR. BEGGasked what would be the constitution of the proposed Inquiry?
  MR. HANBURY: It will be carried on either by a barrister or an expert.
  SIR CHARLES CAMERON: Has the Corporation of Glasgow asked for an Inquiry?
  MR. HANBURY: No; but I think in view of the complaints of the Corporation of Glasgow against the National Telephone Company, it is only fair, if they insist on those complaints, that an Inquiry should be held.

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT (1870) AMENDMENT BILL.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether the amount of £11,971, stated in the Return [C. 8422] as the sum to which West Ham (Borough) will be entitled under the Poor School Boards Bill is approximately correct; and if not, could he state what is the approximate amount which West Ham will receive under the Bill?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir JOHN GORST,: The amount payable to West Ham is correctly stated for the period and on the assumptions mentioned

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  in the Return. The Education Department have at present no later or more accurate information.

  POSTMEN (CARDIFF).
  MR. J. M. MACLEAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, on what scale of pay the Cardiff postmen are to be placed?
  MR. HANBURY: The Cardiff Town postmen have been placed on the scale of 18s. rising by 1s. 6d. to 28s. a week. The scale prior to 1st April was 17s. rising by 1s. to 28s.

  BRITISH STEAMER STOPPED AT SYRA.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether a weekly steamer sailing under the English flag, laden with flour and bound for Canea, has been stopped at Syra?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. G. CURZON,: The British steamer Triton was stopped at Syra by the Greek authorities as mentioned in the Question, but was subsequently allowed to proceed to her destination.

  IMMIGRANTS (EAST LONDON).
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been directed to the clearances recently effected in the East End of London by owners of house property, who find it to their pecuniary interest to take in large numbers of Gorman, Polish, and Russian immigrants, whose habits and sanitary notions are not always of the highest; and whether he will take steps to secure that the local authorities shall put in force the powers they possess in respect of sanitary requirements?
  SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY: I understand that certain clearances are taking place in the neighbourhood referred to, with a view, in some cases, to the renovation or rebuilding of the tenements, but I have no information as to whether the object aimed at is the
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  substitution of foreign immigrants for the existing tenants. The local authority assure me that they have hitherto put in force, and will continue to put in force, the sanitary powers which they possess.

  IRISH MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, under the accelerated mail system between Dublin and Cork, the morning mail will reach Maryborough before 8.0 a.m.; and, whether arrangements could be made to deliver from Maryborough on the same day letters and newspapers at Ballyfin, which is within little more than an hour's walk?
  MR. HANBURY: The day mail train from Dublin will, on and after the 1st May, be due at Maryborough slightly before 8 a.m. As the hon. Member has already boon informed, the post to and from Ballyfin works through Mountrath (not Maryborough) in connection with the night mail trains, and as the present service is performed at a loss to the revenue, a second post in the day would not be justified. Enquiry is, however, being made at Ballyfin in order to ascertain whether the residents generally would prefer the post to work in connection with the day mail instead of the night mail trains. Little advantage, if any, would, however, be gained by serving Ballyfin through Maryborough instead of through Mountrath, and as such an arrangement would be more expensive it will probably not be considered expedient to change the post town.

  THAMES CONSERVANCY BYE-LAWS.
  MR. S. WOODS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the proposed bye-law of the Thames Conservancy dealing with the manning of craft makes no provision for the manning according to tonnage of empty craft; and, whether the Board of Trade propose to alter such bye-law so as to include empty craft?
  The HON MEMBER further asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he was aware that the new proposed bye-laws for the navigation of the River

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  Thames, made by the Thames Conservancy, contain no provision for the barges on the Thames being supplied with proper gear or life-saving apparatus; and, whether the Board of Trade propose to insist on the insertion of regulations dealing with this subject?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. C. T. RITCHIE,: The Conservators of the River Thames have lately submitted bye-laws to the Board of Trade for confirmation, but the time for making objections not having expired, the bye-laws have not yet been considered by the Board. I am, therefore, not able at the present moment to state what action the Board of Trade will take as regards the points raised in the Questions of the hon. Member, but I will take care that any objections or representations which may be made to the Board within the time fixed by the Act shall receive careful consideration.

  TRANSVAAL (JAMESON RAID).
  MR. THOMAS BAYLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, since informing the South African Republic on 25th June 1896, in reply to a demand from that Republic that Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Beit, and Mr. Rutherford Harris should be placed on their trial for their complicity in the attempted insurrection at Johannesburg, but that Her Majesty's Government could only act in this matter upon the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown and in accordance with the principles of English law, the Law Officers of the Crown have been consulted; and if so, with what result?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: A Committee of this House is now sitting to inquire into all matters connected with the raid, and pending their Report it would be premature to consider the question of proceedings.

  CRETE.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of Slate for Foreign Affairs (1) whether his attention has been drawn to the proclamation issued by the acting Governor General of Crete, to the effect that all Greek subjects
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  should leave the island within 15 days; (2) whether Ismail Bey drew up an Order re-establishing the censorship of Press telegrams, but that it was withdrawn owing to the strong protest of correspondents at Canea; (3) and whether under the present conditions of the blockade and occupation of the island by the Great Powers, it is competent for any such orders to be issued by the Turkish Governor, affecting the areas under the protection of the Powers.
  MR. CURZON: The attention of Her Majesty's Government was drawn to the proclamation; but, it having been agreed by the Powers that Crete, being placed under their immediate protection, must be regarded as neutral territory, Her Majesty's Government signified their opinion that the notice given by the Acting Governor General should not take effect. Her Majesty's Consul reported that he had communicated in the above sense with the Acting Governor General, who had telegraphed to the Porte for instructions, and had in the meanwhile ordered the Governors of Candia and Rethymo not to enforce the expulsion till further orders. In answer to the second paragraph, we have no information as to the censorship of Press telegrams.
  MR. T. C. H. HEDDERWICK: I beg to ask the under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the prohibition against landing provisions for the Cretan insurgents in Crete is still in force: and, if so, whether the prohibition extends equally to the Turkish and Greek forces in that island.
  MR. CURZON: The prohibition is still in force, but, as I stated in reply to a Question in this House on the:27th instant, it is for the Admirals to decide on the exact method of its application. Our information is to the effect that in the interior there is no scarcity of food, whereas, the Turkish forces being confined to the ports are naturally dependent for provisions on supplies coming by sea, and are in some cases threatened with famine. It should be remembered that the Turkish forces are in the island with the consent of the Powers, and are solely acting for the maintenance of order and the defence of the Cretan Mussulman population, while the Greek troops are there against the express demand of the Powers for their with-

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  drawal, and are believed to be supporting and encouraging the insurgents in their attacks.
  SIR C. D1LKE: Would the right hon. Gentleman state under the circumstances as regards food blockade described by him, what is the reason for the maintenance of the food blockade?
  MR. CURZON: Oh! the blockade, as the right hon. Baronet knows perfectly well, does not extend only to food, but is directed in the main, of course, against the introduction of munitions of war into the island.
  SIR C. DILKE: But, as I understand it, there is a blockade of food?
  MR. CURZON: The blockade, of course, applies to all imports into the island that are likely to produce a continuation of disturbance. (Cries of "Oh" and much laughter.)

  TURCO-GREEK WAR.
  MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the assertions now being publicly made that the German Government has been supplying the Turks with munitions of war since the declaration of war by Turkey against Greece; whether he is able to state if these assertions are true; and, if so, whether such conduct is in conformity with the rules of International Law recognised by all States that claim to be civilized; and, whether Her Majesty's Government will protest to the German Government against the continuance of this conduct?
  MR CURZON: No such information has reached Her Majesty's Government, and they do not attach any credence to the report.
  MR. J. W. CROMBIE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether it is the fact that German Officers are at present serving in the Turkish Army, and whether it would be equally competent for English Officers to serve in the Greek Army?
  MR. BRODRICK: The Secretary of State has no information as to foreign officers serving in either the Turkish or Greek Army; but under the Foreign Enlistment Act every subject of the Queen is prohibited from taking service in the military or naval forces of a State at
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  war with another State with which this country is at peace, unless he have Her Majesty's licence to do so.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware under those circumstances that the Government is prepared and is about to take action against those persons who, a announced in the public papers, are enlisting in the service of the Greeks?
  MR. BRODRICK: So far as I know, the Government have no official knowledge of any persons having so enlisted.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiry?
  MR. BRODRICK: That Question should be addressed to the Foreign Office.
  MR. D. H. COGHILLasked whether the right hon. Gentleman had received any applications for active service with the Greek forces from the 100 Members of the House who had signed the memorial to the King of Greece. [Ironical Ministerial cheers and laughter.]
  [No answer was given.]

  TOKAT MASSACRE.
  MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have received information supplied by Her Majesty's Consul at Tokat to the effect that the survivors of the recent massacre there are in peril of their lives, and that, in the Consul's opinion, there will be a renewal of the massacre; and, whether Her Majesty's Government will lay upon the Table of the House any Reports received from Vice Consul Bulman, or supplied by him to Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople?
  MR. CURZON: In a telegram addressed to Sir Philip Currie some weeks ago by her Majesty's Vice Consul at Tokat, he expressed his fears of a renewal of disorders. In a Dispatch dated the 14th inst., the Vice Consul reports the Turkish population as in a general state of ferment, and that the Armenians seem convinced that the disorders will continue, and are decided to use every effort to emigrate. The steps that have since been taken by the Turkish Government are, however, of a nature to discourage any recurrence of

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  the massacres. The Papers will be laid in due course with other Reports on Asiatic Turkey.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD FOR SCOTLAND (REPORT).
  Mr. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he will state why the Report of the Local Government Board for Scotland, which is dated October 1896, has only just been issued?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE: The delay in issuing the Report this year was largely due to the fact that the audit clauses of the Act of 1894, having come into operation during the year, the figures for the tables in the appendix were not procurable till the audit was completed. As was to be expected in the first year, there was some delay in having the audit carried through. It is not anticipated that similar delay will occur in future.

  POST OFFICE FACILITIES (LEWIS).
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that in the parish of Lochs, Island of Lewis, with a population of 5,000, there is no office open for the transaction of money order and savings bank business; and that, if the people of the district wish to cash a postal order or obtain a money order they have to travel to and from Stornoway, a journey of from 20 to 30 miles; and whether, in the circumstances, he will consider the advisability of establishing a money order office at one of the post offices in the Lochs district?
  MR. HANBURY: As the hon. Member is, of course, aware, the District Committee of the County Council is empowered to enter into a guarantee for both telegraphic facilities and the extension of money order and savings banks business. The extension of telegraphic facilities carries with it the extension of the other facilities named, and the proposal of the hon. Member to deal with only one of them is not I think the most practical method. The question of extending these various facilities is one which should be treated as a whole, and from that point of view consideration shall be given to the claims of the district mentioned by the hon. Member.

  POST OFFICE (DUBLIN).
  MR. HARRY FOSTER: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the post of Examiner in the Dublin Post Office has lately been given to an officer in the Controller and Accountant General's Department, General Post Office, London, over the heads of nearly 50 seniors; and could he explain in what respects all those passed over were considered unqualified for the post?
  MR. HANBURY: The post of Examiner in the Dublin Post Office has lately been given to an officer in the Accountant General's Office in London. Of three vacant staff appointments in the Accountant's Office in Dublin, two were filled up by promotion of gentlemen within that office; but for the post of Examiner, the Postmaster General, much to his regret, was obliged to resort to another office, and he selected an officer from the Accountant General's Department in London, who was specially qualified for the discharge of the important duties to be performed. There were above him in that department nearly 50 officers whose salary was less than that of the vacant post in Dublin; but he was selected as the best qualified of those who were willing to undertake the duties. Not. one of the officers in question stood in succession to the appointment or had any claim to it. In the judgment of the Postmaster General none of the officers in the Post Office at Dublin were qualified for the positon of Examiner; but his Grace does not consider it desirable to give a detailed explanation respecting each officer.

  POSTAL FACILITIES (RUSHDEN, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE).
  MR. F. A. CHAINING: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that on granting the additional postal facilities to Rushden, Northamptonshire, it was made a condition that the assistant clerk whose employment was necessitated by the increased work should have a good knowledge of geography and a capacity for general sorting, but should only have a salary of 10s. a week; could he state what are the other salaries paid in the Rushden Post Office, and whether the salaries are lower than the scale of

  1245
  salaries in towns of similar population and postal work in the neighbourhood; and whether he will consider the desirability of increasing this salary?
  MR. BANBURY: The Post master General, in granting additional facilities at Rushden, did not lay down the condition in question. The assistant at the Rushden Post Office to whom the hon. Member refers is provided for under an allowance to the Sub-Postmaster, who appears to have thought it desirable in seeking for a suitable person to fill the vacancy to stipulate that the candidate should have a good knowledge of geography. The other clerks in the Rushden office are established officers of the Department, one, a man, on scale of pay ranging from 12s. to 34s. a week, and the other two, women, on a scale ranging from 10s. to 26s. a week, and these scales fire not lower than those in force at offices of similar standing. The question whether the circumstances admit of the allowance to the Sub-Postmaster for an assistant being raised shall be considered.

  VOLUNTARY AND BOARD SCHOOLS (GRANTS).
  MR. T. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he could state to the House what are the estimated amounts for the year ending 31st March 1898 of the Licence Duties given over in 1889, contribution of half the local rates in rural districts granted in 1896, and the grants to Voluntary and Board Schools made this year, all of which are handed over to local authorities in Great Britain and not in Ireland; and whether there are any, and, if so, what are the amounts of other grants in aid given in one country and not in the other.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,: The estimated amount of the licence duties for 1897–98 is £3,620,000. With regard to the last paragraph of the Question, the grants in aid of local expenditure borne on the votes are, as shown in the Estimates— Great Britain, £1,347,000; Ireland, £2,010,000. As to the other points on which the hon. Member desires information I will ask him to wait for the statement which I am about to make this afternoon.

  DEATH FROM CAT BITE.
  MR. DUNCOMBE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the death of Mr. John Hetch, 60 years of age, who died in the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham, from the effects of a cat's bit; whether he is aware that the medical evidence proved the death to be undoubtedly the result of rabies; and whether he is prepared, either by issuing a universal muzzling order for cats, or otherwise, to guard against the danger thus shown to exist?
  MR. LONG: Yes; my attention has been directed to the lamentable case to which my hon. Friend refers, which seems undoubtedly to have been one of hydrophobia due to the bite of a eat. I do not think that any direct action against rabies in cats is either practicable or necessary. The information in our possession goes to show that the disease is usually conveyed from dogs to cats, not vice versâ, and in fact no cases under the latter head are known to us. If, therefore, we succeed in our efforts to stamp out rabies amongst dogs in this country, the disease is not at all likely to be kept alive by means of cats. I may, perhaps, add for the assurance of owners of cats, that out of 1,075 persons treated for hydrophobia at the Pasteur Institute during the first nine months of 1895, 1,039 had been bitten by dogs and only 36 by cats.

  POSTMAN (PROVINCIAL TOWNS).
  MR. E. H. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether it is intended that allowances hitherto received by postmen in provincial towns shall in future be regarded as part of the weekly wage, and count towards the maximum pay?
  MR. HANBURY: The hon. Member does not, I assume, refer to allowances for supervision, boots, trip and subsistence allowances or good conduct stripes, nor to merely temporary allowances for temporary work. All others will be abolished as allowances, and will be merged in the new scale of wages. Full regard will, of course, be held to the claims of existing holders of such allowances. They will enter the scale at a point equal to their previous salary and

  1247
  allowances combined, and whenever the maximum of the present scale, together with the allowances, exceed the maximum of the new scale, that, but no further, excess will be granted.

  CONGESTED DISTRICTS (SCOTLAND).
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is now in a position to state when the Bill dealing with the grant in aid of congested districts in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland will be introduced?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I cannot at present give the hon. Member any precise information on the subject.
  MR. WEIR: Is there any hope of that Bill being introduced this Session?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Yes; I hope so.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (DIVISIONS).
  MR. DUNCOMBE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will consider the advisability of so altering Standing Order No. 30 of the House of Commons as to provide that when, in the opinion of Mr. Speaker or of the Chairman of Committees, a Division is frivolously claimed, and the names of Members challenging the decision of Mr. Speaker or of the Chairman of Committees are taken down, the names of such Members shall not appear in the Division Lists or that the record of such names shall not count as a Division: and whether, if such alteration should not appear to be advisable, he will provide that the names of Members supporting the decision of Mr. Speaker and the Chairman of Committees shall also be recorded?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I think that the rule, at all events as at present worked in the House, is certainly unsatisfactory. [Cheers. I cannot promise my hon. Friend to bring forward in the immediate future a new Standing Order remedying the defect which I think has been shown to attach to the working of the Standing Order; but I think that the matter does deserve the attention of the House.
  MR. DUNCOMBEasked Mr. Speaker whether, in view of the words of the Standing Order No. 30, it was correct to interpret that such divisions should be
  1248
  counted as such, or whether it was correct, to say that they were not divisions. [Cries of" Oh, oh!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: The Question put by the hon. Member on the Paper called my particular attention to the terms of the Standing Order, and on consideration of them I have come to the conclusion that a vote of the House taken under that Standing Order is not a Division. [Cheers.] The Standing Order provides that the Speaker or Chairman, after calling on the Ayes and Noes to rise in their places, shall—
  "either declare the determination of the House or name Tellers for a Division, and, in case there is no Division, shall declare to the House or Committee the number of the, minority who had challenged his decision, and their names shall be thereupon taken down in the House and printed with the list of Divisions."
  The effect appears to me to be that it is a vote of the House, the result of which is declared from the Chair without any Division. It is a technical point, but that, I think, is the effect of the Standing Order. The Standing Order no doubt requires that the names of those who voted in the minority shall be printed with the list of Divisions, but such record ought not to be numbered or reckoned as a Division. [Cheers.] I shall give directions that in future the practice of printing it as a Division be discontinued.

  POST OFFICE ESTABLISHMENT (REPORT).
  MR. HARRY FOSTER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is able to state that an opportunity will be given for discussing the Report of the Tweedmouth Committee upon the position and pay of postmen?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I think my hon. Friend will have the opportunity he seeks when the Post Office Vote comes before' the House.

  SUPPLY (FOREIGN OFFICE VOTE).
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I observe that on Tuesday, in answer to a Question, the First Lord of the Treasury was good enough to say that if there was a desire expressed on this side of the House that the Foreign

  1249
  Office Vole should be put down at an early date, he would have no objection to the granting of that request. He also mentioned that he had fixed the business for Friday, May 14, but that there were two intervening Fridays before that date. If convenient, therefore, to the Government, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would fix Friday, May 7, for the Foreign Office Vote, so that the discussion might be taken mi foreign affairs.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Of course the convenience of the Government in such matters is the convenience of the House, and the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman on such a subject necessarily meets with an immediate response from this Bench. I shall therefore regard to-morrow week as fixed for the Foreign Office Vote.

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN ACT (1870) AMENDMENT BILL.
  VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: Can my right hon. Friend tell us when the Committee stage of the Necessitous School Boards Hill will be taken?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I am afraid that I cannot answer my noble Friend at the present moment, as uncertainty hangs over us, and we do not know how long other matters will take.

  EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY BILL.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHER: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the Employers' Liability Hill is to be taken on Monday?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Yes.

  NEW MEMBER MADE AFFIRMATION REQUIRED BY LAW.
  Alfred Edward Pease, esquire, for the County of York, North Riding (Cleveland Division).
  POST OFFICE CONSOLIDATION BILL [H.L.]
  Read the First time; to be Read a Second time upon Thursday next, and to be printed.—[Hill 211.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  FINANCIAL STATEMENT, 1897–8. WAYS AND MEANS.
  Considered in Committee.
  [The CHAIRMAN of WATS and MEANS, Mr. J. W. LOWTHER, in the Chair.]
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,, who on rising to make his annual financial statement was received with general cheers, said: When 12 months ago it was my duty to call the attention of the Committee to the financial condition of the country, I had to place before it the record of a very prosperous year. The credit of the country had never stood so high. The revenue had never been so large; the expenditure was immense; and we had never specifically devoted so much to the reduction of the National Debt.

