Sitting of 1 October 1909

Preamble
Mr. SPEAKER took the chair at Twelve of the clock.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Bury Corporation Bill (by Order)—Consideration of Lords' Amendments deferred till Wednesday next.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 9) Bill—Lords' Amendment considered, and agreed to.
Lune Fisheries Provisional Order Bill—Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.

FINANCE BILL.
Considered in Committee.—[39th Day.]
[Mr. EMMOTT in the chair.]
(IN THE COMMITTEE.)
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George)The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd-George) moved, after Clause 44, to insert the following:—

FINANCE BILL.

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Special Provisions with Respect to Certain Classes of Property.)
  (1) Notwithstanding anything in the last preceding Section, Sub-section (5) of Section seven of the principal Act shall continue to apply to the valuation of property consisting of a tenancy from year to year.
  (2) Where it is claimed that a fixed duty is payable in respect of any property under Sub-section (1) of Section sixteen of the principal Act as being property of a gross value not exceeding three hundred pounds or five hundred pounds, as the case may be, and such property includes property which is proved to the satisfaction of the Commissioners to be subject to a charge created for the purpose of securing unpaid purchase money, or to be subject to or liable to be made subject to a charge for securing an advance made or to be made for the purpose of the purchase thereof, the value thereof for the purpose of determining the gross value of the property under the said Section shall be taken to be its value subject to such charge or liability as aforesaid.
  (3) Land subject to an annuity under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts shall be
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  treated as real property for the purposes of Sub-section (8) of Section six of the principal Act, relating to the payment of Estate Duty by instalments.
  I beg to move the new Clause that stands in my name. I gave a promise to deal with the three points involved. I agree with the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. J. Dillon) that the matter is better dealt with by a new Clause. To redeem my promise I put this Amendment down here.
  Mr. JOHN CLANCY: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has met at least three of the points to which I called attention. The first case is that of the yearly tenancies, which in Ireland have saleable value, whereas in England yearly tenancies have practically no selling value at all. Therefore, if the case were not provided for in this way you really would be putting a tax upon Ireland which would never be permitted in England. The matter embraces a very large number of agricultural tenants in Ireland. The second point is that small estates, both in England and Ireland, within the meaning of the Finance Acts, especially the Act of 1894, are those of the value of between £100 and £300, and those valued between £300 and £500. With regard to these the difficulty has always been this: in estimating for the purpose of Estate Duty, the owner of this property is not entitled to make any deduction whatever. That has the effect of taking out of the class of small estates estates which are really small, and depriving them thereby of the benefit accorded to small estates by all the Finance Acts. The right hon. Gentleman proposes to meet that particular point both in regard to holdings that have been purchased and in regard to holdings where agreements have been made, but no money advanced, by allowing a deduction—that from the gross value of these small holdings you are to deduct the amount of the purchase money remaining due out of the moneys agreed to be paid. But I do not think that that meets the difficulty altogether. It certainly does not meet all the points to which I called attention. If the intention of the Government, as I gather, is to be carried out, I would beg to suggest that something else ought to be added; and when the time comes I shall move to add to the end of Sub-section (2) the following words:—"And when such property includes an agricultural holding subject to an annuity under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act,

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  Section 7, Sub-section (5), of the principal Act shall continue to apply." I would like to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman that there is no sense in this matter in carrying the thing just to the point of full advantage in these small estates. A real concession would not involve any considerable loss to the revenue at all. The third Sub-section remedies a very great grievance peculiar to Ireland alone. In consequence of the operation of the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act you only give one year to pay, whereas if this property were to be, for the purpose of the payment of duty, real property, as it is for every other purpose, then the time for paying duty would be extended from one year to nine. And this, after all, is not a great concession to Ireland, because by the Land Transfer Act of 1897 you did exactly the same thing with regard to property in England. By that Act all the proceeds of the land sold were to be treated as real property for the purposes of the payment of duty, thus giving nine years to the executor or administrator as the case might be to pay the duty, and although the moneys of the property remained personal property for the purposes of devolution, they would have to pay the whole of the duty in one year. The right hon. Gentleman has made things even as regards England and Ireland in that respect, and I cordially acknowledge the fact. I think it is a very considerable concession, although it has been made since 1897 to England. What I have to say about the Clause as a whole is that it does not provide for one rather important case. I admit at once when a man buys his holding he cannot be treated on precisely the same footing any longer as a tenant who has not bought; he is in a different category altogether. As a matter of fact for 25 or 30 years to come the purchaser under the Land Purchase Acts will be practically a tenant from year to year, paying his rent in the shape of annuity to the State, and I do not see why he should not be treated in practically the same way as the occupying tenant who has not bought out My suggestion is that he ought to be allowed to deduct the amount of the unpaid purchase money remaining unpaid. He is entitled at present to do that; but where the injustice comes in, as I submit, is this: that before the deduction is made the amount of the purchase money unpaid is added to the estate for the purpose of finding out the principal value, and
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  if that be the case there is obviously no advantage given to the tenant who has bought out in deducting the amount of the unpaid advance. I had some doubts as to whether or not the language of Sub-section (7), Section 5, of the Act of 1894, which contains the definition of principal value, made it clear that the Inland Revenue Commissioners were entitled in the first place to add the amount of the purchase money or encumbrances to the value of the estate in order to find the principal value. If they have no such power, my grievance in that respect would be gone, because then the deduction of purchase money would give practically what I have asked for. Whatever the law may be, I am not aware of any case decided upon the subject; the practice, I understand, of the Inland Revenue Commissioners is to add the amount of the unpaid purchase money to the value of the estate before they make the deduction of the same amount. In order to find the principal value you add these particular encumbrances, and then their practice always has been to make a deduction of what they have added. Obviously there is no advantage in that; you take away the advantage you seem to give. These people ought not to be exceptionally treated. They will be exceptionally treated if what I ask is not given. They will be a class which do not exist in England and they will be taxed because they are in Ireland. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not make the answer he made the other day, namely, that the Irish tenants are getting specially favourable terms for the purchase of their holdings. There will be very little left of that advantage if you take it away bit by bit, and I submit the right hon. Gentleman ought to treat this point also in a spirit of broad-mindedness. The tenant purchaser will be paying his annuity, and for the first 25 or 30 years he will not have secured the larger part of the interest in the concern. What is really proposed is that all this time the State, which is the larger owner, is taking a toll, not only off the tenant's property, but also upon its own property. The difference between the mortgagee in England and the mortagee in Ireland is that the State stands in the character of the lender. The mortgagee in England is a private individual; the mortgagee in Ireland is the State. The State lends the money and is the owner of the greater part of the property for many years to come; it is the sleeping partner of the business, and if you regard the State as

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  the mortgagee, on what ground of expediency do you ask for the State a larger benefit than the ordinary mortgagee gets? I submit that there is a very strong case meeting the points I have raised in this otherwise satisfactory Clause. I hope the Government will give favourable consideration to what I have said.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: I confess that I cannot see that Ireland is getting much under this Clause. What you are doing by this proposal is that you are treating both sets of tenants on the same basis. Sub-section (3) provides that "land subject to an annuity under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts shall be treated as real property for the purposes of Sub-section (8) of Section 6 of the principal Act relating to the payment of Estate Duty by instalments." The other part of the Clause is British, and there is no attempt to give to Ireland the smallest concession. It is idle to pretend that you are giving any concessions to Ireland by this proposal, because you are doing nothing of the kind. The English building societies raised the point that in the case of outstanding mortgages the amount should be added to the value of the property, and that it should be assessed as a whole. The Government met the building societies as regards transfers inter vivos, and now it is proposed to do the same thing with regard to duties levied at death. As you are doing that for the English building societies you ought to do it for Ireland. You are meeting the whole of the English building society case and only about one-tenth of the Irish case. The limit here is in the case of "property of a gross value not exceeding £300 or £500, as the case may be." My intellect is not nimble enough at twelve o'clock in the day to understand a Clause which I have only seen for the first time half an hour ago, and therefore I must ask some questions. In the first place I want to know if the £300 or £500 mentioned in Sub-section (2) includes the mortgage money. If it does not, it does not do the Irish tenant any good whatever.
  Take the case mentioned by the Chief Secretary for Ireland in his speech on the Second Reading or the Committee stage of the Irish Land Bill. He showed that in nine-tenths of the cases, or in the vast majority of the cases, the purchase money raised was about £400. In the case of a building society the landlord's interest is at least equal to that of the tenant. In the case of Irish tenancies the figures, instead
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  of being £300 and £500, if they include the mortgage money, will at least be £800 or £1,000. A man in England who buys his house through a building society seldom borrows from the building society more than £200, and that includes practically the whole value of the house. But the case of the Irish tenant is wholly different, because he gets an assignment of from £300 to £400. He borrows a similar amount, and that brings the total amount of his assets at death to something like £700, £800, or £900. Is that case met by this Sub-section? If I do not get a satisfactory answer on that point, then I say that the Irish case is not met at all. What is the good of all this pretence that the Irish case is being met by this proposal? It is not being met, and that is clearly proved by what you do when you deal with transfers inter vivos.
  When dealing with assignments, the concession made is of no value because it deals with nine-tenths of the English case and only one-tenth of the Irish case. My impression is, after a cursory examination, that all you are doing by this Clause is that you are extending to English building societies and to the owners of houses in England mortgaged in building societies, upon their death, the same concession you gave to them when they were alive, namely, you are exempting them from Death Duty just as you exempted them during their lives from Stamp Duty. That is all you are doing. How can the Chancellor of the Exchequer say that he is doing this to meet the case put forward by the Irish Members? I deny it. He is doing nothing of the kind, and this does not meet the case put forward by the Irish Members at all. The Irish case relates not to amounts of £300 and £500, but to £800 and £900. If I am wrong in this it will be because I did not have an opportunity of seeing the Clause until about half an hour ago, and this is how we are treated in regard to a proposal which is dealing with a case in which the State is investing £180,000,000 in Irish land. Every shilling of that money will be subject to Death Duty, and some of it will be liable to transfer duty in case of assignment. I think the Government might have put down this Amendment a little earlier so that we should have had an opportunity of debating this subject in a full House. This is not a matter which can be dealt with at half an hour's notice, and sufficient notice ought to have been given as would allow the best legal intellects in Ireland an opportunity of knowing in advance

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  whether our case is met by this Clause. English Members are given days and days to consider the Clauses put down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but poor Cinderella Ireland has to come at the end of the new Clauses on the 1st of October. I repeat that the Irish case is not being met, and anybody who thinks so will only be misled by the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  Mr. J. W. HILLS: I cannot let this Clause pass without comment. I wish to call attention to the first Sub-section of the Clause, which gives an exemption to the tenant from year to year which is not enjoyed by the freeholder. He gets a special low rate of duty, but I do not say anything about that. I call attention to this matter as a further example of the extraordinary hostility of the Government to this class of people. I do not think that Sub-section (2) has been fully explained to the Committee. At present, in the case of small estates of £500 or £300, if the gross value does not exceed those two sums they are charged with a fixed duty of 50s. or 30s. The gross value must be those sums, and so you have rather the absurd position that where the gross value is £300, and the debts are £300, and the estate is bankrupt, you still have to pay the fixed duty. The Government say that they will allow certain debts to be deducted. What are those debts? They are the unpaid charges on the purchase money. Let me take a concrete case. Suppose a man has bought a property for £1,000, and has left £700 on mortgage. The net value in that case is £300, and he will have to pay a fixed duty of 30s. on that estate. But supposing, instead of leaving £700 on mortgage, he goes to somebody else a little while afterwards and raises the money with which to pay for the estate; there will still be a charge to the same extent on the estate, but he will have to pay it on the full £1,000. Surely the Government cannot intend that. According to the words of the Sub-section, the exemption is to be made in the case of unpaid purchase money. If the money has been borrowed elsewhere in order to pay the purchase money, he will have to pay on the gross value of the estate. Is that not a case of perfect absurdity? If you mean to take off the mortgage money which is raised in order to pay for the property you must change the wording of your Clause, because, as
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  at present framed, it only meets the case where the money has been lent by the vendor of the property, and where it is left on mortgage. You are changing the whole system and making a fixed duty payable on the net value and not on the gross value. I think in doing so you should go the whole way. I do not know why you should only deduct mortgage debts; there may be other debts, such as gifts, which have to be paid out of the estate, but here you select one special class of debt and say that the rest of the debts are not to be counted. This Clause has evidently been hastily drawn, and I do suggest that it requires very careful reconsideration.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The two speeches to which we have just listened appear to me to answer one another. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy) said that this was not a Clause for the benefit of Ireland and that it met no Irish grievance. He also was good enough to say that he did not understand it, but that fact makes no difference to him apparently, when he is attacking the Government.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: I said I was trying to understand it.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman always realises exactly what he does say; he was very angry and perhaps he does not remember the exact words he used. He made a further complaint that we should be discussing a complex matter of this sort at 12 o'clock in the day—a matter which he argued had nothing to do with Ireland. His words were that it does not cover the case of Ireland, but it actually covers the British case. Evidently he wants something to be given to Ireland which shall not be extended to Great Britain. Why if we are meeting an actual grievance in Ireland should we not be allowed to deal in the same way with a grievance existing in Great Britain? I must say I think his complaint was most extraordinary. I think if he had looked at the Clause he would have realised that his speech was absolutely irrelevant, and thoroughly ill-informed and that he did not actually know what he was criticising. The hon. Member for Durham, who followed him, clearly did understand the Clause, yet he had just as long as the hon. and learned Member for Louth to make himself acquainted with its provisions.

