I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many rate defaulters were summoned; how many of them suffered distraint; and how many of them suffered imprisonment, during 1901,1902, 1903,1904, and 1905.

The figures are not in existence, the prison records not distinguishing rate defaulters from other civil debtors. Even if the figures could be given correctly by the magistrates' clerks throughout the country —which I doubt —I do not think the information to be obtained is sufficiently valuable to justify the great labour that would be involved in collecting it.