said, he desired to put a Question to the President of the Board of Trade, and to preface it by one or two observations. When Ways and Means last stood on the Paper he had a Notice down to bring before the House the whole question of trawling in the territorial seas of the United Kingdom, and the injury inflicted by the trawlers on the fishermen, especially during the last few years. He would not then enter into the general question; but it was one which vitally affected the part of the country he represented. The House would remember that there were several considerable fishery stations on the Haddingtonshire coast, including North Berwick, Dunbar, Prestonpans, Cockengie, and other places, and the complaint was now universal from those districts that trawling was doing the greatest possible injury to the fishermen—an industrious body of men who in one case at Cockengie had built a pier for themselves—in fact, that unless it was checked or controlled by further powers than the Government now possessed there was a danger that the livelihood of the fishermen would be taken away from them. The question was not a local one; but it was a matter of national importance that these fisheries should be continued, so that the industrial population, the nursery of our seamen, should have the means of employment. The complaint made was that the trawlers who were so frequent in the Firth of Forth, and who had always done more or less injury to the interests of the line fishermen by trawling over bait beds, were now permitted, owing to the recent depressed state of trade, to do so by the steam tugs which could not otherwise be employed, and that these boats, having nothing to do in their proper profession, as tugs, had, as trawlers, broken up and destroyed the bait beds, and had thus destroyed the livelihood of the fishermen. He had been in communication with the late and present Presidents of the Board of Trade in reference to this important matter, and had urged upon them that if the provisions at present existing were not sufficient to enable them to regulate these matters they ought to come to Parliament for further powers. The Report of a Royal Commission had recommended further legislation to regulate, or, indeed, to prohibit, trawling within three miles of the shore. He did not ask the Government now to deal with the wider questions which arose out of this matter; but it did occur to him that they might bring in and pass a Bill of one clause by which they could mark out the ground on which the trawlers were not to trench—namely, the bait and mussel beds, from which the poor fishermen derived the means of earning a very hard and precarious livelihood. That was the point to which he in all earnestness wished to direct the attention of the President of the Board of Trade, who would do a kindly as well as a just and righteous act if he caused such a measure, which would be in the interests of the nation as well as of the poor fishermen, to be passed.

said, there was no doubt that there had been, in some cases, great injury done to the bait beds by trawlers; but the first question which arose was whether that injury was wilful, which he did not think it was at all, except in very exceptional circumstances, or whether it was not an injury which was incidental to that particular form of fishing. Assuming that to be the case, and he believed it was so, then the question arose whether it was expedient in the public interest that one form of fishing should be discountenanced in favour of another. This was an old question, for it had been mooted for many years between the line fishermen on the one hand and the trawlers on the other. The trawlers were the modern fishers, who supplied the largest quantity of fish, and who worked with the most costly and extensive appliances. As the noble Lord observed, their operations had been extended of late years, because steam tugs had been thrown out of work by the depression of trade, and had joined very largely in trawling. In reference to the whole question of fisheries there had been during the last 12 years two Commissions, one a very important and valuable one in 1868, and upon which Professor Huxley and Mr. Caird, together with the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) served, and the Commission appointed by the late Home Secretary in 1878, consisting of Mr. Walpole and Mr. Buckland. Both of these Commissions reported that there were complaints of damage to nets and other property of the line fishermen; but they were not of such a character as to require legislation. As regarded the bait beds, there was no sufficient proof that there was damage done to the extent that would justify any alteration of the law. The Commission in 1878 took evidence with regard particularly to a case of damage of bait beds in the Firth of Forth; and they reported that in that case they thought considerable damage had been done, and that it might be desirable that some additional power should be given to the Government in order to restrain the access of trawlers to those beds. He felt that, on the one hand, it was very desirable indeed that there should be no interference with what was shown to be the best and most modern means of fishing; and, on the other hand, certainly one would desire to prevent anything like wilful injury in the course of that undertaking to any class of persons. The difficulty which he foresaw in the matter was this—that, supposing power were given to the Board of Trade to reserve a certain portion of the shallow water for the bait or clam beds, who was to watch them? Was it to be expected that the Government would take upon itself to station a cruiser in the neighbourhood in order to watch them? It was evident that could not be done, and that they must find somebody on the spot who would undertake their own protection if they had law on their side. The case would be analogous to that of oyster beds. Oyster beds were handed over to private corporations, and were by them defended. It might be desirable, in some of these cases, that bait beds should be handed over on lease, on certain conditions, to a kind of corporation, consisting of the parties interested. Legislation of that kind and to that extent, which would put the clam beds in the same position as oyster beds were now, was legislation which he should be very glad to consider. He was afraid, however, that during the present Session there was not the slightest hope of their being able to legislate in the matter.

said, he rested what he had stated, to a large extent, upon the express recommendation of the Committee of 1878.

Resolution

Instruction to the Committee on the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, That they have power to make provision therein pursuant to the said Resolution.

Customs and Inland Revenue Bill

( Mr. Playfair, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Frederick Cavendish. )

[Bill 221.] Committee

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—( Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer. )

, in rising to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that any future reimposition of the Income Tax be accompanied with such an amendment of its provisions as may correct the inequalities of its incidence,"

said, the Prime Minister concluded the previous discussion on this Bill with these words—

"His doctrine was, that the whole business of taxation was unpleasant. He looked upon all taxes with great dislike."