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  The hon. Member for Durham in fact declared that the Clause was really intended to meet an Irish grievance.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: The point is, what have you to say on that matter?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I will deal with that in due course. As a matter of fact, in the main, the grievance is an Irish one, and I agree with the hon. Member for Durham that it meets the Irish case. The first part of the Clause is entirely Irish, and the hon. and learned Member for Louth chose to take no notice of that fact. The second Sub-section is also very largely Irish, but at the same time it will meet the cases of building societies. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member will allow us to redress a British grievance incidentally. I hope he will not regard our doing so as an injustice to Ireland. Surely, when we are redressing an Irish grievance, we ought to be allowed to extend that redress to a British grievance.
  Sir EDWARD CARSON: Why does the right hon. Gentleman say that Subsection (1) is purely Irish?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Because it deals with the marketable value of the yearly tenancy, and there is no such thing practically in England. There is here no market for tenancies from year to year, as is the case in Ireland. Therefore I say it is a purely Irish section as far as its practical application is concerned. The criticism of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Louth is against the law as it stands at the present moment. He has made it a matter of complaint against the Government, although the alteration is certainly an alteration in favour of small estates both in England and in Ireland.
  Mr. HILLS: My objection to it is that it excludes some estates which have an equal claim with those included to this concession.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: There is always that difficulty in redressing grievances. As a rule we go just as far as we can afford at the particular moment, and I must point out that we have gone further in redressing both English and Irish grievances in this matter than any of our predecessors. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Louth will admit that the view he has expressed of the Clause is wrong. Under our proposal estates under £300 will be placed in one category and will pay a fixed duty of 30s. Estates under £500 will be put in another category and will be charged
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  50s. This must be a privilege to small estates, seeing that they are charged on a different scale to estates over £500. The scale for those estates is £2 per £100, and therefore an estate of £550 would pay £11, as against the 50s. paid by the estate just under £500. We are, for the first time, deducting the unpaid purchase money from the gross, and no one can deny that this is a very substantial concession. It is one which will make a difference to small owners as between £2 10s. and £11. The hon. and learned Gentleman must admit that his only complaint is that this is a concession which, although in the main for the benefit of Ireland, applies also to the United Kingdom. Of course, it is more to the benefit of Ireland because there are more cases in that country, at any rate, according to population, than in this country that will benefit. There is another thing of which I think I have a right to complain. The hon. Member is indignant because this Clause has only been on the Paper for 24 hours, but may I remind him that the whole thing has been discussed in his absence on several occasions, and, luckily for the Irish tenants, there was somebody in the House at the time able and willing to criticise it, and not only to criticise it, but to bring pressure to bear on the House of Commons. After all, I accepted the concessions which are embodied in this Clause quite a month ago. There was some question as to whether the new Clause should be put down as a Government proposal or whether it should be put down in the name of the hon. Member for North Dublin, but it was thought better it should be advanced as a Government Clause, because that would give it a certain preference for discussion. Still I repeat these are things I was prepared to accept quite a month ago. Only last week the hon. and learned Gentleman was complaining that we were debating Irish grievances at two o'clock in the morning; now he is complaining because we are discussing them at noon. Really I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman has taken a course which he can justify, and certainly he has extended to me treatment which I do not deserve.
  Mr. JOHN DILLON: I must say I have a much higher sense of the intellect of the hon. and learned Member for North Louth than that which he seems to suggest he himself possesses. He tells us he is not able to undertand the Clause. My idea is that he was determined not to understand it. He said it was no con

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  cession to Ireland that it in no way met the Irish case. I say it is a large concession to Ireland, and I invite the hon. and learned Member, if he thinks so badly of it, to go into the Lobby and vote against the Clause as it stands. To listen to his speech one would suppose that a fresh grievance was being inflicted upon Ireland by this Clause. Let the hon. Member have the courage of his opinions and go into the Lobby against it. I have only this further to say with regard to the criticisms to which we have listened—criticisms which are little calculated to assist us in getting concessions for Ireland from the Government. When I listened to the speech I asked myself this question, Does the hon. Member desire the Government to make any concession to Ireland? I am inclined to think that he does not, and that the object of such speeches as these is to secure that the representatives of the Irish people shall not get any concessions in order that he himself may have a special grievance against the Government. That is the only ground on which I can explain his speech. He passed over Sub-section (1) of this new Clause without a word, yet that Sub-section is an immense concession to Ireland. The Bill, as it stood, originally inflicted a most cruel injustice upon year-to-year tenancies in Ireland, an injustice which the repeal of Sub-section (5) of Section 7 of the Act of 1894 did not inflict on England at all. In all the communications I have had from Ireland on this subject the point which has been in the forefront of the representations made was that we should try and get rid of this grievance affecting yearly tenants. The Chancellor of the Exchequer met us frankly. He has given us a redress of the grievance, and yet he is told that he has done nothing for Ireland. Really I should have thought that by noon the intellect of my hon. and learned Friend would have been sufficiently awakened to enable him to understand a concession of this character. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer has truly said, this is not the first time this subject has been discussed. When it was under Debate on a previous occasion the hon. and learned Member for North Louth was in Dublin or somewhere else, greatly to the advantage of his colleagues here, and we discussed this matter in a very amicable spirit, these concessions being promised in reply to appeals from this side of the House. I doubt very much if we
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  would have succeeded in getting such large concessions if the hon. and learned Member had been on these benches at that time. I repeat that the first Sub-section is an exceedingly valuable concession for which I, at any rate, thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  Now I come to Sub-section (2). That, again, embodies a most valuable concession, one which we were pressed over and over again in Ireland to obtain. To listen to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for North Louth one would suppose that the whole law as regards small estates is being altered by the Sub-section to the injury of the Irish tenants. It is nothing of the kind. The only alteration made by this Sub-section is to the actual advantage of the purchasing tenant in Ireland. It is an alteration which we pressed upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is one point on which the right hon. Gentleman has not met us in this Sub-section, and on which we trust he may be induced to accept an Amendment which it is intended to put forward. It is a rather small point so far as he is concerned, but it is important to Ireland. We desire that in the case of the purchasing tenant, so far as leases are concerned, he shall be put on the same footing as the year-to-year tenant—that the method of calculation shall remain as it is under the present law.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Does the hon. Member suggest that this method of computation should be confined to cases where we try to arrive at the gross value?
  Mr. DILLON: I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he cannot see his way to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Dublin, which would have the effect of preserving for the purchasing tenant, who, after all, has really become the tenant of the State, which creates the incumbrances and steps into the landlord's shoes—I want to ask whether in such a case he cannot, for the purpose of calculating the gross value of small estates, proceed by the old method of computation? That would greatly add to the value of this Clause, which, even as it stands under this Sub-section, we welcome as a most substantial concession to Ireland, despite the legal protest of the hon. and learned Member for North Louth. The reason why I am pressing for this small Amendment is this. In Ireland you have many holdings, such as bog holdings, of the value of £2, or £3, or £4 a year, which have however the preposterous value of 50 to

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  60 years' purchase. That from one point of view is a rather wholesome state of affairs, because, if land is once divided into small farms like that, it will never be reabsorbed by big men. The result of observations in Ireland is this, that the smaller the farm the more keen the competition and the more extravagant the price. Therefore some of the extremely small farms, owing to the high and extravagant market value of the purchase price of the farm, would be lifted out of the small estates zone and would suddenly jump up from the 30s. or 50s. Estate Duty to £7, £8, or £10. The moment you get outside the £500 limit, however, great additional legal costs and court fees will be incurred, and that is a very great burden on these small holders. Coming to the third Sub-section of this Clause, that also is a most valuable concession, because it is manifest that to a small farmer to be called upon to pay the whole of the Estate Duty is a very grievous thing, and it ought not to be put out of his power to act as the large estate owner can do. The hon. Member for Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy) says nothing has been done, but, if he thinks so, let him move the omission of this Sub-section and see what Irish opinion will be. I have had dozens of letters from Ireland asking me to endeavour to secure this valuable concession, and I thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for it. I do hope that he will see his way to make the smaller concession we are asking for, which is really of no consequence to him, but which will be very valuable to small holders in Ireland.
  1.0 P.M.
  Mr. CLAVELL SALTER: I am sorry to draw the Debate away for a moment from the differences of opinion entertained by the representatives of Ireland as regards the value of this Clause, but I desire to say just one or two words from the point of view of the English purchaser of land—the small thrifty purchaser who is buying his land and raising part of his purchase money on mortgage, and who is not always able to borrow his purchase money from the vendor or the landlord. That is a common case, and it is one which everyone would desire, to encourage and enable the purchaser to secure the most beneficial terms. How would this new Clause deal with this common or desirable process? The point was put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer just now, but in dealing fully with the Irish criticism he entirely ignored it, but I have no doubt the Attorney-General will deal with that. As I understand
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  the matter, it is quite plain and simple. People are taxed on what they have, and in ascertaining the duty incumbrances are deducted. In regard to the question of graduation, the basis is quite different as to the rate on which they pay. That also depends upon the principal value, and in classifying a man you deduct his incumbrances, which seems to me to be right, in principle, but he is not only taxed on principal value, but also graded on principal value, and in order to secure the benefits of this Clause and bring himself on the lowest grade of all he has to obtain this special exemption, and to bring himself within this Clause not upon principal value, but upon gross. I will not say it is an anomaly, but it is not symmetrical, to grade cases down to the lower or net value, and then it is shifted to the gross; but the Government are proposing to alter the basis of graduation as to this lowest step of all, and they are not proposing to shift the basis from gross value to principal, because they are not proposing to deduct all encumbrances. They are proposing to base this lowest rate not on one or the other. They are going to allow some deductions, but not all, and the deductions which are allowed to ascertain principal value will not be allowed for the purpose of this exemption. The case which I desire to put is this: I am not urging the Government to allow interest or to allow all deductions, but I do say this, that when for obvious and weighty reasons of policy you are allowing the deduction of encumbrances for the purpose of discharging the unpaid purchase money, it is an illogical and it is an unfair advantage to the Irish purchaser, whose vendor is always the State, and whose vendor, therefore, is the lender and mortgagee; it is unfair because the proportional number of small purchasers will be immensely greater in Ireland than in this country. In Ireland it will benefit everyone, but in this country it will only benefit the exceptional purchaser whose vendor is able to lend him the money or the purchaser through building societies, and while I do not grudge anyone this advantage, I think it should be extended generally to the thrifty purchaser who is borrowing a sum of money on mortgage.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The hon. and learned Member is not quite correct. He need not necessarily borrow from the vendor; as long as he borrows money anywhere for the purpose of purchase, it does not matter where he borrows it.
  Mr. CLAVELL SALTER: I am very glad that the Chancellor interposed He deals absolutely with my point. The only remaining point is drafting. I only had a short time to read this Clause, but it appears to me as if it were so limited. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer says it is not intended to be so limited, it is a mere question of drafting to provide that the words should be so altered that it will assume that the mortgagor is going to pay any body the purchase money, whether borrowed from the vendor or not.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer is better at polemics than he is at facts, and I think that his promises to the Irish tenants are very like his promises to the Welsh people about Disestablishment. The right hon. Gentleman thought it right to get up and make an attack upon me for asking a plain question which he has not answered. I asked him a plain question, and he dealt with me as if I had asked him for Disestablishment. I was not—I was only asking a plain question. The right hon. Gentleman has said that I was absent on a former occasion when this matter was discussed. Perhaps I am too often present for the right hon. Gentleman, and I distinctly remember the other morning, when a promise was made at four o'clock, or perhaps three, that he would speak by the Under-Secretary to the Treasury, but he did not find it at all desirable to take that course, and his complaint of me now is this, that because I complained of an Irish tax amounting to millions of money being put on at four o'clock in the morning, when a pledge was given on his behalf which was broken, that I am wrong in coming down and complaining that we have not got in regard to a much less important matter a little time for the understanding of this Clause. I am not in the least ashamed to avow that I cannot take in a clause involving reference to three or four Acts of Parliament at five minutes' notice. I agree in that respect with everyone except the hon. Member (Mr. Dillon). He is able to take in everything at a moment's notice, and in that sense I acknowledge the great advantage he has over myself. I asked a question a little while ago. It was not answered. Now I will ask it again. I asked whether the main body of the Irish purchasing tenants were in any way dealt with under this Clause. I said they are not, and I repeat it. I will separate them into two classes—the class which has purchased and the class which has not. As
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  to the class which has purchased, according to the figures of the Irish Secretary, the borrowings are on the average between £300 and £400. That is the landlord's money. To that must be added the £300 or £400 of tenants' right, so that you are dealing with a case where the majority of these men will have an interest of between £800 and £900. I am not ashamed to ask a question in this House, even of the British Government or even of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have addressed still more experienced Chancellors of the Exchequer and got more courteous replies, but still I put the question to the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I ask him how will this affect the majority of the Irish tenant purchasers? I do not think it is any discredit to a private Member to be unequipped and to be driven to ask questions of a highly-paid Minister with a large staff of assistants under the Gallery to whom he can refer at a moment's notice and whose coaching is evident at every turn of the Debate.
  With regard to the general body of tenants who have not bought, the so-called concesion is valueless for a wholly different reason, though I do not say it will not meet the case for a comparatively few of them. The only way you are able to hit the majority of the Irish tenants in regard to these Death Duties is because of the Registration Acts, and because they have bought. The general body of these people who have not bought do not take out any administration at all. There is no will, and if the State tried to levy the duty the State would fail, and the State does not levy the duty. It is a very different case when documents are in existence, whether in the case of a building society or in the case of those tenants who have bought. There at once you come down upon them. Title has to be made, administration has to be taken out, and if there is a will there has to be probate, and you are able in the great mass of these cases to impose the duty. All this £180,000,000 will in future be subject to Death Duties. All I ask the right hon. Gentleman is whether, assuming these fee simples to be of the value I put them at on the suggestion of the Irish Secretary, this Clause fits their interest or whether it does not? I dealt with one branch of the Clause, and it was only with regard to that point that I asked for information.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I certainly do not complain of the hon. and learned

