Sitting of 14 April 1905

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the Clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Dublin Corporation (Superannuation) Bill; Hitchin and District Gas Bill; Woolwich Borough Council Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
Great Western Railway (New Railways), Bill. As amended, considered; A clause added; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (Poor Law) Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
Electric Lighting Provisional Order (No. 3) Bill. "To confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Trade, under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Woolwich," presented by Mr. Bonar Law; supported by Mr. Victor Cavendish; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to beprinted. [Bill 174.]
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill. "To confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade, under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, The Electric Lighting (Scotland) Act, 1890, and The Electric Lighting (Scotland) Act, 1902, relating to Denny and Dunipace, Grangemouth, Inverness, Pollokshaws, Renfrew, Rutherglen, and Uphall," presented by Mr. Bonar Law; supported by Mr. Victor Cavendish; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 175.]
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 5) Bill. "To confirm certain Pro-

193
visional Orders made by the Board of Trade, under the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888, relating to Andover, Burslem (Extension to Tunstall), Hessle, Litherland, Little Hulton, Penmaenmawr, Ravensthorpe, Stratford-upon-Avon, Surbiton, and Tewkesbury," presented by Mr. Bonar Law; supported by Mr. Victor Cavendish; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 176.]
Wigan Corporation Bill. Petition for additional Provision; referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to—Walker and Wallsend Union Gas Bill, without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to extend the time for the construction of certain works authorised by The Leeds and Liverpool Canal Act, 1891; to confer further powers on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company; and for other purposes." [Leeds and Liverpool Canal Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for incorporating and conferring powers on the East Cowes Gas Company." [East Cowes Gas Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confirm the amalgamation of the Institutions known as the Orphan Working School, the Alexandra Orphanage for Infants, and the Convalescent Seaside Home for Orphans; to alter the name of the President, Vice-Presidents, Treasurer, and Governors of the Orphan Working School; to vest in them the property of the Alexandra Orphanage for Infants; to confer further powers on them; and for other purposes." [Orphan Working School and Alexandra Orphanage Bill [Lords.]
Leeds and Liverpool Canal Bill [Lords]; East Cowes Gas Bill [Lords]; Orphan Working School and Alexandra Orphanage Bill [Lords]. Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

PETITIONS.
  AGRICULTURAL RATES ACT, 1896, ETC., CONTINUANCE BILL.
  Petition of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  AGRICULTURAL RATES, CONGESTED DISTRICTS, AND BURGH LAND TAX RELIEF (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1896.
  Petitions for continuance; from the Border Union Agricultural Society; Kippen; and Lesmahagow; to lie upon the Table.
  COMPENSATION FOR DAMAGE TO CROPS BILL.
  Petition of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  DOGS BILL.
  Petition of the Scottish Chamber of Agriculture; to lie upon the Table.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC LOCAL VETO (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions in favour; from Bridge of Weir; Dundee; Edinburgh; Galashiels; Locharbriggs; and Perth; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (QUALIFICATION OF WOMEN) BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, against; to lie upon the Table.
  MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
  Petition from Oxenhall, against; to lie upon the Table.
  PUBLIC LIBRARIES BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, against; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF BUTTER BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF WHISKY BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  VACCINATION BILL.
  Petition from Wandsworth, against; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  COLLEGE CHARTER ACT, 1871 (UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SHEFFIELD).
  Paper [presented 13th April] to be printed. [No. 127.]
  ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION) ACT, 1898.
  Paper [presented 13th April] to be printed. [No. 128.]
  ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS (SUPERANNUATION) ACT, 1898 (SCOTLAND) 1899.
  Paper [presented 13th April] to be printed. [No 129.]
  SOUTH AFRICA (AUTHORITY OF HIGH COMMISSIONER).
  Return [presented 13th April] to be printed. [No. 130.]
  RAILWAYS ABANDONMENT.
  Copy presented, of Report, under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, by the Board of Trade respecting the Paisley District Tramways Order and the objects thereof [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 131.]
  SOUTH AFRICA.
  Copy presented, of Report of the South African Native Affairs Commission, 1903–5 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  AFRICA (No. 4, 1905).
  Copy presented, of Reports from the Director of Agriculture on the Government Farms at Nairobi and Naiwasha, in the East Africa Protectorate, for the year 1901, and on the Prospects of Settlers [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Political Disabilities of Scottish Peers.
  MASTER OF ELIBANK: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in the event of the Acts of Union being modified by an alteration in the number of represen-
  196
  tatives for Scotland and Ireland respectively, he will, under any Redistribution Bill, consider the propriety of dealing with the political disabilities of the Scottish Peers who are not Peers of Parliament.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) As I indicated to the hon. Member in a previous Answer†, I do not think that the political status of Scottish and Irish Peers can be appropriately dealt with in a Redistribution Bill.

  Reduction of Naval Armaments—International Understanding.
  MR. MARKHAM: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been directed to the speech in the French Chamber by M. d'Estournelles de Constant, on 11th April, advocating a mutual understanding between the great Powers with a view to a general reduction of naval armaments, and quoting, in favour of this policy, declarations by the Member for West Birmingham and other public men in this country; and whether he will consider the advisability of approaching the French Government to ascertain whether some general agreement can be arrived at to further this end.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) The naval forces of this country are necessary for its national existence, and are kept solely for the purpose of defence. It is for countries of which these things cannot be said, or cannot be said to the same extent, to initiate suggestions on the subject of naval disarmament, if they think fit.

  Vacancies for Second Class Clerks.
  MR. LAWRENCE: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether any vacancies exist in the upper section of second-class clerks; and, if so, when they will be filled; what will be the age of the clerks then promoted; and to what scale of salary the promotions will entitle them.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) There are no existing vacancies in the upper section of the second-class clerks
  † See (4) Debates, cxliv., 1037.

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  in the Customs Department, to which it is presumed my hon. friend's Question applies.

  Pupils Fees in Irish Model Schools.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury have the Commissioners of National Education lately made any representations relative to the appropriation by the Treasury of the fees paid by the pupils in Irish model schools; whether the conditions under which the Commissioners agreed to pay over to the Treasury a fixed annual sum of £2,000 out of the fees collected each year still obtain; and whether, considering the altered conditions of payments to teachers in model schools since the year 1900, the Treasury will no longer require this payment, and permit the Commissioners, as they have more than once requested, to distribute the fees collected among the teachers of the schools which the pupils paying these fees attend.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) The Treasury has received no representation from the Irish Government or the Commissioners of National Education with reference to the arrangement under which the model school fees within the limit of £2,000 are appropriated in aid of the Vote for Public Education, Ireland.

  Disturbances at Mr. Kensit's Meeting at Consett.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether' his attention has been called to an attack made on Mr. John Kensit, and others, at Consett, on the 27th ultimo; can he say if any arrests were made; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent such occurrences in the future.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) My attention was called to the matter by the Question of the hon. Member, and I have obtained a report from the chief constable of the county. He reports that some of Mr. Kensit's friends (not Mr. Kensit himself) attempted to hold a meeting in a public thoroughfare at Consett on the 27th
  198
  ultimo, but that, owing to the hostile attitude of the crowd, the preachers left under the protection of the police. One of the party received a kick on his leg, and the police ascertained and told him the name of his assailant. The preacher sail that he should have to report the matter to his headquarters, and consequently no arrest was made. The police who are responsible for the maintenance of order appear to have carried out their duties in a satisfactory manner, and no action on my part appears to be called for.

  Unestablished and Rural Auxiliary Postmen in Ireland.
  MR. DUFFY: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he will state what benefits will accrue under his recently published Memorandum to unestablished and rural auxiliary postmen in Ireland, doing five hours duty and upwards, who perform the work of regular postmen in country districts, and who are paid at the rate of Id. per hour, receiving wages less than 12s. par week; what change will be made in the condition and service of unestablished and rural auxiliaries who were appointed, prior to men now employed, on minor rural deliveries by the introduction of the house-to-house system some years ago; and whether he will take into consideration the increased responsibilities of this class, as well as established postmen, whose conditions of employment hitherto have shut them out from the benefits and privileges extended to all established postmen during the past ten years.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) Unestablished and rural auxiliary postmen doing five hours duty and upwards, but not a full duty, are as a rule paid somewhat more than 4d. an hour. Their pay depends upon the scale assigned to the established postmen at the place from which they start, and where an improvement has been made in that scale these auxiliary postmen will benefit. I am not sure of the exact meaning of the latter part of the hon. Member's Question. Perhaps he will furnish me with concrete; instances.

  Beira (South Africa) Post Office—Delay in returning Undelivered Postal Packets.
  MR BLACK: To ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the fact that loss has arisen to the proprietors of the Banffshire Advertiser newspaper through the action of the post office at Beira, South Africa, in retaining undelivered for more than six months a number of copies of that newspaper in place of, as requested on the cover, returning each individual copy so soon as it was ascertained that delivery could not be made; and whether steps will be taken to prevent the recurrence of the action complained of.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) As I informed the hon. Member, when replying to a letter which he wrote to me on this subject recently, the post office at Beira would not be bound to return any of the newspapers in question to this country for six months. Some of them were, however, "retained there for a longer period, and the delay has already been reported to the Portuguese authorities in order that it may be inquired into.

  Pay of Post Office Provincial Night Messengers.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: To ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that the provincial night messengers have received no increase of pay under his new scheme as they were already paid the minimum wage of town postmen; and will he consider the case of the night messengers with five years of approved service, with a view to their being paid a similar increment as all postmen receive on attaining the age of twenty-five, or granted a proportionate increase of pay on the scale of the rural postmen.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) The hon. Member appears to be under a misapprehension. The minimum of the provincial town postmen has been raised in four of the five classes, and where the unestablished night telegraph messengers were formerly paid at the minimum of the town postmen's scale it follows that in such cases they have received a corresponding increase. I fully considered the further points to which the hon. Member
  200
  refers, and I see no reason for giving these men any further increase of pay. Their work is of an extremely simple character, and widely different from that performed by postmen.

  Learners performing Post Office Duties.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General if he will state the number of learners in Ireland, Scotland, and England, respectively, who were admitted into the Post Office service by competitive examination like other Civil servants, and who are now qualified in both sorting and telegraphy, but who, notwithstanding that they work eight hours per day, have never received pay in any way; how many learners in the three countries, respectively, who are fully qualified in general post office work are still kept as learners at the rate of 5s. or Gs. per week; and will he see in future that young people will not be admitted into the public service in excess of the ordinary requirements, and thereby prevent their being kept for years practically without pay in the employment of the State.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am not aware that there are any learners, whether admitted by competition or otherwise, who are fully qualified and are working eight hours a day without pay, and I shall be glad if the hon. Member will let me know the names of any offices where such a state of things exists. Most qualified learners are now obtaining employment as substitutes with wages considerably above 5s. or 6s. a week, and I do not think the expense of ascertaining what small number have not yet obtained such employment would be justified. All learners who have served as such for two years will in future receive a considerable increase of pay. I have already taken steps to restrict the admission of learners.

  Date of Discussion on Post Office Estimates.
  MR. NANNETTI: To ask the Postmaster-General if he can now state when the discussion on the Post Office Estimates will be taken; and whether they will be taken before the Easter Recess.

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  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) It is quite impossible for the Post Office Estimates to be taken before the Easter Recess, but I am endeavouring to arrange That they shall be taken at an early date after Easter. As the hon. Member will understand, the matter is one which does mot rest entirely with me.

  Armoured Cruisers.
  MR. YERBURGH: To ask "the Secretary to the Admiralty what alterations, if any, have been made to His Majesty's ships "Powerful" and "Terrible" which entitles them to be described as armoured in the March Navy List, seeing that the term applies equally and in the same manner to armoured cruisers of the "Black Prince" and "Kent" classes; and what is the reason why cruisers of the "Andromeda," "Ariadne," and "Niobe" classes are also described as armoured.
  (Answered, by Mr. Pretyman.) The ships in question are described as projected in the March Navy List. The table alluded to was first introduced into the Navy List in January of this year. The error in classification mentioned occurred in the Navy List of that month, but was corrected in the February issue.

  The Unemployed Bill—Application to Scotland.
  MR. FINDLAY: To ask the Lord-Advocate, seeing that the Government intend introducing before Easter a Bill relative to the unemployed, whether such measure will be applicable to Scotland.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) It is not proposed to include Scotland in the Bill.

  Fish Carriage from the North of Scotland
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord - Advocate, having regard to the fact that in March of
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  last year the late Secretary for Scotland was in communication with the President of the Board of Agriculture with a view to secure a reduction in the through rates charged for the carriage of fish from the North of Scotland to the southern markets, will he state the result of the correspondence, and the names of the railway companies which have been communicated with on the subject.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) I cannot add anything to the Answer given to the hon. Member on February 27th.†

  Port of Ness Harbour—Work of Messrs. D. and T. Stevenson.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord-Advocate, having regard to the fact that the harbour and breakwater at Port Ness, Island of Lewis, were constructed from plans prepared by Messrs. D. and T. Stevenson, and that the harbour, although comparatively new, is now in such a condition as not to warrant the expenditure requisite to render it of service to the fishermen, will the Scottish Office consider the expediency of employing some other firm of civil engineers when again requiring professional assistance.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) The only assurance I can give is that the Secretary for Scotland will endeavour to secure the most efficient professional assistance when occasion arises.

  Income-tax on Arrears of Rent paid under the Irish Land Act.
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state when, in the case of an agreement having been executed between landlord and tenant for the sale of a holding under the Irish Land Act, 1903, and a sum of money added to the selling price of the holding in respect of arrears of rent, the income-tax authorities are entitled to demand payment of income-tax at current or other rate on such arrears before the vendor receives
  † See (4) Debates cxli., 1321.

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  same through the Estates Commissioners on the allocation of the purchase money.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) Since the year 1881 it has been the practice in Ireland under Treasury sanction, continued from year to year, to accept income-tax from the landlords of agricultural lands on the actual rents received from time to time instead of on the full amount assessed under Schedule A. The Board of Inland Revenue will adopt the same practice in regard to arrears of rent paid under the Irish Land Act, 1903. They have, in fact, arranged with the Irish Land Commissioners to furnish the Comptroller in Dublin with statements of such arrears as and when paid, so that application for the duty may be made at or soon after the time of payment.