  INCREASING NATIONAL PROSPERITY.
  Financially we seemed to be on the crest of the wave, and it would have been rash in me to anticipate that we should rise even higher; and yet we have done so. [Cheers.] In spite of political circumstances in the United States, which for a time paralysed trade, in spite of unrest in South Africa, distress in India, anxieties in the East of Europe, the revival of trade which began in the summer of 1895 has been well maintained. [Cheers.] The total value of our foreign trade in the year 1895 was 702½ millions; the total value of our foreign trade in 1896 was 738 millions, an increase of 5 per cent.—to some extent in prices, but mainly in volume. I think I may say that our home trade is not less flourishing. The returns of the earnings of the railway companies, the smaller list of failures, the increased return of our Bankers' Clearing-house, especially in the provinces, labour statistics showing better employment in the skilled labour market, and last, but by no means least, the ray of hope given to the most depressed agricultural districts by a good wheat crop and higher prices for it-—all, I think, tend to prove the increased prosperity of the country— [cheers]—and of that prosperity the revenue has been the best, as it is the

  1251
  keenest, barometer. ["Hear, hoar!"] I do not like, however, to talk too much about prosperity, because I know from last Tuesday's Debate that some of my friends are not believers in it. [Laughter.] But this I do know—that during the past year our people have smoked and drunk more—[laughter]—have earned more money and paid more income tax, have written more letters, have bought and sold more property, and last, but not least, have paid more death duties—[laughter]—and therefore I hope I may be allowed, at any rate, to make this deduction, that the country is not going to the bad. ["Hoar, hear!"]

  REVENUE, 1896–7.
  The result has been that my forecast of revenue, which amounted to £100,480,000, has been considerably exceeded. The revenue has produced £103,950,000, or an excess of £3,470,000. On this matter I have a little complaint against the right hon. Member for West Monmouthshire. He is never tired of pluming himself on his great surplus of this time last year. Well, whatever may be the credit or the discredit of having underestimated the revenue by over £5,800,000, it is his and not mine. However, I was very much obliged to him, and I still return him my thanks. But I deprecate his posing as the father of all future surpluses. [Laughter.] He told his constituents the other day that the surplus of the year just closed was due to proceedings which were taken before the present Government came into office. The right hon. Gentleman has never admitted his own obligation to the author of the income tax— [laughter, and Sir W. HARCOURT: "That was a long time ago"]—and I am afraid I must say that, whatever be the credit or discredit of the excess of revenue which I have just named, amounting to nearly £3,500,000, it rests with me and not with him. My estimate was a mistake, just as his was, and all I have to plead in extenuation is this—that my mistake was a very little one as compared with his, and that it was a mistake on the right side. I was bound to be cautious a year ago, and I am bound to be cautious still in my estimate, having regard to the storm cloud which
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  has just broken in the East of Europe, with respect to which no man can tell how long it may last or how far it may extend. The total sum raised for the Imperial revenue last year was £112,199,000, as against £109,340,000 in 1895–96. Of the amount raised last year, £103,950,000 went to the Exchequer, an increase of £1,976,000 over the preceding year, and £8,249,000 went to the local taxation account, an increase of £883,000 over the preceding year—due, of course, mainly to the Agricultural Rating Act and kindred legislation. I will now explain the details of the revenue (£103,950.000) which went to the Exchequer last year as compared with the details of the revenue of the year 1895–96. The only fallings-off, the Committee will see, were a falling off of £95,000 in land tax, owing, of course, to the remission under the Finance Act of last year, and of £770,000 under the head of estate duty, owing, of course, to the interception of a large sum under the provisions of the Agricultural Rating and other Acts. All other heads showed an increase. The miscellaneous revenue showed an increase of £547,000, owing to greatly increased receipts from coinage and from fee and patent stamps. The gross Post Office receipts increased by £480,000, the gross telegraph receipts by £70,000, and the income tax receipts by £550,000.

  INCOME TAX.
  I have made some inquiry into the reason for that last increase. Sir Alfred Milner, whose loss to the Inland Revenue I deeply deplore—["hear, hear!"]— although all of us feel glad that with his great abilities he is serving his country in a still more prominent position, considered that a great deal of this increase in income tax was due to earlier collection. I suppose a year never passes in which the Government of the day and the authorities of Somerset House are-not accused by somebody of accelerating the collection of the income tax. But they never do so, and we did not do so this year. When I asked why the collection was accelerated I was told it was because of the genial weather in January, which had opened the pockets of the taxpayers and stimulated the energies of the tax collectors. But, remembering what

  1253
  a January we had, I did not myself believe that could be the reason. [Laughter.] I prefer to think that the income tax payers were in a hurry to pay their taxes owing to the exceptional popularity of Her Majesty's Government. [Cheers and laughter.] I observe that that view is not shared by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and they only reflect, I dare say, the opinion of a correspondent of mine, who wrote to me saying that he had obstinately refused in pay the guinea which was due from him for armorial bearings, and that he dared me to send him to prison so long as the Government maintained their present accursed policy in Crete. [laughter.] I shrank from the challenge, remembering that that guinea would be lost by some unfortunate county council and not by the Exchequer. [Laughter.] But, whatever be the cause, there is no doubt that the receipts from the income tax largely increased last year, and the result has been that it has yielded more per penny of the tax than it ever yielded before, and has more than made up for the remissions granted by the right hon. Gentleman opposite in 1894.

  COSTOMS REVENUE.
  I am glad to say that the receipts from Customs and Excise bear equally satisfactory testimony to the condition of the people. The Exchequer receipts from Customs last year were £21,254,000 —£234,000 or 1966·11 per cent, above my estimate, and £498,000 or 2·4 per cent. above the Exchequer receipts of 1895–96. The estimated increase of the population in the year was only 0·8, and the Committee will see that the increase of the Customs revenue over that point is good testimony of increased spending power and comfort among the people. [Cheers.] The two croups of coffee and dried fruit showed a trilling improvement, which is, I fear, not likely to be maintained owing to the war in the East. Foreign spirits produced a net revenue of £4,316,000, or £99,000 more than in 1895–96. This was due to an increase of £125,000 in the receipts from rum, which is a most unaccountable article. It has been a favourite Customs theory that the receipts from rum went up as the thermometer went down, but considering the temperature of last winter I do not think that that
  1254
  theory can be maintained. I could never make out who drinks rum. Last year I thought it was my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eastbourne— [laughter]—and his colleagues in the Navy, but he so indignantly resented the imputation that I hardly dare to suggest now that, as rum was so much cheaper last year, sailors as sensible men have preferred it to other spirits. [laughter.] Tea has produced £3,800,000, exactly my estimate, and £54,000 more than it produced in 1895–96. Tobacco has produced £11,013,000, or £13,000 more than my estimate, and £265,000 more than in 1895–96. Wine has produced £1,295,000, or £75,000 above my estimate, and £40,000 over the net receipts of 1895–96. The increase in the receipts from wine is a novelty in recent years. I believe it is mainly duo to the increased duty which was imposed some years ago by the present First Lord of the Admiralty upon sparkling wines. The taste for what is, I think, erroneously called champagne—[laughter]—is very largely increasing. The Committee may be disposed to draw a favourable omen for the future from the increased receipts in tea, tobacco, and wine, but I would point out that the increase has been very much less than the corresponding increase last year as compared with 1894–95. I then had to report an increase upon tea of £158,000 —I am speaking of net receipts—and now I have only to report an increase of £54,000. I then had to report an increase on tobacco of £333,000; now the increase is only £265,000. The increase on wine was then £112,000: now it is only £40,000. It looks as if the tide was rather slackening and as if, as regards Customs revenue, we have got very near high-water mark.

  EXCISE.
  The same is true, but lo a less extent, of Excise. The Exchequer receipts from Excise last year were £27,460,000, or £460,000 over my estimate and £660,000 over the Exchequer receipts of 1895–96; but the receipts in 1895–96 were £750,000 more than the receipts of the previous year. Last year the net receipts on beer were £10,900,000, showing an increase of £181,000. Spirits produced £16,038,000, an increase of £434,000 upon the receipts in 1895–96.

  DEATH DUTIES.
  I now come to the Death Duties. The total receipts from this source were £13,963,000—a. small decrease as compared with the receipts of the previous year, which were £14,053,000. Of the receipts I have named, the Exchequer took £10,830,000 and the Local Taxation Accounts £3,133,000. Now, the Exchequer receipts from the Death. Duties have very considerably exceeded my estimate. ["Hear, hear!"] There are three causes which think will, at any rate, partly account for that. In the first place, I have to make a statement which I fear will be discomforting to the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He has a very favourite phrase in. all his political addresses to the effect that we have taken £2,000,000 out of the pockets, of the general taxpayers and have given it to the landed interest. I am not going to enter into controversial matters as to whether the landed interest has received it or not, but I am anxious for the financial accuracy of the right hon. Gentleman—[a laugh]—and, therefore, I beg to observe that it is not £2, 000,000.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I said it would be so in this next year.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Ah, but it will not. [Laughter] The estimates formed by the Local Government Board of the effect in the whole year of the Agricultural Eating Act amounted to £1,560,000, and the equivalent grants to Scotland and Ireland make a total of £1,950,000. [Opposition laughter.] I think I may put the grant to Ireland out of the question, because Parliament has not yet applied it to the landed interest or to anybody else, and I do not think that Scotch Members would quite support the view that the Scotch equivalent grant has gone entirely, at any rate, to the landed interest; I take it, therefore, that the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman really refers to the agricultural Rating Act. The estimated effect of that Act was a grant of £1,560,000 to the Local Taxation Account. That has actually turned out to be only £1,331,000, and, of course, the corresponding grants are also diminished, so that the total effect is that £1,664,000 will in the current year be transferred from the
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  Death Duties on personalty to the Local Taxation Account, instead of £1,950,000, as was originally estimated. We have, therefore, saved to the Exchequer in the year just closed half that amount, or £143,000, being half the difference between the estimate and the actual sum payable for a whole year. The second reason why the Death Duties have produced more to the Exchequer than I anticipated is that the principal remission which I carried last year—that relating to settled objects of art and scientific and other collections —has not come into effect during the year just concluded. There are two cases now before the Treasury, but, of course, any loss of revenue by them will be felt in the current year. The third reason is that my advisers were wrong in their anticipations as to the total amount of estates over £250,000 in value which were likely to come under the Death Duties in the year. The total amount in value of such estates in 1895–96 was, £29,969,000. That was considered by those who were best able to judge an exceptionally high amount, but to the surprise of all of us it has been exceeded in the past year. The total value of such large estates in the year just closed has been £31,354,000—["hear, hear!"]—with the result that £84,000 more duty has been paid upon such estates during the year just closed than was paid in 1895–96. I am bound to say that that is a result for which I am not very sorry—["hear, hear!"]—but, after making due allowance for all these causes, I have to admit that I underestimated the receipts from the Death Duties last year. I think, however, we must be cautious before we move too rapidly in the other direction, and I will give the Committee some reasons for that view. The total amount of what is called free personalty that used on the average to come annually under the probate duties before 1894–95 was, roughly speaking, about £160,000,000. That was increased to £163,500,000 in the year 1895–96; but there has been a remarkable falling-off during the past year—a falling-off of more than £10,000,000. Taking that fact with the stories one hears, and in which I think there is some truth, as to the tendency of rich men to make over their property to their heirs in order to avoid the death duties—["hear, hear!"]—and bearing in mind that nothing is so easily made over

  1257
  as free personalty, I think it is possible that this falling-off of more than £10,000,000 may be but the precursor of a greater falling-off in future years. ["Hear, hear!"] So far as the past year is concerned, it has been practically made up by the increased amount of realty coming under the Death Duties. That has risen from £29,971,000, in 1895–96, to £39,606,000 in the year just closed. But the reason for that increase, of course, is this. It is well known that realty has come into the net of the Finance Act of 1894 much more slowly than personalty, and my advisers assure me that, though they think there may be an increase in the amount of realty coming under the Death Duties in future years, yet the increase of the past year will not be anything like maintained. Then, further, I have to remind the Committee that the succession duty and the legacy duty are yearly diminishing. The legacy duty last year yielded net receipts of £2,550,000, a failing-off of £181,000 as compared with the previous year, due to the exemption of small estates by the Act of 1894, and also, I think, to the fact that people are beginning to substitute gifts for legacies, a very much better thing both for the giver and the receiver, but a loss to the revenue. [Laugher and "Hear, hear!"] The net receipts from Succession Duty were £824,000, a falling-off of no less than £227,000, as compared with the previous year, which I expect will continue, at any rate, to some extent. Perhaps it may be of interest to the Committee if I tell them in what shares these duties have been paid respectively by realty and personalty. The total Death Duties that were paid by personalty were £11,433,000. The total Death Duties paid by realty were £2,530,000. out of the duced £10,548,000, and of this realty paid £1,871,000 on a total value of £1,871,000 on a total value of £39,006,000, whilst personalty paid £8,677,000 on a total value of £179,803,000. Of the payments by realty to estate duty £1,708,300 were payments in full, and £162,700 were instalment, showing the fact, which I remarked upon last year, that the preference for paying in full over payment by instalments still continues. ["Hear, hear!"] I have analysed the proportion of the different kinds of realty which came under the Death Duties
  1258
  during the nine months previous to December 31 last. They amounted altogether to about £34,000,000. Of these £16,327,000 represented house property; £10,708,000 represented agricultural land, which was valued at an average of 16¾ years' purchase of the gross value, and 20¼ years' purchase of the net value; £2,700,000 represented ground rents, and £4,181,000 represented miscellaneous property. It is estimated that the total Death Duties paid in the year by agricultural land amounted to about £843,000.
  GENERAL STAMPS.
  I now have only to deal with the item of stamps. Stamps produced £7,350,000, almost exactly the same as in the previous year, and £650,000 more than my estimate. I had allowed for a very large falling-off in stamps on transactions on the Stock Exchange. That falling-off took place. The receipts from that source fell from £1,533,000 to £974,000; but I had not anticipated the great increase that has occurred from stamps on deeds. There has been an increase under that head of £512,000, and an increase in the companies' capital duty of £100,000, making up for the falling-off I have noticed. There is nothing more fluctuating in the whole revenue than the receipts from stamps. I will give the Committee two instances. The receipts from Stock Exchange stamps in 1893–94 were £471,000, and in 1895–96 £1,533,000; the receipts from stamps on deeds in 1893–94 were £1,812,000; last year they were £2,984,000. I hope that the great increase in these latter stamps may be treated as a sign of improvement in the market for real property, but it would be premature to look upon it as a permanent change.

  EXPENDITURE FOR THE PAST YEAR.
  The estimated expenditure of the past year was £100,046,000; supplementary Estimates, £2,279,000—making a total of £102,325,000; but there were savings amounting to £848,000, so that the total Exchequer issues were £101,477,000, or £1,431,000 more than I estimated. Of this increase, £799,000 was advanced to the Egyptian Government on account of the Dongola expedition, which, as the Committee knows, will bear interest;

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  £145,000 was due to the expenses of the Indian garrison at Suakin, and the balance of £487,000 was due to increase in the Army, Navy, and Education Votes. I do not want to preach a sermon on economy; I attempted that to a small extent last year; but I am afraid I must say that of all the spending Departments at the present moment, I fear the House of Commons is the worst—[cheers and laughter]—and until the want of economy or the want of trying to save leads us to increased taxation, I fear we shall see no change. The increase in. our expenditure since. 1892–93 has been over 12 per cent.; the increase in our revenues since that time, apart from fresh taxation, has only been nine per cent. ["Hear, hear!"] In five years our Navy expenses have gone up 40 per cent.—[cheers]—the expenses of Education have gone up 43 per cent. [Cheers.] Both these kinds of expenditure are very popular and, in my belief, very necessary—[cheers]—but I must own to some feeling of doubt whether, quite apart from all the differences that we discuss so much here as to denominational and undenominational questions, our system of elementary education is such as to give the nation the best value for its money. [Cheers.] After deducting the Exchequer issues from the revenue there was a surplus in the last year of £2,473,000. As the Committee are aware, that has been devoted to the purposes of the Military Works Act of this Session, preventing an increase of new debt instead of reducing the old debt. The result will be, as the Naval Works Act of last year has also done, to augment the balances in the Exchequer. The balances in the Exchequer on April 1, 1896, amounted to a sum considerably above the average— namely, £8,975,000. On the corresponding date this year they amounted to £9,867,00. This increase was due, of course, to the fact that, the Admiralty did not spend as much of the surplus of 1895–96 during the year as was anticipated. That surplus was £4,210,000; of this only £1,765,000 has been appropriated, leaving £2,445,000 still available, and, of course, the temporary augmentation of the Exchequer balances has enabled us to dispense temporarily with borrowing for other capital accounts. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean has more than once asked
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  for a statement of naval and military expenditure which would include expenditure on capital account with the expenditure from revenue. I have not been able to frame any trustworthy estimates of the expenditure on capital account by the Admiralty or the War Office for the coming year, because so much of this work, at any rate of the naval works, is of a character that no one can accurately foresee. Take last year, A year ago the Admiralty took powers to expend 2¾ millions under the Naval Works Act, and, as a matter of fact, only £898,000 has been issued. It is clear that the estimate was entirely wrong. Work in the construction of docks, or harbours, or breakwaters, or under water depends so much on weather and seasons and other things which cannot be anticipated, that it is impossible to frame a trustworthy estimate. But I can give the right hon. Gentleman some account of the past two years. In 1895–96 the War Office expended on capital account under the Military Forces Localisation Act, £6,000, under the Imperial Defence Act £65,000, under the Barracks Act £549,000, making a total of £620,000. That, added to the expenditure from revenue in the same year, amounted to an expenditure of £19,091,000. Last year there was expended under the Barracks Act £420,000, under the Military Works Act £80,000, and that, added to the expenditure from revenue, amounted to £18,770,000. The naval expenditure under the Naval Works Act in 1895–96 amounted to £721,000, making a total of £20,358,000 for that year. Last year there was issued under the same Act £898,000, making a total of £23,068,000. Even in this account I am afraid the accounts for the year just ended are not yet accurately closed.

  NATIONAL DEBT.
  Now I come to the National Debt. On the 1st of April last year the total gross liabilities of the nation were £652,540,000. The funded debt was £589,147,000. The estimated capital value of the terminable annuities was £49,351,000. The unfunded debt was £9,976,600, and loans for capital expenditure on barracks and other purposes not included in the fixed debt charge amounted to £4,066,000. On the

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  31st March last our total gross liabilities amounted to £644,956,000. We have reduced the funded debt by £1,448,000. ["Hear, hear!"] The terminable annuities have been reduced by £4,363,000, the unfunded debt by £1,843,000, and the loans outside the fixed debt charge show a slight net increase, owing to expenditure on the purchase of the telephones and the Uganda Rail way, of £70,000. The total net reduction of the debt for the year is £7,584,000. [Cheers.] But, besides being reduced, the unfunded debt has been greatly simplified. It now consists solely of Treasury Bills. The remnant of Exchequer Bonds borrowed by the First Lord of the Admiralty to pay off the holders of Consols who refused to convert has been paid off during the past year. Exchequer Bills have ceased. ["Hear, hear!"] That security, which was invented 200 years ago by one of the greatest of my predecessors, Mr. Charles Montagu, in order to effect a great re-coinage for the benefit of the country, has often stood the Treasury in good stead, and never more so than during the great war early in this century. But those Bills, issued as they were latterly for terms of five years, the interest on them being fixed half-yearly by the Treasury, have become inconvenient. Certainly it was an invidious task to fix the interest on Exchequer Bills. You might fix it too high, and if you did there was a loss to the Exchequer; if you fixed it too low the holders of the Bills had a right to present them at certain periods in payment of duty. And in these days Treasury Bills issued for periods of not more than 12 months at a rate fixed by the competition of the market are far more convenient and a better form of security. ["Hear, hear!"] I may state that during the past year the Commissioners of the National Debt, in order to reduce pressure on the Consols market, have invested to the extent of more than one and a-half millions in Treasury Bills.

  COINAGE.
  I have to report further progress in the restoration of the gold coinage. On January 1, 1896, light gold coins of the value of £29,100,000 had been exchanged. During I he year 1896 £2,400,000 more were withdrawn at a cost of £33,000. On January 1, 1897,
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  the amount—it is estimated—of light gold in circulation was only 8 per cent, of the total coinage, and of that light gold one-fifth of the light sovereigns and 30 per cent, of the light half-sovereigns were so nearly legal in weight that neither the eye nor any balance in ordinary use could possibly detect that they were wrong. So far as the metropolis and the principal centres of industry are concerned, it may be said that the restoration of our gold coinage has been completed, though, of course, we still have to provide for perpetual wear and tear. But a good deal still remains to be done in the country districts, and especially in the more remote parts of the United Kingdom. I have been in communication during the past year with the authorities of the Bank of England and the Country Bankers' Association, and I have arranged that greater facilities should be given for the reception by the branches of the Bank of England of small parcels of light gold and the payment of the cost of conveyance from the provinces for a limited period, and I have every reason to anticipate that by the end of six months from this time a good deal will have been done towards completing the restoration of the coinage. The Bank of England may then exercise more stringently than now the discretion granted to it by the Act of 1891. £32,000 provided by that Act for the restoration of coinage is still unexpended, besides the amount authorised to be similarly applied by the Act of 1893. The operations of the Mint with regard to the coinage have been very extensive during the past year. I think as much as six millions sterling in value of different coins has been struck at the Mint in the year which has just closed, as against five millions in the year preceding, and the great increase has been in silver and copper, especially in copper. Twenty-five million pieces of silver coin, and thirty-two million pieces of copper coin have been struck; 245 tons of copper have been used in that coinage, and the copper coinage of the year is more than three times as much in value as that of the preceding year. I inquired the reason. Of course, it is partly due, I hope, to the increased prosperity in trade and generally amongst the working classes. But it was curious

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  to learn that in the view of the authorities of the Mint, not a little of the increased demand for copper was due to the increased number of articles, whether useful or otherwise the Committee may decide, which may be obtained by the simple process of putting a, penny in the slot. [Laughter.]