  1581
  Gentleman or anyone else asking me for information. I am here to give such information as I have at my disposal with the advice of my officials, and I am bound to give it, and I have no right to complain. I complained because the hon. and learned Gentleman first asked a question, then said he did not understand it, and then proceeded to denounce it in the most violent terms. I think it is a perfectly legitimate complaint when I was doing my best to meet the case. I will show upon the question he has put to me how very far wrong he was in his assumption. It is very unfair to assume that we are trying to deceive the Irish tenant. The hon. and learned Gentleman has given the case of an Irish tenant who owes £300 or £400 unpaid purchase money. His tenant right is worth another £300 or £400. First of all, we are limiting the amount of tenant right upon which he will pay by the first Subsection. The tenant right is worth 40 years' purchase, but we only claim 25. We are, first of all, depressing the first item, and sometimes probably halving it. Supposing it comes to £300 and the other is £300—that is £600. We deduct the whole of the amount which remains unpaid to the State with a view of getting the gross, and the very case put by the hon. and learned Gentleman under this Clause would escape altogether. I hope he will now admit that there is a concession. That tenant does not merely come under £500. He will be a £300 man, and had it not been for this Clause that tenant would be paying £18, whereas now he pays 30s. As a matter of fact, we are putting the small man, both in England and Ireland, in a better position than he is in at the present moment, and we mean to deduct all the mortgage so long as it is proposed to purchase. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will in justice now say he did not understand the Clause at first, and that there is a substantial concession that he was not aware of.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: I do not say anything of the kind. What I say is this. You are meeting the case of the English building society man and inferentially you have to make a small concession to Ireland.
  Clause read a second time.
  Mr. DILLON: I listened to the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which he described the concession he intended to make, and I gathered that he would be prepared to accept my Amendment, which is, to add at the end of line
  1582
  3, Sub-section (1), the words "and the tenancies subject to annuity under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts." I admit that that is an arguable point. The effect of that Amendment will be to carry out what I understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say was the concession he desired to give. The right hon. Gentleman gave an illustration of the concession he intended to make to the purchasing tenants of Ireland, and I wish to direct the right hon. Gentleman's attention to his own words. When explaining the concession he proposed to give he said that one of these purchasing tenants might sell at 40 years' purchase, but owing to the limitation contained in the Sub-section proposed to be repealed the Government could not charge more than 25 years on the valuation.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE was understood to indicate dissent.
  Mr. DILLON: In the speech which the right hon. Gentleman made he was alluding to the purchasing tenants, and I concluded that he had made up his mind to give the concession.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: We are prepared to leave the small freeholders in England and Ireland exactly where they were—the small proprietors up to £500. It means that they will be entitled to deduct these advances. In order to do that the words proposed by the Government are the only words that can be used. The words suggested by the hon. Member for Dublin (Mr. Clancy) would really do away with the benefit we propose to give. I doubt whether his Amendment would be in order. I should be prepared to add at the end of Sub-section (1) the words "and for the purpose of determining the gross value of property for the purposes of Section 16 of the principal Act." That is for the purpose of determining what will be the limitation.
  Mr. DILLON: Even in the case of the purchasing tenant?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Yes, whether in England or Ireland. The same thing would apply in both cases, and I do trust that hon. Members will feel that I have gone very far.
  Mr. DILLON: I must say that I consider that that is a very substantial and valuable concession to Ireland, but I must thoroughly repudiate the idea that we do not value the concessions we get in Ireland because they apply to similar cases

  1583
  in England. That is a preposterous doctrine to put forward. We have no desire that people similarly situated in England should not get the concessions; I was anxious to move an Amendment to extend that protection to all purchasing tenants. I must confess that the right hon. Gentleman has met us so fairly in the valuable concession he has made to the poorest and smallest people interested that I will not move the Amendment which otherwise I would have liked to submit.
  Amendment proposed, "At the end of Sub-section (1), to add the following words, 'and for the purpose of determining the gross value of property for the purposes of Section 16 of the principal Act.'"—[Mr. Lloyd-George.]
  Mr. HILLS: I think this is a great concession to the freeholder. If I understand it aright, all estates under £500 will come under it in ascertaining the gross value.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: That applies to small estates of less than the £500 limit. The number of years' purchase on the gross value cannot exceed 25 years' purchase.
  Mr. T. M. HEALY: I made no suggestion that the English people should not get the same concession as the Irish people. The difference is this: In regard to the Irish purchasing tenants, nine-tenths are hit by this and one-tenth benefited, whereas in the case of the British building societies nine-tenths are benefited and one-tenth are hit.
  Mr. DILLON: The Clause hits no Irish purchaser. It relieves, and substantially relieves, tens of thousands of Irish purchasing tenants. I think it is really a monstrous thing to say that a majority of the Irish purchasers are hit. Let the hon. Member for North Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy) go into the Lobby against the Clause. It obstructs in the most outrageous manner any attempts to get concessions from the Government if, when they are made, they are denounced as further Irish grievances. This matter is a little technical, and I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to explain to us how the words he proposes to add apply to purchasing tenants in Ireland.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: Sub-section (1) as it stands limits the 25 years' purchase to purely tenant right. Now we mean to extend it not only to tenant right but freehold as well for, the purpose of ascertaining
  1584
  whether a man is entitled to the privileges that attach to £300 or £500.
  Mr. DILLON: That will cover all the purchasing tenants in Ireland.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: It will cover the vast majority of the estates in Ireland, because, after deducting the purchase money, I should very much doubt if one-tenth of the purchasers of Ireland would be over £500. The Amendment carries out the promise I made with respect to purchasing tenants of Ireland.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, added to the Bill.
  Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS moved, after Clause 45, to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Abatements of Duty in Cases of Death Under Ten Years.)
  In the case of property of any person dying on or after the thirtieth day of April, nineteen hundred and nine, passing to a wife or a husband or a lineal descendant, or a brother or a sister, or the lineal descendant of a brother or a sister, or a father or a mother, or an uncle or an aunt, such property shall, if, during any time during the ten years next succeeding, it again pass by death to any successor in title of the relationship above mentioned, become liable only to a reduced rate of Estate Duty calculated on the following basis: If the property pass in the same year in which duty has already become leviable, there shall be chargeable only one-tenth of the amount leviable under Section one of the Finance Act, 1894, or any Amendment thereof; if in the second year, two-tenths; and so on for each additional completed year an extra tenth of the amount chargeable under the said Section until the limit of abatement is reached.
  The object of this Clause is to provide for abatements of Estate Duty where deaths occur frequently in a family. There can be no difference of opinion that where more than one death does occur in a few years in a family, the estate of the family is unfairly dealt with when the whole amount of the Estate Duty has to be paid over again. The Amendment is that where death occurs within 10 years, there should be an abatement graduated in this way: that, if death occurs in the first year, there should be only one-tenth of the Estate Duty paid over again. If death occurs in the second year, there should be two-tenths of the duty paid over again, and so on until you get to the 10th year,

  1585
  after which time the whole of the Estate Duty should be payable. No doubt before Sir William Harcourt introduced the graduated scale of Death Duties, and we had a fixed 3 per cent. Probate Duty, the cases that have been described were not so serious, but when you get to Estate Duties increased in the abnormal way in which the present Budget proposes and death occurs frequently it does create a very serious position for the family. By the proposals of the Government the average of Estate Duties is raised from 5 to 7 per cent., and, not only that, but where an estate is settled there is an increase of Settlement Estate Duty of 1 per cent. I would like to quote a case which will show the Committee exactly the grievance which I wish to meet. Sir Herbert Maxwell wrote to "The Times" newspaper a month or two ago, and gave the case of a Scotch gentleman whom he knew who died in the year 1899. The eldest son died three years afterwards, and the whole Estate Duty had to be paid over again. The estate then came to the youngest son. He had to pay the jointures of the two widows of the father and the eldest brother, and having paid the second Estate Duty, Sir Herbert Maxwell says, "The result is that he is not only without the means of keeping the house which has been the house of the family for more than 300 years, but he is unable to maintain the expenditure necessary to secure the fruition of operations undertaken prospectively by his predecessors, such as plantations, etc." That shows a grievance, not only of this young man and the family, but it also shows a grievance to the estate and the employés on the estate, who had to be discharged owing to the young man not being able to maintain the property in the way in which it had been kept up.
  I will give the Committee some figures which will show how these new Death Duties will affect estates of different values. I will take estates of £20,000, £50,000, £100,000, £500,000, and £1,000,000, and I will show the difference between the charges on death under this Budget and what they would have been before Sir William Harcourt's Budget of 1894 became law. The first case is that of the £20,000 estate. Prior to the Act of 1894 it would pay 3 per cent. Probate Duty and 1 per cent. Legacy or Succession Duty. That would make a payment of £800, and if there were three deaths the total payments would be £2,400. The
  1586
  corresponding figure now in the case of three deaths would be £4,200, or over one-fifth of the corpus of the estate and nearly double the rate of the old duty. Next take the £50,000 estate. Under the old system the payment on death would be £2,000, and if there were three deaths the total payments would be £6,000. Under the present Budget the three deaths would absorb £12,000, or nearly one-fourth of the whole estate and double the old Estate Duty. Take next the £100,000 estate. The old duty would be £4,000 on death, and on three deaths it would be £12,000, and under the new Budget three deaths would absorb £30,000, or nearly one-third of the estate. Take the estate of a half-million, the old payment would be £20,000 on death, and, if there were three deaths, £60,000, but, according to the new scale, the payments on three deaths would be £195,000. Finally, take the case of an estate of £1,000,000. The old rate would be £40,000 on death, and £120,000 on three deaths. Under the Budget the rate would be 16 per cent., or £160,000 on death, and three deaths would absorb £480,000, or nearly one-half of the whole estate. I have taken these duties quite apart from settlements. As the Committee is aware, frequently these estates are settled, and this will be a separate Estate Duty of 2 per cent. payable so long as the settlement continues until it comes into the possession of the person competent to dispose. I may be told by the learned Solicitor-General that there are great difficulties in adopting any scheme of this kind. I suppose that there are difficulties when all the abatements are granted which have to be made, and that the Solicitor-General will say you cannot earmark estates and trace them, that properties will change and investments will change, and therefore it would be difficult to ascertain what was the property which had paid duty in the first instance. I think that the onus of proof would be on the recipient of the money. The onus would be on the acceptor, when the duty came to be paid for the second time, to prove that the property had paid in the first instance. I hope I have made my point clear. My object is more to urge the principle of abatement in these cases than to urge a scheme in detail. I have put a scheme down in detail as a suggestion, and only as a suggestion, and my object is to press upon the Government—when they are largely increasing

  1587
  the Death Duties, as they are under this Budget, and when the tax is becoming a greater and greater hardship—the importance of the considerations which I have advanced. The hardships to which I have referred press heavily on families in which death frequently occurs, thus involving the payment of largely increased duties over and over again. I beg to move.
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Samuel Evans): The hon. Member has brought forward a subject which is by no means a new one, and which has been discussed several times in the course of these Debates on the Finance Bill. It is quite true that the hon. Member, when he collects figures like those which he has placed before the Committee, is able to show—assuming that it is always necessary to keep an estate intact—some hard cases. He has compared the figures of the Finance Act before 1894 with the figures which would represent the taxes under the present Bill. Of course, he is entitled to do that, but a fair comparison would have been between the figures under the Act of 1894 for the last 15 years with what they will be under the present Bill. Of course, that comparison would not show in so strong a light as the comparison made by the hon. Gentleman. It must be quite obvious to the Committee that if we adopted the sliding scale suggested by the hon. Member the State would lose nine-tenths of the taxes in one year, eight-tenths in two years, seven-tenths another year, and so on. The diminution in the taxes which the State would receive would be enormous, and if my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer were here I think that would be for him a conclusive answer to the proposal of the hon. Gentleman. It is impossible to calculate what the loss of revenue would be, but it would be very considerable indeed. The principle of the Estate Duty, as I understand it, is that if property passes at death to any individual, whether he be a near relative or some distant relative, or, indeed, a stranger, the State has a right to come in and say: "This property has been protected under the possession of the former owner, it has come to you without paying anything for it at all, and it is fairly subject to taxation." Of course, the amount of the tax is another matter; it is the principle I am speaking of. I have never been able to understand the complaint of people who have to pay even £50,000 on succeeding
  1588
  to a property. I should be delighted to pay £50,000 Legacy Duty, but no one ever leaves me anything.
  An HON. MEMBER: "Suppose the estate were left to you by your father?"
  Sir SAMUEL EVANS: I should pay it; and I claim that the principle of the tax is a perfectly sound one. If a man receives property from somebody else, the State should come in and take a fair share of it. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment gave us the instances of particular estates. He admitted candidly that he had done so, and lay answer to him is that the estate is not necessarily the same after a death as it was before, because it may have been added to or deducted from by expenditure; it is not necessarily always the same property. I do not think that hon. Members are entitled to assume that a particular estate, because it happens to be in land, ought to be untouched by the tax to the extent that you ought to knock off portions of it. At any rate, that cannot be done now, and, since the Act of 1894, it is impossible. I have not gone into the figures; I have no doubt that they are perfectly accurate, because the hon. Member takes great pains to be accurate in anything which he puts before us. I think, in principle, the answer is that the amount has already been fixed, and that however frequent deaths may be, although this is a case of property coming from father to son, yet it is in principle the same transfer of property at death to a successor. The Committee has decided the amount, and we cannot accept a sliding scale exempting people from the operation of the tax simply because the devolution of the property has been earlier and quicker than succession usually is in such cases.
  Sir E. CARSON: The subject which my hon. Friend has raised is one of vast importance and of far-reaching consequences in the administration of the Death Duties. It must be apparent to anybody who has followed the history of these Death Duties, particularly in the last three or four years, since the present Government came into power, that we are coming to a point in relation to the Death Duties at which tremendous hardships must necessarily occur, having regard to the way in which the present Government have gone on increasing the Duties. The present Government since they came into power have increased the Death Duties up to something like 75 per cent. When in 1894 they were imposed

  1589
  by Sir William Harcourt he assured us that what had to be paid would in no degree militate against the carrying on of business, having regard to the necessary capital which is to be maintained. But when in the course of three or four years you bring the tax up to the point of 75 per cent., of course the matter becomes one of extreme hardship and gravity in some cases. The case put by my hon. Friend is one which sooner or later will have to be met. I do not suppose that the Solicitor-General could meet it now, nor I suppose could the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But the deduction of capital from business will depend upon the mere accident of whether a man lives a long time or a short time. Anyone can see that with successive deaths and successive payments of the duty a whole business may be very easily ruined. Whereas by an accident or, as the hon. and learned Gentlemen would prefer to say, by the gift of Providence, a man gets a long life and the distribution of his estate, and the retention of his capital in his business takes an entirely different form. I do not believe myself with these high duties that it is possible for this to go on. I do not think it is fair, and I do not think it is impossible to find a solution. Take where in lieu of Death Duties you have a tax every 15 years, that is exactly the same principle of logic that my hon. Friend is trying to apply. It certainly would be far fairer to value the property every 15 years and take away a portion of it than to say in some cases, "We shall take away a portion of your property once in 50 years and in another case three times within five or ten years," which frequently happens. The question is one of equity, and must force itself to the minds of thinking men, and men who do not wish to carry on the taxation of the country in a haphazard fashion, as I am afraid we are getting into the habit of doing, especially since this Budget was brought in. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, being a Welshman with a peculiar temperament, cannot see how anybody does not exult in paying taxes. I, as an Irishman, have not got the same great desire to pay the Death Duties. He seems to think nobody ought to abject. Let me put this case, and it is, I think, a very ordinary case throughout the country. A man has nothing but his business, and when he dies the Death Duties must be taken out of the capital of his business. You cannot avoid that. Supposing he dies and leaves the business to a son, and that two
  1590
  or three deaths occur in the business within three or four years: What will become of the whole capital of the business? Now is that a case where, from what the Solicitor-General says, the son, or the grandson, or the nephew, ought to be absolutely delighted at the idea of having to take away from their business the necessary capital for carrying on the business?
  The question raised by my hon. Friend (Mr. S. Roberts) is certainly not a new subject, but it is one which will have to be fully considered. I agree with the Solicitor-General that the acceptance of the new Clause would be to diminish the Exchequer; but, at the same time, I think my hon. Friend is doing good service, and the matter has really nothing to do with politics, in raising the question, and in the figures he has given he has pointed out the way in which we are going in this country by leaps and bounds increasing these Death Duties, which must certainly be an abstraction of capital necessary for the purpose of carrying on the business and trade of the country. I do hope that some time or other some Chancellor of the Exchequer will think it worth his while to look into the question, and see whether some more equitable means of charging these Death Duties to taxpayers cannot be invented than the haphazard way of leaving it to the chance of life and death, without regard to whether a business is to be really ruined or not.
  Mr. ALFRED MOND: I regret that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not been converted on this somewhat important new Clause. Although I cannot say that the machinery proposed by the hon. Member (Mr. S. Roberts) appears to be altogether equitable, still I have always felt that the point he has raised is one which ought to have been met long ago. The scale of Death Duties must naturally have some relation to the normal expectation of life. This House would never tax at the present rate if it was usual for those duties to become payable, say, every five years. Therefore we fix the scale on the normal expectation as to when those duties will become payable. There are, however, exceptional cases, and those exceptional cases, it seems to me, ought to be dealt with in a more businesslike manner than they are now being dealt with. The only argument against dealing with these exceptional cases in an exceptional manner seems tome to be that they are very rare. If they