  Balance-Sheet of Post Office Savings Bank.
  DR. MACNAMARA: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Comptroller of the National Debt has prepared a balance-sheet of the Post Office Savings Bank on the 31st December, 1904, in order that the National Debt Commissioners may be kept acquainted with the financial position of the bank; if so, on what basis was the valuation of securities made; and is there any objection to laying the balance-sheet upon the Table of the House.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The calculations which are necessary to determine the amount of the liability to depositors on the 31st December last have not yet been completed. When the liabilities have been ascertained, a statement will be prepared for presentation to Parliament, showing on the one side the liabilities, and on the other side the nature and amount of the securities held, as directed by Section 9 of The Savings Banks Act, 1904.

  Post Office and Trustees Savings Banks.
  DR. MACNAMARA: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he
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  is aware that the sum due to depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank and the Trustees Savings Banks amount together to £200,000,000, repayable on demand, against which no reserve is kept; and has he considered the desirability of forming a gold reserve against these deposits.
  (Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) The cash balance held on account of the Savings Banks is sufficient to meet the actual demands. The statutes require that the funds of the Savings Banks shall be invested in securities in order to earn the interest payable to depositors, and I see no reason why that requirement should not continue to be complied, with.

  Supposed Complaint against Constable Pakenham.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a report has been made against Constable Pakenham, stationed at Mountpottinger Barracks, Belfast; will he state what is its nature; and on what grounds has. Constable Pakenham been refused a sworn inquiry into the complaint made against him.
  (Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) The hon. Member has been misinformed. No report or complaint of any kind has been made against this constable, nor has he made any demand for an inquiry.

  Gold Output of Transvaal Mines£White and Coloured Labour Employed.
  DR. MACNAMARA: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can give, month for month for 1904, and for the mouths of January, February, and March, 1905, the gold output of the mines of the Transvaal, the number of native labourers, the number of Chinese coolies, and the number of white men engaged in mining operations.

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  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The figures as.ked for are shown in the

  Transvaal Gold Mining Industry.

  Period.

  Whites employed.

  Coloured employed.

  Chinese employed.

  Output.

  Witwatersrand.

  Other districts.

  £

  £

  January, 1904

  12,814

  75,027

  Nil

  1,183,946

  47,472

  February, 1904

  12,801

  77,899

  —

  1,199,712

  30,014

  March, 1904

  12,681

  79,569

  —

  1,266,281

  44,286

  April, 1904

  12,740

  78,825

  —

  1,261,746

  43,685

  May, 1904

  13,127

  77,519

  —

  1,292,978

  45,361

  June, 1904

  13,413

  74,632

  1,004

  1,267,093

  42,673

  July, 1904

  13,707

  73,370

  1,388

  1,254,097

  45,784

  August, 1904

  14,333

  73,148

  4,945

  1,279,047

  47,421

  September, 1904

  14,433

  75,411

  9,020

  1,279,123

  47,383

  October, 1904

  14,525

  78,491

  12,965

  1,333,481

  49,686

  November, 1904

  14,944

  81,673

  17,469

  1,376,311

  51,636

  December, 1904

  15,023

  83,639

  20,885

  1,486,234

  52,566

  January, 1905

  15,536

  89,895

  27,222

  1,517,349

  51,159

  February, 1905

  15,831

  97,882

  31,424

  1,491,174

  54,197

  March, 1905

  Official

  figures

  not yet

  received.

  New Field Guns for 4th West Yorks Volunteer Artillery.
  MR. J. F. HOPE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can now say when the 4th West Yorks Volunteer Artillery will be supplied with the 15-pounder field guns now in use by the Regular Army.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) It is not possible at present to say when it is probable that field guns
  following table so far as they are available—
  will be available for issue to this Volunteer Corps.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Mr. HALSEYreported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from serving on the Standing Committee on Law and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure:—Mr. Waldron; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Joseph Nolan.
Report to lie upon the Table.

LUNACY ACT AMENDMENT (LONDON) BILL.
Order for Second Reading upon Wednesday, 3rd May, read, and discharged. Bill withdrawn.

LAND VALUES (ASSESSMENT AND RATING) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. TREVELYANsaid it was not his own good fortune but it was the misfortune of the ton. Baronet the Member for the Northwich Division of Cheshire which placed on him the duty of again moving, as he did last year, the Second Reading of this Bill. He was sure they all regretted—and no one more than himself—that the task should not have been undertaken by the hon. Baronet who was unfortunately absent owing to ill-health, and whose prominence in the business world would pre-eminently entitle him to deal with the matter. But he I felt that this question did not depend in any sense upon the personality of its advocates, for it was part of a great world movement in finance and it mattered very little what individual proposed or advocated it. It was, moreover, a topic of increasing interest in our own country and one which was every year supported more powerfully by the municipalities great and small. This was the fourth year they had brought this Bill before the House of Commons. They admitted that its subject was in some respects complicated and presented many practical difficulties which it would be necessary to solve if the measure became law, but they were certain that the basis' of their proposals was sound, and he hoped the House would send the Bill to a Committee in order that it might be thrashed out in detail.
In every important respect it was the same Bill as that which he introduced last year. Its main object was to make an assessment of the land values of our towns and urban districts, to place upon the rate-book a second column, which would consist of assessments at 3 per cent. of the selling values, and to provide that
208
where the new assessment in the case of any piece of property amounted to a larger sum than the present assessment on the annual value the rate should fall upon that new assessment. There was a small addition to Clause 3 to carry out what was the original intention of the clause, and an addition to Clause 6, as to which he would have to say a word or two later on. He might say to his hon. friends from Ireland that the promoters of the Bill had considered a proposition to include Ireland as well as England and Wales within its scope, but after consulting an hon. and learned Member sitting in that House, they had taken his advice that it would technically be too difficult to deal in the same Bill with Ireland, as it would require a variety of wording. They therefore hoped that their Irish and Scotch friends would continue to support the Bill on the understanding that the promoters wished to extend it, and would be ready to do so, to other parts of the United Kingdom as soon as there was an opportunity of bringing in a Bill on similar lines. This Bill was supported with practical unanimity by the local authorities of the United Kingdom. There were no fewer than 166 corporations or borough or town councils, 152 urban district councils, and 128 Poor Law authorities supporting it, and since the Bill was introduced last year the number of local authorities supporting the measure had been increased by no fewer than 205.
MR. BOND: How do.they support it?
MR. TREVELYANsaid they had all passed resolutions in its favour, and in view of this fact it was useless for opponents to describe the Bill as revolutionary or subversive. He did not intend to argue that land reformers were inclined to regard the measure as the whole solution of the question. They considered it rather as the basis from which it was hoped the reform of the present system of local taxation would start.
He would like to say a word or two about the general principle that was involved in the Bill. Everyone at the present moment was beginning to say that the difficulties of our local

209
finance were as great as those of national finance. In his opinion they were even greater, because the whole of our local taxation was drawn from one and the same source, with the exception of some comparatively small national subventions. No one could say that our great wealthy towns could not afford the taxation which was at present levied—if it were levied in the right direction. The evil of the present system was that the rates to a very great extent fell upon houses and improvements. The assessments on which rates at present were levied contained, it was true, the annual letting value of the land. But in most cases more than half of the assessments from which rates were at present levied fell upon the value of improvements. This was specially true of those parts of towns where development was going on most actively. If they went into the outside parts of their towns they would find, taking the present assessments on which rates were levied, that the enormously greater part of the assessments—in many cases nine-tenths—were assessments not on land value, but on the value of houses and mills and of improvements on the land. In a great part of our towns there was a taxation from six to nine shillings in the pound, nine-tenths of which was upon improvements and houses which were put upon the land, and to many of them that appeared to be the real evil of the present burden of the rates. It was a flagrant and disastrous social evil and it seemed to bring them face to face with the actual reason for the overcrowding in their cities and towns. Why was it, when the poor were crying out for good houses and when they were paying exorbitant rents forbid tenements, that the building trade, where there was a great demand for houses as evidenced by the readiness to pay high rents, was seriously depressed? After all, the building trade had every advantage it could have. It had no foreign competition to face, it could obtain material very cheap, and there was no lack of demand for houses; but there was a lack of a supply because the supply was so seriously taxed.
He would like to quote from an interesting and important statement, made by one who knew more, perhaps,
210
about our town populations than any other man in the United Kingdom. He referred to Mr. Charles Booth, who had written recently on this subject, and who took an even more advanced view on it than some hon. Members who were promoting this Bill. He said—
"When for the advantage of the consumer' and in the interests of the towns, and of trade, the food of the people was relieved of a large part of the taxation it had borne, it seems to have been overlooked, or not fully foreseen, that the houses the people lived in were, or would come to be, even more heavily taxed than their food had ever been, and that free internal developments would be hindered by the peculiar incidence of this burden."
What they thought was that if a measure of that kind were passed, and if the people in their towns were able to see side by side, the assessment of the permanent land value—and the value of the whole property, including buildings and improvements, they would realise how very much better it would be to gradually remove the present taxation on improvements and houses which Varied in proportion to the expenditure and enterprise of the person who made the improvements. They would see the advantage of substituting a tax on land value, the incidence of which would be much the same on all properties in the same quarter of the town, because the land values would be very much the same and would not rise in proportion to the amount of capital which was put into the land to improve it. This was the ultimate aspect of land taxation, but they did not want to hurry. It was too great a question, and this Bill did not go so far as that. There was another reason why houses were not erected as rapidly as the population required, and that was that land in the neighbourhood of towns was dear. It was to that question that this Bill was immediately directed. All they desired was to get land into the market for the purpose of developing the town. Land was a first necessity for any kind of living or industry. It was private property in all civilised nations, but still it did not cease to be a first necessity for everybody, and because it was a first necessity for every enterprise, the State was bound to see that it was used for the best purposes, while it preserved to private individuals the right to draw rent from it.

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At the present time good agricultural land on which there was no immediate prospect of building could be sold for from £50 to £100 per acre, which represented from 3d. to 6d. per square yard. But the time came when that land was gradually converted into building land, and it was so converted because the towns had crept up to it, and not because the landlord, by any superhuman skill or industry, had brought the land nearer to the town. Every penny of the increased value was due to the exertions of others than the landlord, who was very lucky indeed to get that increase of value. Who could deny that a man who possessed agricultural land which he could sell for £50 or £100 per acre was exceedingly fortunate, when, owing to the development of a town, be was able to get from £200 to £300 for the very same property. Yet, as society was ordered to-day, the price of land before coming into the market for building land was enormously greater than the figures he had just given. He had asked men who had had to do with dealings in land what was the lowest price at which land came into the market round our great towns, and they had informed him that from £600 to £800 per acre, or 2s. per square yard, was about the lowest, but that the ordinary price at which it did come into the market was very much higher, and that it ranged from £1,000 to £1,500 per acre. He was putting out of consideration those tracts of land which were purposely kept out of use until the towns had developed round them—tracts for which the prices were enormously in advance of the figures he had quoted. Nobody who was arguing for the Bill would assert that individual blame attached to the landlord for charging these prices. It was a State-sanctioned monopoly which enabled them to bleed the people because of their very necessities. They did not, in the long run, expect humanitarianism from anyone. But it was not good for the people. It was their business to get land into the market at reasonably cheap rates, and they might be perfectly certain that landlords would get an increase on agricultural value, even if they taxed it as the Bill proposed to do. The difference between
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the selling value of agricultural land to-day and the selling value of building land showed an enormouslv too great discrepancy, and, therefore, he submitted they ought to bring land into the market at a much cheaper rate.
During the last few months he had been watching the criticisms upon their proposals, and, he was sure that no one on that side of the House had any disposition to despise or neglect those criticisms. One thing said was that land was not kept out of the market, but he would like in that connection to quote from a letter which appeared in the Property Market Review, from the pen of Mr. Donald Dinwiddy. The portion he wished to quote was as follows—
"An estate in the outskirts of London, situate in an urban district, was purchased a few years ago, and its 'selling value' may be taken to be £15,000. The 'land value,' as defined by the Bill, would, at 3 per cent., be £450 per annum, and rates, at 6s. 8d. in the £, would amount to £150. The real annual value—evidenced by a grazing tenancy—is £60, on which the tenant pays rates, which after exemption of a moiety of the poor rates and three-fourths of the district rate, amount to £8 per annum. Under this Bill the unfortunate landowner would be mulcted in an additional £142 per annum for rates, whereas the present annual value and income is but £60."
He noted in passing that the writer of the letter spoke of the landlord who had a property worth £15,000 as unfortunate.
MR. BOND: The landlord bought and paid for it.
MR. TREVELYANsaid that if £15,000 were not a mere speculative price the landlord ought to be taxed on that sum in order that he might be compelled to put the land to its proper use. It was no very great hardship to compel him to realise if the land possessed that real value, and he was acting in a grossly unsocial way in keeping it out of the market. The only possible argument in his favour was that he might have paid a speculative price for the land which could not be immediately realised. It had been suggested by the hon. Member for Leicester and others that if this tax were put upon developing land it would check land speculation. He agreed that it might do so, but he wanted to ask the House