  SIXTY YEARS' RETROSPECT.
  Sir, I have now completed the usual and necessary comparison of the past year with that immediately preceding it, but I hope I shall not be detaining the Committee at too great length if on this occasion I make a more distant comparison. ["Hear, hear!"] In a few weeks the nation will be celebrating a great anniversary of a great reign. [Loud cheers.] It will be interesting to all of us to look back on the extraordinary change which has come over the condition of the country during the past sixty years, but I doubt if in anything the extent of that change can be better realised than by a comparison of the altered requirements of the community as reflected in the revenue raised and the expenditure provided for by the State in the year 1836–37, before Her Majesty's accession, and the year just closed. The Committee will be pleased, to remember that in the figures I shall give adjustments have been made in order to provide for the alterations—the very useful alterations—in the national account-keeping that have come into use during that period. Now, the total revenue of the nation in the year 1836 was £52,500,000. In the year just closed it was £112,000,000. In the first period, 71·8 per cent., nearly three-quarters, of the revenue was raised by taxes on commodities. ["Hear, hear!"] In the last period 44·3 per cent, was so raised. In the early period almost everything was taxed. ["Hear, hear!"] I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield had lived in those days—[laughter and cheers]—because I do not think he would now ask us to imitate that period. ["Hear, hear!"] There were 1,135 separate rates of Customs Duties. There were duties on exports, there were bounties on various articles, and yet the whole net produce of the Customs in the year 1836 was only three-quarters of a million more than we raise now almost
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  entirely from duties on three articles— alcohol, tobacco, and tea. ["Hear, hear!"] I do not want to dwell on the effect of that system upon the industry of the country. I do not want to discuss how much the price of articles grown in this country on which there was no Excise duty may have been raised by duties, often prohibitive, on similar articles imported from abroad, but I should just like to give the Committee a single small, concrete instance of the effect of the Customs Duties at that time upon, a few articles of ordinary consumption in a poor labourer's household. ["Hear, hear!"] I quote from a Report addressed in the year 1841 by Mr. Carleton Tufnell to the Poor Law Commissioners. He frames a household budget of a labourer with four children, earning on the average 13s. 2d. a week. He puts down the number of articles that would be consumed in that household, and the annual quantities of each. I have taken only five of those articles—sugar, tea, tobacco, soap, and pepper. Taking the quantities suggested by Mr. Tufnell, and taking the taxation of that day, I find that a labourer would have paid £2 3s. 5d. a year—three and a-half weeks' wages—in taxation on those articles alone. ["Hear, hear!"] Now he would pay on the same articles 12s. 5½d. How has this change been effected? Of course it has been effected by. an increased amount of taxation on property; 39·7 per cent, of our revenue now is raised by direct taxation; 23·2 of it was so raised in 1836. But what has been the result of the change on the industry of the country? In 1836 our total foreign trade amounted to a value of £125,000,000; last year it amounted to about £738,000,000 [Cheers.] My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield is not very fond of foreign imports. It may comfort him—I do not know whether it will or not—to know that in 1836 our foreign imports were only £67,000,000 in value. I am glad to know that they have now increased to nearly £442,000,000. [Cheers.] But what were our exports of home produce? It is desired to encourage home produce. Has that home produce been encouraged? The exports of home produce were £42,000,000 in 1836; they were £240,000,000 last year. [Cheers.] And, Sir, out of this enormous extension of industry has come

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  great and permanent benefit to the working classes of the country, and I know of no way in which that can be better testified than by the increase of deposits in the savings banks. In 1836 those deposits amounted to £18,750,000, placed there by 598,000 persons. Last year they amounted to £155,000,000, placed there by no less than 8,396,000 persons. ["Hear, hear!"] In 1836, out of every 43 men, women, and children, only one was a depositor in the savings banks; now there is one out of every five. [Cheers.] There is one other point in which a comparison of the revenue of the two periods is instructive, and that is the great advance in the receipts from non-tax sources in the present day. [At this point Sir H. VINCENT entered the House and walked to his seat amidst general cheers and laugher.] In 1836 only £2,500,000— 5 per cent, of the total revenue—was so derived. In 1890–97 nearly £18,000,000, 10 per cent, of the total revenue—came from non-tax sources. Of course, this has come mainly from the great expansion of our postal service. I do not think we can overestimate the extraordinary advantage to the country from the expansion of that service. ["Hear, hear!"] In 1836 it cost 4d. to send a letter 15 miles in the United Kingdom, it cost 1s. to send a letter 300 miles, it cost 10d. to send a letter to France, it cost 1s. 8d. to send a letter to Germany, and it cost 3s. 6d. to send a letter to South America. No wonder it was said that—
  "Letters were sent when franks could be procured,
  And when they could not, slience was endured"
  [Laugher.] For every letter sent in those days we now send 22, and for every newspaper or packet sent in those days we send 28. There was no telegraph in those days, but we send more telegrams in a year now than post-paid letters were sent at the time of the accession of the Queen; and with that great accommodation, to the public there has been an increase in the profit to the Exchequer. In 1836 the Post Office produced a net profit, of £1,481,000; last year it produced £3,936,000. ["Hear, hear!"] I now turn to the expenditure. That in 1836 was £50,500,000: last year it was £109,750,000. Under three great heads
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  there has been an enormous increase in our expenditure. The expenditure on the Army, Navy, and civil administration has risen from £16,464,000 in 1836 to £70,377,000 now. We expend nearly four-and-a-quarter times as much. Our Army cost us in 1836 £8,000,000, now £18,250,000. Our Navy cost in 1836 £4,000,000; it now costs £22,000,000. [Cheers.] Sir, that increased expense is necessary from the enormous expansion of our Empire, from the great expansion of our commerce, from the greatly incrased cost of the armaments of modern times, but most of all from the great increase in the naval and military strength of other nations and the fact that it is concentrated in fewer hands. But we get, I think, a good return for our money. We have double the number of regular soldiers at home now that we had then. Our soldiers are better paid, better armed, and better housed. We have 70,000 more Militia, we have 80,000 Army Reserve, and 236,000 Volunteers. We have three-and-a-half times as many men and boys in the Navy. We have double the number of Marines, nearly double the number of ships, three times the tonnage, and I do not know how great an increase in offensive and defensive power. Sir, there has been an increase in the cost of civil administration from £4,500,000 to nearly £30,000,000. Our education estimates are now £9,500,000; then that expenditure by the State was unknown. Our grants to local taxation in aid of the taxpayers are £11,500,000; then they were but a few hundred thousand a year; and we spend £4,500,000 more to secure a more efficient administration of the law, in the better protection of the people and of life and property, in the encouragement of science and art, and in a large number of multifarious wants due to our modern civilisation, which were never dreamed of by the people when Her Majesty acceded to the throne. ["Hear, hear!"]

  DECREASES OF EXPENDITURE.
  But if our increases of expenditure have been remarkable, even more remarkable have been the decreases of expenditure. First of all, there are the services of the Debt. Our predecessors in 1830 had to pay £29,575,000, or 58·5 per cent, of their total expenditure for the annual

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  charge of the Debt. We pay £25,000,000 or 22 per cent of the total expenditure. Interest and management of the Debt cost them £27,686,000. They cost us £17,779,000—["hear, hear!"]—nearly ten millions less than it cost them. They were only able to devote to paying it off £1,889,000. We devote £7,221,000 to the same purpose. With them the annual interest of the Debt was an annual tax of 21s, 8d. per head of the population; with us it is only 9s. per head. On them the total burden of the Debt was £33 9s. 3d. per head of the population; on us it is less than half— £16 6s. 6½d. It is not surprising that Consols have risen in value so much that, while in 1836 a man could obtain an income from Consols of £3 by investing £89 10s., he has now to spend £121 for the same result. ["Hear, hear!"] The second reduction in expenditure has been in the cost of collecting the revenue. It costs us less to collect £94,250,000 of taxes than it cost our predecessors to collect £50,000,000. [Cheers.] It cost them £5 14s. 2d. per £100; and it costs us only £2 17s. 8d. per £100. And with all that diminution of the cost, smuggling, which was then a real profession, has become practically extinct. But the last head of all, although small, is perhaps the most interesting at the present time. Our monarchy was never so valuable to the country as it is at the present moment. [Loud cheers.] The personal influence of the Sovereign was never so great in European Courts. [Renewed cheers.]The Crown was never so necessary as now. when it unites an enormously extended Empire; and since 1836 the population and wealth of the United Kingdom itself have enormously increased. We hear sometimes grumblings at the cost of the monarchy, though we are not likely to hear them in the present year. [Cheers.] But no doubt they will be repeated some day. What are the facts as to the comparative cost of the monarchy in 1836 and now? When Her Majesty came to the Throne Parliament voted £385,000 a year to her Civil List, exclusive of Civil List pensions; and Parliament took in return Crown estates which then produced a net income of £203,000. The result was that the taxpayers of that day bore a charge on that account of £182,000. The same Crown
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  estates now produce a net income of £412,000, so that the taxpayers at the present moment make a net profit by that transaction of £27,000 a year. [Cheers.] But that is not all. Besides the Civil List we grant allowances to members of the Royal Family and we vote sums for the maintenance of the Royal palaces. These two items amounted in the year 1836, the first to £312,000 a year and the second to £40,000 a year. Last year they amounted, the first to £173,000 a year and the second to £39,000 a year, So that in 1836 the total cost of the monarchy to the taxpayers was £534,000 a year, and last year it was £185,000 a year. [Cheers.] We pride ourselves, and I think justly, on possessing the best monarchy in the world. [Cheers.] But I am sure we may add that we also have the cheapest. [Laughter.] I could go on through many another matter— through the increase of our mercantile marine, the extension of our railway system, the enormous increase of personal wealth, the increased investments of all classes in all, forms of industrial enterprise, the increased consumption per head of the population, both of the necessaries and the luxuries of life. Every comparison would bear testimony to the wonderful improvement in the material well-being of the people of the United Kingdom which has occurred since 1836. Our people, I think I may say, are better governed, are better protected, are better educated than they were. Wages have risen, houses are better and healthier, food and clothing are cheaper, and, perhaps as important as anything, crime has enormously diminished. ["Hear, hear!"] I feel that all classes and all persons may not equally have benefited, that much may remain yet to be done. But this, I think, may be said with fairness. At no previous period of the country's history in a similar number of years has so much real improvement and progress been made, and I am quite sure that no similar period can show a nobler reign. [Cheers.]

  ESTIMATED EXPENDITURE, 1897–8.
  I hope I have not trespassed too long— [loud cheers]—on the attention of the Committee in dealing with the past. I now turn to the future. According to

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  the original Estimates the total expenditure of the coming year may be put at £109,904,000. But of that £8,979,000 is the estimated amount which will go to the local taxation fund. Deducting this I have to provide for the original Estimates of £100,925,000, an excess over the original Estimates of last year of £878,000. There has been a slight decrease of £10,000 on the Consolidated Fund Services. Elsewhere there have been increases, the most important being an increase of £373,000 on the Civil Service Estimates, due principally to colonial and educational requirements, and an increase of £388,000 on the postal service, due to augmented business. But since the original Estimates were presented further Estimates have been presented of £140,000, nearly all for an increase of wages to those employed in the postal services. Then Parliament has passed the Voluntary Schools Act, which will add £616,000 to the educational Estimates of the year, and this House has given a Second Reading to the Necessitous Board Schools Bill, which will involve an additional charge of £110,000. The total increase on the original Estimates is, therefore, £866,000, making a total expenditure of £101,791,000.

  ESTIMATED REVENUE, 1897–8.
  Against that I anticipate the following revenue: From Customs, £21,500,000, an increase of £246,000 on last year. From Excise, £27,750,000, an increase of £290,000 on last year. Death duties produced last year £10,830,000. They must necessarily produce £832,000 less this year, because that sum will go to the local taxation fund. I have already explained to the Committee some of the reasons why we ought not to be too sanguine in our estimate. So we cannot put the yield of the death duties this year at more than £9,700,000. Stamps I put at £7,000,000, less than last year by £350,000; land and house 'tax at £2,400,000, a small falling-off of £30,000; income tax at £16,900,000, an increase of £250,000; Post Office at £12,210,000, an increase of £350,000; telegraphs at £2,960,000, an increase of £50,000; Crown lands at £415,000; Suez Canal shares, etc., at £750,000, an increase of £56,000, due to certain loans having been transferred
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  to this head from miscellaneous revenue, and also to the interest on the advance lately made to Egypt; and miscellaneous revenue at £1,775,000, a decrease of £322,000. That gives a, total revenue of £103,360,000, against a total expenditure of £101,791,000.

  SURPLUS:—NAVAL EXPENDITURE.
  That appears to show that I have a sum of £1,569,000 to dispose of. But I am afraid I have a, disappointment in store for those who may anticipate that this can be applied to the reduction of taxation. [Ironical Opposition cheers.] The Committee will remember that the original Army and Navy Estimates for the present year were practically identical with those of the preceding year. They were properly so framed at the time. But circumstances have changed. My right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty, when introducing the Navy Estimates, said that, if any abnormal programmes were actually put into execution which would seem to disturb the general amount of naval power belonging to different countries, Her Majesty's Government would think it their duty to reconsider their position as to the condition of the naval defences of the country. [Cheers.] The additional expenditure proposed elsewhere since my right hon. Friend made this statement has been very carefully considered, and Her Majesty's Government have decided, in conformity with, the policy announced by my right hon. Friend, that an addition of half a million should be made to the Navy Estimates. [Cheers.] A Supplementary Vote for this amount will be proposed, and the mode in which the sum will be appropriated will be explained by the First Lord of the Admiralty on the Shipbuilding Vote. But it must be clearly understood that a special addition like this to the expenditure on new construction in one year does not necessarily fix the normal expenditure for future years. Therefore I have to provide on that score, for £500,000.

  SOUTH AFRICAN GARRISON.
  Then Her Majesty's Government hare had to consider very carefully the responsibility of their position as the paramount Power in South Africa—[loud

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  cheers.]—and they have deemed it necessary to make a material increase in the Imperial garrison in that part of the world. [Cheers.] My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies will take an early opportunity of explaining the reasons for that decision—["hear, hear!"]—but I may shortly say that it has been taken in no aggressive spirit— ["hear, hear!"]—that we intend to fulfil to the utmost all our own obligations; but we expect others to do the same. [Cheers.] I have to reserve £200,000 on account of that, which will leave me £809,000 to deal with.

  POST OFFICE REFORMS.
  It is clear to the Committee that this sum is quite insufficient to make any reduction in what may be called general taxation. ["Hear, hear!"] To devote it—or such portion of it as can be spared from the normal small margin such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer is always entitled to—to the reduction of the income tax would be impossible, and to devote it to the reduction of the duty on any article of great popular consumption would only lead to the advantage of the dealers in that particular commodity. I do not think it ought to be devoted to anything but the general advantage of the public at large. ["Hear, hear!"] I have to remind the Committee that our revenue is derived, not only from taxes, but from payments by the public for services rendered to them, and if these payments are in any case higher than they ought to be the result is tantamount to excessive taxation. I call the attention of the Committee to the net receipts from Post Office revenue. ["Hear!"] The net estimated profit from the postal service in the current year, after allowing £139,000 for the increase in the payments to postal servants, amounts to £3,665,000. My noble Friend the Postmaster General desires to make certain postal reforms with a view to the development of the rural districts—[cheers.]—by a more generous treatment in postal matters, and to simplify regulations and benefit trade by removing unnecessary restrictions, and to some extent benefiting the writers of foreign and colonial as well as inland letters. He has placed before me proposals which I will shortly state to the Committee, as to which I wish, to say that the credit is
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  entirely due to him; that I have but accepted his recommendations and ask Parliament to provide the funds to meet them. In the first place, he proposes an important reform with regard to the delivery of letters in the United Kingdom. I dare say the Committee will hardly believe that at the present moment there are 16 millions of letters sent annually by the post in the United Kingdom which are not delivered by the Post Office to the persons to whom they are addressed, but are left at the Post Office or some other house of call until they are called for. ["Hear, hear!"] Even if we allow, as we may allow, for circulars and certain other communications which no one is very anxious to receive—[laughter]—yet the Post Office calculates that there are ten millions of real letters in that position every year—a number equal, I believe, to three-quarters of our total foreign correspondence. It does not require much thought to see what a hardship that must be upon persons living in rural districts, and especially upon the poor. [Cheers.] I do not think myself it ought to have lasted so long. ["Hear, hear!"] It has not lasted so long in France and Belgium. In both, those countries they have, I think, a regular delivery to every house. Our Post Office intend to bring about the same. It will take a considerable time, for they will have first to commence, no doubt, with a delivery in every little hamlet, but as fast as possible they will take steps to secure that there shall be a delivery—not necessarily every day, but still a regular delivery—at every house in the United Kingdom. [Cheers.] That will lead also to a multiplication of rural post offices and of pillar letter-boxes in order to provide for the same kind of services. Further, with regard to the delivery of telegrams—[cheers.]—it is proposed that telegrams shall be delivered free within three miles—["hear, hear!"] —and that for distances beyond that limit the charge shall be reduced to 3d. a mile from the office door. ["Hear, hear!"] It is proposed in the metropolis that there shall be free delivery of telegrams on every day of the week, and at all hours of the day and night. ["Hear, hear!" cries of "Oh!" and laughter.] I am afraid that hon. Members have not quite caught my meaning. [Laughter.] I have no desire to be woke up by a telegram at night. [Laughter.] But the

  1273
  present state of things is this—that on Sundays and at certain hours of the night some telegraph offices are temporarily closed, so that telegrams addressed to persons living at a considerable distance from the offices which are left open have to be paid for according to the distance from the office which is open, and not from the office which is closed. That is a public hardship in the metropolis, and therefore in future the delivery of telegrams will be free at all hours. ["Hear, hear!"] Complaint has been made on all sides as to the cost of the guarantee required for telegraph offices in rural districts. ["Hear, hear!"] The Postmaster General feels it impossible entirely to abolish that system, because he considers that it would result in unreasonable demands—perhaps, say, from wealthy persons with a shooting-box in the Highlands for a telegraph office for I heir own service. But my noble Friend proposes that the Post Office shall bear half the cost of the liability of any such guarantee, so that the locality, or the persons concerned, will only be liable to half the charge for which they are now liable; and, further, when the term of the guarantee has expired, my noble Friend proposes that the telegraph office to which the guarantee relates shall be continued, if it is of any service whatever to the public at large, without further guarantee. ["Hear, hear!"] Then a reduction is proposed in the parcel postage rate—["hear, hear!"] —for every subsequent pound beyond the first. The present charge is 1 ½d., amounting to a maximum of 1s. 6d. In future it is proposed that the charge shall be as now, 3d. for the first pound, and then 1d. per pound, up to a maximum of 1s. These matters may seem to the Committee small things in themselves. [Cries of "No!"] But after all, much of the comfort and discomfort of life, especially in the rural districts, is made up of small things—["hear, hear!"]—and when these changes are carried into effect many an inhabitant in the rural districts will feel that his lot is somewhat more equalised than it was with that of the more fortunate dwellers in the towns. The next change is one of a larger character, and perhaps more important to tradesmen than those I have mentioned. At the present moment samples and books travel by post at cheaper rates than ordinary letters. The postage of samples and
  1274
  books is, however, surrounded by the Post Office with the most minute restrictions, which are very troublesome to the public and to the Post Office officials themselves. The result of those restrictions is often absurd. Take, for instance, the sample post. A man may send a pair of gloves as a sample, but if the person to whom the gloves are sent buys them a penalty is incurred. A gardener may send cut flowers as a sample, but if they are bought a penalty is incurred. And yet flowers may be sent cheaply by parcel post to the purchaser in England from the south of France. With regard to the book post, I dare say the Committee think they know what a book is. [Laughter.] I thought I did until I studied the two and a-half pages of closely-printed matter in the Postal Guide, which explains what a book is in the eyes of the Post Office. [Laughter.] The Postmaster General proposes that in the future the sample post shall be entirely abolished; that the book post shall be abolished above 2oz., under which books will still go for a halfpenny, and that all articles, whether letters, samples, or books, under a maximum of 4oz., shall be sent for one penny —[cheers.]—with a further charge of one halfpenny for every 2oz. exceeding that amount. I believe that will be felt by the public as a very great advantage, as saving of infinite trouble, and also it will be a very great saving of trouble to the officials of the Post Office. I now come to the last point, which relates to foreign and colonial letters. I am afraid I have nothing to say which will satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury. [Laughter.] It must be remembered that the paying postal service is the home postal service; and even now foreign letters are carried at a loss. But it is proposed that in future there shall be a change made in the postage of foreign and colonial letters, which now amounts to 2½d. per half oz. The amount fixed for the postage under the rules of the Postal Union is 25 centimes, and 2½ d. was adopted by our postal authorities as the nearest expression in English coinage to 25 centimes, the result being that we have at present the dearest foreign postage of any important nation in the world. The rate cannot be altered without the assent of the Postal Union, which meets, I believe, next month at Washington, and at that

  1275
  meeting our representatives will propose that the rate of 2½ d. shall be reduced to 2d., which will, at any rate, place us on an equality with other nations. ["Hear, hear!"] It will take some time to bring all those changes into operation, especially the last change, which can not be brought into operation until January 1 next at the earliest. I calculate that the total cost of them, assuming that they will be brought into operation as soon as possible, will be £366,000 for the current year.