  1591
  were more numerous there would be such an outcry that no Government could possibly withstand the legitimate demand that this burden should not fall on what you may call a few families much more severely than it does on other families. I am bound to say that in other countries where Death Duties exist this has been taken into account. In Germany the proposition was that no such duty should be paid on any particular estate within ten years of the last death. The principle has been admitted in other countries, I think properly, and I think it ought to be admitted here. I cannot quite follow the line of argument that this would mean a great loss of revenue to the Exchequer. After all, as was pointed out, these cases are very exceptional; they are not common. The very fact that they are exceptional shows that the Treasury would lose very little. It is not a common thing for an estate to pay frequently, so that some limitation of time in which an estate would be made free of duty would not diminish the yield to the revenue very much. I think most of the estates will be found to pay from every 20 to 25 years, and certainly not frequently under 10 years. I do not see that that would be any reason for not making a change. It would be more equitable to raise the scale of the Death Duties rather than to take it out of what you may call the accidental misfortune of certain persons.
  The learned Solicitor-General's argument that the individual inheriting money is happy to inherit and that he is better off than he was before is no doubt true; but you cannot quite put the Death Duties in that way. After all, a man who has a family largely consisting of daughters, incapable of earning their own living, would like to have some guarantee, or to have the satisfaction of knowing that his estate will not be diminished in an unreasonable manner. Accidental or unnecessary hardship ought to be avoided. I cannot quite agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) about the assumed destruction of capital owing to the Death Duties. It seems to me that it is a perfectly fallacious argument. If a man has £100,000, and leaves it to ten nephews nobody says it is destroyed. If you substitute the State for one of the nephews I do not think the capital is any more destroyed. Some of the nephews might take their share out, and spend it at Monte Carlo. If the business
  1592
  is a good one, I do not think there would be any difficulty in finding someone who would put capital into it, and the business would go on as before. I do not think that the argument has any real foundation. We have not heard that owing to Sir William Harcourt's Death Duties any business has ceased to exist owing to the fact that the executors had to pay Death Duties. It is the first function of the executor to proceed to convert the estate into money, and very often to pay much larger amounts than the Death Duties. If you are so anxious to protect the business capital of the country, you ought to pass a short Bill preventing testators from so leaving their money that it is withdrawn from the business to be paid out to the beneficiaries. The fact that the State is one of the beneficiaries does not affect the business aspect of the question at all.
  Mr. W. P. BYLES: I do not quarrel in the least with the moderate suggestion made by my hon. Friend with regard to Death Duties; it might very well be considered by the Government. But I cannot see my way to vote with the hon. Member opposite. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) threw out the interesting suggestion that the State would do better if, as an alternative to the present method of collecting Death Duties, it took an instalment every 15 years. I imagine that any Government that proposed to penalise a man in that way for living long would be far more complained of than the Government which is now alleged to be penalising a man for not living long enough. I cannot agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that these Death Duties are inflicting an extreme hardship upon society. It seems to me that the minimum of hardship which taxes must impose upon the payer is inflicted by taxes which are imposed at death. When a man comes to die, his property is of no consequence to him; he cannot take it with him; he has no further interest whatever in it himself. Therefore it seems to me that if a man is asked to pay these taxes only when he has done with his wealth, when he is obliged to lay it down, the minimum of hardship is inflicted upon him. It is said that the successor is the sufferer. No doubt he has less money. But who is there who will contend that the son should begin where the father leaves off?
  Mr. J. F. REMNANT: I do, for one.
  Mr. BYLES: If that were always done there would be an enormous accumulation.
  Mr. REMNANT: Why not?
  Mr. BYLES: Mr. Carnegie said the other day that he thought the State would do right to take half the estate of a millionaire at death. I hope that the taxes challenged by this Amendment are deliberately intended to discourage, or that they are part of the policy, of which I approve, of discouraging huge accumulations of wealth. Recently a man died leaving ten millions of money. We do not want men to leave ten millions of money. It is not good for themselves that they should acquire so much, nor for their dependents, nor for their tenants upon whom they are able to levy tribute, nor for the nation at large. In my judgment, the policy of the Government in regard to Death Duties is one which should have the support of Members representing the people. Let them take as much as they can when, a man has done with his wealth. It is desirable that wealth should be diffused, not accumulated, because when diffused it fertilises the nation, but when accumulated it injures the nation.
  Mr. CLAVELL SALTER: I agree with the whole of the speech of the hon. Member for Chester (Mr. Mond), except his statement that there is nothing in the contention that Death Duties destroy capital, because if a man leaves £10,000 apiece to ten nephews it makes no difference if you substitute the State for one of the nephews. I think it makes a great difference. If the tenth nephew spent the whole of his legacy in the first year, I agree it would make no difference. But the difference arises because the chances are many thousands to one that that will not be the case, but that the money will remain capital in the hands of the nephew, whereas in the hands of the State it will not, but will be spent. The essence of
  the point as against Death Duties is that the State takes capital for the purpose of spending it as income. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Byles) laid it down as a principle that accumulations are an evil to the State.
  Mr. BYLES: Large accumulations.
  Mr. CLAVELL SALTER: I understand then, that the hon. Member does not say that the process of saving, by which I mean the accumulation of capital as distinguished from income, is a disadvantage to the State? He would, I take it, agree that the more money is saved in the nation the more capital is accumulated; speaking of the nation as a whole, the better for us all. I should like to know what his view is. If by saying that large accumulations are an evil he means to attack, not the principle of accumulation, not the abstraction of money from revenue and the creation of capital, but accumulations in single hands; if he means that it is undesirable that the resources of the country should be gathered into a few hands, then, without entering into that very wide question, I would say that that is a very different matter. That evil would be struck at, not by these Death Duties, but by some kind of legislation such as exists, I think, in France and elsewhere, prohibiting those who possess means from leaving them all to one person. If what he means is that he is opposed to the accumulation of capital, I differ from him utterly. I say that that view is utterly unsound; but if he merely means that he is opposed to the aggregation of capital in a few hands, whatever our views may be in regard to that, that evil is not struck at by the Death Duties. You do not strike at that by abstracting from any man's capital and spending it as income.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read: a second time."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 34; Noes, 140.

  Division No. 751.]

  AYES.

  [2.8 p.m.

  Anstruthor-Gray, Major

  Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington).

  Ashley, W. W.

  Gretton, John

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Balcarres, Lord

  Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Haddock, George B.

  Renwick, George

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Starkey, John R.

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Valentia, Viscount

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Hills, J. W.

  Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid.)

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Hunt, Rowland

  Younger, George

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Magnus, Sir Philip

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. S. Roberts and Mr. Clavell Salter.

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)

  NOES.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Pearson, Sir W. D. (Colchester)

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Helmsley, Viscount

  Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye)

  Armitage, R.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Pointer, J.

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Henderson, J. McD. (Aberdeen, W.)

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Barnard, E. B.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Beale, W. P.

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Boland, John

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  Reddy, M.

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Hodge, John

  Rees, J. D.

  Branch, James

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.)

  Brigg, John

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

  Hyde, Clarendon G.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs.)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Robson, Sir William Snowdon

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Clough, William

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Keating, Matthew

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Kilbride, Denis

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lamont, Norman

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

  Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Seddon, J.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Seely, Colonel

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Sheehy, David

  Devlin, Joseph

  Lundon, T.

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Steadman, W. C.

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall)

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  M'Callum, John M.

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Essex, R. W.

  M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.)

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Evans, Sir S. T.

  Maddison, Frederick

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Ferens, T. R.

  Markham, Arthur Basit

  Toulmin, George

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Marnham, F. J.

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John

  Massie, J.

  Wadsworth, J.

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Mooney, J. J.

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Morse, L. L.

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Gulland, John W.

  Muldoon, John

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

  Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)

  White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Myer, Horatio

  White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)

  Hardle, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Nicholls, George

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Williamson, Sir A.

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worcester)

  Nolan, Joseph

  Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)

  Hart-Davies, T.

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.T

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and Mr. Fuller.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E. W.

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Colonel WARDE Colonel WARDE moved to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Exemption for Home-grown Tobacco to be Used to Make Nicotine Washes.)
  Any person growing tobacco solely for the purpose of manufacturing nicotine for insecticides and other horticultural or agricultural purposes shall be entitled to an allowance or repayment of the duty paid on tobacco under this Act.
  I move this Clause because the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has often assured us that he has the interests of agriculture and horticulture very much at heart. I move the Clause in the interests of agriculture, but more especially in the interests of horticulture, because it has been proved by experiments that all the products of horticulture are more specially liable to insect pests, and of all
  1596
  insecticides now used, whether as fumigants or washes, none is so generally effective as nicotine. Yet, in the provisions of this Bill, its use is prohibited on account of the excessive Excise Duties charged. So far as I can ascertain, the universal opinion of all fruit growers is that if nicotine could be brought within their reach it would do much to improve the prospects of their trade. Speaking in the interests of Kent, part of which I have the honour to represent, I am sure that the general use of so effective an insecticide would to a certain extent mitigate the disastrous results consequent on the failure of the Government to come to the rescue of its greatest industry—hop-growing. According to the report for the present year of the Duke of Bedford's experimental fruit growing farm, the best results were obtained by the spraying with nicotine wash. Not only would such a wash have instant effect in fruit growing, but

  1597
  it would be invaluable in the case of the hop growing industry. At the present time other washes have been used without effect, whereas experience has proved that one application of nicotine has been effective for the purpose. It might be said that if this Clause was accepted it might lead to an evasion of the law and to the illicit use of tobacco for other purposes, but I am quite sure, by the addition of some noxious ingredient, this would be avoided and guarded against. In fact, I am prepared to offer the Chancellor of the Exchequer a sample of the mixture for the purpose of enabling him to test it personally. The revenue would not suffer by the acceptance of this Clause, because at present practically no tobacco is used for this purpose owing to the prohibitive cost. At any rate, according to a reply given by the Secretary to the Treasury the other day, the amount is comparatively small. The Exchequer would lose nothing, but the Chancellor would gain the gratitude not only of the fruit growers but also of the hop growers if he accepts this Clause. Fruit growing is increasing as an industry throughout the whole country. I remember many years ago the late Mr. Gladstone saying, in answer to a deputation of the hop growers of Kent, "If you cannot grow hops, grow fruit." I earnestly hope the right hon. Gentleman may see his way to accept this Clause.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I fully sympathise with the object the hon. and gallant Gentleman has in view, but I think he will find the existing law really meets the case. At any rate, I should like to have some evidence that it does not. It is purely a matter of regulation, and does not require an Act of Parliament. If the regulations are not satisfactory or liberal enough to cover cases of the kind raised by this Clause, I think they could be adjusted as to give protection in the case of persons who grow tobacco purely for this purpose. The existing regulations allow tobacco, whether imported or home grown, to be used for the manufacture of nicotine for horticultural or agricultural purposes, it is not necessary to make such provision in an Act of Parliament. It might, indeed, be mischievous and might be used for other purposes in the future. Therefore, I hope the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not press this Clause now. If he will demonstrate to me that the present regulations do not quite meet his case and do all he wants, I think I could suggest regulations by which people would be unable to grow tobacco for this purpose.
  Colonel WARDE: Am I not right in thinking that all tobacco grown for this purpose is liable to pay 3s. or 4s. per lb. duty?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: No, even under the existing regulations tobacco, whether imported or grown for this purpose, so long as it is properly safeguarded and kept in a proper place, is duty free, and therefore there is no real necessity for putting anything into an Act of Parliament. It is already met under the existing law.
  Mr. HILLS: I think I am right in saying that at present all tobacco has to go into bond, and that practically excludes all home-grown tobacco. You cannot send that to a bonded warehouse in London.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I have no doubt that is a practical difficulty. I will consider the point, and, if necessary, remedy it next year—
  Mr. HILLS: You may not be here next year; why not now?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am glad of the testimony of confidence the hon. Member has in me. I will do my beat to press upon the next Chancellor the desirability of dealing with this matter.
  Clause withdrawn.
  Mr. RENWICK Mr. RENWICK moved to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Moneys Payable on Death of Deceased in Respect of Policy of Insurance to Form Separate Estate in Estimating Value of Property for Estate Duty.)
  Where property passes on the death of the deceased includes any moneys payable on such death, if occurring on or after the thirtieth day of April, nineteen hundred and nine, in respect of any policy effected by the deceased on his life, and maintained by him, such moneys, to the extent of an amount equal to one twenty-fifth part of the total aggregated value of such property, shall not for the purpose of enhancing the rate of duty, be aggregated with any other property, but shall form an estate by itself.
  The object of this Clause is to provide that a man who has had the prudence to insure his life shall not, because he insured, cause the estate to be burdened at his death, provided that it is less than one twenty-fifth part of the total estate. If a man insures during his lifetime it is going to have a rather curious effect in regard to Death Duties. For instance, if a man