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was that really a harmful thing. It was perfectly true that under the Bill it would be of no use paying speculative prices for land which could not be realised, because any man who did that would be taxed on the price he had given, and it would be a luxury, which he would not be able to afford, to hold the land until its speculative value could be realised. Everybody who dealt in land now had come to be a speculator, And he would ask the House whether in the case of what he might call legitimate speculators, that was to say, the case of people who were ready to build at once, there would be any real injury to them. He admitted that the man who bought simply in order to sell at a higher price later on would be hit. If the House thought fit they could mitigate the fall by not bringing the Bill into full operation at once. There was no real benefit to the community in having pieces of land bought merely to be held for a possible rise. Genuine builders and building societies had now in a sense frequently to pay speculative prices, because they could not be certain of getting land when they wanted it at reasonable prices, and consequently they had to look ahead and make speculative bargains in land for use years hence. But they would not be seriously hit by this Bill. In some cases where they had bought land not yet ripe for building they might be hit; but on the other hand they would be immensely advantaged by the fact that they would be able to alter their whole policy of purchase, simply buying land shortly before they desired to build, with the certainty that the monopoly which now frequently prevented their buying would be broken, and that land would come into the market steadily at reasonable prices.
One of the most popular objections to the scheme was that it would cause open spaces to be sold. If its supporters believed the result of the Bill would be to provide less air for crowded populations and decrease the number of parks and open spaces they would regard that as a very serious objection. But they urged just the opposite. As long as the prosperity of the country continued our cities would continue to spread, and under this Bill they believed the cities would spread more rapidly,
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and that the crowded populations would be less crammed than now in the centres of our great towns. At any rate, indoors the people would have more air to breathe. The number of parks and open spaces in great cities was largely dependent on the intelligence of the municipalities, but at present, however, active they might be in that respect, they were hampered at every turn by exorbitant and impossible prices constantly asked by private owners. The contention of the supporters of the Bill was that municipalities would be able to do far more in this direction if they could insist upon land coming into the market at reasonable prices. But there were cases in which the municipality might be unwilling to buy, while private owners were willing to keep open spaces for the public. To meet such cases there had been inserted in the Bill Clause 6, enabling such parks and open spaces to be exempted if dedicated under trust to the public use.
A large number of valuers and professional men connected with land held the view that this assessment of land could not be made, or that it would be too expensive for municipalities to undertake. A profession was always conservative and apt to take the view of the persons who chiefly employed it. This profession was always working for landlords and was bound, to take their view, not from prejudice, but because its work was always done from the landlord's point of view, and notoriously landlords did not like this Bill. On the other hand, those members of the profession who were in the same relation to municipalities as others were to private landlords were of opinion that the thing could be done. But a more material fact than the speculative opinion of the profession was the actual experience of those countries where the principle had been adopted. There had been absolutely no difficulty found in assessing land in many Colonies, Germany, and the United States; it had been done perfectly easily and, he believed, inexpensively. In Australia and New Zealand, where the system was in full operation, the clerks of the various municipalities which had adopted it all said, the same thing—that it had not increased and in some cases had decreased, the cost of assessment. Since

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the war the principle had been adopted in Johannesburg. The municipality desired that the whole of the rating should be based upon land values, and not at all upon houses, but the Government of the Transvaal preferred that houses should still be taxed. The whole of the developing land was now taxed on its capital value. A year ago the boundaries of Johannesburg were extended from an area of nine square miles to seventy-five and a half square miles, mainly for the purpose of bringing within the area of this taxation large properties of undeveloped land of great value which were being held out of the market by companies and that object had been largely secured. An even more important case was that of the city of New York. In 1903 there was granted to New York a new charter, the object being to enable a more effective assessment to be made of the value of real property. It was not undertaken for the special purpose of taxing land values. In one year a new assessment was made of the land values of New York from one end of the city to the other, and he had with him the special record in which every price of property was assessed in two columns—one of the value of real estate unimproved and the other the value of real estate with improvements thereupon. It was a striking fact that the municipality did this not for the purpose of exempting improvements, but in order to make a more exact assessment of the whole of real property, and they would not have done it had it meant enormous expense.
In the face of these facts why should we be so timid about entering upon this policy? It might not be a complete scheme, but it did, at any rate, open the door to something like a final settlement, and it had the merit of being capable of indefinite development as the people of the country approved of it. It was impossible at a blow to alter the practice of centuries, or by a single stroke of the legislative pen to set up a new system of taxation, but the Bill struck at the root-evil of the present system, and would immediately result in an enormous reduction of the cost of the first necessity of life and industry, viz., land. Every year there was a stronger feeling that this proposal
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deserved serious consideration and support; there were even members of the Government not hostile to it, and he hoped the House would, if possible by a larger majority than last year, pass the Second Reading, and permit the-Bill to be sent to a Committee upstairs for detailed discussion. He begged to move.
Motion made, and Question proposed,. "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid the mover of the Bill had not only admirably restated the case for the measure, but had dealt with objections developed in last year's debate and since. Seeing that the principle of the Bill had already received the approval of the House, what its supporters had to do to-day was not so much to restate their case as to listen to what fresh arguments might have been found to its practical application. He could not see how anyone who had been officially connected with the demolition of insanitary property could withhold his support from the essential principle of this Bill, which he took to be the separate assessment and ascertainment of land values with a view, if not to special rating, at any rate to the direct recovery from the owner of that portion of the rate which pertained to the land.
He had been concerned officially with the demolition of a block of insanitary property in Liverpool. He took the Government inspector to the property on a snowy day, and even his well-tried nerves received a shock. But the most striking feature was the position of the landowner. The property had been developed on a comparatively short lease. The houses had never been fit for human habitation, in fact, they ought never to have been erected, and the property was in a state of decay. The unfortunate occupiers and the still more unfortunate tenants had a certain interest in the transaction, and the authorities had a direct interest in getting rid of them both. But the owner of the land had contracted himself out of all that interest in the property which imposed duties and responsibilities. He received his

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ground rents and in that sense sat at the receipt of custom, but he had no obligations, and within a comparatively short period would again enter into possession of the site. That did not seem to him quite a fair state of things between the owner of that land and the municipality. What was the position? The landowner had no possible motive in terminating the state of that property. He received what he was entitled to receive, namely, the ground rents, but the onus lay on the municipality of getting rid of the scandal. Of course, the first thing which they had to do was to buy the landlord out. He did not want to say that the landlord was exorbitant or unfair. His opinion was that he behaved as landlords generally behaved when they had certain property for sale, and they thought they could get the full amount awarded for it. It occurred to him that this was not a satisfactory state of things as between a municipality and the owners of the soil, and the position would have been improved so far as the municipality was concerned had some method such as that which was the essential principle of this Bill been adopted for putting the site under special assessment and for the direct levying upon the owner of the land of that portion of the rent which appertained to the value of the soil. Under such an arrangement the owner of the soil would have had an interest alike with the municipality, and he would also have been interested in getting rid of a state of things which ought never to have existed. It might be said that the landowner would contract himself out of that arrangement as he had done out of the previous one. That might be so between the people who wished to assert their rights and the individual owner who naturally would take advantage of the full limits of his ingenuity. But that was not a reason why they should refuse to take a modest preliminary by putting in a separate column the value of the land in urban communities and then they would have a direct interest in its proper treatment.
He did not want to follow his hon. friend in his treatment generally of this question. It was an extremely complicated subject, but he thought all hon. Members present would bear testimony to the ability with
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which the hon. Member who moved this Bill had threaded the maze of an extremely difficult problem. He felt that such an adjustment as was proposed by this Bill was very desirable. Land was a much truer barometer of value than the buildings upon it, and that was an essential truth which lay behind the principle of this Bill. Land might be put to its full use or to its stultified use, or it might be withheld from the requirements of the community altogether; but its value could easily be ascertained if the will to ascertain it was there. Its value was a truer barometer of the needs and of the prosperity of the community than anything else, and he felt quite sure that before they finished with this question they would come to the conclusion that it was the truest basis of assessment and value. This Bill was an attempt to adjust matters between the different groups of occupiers and owners. He took it that was all it contemplated, namely, the bringing into rating of land which today was either wilfully or by neglect not properly developed, and therefore not bearing its true proportion of the common burdens of the community.
He felt that the details of this Bill were open in some respects to objection, but that was to say no more than in the application of any principles there would always be some objection. It was quite impossible in any field of human activity for human thought to grasp or advocate a principle of any kind without being immediately confronted with enormous practical difficulties in carrying it into-effect. They did not decide for or against the principle altogether because it was difficult of application, but they decided for it on grounds other than that, and in this particular case, certainly, he felt that upon the question of land values and its assessment for rating they could embrace the principle and leave the practical application to be settled after the principle had been affirmed.
There was only one other point, in conclusion, that he wished to touch upon, and it was one which he knew had excited some comment in Liverpool. He alluded to the non-disturbance of existing contracts. It was, of course, well known that in the earlier

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stages of this Bill it was proposed to interfere with existing contracts.
MR. TREVELYAN: That has never been proposed.
MR. AUSTIN TAYLORsaid at any rate it was quite clear that it was proposed in this Bill to leave existing leases and agreements undisturbed. It was, of course, felt by many occupiers who had developed properties upon short leases that it would be extremely hard upon them if at any time they were called upon to pay a special rate for a site value which they were perfectly incapable of recovering from the owner until the lease had expired. In the interval, having already agreed to bear the whole burden of the rates from which the owner was exempted himself, and having had to bear the enhancement of rates not anticipated, it was natural they should feel it hard that a Bill directed to recovering from the landowner should land them or run the risk of landing them into a special rate upon land values. He only mentioned that point because he thought the promoters of this Bill in the House of Commons would be only too willing to safeguard them against any injustice of that character, and he felt strongly that if at any time in the development of land this injustice arose it would be perfectly possible to readjust matters by giving them the relief which would inevitably arise upon the buildings and other properties which would to that extent be relieved. He only mentioned that point, and it did not in the slightest degree qualify his support of the principle of this Bill. He trusted that the House of Commons would once more affirm this principle, and he believed that by so doing they would be affirming a principle which was of vital consequence to our large towns, a consequence which those towns had shown themselves fully cognisant of in the resolutions and decisions which they had adopted by large majorities.
MR. REMNANTsaid he congratulated the mover of the Bill upon his great luck in winning the place in the ballot which had enabled him to bring forward this most interesting
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subject. He congratulated him upon his good fortune, and although the hon. Baronet who drew first place was not able to be present, still there was great compensation for this in the knowledge that the Bill had been moved by the same hon. Member who moved it last year. He did not think, however, that they could congratulate the hon. Member upon bringing in precisely the same Bill as last year, because, with the exception of one or two trivial alterations, he had made no allowance for the criticisms passed upon the measure upon the last occasion, and which in his opinion were worthy of every consideration. In spite of this the hon. Member had brought in a Bill without any alterations whatever in the direction of meeting the objections raised when this matter was last discussed. The hon. Member had made an extraordinary mixture of personal and real property. If in the case of shares a large increase of value took place he supposed the hon. Member would have no objection to that, although he did object in the case of other property. He supposed the hon. Member had gone through the Hansard record of last year's debate, and had taken out the points which he thought worthy of consideration. He might say that he had done the same thing, and although he stuck to all he said last year, he was sure the House would not wish to hear a repetition of what took place upon that occasion. Therefore, he would endeavour to confine himself to any new objections which he had to the Bill as it was introduced to-day.
The hon. Member who moved this measure had rather twitted them upon the fact that while they opposed this Bill they had nevertheless supported the Agricultural Ratings Bill. He did not think that charge of inconsistency could be properly supported on this occasion, because the legislation that took place in reference to the rating of agricultural land and tithe rent-charge was based upon a special interim Report made by a Commission which dealt with that subject. He would like to refer to the second Report dealing with agricultural depression in which special mention was made of the grave condition

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to which agricultural interests had come, and speaking of relief urged that measures should be taken without delay, and that although legislation could not be carried into effect in connection with the financial arrangements of that year, declared that something ought to be done, and at once, in each of the directions suggested, to mitigate, if possible, the deplorable results and to arrest the progress of the depression. But the Bill as submitted to the House flew directly in the face of the Report of the Commissioners upon Local Taxation. Even the Minority Report on ground values advocated an owner's site value rate only as a "make-weight" to accompany "increased provision made by the State in aid of services locally administered." And, again, the Minority Report justified a new charge, on the ground that it would be "counterbalanced by the relief proposed to be granted in the shape of increased subventions." The Amendment, on the other hand, was strictly in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission. The Commissioners pointed out that, while personal property subject to Imperial taxation was about three times as great as real property so taxable, the non-rateable property contributed to local objects—if elementary education was excluded—only a little over 6 per cent, of the whole expenditure, and nearly 83 per cent, fell on the rates. In order to relieve this inequality the Report proposed that there should be an in-. creased payment from death duties on personalty for local purposes; that the transfer of trading licences and of establishment licences should be made complete, and that power should be given to increase their amount; while the assignment to local purposes of a fixed portion of the income-tax was said to be deserving of consideration. The terms of the Amendment were borrowed from Lord Spencer's recent letter on the policy of the next Liberal Government. Lord Spencer in that letter said—
"I wish now to deal with the whole question of taxation and local rates. In my opinion the legislation of the Government on this subject was entirely wrong. It favoured one class at the cost of the whole country and neglected many parts of the problem, and I am confident that the proper mode of treating this subject will be to introduce as far as possible a broad
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and comprehensive measure to deal with the whole basis and incidence of taxation and rating which both in town and country now are antiquated and need drastic reform. The one object to be arrived at is not piecemeal and partial treatment, but such legislation as will secure fair and equitable results to all classes of the community in the financial burdens which as citizens they must bear."
[Cries of "Hear, hear!"] He was glad to hear those "Hear, hears" on the other side of the House. He hoped that an Amendment which carried with it the approval of both sides of the House would when put to the vote be carried unanimously. It seemed to him that it was significant that in that letter Lord Spencer laid down a principle which was often enunciated by the late Lord Salisbury. Speaking at Nottingham on November 26th, 1889, Lord Salisbury said—
"The danger of all interference with rates, as anybody who is acquainted with parochial life must know, is that there is nothing so likely to set society by the ears, and an attempt to revolutionise the principle on which we have conducted the levying of our rates ever since the days of Elizabeth will be an exceedingly dangerous and difficult task. But, if it is ever attempted, we must deal with a great injustice which is inherent in the rates, and settle that. I refer to the distinction that is made between real and personal property. It is not in itself just that if I possess £100 a year in the Funds, I should go entirely without any taxation whatever for the support of the poor, or the education of the poor, whereas if instead of putting that £100 into the funds, I put it into land or houses, I snail pay a tenth part, or a fourth part, of my income for the support of the poor and for the support of education. The thing is utterly unjust. Nothing but mere use would have induced us to submit to it so long, and if any great revolutionary statesman is coming who is to take the whole thing to pieces and set it up on the most approved philosophical principles, the first thing he must do is to see that personal property should pay its share of the rates as well as realty."
That was the opinion of the late Lord Salisbury in 1889, and it appeared to be the opinion to-day of Lord Spencer and a great number of hon. Members now in the House. The excessive strain upon real property under the present system had lately been described by Sir Robert Giffen. He would read Sir Robert Giffen's words—
"Speaking in round figures, we may say that about £240,000,000 of income from real property have to bear a charge of close upon £60,000,000 of rates … In addition the property has to bear a further charge at present of over £7,000,000 for income-tax, at the rate of