That opinion of the Prime Minister was unquestionably the prevalent one, and it constituted the justification for his Amendment, for the antipathy exhibited towards taxation indicated the existence of a misrule which demanded inquiry. Why was it that taxation was so hateful in this country? He could understand a feeling of that kind existing in countries where the people were taxed for the purpose of providing a tribute which was paid to some foreign conqueror, or to wage war for the gratification of their own ambitious rulers. In this country we had no such tribute to pay; but we had laid other countries under tribute to ourselves by loans which became a mortgage upon their industry. Again, if we had to go to war, it was only in vindication of our own rights, and for the protection of our own property and lives. He did not think it could be said that in this country there was any undue expenditure in the highest quarters. Indeed, he might point out that the sum paid from the Civil List for the maintenance of the Crown amounted almost exactly to the sum that was derived from Crown Lands surrendered by the monarchy to the State. There being, then, grounds on which, in many countries, taxation was regarded as odious, and those grounds having no existence in this country, they had to ask themselves why it was that, free as they were from these reproaches on our fiscal system, taxation should, in this country, still be so unpopular? The answer to that was, in his mind, a very simple one. It was simply that mismanagement was the cause. Instead of taxes being unpopular, they ought to be accounted the most satisfactory portion of our expenditure. Did they take exception to the amount which they paid to their tradesmen—was the baker or the greengrocer an odious person because of the money they had to pay him for the goods with which he supplied them? They got from their tradesmen an equivalent for what they paid them. What equivalent did the taxpayer get for the amount which he was called upon to pay to the State? In this country taxation, properly defined, amounted last year to £69,000,000; and if any hon. Member would look to the analysed finance accounts he would see that for this amount three items were mainly responsible—namely, the Army, the Navy, and the Civil Services, including the administration of justice. Besides, there was the payment for the interest upon, and the redemption of, the National Debt, which amounted to no less than £28,000,000 annually, and which represented the amount the country had spent in times past for the maintenance of its independence through its defensive services. If the taxes were better administered and better understood, he felt sure that the tax gatherer would be welcomed, rather than hated and reviled. But it must be admitted that taxation would not have obtained the odious character it bore without very good reason. For the most part their taxes had been imposed to meet special exigencies, and in easier times the most unpopular had been removed; but the residuum was the embodiment of no principle, and represented no organized system. That was especially true of the Income Tax, which was introduced by Sir Robert Peel, in order that he might deal with indirect taxation. It was at first intended that it should only last three years; but at the end of that time it was found to have too many claims upon the Finance Minister to be lightly abandoned. The Income Tax fell upon a category of incomes which, could not be easily described. But, roughly speaking, all incomes which came under the operation of the Income Tax might be divided into idle incomes and industrial incomes. By idle incomes he meant those which accrued to the owner without any effort of his own—all net rents and interest of money. On the other hand, industrial incomes were those which were obtained absolutely by the exercise of individual industry, by the brain, the nerves, and the muscle of the industrial labourer. Adam Smith said every man ought to pay according to his ability, and thus the power of expenditure was that which ought to constitute the measure of taxation. A large portion of the Income Tax was levied upon the earnings of salaried and professional men. A barrister depended for income absolutely upon his health and strength, and the power of his brain. His case was totally different from that of another individual whose income was derived from rents or funded property. These widely differing incomes clearly required to be considered apart one from the other. That which had constituted hitherto the great reproach against the Income Tax was that no attempt had been made to deal equitably with the case of industrial incomes as compared with that of idle incomes. It had been asked, if the Income Tax was troublesome in its administration, why not get rid of it altogether? Nothing was so natural as to get rid of that which was disagreeable; but it was impossible to get rid of the Income Tax consistently with keeping up anything like our present public Expenditure, or dealing with those other interests which must be called upon to provide the national Revenues of the country. There was one reason which they could appreciate why the Income Tax could not be removed. There was a very wealthy class who received income from rents and lived abroad, where they spent their thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands in luxurious living and self-indulgence. If there had been no Income Tax, those people would have paid nothing at all to the State. Another and still more important reason was that Schedule D represented the profits of trade, and produced at present £2,600,000 a-year. Of that sum he assumed one-half to be the additional income earned by the industry of those who were engaged in trade, and the other half represented the natural interest on the capital they had themselves possessed, and which they had invested in trade. That half was £1,300,000 a-year, which, taken at 4 per cent, represented interest on £3,250,000,000 of actual trading capital, the whole of which enormous amount would escape taxation if the Income Tax were abolished. There was a still further reason to which he would like to draw the attention of the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson). One half of the whole taxation of the country was derived from duties, Customs, Excise, and licences on the consumption of intoxicating drinks. If the hon. Member succeeded in his mission the £33,000,000 derived from this source would be very much diminished, and he knew no other way of supplying the diminution except from the Income Tax. Those who now paid that amount through their throats by swallowing intoxicating liquors could easily pay the amount out of their profits and wages when economized and rescued from the spirit and beer shop. The question to which he had to direct the attention of the House was whether it was possible to remedy the inequalities which every Minister acknowledged to exist in the incidence of the tax. If the Income Tax could not be done away with, and ought not to be done away with, then how far was it possible to remedy the inequalities of which everybody complained and which everbody admitted, but which up to the present moment had never been thoroughly removed? A barrister who had nothing but his brains, after years of labour, fell a victim to over-work and his whole income ceased; he had been taxed upon his whole income, and at the same rate as that charged upon the certain and permanent income of the capitalist. In asking that this matter should be considered with a view to adjustment in the future, he was enforcing a principle which was already admitted in the present Inland Revenue Acts. The law, as it now stood, said that anyone who reserved a portion of his income and invested it in a given way should be exempted from Income Tax on that portion; but it limited the amount he might reserve in that manner to one-sixth, and it forced him to make the investment of that amount in a life policy. Now, a life policy was the last thing which a man in trade would ever think of making the means of his investment. If he could save out of his earnings he enlarged his business, increased his factory, and extended his trade. He mentioned the matter of a life policy to show that the Legislature already admitted the principle of not taxing the savings which every prudent professional man or trader would endeavour to effect. The owners of land and houses laboured under a different grievance. They did not pay the tax on the net income of their land or houses, but on a considerable sum beyond that net income. The outgoings upon houses being heavier than upon land, the difference was greater with which the houseowner was charged, irrespectively of the money which he received for his expenditure. He asked the House to express an opinion upon a grievance and an inequality which nobody denied, and which ought to be remedied. Of the amount of real property held in land and houses it had been estimated that a very large proportion—some said two-fifths, others said three-fifths—was not in the owners' possession at all, but in that of the encumbrancers. The mortgagee in regard to a very large portion of the rents of this country was really the owner of the property, and received a large proportion of the net result. How was the mortgagee dealt with under the law as now administered? Take the case of an estate nominally of £2,000 a-year. The actual rent was only £1,800; but the owner might have mortgaged that estate for £40,000, and had to pay £1,600 a-year as interest on the mortgage money. When the Income Tax had to be divided he recouped himself to the extent of the £1,600 by deducting the amount paid to the mortgagee; but as to what remained the tax-gatherer charged him on the whole £2,000, the nominal amount of the rent; so that, having but £200 a-year for his expenditure, he was charged on £400, which was simply double. He was afraid that a very large proportion of the landowners of this country had a great burden on their estates in the shape of mortgages, and the result was that they were not only sufferers by the diminution of that income, but were gratuitously injured by being charged Income Tax on outgoings and on money they never received. With respect to the remedy for the existing inequality, it might be of the simplest kind. In the Bill which was to be brought in next year for reconstituting the valuation law of this country they had only to make the same rule for the scientific adjustment of liability to taxation already applied to local rates apply to Queen's taxes, and the thing was done. Then Income Tax would be levied only on the net rental, and there would be no inequality in the distribution of the rental between the mortgagee and the actual owner. Each would receive what belonged to him, and would be taxed on what he received. He now came to another branch of the subject. All capital engaged in trade might be valued for the purpose of taxation on its annual results as being worth 4 per cent. That was the calculation adopted in the tables for the Succession Duty. In the case of a man whose income was created partly by the use of his capital and partly by his industry and intelligence, he should say that in regard to the interest on his capital he should be charged the full measure of the tax; but as to what was added to that by the industry and intelligence of the owner it was entitled to the same remission as would be given to any professional income. If it were suggested that the re-adjustment which he recommended would involve a heavy loss to the Treasury, he answered, "Not at all," because he said, "Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer levy whatever amount he needed; but take it under an adjustment which equalizes the burthen to the ability." His immediate object in bringing this question forward was to obtain such an expression of opinion and feeling from the House as would enable the Ministry to see what the desire of the country was on the subject. No one could say that this might be kept as a war tax or a light tax, or as a temporary tax; and, if that were so, it was impossible to go on without putting the tax on an intelligible and creditable footing. Such an expression of feeling as he asked for could not in any degree embarrass the Ministry. It would not interfere with any of the Budget arrangements or any of the operations of the present Session. It would simply be an indication to the Minister that the House trusted that in a future Session this great question of taxation would not come before them, as it did now, in a state discreditable to their intelligence, but rather in a shape creditable to the intelligence and patriotism of the House, and much more acceptable to the country. He was satisfied that the success of this proposal would be most acceptable also to the intelligent officials of Somerset House, because they were sensible how much easier it would be to administer a tax which was acceptable to the feeling of the country, and the application of which had been simplified instead of being complicated, as it was at present. He trusted that the effect of the Motion would be to remove the sense of injustice which was felt upon this subject, and lead to the introduction of a more enlightened policy, which would teach the Queen's subject that the payment of taxes was not a penalty, but a privilege. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