  1599
  leaves £20,000 and pays 5 per cent. Death Duty, that is equal to £1,000 Death Duty, but if he leaves £20,000 plus £1,000 insurance he then pays 6 per cent. on £21,000, or £1,260 Death Duty. This extra £1,000 life insurance pays £260 Death Duty. Surely the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not have considered this effect in connection with a policy bought and paid for during the man's lifetime, and for which he made a sacrifice during the whole of his life. I wish to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to these figures. Look at the matter from the other point of view. If the £1,000 is treated as a separate estate, as I ask it should be under this Clause, it works out that the £20,000 would pay 5 per cent., equal to £1,000. If the £1,000 is treated separately it would pay 2 per cent., or £20 in place of the £260 as at present. I think those figures alone are sufficient to commend my proposal to the sympathetic attention of the right hon. Gentleman. I have endeavoured at different times during these discussions to gain the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman, but I have invariably failed. Nevertheless, I make one more appeal to him. I know that to-morrow week the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going down to my Constituency to smite me hip and thigh, and I want to be able to say that the right hon. Gentleman has treated me generously in regard to this important Amendment. I think that ought to clinch the question, and I expect on this occasion to get something more substantial than the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman. I hope I shall be met substantially by this Clause being accepted, because it is a cruel thing in the case of a man in business—he may be rich to-day and poor to-morrow, and therefore it is important that he should provide for his wife and family by insuring—when he has insured that the State should step in and penalise him to the extent I have shown by the figures which I have quoted.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I was under the impression that upon one occasion I had met the hon. Member, not with generosity, because you ought not to do that at the public expense, but at any rate substantially. I am sorry that I cannot meet him here. In the first place his demands under this Clause are too expensive, and they would cost the Exchequer an enormous sum of money. Under his proposal not merely should we lose the percentage, but we should lose upon the whole of the rest
  1600
  of the estate. It is almost incalculable what we should lose. The provision which a man makes for his family is a very proper one, and so is any form of savings, but I cannot see any difference between the two. Supposing one man takes out an insurance policy for £500, and another man pays into a bank year by year a sum of money to save it up. In both cases the principle is the same. A man who insures does it in that way because he wants to make provision in case anything happens to him within a short period of time, in which case his relatives would be sure of a certain sum of money, whereas the life of a man who is saving year by year might come to an abrupt end. The principle, however, is the same. As far as the State is concerned, if you are going to spare these savings at all, you cannot confine it to insurance.
  Mr. RENWICK: I think the right hon. Gentleman has over-estimated the sacrifices which the State would make in this case. My proposal only applies in cases where the property does not exceed one-twenty-fifth of the whole estate, and therefore the amount would be comparatively small. There is a great difference between putting £500 in a savings bank and taking out an insurance policy for £500. If a person dies in the first year he gets the better of the insurance company, but, as a rule, the insurance companies get the best of the bargain on account of the large number of transactions they undertake. From that point of view, I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have given my proposal a more sympathetic consideration.
  Mr. HARMOOD-BANNER: I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider this Clause in a sympathetic way before the next year's Budget, because this question of insurance is a matter in which we are more interested than any other. Under this proposal he would receive his money immediately, without any question whatsoever, and this would enormously benefit the Exchequer. It would mean an increase in the business of insurance, which would be good for insurance companies. It would also mean that the testator during his lifetime would be able to make such arrangements that he would know how much money he would leave at his death.
  Mr. STUART-WORTLEY: I am inclined to think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has considerably over-estimated

  1601
  the effect of this Clause upon the Exchequer. The loss must be an unknown quantity, and it is not fair to assume that it would be extensive. There is another distinction to be drawn. The right hon. Gentleman says that insurance is very much the same as if a man puts something annually into the savings bank. In actual experience it is not the same. A man with an insurance policy running knows he is liable for the premium, and on that account he will make greater efforts to keep his expenditure at such a level as to make sure that he can meet his premium, and that fortification of his moral strength grows stronger every year. Therefore it means something to the State to encourage insurance by legislation.
  Question, "That the Clause be read a second time," put, and negatived.
  Sir SEYMOUR KING Sir SEYMOUR KING moved to insert the following Clause:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Assessment for Income Tax of Trade Investments.)
  Where any person or company is engaged in any trade or business, and receives interest or dividends from investments made in the course of and as part of such trade or business, such interest and dividends shall not be assessable to Income Tax as a separate subject matter of taxation but shall be assessable to Income Tax as part of the trade or business profits (if any) of such person or company and not otherwise, and if Income Tax shall have been deducted from any such interest or dividends before the same have been received by such person or company such person or company shall be entitled to repayment of any amount of Income Tax paid by such person or company, or deducted from such interest or dividends in excess of the tax payable in respect of the trade or business profits of such person or company.
  I am not going to make an appeal to the generosity of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but to his justice. This Clause is intended to meet the case of corporations or firms who, in the course of their business, have to invest large sums in interest-bearing securities against liabilities, and the interest on which exceeds in total amount the profits of the concern. This is especially the case with life insurance companies, some banks, and firms who have to deal largely with matters of insurance. It is very common for them, under the provisions in vogue for the protection of the
  1602
  State, to have vast sums receiving interest. The Income Tax is deducted at the source, and the interest is brought into the account minus the Income Tax. Yet at the end of the year it is found that the profits of the concern are less than the total interest on which Income Tax has been deducted. Although this is a matter which affects few people, it affects those few people in large figures. They pay Income Tax on £10,000, £20,000, £30,000, and £40,000 a year in excess of their profits, on which they ought to be charged. I know this is in consequence of a judicial decision, but it is because of the injustice which it works that I have put this Clause down, and I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take it into his consideration. It is not a large matter, because there are comparatively few persons affected, but it is really a most gross injustice that anybody should have to pay Income Tax on such large sums in excess of the profits they make. If it is to be a tax on profits, as the public understand it, and as it is intended to be, then it is grossly unfair that any individual or corporation should have to pay Income Tax on large sums in excess of profits.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: This is a grievance, to the extent to which it is a grievance, which I am afraid is inevitable so long as we have the present machinery of collection of the Income Tax. It is a machinery which all those who are engaged in the undertaking of collecting the revenue feel essential to success. I think the hon. Gentleman will agree there. It is desirable that you should collect as much as possible at the source. It saves trouble, and secures revenue which otherwise would escape altogether. This Clause would involve a very serious departure from that principle. I agree there is a certain measure of harshness in its operation, but it is almost inevitable in some oases. It is desirable that, as far as possible, you should do your best to minimise the number of hard cases, but the real danger is that the moment you begin to infringe upon the principle of collection at the source the whole machinery would break down, and you would be driven to the system of collecting by means of declarations. I do not think that is desirable unless you are really compelled to do it. The more limited the application of that method the better for the revenue. This is an illustration of the danger. There are two or three Amendments, each in its own way seeking to impinge, as it were, upon that principle.

  1603
  There are Amendments by the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) and the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. James Hope), each suggesting some method of getting out of the present arrangement, and the hon. Member (Sir Seymour King) wants to carry it a little further. That is the real danger. If the hon. Member can show me means whereby it can be done without really breaking one of the cogs, as it were, of the wheel, then I shall be very glad to consider it; but, foreseeing the dangers and the far-reaching possibilities of admissions of this kind, I am afraid it is quite impossible for me to accept the Amendment. I am quite willing to consider, not only any representations which may be placed before me, but any suggestions which may be made with a view of meeting the difficulty.
  Sir SEYMOUR KING: I am entirely at one with the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the advisability of the maintenance of the principle of collection at the source. I regard it as a vital thing in the collection of the Income Tax. I would, however, point out that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sheffield is identical with my own, and the Amendment of the hon. Member for North-West Manchester is also practically identical, though it does not go quite so far. I will show the right hon. Gentleman in a minute how the difficulty can be met. At the present moment when a bank, for instance, makes up its accounts for the purposes of the Income Tax, it gives its gross trading profits, shows the amount it has received on securities, and sets off the amount it has already paid in Income Tax, and, if the profits exceed the amount of interest on securities, pays Income Tax on the difference. There would not be the least difficulty in making up a similar account showing when anything has been paid in excess and getting back an abatement, exactly as abatements are granted in other cases. All people who get abatements have their Income Tax deducted at the source, but they go to the Inland Revenue Department and file a certified account showing their income is only so much. I do not wish to avoid one shilling that is justly due, and all I ask is that in these cases they should be allowed to file a certified account with a list of securities and counterfoils showing on the strictest lines that the profits for the year, for instance, were only £30,000, whereas Income Tax had been
  1604
  paid on interest amounting to £40,000 on securities, and asking the Inland Revenue to return the Income Tax on £10,000. It would be a simple matter. It would not add a hundred returns for consideration at the Inland Revenue Offices, and would not disturb what I agree is a most precious instrument for collecting the Income Tax at the source.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I do not think it is quite as simple as the hon. Member seems to imagine It would in the first place involve a yearly adjustment. It would involve a close examination of each individual transaction, otherwise there would be no proper check. This year certainly I should not be justified in adding such additional labour to that which I have already imposed upon the Departments by this Bill. I may point out also that mutual assurance companies would escape altogether, since there are no profits made by them.
  Sir SEYMOUR KING: A mutual assurance company makes profits to be divided amongst its members.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I know of one company which only divided losses. In a case of that kind, wherever there are investments, they would escape altogether. I hope the hon. Member will reconsider his Amendment from that point of view, and I will also promise to reconsider the matter.
  Sir JOHN JARDINE: I have great sympathy with the Amendment, and I am bound also to express my gratification at the friendly manner in which the various suggestions have been received by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The question of interest on investments is one of the most important parts of the work of directors of insurance companies. On their decisions the profits are often based. It should be the policy of the State to encourage as much as possible the assurance of lives. The matter is attracting much attention among life assurance companies, and I am glad that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has received in so kindly a manner the suggestions which have been made this afternoon. I hope he will leave the matter open for further consideration.
  Sir SEYMOUR KING: After the friendly way in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has received my Amendment I will leave it for him to think over.
  Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. RENWICK Mr. RENWICK moved the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Special Commissioners to Act only upon Sworn Evidence Given, in Presence of Parties.)
  Upon the hearing of an appeal before the Special Commissioners against any assessment for Income Tax, it shall not be lawful for the Special Commissioners to act upon any evidence other than evidence given on oath or affirmation in the hearing of the appellant or his representative, and the appellant or his representative and the surveyor or other representative of the Crown shall be given an opportunity of cross-examining any person giving evidence before the said Commissioners.
  This and another Clause which I have on the Paper further on deal with practically the same subject. The purport of both Clauses is to insure that the Special or General Commissioners, as the case may be, shall act only on sworn evidence given in the presence of all the parties, and that the representative of the appellant or the appellant himself shall be enabled to cross-examine upon it. At present appellants have a great grievance. They are called before the Commissioners to give their evidence, the Commissioners hear what they have to say in the presence of the Surveyor, and then they are asked to withdraw. After they have withdrawn it is pretty well known that the Surveyor puts his case before the Commissioners in the absence of the appellant. That is a great injustice, and it will become more unjust, because, undoubtedly, as a result of this new scale of duties, there will be a considerably greater number of appeals in the future than there has been in the past. There will be appeals with regard to the definition of what is earned and what is unearned income; there will be appeals, too, as to when the Super-tax shall become applicable, and for the first year or so, until a workable basis is arrived at, it may be expected that appeals of great importance will be entered. It is absolutely necessary, where we limit appeals to questions of fact before the Commissioners, that those facts should be brought out, not only by the appellant himself, but that he should have the option of being legally represented, and that his representative should be enabled to cross-examine the witnesses. May I point out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that this is not a question of revenue. It is a matter of sheer justice, and I think that these appeals should be decided in a manner
  1606
  similar to that adopted in courts of justice. I think this Clause will commend itself to every right-thinking man, and I appeal to the justice and fair-mindedness of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give it favourable consideration.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I am very sorry not to be able to respond to the appeal of the hon. Member, but perhaps he may find it possible to respond to my appeal and thus set a good example. I will tell him why I do not think his proposal is a very desirable one. At the present moment the procedure before the Commissioners is not like the procedure before a court of law, and I doubt if any one would really desire that it should be. It is a question of the best way of getting at the facts. Now the business is conducted in a more or less conversational way between the parties. It is not as though there were an appellant and a respondent, with counsel appearing for each, documents put in, cross-examination allowed, and points of law raised. I do not think it is desirable that the business should be conducted in that way. In the long run it would be to the disadvantage of the subject, for the State would always be in a position to employ the best counsel, and the subject might not be able to do so. I, therefore, hope the hon. Member will not press the Amendment, as it really is not in the interest of the parties chiefly concerned.
  Sir E. CARSON: I think there is a good deal in what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said. The investigations before the Commissioners are not conducted in accordance with law court procedure. But the real grievance which I found to exist at the time I had the honour of acting as Solicitor-General was that appellants were well aware that, after they had been asked to leave the room, the surveyor was allowed to put his case before the Commissioners, and they had no opportunity either of hearing it or answering it. I would suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Commissioners should not be entitled to hear anything from the surveyor of taxes, or anyone except in the presence of the other party. That is simply a matter of administration, and I think it would be an enormous improvement and give great satisfaction to people, because they do feel that after they have gone out statements are made to the Commissioners. It is a recognised practice, although I do not say that anything improper takes place, but a man states his case and goes out,