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Is. per £. There are, besides, the death duties. There is no doubt that this combination of charges is so high as to deprive the country of the financial reserve it ought always to possess in its real property specially, as well as in the incomes generally liable to income-tax. The nation is now so tightly bourd that the taxable resource furnished by real property has no elasticity,"
While the Amendment was thus supported by the highest official, political, and financial authorities, no such authorities could be cited on behalf of the piecemeal and partial legislation proposed by the Bill. The Bill was no doubt supported by a large number of municipal authorities. Hon. Members had recently received a circular showing that a large number of corporations supported the Bill. The hon. Member who moved the Second Reading said that in all cases resolutions had been passed in favour of the Bill. He himself had not gone through the whole list, but it struck him that the action of one corporation, namely, that of Stockport, did not altogether bear out the statement of the hon. Member. The following appeared in the Manchester Guardian, January 5th, 1905—
"Yesterday Stockport Town Council discussed the rating of land values. Mr. Alderman J. Turner proposed That this Council expresses its approval of legislation for the purposes of rating and taxing land values, and hereby requests the borough representatives in Parliament to ballot for a Bill with those objects.' He urged that the trend of recent legislation had been to cast burdens upon the industrial community which were fast becoming intolerable. The taxation of land values would be such a fiscal reform as this country had not seen since the repeal of the Corn Laws; indeed, it was a necessary corollary of free trade.
"Mr. A. Glithero seconded the motion, and referred to a farm in Stockport which some years ago was let at a rental of £60 per annum, and from which now, the land being covered with buildings, there was received in chief rents £663 a year."
"Mr. A. Briggs opposed the motion, contending that it was a question bristling with difficulties, and that it should be left to the Imperial Parliament without pressure.
"The motion was defeated by 25 votes to 15."
MR. TREVELYAN: I was told yesterday that the list was up to date in December. There may have been one or two alterations since.
MR. REMNANT: Nobody doubts for a moment what the hon. Gentleman says, but the report I have read shows,
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at all events, that the list is not absolutely reliable.
MR. TREVELYAN: It is reliable up to December. Of course it is obvious that one or two municipalities may have changed their opinion one way or the other,
MR. REMNANT: It is only a small matter. There waalign="center"s no resolution passed up to December in Stockport. [AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, previously.] According to the extract I have read from the Manchester Guardian Stockport at the present moment is not in favour of the principle of the Bill.
MR. WHITLEY: No, no! Mr. Briggs only moved the previous question.
MR. REMNANTsaid the town council decided by a majority that it was not a question which they could' properly discuss. There were, no doubt, a large number of municipal authorities in favour of the Bill, but there were also a good many who were solid against it. It was only natural that such bodies should welcome a scheme which promised to supply them with fresh funds at the expense of a minority of the population, thought it was more than doubtful whether it was to the interest of the ratepayers that their representatives should be encouraged to engage still further in hazardous commercial enterprises without in the first instance appearing to raise the rates. In point of fact, however, municipal authorities were by no means solid for the Bill. Neither the City Corporation nor the Westminster, City Council supported it, and various provincial authorities, including the Somerset County Council and the Town Council of Stockport, had definitely refused to support it. Even in the case of those municipal bodies which had passed resolutions in favour of the separate assessment of land values, important minorities had dissented. The London County Council had again and again passed resolutions on these lines.
MR. BENN: May I remind the hon. Member that the London.

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County Council most emphatically approve of the separate assessment of land values, and that they have reaffirmed that by overwhelming majorities.
MR. REMNANTsaid that the separate assessment of land values was explicitly condemned by the late Lord Farrer and the late Lord Hobhouse. When authorities were cited on an intricate economic problem, names should be weighed as well as counted. Even the supporters of the Bill would probably admit that in such matters the opinions of the late Lord Farrer and the late Lord Hobhouse outbalanced the opinion of a very large number of other County Councillors. The foreign precedents cited in support of the Bill were misleading, being drawn from countries where, unlike England, a fair contribution was made by personal property to the rates, whereas the Bill proposed new burdens on land without any contribution from personalty. In the United States land was taxed on its capital value, but personalty was also taxed in the same way. This was fair and equal: the Bill was unequal and therefore unfair. In German towns, again, local taxation was based on incomes. Dr. F. P. Koenig, H.B.M. Consul at Diisseldorf, wrote in a etter dated March 1st, 1905—
"Local rates are raised by the local authorities based OR the income-tax paid to the State. Here 14 per cent, of the State income-tax is paid in local rates."
That pretty well expressed his views on this subject. It was not that real property should escape taxation; but that there should be an equal contribution between real property and personalty. France was referred to last year. In France a very large contribution was made from personal property to the local rates by means of the Octroi duties. The hon. Member referred to the colonial precedents, but these were equally irrelevant. The national land tax in New Zealand was, as Mr. Pember Reeves pointed out in his book entitled "State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand," only a form of income-tax, land being there exempt from the income-tax paid by personalty. It was true that rates were levied on land values in some Australasian towns, but Australasian legislation, unlike the Bill, left
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landlords and tenants free to make their own future contracts with regard to the payment of the rate. That was, he was quite sure, admitted to be fair by all economists. The Acton Express (January 31st, 1903) published an official correspondence between the Vestry Clerk of Acton, Mr. W. Adam Brown, and the Town Clerks of Brisbane and Townsville (Queensland), and Palmerston North and Wellington (New Zealand). The Vestry Clerk of Acton asked for answers to eight questions, one of which was—
"In the case of rented premises, leaseholds, etc., who pays the tax?"
The letter received from Wellingto left this question unanswered; but the letters received from the town clerks of the other three towns answered it as follows—
"The occupier, unless under agreement with owners."—(Town Clerk of Palmerston North.)
"Entirely a matter of arrangement between landlord and tenant, though the tenant is primarily liable."—(Town Clerk of Brisbane.)
"The occupier is liable in the first instance, but, unless there is a special agreement to the contrary, he can recover the amount from the owner."—(Town Clerk of Townsville.)
In his opinion the advantages claimed for the Bill broke down as completely as the alleged precedents on examination. Thus it was said that land benefited by public improvements would be reached by the Bill. Had those who argued thus ever heard of the "recoupment" principle, under which the municipal body which carried out an improvement acquired the neighbouring land which was expected to be benefited by the improvement, and so took the whole of the increased value for the public? This principle was applied by the late Metropolitan Board of Works with brilliant success in the case of Northumberland Avenue.
MR. BENN: That was the only instance in London where the expense was recouped.
MR. REMNANTsaid that that was the leading case where a well-managed scheme resulted in a great success; but would the hon. Member for Devonport give the House some information as to what was happening in regard to the great Holborn to Strand improvement, where the London County Council

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did buy sufficient land on both sides of the area? He believed that either from want of management or from the onerous conditions imposed, the success of that scheme was anything but great. As regarded this Bill, it was quite true that the present system of allowing for repairs on a uniform basis in the assessment of property, instead of discriminating between the varying expenditures required for repairs according to the character and condition of each property, was unsatisfactory and called for radical reform. But the remedy provided by the Bill (Clause 5), which the hon. Member for the Elland Division of Yorkshire described in the debate on the Land Values Bill of last year, as he was reported in Hansard, as a "rough and ready differentiation," was not only cumbersome and expensive but obviously imperfect. Thus under the Bill there would be the smallest allowance for repairs where sites were most valuable, so that in all cases where the site value increased, there would be a smaller and smaller allowance on account of the repairs as the buildings got older and older and the repairs cost more and more. A far simpler and more perfect remedy was to make the allowance for repairs correspond with the actual circumstances of the property. There was no sort of difficulty about this, as the calculation was only one of the kind which surveyors were making daily, viz., to estimate in the case of a particular house the difference of the rental value under a repairing as compared with a non-repairing lease. It was in truth difficult to name any class of persons who would really and in the long run be benefited by the Bill.
Even the apparent gain to municipalities would prove a complete delusion. If they looked to occupied houses, there was no land value which escaped assessment under the ordinary law, as under the present system the burden of the rates undoubtedly really came upon the landlord. This was the view not only of high financiers like the late Mr. Gladstone and Sir Robert Giffen, but of practically the whole body of land surveyors and others who had actual experience in such matters, including the London County Council's own valuer, who, speak-
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ing on this subject some time ago, said that the—
"Burden of rates fell entirely upon the owners of property and for the most part upon the owners of land."
This subject had been inquired into at great length both by the Town Holdings Committee of the House of Commons and by the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, and at the conclusion of these inquiries not one member of the Committee, not one of the Royal Commissioners, was found to deny that rents were affected by the agreement of tenants to pay the rates. The municipal authorities could, obviously, gain nothing by a clumsy system of rearranging charges upon those who, in fact, already bore them. If this principle was borne in mind it would be seen, further, that even the rating of vacant land and the sites of empty houses would ultimately confer no benefit on the ratepayers. The effect would be only to relieve the owner of occupied land of some part of the rates, and to cast that part on the owners of unoccupied land. The present practice, under which owners were taxed when they had income out of which to pay the taxes, was obviously more convenient to them, and did not ultimately cause any loss to the public.
It was said that the community might gain by compelling an owner who was "holding up" land to bring it into the market. Obviously, the object of an owner who kept his land out of the market was to obtain a greater price for it at a later date when the value had gone up. Of course, he might have miscalculated his chances; but in most cases the principle of self-interest might be trusted to act, and in the long run he would make a gain. The supporters of the Bill forget that in this matter the interests of the municipality and the owner were identical. If the owner did better for himself by waiting, the municipality also did better, because it got proportion ately higher rates, e.g., if a man owned vacant land on which a house could be built commanding an immediate rental of £50 a year, whereas in twenty years time a house commanding a rental of £100 a year could be built on the same site, the municipality should encourage

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the owner to wait. It paid the municipality much better to get the rates on £100 a year, beginning twenty years hence, than to get rates on only £50 a year, beginning at once. One was not impressed by the Marco Polo stories of the marvellous additions which would be made to the rateable value of Finchley and other localities if vacant land were rated. A surveyor could estimate with reasonable accuracy the market value of a particular plot of land. It was a totally different matter to estimate what would be the value of vacant land if the whole of the vacant land in a suburban or semi-rural district were treated as available for building at the same moment. In the latter case, the disturbance of normal market conditions would be enormous, and, though no doubt the valuers who had prepared such estimates for the English League for the Taxation of Land Values would say that they had allowed for this, there was no evidence that their allowance was adequate. One might be sure that if one of these estimates were submitted to an impartial arbitrator, and if, say, one of the many distinguished legal luminaries in this House were retained to cross-examine the valuers on behalf of the owners, a very different estimate would emerge. There were some points likely to escape the valuers which would be brought out in cross-examination which would lead to a very different result so far as the owners were concerned.
It was said that the rating of vacant land, by bringing more land into the market, would assist the housing of the working-classes. Those who argued thus forgot that the promoters of the Bill had ingeniously frustrated any such effect of a rate on vacant land by providing also for a rate on the sites of houses vacant. What was the object of imposing a rate to induce the landowner to provide more land for building if, at the same time, they deterred him from building on the land, when it was provided? Those who drew glowing pictures of the advantages of taxation of vacant land should remember that no such advantages had attended the system in America, where it had long been tried. Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, who, as President of the Land Nationalisation Society, should be
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an acceptable authority to some hon. Members on the opposite side of the House, on his return from a visit to America in 1887, gave an address on November 1st of that year, in which he pointed out that every particle of land, whether built on or not, was taxed on its full selling value. He went on to say—
"The results are very curious. To begin with, laud speculation, which we think is bad enough with us, is but a trifle here compared with what it is in America. In America, land speculation is everywhere excessive. It is the great mode of making money, and it exists more or less all over the country wherever land is for sale and is not monopolised by great capitalists. This taxation on full values, however, usually causes very rapid changes of ownership. Men buy land on speculation for the purpose of selling it again quickly. They will not hold it long, because, if it is not used, the taxes will eat it up. Then somebody else buys it and sells it again pretty quickly, and thus land is continually changing owners until it is used for occupation or cultivation or for building. But the result of this rapid change of ownership—of each person trying to make a profit—is that land very rapidly acquires in America a price as high as in old settled countries like England and very often even higher. … Then, again, the result of these speculations is that in the cities—in the suburbs of the cities, in the places where working men live, we find the land cut up into still smaller strips than in England, and the houses are built still more closely together. … Notwithstanding all the great advantages they possess, we find houses crowded together, rents enormously high, and no gardens to the houses. One of the most disagreeable features of American houses to Englishmen is that there are no gardens."—("Land Lessons from America," published by the Land Nationalisation Society, pp. 9, 11, 12.)
Some of the evils which Dr. Wallace found in America, were already making themselves felt in Paris, where the rating of vacant land had recently been introduced. Justice, the organ of the Social Democratic Federation, said (October 26th, 1901)—
"The taxation of land values is a favourite Radical panacea for political ills. We have frequently pointed out how little such a mere burden-shifting measure could do for the working class, and that it was of no practical importance to them. Under certain circumstances, however, it appears that the taxation of land values may actually become a real hardship to the common people. Recently the Municipality of Paris has decided to tax all land not built upon. The consequence has been what; land-taxers would anticipate in such circumstances, that open spaces which were private property, but which were enjoyed by the people of Paris, are now to become the spoil of the jerry-builder. M. de Franqueville, for instance

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the President of the Academy, the proprietor of the exquisite park 'La Muette,' with its historic fame, was notified that he would have to pay 80,000 francs taxation for it. He did the only thing in his power, and has ordered that it should be sold out in lots, as he could not pay £3,000 a year for such a luxury and freely offer his hospitality to the Parisians. No doubt our single-taxers would acclaim such results as great and glorious victories for their principles, as the imposition of the tax had led to the owners having the land built upon, instead of keeping it as pleasure resorts for the public. But nobody but the owners will benefit by the change, and even if they had not handed their land over to the jerry-builder, to add to the already crowded state of the city, it would simply have meant that it answered their purpose best to keep it unoccupied. The sensible thing for the Paris Municipality to have done would have been to acquire the land for public use, or to exempt the owners from the tax so long as they allowed the public the use of their parks. As it is, the experiment has shown that the taxation of land values will not abolish landlordism, and may easily intensify its evils."
Some of the dangers of rating vacant land were clearly pointed out by the Local Government and Taxation Committee of the London County Council in old days. A Report of that Committee dated June 26th, 1891, signed by B. F. C. Costelloe, chairman, made the following admissions—
'We doubt, first, whether it is possible to force the land market by the indirect agency of rates upon landowners. It is the interest of landowners to bring their land into profitable occupation as quickly as they can; and it is especially the interest of the present possessors of land in settlement or in mortmain. There is no evidence that they do not follow that interest; some of them are only too hasty in doing so. Mr. Vigers tells us that London is overbuilt periodically every seven yeais. We doubt, secondly, whether, if the land market could be artificially forced by a system of rating, it would be found of advantage to Londoners; seeing that land would be covered which might have remained longer open, a number of houses would be built without the certainty of occupants and would be built cheaply and flimsily, and would remain empty, and would decay. Such a result would injure the neighbourhood, and would not benefit the rates."
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
The House went, and, being returned,
Mr. SPEAKERreported the Royal Assent to—

1. Army (Annual) Act, 1905.

2. Local Government Board's Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 1) Act, 1905.

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3. Leeds Corporation (Consolidation) Act, 1905.