, in seconding the Resolution, said he did so because it covered one of which he had himself given Notice. He would confine his remarks to the essence of his Resolution—namely, that the increase of the Income Tax was not at present required, and ought not to be assented to by the House. One reason for objecting to the proposed increase of the tax was that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown no cause for it; and another reason was, that the country had been going through a very serious depression of trade, and those who found the means whereon the means of living of so many depended ought not to be burdened by an increase of taxation which could be avoided. In making his Financial Statements, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that the extraordinary Estimates he was bringing in would amount to about £200,000; that to pay off the rebate on the Malt Tax £1,100,000 would be required; and that the loss on the Wine Duties would be £233,000, making a total of £1,533,000. Against that he placed a probable surplus of £184,000, and increase of the Licence Duties £305,000, total £489,000, which deducted from the £1,533,000 showed a deficiency of £1,044,000. Since that time the right hon. Gentleman had told them that the loss on the Wine Duties would not come into effect this year; and, therefore the deficiency was reduced by £233,000, bringing the loss down to £811,000. Since then, also, the right hon. Gentleman had put on the Paper an increase of the duty on licences which would produce another £100,000. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman shook his head. Well, then, he would put it at £50,000. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer had informed the House that the Supplementary Estimates could generally be provided for out of savings. That might not be altogether the case; but he would take it for granted that there would be some savings. The deficiency, therefore, would not, probably, be more than £700,000; and to meet that the right hon. Gentleman proposed to charge the country with a tax which would provide £1,425,000. As the deficiency was an artificial and not a natural one, he did not think they ought to be taxed to that amount to pay a sum of £700,000. In fact, the deficiency had in the main been manufactured by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman had said that £1,000,000 would be invested so as to produce a return of £300,000 or £400,000 in perpetuity. But surely there would not be so very much demoralization as the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think if they were to borrow the money which would enable them to make so good an investment. In 1873, when the right hon. Gentleman was Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told them he had a surplus of £5,000,000, but that the payment under the Geneva Arbitration was to be provided for; yet, as the charge was not a permanent one, he proposed to pay only one - half of it out of the surplus, and to issue Treasury Bonds for the remainder, and he knocked off 1 d. from the Income Tax. He thought with the increased revenue he would derive from the Post Office next year the right hon. Gentleman might well withdraw his proposed addition of 1 d. to the Income Tax, for if they drew on that tax at present they would not come to it at a later period to meet the deficit on the Afghan War. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman had grappled with the Malt Tax; but there were means of carrying it out without any additional charge on the Income Tax.

Amendment proposed,

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, it is expedient that any future reimposition of the Income Tax be accompanied with such an amendment of its provisions as may correct the inequalities of its incidence,"—( Mr Hubbard ,)

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

said, that he had placed an Amendment on the Paper, the object of which was to strike out in Committee the clause by which the extra 1 d. on the Income Tax was to be imposed in the present year. The proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to impose an extra 1 d. of Income Tax was not an integral part of his Budget, it was only an accessory; and he hoped to show that, so far as it related to the purpose for which it was asked, it was not necessary, and inexpedient. He highly approved of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman to commute the Malt Tax into a Beer Duty, provided that more revenue was not obtained by the commutation. Whenever an emergency occurred, the increase of the Income Tax came ready to the hand of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but it should be recollected that the great mass of electors did not pay Income Tax, and if the duties on wine, beer, and spirits were equalized, Chancellors of the Exchequer would have at their disposal a ready method of increasing indirect as well as direct taxation. The purpose for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted the additional Income Tax was not for India; for he was not in a position to make any definite proposal on that subject—at least, he had not said so. What, then, were the reasons he had given for the imposition of this additional 1 d. on the Income Tax? The right hon. Gentleman had accepted the late Chancellor of the Exchequer's Estimates; but he required upwards of £1,500,000 over and above. The first item was £200,000 for Supplementary Estimates; but he thought that might be provided by sav- ings out of the original Estimates. Hon. Members opposite had unlimited confidence in the financial genius of the Prime Minister. It would be rather extraordinary, then, if they were compelled to admit next year that the right hon. Gentleman had been unable to do in a single year what the late Government had done every year they were in Office—namely, to provide for the Supplementary Estimates from savings on the original Estimates of the year. Then there was the compensation to the maltster in the last week in September amounting to £1,100,000. That was the price which had to be paid for commuting the Malt Tax into a Beer Duty, although the Beer Duty was to bring in considerably more than the Malt Tax. The right hon. Gentleman was to make £390,000 on that account. According to the calculation of the London brewers, the Beer Duty would bring in £1,000,000 over and above the Malt Duty. But he would take it at the more moderate figure of £800,000. From the 1st of October, 1880, to the 1st of April, 1881, that would give £400,000. The right hon. Gentleman had not credited himself with a single farthing on that head. [Mr. GLADSTONE: With every farthing.] At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman had only credited himself with the sum which he expected to receive, which was much under-estimated. Taking it, however, at £200,000, that reduced the £1,100,000 to £900,000. Then there was £350,000 which he expected to receive from the Licence Duties and the £184,000 of surplus. That reduced the deficit to about £400,000. This was assuming that the Estimates and Revenue would be in no case increased; but the right hon. Gentleman had himself stated in Mid Lothian that the new Probate Duties would produce, not £700,000, as the late Chancellor of the Exchequer had estimated, but £800,000. Deducting the additional £100,000 from the £400,000, that reduced the deficiency to £300,000. The Estimates of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer were framed under very unfavourable circumstances. There had been a continuous fall in the Revenue for the last quarter of the financial year. There had been a bad harvest; but the Estimates were of a safe and practical character. The first quarter of the last financial year was a productive one, and on the Estimate of the first quarter of this year there was an excess over the first quarter of last year; there was, therefore, a strong presumption of a rebound in the Revenue. It could not, therefore, be necessary for a deficiency of £300,000 to put an additional 1 d. on the Income Tax. He took a somewhat higher view of the additional taxation that would be imposed this year just as we were emerging from depression. That additional taxation amounted to upwards of £3,500,000. There was the additional 1 d. on the Income Tax, £1,800,000; the Probate Duties, £800,000; and the Beer Duty, £800,000; together £3,400,000. In addition to that there were the Licence Duties, which were estimated at between £300,000 and £400,000. It appeared to him that the Prime Minister was providing an enormous surplus for next year, and that the main portion of that surplus would arise from the increased taxation which he would impose this year. It seemed, then, hardly necessary, under these circumstances, to increase the Income Tax by 1 d. per pound. If there was any proposal to assist India, let them have a clear and definite proposal; but he did not think it was fair to ask taxation for one purpose and then apply it to another. To sum up, he contended, first, that, where the new taxes to be imposed would bring in a larger revenue than the taxes to be superseded, it was in accordance with sound principles of finance to run some risk of incurring a very small deficit rather than to impose additional taxation; secondly, the more the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were examined, the more did they support the conclusion that there would be no deficit; thirdly, of all the principles of finance there was none which ought to be more condemned than that of imposing additional taxation by under-estimating income and over-estimating expenditure; and, fourthly, the time when this was most to be deprecated was the time when we were slowly emerging from a long period of stagnation and depression of trade. He asked the Prime Minister for his own sake not to impose this additional 1 d. , for in Mid Lothian the right hon. Gentleman, dwelling upon the evils that would attend the continuance of the late Government in power, said that the Income Tax would not stop at 5 d. ; but it would be made to ascend by one of those turns of the screw which were so easily given to that powerful financial machine. It was only natural that so great a financier as the right hon. Gentleman should adhere to his own figures rather than to the estimates of his critics; but there was a test to which the latter were ready to submit—namely, to the test of facts to be disclosed by the next Budget. If the right hon. Gentleman had any doubt of the accuracy of his figures, it was to be hoped he would not let it be said that the first use he made of his great financial reputation was to impose on the nation an extra 1 d. of Income Tax which was not necessary.