  1607
  and then the surveyor of taxes makes a statement in his absence. The man, therefore, goes away with a sense of injustice, because he has had no opportunity of answering the objections made. If the right hon. Gentleman would make that simple change in the procedure, he would remove a grievance, although I do not in any way impugn the action of these Gentlemen.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I think that is a suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman which deserves consideration. I think it is undesirable that the surveyor should, after all the evidence is put in, then suggest some kind of information to the Commissioners to which the subject has no opportunity of replying. I do think that is unfortunate, having regard to the fair and impartial judgment of the question. It is, however, not a matter of legislation, but of regulation and of procedure, and I shall be very glad to inquire into it and see if something cannot be done to put the matter right.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman, although in Scotland nothing is said either on the part of the Commissioners or the surveyors except in the presence of the subject. Therefore we have no matter of complaint in Scotland, but I am quite sure that if the plan adopted were for the surveyor, after the subject had left, to give the Special Commissioners information, we should complain. If such a procedure obtains in England I hope it will be put right.
  3.0 P.M.
  Mr. RENWICK: I am perfectly satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. The real grievance is, as has been stated, that after we have left the room the surveyor of taxes remains with the Commissioners, and, undoubtedly, we are of opinion that the information that he gives influences them. If the right hon. Gentleman will consider the matter I will withdraw.
  Clause withdrawn.
  Mr. HILLS Mr. HILLS moved the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Profits of a Married Woman Not to be Deemed Profits of her Husband.)
  The profits of a married woman living with her husband shall, notwithstanding anything contained in Section forty-five of the Income Tax Act, 1842, not be deemed the profits of her husband, neither shall he
  1608
  be chargeable therewith, but every married woman shall be chargeable to Income Tax in respect of her separate property in all respects as though she were a femme sole.
  I do not want to waste time on this, but I should just like to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if his heart has been softened in this case. It is a very hard one indeed that if a man lives with a woman who happens to be his wife they should be in a worse position than if she was not his wife. The short effect of this Section of the Income Tax Act is a penalty upon marriage. There seems to be a new mind in the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I hope he will reconsider this with a view of remedying the grievance. It surely is a monstrous injustice that you should tax a married couple on their joint incomes, but it has been so often argued in this House that I shall not take up any more time.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: This is a very old grievance that comes up every year—indeed, it is a hardy annual—but it is rather a serious alteration of the general law for me to contemplate, and I think it would mean a serious diminution of the revenue, because there are many cases in which, if it is passed, exemptions may be claimed. In many cases the income is brought up to £700 by taking the two. I do not think, however, that there is any real hardship, as the provision does not apply to any people who cannot afford a contribution to the Income Tax; and, after all, these married people do live together, as they ought to do, and they have a joint duty in regard to the expenses of the household. Therefore, I do not think there is a real case of hardship, and the grievance is a sentimental one. As they live together the expenses of the wife are considerably less, and she has an income of her own. I think when we make an alteration of the general law it ought to be in cases of real hardship and suffering, and not in cases of this kind. I do not think there is any claim which would justify me in making the Amendment.
  Sir E. CARSON: I am not going to argue the general question. I have not any sympathy with anybody who marries a woman with money, but there is a question which I wish to ask. Certain abatements were given to persons living abroad, and who happened to be there in the service of the country, and to others. I have a letter in regard to a missionary abroad who really has little or no money, but his

  1609
  wife, who is with him, has under £160 a year, and I have been asked whether, in that case, an abatement will be allowed. The lady is carrying out what the Chancellor of the Exchequer says she ought to do, and is with her husband. She is not a missionary, she is not the person who comes under the exemption, but between them they would, as there is a common fund.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: In that case, I understand the lady has accompanied her husband in his capacity as a missionary. I should think a case of that kind should come within the exception which I promised to insert. I will consider it.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's reason for not accepting the Clause was that it would cost too much money to the State. I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman has changed from the good example he set the House yesterday, when he said the question which the Committee should consider was whether or not the tax was just, and not whether or not it would cost the State money. I was lost in admiration at the excellent sentiment which he gave vent to yesterday. Now I find all these good instincts have left him, and he has reverted to his own bad self again.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I do not admit the grievance.
  Sir F. BANBURY: The rest of the Committee, I think, do. I will put this case. The right hon. Gentleman says if husband and wife are living together their joint income goes to the household expenses. A brother and sister live together, both enjoying incomes of their own. They pool their incomes, and they go to the household expenses in exactly the same way as a husband and wife, but their incomes are not aggregated together for the purpose of Income Tax, though, of course, the house is equally dear to them as to the husband and wife. But there is another point where a grievance comes in. For the purpose of Death Duties husband and wife are not taken as being one, but as being two. The right hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. If the husband and wife are to be taken as being one person for the purpose of Income Tax they must be treated as one person for the Death Duties. That seems to be absolutely unanswerable.
  Question put, "That this Clause be now read a second time."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 46; Noes, 119.

  Division No. 752.]

  AYES.

  [3.10 p.m.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Gretton, John

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Balcarres, Lord

  Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.)

  Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edmunds)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Haddock, George B.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Renwick, George

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Snowden, P.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Hunt, Rowland

  Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.)

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Craik, Sir Henry

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid.)

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Watt, Henry A.

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Younger, George

  Fell, Arthur

  M'Arthur, Charles

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Hills and Sir F. Banbury.

  Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham)

  Nicholson, Wm G. (Petersfield)

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  NOES.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Armitage, R.

  Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Gulland, John W.

  Barnes, G. N.

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Beale, W. P.

  Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)

  Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)

  Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worcester)

  Rowerman, C. W.

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall)

  Hart-Davies, T.

  Branch, James

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

  Essex, R. W.

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Hazel, Dr. A. E. W.

  Byles, William Pollard

  Evans, Sir Samuel T.

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Clough, William

  Ferens, T. R.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Higham, John Sharp

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Morse, L. L.

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)

  Sioan, Thomas Henry

  Hodge, John

  Nicholls, George

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Nuttall, Harry

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton.)

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Lamont, Norman

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Toulmin, George

  Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (Gloucester)

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.)

  Vivian, Henry

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Wadsworth, J.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

  M'Callum, John M.

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)

  Maddison, Frederick

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Williamson, Sir A.

  Marnham, F. J.

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Massie, J.

  Seddon, J.

  Mond, A.

  Seely, Colonel

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and Mr. Fuller.

  Mooney, J. J.

  Shackleton, David James

  Mr. WALTER GUINNESS Mr. WALTER GUINNESS moved to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Partial Exemption of Land from Reversion Duty.)
  No Reversion Duty under this Part of this Act shall be chargeable in respect of the period during which any land is held by a rating authority, or by any person, or body of persons, carrying on any undertaking or institution without any view to the payment of any dividend or profit out of the revenue thereof, for purposes which, in the opinion of the Commissioners, are public purposes or charitable purposes and is not so held at the determination of the lease of such land, and in such event the value of the benefit accruing to the lessor shall for the purposes of this part of this Act be deemed to be the amount (if any) by which the total value of the land at the time the lease determines exceeds the amount of the consideration paid to the rating authority or person or body aforesaid for their interest in the reversion.
  The object of this Clause is to make the exemption from Reversion Duty for the benefit of local authorities and bodies constituted for charitable purposes real instead of illusory as it is at present. If a local authority sell a lease, as in most cases they are bound to do when they buy a lease under statutory powers for a certain period, they obviously will pay the duty unless the proportion of the duty which had really accrued during their holding of the lease is excluded from the payment at the time the lease falls in. If they sell the land, and this Clause is not carried, obviously the purchaser will discount the price at which he is willing to buy the land by the amount which he will
  1612
  be called upon to pay in the form of Reversion Duty at the end of the lease. I think if the Chancellor of the Exchequer really wishes to exempt local authorities from payment of Reversion Duty he should accept this Clause.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I really cannot accept this Amendment. We discussed the question very fully the other day, and I do not think I can depart from the position I took up then. I was not aware that it would be in order to move this Clause, for the exemption of land held for public or charitable purposes was dealt with in Clause 25.
  The CHAIRMAN: In connection with a long Bill like this, it is sometimes difficult to remember whether individual questions which are raised in the form of Amendments have been already dealt with or not.
  Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: I think part of the new Clause was discussed on Clause 25, namely, that part which refers to the exemption of bodies constituted for public or charitable purposes, but the grievance of the local authorities was not discussed at all.
  The CHAIRMAN: Part of this has already been decided, and that ought not to be moved now. As I have put the new Clause to the Committee, however, perhaps the hon. Member will withdraw.
  Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he cannot see his way to give the exemption to local authorities?
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I will consider the point put by the hon. Member.
  Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: I beg leave to withdraw the Clause.
  Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  Sir E. CARSON Sir E. CARSON had the following on the Notice Paper:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Compensation upon Discontinuance of Business by Reason of Increase of Duties.)
  Whenever, by reason of the increase of the duties in this Section, the holder of a licence in England to which the Licensing Act of 1904 applies is, in the opinion of the Commissioners, obliged to discontinue his business, he shall be entitled to compensation under the Licensing Act of 1904 as if the renewal of his licence had been refused under Sub-section (2) of the said Act.
  The CHAIRMAN: This Clause is outside the scope of the Bill.
  Sir E. CARSON: This day week I raised a question on Clause 67 as to whether that Clause, which made a change in the Licensing Act of 1904, was not outside the scope of the Finance Bill, and you held that it was not, for Sections 33 and 36 of this Bill altered in a number of respects the Licensing Act of 1904. I submit that my Clause goes no further than any of these Clauses, and as it deals with a matter of some importance I would ask leave to move the Amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN: In regard to Subsection (2) of Clause 67, I would point out that that was a question of an appearance on the part of the Treasury in connection with a matter to which other Clauses in the Bill relate. In regard to the right hon. Gentleman's new Clause, I would say that, although the situation indicated may arise from the taxation imposed by this Bill, the proposal would upset the provisions of the Licensing Act of 1904. In my opinion it goes a great deal further than the other Sub-section, and is not within the scope of this Bill.
  Mr. HUNT Mr. HUNT moved to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Repeal of Cocoa Duty.)
  On and after the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and ten, the duty of Customs of one penny in the pound on raw cocoa shall cease to be payable, and so much of the Customs Tariff Act, 1876, as refers to this duty is hereby repealed, and the Customs tariff of twopence per pound on imported manufactured cocoa shall be reduced to one penny per pound.
  On 11th July, 1907, the Prime Minister said "he thought the duty on cocoa interfered
  1614
  injuriously with the food of the people, but he asked the Committee to continue the duty until the time of the next Budget." I think it is quite time that the duty was repealed. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite are always accusing Unionists and Tariff Reformers of wanting to tax raw material. Yet here we tax at the rate of a penny per pound raw material which, according to the Prime Minister, is a food of the people, and there is an additional 1d per lb. on the manufactured food of the people, which the Liberal Government are going to insist on. Yet at the last General Election, at every Liberal meeting in my division, and, I believe, everywhere else, it was insisted that even as much as one-fifth of a farthing per pound on wheat on only half the supply used in this country was going to bring starvation to our people and to the children of our country. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite: Could Free Trade humbug be better shown up than by the insistence on this comparatively heavy duty on a raw material and a food of the people? And on top of that they have got their own particular friend, the cocoa manufacturer, protected by another penny per pound. The Prime Minister said, on 18th April, 1907:—
  "There is a good deal of the flavour of Protection about the present scale of the Cocoa Duty. I should not defend it myself from the point of view of Free Trade, and I do not think it is defensible."
  The head of a great cocoa manufacturing firm not only, I think, runs one of the great Liberal papers, but he gave £20,000 just before the General Election to help the Free Trade party.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: Did he get a peerage?
  Mr. HUNT: That is coming. That Gentleman was wise in his generation. He not only got protection from unfair foreign competition in his own industry, but took particularly good care that no one else should have the same advantage, and thus passed on some of the money to the Free Trade party. That is one of the ways in which the Free Trade business is run. Cocoa is used to a very considerable extent in most of our towns by the very poor. It is considered by them to be both a food and a drink, and has the advantage of being very nourishing, while it has not got the disadvantages of tea and coffee, yet unless this Amendment is accepted this great Free Trade Government is going to put 1d. per pound on the raw material and 2d. on the manufactured article.
  An HON. MEMBER: "Why did you not take it off?"
  Mr. HUNT: I do not think I had found out about this. But if we want to know what excellent stuff this cocoa is I will take the "Alliance News and Temperance Reformer," which I am sure many hon. Gentlemen opposite must be very fond of. This well-known paper says, "Cadbury's cocoa is a liquid food, and a high-class beverage, produced by British labour under the very best conditions." So it is, but it is protected from unfair foreign competition, and if we could have the same for our other industries we could have the same well-treated labour. I do not see why there should be protection for that one industry, in which the manufacturers were the particular friends of the Liberal Party, and no protection for anybody else. I may fairly say this, that as the cocoa industry is protected from unfair competition we certainly ought to have the hop industry protected— —
  The CHAIRMAN: That appears to be going outside the scope of the Amendment.
  Mr. HUNT: It was only an instance, of course. I was allowed to make it last year, and I thought I should be allowed to make it this year. The effect of differentiation between cocoa and hops is that you encourage people to drink beer and discourage them from drinking cocoa. I think that that would be altogether against the principles of many hon. Gentlemen opposite. Furthermore, the growing of cocoa produces no labour. Another point is that chocolate imported into this country, if it is over 50 per cent. chocolate, has to pay the same duty as if it was all manufactured cocoa. Therefore the home producer gets a tremendous advantage, because he has much less taxation to pay on this kind of chocolate than the foreign producer. That is how it is that almost all the chocolate used in this country is made in this country, and that not one-twentieth part of it is imported from abroad. The consequence is that a great industry has grown up to the extent, I think, of something like £10,000,000. Hon. Gentlemen will thus see what an enormous advantage it is to protect our industries from unfair foreign competition, and how very much it helps the labour of this country. I hope the Government will accept this Clause. We shall anyhow have the chance of knowing whether hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side are
  1616
  in favour of keeping this tax on raw material and the food of the people—a tax which does give the cocoa manufacturer of this country very effective protection from unfair foreign competition.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hobhouse): I do not propose to follow the hon. gentleman into the ethics of Tariff Reform, but I desire to state to the Committee what would be the effect of the hon. Member's proposal. It would do three things. It would repeal in the first instance the Customs Duty of one penny a pound on imported raw cocoa from 1st April, 1910; it would, in the second place, leave in force the duty on husks and cocoa shells of two shillings a hundredweight, and it would, in the third place, reduce from twopence to one penny the duty on cocoa and chocolate which is in any way manufactured. The hon. Gentleman is perfectly well aware that that would make a very considerable hole in the revenue, and it would reduce the amount received from the tax by £290,000. I do not think the hon. Member can expect us at this period of the financial year to accept the proposal.
  Mr. PHILIP SNOWDEN: I would like to support the Clause of the hon. Gentleman for reasons which I have on many occasions put before this House. In the first place, I support it because it proposes to reduce the amount of the indirect tax, and in the second place to reduce the amount of taxation levied upon an article of food. In supporting the Clause I do not commit myself absolutely to its details. I should not, were I to propose such an Amendment, leave, for instance, the penny duty on the imported manufactured article, for that is Protection pure and simple. In regard to the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, it is the old story of the late period of the Session and the interference with the Budget. May I ask how long it is since the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the first time made a concession to the landlords which involved, not the sum spoken of just now by the right hon. Gentleman, but about double the amount? It is largely a matter of willingness. I am sure the Government cannot complain of want of support on the Labour Benches during the progress of this Bill. I suppose this will be the second or third time I have voted against them in connection with this measure. There are many things in the Budget with which I and my colleagues are in hearty agreement. May I be allowed to say that I

  1617
  think the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have made the Budget far more popular than it is, and at very little cost to the country, if he had swept away the Cocoa Tax, which I do not think gives a total revenue of more than about £300,000. The amount of revenue from the tax on coffee is somewhat smaller, and therefore the Chancellor of the Exchequer might have repealed the duties on these articles. If the hon. Gentleman carries his proposal to a Division I shall go into the Lobby with him.
  Mr. HUNT: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has given any answer to the question I have raised. He merely says that the Government cannot afford to lose the revenue. That is a very poor reason, considering the smallness of the amount. According to the right hon. Gentleman's own principles, he had no right to leave this duty on. To put a tax on a raw material which is a food of the people is bad enough, but to put an extra tax on a
  competing manufactured article is to break the very principle which the Prime Minister enunciated, that no duty whatever should be placed on any article which could possibly have the effect of doing any good to any man, woman or child in this country. Yet the Prime Minister himself permits this tax of twopence on manufactured cocoa, thus breaking his own principles and the traditions of his party. I think we may take it, in view of these circumstances, that the Free Trade system is entirely burst up.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: I find that the hon. Member's Clause proposes, in the first place, to take off taxation on raw material, and, secondly, it proposes to put on the manufactured article enough to protect British industry.
  Question put, "That the Clause be now read a second time."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 47; Noes, 130.