LAND VALUES (ASSESSMENT AND RATING) BILL.
Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. REMNANT (continuing his speech)said he proposed now to show some of the remarkable results which would ensue if these proposals became law. The present Bill, like the Bill of last year, showed the utter hollowness of the cry for the "rating of ground rents." Under the Bill, during existing tenancies, all the rates on occupied premises were to be paid by the present ratepayers, and during future tenancies the land value rate on the land value as assessed at the time of the lease was to fall upon the immediate landlord, who himself was to have no power of deduction from those to whom he in his turn paid rent. Thus, except in the very rare cases where the ground landlord was himself the immediate landlord, ground landlords were never to be affected by the Bill. The ground landlord, who was principally aimed at in the agitation, which won many votes for Radical candidates at Parliamentary and municipal elections, was to be exempt for all time under the Bill. Surely that was not a result which the mover of the Second Reading desired.
Another remarkable result arose under Clause 1, Sub-section 4, which provided that where the annual land value exceeded the total rateable value rates were to be paid on the land value. Let it be supposed that the Bill became law, and that a landowner next year let a house for ninety years at £50 a year, that being the full value at the time of the lease, and that the annual land value was assessed as £20. Let it be supposed further that owing to some movement of population or other unforeseen cause the site increased enormously in value, and the annual land value was assessed as £150. What would then happen under the provisions of the Bill? Under Clause 1, Sub-section 4, the rateable value would go up to £150, and under Clause 3 as drafted the tenant could deduct from his rent the rates only on £20, that being "the land value as assessed at the time

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of the making of the lease." So that the unhappy tenant would have to pay rates on £130 instead of £20 simply because the site of his house was found to be more valuable, even though he was living in the same house and had no power under the provisions of his lease to pull it down and build another. Clause 1, Sub-section 3, provided for an allowance for restrictions on the use of land, but only in the case of existing leases, so that it would not help any tenant under a future lease. The effect of the Bill would thus be to impose crushing burdens upon the occupiers of houses standing upon sites that had increased largely in value, although these occupiers could gain nothing by that increase. This was surely a palpable absurdity, and one that no business man would wish to see perpetrated.
An even more remarkable result arose under Clause 3 of the Bill, as under the same clause in the Bill of last year. Under this clause the identity of the immediate landlord, from whose rent part of the rate on the land value was to be deducted, shifted under every sub-lease. If the hon. Member who introduced the Bill let a house to the hon. Member who seconded him for a term of years, a higher rent would, of course, be payable in consideration of the lessor's liability under the Bill to pay part of the land value rate. But let it be supposed that the hon. Member who seconded afterwards granted a sublease to a third person, who would then be the "occupier." Under the Bill the original lessor would be relieved of his obligation, for which he would be receiving consideration in the shape of a higher rent, and it would be transferred to the seconder, who had given consideration for escaping this very obligation. The thing was absurd. When this point was raised last year the hon. Member for the Elland Division of Yorkshire was reported in Hansard to have said—
"That the intention was that under a new agreement the rate might be shifted back. Supposing there were a series of tenancies, the clause would obviously apply to every new lease, whether made in the second or third place."
The meaning of this interruption was not clear at the time; nor was it clear as reported in Hansard. But a year had
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passed, and the Bill remained exactly as it stood in this respect. It was true that there was a change at the end of the clause, which provided that the portion of the rate to be deducted by the "occupier" should be—
"So much … as is payable on the land value as assessed at the time of the making of the lease or agreement."
instead of—
"So much … as is based on the annual value of the land comprised in the hereditament."
This change affected only the amount to be paid, and in no way affected the identity of the person who had to pay it. This Bill, therefore, like the Bill of last year, had to be regarded as a measure for the unjust aggrandisement of those landlords whose tenants happened to sub-let to third persons. It might be suggested that this reductio ad absurdum could be avoided by giving the various intermediate landlords corresponding rights of deduction. The Bill would then only have run out of one absurdity into another, for it would then tax the owners of improved leasehold ground rents and fixed rent-charges, who had only a nominal reversion or no reversion at all. Dozens of Bills dealing with this subject had been introduced in the House of Commons during the last fifteen years, but none one of them had been free from equal absurdities. The explanation was not any want of care or skill on the part of the promoters or the draftsmen, but the inherent impossibility of fairly applying a system of taxation on capital values to contracts dealing with annual payments in respect of annual values. Hon. Members were trying to square the circle, and they could not succeed.
It might be asked why, if such legislation was as anomalous as its opponents maintained it to be and would as they believed, do no good to anybody, and much harm to most people, it was so strongly pushed forward year by year. The explanation was probably threefold. Some extravagant municipalities no doubt thought it might be well to cloak, though they could not really mitigate, the effects of municipal extravagance. Some politicians, having originally committed themselves to a foolish cry for the "taxation of ground rents," which they now knew

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to be impracticable, might feel themselves bound to press forward some sort of scheme for the further delusion of their dupes. But besides these forces there was a third force, viz., the body of persons in this country who had embarked on a campaign for the nationalisation of land or for the confiscation of rent. Of the hon. Members whose names appeared on the back of the present Bill, one, the hon. Member for North Camberwell, was a vice-president of the Land Nationalisation Society, and another, the hon. Member for Halifax, was the president of the English League for the Taxation of Land Values. Under this name hon. Members might not recognise the old English Land Restoration League, which had for its object the confiscation of all rents, by which means it hoped to crush out the landlords of the country.
MR. WHITLEY: Is the hon. Member quoting?
MR. REMNANTsaid that when the hon. Member was elected to the presidency of the League a member said that for over twenty years before he had listened to Mr. Henry George, and had been a supporter of the movement ever since, and the hon. Member expressed his concurrence with those views.
MR. WHITLEY: -The hon. Member had better quote my words.
MR. REMNANTasked whether the hon. Member intended to advocate inside the House, as he advocated outside, the principles of Mr. Henry George. That was a Question which should be answered, because the mover of the Second Reading had stated that the object of the Bill was not the confiscation of rent, but it was backed by hon. Members who had declared that that was their sole object, and that they regarded the Bill not as an end, but as a means to an end. Another backer of the Bill had declared that it would be impossible to deal justly with the question without interfering with existing contracts. Last year the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife asked the House not to be led away by possible defects in the Bill, but to look at the intention.
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What was the intention of the present measure? Intention could be judged only by past speeches of promoters of the Bill, from which it appeared that the Bill was supported not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, and that end was the confiscation of rent in accordance with the principles of the late Mr. Henry George. It was to be hoped that Parliament would never pass a Bill which, while ill-adapted to attain its avowed objects, would place a powerful weapon in the hands of those who preached the gospel of spoliation. He therefore appealed to the House to support the Amendment standing in his name.
MR. BONDsaid the mover of the-Second Reading in his clear and able exposition had displayed astonishing, candour, having stated almost in so many words that he and his friends regarded this Bill as a mere instalment, and as paving the way to some more drastic changes in our rating system. What the nature of those changes was likely to be could be gathered from the speech of the hon. Member for Holborn. Such a proposal ought to be met on the principle of principiis obsta, and the hon. Member should not be allowed to carry a first instalment of that revolutionary programme which he and his friends, were in the habit of advocating.
The hon. Member had on this occasion, as on the last, laid stress upon the support of various municipal councils. He (the speaker) was a little inclined to put that authority at a discount. He himself had had the honour of serving upon a municipal body—the London County Council—and he knew how easy it was to get a resolution of this kind passed without the resolution having commanded the intelligent assent of the majority. If they had a body of highly trained officials such as the London County Council had, they could easily get prepared lengthy argumentative documents, which might or might not be in support of the Resolution ultimately passed, but those lengthy, elaborate, and able documents were not studied or mastered by more than a very few members of the Council. If they happened not to be in harmony with the prepossessions and views of

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the majority they were pooh-poohed as not worthy of the consideration of practical men. That had happened more than once in his experience on the London County Council. The real moving power behind these resolutions was something very different from that. The people who sat upon local councils were naturally very susceptible to the opinions, wishes, and interests, as they conceived them, of those who sent them to the councils. When a proposal came before them, under which it was pointed out that certain property which now was not chargeable to the rates could be brought into contributing to the rates, and that thereby there would be a reduction pro tanto of the rates which they themselves, and the bulk of their constituents, paid, they had a strong disposition to regard the proposal as almost obviously just. There might be some sort of lingering feeling that even proposals, however just they might appear from that point of view, required some sort of arumentative basis. and then perhaps certain exceptional cases would be quoted in justification.
It was argued, for instance, that the capital expenditure made out of the rates had an influence upon the value of the particular class of property dealt with by the Bill. That argument upon examination would be seen to be without basis. The real reason why rates were levied was to increase the convenience and comfort of the public and to insure performance of duties which by statute had been cast upon the municipality. The local bodies got their money as they went along, and spent it on libraries, baths and wash-houses, public buildings, and so forth. But the paving of the street and the making of the roads were the only items in regard to which it could be said that the expenditure out of the rates had any direct influence on the value of any given unoccupied property, and even in that case the owners in the first instance must have contributed to the making-up and laying out of the street. Possibly some advantage was derived from the presence of the police, and the protection they afforded, but the protection required for vacant land was very inconsiderable. The enhancement of the value of the land had nothing to do with the expenditure of the rates. Indeed, increased rates
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depreciated the value of vacant land, because when that land came into the market it would realise so much less according to the amount which it was known would be levied upon it when it was built upon. What enhanced the value of a plot of land was its natural and inherent advantages; that was to say, the fact that it happened to be situated in a district in which people were desirous of living. Therefore, to suggest that the value of land was increased by the enterprise of the neighbourhood was to rest the case on a fallacy.
In considering such proposals as these it was well to see how they would work as applied to particular cases. The Bill dealt principally with three classes of hereditaments. First of all, there were the ordinary occupied houses and buildings of a district. A separate valuation of the land on which they stood was to be made, and the separate value of the buildings would be ascertained. In regard to the bulk of houses already in existence this would not make any material difference in the amount of rate derived, because the present rate was usually on the compound value of the house and site. In regard to land occupied for agricultural or other purposes it was apparently suggested that it should be assessed upon its speculative and possible building value in the future. As far as the agricultural rent derived from that land was concerned, it was enhanced by the fact that the land was in the neighbourhood of a town, and the suggestion was that it did not represent the full selling value of the land. But that was a matter of pure speculation. He did not think it would have anything but a speculative value. He had had a great deal of experience in these matters, and he assured the hon. Member who had moved the Second Reading of this Bill that it was by no means so simple a business as it was sometimes made out to be. Where there was a demand for the building of houses they would nearly always have to bring in the intervention of the middleman to place-the land in the market. As a rule an individual who had had experience in these matters, or a company, came forward and bought the land. Roads would be made and sewers put in and the land laid out for building purposes. Supposing

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for some reason or other the demand for houses in that district fell, trade became depressed, and taxes and rates went up, and money was not so plentiful, and in consequence nobody wanted to buy land there. The owners of that land would not only be out of pocket to the extent of the interest upon their capital and the money spent upon improvements, but under this Bill they would have to pay a heavy tax upon the site value. He did not think that state of things would conduce to bring about the result which hon. Members opposite were aiming at, namely, to bring more land into the market, and induce people to go in for building in order to relieve the pressure upon congested districts. So far from the Bill having that result, he believed it would have the opposite effect. In this Bill it was proposed to assess vacant land the agricultural value of which had been destroyed in consequence of its having been converted into a building estate. The result would not be to encourage the conversion of agricultural land into building estates in the neighbourhood of large towns. A large amount of capital was invested at the present time in companies whose business it was to develop estates in the neighbourhood of large towns, and this capital was held by a large number of small shareholders. He believed that if this Bill became law the coup de grace would be given to many of these enterprises, and that the shareholders would find their property impaired in value, if it did not disappear altogether. Those were consequences which, on the Ministerial side of the House, they could not face with equanimity.
He could assure the House that the considerations he was placing before them were of a very serious and important character, and it would really be a gross injustice, and gross hardship would be created, if this extra taxation were imposed on properties which represented a large amount of outlay in respect of which no present profit was being derived. It would really be taxation on stock-in-trade—for land was the stock-in-trade of many societies and individuals, which they had to turn over to get a profit—and that was a principle of taxation which had long since been abandoned
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in rating matters. He objected to the Bill because, among other things, it ran absolutely counter to the recommendations and advice of the Town Holdings Committee and the Royal Commission on Local Taxation. It was quite true that the Minority Report of the Local Taxation Commissioners contained a recommendation in reference to the advisablity of putting on a small site-value tax as part of a larger scheme which would bring in for contribution to the rates not only fixed property but personal movable property as well. He objected, also, to this Bill because of the inconvenience, difficulty, and expense which would certainly be experienced in determining what the site values were to be on which the taxation was to be levied. Witness after witness in evidence before the Royal Commission pointed out the extreme delicacy of the operation involved, and they dwelt upon the enormous expense which might be entailed. Friction would arise in regard to the proportion which the occupier could deduct from the amount paid to his landlord, and another great objection would be the very considerable expense entailed in determining site values. He imagined that at first there would be constant appeals, and this would involve considerable expense. [Cries of "Agreed, agreed."] In conclusion, he said it was because he felt strongly that this measure was unworkable that he heartily seconded the Amendment.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out all the words after the word 'That,' to the end of the Question in order to add the words, 'a satisfactory reform of the present system of local taxation must be arrived at not by piecemeal and partial treatment, but by such legislation as will secure fair and equitable results to all classes of the community'—(Mr. Remnant.)—instead thereof."
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. HARMOOD-BANNER, in a maiden speech, said that in supporting the Bill he was representing to a great extent the views of the great municipalities with which he had been in connection for many administrative