said, he rose to press conclusions similar to those urged by his noble Friend the Member for Middlesex, though on somewhat different ground; but, while he agreed with his main contention, he should run counter to some of the opinions expressed by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who seconded the Amendment. Nobody would acknowledge more readily than the Prime Minister that the Income Tax was a tax of an exceptional character, and that it should be increased only in the face of some great emergency. The emergency in view of which he originally asked them to increase it arose partly from anticipated changes under the French Treaty, and partly from the anticipated deficit resulting from the abolition of the Malt Tax. He now understood that the scheme which the Prime Minister had in view with regard to the French Treaty was abandoned, and there was no intention of asking the House this year to provide the funds to assist him in dealing with that matter. The alleged necessity must therefore depend entirely on the deficit arising from the abolition of the Malt Tax. He did not wish to say a word in favour of the Malt Tax as a permanent duty; it was open to all the objections that had been urged against it; it was essentially a bad tax from a fiscal point of view; and there was no doubt that the imposition of a tax upon beer was incomparably better. But his contention was that there was no sufficient ground for abolishing the Malt Duty this year, considering the price we should have to pay for that abolition in the addition of 1 d. to the Income Tax. The principal reason for abolishing the Malt Tax now was that the abolition might do something to remedy agricultural depression; but he confessed to some scepticism on that point. No doubt, at one time, agriculturists were unanimous in demanding its abolition; but in those days financiers generally, and Liberal financiers particularly, were by no means ready to acknowledge any grievance. It was only when the grievance had practically ceased that Chancellors of the Exchequer set to work to abolish it. Even the strongest opponents of the tax would admit that the growers of barley on good barley lands would suffer by its abolition, since it operated to them as a protective duty. The growers of medium and inferior barley would, no doubt, gain by comparison, but only by comparison; for if the present proposal was carried into effect the farmers would have to fear not only the importation of foreign barley, but also the importation of articles other than barley from which beer could be brewed. He doubted whether the growers of even the most inferior barley would profit by the change. There being, therefore, no argument from agricultural depression in favour of the abolition of the tax, he passed on to the next argument, the freeing of a manufacture from onerous restrictions. But the argument had not the same force in this as in other cases. If the abolition of the Malt Duty made beer cheaper the advocates of temperance would object. If beer was not to be made cheaper, and yet the change was to make the manufacture easier, the only conclusion to be arrived at was that the Exchequer would benefit by the change. This was a very desirable result; but the question was whether this was a year in which it was expedient to pay the necessary price? What would the unfortunate minority who had to pay an extra 1 d. of Income Tax say of the time chosen for making a change, intended to benefit every member of the community? He had no objection to raising the Income Tax for any great fiscal purpose. But as there was no doubt that in the ordinary course of events trade would revive, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer find himself possessed of a considerable surplus, we might wait till then before carrying out the financial reform now proposed. However much the public might be benefited by the change, a time of exceptional distress was not the time at which it ought to be made.

thought it was rather a strange anomaly to hear a Member of a Party who had always called themselves the farmers' friends defending the Malt Tax. He agreed with him, however, that the abolition of the tax would not be a great boon to the farmers, although he believed it would be to the finances of the country, and especially to those Chancellors of the Exchequer in future who had to manage the finances of the country. He agreed with hon. Members opposite in not approving the proposed increase of the Income Tax. It was not, in his opinion, necessary at present; and he could not regard a change from a Malt Tax to a Beer Tax as a proper occasion for adding 1 d. to the Income Tax. If loss were occasioned by it, the loss ought to be met, as it could be, by a very trifling addition to the Beer Tax; but he hardly thought the loss would be so large as the right hon. Gentleman estimated it. He should also like an explanation of a Paper, the title of which was, ''A statement of the financial effects, if carried out, from the 1st of October, 1880, of the substitution of the beer duty for the malt duty." In that Paper they were told that the amount of Beer Duty receivable for five months was £3,820,000; but he understood if the change took place on the 1st of October, it meant it would exist for the remainder of the financial year, which closed on the 5th of April. Therefore, it would be six instead of five months. [Mr. GLADSTONE: There will be no receipt in October.] He (Mr. Anderson) had not understood that, and he was glad of the explanation. He thought, however, that the deficiency of £1,100,000 might have been met by an addition of ½ d. per gallon upon the beer; and he believed, even by the Prime Minister's own scale, there would be a much larger estimate than he expected; therefore it was not really necessary to raise the Income Tax. He hoped even now that part of the Bill would be reconsidered. The Prime Minister had thrown out the changes in the Wine Duties from his Bill, and he could not see there was any necessity for doing that merely because the time had been calculated up to the 15th of August. The date might have been extended for six months, so as to enable negotiations to go on during the Recess. He would not further take up the time of the House now, as he intended to move Amendments in the direction he had indicated in Committee.

said, there was one point mentioned by his right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) which he hoped would not be lost sight of by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government—namely, that when any new Bill was introduced dealing with the valuation of property, all rates, whether Imperial or local, should be raised on the rateable value only. With respect to the Malt Tax, he, for one, did not complain of what the right hon. Gentleman proposed, for it was the very proposal he had advocated; but he was strongly of opinion that the right hon. Gentleman was not right in his belief that the change would occasion a loss to the Revenue. On the contrary, he believed that instead of the £8,000,000 now raised the amount received would be close upon £9,000,000. If that were so, and a large amount was to be raised by the Wine Licence Duty, he could not conceive why the right hon. Gentleman thought it necessary to impose an additional 1d. of Income Tax, which, with all his acuteness and ability in dealing with financial questions, he was quite certain might have been avoided. He believed it was the way in which the statement had been made which had led hon. Members sitting behind the right hon. Gentleman to believe that the shifting of the tax from malt to beer would occasion a loss which justified an increase in the Income Tax. The event, however, would show, unless he was greatly mistaken, that no such increase was necessary. With reference to these licences, he could not understand why the Chancellor of the Exchequer should insist that in all the licences taken out for the sale of beer and spirits there should be included the licence to sell wine. It could not be that the Prime Minister hoped to persuade the agricultural population to drink light claret instead of beer. It was a hard and unjust provision, without any other motive beyond an increase of the Revenue from Licence Duties. He hoped the late Chancellor of the Exchequer would from his knowledge be able to state that the additional 1 d. on the Income Tax was not required, and he trusted the House would refuse its assent to the proposal, if it could be shown it was unnecessary.

said, he would not have risen except for the remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. Balfour), who appeared to think that the remission of the Malt Tax was not needed in the interests of the agricultural population. That opinion was not shared by those who sat near his hon. Friend, and who acted together more or less independently. Having considered the subject and studied the various discussions which had occurred with reference to it, he ventured to say that the repeal of the Malt Tax was a subject as to which practically there was unanimity of opinion among the agricultural population, and he could not but express his satisfaction that the Government had thought it in their power to abolish it. The Malt Tax, he believed, greatly discouraged agricultural operations. Barley was a far less expensive crop than wheat, and it was very valuable for the feeding of cattle. He knew that when malt was used for that purpose the tax was remitted; but that was not understood by small growers, and if they knew of it they were deterred by the inconvenience of the necessary applications to the Excise, and these facts operated unfavourably to the increased growth of barley. His hon. Friend said that the growers of barley on good land would be interfered with. He did not think they would be; but if they were, he would remind his hon. Friend, who sat for a purely urban constituency, that growers of good barley were a small minority of agricultural tenants. By repealing the tax they were really benefiting the great mass of agricultural tenants, and doing injury, if any at all, to a comparatively small number. He believed, too, that the repeal of the Malt Tax would operate as an essential relief to the tremendous strain now felt by the agricultural population. He would not go into the question whether it was or was not necessary to the proposed operation to add 1 d. to the Income Tax; but he repeated that the repeal of the Malt Tax pure and simple would, in his opinion, have a beneficial effect throughout the country.

hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not be induced to give up the extra 1 d. on the Income Tax. He had no doubt that the Revenue of the future would suffer diminution from the wider extension of temperance views; and it would be most unwise, therefore, for the right hon. Gentleman to count on gains from the Excise. Even if there should be a surplus in April next, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would find abundant use for it in paying off the debts inherited by the Government from their Predecessors in Office.