  FINAL BALANCE SHEET.
  Now, Sir, I have to state to the Committee my final balance-sheet, I have provided for a tax revenue of £85,250,000,and a revenue from non-tax sources, after making the necessary deductions in my previous Post Office Estimates, of £17,794,000—a total of £103,044,000. The expenditure will be £26,650,000 for the Consolidated Fund Services, £18,341,000 for the Army Services, £22,338,000 for the Naval Services, £20,895,000 for the Civil Services, £2,762,000 for Customs and Inland Revenue, £11,555,000 for Post Office Services, a total of £102,541,000, leaving me a margin of £503,000. Out of that margin I expect to have to provide for certain expenditure in connection with the improvement of education in Scotland, and also for technical education in Ireland, according to promises already made in this House; and, further, for an expenditure which I mention because I am sure the House will desire to be generous with regard to it—that is, for the entertainment of our foreign and colonial guests on the occasion of the Queen's Jubilee. [Cheers.] I leave myself, I think, not too large a margin for the current year. I have no doubt that I shall be told, as indeed I have been told, already, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire, that in each of two successive years I have had a very large surplus and have not reduced taxation. [Opposition cheers.] Well, Sir, I demur to that statement. I do not dwell on the small reduction of the land tax, or of the estate duties which Parliament sanctioned last year; I believe they were just, and I believe they have done good, but they were small in amount. Nor do I dwell upon the postal reforms
  1276
  which I have just announced, although I believe they will be of great benefit to the people—[cheers]—and that they will give relief which is in reality a reduction of taxation. But, Sir, I join issue with the right hon. Gentleman on the main item of his argument. He says that money has been squandered in the Agricultural Rating Act—[Opposition cheers] —and the corresponding Acts for Scotland and Ireland which were passed last year; in the Voluntary Schools Act, which, was passed this year; and in the Bill now passing through the House for the benefit of necessitous schools. I say that each and every one of those Measures are direct or indirect reductions of taxation. [Ministerial cheers.] What is it that is becoming the most oppressive burden now upon the people? It is not Imperial taxation; it is local taxation. ["Hear, hear!"] In the Measures which I have named we have attempted to relieve local taxation through Imperial revenues. I believe that has been a wiser policy than if we had attempted to devote the same amount which has been absorbed by those Measures to reducing any Imperial tax. [Ministerial cheers, and Opposition cries of "No!"] There are taxpayers who complain. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton made an eloquent appeal last year on behalf of the payers of income tax. There are persons in the country to whom the income tax is odious, although I believe they are a decreasing number. I had a correspondent who wrote from Scotland and told me that in his opinion the income tax was a device of the evil one to lead us into temptation, that it was opposed alike to Christianity and morality—[laughter]— and that it could not be defended by any believer in a future state. [Renewed laughter.] I am happy to say that he went on to inform me that he had resisted the temptation to cheat the revenue. Another correspondent believed that a tax of 10s. per horse on pleasure horses would enable me to make a sensible reduction in the income tax. There are other persons with similar delusions. I had one correspondent who went even beyond the right hon. Gentleman opposite in his admiration of death duties, for to his mind all tombstones and memorial tablets were fulsome and useless luxuries, which were as impious as they

  1277
  were foolish. I had another correspondent who thought a large revenue could be raised by making bachelors over 25 years of age liable to income tax if their incomes were over £80 a year, because they only spent their money in injuring themselves. [Loud laughter.] And, finally, almost everybody who does not ride a bicycle thinks that an enormous reduction might be made in the taxation which particularly presses upon himself if a small tax were placed on those who do ride bicycles. Sir, I have resisted all these temptations for altering our system of taxation. I hope that some day it may be possible to make a sensible reduction in the income tax— ["hear, hear!"]—but I do not, think that the reduction ought to be made by transferring the burden to other shoulders. I hope in quieter times than these it may be possible to make it by a real reduction in our expenditure. [Cheers.] I do not think it wise to make small changes in our system of taxation which, even if defensible in themselves, yet by their very novelty would harass and disturb the complex and delicate fabric of our trade. Great changes in our fiscal system will sometimes be necessary. [Sir HOWARD VINCENT: "Hear, hear!" and laughter.] If after full inquiry it is found that our present fiscal system docs real injustice to Scotland and to Ireland, a great change will be necessary then. But, Sir, at the present moment, with increasing comfort among the people, with wealth more widely diffused, with Imperial taxation more easily borne than at any previous period of our history, I do not think it is a time for change, [Cheers.] So far as I can see, I may well be content if it can be said that, at any rate, I have done nothing to impede, and, I hope, a trifle to assist, the progress of the country in that direction which we all desire. [Loud cheers.]— The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution for the reimposition of the duty on tea.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, who on rising was received with loud Oppositon cheers, said: I feel it would be presumptuous on my part to offer congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman on the ability, the clearness, and the satisfactory character of the statement he has made. The capacities of the right hon. Gentleman are too
  1278
  well known to this House to require any compliment of that description. One of these days he may acquire in the history of this country the addition of the adjective which formerly belonged to a Chancellor of the Exchequer who went by the name of "Prosperity Robinson." [Laughter.] I shall not repeat to the right hon. Gentleman the lecture which he addressed to mo last year upon the great offence committed by a Chancellor of the Exchequer who had a surplus beyond his expectation. He told me that it was no feather in the cap of any Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the triumph of a Chancellor of the Exchequer was when the Exchequer receipts agreed with his Estimates; he said that he was profiting by my miscalculation, and that he hoped that for once and only for once the authorities of the revenue had proved fallible guides. Sir, I am very glad they have proved this year again to be fallible guides. I am very glad indeed that the right hon. Gentleman has made a, miscalculation in having an excess of revenue of several millions above his Estimates, and that he will dispense with that feather in his cap which he said was the highest honour to which a Chancellor of the Exchequer could aspire. We must all rejoice in these evidences of the growing prosperity of the country, and in every department I hope the lesson will be taken to heart. Although I sometimes disagree with the right hon. Gentleman, in the application of his principles, I always concur and find myself in absolute agreement with the financial principles which he lays down. I regret very much that the hon. Member for Sheffield arrived too late to receive instruction from the Chancellor of the Exchequer—[laugher]—but I hope he will spend to-morrow in rending several times over the doctrine which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has so wisely and well laid down to-day, especially that part addressed to the hon. Member. The right hon. Gentleman took some exception to my having claimed to have supplied him to a certain extent with this bountiful revenue of which he has had the disposal, and he said that at all events the surplus for this year—though he pleaded in extenuation that his offspring was only a little one—[laughter]—was entirely due to himself and not at all to me. But then he proceeded to say that the Death Duties

  1279
  had produced considerably more than he expected. Well, so they did; they gave him a million more than he calculated for, and therefore I think I had some right to the claim that I had contributed to his prosperity. The fact is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is only a slow, and as yet, I am sorry to say, an imperfect convert to the success of the Death Duties. He very candidly said he was surprised last year that they had yielded so much as they had done. He has given us an interesting account of the working of the Death Duties. But there is a more apt pupil in the study of the death duties than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that is my predecessor, now the First Lord of the Admiralty, who, not in a Budget speech, but in an after-dinner oration, confessed his complete conversion to the merits of the Death Duties. I read with great satisfaction this statement of the right hon. Gentleman. He said: —
  "When I see the proceeds of some of these taxes which have been imposed, and their effect. I endeavour to gauge that effect as regards their ability to meet certain items of naval expenditure, and when the changes and chances of this mortal life bring millionaires, and more than millionaires, under the operation of these duties I cannot resist the temptation of translating the cheques poured into that till over which Sir Alfred Milner lately presided into naval defence. When a cheque for £100,000 is paid into the Revenue by more than a millionaire, I say that represents two torpedo boats, or if it is a smaller sum, that represents a most effective gunboat."
  This is the gentleman who in 1894, when the Death Duties were proposed to meet a great and increased demand for naval expenditure, offered to them at every stage the most violent and most bitter opposition. He predicted every sort of financial disaster from these unsound principles and their application He opposed that tax and every other proposal to meet the exigencies of the country, and now he counts up the gains derived from this iniquitous taxation and ends in this way: —
  "More seriously I look to the smoothness with which the Inland Revenue is collected, and I think how wisely, on the whole, the taxes have been imposed and with what judgment they have been collected. Where should we be in asking for these colossal funds if they could not be provided without undue pressure on the taxpayer and if they gall on the shoulders of those who had to bear them?"
  1280
  That is the testimony of the right hon. Gentleman to the effect of the Death Duties. But, instead of speaking in the exhilaration of an after-dinner oration, he ought to have made in his place in this House, in a costume which would have become him, and in which we should have been delighted to have seen him, the declaration—
  "Where should we have been if, in asking for these colossal funds, they could not be provided without undue pressure on the taxpayer, and if they gall on the shoulders of those who have to bear them?"
  Was there ever greater testimony to the soundness of the principles which the right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to defeat three years ago? The right hon. Gentleman has testified also to the injustice of some of the apprehensions that were entertained at that time. What was the argument specially coming from the landed interest? They said: "You are ruining the landed interest; they cannot find the money to pay these Death Duties;" and the consequence was a long period of instalments was allowed in order to make the facilities for payment greater. Now, how has it turned out? So far from the pressure being undue, and so far from the instalments being necessary, people find it more convenient to pay the Death Duties at once. Is not that testimony to the fact stated by the First Lord of the Admiralty that these funds have been provided without undue pressure on the taxpayer, and do not gall the shoulders of those who have to pay them? [Opposition cheers.] After all we have heard, and what we hear every day of the moans of the Duke of Devonshire and others as to the injury and destruction of their class, let us see what that class pays. The right hon. Gentleman says the sum contributed out of land is £800,000.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: £843,000.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: Yes, but what is given back to the landowners? You have given them back £1,300,000. [Opposition cheers and laughter.] That is the manner in which you have dealt with the landed interest. The Chancellor of the Exchequer just now said that this was all done in relief of rates. Yes, Sir, but of whose rates? Not the rates of

  1281
  the whole country, not the rates of all classes, not the rates of the classes who suffer most from the rates and who are the dwellers in towns. The complaint we have made is not that you have reduced the rates, but that you have reduced them in the most unfair and partial manner, and have given relief where the rates are lightest and none where they are heaviest, and that in the very year when the right hon. Gentleman, in the statement he has made, which we all recognise with satisfaction, says that the landed interest has had the advantage of improved prices and improved profits. I listened with great interest and satisfaction to the admirable review which the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave of the financial condition of this country as it was at the commencement of the auspicious reign of the Queen, and what it is to-day. Yes, and there was one incident in that review the most important of all. It was the reform—yet incomplete, I hope and believe—of the monstrous injustice by which previously to that period the wholes or almost the whole of the taxation of the country was placed on the poor and consumer—the direct taxation which fell on the wealthier class was only one-fourth of the taxation of the country, and three-fourths were borne by the consuming class. If there is anything we have learnt from that important investigation of the Irish Commission it is this—that indirect taxation is most unjust in its incidence because it fell on those least able to bear it, and that these reforms, associated in the main with the great names of Peel and Gladstone, which increased direct taxation and reduced indirect taxation, were the keystone of the prosperity of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke. But what was the cause of those reforms? The cause was the Reform Bill of 1832, which put power into the hands of the people. So long as power remained in the hands of those whose interest was identified with indirect taxation as against direct taxation, you had direct taxation at the lowest possible point, and indirect taxation at the highest. It is only since the people have had real control of the taxation of the country that it has been possible to establish a just system of taxation. That is the practical lesson which is to be learned
  1282
  from the review the right hon. Gentleman has placed before us. I must again repeat what I have said elsewhere, and the right hon. Gentleman has alluded to it, that I think it is deeply to be deplored that in two successive years of a great surplus there has been no material relief of taxation. The right hon. Gentleman claims a grant to the landed interest of a sum of £2,000,000, and which he says he estimated at £1,950,000. I will give him the benefit of the difference of £50,000. What I desire is a reduction of taxation which would be for the benefit of all classes and not of one; and what I would point out is that, but for gifts of this description, whether to the landed interest or to a particular religious denomination to whom he has made a grant under the Voluntary Schools Bill, the right hon. Gentleman must have had a surplus, according to the account he gives to-day, of £2,000,000. Owing to them, and the £1,500,000 of which he spoke as disposable surplus until he came to dispose of it in military operations, he would have had between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 for the reduction of taxation with which he might have reduced direct and indirect taxation. I will not go further into that matter now, following the example of my great predecessor, Mr. Gladstone. ["Hear, hear!"] He always held that on the first night of the Budget it was not wise to go into the details of the financial operations. But there is one thing to which I must advert, and that is what I call the fly in the pot of ointment of the right hon. Gentleman. He has announced as one of his reasons why the surplus he had at his disposal is to be melted down that a sum of several hundred thousand pounds is to be provided for the support of a war policy in South Africa. [Opposition cheers.] Yes, I know the right hon. Gentleman is not in favour of a war polity in South Africa. But the Minister responsible for the colonies has made it sufficiently apparent that this is a war policy. In every utterance of his during the last few months there is no doubt he has been endeavouring to exasperate sentiment in that country—[Ministerial cries of "Oh, oh!" and Opposition cheers]—and to produce what, thank God, he has failed in producing—a racial war. [Renewed Opposition cheers.]

  1283
  Yea, Sir; but his policy has been defeated. It has been defeated by the good sense and good feeling of the people of Cape Colony, and the vote taken the other day was a vote of condemnation of this war policy. That vote was in support of a peace policy, and by a majority, I am happy to say, the Cape Government rejected the policy which is represented by these additional estimates. [At this point Mr. CHAMBERLAIN entered the House and took his seat on the Treasury Bench amidst loud Ministerial cheers.] I rejoice in that majority, and I repeat in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman that it was the triumph of the peace party in South Africa. It was the defeat of an attempt to get up this ill-feeling, utterly unjustifiable, utterly without foundation, and it was a declaration on the part of the majority of the people of Cape Colony and of the Government of the Cape that they would seek the arrangement of all differences which might exist between them and the Government of the Transvaal by peaceable and not by warlike operations. [Cheers.] Therefore, when we are asked to refuse the reduction of the taxation of the people in order that we may contribute money to promote aggressive and warlike operations in South Africa— [loud Ministerial cries of "Oh!"]—we shall oppose the most determined resistance; and I deeply regret that in this Budget, which in other respects might have been regarded as a satisfactory and prosperous Budget, we should be introduced to a, declaration that the resources of this country and the means by which the taxation of this people might have been reduced should be applied to purposes which, in my opinion, are utterly unjustifiable— [Ministerial laughter and Opposition cheers]—which are rejected by the people of the Cape Colony, which are rejected by the Government of the Cape Colony—and I venture to say that the exhibition of this spirit, is one of the most injurious things in connection with the Empire that has yet been proposed in the House of Commons. [Opposition cheers.] It might have been dangerous. I am happy to say it is not dangerous now; the vote in the Assembly of the Cape Colony has disposed of that. It is utterly impossible for any Party or any Minister to enforce upon
  1284
  the people of the Cape the spirit of hostility and aggression which they themselves are unwilling to accept. In regard to this part of the Budget I am sorry to tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, though I do not impute to him a desire to proceed in any spirit of this description, if he is going to make proposals of that character, inspired by that spirit, and likely to have that effect, I am afraid he must count upon great resistance on the part of those who desire peace in South Africa as they desire it in the rest of the Empire.
  THIS SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN), who was received with loud Ministerial cheers, said: I certainly did not expect to intervene in this Debate, and it is difficult for me to justify the South African policy of the Government on the occasion of the introduction of the Budget. But it has been made absolutely necessary for me to say a few words, at all events, in reference to the pernicious and dangerous language—[loud Ministerial cheers]—unpatriotic in the highest degree—[renewed cheering]—embarrassing to the Government, and injurious to the cause of peace—which has just fallen from the right hon. Gentleman. [Cheers.] Sir, I am sorry I did not hear the opening words in which he referred to this subject; but, as I understand, the right hon. Gentleman accuses the Government of being about to embark or having embarked upon what he calls an aggressive and warlike policy, involving warlike operations in South, Africa, and he says that this war policy has been rejected by the Cape Government and people. Sir, both these statements are absolutely inaccurate. [Ministerial cheers.] The policy of the Government in South Africa is exactly the same now as it has been from the first. Their objects are the same. The only thing that has changed, to a certain extent, are the circumstances. The circumstances in South Africa have changed to some extent. The policy of the Government remains the same, and that policy of the Government is to maintain its obligations, not to engage in any aggressive operations whatsoever; not to attack the independence of a State which, even in diplomatic language, can be termed a friendly State, but to maintain its own rights and the rights of the nation. [Loud

  1285
  Ministerial cheers.] I hoped that this policy would continue to be, as it has hitherto been, a non-Party policy, supported from all sides of the House. That hope has altogether disappeared in face of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman —[cheers]—and now I challenge him and his Party to raise the issue. [Loud Ministerial cheers.] Let us know where we are. [Ministerial cheers and Opposition cries of "Crewe."] Let us know at the earliest possible date upon what point they are prepared to take issue with us. [Ministerial cheers.] Are they prepared to take issue with us when we say that, while we observe our own obligations, we intend that the obligations which are held towards us shall also be maintained? [Cheers.] What is it that is now in question between us and the Government of the Transvaal? It is not any interference on our part in the internal affairs of the Transvaal; not any attack by us upon the Convention to which the Transvaal willingly assented. The difference between us arises from the fact that on more than one occasion the Transvaal Government have broken the Convention, and we are calling upon them in friendly and conciliatory terms to give us satisfaction. And this is the opportunity the right hon. Gentleman takes to tell them in effect that they are not to give us satisfaction; to tell them in effect it is we who are aggressive—[cheers]—that it is we who have taken the initiative, and that they will have the support of the Government and the people of Cape Colony, because that is his second statement. [Cheers.] Upon what does he base that? I suppose upon the telegrams, and he must have been much more acute than I am if he understands entirely their importance and meaning. What I see in those telegrams is that the Cape Parliament practically unanimously has declared that they are determined that the obligations on both sides shall be observed.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: Peaceably.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: It is desirable that peace should be preserved. We hold that as strongly as the right hon. Gentleman, but we do not hold that peace can be preserved by telling the Transvaal they can break their obligations with impunity. [Cheers.] That is practically the policy which the right hon. Gentleman has expounded. [Loud Ministerial cheers.] I defy him to point to anything
  1286
  in the Dispatches before the House— which are open for discussion—that, can, by any strained interpretation, be assumed to be in any way provocative to the Transvaal. [Cheers.] We have called their attention in conciliatory language to the breaches of the Convention which have taken place. We have assumed that they would be willing to meet our demands for satisfaction, and while the matter is still pending, and under the consideration of the Transvaal Government, the right hon. Gentleman takes this opportunity of saying we are pursuing an aggressive policy, and shall not have his support.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: You have come for £200,000. [Opposition cheers.]
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: What nonsense! [Loud Ministerial cheers.] We come for £200,000 after we know, and the right hon. Gentleman knows, that the Transvaal has come for a million—for hundreds and hundreds of thousands. [Cheers and Opposition cries of "Where!"] The Transvaal has been arming to the knowledge of the House and of everybody—[An HON. MEMBER: "What about the raid?"]—to an extent which is absolutely unjustifiable by any ordinary policy of defence. We have not complained, we have not thought it consistent with our dignity to make any complaint whatsoever. The result of that has been that at the present moment the armaments of the Transvaal are altogether disproportionate to the defensive resources of our possessions in South Africa. Our forces in South Africa were established there and the numbers were settled at a time when these enormous armaments had not even been thought of. Now, after an amount of very considerably more than a million of money has already been expended, when armaments are still going on, when batteries of artillery, Maxim guns, millions of rounds of ammunition, and hundreds of thousands of rifles have been to our knowledge imported into the Transvaal, ordered from foreign countries and from this country—under these circumstances what is this country to do.? Is it an aggressive or a warlike operation if we think it necessary to reinforce our garrison at the Cape and to bring it up to something nearer a fair proportion in regard to those operations to which I have referred? [Cheers.]