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years. He thought those hon. Gentlemen were quite wrong who supposed that the municipal bodies were not almost wholly in favour of this Bill. He had been connected with many of the committees who had considered this question before it reached the present stage, and he did not remember that at any of their meetings views were expressed contrary to the principles of this Bill. In fact, both Parties alike, so far as the municipalities were concerned, were fully alive to the necessity of the Bill and desirous of seeing it passed into law. He thought those hon. Members who were opposing this Bill would be well advised if they consulted their constituents, and made some efforts to ascertain their views upon this question. He thought they would find that in most instances they were in favour of this Bill.
The Amendment seemed to him to be a red herring drawn across the path, because he had no doubt that municipalities would be only too glad to consider a measure which would widen the basis of rateable value. He did not think that the Amendment which had been moved at all represented the views of the great municipalities. What they felt was the great inequality of taxation which at present existed. It was almost impossible for an occupier not to look around at the position of his town or city and consider on what account his rates had to be paid, and whether his neighbours were bearing a fair share of the rates. He saw land on one side of the road with buildings upon it and both the land and the buildings were rated. He saw a neighbour owning land on the other side of the road who put no buildings on it and who held that land unoccupied and useless for the purpose of contributing any part to the burdens of the community. He also saw that land continually improving in value without any additional cost to the owner of the land. The land on the one side of the road paid full rates for the making of the roads, the laying of sewers, the education of the people, and all the rates which fell upon the occupier, whilst his neighbour on the other side of the road bore no portion of the expense. It was almost impossible that any hon. Member would consider
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that that was a state of things which ought to continue. The incidence of taxation on owners of adjoining land was often most inequitable. There were plenty of illustrations, especially in the case of seaside places which grew up quickly. He had an instance in his mind where the occupiers desired to make a promenade and various amenities which would increase the value of the property of the landlord who owned the adjoining land. The landlord, however, declined to bear any portion of the expense, so the occupiers shouldered the burden. The result was that the value of the landlord's land was increased from £50 an acre to £300 or £400 an acre.
It was astonishing to find that the opponents of the Bill seemed rather to approve of the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, for the Minority Report of that Commission recommended an additional rate on all site values. The Bill was intended to lighten the burden, not to increase it—to place it on a fair basis. The Bill would not increase the burden upon occupiers and owners who used their land to the fullest extent. Reference had been made to the fact that taxation did not fall upon the owners of land. If that was the case he could not see what objection there could be to this measure, because that was its object. The aim of this Bill was that a fair share of the burden of taxation should be placed upon the owner. Some hon. Members appeared to think that it would be a good thing to tax land in order to take away the grants in aid of local taxation. In regard to that proposal, he was sure that municipalities, whilst they were extremely anxious to have this Bill, did not want their grants-in-aid taken away. The chief point was whether it could be carried out with justice and without difficulty, for he did not see how the principle of the measure could be controverted. He thought that land which was wanted, yet was withheld from public uses, should be rated just the same as land which was not withheld. Undoubtedly there might be some hardship in the case of land on the outskirts of a city which was not quite ripe for development, but he thought the owners of such land could be properly protected.

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He was bound to say lie did not think there would be much expense in carrying out the measure. If hon. Members would recollect the way in which the general assessment for rateable value was carried out, they would agree with him when he said that it was carried out in a very fair spirit indeed, and there was no desire to press the rate up unreasonably. Why should they, when dealing with land, apply a different measure of justice to that which they applied in the case of ordinary rating. He knew that difficulties sometimes arose, and he knew of a case where an increase of £63 in rating was accompanied by costs amounting to £650, but such cases were few and far between. There was also the question of the tenants under leases which had been referred to by the hon. Member for Holborn. If they would look at Clause 3 they would find that the leaseholder was pretty well protected. He was quite certain there was no intention to place leaseholders at this disadvantage. The measure was only intended to carry out the rating of land values in a fair and proper manner. One thing provided for by a clause in the Bill was that existing contracts should be thoroughly respected, so that the proposal now made would not touch the old basis of rating. There was a feeling in some quarters that leaseholders should be taxed. In Lancashire and Yorkshire there were a large number of small investors in building societies and co-operative societies who had put their money into ground rents, and therefore, in their interest, it was decided to set aside any idea of interfering with existing contracts. It seemed to him that there was no sense of proportion observed by the opponents of the Bill. It was only a small matter—a matter of adjusting the rates so that they should fall equally on all who ought to pay. But their opponents had endeavoured to put a wider interpretation on the Bill by bringing in the question of land nationalisation, and other theories regarding land with which it did not deal. What the Bill proposed to do was to confer a simple measure of justice on all ratepayers, and that the proposal was so regarded was shown by the fact that a large number of municipalities had voted for it, and taken pains to bring their
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views before the attention of Members of this House. The supporters of the measure belonged not to one Party, but I included the representatives of all sides of politics.
MR. ASQUITHsaid he had listened to the speech of the hon. Gentleman with great interest, and congratulated him upon his effective first appearance in the debates of the House. This question of the rating of land values had been before the House on so many occasions during the present Parliament that it would be an unpardonable consumption of the time of the House on his part, especially as he had expressed his opinions on the subject very fully last year, to speak more than for a few moments. Whether from the point of view of justice or the point of view of policy, it was unquestionable that land values at present were not fairly rated. Why should urban land, unoccupied but ripe for development, enjoy an enhanced value from the common expenditure of the community without making any actual contribution of its own to the rates? From the point of view of policy the effect of such a system, by throwing the main burden of the local rates upon buildings, was to raise rents, to discourage building, and to cripple and check the natural and healthy development of the community. On both these grounds it seemed to him that the first principle of the Bill, namely, that urban land ought to be fairly and adequately dealt with, was one that ought to be embodied in legislation. The other consideration was that it was both necessary and practicable for that purpose to have a separate assessment of land from that of other rateable subjects. That was not so much a matter of principle as of machinery. It was clear, for the reasons he had stated, that if they granted the first principle, the other was a mere corollary of it, and the only question in regard to the second was how far, under the existing conditions of social and municipal life, the separate assessment of land was capable of application.
He was not going into any general discussion of the matter, but he wanted to put before the House two or three practical considerations. In the first place this

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proposal, which he could remember, without going very far back, as having been regarded as the fad of economic doctrinaires—and that was still the view of one or two hon. Members—had now behind it the active and growing support of the governing bodies of almost all the great urban communities of the kingdom. He found that there were supporting the Bill 166 municipal corporations, and 152 urban districts; and in addition sixty-four Poor Law unions in England, Wales, and Ireland, and sixty-four parish councils in Scotland. A practical matter of rating which commanded not merely the academic or lethargic support, but the active support of these large bodies of persons who were every day engaged in the actual task of municipal administration, might be said to have passed from the region of speculation into that class of politics that called for legislation. Moreover, he was told that, comparing this year with last, there were 200 more municipal bodies in favour of the scheme. That was a practical consideration which he thought the House might well keep in view when considering whether the Bill should be read a second time. Another practical point which he should like to urge upon the House was this. The practicability and beneficial results of legislation of this kind were growingly attested by the experience of other countries. He would not go over them again, having dealt with them last year. They had the experience of the Colonies, and especially New Zealand and Queensland, but he would like to call attention to the case of the Kingdom of Prussia. Since 1899 a system substantially the same as that proposed by this Bill had been optional in Prussia. In a book on the "Taxation of Land Values" by Lawrence Zimmerman, he found the following—
"The taxation of land values was strongly recommended in the year 1899 by the Prussian Minister of Finance, and in Germany no fewer than seventy-one towns and fifty-three rural communities have introduced the system, and with excellent results. … During the present year, encouraged by the effective results of the new system, the Prussian Ministers of Finance and of the Interior have issued a Memorandum to induce all towns to adopt the new system. They point out that the practical experience which has been gained proves that the system of the rating of land values is well adapted in numerous places, especially in those
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where the population is increasing and the land values rising, to effect a considerable lessening of the burden of taxation for those landowners who most need to be spared by increasing the taxation of those who can best afford to pay more."
MR. REMNANTsaid that he called attention before the right hon. Gentleman came into the House to the fact that in Germany the local rates were raised by the local authorities on the basis of the income-tax.
MR. ASQUITHsaid he did not think the interruption was in any way relevant to the point. He wished to bring before the House the direct evidence which was now being obtained from skilled persons as to the effect the assessment of unoccupied land, which was ripe for development and which at present escaped taxation, would have, if applied, as it could be without difficulty, to the actual conditions of the urban communities of this country. He quoted to the House last year the remarkable facts in connection with an experimental valuation made in the urban district of Finchley. He understood that since then a similar process had been applied, for experimental purposes of course, to other urban communities also adjacent to the Metropolis, and he had with him the figures which had been supplied in regard to two of them. The object of this valuation was to show what effect, after all proper deductions had been made for depreciation and so forth, the rating of land now unrated, but capable of profitable development for residental and business purposes, would have on the actual rates. The valuation being for that purpose only, public parks, woods, recreation grounds, and spaces of that kind would, of course, be excluded. It was calculated that, in the case of Hornsey, the capital value of the land brought in would be £887,000, which at 3 per cent, would amount to £22,610 of rateable value, and the result would be a reduction in the rates of that community from 7s. 6d. to 7s. 2d. in the £. This did not imply a very violent change, but it did seem to show that land which was at present deriving benefit from the local enterprise and progressive spirit of the municipality

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escaped a burden which it ought legitimately to bear. A similar calculation in regard to Fulham showed that the capital value of the land brought in would be £575,000, which at 3 per cent. would amount to £17,250. In that case there would be a reduction of the rates from 7s. 4d. to 7s. 2d. if land values were brought within assessment. He had no doubt that if the same process were applied in provincial communities still more striking results would be derived. No one, so far as he was aware, certainly none of his hon. friends who were responsible for the Bill, put it forward as a panacea; it was a mild, modest instalment of rating reform which had the hearty approval of a vast number of municipalities of the country with the best practical knowledge of the conditions of the case. It could be adopted by this House without prejudice to the ultimate settlement of the larger questions as between urban and rural interests, or between the local and Imperial Exchequer. He trusted the Secretary to the Local Government Board, whose competence to deal with these questions all would acknowledge, would be able to express the opinion of the Government on this matter. Last year it was treated, like so many things in these days, as an open question. It would be satisfactory for the House to know the attitude of mind of the Government to-day; and he trusted it would not be long before the House came to a decision.
SIR JOHN ROLLESTONsaid he could not take the view of the right hon. Gentleman opposite in regard to the laws of the Kingdom of Prussia. There were many laws in Prussia which he was sure the right hon. Gentleman would be the last to ask them to imitate, There were so many points to be considered in this Bill that he could not expect to examine all of them. He would, therefore, only refer to one or two, but especially to one great objection which presented itself to his mind, and that was the rating of land not built upon on its assumed capital value. To assume that land which had not yet, found a market for building purposes would some day do so was a presumption which was not justified by experience.
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He said without fear of contradiction that no demand for land on which to erect buildings arose without being promptly satisfied. The demand for land on which to erect buildings was irrepressible, and if there was no supply in one direction it was found in another; but, although there were of course exceptions to the rule, it was safe to say that no one kept land out of the market for which there was a genuine building demand. That would indeed be a bad financial operation, and he who conducted it was the loser and no one else. There was, according to his experience, no ground for the assertion that building land was generally withheld from the market, nor was the operation called "forcing land into the market" in any way possible. By taxation a weak holder of land might be compelled to take anything he could get for it, but who was the forwarder? He might be ruined, but there was no economic force which could provide the capital for putting up buildings on land thus forced into the market nor for creating the population to live in them if they were built, and it was not in the interests of municipalities to encourage overbuilding. If land could be had for nothing it would not insure building upon it. The pretensions, therefore, that taxing uncovered land as proposed in the Bill would be in the interests of the municipalities was in his opinion both presumptuous and empirical. In the first case it would cause widespread ruin and imperil many mortgage investments. It would completely crush the speculating builder or pioneer, and it would put an intolerable tax upon the property of land and building societies in which the savings of working people were invested.
Was it in the interests of municipalities to crush the speculator, the goose that laid the golden egg, the pioneer who put up the dwellings for working people almost always in advance of the requirement? The great municipalities were greatly in debt to the speculator who had made them what they now were and largely created the income which they now enjoyed. Was it not Mr. Cubitt who raised streets across the swamps behind Buckingham Palace and created Belgravia? That tract of land that was offered to the Crown in

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George the Third's time for £20,000, but refused by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Had it not been for the risk undertaken by a private person, a pioneer, another generation might have elapsed before that beautiful part of London, with its vast rateable value, was built upon, and even then it would have been a private person who would have risked the development and not a municipality. It was the same in all towns. Some of them had grown largely in the last generation owing to the expansion of their trade and commerce. Who had built the houses, the workshops, and largely the factories to anticipate those requirements? It was invariably the same pioneer—the man who took risks, who bought a tract of land, who expended large sums in making streets and sewers, and equipping it for the use of the population that he thought was coining, so that overcrowding in most provincial towns was a thing unknown. Even now in most of the large midland towns there were thousands of houses empty. This person was largely a borrower from banks and from mortgagors, and no money was more usefully or legitimately, and in most cases more securely, lent than to those speculating builders. The loans were for the development of our own cities, and for paying wages to British workmen, and not for the purpose of developing other countries and for paying wages to foreign workmen for which purpose money lent to foreign Governments was mainly devoted. This pioneer, and this form of business and investment, the Bill before the House was designed to crush, and he could not imagine any movement so fatal to the interests of our great cities. For certainly no prudent man would ever again run the risk of buying land, and making streets and sewers on it, while he knew that if perchance he had miscalculated, and it got left on his hands, he would be ruined by taxation. Not to mention existing holders of building land who would throw up their efforts to develop and to create a rateable value for their municipality. Again, in his constituency, and he thought it was so in most towns, there were large tracts of lands, hundreds of acres in the borough, in which working men had become speculators, by paying on a small weekly instalment
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system, and at length becoming owners, of a plot on which a house was frequently built. This system was growing and spreading; very much, he contended, to the advantage of working people who enjoyed these plots as gardens until it was convenient to build a house. This system was to be discouraged by the onerous tax which this Bill propossd that municipalities should place upon these plots.
He had observed the growth of many cities and towns in this country, but he need not go beyond that near which he had lived all his life, and which he now represented. He had seen the land on which he used to shoot partridges in abundance now covered with factories and houses, and at closing time what were once quiet rural retreats now sounded with the tread of thousands of busy working men and women. He had seen in the same town land that was sold thirty-six years ago, and where streets and sewers were immediately constructed, grass was now growing over the streets again, and no houses had yet been erected. What was the reason for those two extremes? Why was one district taken and the other left? He had observed that the successful conversion of land into town was done mainly by the application to it of capital, brains, and energy, and he had also-observed that these were mainly provided by the speculating pioneer to whom, as one interested in progress and development, he heartily wished God-speed. The town which he represented had been largely built by this class and it was a good town. It had grown more rapidly in proportion than, he thought, any other town; it was better provided with parks and open spaces than most towns; it had almost the lowest death-rate;' epidemic diseases were almost unknown; an additional supply of water from the Peak of Derbyshire was on its way to provide that great necessity of life for the increased population that was anticipated, and yet the chairman of the finance committee was able last year to announce a reduction in the rates of 3d. in the £ and this year Id. It was a well-managed town, and he was glad to think that its corporation had not sent him any resolution asking his support to this Bill.