said that the incidence of the Income Tax was of an inquisitorial nature, and he had felt the severity with which it fell upon industrial and professional incomes. He had always found that those who derived their incomes from land and the funds received the increase in the Income Tax with greater equanimity than those whose incomes depended upon precarious occupations; but he must say that incomes now derived from land were almost as capricious as those derived from professional and industrial occupations. Some hon. Members seemed to think that the right hon. Gentleman had placed the estimated receipts of income for the current year at too low a figure, and that the right hon. Gentleman would be able to look for a considerable increment of Revenue that the late Chancellor of the Exchequer had not anticipated. He (Mr. Hermon) would not join in those sanguine views expressed by previous speakers; but if the present Chancellor of the Exchequer was as sanguine as they were, he thought that he should be content to do without the extra 1 d. on the Income Tax. On the other hand, if the right hon. Gentleman was justified in taking a more gloomy view of the Revenue, he (Mr. Hermon) said the country would have to submit to the addition to the Income Tax. Much as he was personally opposed to it, he would not say anything against the Malt Tax; but it would have been far better if it could have been repealed without the addition of 1 d. to the Income Tax. He believed that the right hon. Gentleman had done wrong in introducing the question of the Wine Duties, because it looked as if he was endeavouring to buy a Commercial Treaty with a grant, and at an expense which the Treaty would not have been worth. He was not very much of a supporter of Free Trade as it was; but he would be a supporter of real Free Trade if he could really get it. The Free Trade carried out by Mr. Cobden worked great advantage; but they must look to the changes that had occurred since before they could have such advantages again. Formerly England was the workshop of the world; but now there were prohibitory laws which kept English goods out of foreign markets where formerly they had been received with open arms. Formerly we manufactured the whole of the cloth for the Prussian Army; but now they manufactured their own, and exported cloth to this country as well. The Manchester school were fond of Free Trade 25 years ago; but then it answered their purpose, because they reaped the advantage of supplying Continental and other countries, who had since imported machinery and the raw materials and now made for themselves; but this question would be decided in future, not so much by hon. Gentlemen in that House as by the feeling in the manufacturing districts out-of-doors. The working classes would not have Free Trade in this country as regarded labour, and they would soon come to a state of feeling which would not allow them to view with complacency the importation of foreign manufactures, whilst our own were shut out from their markets. Under these circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman would do well not to think any more of the Wine Duties. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been called upon to deal with the question of the Income Tax he (Mr. Hermon) thought that he would have dealt with the whole question, as there were grave objections to the incidence of the tax; and he had hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his great mastery in dealing with the subject, would have made the incidence of the tax far more general and equal upon all classes.

urged that the Customs Dues, which were easily collected and equally assessed, should bear any increased burden which it might be necessary to put upon the taxation of the country. As far as the abolition of the Malt Tax was concerned, he did not think it would prove of much advantage to the British agriculturists unless it was accompanied by an import duty on foreign barley. Foreign malt was not imported; but foreign barley was sometimes imported for malting purposes, though it was inferior to home-grown barley. The Government must feel that it was not desirable that so large a portion of the Revenue should be derived, as at present, from the taxes on alcoholic drinks; for if the country became more sober than it was at present, no Chancellor of the Exchequer could possibly pay his way, and that consideration should induce the Government to look with some favour on his suggestion. The present Government were only consistent in their inconsistencies; and it did appear to him to be inconsistent for them to talk about Free Trade and then impose a tax on beer. He expressed his extreme dislike to every portion of this Bill, with the exception of the abolition of the Malt Tax.

said, if he lost his business, and somebody else got it, that person would have to pay Income Tax on it, and thus the tax on professional earnings was pretty nearly as fixed as the tax on fixed property. He considered that this was the right year to carry out the change proposed by the Prime Minister in regard to the Malt Tax, because there would be more barley this year in September than for many seasons. But why did the right hon. Gentleman want the additional £1,000,000 to carry out the change? He did not believe it would be required. Let the re-payment of the drawback to the maltsters be deferred for a short period. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would not alter the principle of his Bill.

said, he was curious to know what the answer of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government would be to the two strong points made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London. The Prime Minister thought a few years ago that the Income Tax should be abolished. He should like to hear the right hon. Gentleman state his views as to the taxation that should be substituted for it. As to the proposition relating to the Malt Tax, he would not offer any opposition to it, though he denied it would be any great advantage to the agricultural interest. When the duty on foreign malt was entirely remitted, we must an- ticipate that there would be a large importation of foreign barley. The changes which had been made in the Budget scheme since its first introduction would tend very considerably to reduce the anticipated deficiency; and it was a question whether sufficient grounds could be shown for the imposition of an increase to the Income Tax. If all that the right hon. Gentleman required was an additional £100,000 or £200,000 it might be better that he should obtain that paltry amount in some other way rather than by subjecting the whole commercial enterprize of the country at a moment of great depression to an additional impost which would not only yield the sum which was wanted, but would also bring into the Exchequer an amount which would only have the effect of enabling the right hon. Gentleman next April to show another of his magnificent surpluses. He remembered Mr. Lowe, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave very good reasons, as he, no doubt, thought then, for proposing an increased Income Tax, and what was the result? Why, that there was a surplus amounting, as nearly as possible, to the very addition which had been made to the Income Tax. Would hon. Gentlemen like to see that process repeated? If a fresh justification could be produced for the present proposal to increase that Tax, let it be stated; but, in his opinion, the grounds by which it was originally sought to justify it, had now, to a great extent, disappeared.

Sir, the debate of to-day divides itself into two branches—first, that which relates to the Amendment Drought before the House by my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard); and, secondly, the general review which has not unnaturally been taken by various hon. Gentlemen of the financial balance of the year, and, in connection with it, the interesting discussion on the necessity and the expediency of the repeal of the Malt Tax, and on the necessity of an addition to the Income Tax, in order to enable us to meet a temporary charge. I begin with my right hon. Friend (Mr. J. G. Hubbard). He, like myself, can hardly lay claim to the sanguine temperament of youth. Yet he commenced his speech evidently full of the ardour and confidence of a good cause; and I believe that in raising a question of this kind no man is better qualified, both as an economist and by the clearness with which he states his views, than he is to deal with it. But this debate has now lasted several hours, and although various hon. Gentlemen have taken part in it, only one or two of them, and that only for a moment, have noticed the interesting question which my right hon. Friend introduced. And in what I have myself to say on the subject, perhaps I should apologize to the House if I give more careful attention to his proposition that it has received from any other speaker. He invites us to vote that in the next imposition of the Income Tax we will re-model the tax. His Motion declares—

"That it is expedient that any future re-imposition of the Income Tax be accompanied with such an amendment of its provisions as may correct the inequalities of its incidence."