  Division No. 753.]

  AYES.

  [3.45 p.m.

  Balcarres, Lord

  Gretton, John

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston)

  Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edm'ds.)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Barnes, G. N.

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Renwick, George

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Hermon-Broadley, H. B.

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Snowden, P.

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

  Joyce, Michael

  Steadman, W. C

  Cooper, G. J.

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.)

  Craik, Sir Henry

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Lockwood, Rt. Hon. Lt.-Col. A. R.

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Fell, Arthur

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Younger, George

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Lundon, T.

  Gardner, Ernest

  M'Arthur, Charles

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. R. Hunt and Mr. J. W. Hills.

  Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham)

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

  NOES.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Elibank, Master of

  Janes, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Alden, Percy

  Essex, R. W.

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Keating, M.

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Evans, Sir S. T.

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Beale, W. P.

  Ferens, T. R.

  Lamont, Norman

  Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Lehmann, R. C.

  Branch, James

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich!

  Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Gulland, John W.

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Byles, William Pollard

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Lynch, H. B.

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worcester)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Clough, William

  Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  M'Callum, John M.

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E. W.

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Maddison, Frederick

  Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Marnham, F. J.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Higham, John Sharp

  Massie, J.

  Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Mond, A.

  Cullinar, J.

  Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H.

  Morse, L. L.

  Devlin, Joseph

  Hodge, John

  Muldoon, John

  Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Murphy, John (Kerry, E.)

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall)

  Isaacs. Rufus Daniel

  Myer, Horatio

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Nicholls, George

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Nuttall, Harry

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  O'Malley, William

  Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Seddon, J.

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Seely, Colonel

  Watt, Henry A.

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Shackleton, David James

  White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (Gloucester)

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)

  Reddy, M

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Williamson, Sir A.

  Rees, J. D.

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Toulmin, George

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Joseph Pease and Mr. Fuller.

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Vivian, Henry

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Wadsworth, J.

  Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSON Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSON moved to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Appeals Against Assessment to Income Tax.)
  (a) If any person, charged by an assessment or surcharge of the duties contained in Schedule D of the Acts relating to Income Tax in England or Scotland, shall think himself aggrieved by the determination of the Commissioners for general purposes or the Commissioners for special purposes directed to hear appeals in any appeal against such assessment or surcharge, it shall be lawful for him, on giving notice in writing to the inspector or surveyor within twenty-one days after such determination, to require that such appeal shall be reheard by His Majesty's High Court of Justice, and thereupon such appeal shall be reheard by a Judge of His Majesty's High Court of Justice (King's Bench Division) in such manner and in accordance with such conditions as shall be prescribed by rules of the Supreme Court, and the determination of such judge on such appeal shall be final and conclusive on all questions of fact; but if any party to such appeal shall be dissatisfied with the determination of the judge in point of law, or upon the admission or rejection of any evidence, the party aggrieved may appeal from the same to His Majesty's Court of Appeal and from thence to the House of Lords.
  (b) The fact that an appeal is pending before the High Court of Justice shall not in any way interfere with the payment of the Income Tax according to the assessment appealed against, but the Income Tax shall be paid according to such assessment, as if there were no appeal; and in the event of the amount of assessment being altered by the order or judgment of the Court the difference in amount, if too much has been paid, shall be repaid with such interest (if any) as the Court may allow, and if too little shall be deemed to be
  1620
  arrears and shall be paid and recovered accordingly.
  (c) In the application of this Section to Scotland a Lord Ordinary or Judge of the Court of Session shall be substituted for a Judge of the High Court of Justice and the Court of Session for the Court of Appeal.
  An appeal is now allowed to individuals or others on questions of law to the High Court from the assessment of the Commissioners, but on questions of fact the Commissioners' decision is final. As the Committee are well aware, there are a great number of important questions which are on the border-line and are a mixture of fact and law. Many of those cases have arisen—cases of large merchant houses and shipowners—in connection with depreciation of shipping, the domicile of an individual or a firm, depreciation of plant, and a great many other matters. The intention of the Legislature evidently was to allow an appeal to the High Court, but it was thought when the Income Tax was first imposed that people would not welcome the publicity of the courts, and that they would rather have the more or less secret proceedings before the Commissioners, and the Commissioners were doubtless instituted largely from that point of view. Nowadays that argument no longer has the same force and publicity in the case of companies; at least, is no longer so necessary. And the desire is to get an effective right of appeal, which the Legislature evidently intended to give, and which is not effective at the present moment, to the court both on questions of law and fact. At present, when very involved cases are heard before the Commissioners, they give a decision, and if the person assessed considers he has a grievance he asks the Commissioners to state a case for the High Court. The Commissioners are advised by a clerk, who is usually a solicitor, and the case is prepared

  1621
  by that clerk. It is only natural, while everyone will give credit to the Commissioners to state the case without bias, and also the clerk, that they should be rather averse to the idea that their decision is likely to be upset, and they will state their case in such a way as to make it very difficult to have an effective appeal to the High Courts. They state sometimes that they arrived at their decision on facts when, as a matter of fact, the question is so mixed up that it is really in the domain of law. There are very important cases which have been decided, as many people think, wrongly, and where an appeal to the courts has been impossible under the present condition of the law. Therefore the Shipowners' Association and merchants generally desire to have an effective appeal to the High Courts.
  Sir SAMUEL EVANS: In putting on the taxes this year we do not make any change at all in the nature of the appeal allowed. This would be a very serious alteration of the law. There is an appeal now, and it is not quite fair to say that the cases are not stated fairly.
  Sir A. WILLIAMSON: I did not say intentionally.
  Sir SAMUEL EVANS: The appeal now is by way of case stated. You must assume that the people from whom the appeal is made will state the case fairly. I do not know what appeal other than that you can offer, except generally, on fact and law, leaving the whole matter open. That may or may not be a great improvement in the law, but at this stage it is rather a strong order to ask the House of Commons to make it. Wherever there is an appeal by way of case stated the same alteration ought to be made. Practically all the appeals from the inferior courts of this country are by way of case stated, and the same arguments used in favour of this Amendment might be used in regard to most cases. The appeals from quarter sessions and petty sessions, and in rating appeals, which are analogous to Income Tax cases, are all by way of case stated. The case of the county court is quite distinct. There the appeal is only on a clear point of law, unmixed with fact, which must have been clearly stated by way of objection before the county court judge. The answer to my hon. Friend is two-fold. First, there has been no serious complaint up to now of the method of appeal in Income Tax cases by way of case
  1622
  stated; secondly, appeal by way of case is not at all confined to these cases, but is quite the ordinary form of appeal, and there is no reason for the alteration on this particular matter any more than in the other matters where the appeal is in this form.
  Sir E. CARSON: I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will favourably consider this proposal. I must differ entirely from the Solicitor-General when he says that there has been no complaint of the present procedure of appeal by way of case stated. I was Solicitor-General for six years, and I could not count the number of complaints that were made. When the Income Tax gets high, as it was during the war, an immense number of complaints are made by parties interested in Income Tax assessments. Many complaints come to me, mainly on the ground that it is impossible in cases where there are mixed questions of law and fact, unless you have a general right of appeal, that the court should have cognisance of the real question raised. I believe that these objections come from the very persons who are most willing to act honourably and fairly towards the revenue, and who are perfectly prepared to pay their fair quota towards the revenue of the country; but they feel a grievance when there is a point which they thoroughly understand in relation to their own business coming before these Commissioners, who very often give the go-by to the contentions put forward, maybe because they do not understand them. These Commissioners are not lawyers, and a man has to be a long time at the Bar before he understands when a case passes the border line between law and fact and becomes a mixed question of law and fact. I remember many cases in which I have appeared for the Crown where the parties have complained through their counsel that the way in which the case was stated stated them out of court. I do not say that it was done with any improper intention; but it was impossible to argue the question you wished to argue, because you were at once met with the statement, "The Commissioners say that they have found, as a matter of fact, so and so," and you were thereby precluded from going into questions of law on which the facts which the Commissioners professed to have found might depend. That is entirely unsatisfactory. I remember cases in which the judges have strained the administration in order to allow facts to be stated, so as to show the way in which the Commissioners have dealt with a particular point,

  1623
  and the matter has been sent back to the Commissioners from the court for them to state various facts in order that the appellate tribunal might have them before it, and be able to see the real bearing of the facts on the question of law. Nobody who has had to deal with the matter can help knowing that the complications of business, the various ways in which accounts are kept, what are legitimate trading deductions are all matters which may very materially affect the assessment for Income Tax, but are matters which under the present system the parties are precluded from bringing into court. All through these Debates we have fought for an appeal in regard to the new taxes, especially the Land Taxes, and the Government have met us satisfactorily. We have the fullest appeal in relation to the Land Taxes. Why should Income Tax be in a worse position? The Income Tax is becoming by far the most important in the country. We have the fullest possible appeal in relation to Death Duties. What difference in principle is there between Death Duties and Income Tax in the matter of the appeal? The sole case now left outside is that of Income Tax, which, in my opinion, having regard to the diversity of businesses existing in the country, raises far more complicated questions than any other tax. The Solicitor-General referred to rating cases. In every one of those cases there is an appeal to quarter sessions on value.
  Sir SAMUEL EVANS: I was talking about appeals from quarter sessions.
  Sir E. CARSON: Quarter sessions is the oldest court of record in the land. It is a court of the same importance as any other. In every one of those cases you have an appeal to the court of quarter sessions, one of the most competent of courts. You will not find a single Act dealing with valuations for any purpose in this country—I have had the matter searched out—in which there is not an appeal both upon the question of fact and upon the question of law. I submit that
  we ought not now, at a time when we are not only dealing with the ordinary tax, but with the Super-tax—which it going to add an enormous burden to large businesses—to leave Income Tax outside the question of an appeal. I appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make the practice uniform, which he will do if he accepts the Amendment of the hon. Baronet.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: I do hope the Government will not treat this matter in the way they have so far treated it. After all, what do the arguments of the Solicitor-General amount to? He does not say a word against the Amendment on its merits. He does not deny that such an appeal would be a great improvement in order to ascertain the truth and do justice. Nobody can deny it. Everybody knows that an appeal from the Commissioners to the High Court would better secure justice.
  Sir SAMUEL EVANS Sir SAMUEL EVANS dissented.
  Lord ROBERT CECIL: The Solicitor-General must really not be quite serious when he shakes his head. The right hon. Gentleman says that there is no appeal from quarter sessions, but you can always have one by way of case stated. You have an appeal at present to quarter sessions, which, though not quite equal to an appeal to the High Court, is infinitely superior to the method proposed in the Bill. The case for the Amendment is absolutely overwhelming. The only argument against putting it into the Bill is that this is 1st October. There is no other reason. If this matter had been raised at a reasonable period of the year I do not believe the Government would have resisted it for a moment. I do earnestly hope the Committee will uphold the contention of the hon. Baronet and adopt the Amendment.
  Question put, "That the Clause be now read a second time."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 42; Noes, 136.

  Division No. 754.]

  AYES.

  [4.10 p.m.

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

  Fell, Arthur

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Fletcher, J. S.

  Hills, J. W.

  Carille, E. Hildred

  Gardner, Ernest

  Hunt, Rowland

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Gretton, John

  king, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston)

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edmunds)

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  M'Arthur, Charles

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Morrison Bell, Captain

  Renwick, George

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Talbot, Rt. Hon. J. G. (Oxford Univ.)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Walker, Col W. H. (Lancashire)

  A. Williamson and Mr. Younger.

  NOES.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Alden, Percy

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Pease, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Saff. Wald.)

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Higham, John Sharp

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Beale, W. P.

  Hodge, John

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (Gloucester)

  Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Rees, J. D.

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.)

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Branch, James

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Byles, William Pollard

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Clough, William

  Lamont, Norman

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

  Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Seddon, J.

  Cooper, G. J.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Seely, Colonel

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Shackleton, David James

  Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

  Lupton, Arnold

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Lynch, A. (Clare, W.)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Lynch, H. B.

  Snowden, P.

  Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Steadman, W. C.

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall)

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Stewart, Halley (Greenock)

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Elibank, Master of

  M'Callum, John M.

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Essex, R. W.

  Maddison, Frederick

  Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Evans, Sir S. T.

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Toulmin, George

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Marnham, F. J.

  Verney, F. W.

  Ferens, T. R.

  Massie, J.

  Vivian, Henry

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Wadsworth, J.

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Mond, A.

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John

  Montagu, Hon. E. S.

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Morse, L. L.

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Murphy, John (Kerry, East)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

  Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)

  Watt, Henry A.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Myer, Horatio

  Weir, James Galloway

  Gulland, John W.

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

  White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worcester)

  Nuttall, Harry

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Hart-Davies, T.

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Fuller and Mr. Whitley.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E. W.

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Mr. RUPERT GUINNESS Mr. RUPERT GUINNESS moved to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Exemption of Estates of Persons Killed in the Service of the Crown.)
  Estate Duty shall not be paid on the estate of any person who has been killed
  or died of wounds received in the service of the Crown.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 38; Noes, 153.

  Division No. 755.]

  AYES.

  [4.20 p.m.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Fletcher, J. S.

  M'Arthur, Charles

  Ashley, W. W.

  Gardner, Ernest

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Gretton, John

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

  Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edmunds)

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Renwick, George

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

  Harrison-Broadley, H. B.

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Hills, J. W.

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Hunt, Rowland

  Younger, George

  Craik, Sir Henry

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott-

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Rupert Guinness and Mr. G. D. Faber.

  Fell, Arthur

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  NOES.

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Alden, Percy

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Higham, John Sharp

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Hodge, John

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Barnes, G. N.

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central)

  Beale, W. P.