  1287
  And yet, Sir, it is under these circumstances, when this extremely modest demand is made for a sum which will be sufficient to send a brigade of artillery and an additional regiment to the Cape, that the right hon. Gentleman comes down here and in turgid language talks about an aggressive and warlike policy which the feeling of the Cape will entirely repudiate. [Ministerial cheers.] Sir, I do not believe the feeling of the Cape will repudiate it in the least. I believe, on the contrary, the feeling of every loyal British subject at the Cape will be one of gratitude and satisfaction that Her Majesty's Government understand and recognise their position as the representatives of the paramount Power, and that they are determined, in words that I have used again and again, to maintain in their integrity all the rights which we have under the Convention. [Loud Ministerial cheers.]
  MR. COURTENAY WARNERasked if there was to be a permanent strengthening of the garrison at the Cape?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: It is only intended at the present moment to increase the regular garrison in South Africa by a brigade of artillery—three batteries, that is—and an additional regiment.
  MR. WARNERsaid he considered that £200,000 would be a great deal more than enough for taking such, a number of troops from England and keeping them at the Cape for a few months. If it was an increase of the Army that would account for it, but if it was merely a transfer of troops from England to the Cape then this was a larger sum than was required for that purpose.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Of course, I am not responsible for the Estimate. That is an estimate for the transfer of that force to the Cape, and for maintaining them there. I regard it as substantially and practically a permanent increase of the garrison.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESexpressed surprise at the tone of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition with regard to this miserable sum of £200,000. If the right hon. Gentleman had read the last Blue-book concerning affairs in South Africa, as he had done, he thought he would have been struck, as he had been struck, by
  1288
  the repeated occasions on which the Colonial Secretary had condoned and forgiven repeated undoubted breaches of the Convention by the Transvaal. ["Hear, hear!"] Though treaties had been signed and completed and ratified in direct breach of that Convention, the Colonial Secretary had nevertheless advised Her Majesty to agree to those treaties.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: The hon. Gentleman has omitted to observe, perhaps, that I am a member of the South African Committee, and I have heard the Colonial Secretary there. [Opposition cheers and Ministerial laughter.]
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESfailed to observe the relevance of that remark— [cheers]—and suggested that perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would pay even so humble a Member as himself the compliment of listening to him in silence. [Opposition, laughter.] He repeated that it was impossible to read that Blue-book without being struck with the patience exhibited by the Colonial Secretary in face of repeated breaches of the Convention undertaken, he did not hesitate to say, for the purpose of provocation to this country. It was written in every line of the Dispatches which reached them from the Transvaal that these breaches were openly and avowedly made for the very purpose of provoking a strong feeling of irritation in this country, and when their attention was called to the breaches they dealt with the matter with the utmost insolence. That was the only word that could possibly be used. ["Hear, hear!"] He yielded to no one in that House in the feeling he had that it would be a most tremendous misfortune for this country to be engaged in a war with the Transvaal. [Opposition cheers.] He was most profoundly convinced that such a war could lead to no good result either for the Transvaal itself or for this country, and he earnestly trusted the Colonial Secretary might be able to avoid anything even approaching such a disastrous termination to the correspondence—and, if he might use the word, the disputes—that had been going on between the Colonial Office and the Transvaal up to this time. ["Hear, hear!"] He thought the Colonial Secretary might be able to avoid war; and, in his opinion, if any man could avoid it—if any man were competent to

  1289
  deal with such difficult subjects us Dutch statesmen under Boer control—it was the right hon. Gentleman below him. [Cheers.] But undoubtedly his difficulties were not diminished, but very largely increased, by such speeches as that which they had just heard— [cheers]—by a, speech announcing to the Boers that, right or wrong, they should have the support of Gentlemen who sat on that side of the House—[Opposition cries of "Oh!" and Ministerial cheers ]—and that, whatever happened, they would not want friends to denounce the Government of this country, even if they were driven into a struggle which they firmly intended to avoid if it were at all possible. [Cheers.] That was a digression—[laughter]—into which he was tempted by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He came now to the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Here again, he must say, the right hon. Gentleman opposite showed a certain want of appreciation. As to the First Lord of the Admiralty, he delivered him into the hands of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. [Laughter.] He would rather see that right hon. Gentleman at the Admiralty than at the Exchequer, because he could not forget that he was a first-class sailor, but he did not think he was anything like so good a financier, especially from the point of view of the Death Duties. He could not forget that it was the right hon. Gentleman who exaggerated that monstrous assumption, which was enshrined in the Finance Act, that a man was dead three months before he died. That was Mr. Gladstone's assumption, but the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty exaggerated it into twelve months. He could not forgive him that—he should never forgive him. [Laughter.] Now with regard to the Death Duties themselves. He had endured the taunts of the right hon. Gentleman opposite in silence and in patience, because he knew his day would come. [Laughter.] He predicted evasions; the right hon. Gentleman opposite ridiculed them. There had been, as the right hon. Gentleman knew too well, many evasions. There had been some evasions in which he himself could scarcely have believed had they not been proved before him by irrefutable evidence—evasions to which, per-
  1290
  haps, the attention of the House would subsequently be called, and which, he ventured to think, would provoke amazement in the breasts of hon. Gentlemen opposite. He had always predicted that one effect of this Act would be to reduce the amount of capital brought into charge under the Finance Act of 1894. What had occurred? In their Report for last year, 1895–6, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue said: —
  "In our Report of last year we called attention to the great falling off in the amount of 'personalty situate in the United Kingdom passing by will or intestacy,' whether subject to Estate Duty or Probate Duty. The amount of such property in 1894–5 was only £141,421,000, as compared with £159,688,000 in 1893–4. At the same time we combated the notion that this falling off was due mainly to evasion of the duty consequent upon the higher rates imposed by the Finance Act of 1894. The correctness of our contention appears to be borne out by the results of the past year, in which the amount of personalty of this description has once more risen to £162,569,000, being £21,148,000 in excess of 1894–5, and £2,881,000 in excess of 1893–4."
  And then they went on to say they were convinced that evasion was carried on, and that it would be carried on. Mark the result of the present year as shown by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Whereas this personalty in 1891 was £190,000,000; in 1892, £160,000,000; and in 1893, £159,500,000: in 1894–5, as the very first result of the Finance Act, it fell to £141,400,000; in 1895–6 it did rise to £163,500,000, but in this year the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it had again fallen by £10,000,000 or to £153,000,000. This was a most pregnant fact, and he warned the Committee that that diminution had not stopped. On the contrary, it would go on increasing. He never expected it to reach to a very great height at this particular time. He expected it to reach to its greatest height at the end of the century. He confidently expected that at the beginning of the next century it would be found that there had been a most serious diminution of revenue under the head of Death Duties, and at the same time a most serious increase of the hardships and injustices inflicted under that Act. Then the moment would have arrived for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to stand at that Table and call for a repeal of that Act and a return to the proper principles of taxation. He would like to

  1291
  give four sets of figures in corroboration mid amplification of his conjecture that personalty under the Finance Act was likely to decrease year by year. He moved for and obtained a most valuable Return, showing the amount of personalty assessed in the last five years under seven distinct heads. In 1891–2, the influenza year, the total amount of personalty assessed under all heads was £410,000,000; in 1892–3, it was £367,000,000; in 1893–4, it was £350,000,000; in 1894–5, the first year of the Finance Act, it fell to £280,500,000; and in 1895–6, it fell to £273,700,000. What it would be for 1896–7 he did not know, but he ventured to predict a still further decrease. He must explain that this was the total amount of personalty assessed under every head, and some of it assessed twice or three times over. It did not represent the property. The sums he had named represented far more than the property which was assessed. It represented the total amount of personalty in each year on which they were enabled to assess duty, and consequently he claimed it as a fair figure for comparison between one year and another. The remarkable diminutions from year to year that had taken place since the passing of the Finance Act were such as to make even the right hon. Gentleman opposite reflect and, perhaps, in time, would cause him even to repent. The Chancellor of the Exchequer gave them three reasons why the Death Duties did not suffer so much last year as he had expected. There was a fourth reason, which he ventured to think was perhaps the greatest reason of all. That was the continued prevalence of high prices. The high prices of what were called "gilt-edged" securities had continued to a very large extent this year, but the moment there was a fall in those securities they would have a more than proportionate fall in such duties as the Death Duties, for the reason that those duties were more especially high upon the holders of these "gilt-edged" securities. Under the old system of death duties there was nothing so certain as that the estimate would be verified, or nearly so; but since the passing of the Finance Act a condition of the most absolute uncertainty had been created. There was a mistake in the Estimate of one and a half
  1292
  million last year, and of one million this year. Such a thing never occurred before.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: The hon. Member forgets the Succession Duty of 1853,which never produced one-half what is was expected to produce. With regard to the Death Duty of 1894 it was estimated to produce one million in the first year, and it produced that sum within a few thousand pounds. It was estimated to produce ultimately four millions a year, and it has produced that sum almost exactly in both succeeding years. [Cheers.]
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid the right hon. Gentleman could not ride off in that way. He began to suspect that the right hon. Gentleman was the author of a letter in The Times signed "H." [Laughter.] There was an accuracy of expression and at the same time an inaccuracy of suggestion in that letter which, at the time, made him think it might have been written by the right hon. Gentleman. He was now confirmed in that opinion. [Laughter.] In two years a mistake had been made in the Estimate.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: Not by me.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid he was dealing with the years, not with the personages, and he asserted that the uncertainty that had attended these duties was most remarkable. He observed in the letter signed "H." the remark that, because the Death Duties last year were 14 millions, and this year nearly 14 millions, that showed how near an approximation it was to the original estimate. But the original estimate was not for this year or for last year; it was an estimate of the final outcome of the Death Duties. He was profoundly convinced that the Finance Act was calculated to produce year by year increasing uncertainties in the estimates of revenue as compared with the actual yield; and that when it came into full operation the amount derived would not be the 14 millions which the right hon. Gentleman expected, but a very much smaller sum, while the feeling of hardship entertained would be such as to force the House to reconsider what he could not but think an unfortunate fiscal change. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR CHARLES DILKEexpressed regret at the Chancellor of the Exchequer's allusion to the position occupied by the Crown lands in reference to the taxation and finance of the country. It was a return to the

  1293
  high Tory view which he thought had become extinct of recent years. The right hon. Gentleman alluded to the payments in respect of agricultural rating having been considerably less than the estimate made by the Local Government Board. But the Local Government Board in issuing their Order acted under the instructions of the Treasury, whose assent was necessary under the Act. By the limit which was, fixed the great mass of the small freeholders of the country were defrauded of the advantages which Parliament intended to give them. In a parish in his own constituency, where the rates were now 8s. 6d., and in the next half-year would be 9s. in the pound, there were 300 small freeholders who had, through the interposition of the Treasury in the preparation of the Local Government Board circular, been deprived of the benefits of the Rating Act. With regard to the Post Office reforms, he was sorry the right hon. Gentleman had said nothing with regard to the labour side of the Post Office problem. ["Hear, hear!"] The Post Office was the largest employer of direct labour in the world, and although there had been some improvement in recent years, yet the Post Office was far from occupying the position of a model employer. The effect of the proposed reforms would be that an additional weight would have to be carried in the rural districts. At the present time auxiliary postmen had to make long rounds in the early hours of winter mornings, starting with a weight of 35lb. He hoped that the Government in effecting their reforms would consider in a liberal spirit the services of these men. ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I omitted to say that a considerable part of the sum I estimated will go in improving the position of the rural postmen, and undoubtedly some will go in providing carts where these are needed. [Cheers.]
  SIR C. DILKEsaid he was glad to have elicited that statement. With regard to the additional £200,000 to be spent in respect of our position as paramount Power in South Africa, he could not take the extremely serious view of that proposal that was taken by either the Leader of the Opposition or the Member for King's Lynn. If there was the remotest intention in the mind of the Government
  1294
  to embark on a war in South Africa, £200,000 would be merely a ridiculous item of expenditure. He believed that the South African Republic in the course of the year just expired had spent on warlike stores alone at least twice that sum. In face of that fact they would exaggerate if they were to anticipate that the Government intended war in South Africa. But, if in the minds of heated and excited writers in the Press there was any notion of the kind, they ought to be warned in time against the suggestion that this country would be likely to engage in a war which would be so profoundly unpopular as a war in South Africa for any but a very grave cause. Of course, if the South African Republic desired to drive this country into war there were steps which they might conceivably take which would render war between the two countries inevitable, but he felt persuaded that no such step would be taken by the Republic. Upon anything like a doubtful or confused issue such a war would be one of great unpopularity, and one in which the sympathies of all the Powers in the world would be opposed to this country. All he hoped was that Her Majesty's Government would by the prudence of their language—[Opposition cheers]—abstain, not in the interests of Party, but of the whole country, from giving the smallest colour or support to those excited utterances which occasionally found their place in the Press, and on the part of some of their less weighty supporters.[Cheers.] With regard to the £500,000 for the Navy, he was not able to look upon that provision as necessitated by the fresh events to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred. He had always held that our Navy should be predominant, not only over the two Powers usually named, but over other Powers besides. As he was one of those who found fault with the shipbuilding programme of the year on the ground of its insufficiency, he cordially supported and approved of the proposed expenditure of an additional amount. He only wished the sum proposed had been larger.
  MR. JAMES LOWTHERexpressed his regret at hearing the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his review of the last 60 years, rehearse almost word for word one of the stalest

  1295
  leaflets of the Cobden Club. [Laughter.] His right hon. Friend did not even incidentally refer to the introduction of steam and electricity and its applications, and he omitted to take cognisance of the fact that other countries which pursued a fiscal system precisely the opposite of our own had made relatively far greater progress. The Chancellor of the Exchequer talked of 700 millions sterling as representing the trade of this country. His right hon. Friend stepped very lightly over the fact that of that sum 441 millions consisted of imports—[Opposition cheers]—and only 240 millions of exports. In other words, we were 200 millions annually to the bad. [Laughter.] The First Lord of the Treasury himself must have seen, almost within the limits of his own constituency, mills being pulled down and the plant carted bodily to other countries. That meant that British capital was expended no longer in paying wages to British artisans, but to foreigners. He hoped this "redress of the balance," to which the First Lord of the Treasury referred in speeches outside, would be duly appreciated by the wage-earners of this country. The fact was no person who looked dispassionately at our financial position could say we were safe in going on piling expenditure on the top of expenditure, and continually relying exclusively upon our existing fiscal system. Did the Chancellor of the Exchequer think that expenditure in the future would be curtailed? He thought that it would rather be in the direction of expansion. And was it proposed in this event to add to the already high income tax? The Death Duties were not capable of expansion, and therefore the income tax was the only resource of a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He should like to see recourse had to sources of revenue which would provide money and give a stimulus to some of the trades and industries of the country. It was all very well to say that the working classes would not submit to any tax on the necessaries of life, but 4½ millions were already levied on articles which were not produced at home. From a financial point of view, these 4½ millions would be easily made up by a recurrence to a sounder system of finance. A duty of 2s. on corn would produce more than that now raised by the taxes on tea, coffee, cocoa, chicory,
  1296
  and dried fruits. Could any hon. Member say that the working classes would be injured by a transfer of these taxes from the one commodity to the other? This system of depending practically on one source of revenue for any further demands which might be made on the Exchequer was dangerous in the extreme, and he should not hesitate to urge at any time the desirableness of establishing a sounder system of finance.
  MR. LEONARD COURTNEYcould not join in the pathetic remonstrance of his right hon. Friend. He did not find it to be a bad thing that we, by the exportation of 250 millions' worth of commodities should be able to get back 480 millions. It was rather a good bargain, and was a benefit to the wage-earners at home. Nor did he see that his right hon. Friend was justified in asserting that no one wanted to invest capital in this country. It was difficult to reconcile that statement with the fact that the rate of interest was lower in this country than in any other country. As to the suggestion that the working classes would gain by the imposition of a 2s. duty on corn, and a possible abolition of the duty on tea, coffee, and cocoa, he should like to see the working man who would accept the change. Personally he had not met him. He hoped that the greatest attention would be paid to the interesting comparison of the Chancellor of the Exchequer between the beginning of Her Majesty's reign and the finances of today. The revenue then was 53 millions, and the expenditure 52 millions. Now the expenditure was 104 millions. How was that expenditure allotted? Of the 52 millions at the beginning of the reign, 29 millions went in the involuntary charge of interest and cost of management of the debt; only 16 millions went to the Army and the Navy. [Cheers.] Now out of 104 millions something like 16 millions went to the cost of the interest and management of the debt, whereas the cost of the Army and Navy had risen from 16 millions to 42 millions, India being left out of account. In addition to that, the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed out of the surplus to allot another half-million to the Navy. He held most strongly the necessity of upholding the Navy, and that it should

  1297
  be competent to meet any enemy or combination of enemies we had reasonably to encounter. He asked the Government and the right hon. Gentleman who had preceded them, however, whether there was no alternative polity possible save that of copying and emulating foreign Powers in the increase of our naval and military arms. As the late Lord Beaconsfield said years ago, the expenditure of a Government was the measure of its policy. A Government that developed a policy of mistrust would beget and multiply mistrust. Among civilised Powers there ought to be some method of negotiating and coming to agreement, and the first step to take to make that possible was to banish the sense of mistrust from one's mind. If we were not so suspected we might find other Powers ready to enter into satisfactory negotiations with us. Could we review the policy of Governments in recent years and read the language of Ministers of the Crown—he did not care on what side they were—and compare their policy and language with the policy and language of Ministers of the Crown at the beginning of the reign, without seeing that there had been a change for the worse, and that we were now constantly "biting our thumbs" at our neighbours, instead of cultivating friendly relations with them? Lord Salisbury was himself as cleanhanded in this matter as any man who had been engaged in public, affairs for many years past, but there appeared to be a peaceful spirit running through that Legislature and the country, encouraged, he was sorry to say, by a similar spirit abroad, which was the justification and excuse for it here; and the way to meet that spirit abroad was to try to get rid of it ourselves. In the early part of the reign wiser and really more patriotic policy prevailed. It was this policy of mistrust —this policy of "biting our thumbs" at those with whom we happened for the moment not to be in cordial relations— which filled his mind with the greatest anxiety. With reference to the proposed expenditure of £200,000—in connection with which proposal they had had so deplorable a scene earlier in the evening —he had to say that that was a ridiculously small sum to ask for if the Government really contemplated war with the Transvaal. The expenditure involved
  1298
  in a policy of that kind would be measured by millions and not by tens of thousands. But if the Government did not contemplate something aggressive, why indulge in this petty display? [Opposition cheers] He had been sorry to hear the Secretary for the Colonies refer to the money spent by the Transvaal Government in the erection of forts and in procuring artillery and munitions of war during the last 12 months. No doubt it was true that large sums of money had been so spent, but he did not believe that any person in South Africa dreamed that the Government of the Transvaal had any aggressive intentions — [Opposition cheers]—in that process of arming. [Laughter.] If Mr. Rhodes himself were here he would tell them that the Transvaal Government did not dream of making war. They were preparing to meet war, but they were not preparing to make war except by way of defence. They had no motive or desire for aggression. The reason why they were preparing for defence was, of course, largely explained by the fact that they had been attacked — [Opposition cheers]— and after the attack that had been made upon them such language as had been used by the hon. Member for King's Lynn that evening would not be regarded by them as indicating a friendly spirit. When language was employed such as they had heard in that Debate, could it be wondered at that there should be this inclination to arm on the part of the Boers? The demand of the Government for this £200,000, and the policy which appeared to accompany it, seemed to him to betoken some anticipation of what might be the results of the investigations of the South Africa Committee. He protested against the notion that they could promote peace in South Africa by uttering language of a hostile nature here, and making preparations which were wholly inadequate if war was contemplated. The members of the Cape House of Assembly without exception desired the maintenance of peace, and deprecated the suggestion of war. Whilst those were their views, they also deprecated the intervention of any foreign Power; but nobody in South Africa desired any foreign Power to intervene. Certainly the Government of the Transvaal Republic would not dream of bringing in a European Power to be their