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As he had said, Leicester had been largely built by the speculator. The requirements of its population in the way of housing had been provided for, and well provided for, by private enterprise. Building was and had been a great industry employing many thousands of people; in it many millions of money had been turned over again and again, with profit to the bankers and with good return to the investors. That industry on the whole had contributed largely to the prosperity of the town, and now there came before Parliament a Bill, which, if carried and applied by that town, would clog the wheels of that great industry and crush those who conducted it.
The measure would bring not plenty and prosperity, but poverty and adversity. If this Bill were applied, as it at present stood, to Leicester, the corporation might cancel all orders for provision for future population; might content itself with living on the progress of the past, as there would be but little in the future. But he hoped that when the provisions of this Bill were better known many enlightened corporations would observe its great defects and withdraw from it that support which they had hitherto accorded it. He ventured to say that, as a rule, all land in this country that was wanted for buildings was built upon, and who was there with sufficient occult knowledge to say what land would be built upon in the future and what land was worth a large sum now because it might perhaps be built upon? Many things would have to happen, the course of trade would have to improve, new industries would have to be established, and new factories would have to be put up in this country if an increasing population was to want more houses. That might be the case. He hoped it would, but it was not a certainty, and no one, he contended, ought to be taxed on a speculation or by an assessor who estimated that the increase of population was merely a matter of arithmetical
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calculation based on the increase in the last generation. He submitted that there was no ground for such an assumption, and that taxation on speculative values, values that might never be realised, was not a proper system of taxation for this country. He admitted one case, and one case only, in favour of this Bill, and that was where a central site in a city was occupied by poor property, while it was required for a much superior class of property which would contribute a much larger sum in rates to the municipality. If in that case the obdurate owner refused to rebuild, or to let any one else do so, then he thought the owner should be rated on the best use, and not the worst, to which his site could be put. But how many cases were there of this kind? He did not think that fools were so plentiful as seemed to be supposed, and surely a few cases such as this did not constitute sufficient pretext to place upon the Statute-book what, he contended, would be a law creating far more injustice than justice.
With regard to the separate valuation of buildings and site, he had only to say there was no practical difficulty in doing this. It was done every day in valuations of a certain kind, but at the same time the value of a house was usually reckoned to include the site; the site was an essential portion of the house and without the site there could be no house. The idea was clearly to get at the value of the site in order to rate the house when empty. But why should they consider the case so much of empty houses. It was municipalities themselves which emptied houses by high rates. Let them rather keep the houses full by better and more provident management. If houses remained full he did not see what was to be gained by a separate assessment of buildings and site. Probably many assessments might thereby be reduced. The agitation for this Bill was a tempest in a teapot, and if it should become law the results expected would not, in his opinion, be

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realised. They could understand extravagant municipalities hunting about for a wider system of taxation as rates were at present levied on a limited class of people and a limited class of property, but he contended that by worrying realty the evil would only be increased. Some municipalities, however, went for personalty as well, and were making attacks on the machinery used in production, the sewing machines even used in many trades, the tools of working men and women. He thought that other property than realty should be brought in as rateable, but last of all machinery used in production. Rather get the safes and strong rooms open and rate some of the property hidden away there, rather than keep attacking that which was visible and spread out before the eyes of everyone merely because it was easy. He knew it might be said that municipalities expended money for the benefit of real property and not for other property. He denied that proposition. The expenditure of municipalities was for persons and not for property, and certainly in the case of the man who had land, or bought land, and made streets and sewers, and built houses, it was he that made the municipality and not the municipality that made him. This Bill was not one that, in his opinion, would be a useful measure on the Statute-book. It was a Bill of amateurs; a plaything for the political platform; and not one that would be of real use even to those municipalities that desired it; one of which he was glad to say that he did not represent—but one whose best interests he was sure he was serving by opposing with what small force he could command the Bill that was now presented for Second Reading.
MR. JOSEPH DEVLINsaid that in view of the fact that over sixty Members of the Irish Party intended to take part in the division on this Bill he wished to state the views of that Party in regard to the subject-matter of the measure. He had been somewhat astonished at the eloquent peroration of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, in which he described this Bill as a mere plaything for the political platform. He thought that was a strong statement to make, and rather an insulting observation considering that 500 corporate and municipal bodies in this country had petitioned in favour of the measure. Of course, any measure which proposed to advance the democratic cause would always command the denunciation of the hon. Gentleman and his friends. Although this Bill did not affect Ireland, the Irish Party proposed to vote for it because they were in favour of its principle. The taxation of ground values was an exceedingly important question not only to England and Scotland, but also to Ireland. Unfortunately, the value of land in towns in Ireland was not so great as in Great Britain, and the agrarian condition of Ireland was responsible for that. In one city alone, the great city of Belfast, was this question of striking importance. Only a few years ago the taxpayers of that city voted over £500,000 for the building of a city hall for that great and growing community. Immediately after the erection of the building the value of the shops in the neighbourhood increased from £100 a year to £300 a year; and the landlords, many of whom had never seen Belfast, secured an increased income of £200 a year without the outlay of a single penny, simply because the ratepayers of Belfast

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had spent half a million on an institution for city purposes. That single fact was, he thought, a strong argument in favour of the taxation of land values. Since the division took place last year on this Bill he understood that over 200 rating authorities had joined the most powerful combination since the Anti-Corn League in favour of the proposals made in this Bill. All the leading corporations in the country including the London County Council, the town councils of Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, etc., were in favour of the Bill, and on that account he and his colleagues of the Irish Party would support it in the division lobby with great pleasure.
THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,)said he was sorry the hon. Member for Kilkenny had preceded him in the debate, because he hoped presently to show that, if this Bill were extended to Ireland, Irish farm tenants who lived in urban districts would suffer by the Bill, and on that ground he was going to appeal for Irish support to secure its rejection. It was from no want of respect to the right hon. Member for East Fife that he did not rise when that right hon. Gentleman sat down; but his hon. friend the Member for Leicester was entitled to be heard, as he was chairman of the Surveyors' Institute, and when they were discussing a matter on which surveyors could express an expert opinion, the House ought to hear the views of that hon. Gentleman. He could not attempt to follow the hon. Gentleman opposite in his hurried tour round the world in order to obtain evidence in favour of the proposals made
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in the Bill. No doubt this system had been adopted in other countries; but he did not know where the supporters of the Bill had obtained their evidence in regard to Prussia, because Berlin had repudiated this system in 1899 and had never since re-adopted it because the inconvenience of it was so great.
MR. TREVELYANasked if the hon. Gentleman could give the House the-names of the places in Germany that had adopted the Act of 1893 which regulated the special rates charged on land held for speculative purposes.
MR. GRANT LAWSONsaid he quite admitted that some places had adopted the Act, but Berlin was the leading case. This Bill was a serious attempt to get at and to rate for present needs the profits which might, or might not, at some future time come to the owners of urban land. Two other schemes for this purpose had been brought forward, one two years ago and the other three years ago. Those schemes had been frankly abandoned, and no doubt it would now be admitted that, they were a little ridiculous. It was said that this Bill was drafted to a considerable extent on the same lines as the Bill of last year. But there was a new provision in this Bill, in Section 3, which would make it have a result precisely opposite to that which the Bill of last year was intended to produce. The Bill of last year was meant to provide that any increase in the rate due to the increase of the site value should fall on the site owner. But Section 3 of this Bill made the owner of the site liable only for so much of the rate as was payable in respect of the land value as assessed at the time of making

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the lease or agreement. Therefore, if a man let his land for ninety-nine years, the burden of any increased rates during that period would fall, not on the landowner, who would only pay on the value of the land when he made the lease, but on the lessee.
MR. McCRAE: He would only pay on what he was receiving.
MR. GRANT LAWSONsaid that his hon. friend was thinking of the old scheme of the taxation of ground rents.
MR. MCCRAEsaid it was rather unfair of the right hon. Gentleman to misrepresent him. He was dealing with the scheme of to-day; that whoever had an interest in the land would pay in respect of that interest, and that interest only.
MR. GRANT LAWSONsaid he was taking the actual words of the Bill. The lessee was to be—
"entitled to deduct from rent payable by him so much of any rate paid by him, in respect of the hereditament, as is payable on the land value as assessed at the time of the making of the lease or agreement."
He thought they would all be agreed that it was most essential that valuations should be, as far as possible, an exact science—that it should be an effort of the mind and not of the imagination. But, under this Bill, the valuer would be asked to say what a hypothetical tenant would give for a hypothetical purpose. Indeed, this Bill carried the valuer of the future out of the reach of realities into the realms of fancy. The hon. Member for Holborn had analysed the Bill, had taken it part by part, and had reduced it absolutely to nothing. Yes, and he believed that speech of
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his hon. friend was the result of months and months of study. The hon. Member for Leicester had also told the House that the details of the Bill were entirely unfair and unworkable. He believed it was supposed to be a great educational advantage to members of the Government to listen to the Opposition. He had heard every debate on the principles of this Bill in Parliament, so that he should be a highly-educated official on the subject, but he could not recollect that any of the hon. Gentlemen opposite, who were connected with the land or were directors of assurance companies and similar institutions, had brought his practical experience to help the House with the consideration of measures of this kind. If he were in a Court of law he should submit that this was a highly technical question, and, as the other side had not produced their experts, who were in Court, there was no case to go to the jury.
If words were to have their ordinary meaning in this Bill, he should not object to the provision of a column setting out "the separate annual value of sites and houses." The annual value of a site on which a house stood, apart from the structure that was upon it, was obviously nil. What annual value did land under a dock produce, apart from the dock that was upon it? But when they got to Sub-section 2 of Clause 1 they were plunged into a sea of fancy. For the purposes of this Act the annual value of land was to be deemed to be an amount equal to 3 per cent, of the amount for which the land could be sold as by a willing seller to a willing buyer. How wonderfully that expression "deemed to be" was taken hold of by the draftsman. Throughout the Bill

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everything was "deemed to be" something which everyone knew it was not to be. The wildest supposition was that there would be willing buyers ready to take the place of those who had been rated out of their property by such a proposal as this. As to valuation hon. Members did not seem to have considered the glut that would be caused by every scrap of land in an urban district being put in the market at once. Everyone knew that in an old settled country like England nearly every piece of land in an urban district was subject to covenants, easements, etc. Were they to be considered? It was true that under this Bill those covenants were to be considered, but they were to be embodied in a document to which the valuer had no access. With that exception the land was [to be deemed to be held in fee simple and free from encumbrances; but a vast amount of land was not so held. Yet these obstacles were to be "deemed" to be waved away by the Bill. That showed what a tangled web they weaved when they "deemed" a thing to be something it was not. Those who had to do with compensation cases knew that the best valuers differed widely in the estimate they made of capital value of premises under the Land Clauses Acts. Under these Acts they dealt with a thing that existed. How much wider would their opinion be if they had to deal with a hypothetical case such as the value of land without a house and the value of land with a house on it. Such valuations would therefore be very arbitrary.
As to the cost of the assessments proposed by this Bill expert evidence given before the Royal Commission showed that it would run into millions. For separating site from structure in London alone
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the cheapest estimate was £400,000; the estimates of other surveyors varied between £2,000,000 and £4,000,000, but the net result for the whole country was that the valuation separating site from structure would cost £18,000.000. And when they had separated the site from the structure and wasted this money who would benefit? The Bill respected existing leases for the present, so that if they increased the rateable value by taking the capital instead of the annual value of the site, the burden fell on existing lessees, with the result that the shopkeepers and those owning houses in the centre of a town would find their rates increased for the benefit of those living in the suburbs. Then in future the lessor, "notwithstanding any agreement to the contary," had to pay part of the rates. Commenting on that proposal, Lord Balfour said that it was a danger that "might lead to extravagance and plunder." But the supposed advantage accruing from the principle was to be educational, to teach the less enlightened clasess that the rates did not really fall on the tenant entirely. He was in favour of such a method of education, but the cost entailed was too much for these primary schools of political economy.
This was a proposal to tax all land in an urban district on its capital value. He did not wish to argue the absurdity of such a proposal as that, but only to point out some of the disastrous and unforseen results that might follow from it. Lord Balfour, who was supposed to favour this sort of thing, said that to put this tax upon land ripening for building would be both anomalous and oppressive. The House forgot that "urban district" was a purely technical term and that it was in the power of the