That is a promise for next year. I doubt very much whether it would be a prudent thing for us to make such a promise without an investigation fully 20 times as large as which has been made in the debate to-day. I doubt myself whether my right hon. Friend really knows all the difficulties of this case, but he knows some of them. Will he not take some account of the lessons of history? About 30 years ago the movement in the country for a re-constitution of the Income Tax was apparently irresistible. There was a strong sense of its inequalities. In that sense, to a great extent, I concurred. But so strong was that feeling, that it was believed that some remedy would be found for the evil. Not at that time, but some time afterwards, my right hon. Friend moved for the appointment of a Committee to investigate the matter. That Committee sat, and my right hon. Friend the late Chancellor of the Exchequer was a Member of it, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London. They had able Colleagues on that Committee, and Mr. John Stuart Mill, a host in himself, and an economist who shared the views of my right hon. Friend, gave evidence before it. What was the upshot? They obtained from the House an expression favourable, I will not say to the conclusion, but to the feeling which dictated that demand. The Committee shared that feeling; but when my right hon. Friend presented his Report to his own Committee it was rejected as impracticable, and the Committee adopted one framed in a totally opposite sense. That is history, and it is not very encouraging. I doubt not that a large majority of the Members of this House would be ready to say that they desire some re-arrangement of the Income Tax which would correct its inequalities. Yet no responsible person has ever yet been found to say, "I have prepared a plan for effecting the object; here it is." And yet the men who have had to deal with the subject have not all been timid men. I need only refer in proof of that to the names of Mr. Pitt and Sir Robert Peel. Yet those Statesmen, and many others more or less resembling them, have examined this matter over and over again, and have found that, although here and there you may make some small amendment, a general re-adjustment of the tax which should give absolute equality as between A, E, I, O, and U, is a thing which may belong to the Island of Atlantis or to the Region of the Blessed, but it is not likely soon to be attained in this imperfect world. I would take the House in retrospect to December, 1852, when I had first the honour to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That was about the time of high-water mark as to the feeling in favour of a re-constitution of the Income Tax. If at that period any abstract Resolution had been moved for the re-constitution of the tax, it would have been carried by a large majority. It also, for the first and only time, received the sanction of Lord Beaconsfield when Chancellor of the Exchequer. And although he quitted Office almost immediately after making the proposal, he never practically had an opportunity of gauging the depth of its difficulty. On entering Office as a Member of Lord Aberdeen's Ministry, it was my duty, and a duty which I fulfilled, to pass several months in making a searching investigation into the whole matter to see whether a plan could be proposed. The result of that investigation was a plan for the renewal of the tax on its present basis, although with some amendments, and, on the whole, Parliament concurred in that policy and adopted it either unanimously or by a large majority. Therefore, I think it is quite plain that we are not in a condition to give any promises on this subject. My right hon. Friend said the tax was wickedly collected. That is a strong epithet to apply to the impartial gentlemen who act at Somerset House. But I agree with him up to the point that there are a great many great and grievous inequalities. I have never ceased to say so; and one of them is that it undoubtedly has a tendency, in a degree somewhat more than other taxes, to sap the perfect integrity and truthfulness we find in the Returns made for the purpose of collecting it. I cannot follow the hon. Gentleman who spoke last into the question as to what substitutes might be provided for it if it were abolished. There was a time when that might have come about. But I have no such proposal now to make, Sir. We have travelled very far, indeed, from that state of things; and far be it from me to hold out any prospects in finance or otherwise, and especially in finance, except such as it is in our power to realize. My right hon. Friend pointed out that in certain details of the tax, Chancellors of the Exchequer had sought to mitigate its incidence, and then had gone no further. What does that show but that, having advanced to a certain point, they had found a stone wall in their faces, and that, having made the endeavour which he now urges us to make wholesale, they found it was only within the narrowest possible limits those mitigations could be made? My right hon. Friend says I am going to lay it on A and B, and then I will take it off O and U, and he appeared to be satisfied in his own mind that such an arrangement would satisfy everybody, and that A and B, who were going to have it laid on, and O and U, who were going to have it taken off, would be equally pleased. My right ton. Friend thought this such a triumph of financial skill that the taxpayer would regard the next visit of the tax-collector with joy and pleasure. That is the Paradise in which my right hon. Friend dwells; and now, coming to the close of an exhausting financial Session, I confess I should be glad to follow him there if I could, and see the taxpayer and the taxgatherer, in a transport of delight, fall into one another's arms. My right hon. Friend says that this change which he recommends would be most acceptable to the intelligent officials of Somerset House, and that they would de- light delight in a better system of taxation. Yes, no doubt, if they could get it. My right hon. Friend has communicated with them a great deal; but has he ever found one of them who would agree with him in his view? I never did, and I have known them for the last 30 years. My right hon. Friend has known some of them a few years, and though, no doubt, as to a better system of taxation they would be warm and enthusiastic, as to the practibility of the proposal their minds would be a blank. And now I will pass on to the question of the present state of the Balance, which, on the first proposal of the repeal of the Malt Duty, I ventured to foreshadow. Gentlemen separated from me by more than one generation have the fullest reason to indulge in sanguine anticipations. The noble Lord opposite (Lord George Hamilton), and two other Gentlemen, have said in effect that there can be no necessity for this increase of the Income Tax being imposed, and they entered into figures to prove it. I am not satisfied with the principles they have laid down. The noble Lord says it is in accordance with sound finance to run the risk of a small deficit. This proposition did not sound to my ears very philosophical, or practical, or even Conservative. My training in finance was in the school of politics to which the noble Lord belongs, or which bore the same name. But the training I received from Sir Robert Peel was that the right and sound principle was to estimate Expenditure liberally, to estimate Revenue carefully, to make each year pay its own expenses, and to take care that your charge is not greater than your income. The noble Lord looks lightly upon a deficit, provided it be what he thinks may be a small deficit.

explained, that what he meant was that, in altering a tax, they might run the risk of a deficiency, if they were likely to get a larger sum in future years from the tax so altered.

I am proceeding upon a different principle—that each year shall bear its own charge. The noble Lord thinks that a small deficit in the year might be risked, provided in future years there is a gainful investment to be made. Well, though I have spoken of the investment I proposed to make as a good investment and of a gain to be made, I will not take it upon myself to say that there is an equal certainty of the gain which is to be extracted out of the burden which is going to be imposed. I should have thought the noble Lord sufficiently acquainted with a deficit, and with the unpleasantness of it, to be disposed at some inconvenience to save the Exchequer from risk of increasing it, at all events, at the present time and in the present circumstances. It is supposed that some great change has occurred since the figures were first submitted by me to the House on the projected repeal of the Malt Duty. At that time I showed that we had on the debtor side a sum, of £1,533,000, which I proposed to meet by a sum on the creditor side of £1,914,000, showing a surplus of £381,000. With regard to that surplus I accompanied my statement by two observations. In the first place, that we could not feel anything like a certainty that the Estimates of Revenue for the year would be completely fulfilled; and in the next place, that we thought, viewing the state of financial affairs in India, it would be desirable to have some money in hand. I will just go over the figures upon which that Balance was founded. On the side of charges we had to meet the Supplemental Estimates, standing as they did at £200,000. The noble Lord says that these Supplemental Estimates ought to be met out of the savings of the year on the other Estimates. That is a proposition which may not unfairly be applied to those Supplemental Estimates which come in towards the close of the financial year, when you can in some sense see your way and are near a termination; but I am not prepared to say that it can apply to Supplemental Estimates which really belong to the spring of this year and the last quarter of last year, because they are the Supplemental Estimates of the late Government more than they are ours. Then I put the charge for making the change from a Malt Duty to a Beer Duty at the time of the Budget at no more than £1,100,000. Since that time it has been my duty to make large further investigations, and to make some not inconsiderable changes. One change deemed, I am sure, very inadequate by distinguished gentlemen, most competent witnesses, connected with the brewing trade, has been a very costly one. The change, apparently so insignificant, from a specific gravity of 55 to 57, will cost for five months of the year not less than £130,000, and £50,000 has been added to the charge. So that the sum to our debit in respect of the Malt Duty, which stood at £.1,100,000, now stands at no less than £1,280,000. On the other side we have surplus £184,000, and we gain £230,000 in respect of Wine Duties. I am not sure we shall gain the whole of that in the last weeks of the year; uncertainty hangs over it. But the result is that while, as I have stated, to our debit in respect of Supplemental Estimates and the expense connected with the change from the Malt to a Beer Duty stands a sum of £1,480,000, there is to be set against that on the other side £1,914,000, and of that £53,000 is the change I am aware of that tends to vary the Balance which I gave to the House on the previous occasion. With respect to the creditor side, there is surplus Revenue 184,000. I cannot alter that figure. The noble Lord has made an ingenious calculation on the subject. I will not venture to speak of my own opinion with the same confidence as if I had been watching with the eye of a responsible Minister the movement of Revenue for a number of years. I go back now to the subject. But the most competent authorities, when they arrived at the close of the first quarter of the year, were by no means prepared to support the sanguine expectations of the noble Lord. The Income Tax stands as it stood at £1,425,000; but, with respect to the licences, there is no material change. It is perfectly true that upon one or two items there has been an augmentation; but upon others there has been a diminution. Licences stand for £305,000. On the creditor side there is a sum of £1,914,000, and on the debtor a sum of £1,480,000, leaving a balance of £434,000. There are estimates that, if we accepted them, would probably convert our own Estimate into double its amount; but that is a matter of detail, and when we get into Committee on the Bill, and have to consider the details, I shall have to ask the House what view is taken concerning the measure, especially as far as the Malt Tax is concerned. I have taken pains to consider the amount which is likely to go into the Revenue on account of the Malt Tax, and I adhere to the amount of the Estimates which, have been laid before Parliament, having been first prepared by persons on whose prudence reliance can be placed. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. Balfour) has spoken with his usual courage on the subject of the Malt Tax, saying that formerly there was a great cry for the abolition or reduction of the Malt Tax; but of late years the cry has much gone out. No doubt that is so. It always goes out when the Conservative Government comes into power. The repeal of the Malt Tax may be good for the benefit of agriculture; but it is still more necessary to have the "farmers' friends" in Office. Therefore, the secondary consideration of the Malt Tax has to give way to the primary one of the "farmers' friends" being in Office, and those Gentlemen never, on any occasion, test this question. Some hon. Gentlemen are much shocked at the addition of 1 d. to the Income Tax. What surprises me is that hon. Gentlemen are shocked who do not appear to be shocked when a Government plunge into a deep, unfathomable gulf of expenditure for such a purpose as enabling the scheme of swelling the Expenditure from year to year being carried on. That is one of the augmentations of the Income Tax which I dislike; but here it is used for the purpose of liberating trade, and the liberating of a trade of the magnitude of the beer trade is a question of far-reaching and great magnitude. I cannot draw any distinction between the brewing industry and any other industry to the prejudice of the former. I know that it is an industry producing a commodity to the extent of £50,000,000 a-year, and I say that the liberation of such an industry is a very great fact; while an augmentation of the Income Tax has rarely been used for the purpose of a larger operation. The effect of this change on the consumer, the Exchequer, the trader, and the farmer, has been referred to. I will not attempt to mark out the precise limits of the change. But, in my opinion, it has been too hastily assumed that the price of first-rate English barley will fall. It will certainly lose its fictitious value, in comparison with other barleys; but it will come in the face of a more unrestrained demand. Again, it has been assumed that everything used for brewing will come from the foreign market. Let us take the ques- tion of barley. From whence comes our great agricultural competition? From the United States. But are the United States great growers of barley? From what other part does our barley come? [Mr. MAC IVER: The Black Sea.] From the Black Sea? I do not think that any Black Sea competition has been formidable to agriculture. We have been receiving grain for the last 40 years, and in that time British agriculture has thriven under Free Trade more than before. It is the new supply of vast stores of grain from the United States, and not the Black Sea, which constitutes the distinctive fact, and to the British farmer in his present position, the serious fact. But this does not apply to barley, although it may to wheat, maize, cattle, and the like. But the area in which barley grows in America is restricted, and it has already been tapped. Therefore, the British farmer ought to share the benefits arising from any increase in the demand for barley. It has been pointed out that other materials may be brought into the composition of beer; and when the hon. Member for Somersetshire (Mr. R. H. Paget) used the words, "light clarets," my defective sense of hearing led me to think the hon. Member was indicating "light carrots" as a substitute for barley, although I am not aware that carrots possess any of the properties that would render them a suitable substitute for barley. I think it has been too lightly assumed that as beer has heretofore always been made from material of a certain bulk and quality in reference to value, it will always continue to be so made. The effect of all these great liberations of trade is to open up new supplies and new capabilities of application of which previously nobody ever dreamed. But, in this case, there are sources of supply of which very competent persons have dreamed. Those practically and chemically acquainted with the constituents of this manufacture say it is by no means improbable that certain root crops, especially the potato, may be highly valuable for brewing. If that be so, there will practically be a new demand for an important production of the British and Irish farmer. The traders, it is alleged, believe the Government are going to hit them a heavy blow. But all the traders we ever had to deal with also thought so, and if there had been any truth in the charge, by this time there ought not to be any trade at all in England. I have known one trade after another massacred and destroyed by these rash Liberal Governments during the last 40 years. I believe, however, that the proposals of the Government will benefit the trader by giving him a greater choice of articles, and by the cheapening process commonly following freedom in production. I will enter more fully into various points of detail when the Bill is being discussed in Committee.