  1299
  masters, or even to help them to fight Great Britain, for they valued their independence too highly. He did not wish to aggravate the situation by any words of his, and he was very sorry that they had anticipated a discussion which must be conducted in a more serious manner— [Ministerial cheers]—and with better preparation a few weeks hence; but he thought the Leader of the House would admit that the language which had been uttered justified, some few words in reply. He regretted that they should have heard from the hon. Member for King's Lynn denunciations of a people with whom we were still in friendly relations. [Mr. GIBSON BOWLES: "I indulged in no denunciations!"] The hon. Member spoke of the insolence of the Transvaal Government and of repeated treaty violations, which the Boers denied.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that when he used the word "insolence" he was referring to the tone of certain dispatches from the Transvaal Republic. Their tone certainly did seem to him to justify the use of the word.
  MR. COURTNEYsaid that when the hon. Member talked about "insolence of tone," that was an appreciation of his own. The other side did not think their tone insolent. It was just to this certainty of conviction that we were always in the right and the other side always in the wrong that he demurred, for it was likely to aggravate a situation already sufficiently grave. ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,: I do not know by what unfortunate fate it is that the speeches of Gentlemen who wish to be thought the advocates of peace have always an effect so opposed to the speakers' declared intention. [Cheers.] I cannot imagine two speeches more calculated to aggravate and make more difficult the relations between this country and the Transvaal than the speech of the Leader of the Opposition and the speech of my right hon. Friend who has just sat down. The speech of the Leader of the Opposition has already been dealt with. As to the speech of my right hon. Friend, I am astonished that he should have thought it desirable to rise in his place as a supporter of the Government to explain that we cannot have the intention that we
  1300
  declare we have—the intention, namely, of sending out this small force for defensive purposes, and defensive purposes alone. [Mr. COURTNEY said that the right hon. Gentleman had not understood him correctly.] The right hon. Gentleman has many times assumed that the object of the Government was a provocative object. [Cheers.] The right hon. Gentleman says that the step the Government are taking is useless for aggression, that it is not wanted for defence, and that it must, therefore, be intended for provocation. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. COURTNEY: I never used the word intended. I spoke of the fact, not of the design. People may engage in conduct which will produce consequences which they do not themselves intend or foresee.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Surely, if the right hon. Gentleman goes that length, anything more calculated to make this defensive action on the part of the Government to be regarded by the Boers as a deliberate act of provocation—anything more calculated to produce that result than his speech cannot be conceived. ["Hear, hear!"] As a matter of fact, he has done his best, I am sure unintentionally, by the speech he has just delivered, to inflame those feelings which all would desire to smooth, and to increase those difficulties which all would desire to allay; and instead of accepting frankly the statement of the Government that those troops were sent out of precaution alone, that we are absolutely innocent of any aggressive purpose, that we have no desire and never had any desire to do anything but maintain our actual existing and admitted rights, and that we of all people in the world would regard not merely as a national, but as a Party disaster the breaking out of war with the Transvaal, he has by his speech done his best to hide this purpose from the public. ["Hear, hear!"] The brief statement of policy which I have made represents accurately the tone and temper of the Government, and if the Committee and the country will only take it from me in the spirit in which I have made it, I am convinced that something, at all events, will have been done to promote the maintenance of that peace

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  which, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman, he is not the only person in the House to desire. [Cheers.]
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I am extremely glad to recognise the tone which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House has adopted. [Cheers.] I hope his statement will have the effect of healing the soreness which exists in this country, and what is much more desirable, in South Africa. ["Hear, hear!"] But when I remember that a gentleman with whom I am personally acquainted and for whom I have the greatest respect, the other day before his constituents said that, from what he had heard and knew, there was going to be immediate war with the Transvaal—[cries of "Name!" and a voice "Williams"]— I will not mention any name, but I refer to a most respected Member of the Party opposite—when, I say, I remember that, I think the time has come when something should be said to remove that impression. That such an impression does exist at the Cape of Good Hope no one acquainted with the state of things there can doubt for a moment. Nobody can doubt that the language Mr. Rhodes has held both there and in this country tends in that direction. Nobody can doubt that within the last month or two the impression has existed that the policy of Mr. Rhodes in this matter has had the support of the Colonial Secretary, and I should be very glad to know that that is not the case. I am bound to say that my experience upon the South African Committee has led me to believe that it was a joint policy. The whole of the Debate in the Cape Parliament turned on that point, and one of the principal supporters of the Resolution that was moved in that Parliament said that the meaning of it was that "we do not mean to support the policy of Mr. Chamberlain." That was the impression—that the object was, I will not say invasion or aggression, but that the object was a policy of menace. ["Hear, hear!"] What my right hon. Friend opposite has said is perfectly true. He has spoken of the arming of the Boers. How can you wonder that they should be arming when it has been admitted before the Committee that Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jameson had distinctly formed a plan for seizing the armaments of the Boers at Pretoria? ["Hear, hear!"] How can you wonder at their taking
  1302
  measures in self-defence? As to the idea that the Boers of the Transvaal intend to attack the British Government in South Africa, it is absurd. I am very glad to have heard the speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and I hope that his disavowal will go out to the Cape. I welcome his healing words, and I hope they will convince the people of this country, and especially the people in South Africa, that England does not entertain any such suicidal and wicked policy as would encourage a racial war in South Africa, and which would be at once the greatest injury and disgrace to the Empire. ["Hear, hear!"] And remember this—the hon. Member for King's Lynn talked about breaches of the Convention. I have read the allegation of these breaches of the Convention, and to my mind they seem very doubtful; but, Sir, there is a breach of the Convention, the grossest and the most flagrant that ever occurred, and that is the breach of the Convention in the raid and in the promotion of an armed insurrection in Pretoria. ["Hear, hear!"]That has not yet been referred to. It seems to me that before we take the mote out of the eye of those in the Transvaal we had better take the beam out of our own eye. [Cheers.] I am extremely sorry that it was thought necessary to introduce this matter into the Budget. It is really no part of it. The natural course of proceeding would have been to settle the expenditure of the country on a general basis, and if there was any temporary necessity for an armament of this description, it would have been perfectly easy to have dealt with it by a supplementary Estimate. Why the general finances of the country should be embarrassed by such a thorny and difficult question as this I cannot imagine. We have had no explanation of it, and we cannot dispose of it now. ["Hear, hear!"] I am sorry I omitted in my former speech to express my approval of the reforms the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes in connection with the Post Office, but I only rose now to say that I welcome the tone of the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, and that I hope his words may be reported in South Africa, ["Hear, hear!"]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I wish first to say that, as there is some inconvenience in discussing this

  1303
  matter on the Budget, I will endeavour to give as early a Friday as possible for the introduction of a supplementary Estimate, when we can discuss the question in a regular manner. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. H. C. RICHARDSsaid he rose to call attention to a question he had endeavoured to bring before the House by way of a Bill. The subject was no doubt familiar to many Members in consequence of the numerous petitions that had been received from traders in the country in reference to it—he meant the abolition of the plate licence. At present it was necessary for a trader to take out a licence before he could sell any article containing 6 dwt. of silver. The duty was in the nature of a restriction on trade, and of a kind of protection which both sides of the House would wish to see removed. It had been pointed out that the only two arguments in favour of the retention of the licence were that it limited dealing in gold and silver articles to a small number of persons, and that it assisted the police in the detection of persons who stole such articles. There could hardly be any justification for the continued imposition of a duty which produced the trivial sum of £50,000 a year, and which hindered trade in gold and silver articles. It moreover encouraged the production and importation into this country of shoddy articles of silver plate, which just saved the requirements of the revenue. He was at a loss to understand how there could be any opposition to the abolition of the duty, except on the part of the larger traders in these articles, who wished to keep the trade in their own hands. There was only one other point to which he wished to refer as representing a London constituency. He wished the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have seen his way to raising the minimum on which the income tax would have to be paid. This was a matter which closely affected the working and middle classes, particularly numbers of poor traders. He did not think the Exchequer would lose much, seeing the cost of collection. He also suggested that the sale of cigars and tobacco should be allowed on the railways and omnibuses.
  SIR JOSEPH PEASEsaid the hon. Member for
  1304
  Thanet, who had recently addressed the Committee, in saying that no one would invest a 6d. in this country, could hardly have read the admirable reports from the Board of Trade. There was a little book which came out every year, called the "Statistical Abstract," which hon. Gentlemen opposite ought to study. It showed that 17 millions had been invested during each of the last 15 years in one great industry—the railways of the United Kingdom, and yet the hon. Member for Thanet had said that there was no one who would invest a sixpence! With regard to the proposals of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer as regards Telegraphs and Post Office, he was sure they would be welcomed throughout the country. There were many trades suffering as well as agriculture. What they were most suffering from was, he would not say the policy of Her Majesty's Government, but the unsettled state of Eastern Europe, which had no doubt done great damage to trade. But for that they would have been still more prosperous. He was glad to hear his right hon. Friend say that he did hope that some of this expenditure, which he so much regretted, would come to an end some day—that expenditure which, as the hon. Member for Bodmin said, they were constantly demanding for naval and military affairs, an expenditure which had gone up from 16 to 40 millions. Now, no sooner is there a small surplus than £500,000 of it is handed over to the Admiralty in order to continue those armaments which were so detrimental to the peace of the world. He agreed with the Leader of the Opposition that it is an enormous pity that the £200,000 for additional troops to the Cape, which in itself is neither here nor there, was named at all as an item in the Budget. He feared that it was a fatal mistake, especially after the cross-examination in the Committee taken up so warmly by the Secretary for the Colonies, and the papers and letters written upon it. He was afraid this would tend rather to the war of the world than the peace of the world. ["Hear, hear!"] Whenever these increases were made here, they saw at once the foreign papers urging their Governments to follow the course that England was taking. He believed these countries watched and followed the course that

  1305
  England might take—if we built more ships they followed suit—if we were to adopt another policy, in all probability that policy might and would be adopted by them. This Budget of £103,000,000 was to give 42½ millions of it to the purposes of the Army and Navy. As to the subsidies to local taxation from Imperial funds, he thought every Chancellor of the Exchequer deplored the thing in principle, for the principle appeared to him utterly wrong—["hear, hear!"]— and was actually raised by taxation upon the lower middle and working classes to save taxation, which, would otherwise fall on those more able to bear the burden.
  COLONEL MILWARDbelieved that the postal and telegraph changes would prove of great advantage, not only to the upper classes but to a large extent to the working classes, especially in sparsely-inhabited districts. He wished particularly to thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the reduction in the rates as to parcels. Up to now the rates in this country were larger than in other countries, notably in France and Germany, which were largely competing countries with us. The proposed reduction would place them in a better position than France was, but not better than Germany. We should not be in as good a position as the Germans, but it must be remembered that the German Government required that post waggons should run free of charge, and, therefore, the rate for parcels could be considerably reduced. Taking that into consideration they had every reason to be satisfied and gratified with the changes announced to-night, changes which affected both the agricultural and commercial classes. The changes would do a great deal to bring producers of dairy articles and consumers nearer together, with a result beneficial to both classes. He did not think the Government or the House generally recognised to what a large extent commerce was carried on by means of the Parcels Post. Only the other day he learned that one firm, a Member of which sat in this House, sent every day 1,300 parcels by Parcels Post. He trusted that the advantages they had heard of to-night would soon be extended to the foreign Parcels Post, and they had every reason to believe that would be the case. That certainly would go a long way towards
  1306
  helping us to compete with producers abroad. He did not suppose that in consequence of such a change the commerce of England would reach the point his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Sheffield desired to see it attain, but that and other similar reforms would greatly assist English commerce in its international transactions. Before he resumed his seat he desired to express regret that it had not been possible to reduce the income tax by a penny at least. If we embarked in war we must look very largely to the income tax to bear the burden, and if in time of peace we kept the tax at war rate what were we to do when we had to meet the expense of a war? A 6d. income tax was bearable, but an 8d. tax was always unbearable in time of peace. He was certain it would be wise to reduce the income tax to 6d., so that we might be in a sounder financial position if we had to go to war. One, however, could not help being satisfied at the ease with which the country bore the present enormous expenditure. It was only a few years ago that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were denounced for proposing an expenditure of £80,000,000. The expenditure during next year was estimated at £101,000,000, and the country appeared to be able to bear it with the greatest ease. No testimony to the country's prosperity could be greater than that.
  MR. ALBERT SPICERrose to express gratification at the wonderful statement as to the financial condition of the country which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had put before the House. He believed that statement would impress the vast majority of hon. Members with the wisdom of those who made this country one of free imports. From one remark which fell from the hon. and gallant Member for Sheffield it would seem that he at least was still unconverted. [Sir HOWARD VINCENT: "Hear, hear!"] He was afraid that the hon. and gallant Gentleman and those who thought with him did not pay sufficient heed to the enormous increase of home consumption. He was connected with a branch of commerce that had to meet a great deal of foreign competition, but he believed that if a return could be obtained of the gross tonnage produced by home manufactures 20 years ago as compared with to-day, it would be found that

  1307
  in spite of foreign competition the industry of which he spoke had made enormous advance. He listened to that part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech which dealt with postal reforms with peculiar pleasure. He felt that hitherto the improvements in postal arrangements had chiefly benefited the large towns, and, therefore, he was glad that now the rural districts were to be benefited. There was one suggestion he had to make, and that was that the Post Office authorities should take into consideration the advisability of carrying passengers in those districts unprovided with the ordinary means of conveyance. In many districts of the Continent the Post Office provided passenger carrying accommodation, an example which he felt could with advantage be imitated here.
  On the return of Mr. SPEAKER, after the usual interval,
  SIR HOWARD VINCENTsaid that unfortunately he had not heard the whole of the speech of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and more especially that part in which he referred to the views which he himself, in common with many others, had long held. He had heard the greater part of the statement, however, and he was very much disappointed that his right hon. Friend did not take advantage of the present opportunity to do something for the manufactures and industries of the country. The postal reforms would very possibly do something in this direction, but they must not forget that the present Government was pledged to devote itself as far as it could to fostering the interests of industry and labour in the country. He pointed out that in 1841 the Customs duties, raised upon nine classes of articles, amounted to £23,341,000, while in the present year, 21½ millions were to be raised upon eight classes of articles. The right hon. Member for the Bodmin division of Cornwall had taken exception to the suggestions which were made by his right hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet, and expressed the opinion that the working men of this, country would not tolerate any such system as he advocated. He would refer the right hon. Member for the Bodmin division to a newspaper published in his constituency, the Cornwall
  1308
  Gazette. On the occasion of a dinner of the Cobden Club last year, at which the right hon. Member took the chair, that newspaper published the following passage: —
  "The iron industry is decaying, and America, which adheres to the fallacy of Protection, is rapidly beating us out of the field. In cutlery, England was mistress of the markets of the world some 14 years ago; in 1894 our exports were short of two millions in value, while German exports were in the neighbourhood of four millions. Our cotton exports in the same year were nearly eight millions less than in 1874, and our exports of woollen goods in 1874 were 28 millions as against 18 millions in 1894, whilst we imported these goods to the value of 11 millions. Our import of silk goods is eight times greater than our exports. Our sugar industry has been destroyed by foreign bounties. The McKinley tariff is killing our tin-plate manufacture. It is such facts as these that one looks to Mr. Courtney to explain."
  He would suggest that the right hon. Member should consult the opinion of the working men in his own constituency on the subject. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in detailing the progress which had been made in many respects during the present reign, had altogether ignored the relatively greater progress which had been made by foreign nations under an entirely different system. An official Paper laid upon the Table in 1891 by his right hon. Friend, who was then President of the Board of Trade, showed that while each £100 of English foreign trade in 1854 became under the free import system £276 15s. 6d. in 35 years, in the principal Continental nations, under a system of Protection, each £100 in the same period became £364 10s. 1d. That showed that foreign nations under an entirely different fiscal system had in the last 35 years made relatively much greater progress than we had. The present system, was entirely against the investment of capital in this country. He contended that his right hon. Friend the Member for Thanet was absolutely right when he said that the present condition of affairs tended to diminish the investment of capital in labour-employing British enterprises. The hon. Baronet who sat for one of the divisions of Durham cited against this the £800,000,000 sterling which was invested in the railways of this country, and he considered these were manufacturing enterprises. He did not minimise the great benefits which the railways were to the country, but they

  1309
  gave preferential rates to foreigners, currying foreign goods for less than they carried British produce, arable or manufacturing. In the construction of the new railway from Waterloo to the City the rolling stock was being obtained from abroad and the labour from America. He admitted that the present fiscal system was exceedingly advantageous to people with fixed incomes, who could obtain luxuries at far less cost than they would otherwise be able to do, but to people whose capital consisted of their labour, and who had to work for their daily bread, it was injurious in the highest degree. In 1841, 934,000 persons were in receipt of outdoor relief, and in spite of our vaunted prosperity the number still was 817,000. Then one in three of the population over 65 was in receipt of Poor Law relief. These were matters which in prosperous times should receive more attention from the Government. Arable land was going out of cultivation, and large numbers of the rural population were driven to the towns to obtain a living, swelling the competition in the labour market there. He believed that a registration fee upon grain coming into this country would be exceedingly popular and would tend to increase the employment of the rural population. These were not views which he reserved for the House of Commons. They were views which he freely held and had conferred with his constituents upon. His constituents were an absolutely working class and industrial community, and they saw most clearly that the present condition of affairs was full of evil, if not of great danger for the future, as regarded the poorer and the working class population. He earnestly hoped that in his next Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer would endeavour to do something to remedy this condition of affairs. Lord Rosebery himself had called serious attention to the decline of British trade and the increase of foreign rivals. The revenue raised by Customs Duties was scarcely less than 50 years ago. But the revenue raised was entirely paid by the consumer, because none of the articles upon which it was raised could possibly be produced in this country, and he appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider whether the transfer of these duties to articles competing with our own trade and labour, instead of articles which do not compete with it,
  1310
  and upon which duties have to be paid entirely by the consumer, would not be more advantageous to the country at large.
  MR. W. ALLANregretted to hear the speech just delivered. He should have thought the recent dictum of the First Lord of the Treasury against Protection would have satisfied him, and that he would no longer have trotted out that bogey. He failed to find anything practical in the speeches either of the right hon. Member for Thanet or the hon. Member who had just spoken. The former talked about the material produced in other countries out-cutting British merchants and manufacturers, and he pictured the absolute ruin of British manufacturers. What were the facts of the case? Take the jute trade. It was thought at one time that by erecting mills in India, where jute was grown, manufacturers could outsell the British market, and especially the Dundee market. Dundee was peculiarly the centre of the jute trade; it was called "Juteopolis." [A laugh.] Certain capitalists went to India and built jute mills. They employed native labour, and ran their employés night and day, and worked them hours which would not be tolerated in any civilised country, to make dividends. Had they outcut Dundee? The manufacture of jute yielded as much profit as ever in Dundee. It could be manufactured cheaper in Dundee than in India, and wages were better in Dundee than ever. Whereas formerly jute operatives got £1 a week, they were now getting 34s. Then take shipbuilding. We licked the German shipbuilders into fits. [Laughter.] While our youths were learning their trade the young Germans were conscripts, serving their time in the army, and the result was our workmen could knock in two rivets to their one. What, then, was the use of talking about our trade going to the dogs? Take Norway and Sweden. We paid higher wages than were paid in those countries, and worked shorter hours, and their workmen could not touch ours. Then there was the iron and steel trade. Belgium was often held up as running this country very hard. He admitted that it was in some things. But as to rails, girders, and beams, we could undersell them and beat them on their own ground, although our workmen worked shorter hours and received better wages. Take