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Local Government Board to make every district urban whether in fact it was urban or not; that there were hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land in urban districts the whole of which was liable to pay taxation on its capital value. How would it fall on the farmers, he spoke as a farmer himself, he had a farm in one of the urban districts of which the rent was £1 an acre and the rates after making all deductions 3s. That land was estimated to be worth £300 an acre capital value. Under this Bill it would be rated at an imaginary income of £9 an acre, with the result that the rates alone would be 27s. an acre, so that the landlord himself would not only lose all the rent he got out of the land but the farmer would pay 4s. more per acre for the privilege of farming the land in that district. There were other trades besides farming which required large amounts of land in the urban districts, market gardeners, and nurserymen, coal, and timber merchants and occupiers of large factories, all men who gave employment to the most labour in these urban districts would have their assessments increased. Then let them look also at the lungs of our great cities. Let them imagine this Bill applied to London and let them imagine Olympia rated at its capital value as a site, or the Crystal Palace. If that were done the rates would absolutely kill the undertakings within a year. How, might he ask also, was the "Oval" to be kept going as a county cricket ground if it was to be rated on the capital value of the site. There was another consideration; hon. Members representing boroughs knew to their cost that there were many small borough cricket clubs who were able to obtain ground at a small rent, but if the provisions in this Bill
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were to be applied to these small cricket grounds he failed to see how the clubs could go on, unless the Members of this House increased their subscriptions very largely. The only thing which would be left would be the parks, which, being Crown property, were not rateable, and churchyards, which were freed from rates under another law.
Then as to the question of vacant houses, the result of rating them would be to make people less willing to build houses. Let them take the case of a man who had built or bought a house. If he could not get a tenant at once he was to be compelled to pay rates on a property out of which he got nothing and in respect of which he might be at a loss with regard to repairs which he had to make. He denied that the spending of the rates improved the value of land. It actually did it harm, for not long since a man had refused to take a farm on his own property because the rates would make it too expensive. What improved the value of land was the construction of railways and works of that kind, and if landowners were to be taxed on the capital value of the land they ought to be taxed for the benefit of the railway which had increased the value of the land and not for the benefit of a corporation which had done nothing. This was supposed to provide a permanent source of fresh taxation, but competent surveyors had pointed out that the operation of this Act would destroy the value of all the land in the urban districts, and if they destroyed the value of the land what became of the property on which they were to levy rates. It was practically killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. It was said that people held^ their land for a rise. Was that

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criminal? The London County Council, they all knew, did that, and there were many hon. Gentlemen in the House who held securities for a rise, and if the man who held his land for a rise was cheating the rate collector, hon. Gentlemen who held other securities for a rise were cheating his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He did not see how any difference was to be made in that respect between realty and personalty.
They had heard in this Bill something about a State-created monopoly. Anybody who had a picture had a State-created monopoly of that picture. Did anybody suggest that the authorities were to tax pictures in consequence. It was said that the community wanted land. Well, if the community wanted land for any lawful and legitimate purpose it could always obtain it by means of a Provisional Order. The real truth of this matter was that certain individuals coveted the plots of their neighbours. He was sorry to see that the Bill had been supported on the ground that it would force land into the market and would take from the present owners a large part of their profits. If that was the object of the Bill there were not words in the Parliamentary vocabulary strong enough to enable him to express his opinion of it. He knew a good deal of pressure had been put on hon. Members to induce them to vote for the Bill. That pressure came from a conference of what were called the spending authorities. Surely the opinions of Royal Commissions and Committees of the House were more to be respected, and there was no Report of any Commission 01 Committee in favour of the Bill. Should it then be passed because this conference
which had taken no evidence, supported it? Let that conference call expert evidence on both sides and he was certain that they would arrive at the conclusion that the Bill was unworkable and unjust.
SIR HENRY KIMBER, who spoke amid great interruption, was understood to say: The hon. Member who had introduced this measure had carefully abstained from telling the House the principles upon which this Bill was founded, or of giving any reason why those principles should hold good. He himself failed to understand anything beyond the fact that, in the minds of the promoters, the Bill was a step in the right direction. How much further the hon. Gentleman who moved the Second Reading proposed to go he did not say. Of course, all local authorities who spent the ratepayers money would be glad to have a larger amount of rates to spend than before, and were glad to get from one class a tax twice over, especially when that class was supposed to be composed of rich men whom they pillaged with perfect immunity as they did not come on their councils. The Bill, in his opinion, was an interference with the principle of freedom of contract which was one of the greatest principles which the commerce and industry of the world ought to preserve. [At this point the remarks of the hon. Member became inaudible owing to the loud and insistent cries of "divide" from the NATIONALIST Benches.]
Question put.
The House divided: Ayes, 202; Noes, 112. (Division List No. 141)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

Ambrose, Robert

Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry

Allen, Charles P.

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Atherley-Jones, L

Austin, Sir John

Gilhooly, James

O'Doherty, William

Barlow, John Emmott

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

Goddard, Daniel Ford

O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)

Bell, Richard

Grant, Corrie

O'Dowd, John

Benn, John Williams

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

Bignold, Sir Arthur

Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.

O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.

Black, Alexander William

Hammond, John

O'Malley, William

Blake, Edward

Harcourt, Lewis

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Boland, John

Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil

Partington, Oswald

Bolton, Thomas Dolling

Harmsworth, R. Leicester)

Paulton, James Mellor

Bright, Allan Heywood

Harwood, George

Pemberton, John S. G.

Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

Hay, Hon. Claude George

Perks, Robert William

Burke, E. Haviland-

Hayden, John Patrick

Pirie, Duncan V.

Burns, John

Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

Power, Patrick Joseph

Burt, Thomas

Healy, Timothy Michael

Price, Robert John

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

Priestley, Arthur

Caldwell, James

Higham, John Sharp

Randies, John S.

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E.)

Reckitt, Harold James

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Holland, Sir William Henry

Reddy, M.

Causton, Richard Knight

Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

Cautley, Henry Strother

Horniman, Frederick John

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton)

Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

Channing, Francis Allston

Jacoby, James Alfred

Roche, John

Cheetham, John Frederick

Johnson, John

Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

Clancy, John Joseph

Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

Runciman, Walter

Coghill, Douglas Harry

Jones, Leif (Appleby)

Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

Condon, Thomas Joseph

Jordan, Jeremiah

Schwann, Charles E.

Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

Joyce, Michael

Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)

Kearley, Hudson E.

Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

Crean, Eugene

Kennedy, P. J. (Westmeath, N.)

Sheehy, David

Cremer, William Randal

Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W.

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Crombie, John William

Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

Crooks, William

Kilbride, Denis

Slack, John Bamford

Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

Laurie, Lieut.-General

Sloan, Thomas Henry

Cullinan, J.

Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W)

Smith, Samuel (Flint)

Cust, Henry John C.

Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall

Soames, Arthur Wellesley

Dalziel, James Henry

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Strachey, Sir Edward

Divies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan)

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

Sullivan, Donal

Delany, William

Levy, Maurice

Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

Denny, Colonel

Lewis, John Herbert

Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

Devlin, CharlesRamsay (Galway

Lloyd-George, David

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)

Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.)

Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr)

Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P.

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Thompson, Dr. E. C (Monagh'n, N

Dilke, Rt, Hon. Sir Charles

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Thomson, F. W. (York, W.R.)

Dillon, John

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

Tomkinson, James

Dobbie, Joseph

M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

Toulmin, George

Donelan, Captain A.

M'Crae, George

Tuke, Sir John Batty

Doogan, P. C.

M'Hugh, Patrick A.

Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

M'Kean, John

Wallace, Robert

Duffy, William J.

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Duncan, J. Hastings

Markham, Arthur Basil

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Dunn, Sir William

Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N.)

Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

Ellice, Capt E. C (S. Andrw'sBghs

Mooney, John J.

Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

Emmott, Alfred

Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen

White, Luke (York, E. R.)

Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone

Moss, Samuel

Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

Moulton, John Fletcher

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Farrell, James Patrick

Murnaghan, George

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

Fenwick, Charles

Murphy, John

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.

Ffrench, Peter

Newnes, Sir George

Woodhouse, Sir J. T. (Huddersf'd

Field, William

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.

Findlay, Alexander (Lanark, NE

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

Yoxall, James Henry

Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Trevelyan and Mr. Harmood Banner.

Flynn, James Christopher

O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.)

O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

Freeman-Thomas, Captain F.

O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

NOES.

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F

Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r

Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

Bagot, Capt. Joceline Fitzroy

Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds

Allsopp, Hon. George

Baird, John George Alexander

Banbury, Sir Frederick George

266

267

Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury)

Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

Bigwood, James

Gretton, John

Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

Bill, Charles

Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

Blundell, Colonel Henry

Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry

Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles

Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

Haslett, Sir James Horner

Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

Boulnois, Edmund

Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.

Sharpe, William Edward T.

Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

Hoare, Sir Samuel

Shaw-Stewart, Sir H. (Renfrew)

Bull, William James

Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)

Skewes-Cox, Thomas

Burdett-Coutts, W.

Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

Smith, Rt. Hn. J. Parker (Lanarks

Butcher, John George

Hunt, Rowland

Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Glasgow

Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.

Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk

Cayzer, Sir Charles William

Kimber, Sir Henry

Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs.)

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Knowles, Sir Lees

Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th)

Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

Clive, Captain Percy A.

Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N.R

Stroyan, John

Coddington, Sir William

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Ox'dUniv.

Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.

Lonsdale, John Brownlee

Thorburn, Sir Walter

Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale)

Thornton, Percy M.

Dalkeith, Earl of

Loyd, Archie Kirkman

Tollemache, Henry James

Davenport, William Bromley

Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth)

Tumour, Viscount

Dimsdale, Rt Hn. Sir Joseph C.

Majendie, James A. H.

Valentia, Viscount

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Martin, Richard Biddulph

Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E. (Taunton

Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart

Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H. E. (Wigt'n)

Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.)

Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Whitmore, Charles Algernon

Fardell, Sir T. George

Morpeth, Viscount

Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.)

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r

Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

Wilson-Todd, Sir W. H. (Yorks.)

Finlay, Sir R. B. (Inv'rn'ssB'ghs)

Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm

FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

Nicholson, William Graham

Wrightson, Sir Thomas

Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon

Plummer, Sir Walter R.

Flower, Sir Ernest

Purvis, Robert

TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Remnant and Mr. Bond.

Forster, Henry William

Rankin, Sir James

Garfit, William

Reid, James (Greenock)

Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.

Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

Main Question put, and agreed to.

The Bill was then read a second time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be committed to the Standing Committee on Law, etc."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
And, it being after half-past Five of the clock, and objection being taken to further proceeding, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Sir A, Acland-Hood.)
MR. MACVEAGHsaid he would like to ask the Patronage Secretary whether he could make any statement with regard to the Junior Lord of the Treasury. He himself was living in the fear from day to day that owing to the
268
Government Whips office being under manned the Government might be the victims of a snap division, and that as most of the Irish Members were leaving town that day they would not be able to take part in it. The hon. Member for Oldham or Halifax might—
MR. SPEAKERhere interrupted, and said he ought, according to Standing Orders, to say the House stood adjourned, but because it allowed an opportunity for a serious inquiry it had been usual to put the Question from the Chair, but as the hon. Member was using it for a different purpose he declared the House adjourned and left the Chair.
Whereupon, MR. SPEAKER, in pursuance of Standing Order No. 3, adjourned the House without Question put.
Adjourned at twenty minutes before Six o'clock till Monday next.

COMMISSION.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:—
1. Army (Annual).
2. Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1).
3. Leeds Corporation (Consolidation).
House adjourned during pleasure.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Littlehampton Urban District Council Bill [H.L.]. The King's consent signified; and Bill reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

Barrymore Estate Bill [H.L.] Read 2a.
Chelsea Electricity Supply Bill; Epping Gas Bill; Great Eastern Railway Bill; Higham and Hundred of Hoo Water Bill; Loughborough Corporation Bill; Norwich Union Life Insurance Society Bill; Weybridge and Walton-upon-Thames Electric Supply Bill. Read 2a, and committed.
London and India Docks Company Bill [H.L.]. Read 2a (according to order), and committed. The Committee to be proposed by the Committee of Selection.
Leeds and Liverpool Canal Bill [H.L.]; East Cowes Gas Bill [H.L.]; Orphan Working School and Alexandra Orphanage Bill [H.L.]. Read 3 a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Walker and Wallsend Union Gas Bill. Read 3a, and passed.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill; Local Government Provisional Orders (Poor Law) Bill. Brought from the Commons.
North Sussex Gas Bill; Hitchin and District Gas Bill; Woolwich Borough
190
Council Bill; Dublin Corporation (Superannuation), Bill. Brought from the Commons; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
Gas and Water Orders Confirmation Bill [H.L.]. A Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the Gas and Water Works Facilities Act, 1870, relating to Bolsover Gas, Denbigh Water, Formby Gas, Hayling Water, and Stavely Gas. Was presented by the Earl Waldegrave (for the Lord Privy Seal (M. Salisbury)); read la; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 52.)
Education Board Provisional Order Confirmation (London No. 1) Bill [H.L.] (No. 53). A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Education under the Education Acts, 1870 to 1903, to enable the London County Council to put' in force the Lands Clauses Acts. And
Education Board Provisional Order Confirmation (London No. 2) Bill [H.L.] (No. 54). A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Board of Education under the Education Acts, 1870 to 1903, to enable the London County Council to put in force the Lands Clauses Acts. Were presented by the Lord President (E. Vane (M. Londonderry)); read la; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill (No. 55); Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill (No. 56); Local Government Provisional Orders (Poor Law) Bill (No. 57). Read P; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners.

PETITIONS.
  STREET BETTING BILL [H.L.]
  Petition in favour of; of Inhabitants of the Urban District of Milnrow, in the county of Lancaster; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  AFRICA, No. 4 (1905).
  Reports from the Director of Agriculture on the Government farms at Nairobi and Naivasha in the East Africa Protectorate, for the year 1904; and on the prospects of settlers.
  Report of the Indian Police Commission, and resolution of the Government of India.
  SOUTH AFRICA.
  Report of the South African Native Affairs Commission, 1903–1905.

  TRADE REPORTS: ANNUAL SERIES.
  No. 3339. Colombia (Santa Marta).
  No. 3340. Italy (Venice).
  No. 3341. Japan (Hakodate).
  Presented [by Command], and ordered to lie on the Table.

  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899 (PAISLEY DISTRICT TRAMWAYS ORDER).
  Report by the Board of Trade respecting the above Provisional Order, and the objects thereof. Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
  Report from the Committee of Selection, That the following Lord be proposed to the House as a member of the panel of Lords to act as Commissioners under the Act, viz., Lord Stanley of Alderley; agreed to; and the said Lord appointed accordingly.
  House adjourned at half-past Four o'clock, to Monday the 8th of May next, a quarter-past Four o'clock.