Sir, I have so often had to give the same answer in substance that has been given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exehequer, that I do not think it necessary now to go much further into the matter. What I now wish is simply to ask that my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard) will not put the House to the inconvenience of a division upon his Amendment, because the main question on the subject has been so much smothered by discussion that a satisfactory division could not be taken. I agree with the right hon. Member for the City in one particular, and that is in thinking that the Income Tax, as at present framed, is a tax to which there are grave objections, and, therefore, we ought not to attempt an impossible inquiry as to the means of making that which is so essentially objectionable fair and unobjectionable; but we ought to be as chary as possible in having recourse to it, and ought to do so only on sufficiently grave occasions. My noble Friend the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) has, with great ability, raised a question it will be convenient to discuss in Committee. He has opened his case, and has elicited some reply from the Prime Minister; but we cannot decide upon the question now, and may, therefore, defer the discussion until we come to the clause of the Bill. With regard to raising the Income Tax, the Prime Minister has said that a great deal depends upon the purpose for which you wish to augment it, and that if you have occasion to raise additional revenue in order to enable you to effect a great financial operation, then it is a legitimate thing to have recourse to the Income Tax. What we are now called upon to consider is the particular operation proposed—the transformation of the Malt Tax into a Beer Duty. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. Balfour) has raised the question, which I have heard raised by others, whether the alteration is one which will be beneficial to the farmers. There is a great deal of force in some of the observations of my hon. Friend, and some of the Prime Minister's remarks rather tend to confirm than to weaken my hon. Friend's criticism. When we are told that the change will do away with the advantage the best barley has had over others, we see reason why the Government should feel a little hesitation as to the benefit they are to derive. When we are told that in the future brewers will have recourse, not only to barley, but to potatoes, and it may be to carrots—just as paper is now made, not only from rags, but also from Espartero grass and all sorts of substances—we may well doubt whether the change will be so extremely advantageous to the barley growers. I admit there is a strong impression in the minds of a number of agriculturists that this change is going to be beneficial to them; and even among those who are not satisfied that it will be so, there is an idea that, at all events, it will be well to give it a trial. The other day I asked a friend what the farmers in his neighbourhood thought about it, and he said, "Oh, they are all in favour of it!" And when he was asked whether they thought they would benefit by it, the reply was, "I don't think they do, but they like the attention." To a sceptical mind this suggests the quotation from Juvenal—

"Evertere domos totás optantibus ipsis DÎ faciles."

It may be the case that this change will be for the benefit of a certain class among the agriculturists; it may be also that it will be of advantage to the Revenue; but I confess myself I am far, even now, from being convinced that the change will be one of unmitigated benefit to the Revenue. You ought to collect a tax of any kind in the mode that offers the least friction, and I doubt whether collecting this tax through the brewers will produce less friction than collecting it through the maltsters. It would be altogether out of place to decide against going into Committee, and thereby to appear to refuse an examination of the scheme proposed by the Government. The question should be raised upon the clause itself. When we come to the clause imposing additional Income Tax, it will be for my noble Friend to bring forward any argument he may have to add to those he has already used. I was rather surprised that, in the very interesting and exhaustive speech of the Prime Minister, he took no notice of the suggestion which was made by the hon. Member for Suffolk (Mr. Biddell) in one of the most practical speeches we have heard in this debate. The suggestion was that it would be possible to carry through this operation without imposing additional Income Tax by deferring the benefit to the maltsters to the next financial year. That is a suggestion which seems to deserve careful consideration. If it be admitted that the change will be distinctly beneficial to the agricultural classes and the growers of barley, and everybody else, the question remains, are the Income Tax payers to be called upon to pay for it? They are really indifferent whether the farming classes look upon the present Government as their best friends or they do not. We shall, no doubt, have an interesting discussion on this subject when it comes before us in a practical form on the clause; and I do not wish further to anticipate that discussion. I hope the right hon. Member for the City of London will not, on the present occasion, think it necessary to put the House to the trouble of dividing.