  1311
  coal-mining in the Rhine Valley. Why did we send hundreds and thousands of tons of coal to Germany if they could produce the coal cheaper? They could not do it, and, although our pitmen got higher wages, we could beat Germany in shipments of coal. Our pitmen could get two tons out of the ground while they were getting one. He pointed out that the cry of "Made in Germany" was likely to inflict injury on English manufacturers and workmen. As an instance of this he mentioned the case of an English engineering firm which had practically secured a repeat order for engines to be erected in a German manufactory, when the workmen told the employers they would strike if they made any more English machinery for Germany. If this cry were to be persisted in they would have other countries retaliating with the phrase, "Made in England," and decline to receive goods manufactured in this country. ["Hear, hear!"] In the genuine British, stuffs for which this country was famous, such as cloths, engines, ships, machinery and large manufactures, no other nation could touch us. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member wanted to tax grain, but that was a thing which the working classes would never stand, while it ought to be the duty of every Government to give the necessaries of life at the lowest possible cost to the nation. Even if grain were taxed wages would not rise as a consequence, because during the time of the heavy tax on grain, workmen received less wages than they did now. He protested against the trotting out of this played-out bogey of protection, which was dead and buried, and which would never be resurrected again while the British people had common sense. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. B. L. COHENobserved in the intensely interesting statement of his right hon. Friend there was one subject to which he made no reference, and to which he believed the country was expecting him to allude. He meant the rate of interest on Post Office Savings Bank deposits. On the 26th February his right hon. Friend stated that he had the matter under consideration, because it was clear the present regulations could not continue. He did not consider the matter immediately urgent, as it was only this year that a deficit had been
  1312
  shown on the account, and that was only small. But in the Trustee Savings Banks, as the House knew, there had been a deficit, which increased each year, for many years. His object, however, in raising the subject was because he desired, as he thought his right hon. Friend did, to do nothing which would discourage national thrift, nor which would divert the savings of the artisan classes to less sound investments, and because he was convinced the sooner the subject was taken in hand the less drastic would be the changes which his right hon. Friend would find it necessary to make. For example, at the present moment, out of 6,453,000 accounts opened at the Post Office Savings Banks there were only 248,943 above £100, and the deposits of these accounts amounted to £38,500,000 out of the £112,000,000 which, was the present total of the Post Office Savings Bank Deposits. One half per cent. reduction on accounts of over £100 would give nearly £200,000, which was so much above the probable loss for a long time to come, that for the present, at any rate, if the matter were taken in hand at once, it would probably suffice to reduce the rate of interest only on accounts of over £150. What they all wanted was to protect the small depositors. It was for these the Post Office Savings Banks were primarily designed, and it was in their interest that he hoped his right hon. Friend would take the matter soon in hand. There was no question of "charity," to use the term of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 26th February. A small alteration, if enacted soon, would give the Exchequer all that was needed, and would protect the taxpayer from loss which, of course, he should not be called on to bear on account of the Savings Banks.
  MR. T. LOUGHdesired, on the other hand, to thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for not having listened to the advice of the hon. Member who had just spoken, to reduce the interest, on Post Office Savings Bank deposits. He earnestly hoped the right hon. Gentleman would persist in this refusal, and continue to pay the same rate of interest on these small deposits, giving the depositor the excellent security of the Government. The Banks, it seemed, were not satisfied with making the huge profits they now made, but wanted also

  1313
  to deprive the poor people of the advantage they had got in these excellent institutions of the Government. He fully approved of the announcement which the right hon. Gentleman had been able to make with regard to the improvements in the Post Office service, which would bring that institution into harmony with rival institutions abroad. He hoped that careful consideration would be given to the labour questions which would arise in carrying out the improvements. Turning to the Budget itself, he was greatly disappointed in it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told them that the finances of the country had reached the largest amount they had ever reached. New taxes which were imposed two or three years ago were only just coming into full bearing now. In addition, they had great and splendid trade, producing the flourishing condition of the revenue, and yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer managed to fritter away all these splendid resources without giving any advantage in the Budget to any class in the community. He repudiated the remark of the right hon. Gentleman that of all the spending departments in this country the most expensive was the House of Commons. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer made that remark about the extravagance of the House of Commons (for which there was no foundation) he knew the right hon. Gentleman was going to suggest some extravagance of his own, and he did. He told them the First Lord of the Admiralty had threatened them with a further increase of the Navy Estimates, and had said that if a certain other Power built war ships the Government would have to take notice of it. Was that the extravagance of the House of Commons? Certainly not. It was the greed of the Departments which sat beside the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The right hon. Gentleman had already provided 22½ millions for the Navy, and why, therefore, provide another £500,000 out of the £1,250,000 of the surplus which he had left? He deprecated such a frittering away of the surplus. He was glad to hear the remarks of the right hon. Member for Bodmin with regard to this Naval matter. He would like to point out that a great responsibility rested upon the House, because they had the strongest Navy in the world, and if they
  1314
  chose to pause in the building of war ships then other countries would do the same. It was the one that was the strongest that ought to stop first. They started on one of those foolish shipbuilding programmes ten years ago. Since then they had spent nearly £50,000,000, and they had scarcely improved their relative position. The effect of their naval programme was to stimulate other countries to go on, and the farther they went the farther would other countries go. They had had this year the heaviest Army Estimates and the heaviest Navy Estimates. They had had an Army Loan Bill, and they were going to have a Navy Loan Bill, and then this little half-million, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have spent in so many useful ways, he chucked to these "dogs of war," to which so many other millions had gone. He would only refer to the expenditure of £200,000 on the South African expedition to say that he thanked the Leader of the House for the excellent language in which he referred to it. Nothing could be more desirable, and he hoped the Government would stand firm in its determination. The broad case he had against the Budget was that, while they had the largest resources that this country had ever shown, no reduction whatever had been made in the taxes. He was afraid the late Chancellor of the Exchequer was a little to blame for the extravagance of the present Government. He blamed himself for praising the Budget of 1894 in too enthusiastic a manner. It was only the principle of that Budget that he was entirely in favour of, and not the way in which the money raised by that excellent principle had been frittered away. He regretted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not reduced taxation. He believed a great many people had begun to think this had gone a great deal too far, and that, in a time of perfect peace, and when the natural increase of expenditure was so great, they might afford to dispense with some of the taxation put on in 1894. He believed the Chancellor of the Exchequer had again wilfully under-estimated the revenue in order that there might be a surplus next year, and in order to avoid the necessity of taking off any taxes. They ought to have a more careful estimate than they had, and he should be glad to

  1315
  see a change made in this respect. The most interesting part of the Chancellor's speech was the comparison he made with 60 years ago. He there treated the finances of the United Kingdom as a whole, but, personally, he thought it was lime that, in the national treatment of finance, they had some reference made regularly to Ireland, because everything in their national finances which was going in one direction in Great Britain was going in the opposite direction so far as Ireland was concerned. The Chancellor pointed out that in 1837 the total revenue of the country was £52,000,000, and that now it was about £102,000,000. The population had also doubled, and wealth had far more than doubled, so that the burden of this greater taxation fell with infinitely less weight than it did 60 years ago. But look at the Irish figures. In 1837 the Irish taxation was about £4,000,000. It was now £8,000,000, though the population had sunk to one-half and wealth had diminished in proportion to the diminution of the population. So that in Ireland to-day they were really collecting the taxes that they ought to collect if there was a population of 15 or 16 millions in the country. He asked the House to notice this extraordinary contrast between the two countries—a contrast which, in his opinion, made the greatest tragedy which, existed in any civilised country. That was a tragedy for which that House alone was responsible, and it cast the darkest shadow which would be cast on this splendid reign. The Chancellor of the Exchequer also said that in 1837 indirect taxation was 71 per cent., and to-day it was only 44 per cent. It was scarcely candid of the right hon. Gentleman to make that statement. In Ireland to-day the indirect taxation was 75 per cent. They were worse off to-day than they were in 1837. The right hon. Gentleman said that there was a great deal of smuggling in 1837. Wherever they found smuggling, it was the desperate effort of people who could not pay the taxes to get hold of commodities without paying taxes. [Cries of "No!"] The right hon. Gentleman said this smuggling had practically disappeared. As regarded Great Britain, yes; but if he had looked into the Inland Revenue returns for last year he would have seen that cases of smuggling
  1316
  in Ireland had increased in the last year to 1,388 from 1,107. The right hon. Gentleman then said they had taken the taxes off thousands of articles. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: "Hundreds!"] Well, hundreds; and taxed alcohol, tea, and tobacco. They had, and that was how they had ruined and plundered the Irish. ["Oh!"] He would make good his point, but if he had used an offensive expression he would at once withdraw it. The relief given by taking off the taxes did not extend in anything like the same proportion to Ireland as to England. There were a great many articles taxed, not exactly in 1837, but 10 or 15 years previously, and that was just the same because the present system of finance commenced in 1817. There were a great many articles including necessaries of life, such as soap, bricks, and glass, taxed. The total tax on those articles about 1821 was 23s. 7d. per head of the population of Great Britain; it was 2s. 6d. in Ireland. To-day there was only 7d. collected in Great Britain and 4d. in Ireland. Ten times more relief had been given in Great Britain than in Ireland. It was by such means that the burden had been shifted on to the shoulders of Ireland. The whole of the Irish tragedy had been created in this reign. In 1837 the taxation per head of the population in Ireland was 13s. 6d., in 1897 it was 53s. The taxation had been doubled and quadrupled in Ireland while it had been reduced in Great Britain. Let him give figures to show how Ireland had been hardly dealt with. The taxation to-day on all forms of alcohol per head of the population in England was 16s. 8d., in Scotland 21s. 1d., and in Ireland 14s. 11d. If beer, whisky and wine were taxed at the same rate as in 1829, the tax would be, in England 26s. 6d., in Scotland 14s. 11d., and in Ireland 10s. 2d. The change then that had been made since 1829 had taken 9s. 10d. per head off the Englishman's drink, and had added 6s. 2d. per head to the Scotchman's drink, and 4s. 9d. per head to the Irishman's drink. To put it in another way, suppose that the spirit in drinks were taxed as the spirit in whisky was taxed, then England would pay £2 2s. per head, Scotland £1 8s. 10d., and Ireland £1 6s. 3d. To put it in a third way, suppose that the spirit in all alcoholic drinks were taxed as the spirit

  1317
  in beer was taxed, England would pay 9s. per head, Scotland 6s. 2d., and Ireland 6s. 7d. He desired to point the moral. England had managed the finances, and what had she done? She had cheapened her own drink and increased the tax on the Scotchman's and Irishman's drink. The taxation was not based on any intelligible principle. The principle England had adopted was to cheapen the stuff Englishmen like, and to put an increased tax on the stuff the other fellows like. By any honest principle the Englishman would have paid most, because he drank most. The English consumption of alcohol in the year was equal to 4 gallons of proof spirit; the Scotch to 2¾ gallons, and the Irish to 2½ gallons. Why this arrangement had borne so hardly on Ireland was, that the taxation had been constantly raised. He would admit that the tax was raised by the late Government and not by the present. [Ironical cheers.] It was indeed quite tragic that the Government which came in to do justice to Ireland had left in Ireland as the sole permanent monument of its existence four new taxes. The Inquiry which the Government had promised was delusive, because the injustice was still going on. Since the last Commission was appointed in 1894 the taxation in Ireland had been raised by £600,000. In the last financial year eight millions were collected from Ireland—a larger amount than had been ever collected before in one year. There would be great disappointment in Ireland that the right hon. Gentleman had made no reference to the case of Ireland, for the Debate on the Financial Relations was regarded as quite unsatisfactory. He would like the right hon. Gentleman to explain one phrase in his speech. The right hon. Gentleman said that the questions raised with reference to the financial relations might have to be dealt with, and they were very large matters. That was a much more sympathetic utterance than anything in the right hon. Gentleman's previous speech, and he hoped that it meant something.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I said after a full inquiry, which will, of course, be conducted by the Commission we are going to appoint.
  MR. LOUGHhoped that the right hon. Gentleman would not shut his mind to
  1318
  the very grave questions raised. If a common system were applied to two countries so different as Ireland and England, a great injustice must be done to one country. He did not wish to disturb the excellent fiscal system in Great Britain; but he did desire separate treatment for Ireland. It was said that that would involve the re-establishment of the Irish Customs House, abolished in 1847. But that would only be a nominal Customs House. He did not desire to interfere with the principle of free trade; but such a Customs House was necessary to adjusting the financial grievances, because by that means only could the true state of Irish trade be discovered. At present the Irish trade Returns were mixed up with the English. If the true facts were known, such a pathetic state of poverty would be revealed that the House would no longer hesitate to do full justice to Ireland. He did not ask that Great Britain should in any way pay for Ireland, but only that Ireland should not be taxed remorselessly, as she was in the present Budget, and. regardless of the fact that her wealth and population had disappeared. Direct taxation required no Custom House, and the Government could abolish the income tax in Ireland. [Ironical Laughter.] The details which were given in the Inland Revenue Return as to the collection of income tax afforded striking evidence as to the truth of the proposition that it was a most unsuitable tax to Ireland. In Great Britain the bulk of the income tax was levied on trade, and here it was more suitable for trade than Irish land. It was a British tax, and it was a great mistake ever to have extended it to Ireland. It was also a great pity that the Irish case had not received some attention from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, though there had been a rumour that the right hon. Gentleman was going to apply the Agricultural Rating Act to Ireland. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had taken no step in that direction, and he thought that the financial statement as a whole would be received with considerable regret by the great mass of the people.
  MR. C. J. MONKwhile congratulating the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the extreme simplicity of his Budget regretted that he had not seen his way to abolish the small and

  1319
  anomalous tax on plate. The amount was only £55,000, and the tax fell mainly on the poor watchmakers. It was their unanimous desire to have the tax taken off, though he believed the jewellers wished it to be maintained, though this was hardly in n spirit of fair competition. The tax was imposed in 1758, and it appeared to him to be extraordinary that it had not long ago been abolished. It was now too late to make an appeal to his right hon. Friend, but he hoped the question would be considered another year. The tax had been condemned over and over again, and it had been brought to the notice of various Chancellors of the Exchequer during many years.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSONsaid he regretted that during the greater part of his hon. Friend's speech there was not a single Member from Ireland present to express approval or assent to the propositions he had made. He wished, however, to remind the Committee, as a Scotch Member, that they in Scotland had a great grievance which must arise at a later stage of the Budget discussion, and that was as to the appropriations of the equivalent grant in connection with the English grant to education. If it was the intention of the Government to give a grant in aid to Voluntary Schools in Scotland, and to ignore and repudiate the principle of their equivalent grant, he had no hesitation in saying that the Scottish Members would be unanimous in resisting that mode of dealing with their claim. Turning to the bearing of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's financial statement on the Navy, he did not accept the account which his hon. Friend the Member for West Islington had given of the history of the naval proposals in the House this Session. He did not admit that the demand made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was one that was being forced on the House by the Admiralty or the Government. They had strong grounds for saying that the proposition was being forced on the Government and the Admiralty by the prevailing sentiment of the House of Commons. He repudiated the notion that the demand for this extra half million for the naval service was a demand which had been thrust upon the House of Commons by the Admiralty. He believed the opposite to be much nearer the truth.
  1320
  When the First Lord of the Admiralty submitted his naval Estimates to the House one most important fact was not made apparent, but was brought out by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean and himself. The casual observer would have imagined that there was no diminution in the Estimates in the provision for new construction, and yet, as a matter of fact, there had been an enormous reduction in the cash provision for new construction. It so happened that the naval plans of the Government for the present year were first published in extraordinarily minute detail in a newspaper early in the Session. The only respect in which the newspaper was wrong was in regard to new construction, and everybody came to the conclusion that alter the information was supplied to the newspaper there must have been some change in the plans of the Government respecting new construction. When he examined the Estimates he came to the conclusion that instead of keeping up new construction to the standard already existing the Government had reduced the cash provision for that purpose by a very large sum, approaching a million. That night they had before them a proposal which had surprised many Members. The deficiency was being made good, and £500,000 was to be devoted to new construction. He raised no objection to that, but he thought it right to draw attention to the fact that there was a deficiency at the beginning of the Session, which deficiency was now being supplied. The First Lord of the Admiralty, when the Estimates were under consideration, had uttered a kind of obiter dictum to the effect that the Government held themselves free to propose new construction if there should be any great development of new programmes in other countries. Now the Chancellor of the Exchequer had explained that the £500,000 for new construction was required because other nations were pushing forward their naval programmes. This declaration cast upon the First Lord of the Admiralty the obligation of showing that since the Navy Estimates were presented there had been a development abroad not of paper, but of real naval programmes. There was another point which called for remark. Two

  1321
  months ago they were given to understand that there was to be a new Naval Works Loans Bill this year, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that evening that the Admiralty had not spent nearly all the money to which it was entitled under the second Naval Works Act, which gave to the Admiralty, without limit of time, the power of spending 2½ millions upon naval works, During the past year the Admiralty, he understood, had only spent some £830,000 of this money, so there must be an unexpended balance of 1¾ million. How then came it to be necessary to have a new Naval Works Loan Bill this year? The Opposition, even if they did not object to that Bill or to the Military Works Loans Bill, were entitled to point out that the country would not have been driven to borrow money for urgent military and naval purposes if the Government had not squandered so much of their surplus in aiding special classes of the community. [Ministerial cries of "Oh!] If he had spoken earlier in the evening, he would have been templed to allude to what he might call the inflamed discussion which took place some hours ago as to the policy of the Government in South Africa. He had, however, heard with the greatest satisfaction that a speech had been made by the Leader of the House which put an entirely new aspect on the subject, and which made it incumbent upon him to keep silence on the subject until it could be brought up in a formal way. He would only say that he was alarmed by the terms in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced this additional military expenditure in South Africa, because the right hon. Gentleman appeared to connect it with the enforcement of what he called our treaty rights. He could not help connecting that statement with the deplorable letter from the Colonial Secretary, dated March 6, which appeared in the last Blue-book, and in which one of the alleged breaches of the Convention was referred to. He would ask the Committee to allow him to read a single sentence from that letter: —
  "2. The Accession of the South African Republic to the Geneva, Convention.—After Dr. Jameson's raid, owing to a report made by the St. John's Ambulance Association, Her Majesty's Government determined to invite the South African Republic to accede to the
  1322
  Geneva Convention, and the necessary instructions were sent to Sir J. de Wet, who, however, omitted to carry them out. The South African Republic on September 30th formally communicated to the Swiss Government, through their representative at the Hague, their act of accession to the Geneva Convention. Her Majesty's Government, in the circumstances, did not hesitate to convey the Queen's approval, but the action of the Government of the Republic none the less constituted a breach of the London Convention."
  [Ministerial cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite cheered that. As a matter of law and common sense he challenged them to deny, first of all, that the approval of Her Majesty ratified any previous irregularities; and, secondly, that in this particular case the act they objected to as a breach of the Convention—
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSpointed out that the hon. Member was now going into details relating to a Blue-book the consideration of which, by the common consent of the Committee, had been deferred to a later day. Of course, he had no power to prevent the hon. Member from going into the matter.
  SIR W. HARCOURTsaid he had never heard of any such common consent of the Committee. There was a demand in this Budget for £200,000 for increasing the military armaments at the Cape, and unless that demand was withdrawn front the Budget the Committee could not be prevented from discussing it. [Cheers.]
  THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANSsaid he had stated that, as a point of order, he could not stop the hon. Member from going into the matter; but, now that he was challenged on the matter he was bound to say that it was irrelevant at the present stage to go into the minute details of a Blue-book, and, therefore, he must, request the hon. Member to desist from going into them. ["Hear, hear!"]
  MR. E. ROBERTSONsaid that any request from the Chair would always meet with his approval. All he had to say about the matter was that he hoped that it was not one of the reasons that had led to this increased military expenditure that the Transvaal Republic had done what Her Majesty's Government had asked them to do. Such a position was too ridiculous to be taken up. [Cheers.] In conclusion he would only say that he had listened with the greatest admiration to the financial statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He could hardly find

  1323
  language adequate to express his admiration of both the statements the right hon. Gentleman had made. He could only hope that influences such as his might prevail in the Party of which, at the present time, he was the chief ornament. [Cheers.]
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. G. J. GOSCHEN, St. George's,said that the hon. and learned Member who had just sat down said he should not enter into any discussion, of the incident which had previously taken place, and they watched him proceeding. They arrived at the conclusion that he was not a bad disciple of the Member for Monmouthshire. ["Hear, hear!"] The Government had no wish to shrink from the discussion, but he should not be surprised if many Members opposite repudiated the action of their Leaders. [Opposition cries of "No!"] The hon. Member said he should only read a single extract from the Dispatch. It was unfair to pick out one extract from one Dispatch and say it was a casus belli. A more outrageous proceeding he had never heard. [Cheers.] Perhaps it was a mere rhetorical flight of the hon. Member; he called it a deplorable matter, and then he did not enter into a general discussion. He was glad of the intervention of the Member for Monmouthshire, as it would give him an opportunity of saying a few words which he otherwise would not have been able to say. With regard to the naval question, he had told the hon. Member before—and he would ask him to do him the honour of accepting his statement as true—that there was no change whatever in the programme initiated by Her Majesty's Government even before the commencement of this year. Against that the hon. Member quoted a statement in a newspaper, forgetting that when he was in office there was purloined information. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Member suggested that there was some change of front in regard to their Estimates, and in support of this he quoted the statement in the newspaper. For that statement there was not a single atom of foundation. There had been no change whatever in their programme. The Chancellor of the Exchequer granted the money asked for by the Admiralty. They had their programme completed long before. The
  1324
  next point was that their new construction had been diminished by a million; but this was a mistake, and the hon. Member had been misled by the intricacies which prevailed in all naval Estimates. As to the hon. Member's statement that the £500,000 was grantd in consquence of some obiter dictum of his in reply to an hon. Member as to the abnormal efforts in other directions, it was notorious that naval expenditure had been increased not by paper programmes. If the hon. Member challenged him it might be necessary to explain; but he trusted that he would not take that particular course. He should be sorry to have to enumerate the grounds on which. Her Majesty's Government had felt it to be their duty to ask for this increase. ["Hear, hear!"] He hoped the hon. Member would not press for this precise information; but he could assure the Committee it had not been an afterthought that this £500,000 had been asked for. He had examined the comparative expenditure of European countries, and it was on that examination that they had made tins additional Estimate. Then there was a reference as to the Naval Works Bill; but the sum mentioned did not represent what was expended in any particular year. They had not spent all that they expected to spend, and that money would be available this year. It was distinctly stated last year that there would be a sum for new works. There was in contemplation new work and additional expenditure on Dover Harbour, and for that purpose a new Bill was required. It would be introduced before long; but the surveys had taken some time to complete, and the Admiralty were anxious not to come before the House asking for money until they were able to submit definite figures on the subject. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR SAMUEL MONTAGUsaid the Chancellor of the Exchequer had brought forward in his able speech reasonable proposals, but of no great magnitude. He wished the right hon. Gentleman in his able Budget speech had included one, dealing with the Stamps on Bonds, and shares to bearer and on Bills of Exchange. On a former occasion he

