§ Mr. MACQUISTENasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that most of the ironworks in and around Glasgow have been idle since the coal strike, and that ort4 a few of the employés thereof have been working occasional shifts, some as much as nine shifts per month, at a wage of 10s. per shift or an average of a little over £1 per week of wage, and that the receipt of such pay has enabled these. men to avoid coming on the parish and to refrain from claiming unemployment pay; that, notwithstanding that such pay is insufficient for the barest maintenance, the collector of Inland Revenue for Springburn has arrested the wages of 50 out of the 60 men occasionally employed at the Blochairn ironworks for arrears of Income Tax recovering a less sum than £18 which was of small value after paying expenses to the revenue, but the loss of which caused great hardship to men already reduced below the subsistence level; whether he will issue instructions to the collector in Springburn to loose his arrestments against the Blochairn men and to the Inland Revenue generally not to insist on payment of arrears from those whose wages are unable to permit payment thereof; and whether, before the next Finance Act, he will adopt a stamp system, such as the system of collection of the Insurance Act, and so prevent arrears being accumulated at the time when wages are normal and then exacted 1473W when there are practically no wages to pay such arrears?
Mr. YOUNGI am causing inquiry to he made into the cases to which my hon. Friend refers, and will communicate the result to him in due course. As regards the last part of the question, I would point out that arrangements are already in force by which, in the case of taxpayers to whom the system of quarterly assessment applies, an option is given, where the amount of tax due in any quarter exceeds 6s., to pay weekly by means of Income Tax stamps to be affixed to cards.