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Beaumont, Hon. Hubert

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (Gloucester)

  Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Reddy, M.

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Rees, J. D.

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.)

  Branch, James

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

  Jowett, F. W.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Joyce, Michael

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Kilbride, Denis

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Clough, William

  Lamont, Norman

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

  Cooper, G. J.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Seddon, J.

  Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

  Lupton, Arnold

  Seely, Colonel

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Lynch, A. (Clare, W.)

  Shackleton, David James

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Lynch, H. B.

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Cullinan, J.

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Devlin, Joseph

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Snowden, P.

  Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N.)

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Dillon, John

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Stewart, Hailey (Greenock)

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall)

  M'Callum, John M.

  Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  Maddison, Frederick

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Elibank, Master of

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Essex, R. W.

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Marnham, F. J.

  Toulmin, George

  Evans, Sir S. T.

  Massie, J.

  Verney, F. W.

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Masterman, C. F. G.

  Vivian, Henry

  Ferens, T. R.

  Mond, A.

  Wadsworth, J.

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Montagu, Hon. E. S.

  Walker, H. de R. (Leicester)

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Morse, L. L.

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John

  Muldoon, John

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Murphy, John (Kerry, E.)

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Murray, Capt. Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

  Myer, Horatio

  Watt, Henry A.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncaster)

  Weir, James Galloway

  Gulland, John W.

  Nolan, Joseph

  White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worcester)

  Nuttall, Harry

  Williamson, Sir A

  Hart-Davies, T.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  O'Malley, William

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Fuller and Mr. Whitley.

  Hedges, A. Paget

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Mr. JOHN MULDOON Mr. JOHN MULDOON moved, after Clause 44, to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Provision for Sale of Land under Land Purchase Acts.)
  Where the assets of the deceased consist of lands agreed to be sold under the provisions of the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts, but in respect of which the purchase money has not been paid into the Bank of Ireland, such assets shall be deemed to be realty for the purposes of this Act, but the duties payable thereon shall in all such cases, and without registration or notice of any kind, be a charge upon the unpaid purchase money.
  At the present time, where a landlord has not signed an agreement for his tenants to purchase, he has a certain number of years in which to pay—
  The CHAIRMAN: I am not fully informed about this matter, but I think this point has already been covered.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: The first part is undoubtedly covered by what we disposed of just now, but there is a part not covered, and if the hon. Member will allow it to stand over, I will consider it between now and the Report stage.
  Mr. MULDOON: I submit that no part of my Amendment is covered. What is covered is the interest of the tenant. This Amendment deals with the interest of the landlord, and it suggests that where agreements are signed the property should be treated as realty. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will undertake to consider this proposal, which can be defended on principles of justice.
  Mr. DILLON: I hope, too, the right hon. Gentleman will give the point favourable consideration.
  Sir E. CARSON: This is really the converse case to what has already been covered. It is not a very extensive matter, but I do think that where land held under a settlement is realised, and the money obtained has to be re-invested in land, it would be as well to say it should be treated as realty.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I think the hon. Member is quite right, and as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, it is the converse of the previous case. I should not like to commit myself to the actual words, but I accept the principle, and if the hon. Member will withdraw his proposal at this stage I will see that words are brought up to cover the case which is purely the converse of the other one.
  Mr. SCOTT DICKSON: So far as I regard it the case is not purely an Irish one.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. REMNANT Mr. REMNANT moved to insert the following:—

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Allowance for Wasting Capital.)
  Where profits are derived from mines or other property of a wasting character, it shall be lawful in estimating the profits and gains for assessment to Income Tax (under whatever Schedule the same may be assessed) to deduct such a sum as fairly represents the loss or destruction of capital during the year of assessment incidental to the wasting character of such property.
  This matter is so important that I would ask the Chancellor to consider whether he cannot accept this. In the case of leasehold property and during the time of the lease the property is a wasting one, and something should be allowed by way of deduction before estimating profits and gains for assessment to Income Tax.
  Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE: I confess that this is a case with which I hold a considerable amount of sympathy, but many Chancellors of the Exchequer would shudder at the idea, because the moment you attempt it the whole fabric of your Income Tax goes. This year I shrink from this alteration, and I could not possibly contemplate it, although I do not deny the risk of the grievance that someone sooner or later has got to deal with. I could not deal with it in the present year.
  Sir E. CARSON: I am very glad indeed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer for
  1630
  the first time, so far as I know, takes a sympathetic view as regards a matter of this kind, but I quite agree with him that this matter would go very far. I think it is a grievance, but the Chancellor will have to consider other wasting assets. Take the case of the professional man, who has nothing but his health. [Laughter.] It may sound funny, but if a man devotes his time day and night to making an income, all of which he has to earn, he is just as much a wasting asset as anything else, and if you admit the principle that you ought not to take anything of a permanent character this claim I hope is just as good as the claim of any other. I am glad the Chancellor of the Exchequer is sympathetic in the matter, and I hope next year we may get relief.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I am glad the Chancellor of the Exchequer is sympathetic, but it would have been better if he had been a little more than sympathetic and had removed this grievance, because I thought now was the time, when he was in office, for the adjustment of all grievances, and that he came down to show the financiers of this country how its finances should be conducted. This is a question which has occupied a good amount of attention in the City, and it is undoubtedly a case of very serious hardship to people whose money is invested in mines, nitrate securities and a variety of securities of that kind. They can tell that their interest is only going to last 20 years and they have to put by in that period a sum which will replace their capital at the end of it. I am very glad to see people who are wise and prudent enough to put by a sum which is sufficient to replace their capital at a time when it ceases to exist, and I think this matter should be dealt with. I sincerely trust my hon. Friend will divide the Committee upon it.
  Mr. HARMOOD-BANNER: I only want to make one reference to that, and that is to call the Chancellor's attention to the fact that under the old law collieries and properties of a similar nature had the option of assessing their property at three or five years, in consequence of their not having an opportunity of ascertaining their wasting assets at more frequent intervals. Under Section 133 of the Income Tax Act that preference to collieries was taken away last year, and I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he would, now that it is taken away, see that an allowance is made in the case of wasting securities. Now that the power is taken away I think

  1631
  the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to consider my suggestion in a favourable spirit that some allowance should be given in place of it.
  Mr. G. D. FABER (York): There is a clause on the Paper in reference to the payment of Licence Duty by instalments in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford. The new scale of Licence
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  The Committee divided: Ayes, 36; Noes, 143.

  Division No. 756.]

  AYES.

  [4.40 p.m.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major

  Fletcher, J. S.

  M'Arthur, Charles

  Ashley, W. W.

  Gardner, Ernest

  Morrison-Bell, Captain

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend)

  Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)

  Guinness, Hon. R. (Haggerston)

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington)

  Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M.

  Guinness, Hon. W. E. (B. S. Edm'ds)

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Carlile, E. Hildred

  Hamilton, Marquess of

  Renwick, George

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Salter, Arthur Clavell

  Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)

  Hills, J. W.

  Walker, Col. W. H. (Lancashire)

  Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)

  Hunt, Rowland

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Dalrymple, Viscount

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Younger, George

  Dickson, Rt. Hon. C. Scott

  King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull)

  Faber, George Denison (York)

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. Remnant and Mr. Harmood-Banner.

  Fell, Arthur

  Lowe, Sir Francis William

  NOES.

  Abraham, W. (Cork, N.E.)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Pickersgill, Edward Hare

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Higham, John Sharp

  Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H.

  Alden, Percy

  Hobart, Sir Robert

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Allen, Charles P. (Stroud)

  Hodge, John

  Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.)

  Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)

  Horniman, Emslie John

  Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (Gloucester)

  Barnes, G. N.

  Howard, Hon. Geoffrey

  Reddy, M.

  Beale, W. P.

  Illingworth, Percy H.

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Benn, W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.)

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Richards, T. F. (Wolverhampton, W.)

  Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)

  Jackson, R. S.

  Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)

  Bowerman, C. W.

  Jardine, Sir J.

  Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)

  Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)

  Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside)

  Burns, Rt. Hon. John

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke)

  Byles, William Pollard

  Keating, Matthew

  Rogers, F. E. Newman

  Channing, Sir Francis Allston

  Kekewich, Sir George

  Rose, Sir Charles Day

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Laidlaw, Robert

  Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)

  Clough, William

  Lamont, Norman

  Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland)

  Cobbold, Felix Thornley

  Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis

  Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)

  Compton-Rickett, Sir J.

  Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich)

  Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  Cooper, G. J.

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Seaverns, J. H.

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David

  Seddon, J.

  Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinstead)

  Lundon, T.

  Seely, Colonel

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Lupton, Arnold

  Shackleton, David James

  Cotton, Sir H. J. S.

  Lynch, H. B.

  Sherwell, Arthur James

  Dillon, John

  Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk Burghs)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Snowden, P.

  Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall)

  Macpherson, J. T.

  Stanger, H. Y.

  Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor)

  MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)

  Steadman, W. C.

  Elibank, Master of

  M'Micking, Major G.

  Straus, B. S. (Mile End)

  Essex, R. W.

  Maddison, Frederick

  Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)

  Esslemont, George Birnie

  Mallet, Charles E.

  Thorne, William (West Ham)

  Everett, R. Lacey

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Toulmin, George

  Ferens, T. R.

  Marnham, F. J.

  Verney, F. W.

  Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter

  Massie, J.

  Vivian, Henry

  Gibb, James (Harrow)

  Mond, A.

  Walker, H. De R. (Leicester)

  Gladstone, Rt. Hon. Herbert John

  Montagu, Hon. E. S.

  Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan)

  Glendinning, R. G.

  Morse, L. L.

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford

  Murray, Captain Hon. A. C. (Kincard.)

  Waterlow, D. S.

  Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)

  Myer, Horatio

  Watt, Henry A.

  Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)

  Nugent, Sir Walter Richard

  Weir, James Galloway

  Gulland, John W.

  Nuttall, Harry

  White, J. Dundas (Dumbartonshire)

  Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose)

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  White, Sir Luke (York, E.R.)

  Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worcester)

  O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

  White, Patrick (Meath, North)

  Hart-Davies, T.

  O'Grady, J.

  Whitehead, Rowland

  Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)

  O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.)

  Williamson, Sir A.

  Hazel, Dr. A. E. W.

  O'Malley, William

  Yoxall, Sir James Henry

  Hazleton, Richard

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Healy, Timothy Michael

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Fuller and Mr. Whitley.

  Hedges, A. Paget

  Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Pearson, W. H. M. (Suffolk, Eye)

  Duties is so crushing on the trade that we ventured to ask the right hon. Gentleman to accept this Clause to enable Licence Duties to be paid by instalments. Under the Act of 1880 licensed premises with an

  1633
  annual value of £500 would pay a duty of £50. Under the scale in the Bill the amount of the duty will be £250. The Committee will see for themselves what an enormous difference this extra payment will make. When the Government were asked to allow the new Licence Duties to be paid by instalments they met us very sympathetically in the matter. The Solicitor-General said he thought it would be better to deal with the matter on the Schedule. However, it clearly was not a simple course to do this on the Schedule, and it was not a convenient course. Then it was suggested that it should be put down in the shape of a new Clause, and in pursuance of this my hon. Friend (Mr. Staveley-Hill) put down this Clause on the Paper. But since then it has been suggested by the Government that it would be better to defer the matter to the Report stage. The Government are sympathetic in the matter because the Solicitor-General said he did not see any objection to the suggestion so long as it did not mean any loss of revenue this year, and that the Government would give it their serious and sympathetic consideration provided that there was no sacrifice of revenue. I am given to understand that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor to the Duchy of Lancaster thinks it will be the most convenient course to further consider this matter on Report, and, that being so, and on that understanding, I have great pleasure in not proceeding further with the Clause.
  Sir FRANCIS CHANNING: May I ask on what ground my new Clause to exempt greenhouses for market gardens from Undeveloped Land Duty cannot be argued? I should be very glad to lay the point before the Chancellor of the Exchequer; it is one of great importance.
  The CHAIRMAN: The ground is this: If everybody had the right to bring up a new Clause dealing with anything that ought to have been moved by way of Amendment to the Clauses of the Bill presented to the House, then we would have the Committee stage all over again.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again on Monday.
  Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, in pursuance of the Order of the House of 20th August, adjourned the House without Question put.
  Adjourned at Six minutes before Five o'clock, till Monday next, 4th October.

PETITIONS PRESENTED DURING THE WEEK.
The following Petitions were presented during the week and ordered to lie upon the Table:—
MONDAY.
Finance Bill—Petitions against, from Rothesay, and Witchford.
TUESDAY.
Women's Enfranchisement—Petition from Lerwick, for legislation.

WEDNESDAY.
Finance Bill—Petitions against, from Banstead, Barton under Needwood, Cheam, Cobham, Ditton Hill, Epsom, Esher, Ewell, Leatherhead, London, North Aston, Walton-on-Thames, and Worcester Park.
Finance Bill—Petition from Salford, for alteration.

THURSDAY.
Burial Places (Exemption from Rates) (Scotland) Bill—Petition from Aberdeen, in favour.
Finance Bill—Petitions against, from Malvern, Streatham, and, Wandsworth.

FRIDAY.
Finance Bill—Petitions from Adwell, Aston Rowant (two), Benson, Berrick Salome, Brookmampton, Calgrove, Chilworth, Chinnor, Cowley (two), Dorchester (Oxon), Drayton, Dunoon, Emmington, Ewelme, Great Haseley, Great Milton, Henley-on-Thames (five), Holton, Lewknor, Ibstone, Iffley, Little Milton, Nettlebed, Newington, Peppard, Reading (three), Shiplake, Sonning Eye, South Stoke, South Weston, Stoke Row, Tiddington, Walling-ford (two), Waterstock, Watlington (two), Wheatfield, Wheatley, Whitchurch, Wimbledon, and Woodstock, against.
Finance Bill—Petition from Delph, for alteration.

  Ordnance Survey (Civil Assistants).
  Ordnance Survey (Civil Assistants).
  Gold and Silver Standards.
  Gold and Silver Standards.
FINANCE BILL.
  WATERWORKS COMPANIES' LAND.
  WATERWORKS COMPANIES' LAND.
  Land Purchase Acts (Advances).
  Land Purchase Acts (Advances).
  Liverpool and Belfast Steamship Service.
  Liverpool and Belfast Steamship Service.
  Aliens Act (Receiving House in Port of London).
  Aliens Act (Receiving House in Port of London).
  Suffragettes in Prison (Supply of Food).
  Suffragettes in Prison (Supply of Food).
  German Shipbuilding Programme.
  German Shipbuilding Programme.
  British Antarctic Expedition (1907).
  British Antarctic Expedition (1907).