  1325
  brought his views before the House and to the notice of Sir Alfred Milner, who did not differ with them. He trusted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would in the near future equalise those duties and modify them. By so doing he would increase the revenue and facilitate trade. Bonds were treated very unequally as regards stamps. Some were charged with 10s. per £100, others, including Colonial, 2s. 6d. per £100, while an immense quantity were entirely free from Stamp Duty. The 10s. duty on Bonds issued in this country and on certain Bonds delivered here was too high. It led to evasion, or to the diversion of trade to rival countries. In either case the Exchequer suffered. If evidence of evasion or legal avoidance of this duty was required, the India Office could supply it. Many millions of Bonds issued by the Indian Government were free of Stamp Duty. Others indirectly issued by them with their direct guarantee paid 2s. 6d. and 10s. per £100. There were in existence about £13,000,000 of this class of security on which the high duty of 10s. had been paid. In order to avoid the charge for Stamps on a fresh issue, the Bonds falling duo were renewed whenever possible. If the rate of interest was changed the old Bond was still retained, and fresh coupon sheets were attached. This system would continue so long as this high duty was imposed, or until the Bond was worn out. If the duty were reduced to 5s. it might suit the companies to pay off the old Bonds with available funds, and issue later on fresh Bonds when the Money Market was favourable. On the other hand, an enormous quantity of foreign Bonds and Shares to bearer paid no duty whatever when delivered in this country. Such Bonds or Shares to bearer issued, and the dividends payable outside the United Kingdom, required no stamp; whereas the identical securities if issued here, or the dividends made payable here, must bear 10s. per £100 Stamp Duty. He saw no reason why a
  1326
  moderate Stamp Duty should not be universally imposed. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, tried to obtain a revenue from these securities, but in a most vexatious manner. An adhesive stamp of 1s. per £100 had to be affixed to these Bonds and Shares annually whenever transferred or the inconvenience might be avoided by the payment of 10s. per £100 once for all. Very few could avail themselves of this option, and the troublesome tax was removed by the present Leader of the Opposition substituting an increased stamp on contracts. He was convinced that by such a uniform charge of 5s., the revenue would be increased, and our traders would not be handicapped to the advantage of foreigners. This conviction was supported by the opinions of permanent officials at Somerset House, and by Sir Algernon West and Sir Alfred Milner. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would consent to appoint a Select. Committee to consider the Stamp Duties. That Committee would make clear the effect on trade of the Stamp Duty on Bills of Exchange drawn out of the United Kingdom and payable out of the United Kingdom, but negotiated here. The transactions in foreign Bills had declined enormously of late years. He knew from his own experience that they were not a quarter of what they were 40 years ago. In 1895 the return from Bill Stamps was £626,000, and in 1896 it was £672,000. But in 1885 the return was £683,000, and in 1886 £637,000. These Bills of Exchange were international instruments of credit, and it would be of great value to the mercantile community if all countries were to have similar regulations in regard to them. As to the deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks, he urged that the interest on deposits of over £100 should be reduced from 2½ per cent, to 2 per cent. That would not affect the great

  1327
  mass of working-class depositors, and thrift was promoted more by the security than the rate of interest given. This high rate of interest, by attracting money to the savings banks, was detrimental to commercial interests; it involved loss to the Government and forced up the price of Consols to the disadvantage of the operations of the Sinking Fund. The saving effected by reducing the interest on the larger deposits would enable the Chancellor of the Exchequer to hold a large reserve of gold when gold might be difficult to obtain. A golden opportunity of creating this reserve was lost last year; but gold was still plentiful and could be gradually amassed by the Government.
  MR. G. C. T. HARTLEYsaid the problem of the Post Office Savings Banks must be solved before very long, for two reasons—first that we were drifting into a very large deficit on the part of the savings banks, and also that we were driving up the price of Consols to a point that would make it difficult to supply them. The idea that in past years the Post Office Savings Bank had been worked at a profit was well founded. When Consols were £92 or £93, as they were some years ago, there was no doubt that a considerable profit was made on the sums invested. The simple solution of the problem was that the present system should be stopped at once—that existing depositors should go on as they were, but that all fresh depositors should be paid a lower rate. He should be sorry if any step were taken that would appear to be discouraging thrift; but the reduction in the rate of interest would mean only a loss of about a farthing a week to the average investor. Another objection to the present system was that if the State invested the Post Office money in Colonial or Corporation Stock it amounted to the State guaranteeing that Stock, the result of which, would be that the price of the Stock would go up at once. The savings banks deposits were increasing
  1328
  at the rate of one million a month, and we were paying off the National Debt at the rate of three-quarters of a million a month, and at the rate we were going, Consols would, in a few years, be practically unpurchaseable.
  MR. VESEY KNOXsaid some things had been done recently by the Transvaal Government which he could not palliate or approve of—things which ought not to be done by any modern civilised State, and which largely diminished the sympathy that some of them felt with President Kruger. One of those acts was the suppression of newspapers. ["Hear, hear!"] That was a policy which carried them back to the dark days, ten years ago, when the Conservative Party was coercing Ireland. [Cheers and laughter.] If the Irish people had the power then he felt sure they should have spent at least £200,000 in preventing by force of arms the suppression of their newspapers, and he could only commend the generous spirit of the English people in preventing a similar invasion of the liberties of English-speaking people in other parts of the world. With regard to the question of the savings banks, he would like to know how they had managed to pay 2½ per cent. on the deposits without actually incurring any loss? They did it by sweating Ireland. [Ministerial laughter.] In respect of the Irish Church Fund, they had refused year by year to reduce the rate of interest, and it was by means of the exaggerated amount of interest which for 20 years they had been receiving from an Irish charitable fund that they had made their account balance. English Chancellors of the Exchequer had for many years shown themselves adept in making their accounts balance, and making up a deficit by putting their hand into somebody else's pocket. He was bound to say there was no indication in the Budget statement of this year that there was to be any change in the policy which had been consistently pursued towards Ire-

  1329
  land. As to the retrospect in which the right hon. Gentleman had indulged, he did not begrudge the English people the enormous advances in their material and social prosperity which they had made during the present year, but he would ask them not to forget that during this reign Ireland had certainly declined in population, and, according to the Report of the Financial Commission, in wealth also. They in Ireland had no reason to look back with any satisfaction on the retrospect that had been suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There had been no more miserable period in the history of their country. They had had a famine, and, in addition, they had suffered from a slow process by which the life-blood of the people had been drained, which was worse than a famine. A great part of their sufferings during: this period they owed to the policy of Her Majesty's advisers, supported by the majority of the English people. So far as England was concerned, he believe it was true that the working classes now contributed very little taxation, but it was not the case in Ireland. At the present moment 75 per cent. of the taxation raised in Ireland was raised by indirect taxation, which was largely contributed by the working classes of the country. They talked about the prosperity of Belfast. But even there there were a large number of families in which the father, apart from the labour of the women and children, could not earn anything like 13s. a week. He would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider a few figures. It was not too much to suppose that such a family would consume 11b. of tea per week. On that they would pay to the revenue 17s. 4d. a year, and more was exacted from the consumer than was actually received by the State, because various middlemen must have their profit on the amount of the duty as well as the cost of the original article. On an ounce of tobacco a week the family would pay 8s. 8d. a year. A glass
  1330
  of whisky every second day between five persons, not all adults, would not be a large allowance. [Laughter.] He would not call a man a drunkard who had a glass of whisky every second day with the help of his family. [Renewed Laughter.] The sum payable in a year for a glass of whisky on that basis would be £1 10s. 5d., and the Irish peasant would pay considerably more in duty on articles of indirect taxation than the typical poor English family at the beginning of the reign, visions of whom the Chancellor of the Exchequer had conjured up. If it was the pride of their policy that they had relieved the sufferings of their own poor by lessening the burden of taxation upon them, why was it not, their duty to relieve the burdens which still pressed on the poor in the sister isle. He might be told that the articles of indirect taxation which he had mentioned would not have been consumed by the English poor at the beginning of the Queen's reign. Who compelled them to eat bread? A large portion of Irish people preferred potatoes. A large portion of the world's population got on very well without bread, so it could not be said that bread was a necessary of life, and the articles consumed by the English poor at the beginning of the century were not essentials of life. The Irish people were not compelled to use tea and tobacco, but they were necessary in a climate like that of Ireland. Though taxation in Ireland might be levied on a few articles, the Irish people paid more in proportion to their income than the English poor did on the thousand articles which were taxed at the beginning of the Queen's reign. In the case of income tax, still more of the Death Duties, there was a certain amount of graduation. The rich man had to pay more in proportion to his income to a certain extent than the poor man, but in the case of commodities it was the opposite way. It was considered according to the free trade system that specific duties should

  1331
  be levied and not ad valorem, and consequently, in the case of tea, they took fourpence whether the tea be worth in bond tenpence a pound or two shillings. He had never been able to understand precisely why that should be a necessary part of the free trade system. He saw in the United States that the Democrats, who were regarded as the more free trade of the two parties, had substituted ad valorem for specific duties in the Wilson as compared with the McKinley Bill, because they said ad valorem duties were fairer as between rich and poor. He saw that the Liberal Party in Canada, as one of the features of that magnificent Budget they had introduced—and it was the wish of all Members that they might be able to carry it through—were going to substitute ad valorem for specific duties. Therefore, he was bound to say, from the Cobden point of view, there was ground for reconsidering that anathema which was pronounced in the middle years of the century against ad valorem duties. It might be true that this system of raising their money by specific duties on commodities was a system which pressed less heavily on the vast trade of this great commercial country, but it was also true that that system pressed most heavily upon the poor of this country, and still more upon the poor of Ireland. If they considered it necessary for the maintenance of their commercial supremacy that they should keep up this free trade system, under which they had undoubtedly prospered, and if they considered as part of that free trade system they should tax the commodities of the poor, proportionately to their value, much heavier than the commodities consumed by the rich, then he said they ought to look about them to sec whether, without sacrificing their free trade system, they could give to the poor some other redress. Even if Ireland were not a separate entity and the Irish people only so many individuals, taxpayers and citizens of this country, then on that basis it was the duty of the Chancellor of
  1332
  the Exchequer, finding there were these individuals on whom this system pressed so heavily, to attempt, in his financial statement of the year, to give them some relief. The right hon. Gentleman, had made no such attempt, and there was nothing in the Budget to give relief to the people of Ireland. He did not suppose that there ever would be anything in the Budget of an English Chancellor of the Exchequer which would give relief to the people of Ireland until England was afraid of losing Ireland in the course of a foreign war. He was reading some time ago a letter of the Duke of Wellington, written in 1808, when he was engaged in military operations in the North of Portugal. In that letter the Duke wrote strongly to the English Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, urging him, for political reasons, not to follow the advice of those who asked him to increase the taxation of Ireland. It was undesirable, in the opinion of the Duke, to increase the taxation of Ireland during the circumstances of those years. England was then in the throes of a death struggle with France, and it would have been dangerous to increase the taxation of Ireland to the pitch to which it had been raised now. But at the present day, England was not afraid that there was anybody on the whole face of the world who was likely to stir a finger to help Ireland. For this reason England continued to sweat and over-tax the Irish people, who were the poorest of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The hon. Member who has just sat down and the hon. Member for Islington must excuse me if I do not on this occasion enter at length into the important question of the financial relations between Ireland and Great Britain. We have had a Debate on that already, and, no doubt, we shall have some further Debates on the subject. I will only venture to say with regard to the charge they have made against me of not

  1333
  considering the circumstances of Ireland in the comparison I made, that I did consider the circumstances of Ireland, and I stated that the advance of prosperity of which I spoke had not come to all classes of Her Majesty's subjects alike. But I entirely deny that it has come to no one in Ireland. There is a corner in Ireland—the north-east corner, Belfast, and its neighbourhood—which, in my belief, has prospered as much as any part of Great Britain. ["Hear, hear!"] If I am asked why the rest of Ireland has not been equally prosperous. I am afraid the only answer can be that we have not all prospered equally, the agricultural districts of the country have prospered least, and Ireland is mainly an agricultural country. My comparison of the Taxation on a labourer's family in 1836 and last year applied equally to Ireland as to Great Britain, because the commodities were those on which the rates of taxation were equal in 1836 in Ireland and in Great Britain.
  MR. LOUCH: Not spirits.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I carefully excluded spirits from my comparison just as I did beer, and the articles I took were not concerned with alcohol of any kind. The comparison was perfectly fair with regard to the relief of taxation which has been received under the change in our fiscal system by the Irish labourer just as much as by the Scotch or English labourer. Some hon. Members have raised several questions in the course of the evening on which I would only say a very few words. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester and my hon. Friend the Member for East Finsbury asked me if I would consider the abolition of the plate licence duty. I have had a great many representations on that subject, both for and against the abolition of the duty. As far as I can make out, it is one of those rare taxes which those who pay it desire to maintain. [Laughter.] That being so, I confess I am rather predisposed against its abolition, particularly as the Exchequer would not lose,
  1334
  but the County Councils, who now receive its proceeds. I happen to know that the County Councils' Association are particularly desirous to retain it, unless I am willing to give them an equivalent grant in place of the tax. On the whole, I do not think there is a good case for the abolition of the plate licence duty. My hon. Friend the Member for East Islington and the hon. Baronet the Member for Whitechapel, have referred to the interest on deposits in Savings Banks. I have already stated in the course of tins Session that that subject is under my wry careful consideration. I am bound to say that the more I look at it the more I feel what very great difficulties are involved in it, and, as I said when I last addressed the House on the subject, I do not think any one of us would desire to reduce the rate of interest upon deposits in savings banks unless we were absolutely convinced that it was essential to the public interest to do so. ["Hear, hear!"] The matter is before me, and when I have any announcement to make in regard to it, it will, of course, take the shape of the introduction of a Bill. I am afraid I have introduced an element of controversy into the Debate this evening by the statement I made that I had to reserve £200,000 in my Budget for increasing the Imperial garrison in South Africa. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth, whom I have to thank for the kind way in which he referred to me, rather complained that I had mentioned the matter at all. I do not know what else I could have done. Last year, I remember, I was attacked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton for not having made any provision in my Budget for military expenses in the Soudan. At that time I had no reason to expect we should be called upon to pay anything: but this evening I knew that we were about to incur an expenditure of £200,000, which was not provided for in the Estimates, in South

  1335
  Africa, and which I should have to provide for in the course of the year. should not have been frank with the Committee if I had kept that fact back from them and if I had not stated it in the course of my Budget speech. I merely refer to the matter now, not in order to discuss it at all, because I understand that a very early opportunity will be given for a full discussion of the subject, but because, I really wish to defend myself for having brought the matter before the House in the Budget speech. I trust the Committee will be willing to take one of the Resolutions to-night. I understand there is a desire on the part of the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the Tea Duty Resolution, which is usually put first, should be withdrawn to-night and the Income Tax substituted for it. I hope the Committee will be willing to take the Income Tax Resolution, and then we can report Progress. ["Hear, hear!"]
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I think the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman is quite reasonable, and I am much obliged to him for having made the alteration and reserving the Resolution in reference to the Tea Duty, because I, for one, desire on that to raise a discussion on the subject of indirect, taxation. I should be glad to know from the right hon. Gentleman, or from the Leader of the House, what form the discussion he has indicated in reference to South Africa, will take. Will it be on a Resolution or an Estimate, or in what particular way will that discussion be taken?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I presume the proper way of taking the discussion will be upon a supplementary Estimate, which will be moved by the Under Secretary for War. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that it cannot be put down to-morrow, and it cannot be put down for to-morrow fortnight, because that day is mortgaged to the Irish Members. Therefore we are shut in between to-morrow week and Friday, May 21.
  1336
  Of course, I will take whichever of these Fridays the right hon. Gentleman desires. If he takes Friday week then the discussion on foreign affairs cannot be taken on that day.

  TEA.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Duty of Customs now payable on Tea shall continue to be charged, levied, and paid on and after the, first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, until the first day of August, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, on the importation thereof into Great Britain or Ireland (that is to say):—Tea …the pound. Four Pence."—(The Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  INCOME TAX.
  Resolved, that Income Tax shall be charged for the year beginning on the sixth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, at the rate of eightpence.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow; Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  EAST INDIA COMPANY'S OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Read the Third time, and passed.
  METROPOLITAN AND OTHER POLICE COURTS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

  NAVYAND MARINES (WILLS) ACT (1865) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  MR. E. H. PICKERSGILLsaid he had been in communication with the Admiralty with regard

  1337
  to an Amendment of which he had given notice, and, having had a statement from the Secretary to the Admiralty, he did not propose to move.
  Bill reported without Amendment; Read the Third lime, and passed.

  VOLUNTEERS BILL.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.
  DANGEROUS PERFORMANCES BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT (1870) AMENDMENT BILL.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.

  APPEAL IN CERTAIN CIVIL MATTERS (IRELAND) BILL.
  On the order for the Second Reading of this Bill,
  MR. KNOXasked for an explanation of its objects.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. ATKINSON,said that on the introduction of the Bill he made a full statement of its purpose and effect. It simply gave an appeal from the decision of the Queen's Bench to the Court of Appeal in Ireland in cases stated in four particular classes, namely, on questions of Rating under the Salmon Fisheries Acts, under the Railways Acts, and under the Civil Courts Procedure Acts.
  Bill read a Second time, and committed for Monday next.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING (UNDERMANNING) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  BICYCLES (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  FOREIGN PRISON-MADE GOODS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (ALDERSHOT AND FARNBOROUGH) BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [1st April] further adjourned till Monday next.
  STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES' JURISDICTION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  BURIAL GROUNDS LOANS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES' OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday 17th May.
  COTTAGE HOMES BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Thursday 20th May.
  CANALS AND NAVIGABLE RIVERS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  CONGESTED DISTRICTS BOARD (IRELAND) (COMPULSORY PURCHASE POWERS) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Thursday 13th May.
  ACCOUNTANTS' BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Wednesday 12th May.
  SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Friday 28th May.
  TRUCK ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  SOLICITORS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday 24th May.
  HIGHWAYS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  CHAFF-CUTTING MACHINES ACCIDENTS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  POOR LAW OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION (IRELAND) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Tuesday, 25th May.
  LOCOMOTIVES ON HIGHWAYS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (SCOTLAND) LOANS BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  SERVICE FRANCHISE BILL.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.
  ARCHDEACONRY OF LONDON (ADDITIONAL ENDOWMENTS) BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [24th February] further adjourned till Tuesday next.
  SHOP ASSISTANTS (HALF-HOLIDAY) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Thursday, 13th May.
  STEAM ENGINES AND BOILERS (PERSONS IN CHARGE) BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Motion for Committal to Standing Committee on Trade, Etc. [17th February] further adjourned till Monday next.
  POLICE PENSIONS AND SERVICE BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till Monday next.
  MERSEY CHANNELS BILL.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.
  VERMINOUS PERSONS BILL.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.
  COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL BILL.
  Adjourned Debate on Motion for Committal to Select Committee [24th March] further adjourned till To-morrow.

  LICENSING EXEMPTION (HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT) BILL.
  Second Reading deferred till To-morrow.
  House Adjourned at Five Minutes after Twelve o'Clock.