said, that he well remembered keen discussions in former Sessions on the supposed unequal incidence of the Income Tax, and he admitted that the tax had all the obvious, and, therefore, odious, characteristics of direct taxation; but it had always been imposed as supplemental to other forms of taxation which certain classes might escape who were reached by the Income Tax—such, for instance, as the recipients of income from foreign investments—now that the taxation of luxuries had been abandoned, and the taxation on articles of consumption was limited to such few items. The Income Tax had always been treated as an exceptional resource, available for the purpose of meeting emergencies. In his (Mr. Newdegate's) opinion, the present depressed condition of agriculture through adverse seasons, and the depression of the manufacturing and mining interests of this country, while famine existed in great part of Ireland, owing, in great measure, to the population depending upon a single crop—the potato crop—for subsistence, justified the increase of the Income Tax. Although the failure of the potato crop in Ireland was not so complete and disastrous as in 1847, he (Mr. Newdegate) thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer justified, under the circumstances, in raising the Income Tax. He hoped the right hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard) would not press his Motion to a division. He (Mr. Newdegate) recognized that, taken by itself, the pressure of the Income Tax might not be equal; but the House had this fact, after many inquiries, that no substantial and definite plan for the improvement of the Income tax had ever been submitted, and there was this danger in meddling with the tax, that it might degenerate, if unadvisedly altered, into a mere property tax. He (Mr. Newdegate) was anxious to submit a very grave subject to the consideration of the House, and the present appeared to him not an inappropriate occasion for doing so. The depressed condition of agriculture throughout the United Kingdom demanded the attention of Her Majesty's Ministers and Parliament, and he gave the Government credit for perceiving this, and for acting upon their perception in the matter of the Malt Tax. He believed that the farmers would accept this as something more than a mere compliment. While, however, Her Majesty's Ministers and that House were about to encourage the growth of barley, they were doing nothing to encourage the growth of wheat; on the contrary, they were encouraging the farmers to grow barley instead of wheat. His information was that the growth of wheat in this country had greatly diminished, and was likely to be still further diminished. It ought to be remembered that the intensity of the distress in Ireland was due to the fact that the people of Ireland had depended too much upon potatoes for their subsistence—as was said during the Irish Famine of 1847 and 1848, upon a single root crop. They had another famine from the same cause now in half of Ireland. He (Mr. Newdegate) remembered that his late Friend, Lord Mayo, in order to demonstrate the injurious effect upon Irish agriculture of the commercial measures of 1846, showed that House in 1848 the ruin of the milling trade in Ireland, which was already, then, the consequence of Ireland's diminished cereal produce. If the question were asked how it happened that so large a Revenue was necessary for this country, the answer would be that it was required for the maintenance of our large, but not excessive, defensive Establishments, on which Parliament was spending more than £30,000,000 a-year. This fact gave rise to certain considerations of primary defensive importance. We were giving relief to agriculture, but in a way that would encourage the growth of barley rather than of wheat—the staple food of the people. It was to be remembered that in former days much of our defensive strength, the one great cause of our security from invasion, consisted in the ability of the British Islands to sustain their population on home-grown food. Formerly, these Islands formed a self-supplied fortress. It was thus that England had become, as the right hon. Member for the City of London had said, the Bank of the World, because it was the safest place of deposit. This was the main origin of our wealth, which, again, had been the cause of our commercial and manufacturing superiority. Probably few persons in these days had studied the Reports upon the produce of this country that had been made by Committees of both Houses of Parliament during the years from 1811 to 1814 inclusive. Those Committees of both Houses had been appointed, because the country had become conscious, during the great European War which terminated in 1815, that the most dangerous weapon that the First Napoleon, then our great enemy, could possibly use consisted in his attempt to cut off the supply of food for the nation. He trusted that the Commission that was inquiring into the present agricultural depression would turn its attention to this subject. He was informed that, whereas in 1815 the produce of breadstuffs was within one-tenth of the annual requirements of the people, and was rendered amply sufficient, in the event of war, by the bonding system which Mr. Huskisson introduced, we now had not more than a six months' supply of home-grown food. Let hon. Members ask any general officer of experience, and he would tell them that an adequate supply of food for the British garrison, and for the population to be defended, was a primary condition of defence. Let hon. Members ask themselves how they could ask the nation to give Parliament more than £30,000,000 annually for Naval and Military purposes, the prime object of which was defensive, while Parliament neglected this primary condition of defence—a safe supply of food within the United Kingdom? Parliament manifested its belief in the possibility of war by large defensive armaments, and yet neglected to regard the diminution of the supply of homegrown food. Abroad, enormous Empires had sprung up upon the ruin of the system of small States along the Rhine, established in 1815 as the great security for peace. These small States had been absorbed by great Military Empires and Powers—the security for peace which their existence had afforded was gone. These were days in which our notice of an impending war would be very short; but it seemed that, in spite of the lessons of experience, we attached more importance to what the French call the other munition de guerre than to the munition de bouche. He (Mr. Newdegate) thanked the House for having allowed him to draw their attention to this grave subject, which had been allowed to sleep too long. When he saw that this measure of relief for agricultural depression must encourage the growth of barley in preference to that of wheat, the primary food of the people, he could not refrain from calling attention to this grave matter. He hoped that the Government would consider this question, and that the Commissioners now inquiring into the state of agriculture would be able to afford Parliament some information on the subject.

observed, that the measure was in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the House, and he approved it also, believing that it would benefit the farmers. The question had been the stalking-horse of both Parties for some time, and his only regret was that it had not been taken up by the Conservative Party in 1874. He could not commend the way in which the limit of exemption from the tax on brewing had been fixed. He thought the £20 limit a fair one; but the proposed £10 limit was much less satisfactory, and would probably cause much jealousy among the farmers themselves. It might, perhaps, be questioned whether the Bill was fair to farmers in the cider counties or to foreigners. The British farmer did not fear competition with the sugary articles which had been so often mentioned. Neither the beer of Belvoir Castle nor the Trinity Audit was brewed at all or the proportions which the right hon. Gentleman wished to establish for the private brewer, who could not hope to obtain, on the average, more than 12 gallons a bushel. The Bill, in fact, would impose on him a far heavier tax than he had to pay under the Malt Duty. Again, the farmer who was above £10 house duty would be placed in a position of temptation, while the labourer would be embarrassed, if not hindered altogether from brewing, if he were obliged to brew on his own premises, where there were no conveniences for the purpose. It appeared to him that the measure would hinder private brewing, which was the great key to the temperance question, because if a man could brew his beer at home and use it with his family, he would not be so likely to go to the public-house for drink. The farmers only wanted justice, and contended that it was unjust that they should be taxed in the manner proposed when they were subject to foreign competition.

( who was received with renewed cries of "Divide!") remarked, that if hon. Members would look at the Notice Paper, instead of calling out "Divide!" they would perceive he had a Motion down on going into Committee. He believed he could not, in accordance with the Forms of the House, move it as an Amendment; but he was, at all events, entitled to say a few words on the subject to which it related. His Motion was—

"That, in the opinion of this House, the proposed increased Licence Duties are most unjust and inequitable."

These were not his own words, but the words of very powerful associations which were smarting under a sense of injustice—namely, the Licensed Victuallers' Protection Association in London and the Defence Association in the country. He wanted to know why the licensed victuallers were to be charged at a higher rate for their licences because an arrangement was arrived at by the brewers and maltsters with the Government? As the Chancellor of the Exchequer would not give up the additional 1 d. on the Income Tax he would have a surplus approaching £500,000, and why, then, should he seek to raise some £300,000 or £400,000 by the licensed victualler's licence? By this new proposal a licensed victualler, in a house of the rateable value of £30, would have to pay an increased licence to the extent of £2 13 s. 4½ d. ; and licensed victuallers would be compelled to pay for a wine licence whether they wanted it or not. That was a great hardship on the small publicans, many of whom had no sale for wine. In the houses of a higher rateable value the increase was much, and out of all proportion, greater.

said, he could not withdraw his Motion.

Question put.

The House divided: —Ayes 217; Noes 23: Majority 194.—(Div. List, No. 70.)

Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

Bill considered in Committee.

Committee report Progress; to sit again this day.

Savings Banks Bill—[Bill 188.]

( Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Fawcett, Lord Frederick Cavendish. )

Second Reading. [Adjourned Debate.]

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [18th June], "That the Bill be now read a second time:"—And which Amendment was—

To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the extension of the limits of deposits in Savings Banks proposed in this Bill would result in so serious a discouragement of private enterprise that, in the opinion of this House, no such step should be taken without careful inquiry,"— [ Mr. William Fowler, )

—instead thereof.

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.

The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

said, he had two Amendments on the clause, which, if he might, he would move at the same time. They were, first, in page 2, line 35, to leave out "malt;" and, secondly, in line 36, after "determine," to insert "and the Duty of Customs on malt shall be five shillings per quarter." He hoped that the Government would be able to see their way to accept the Amendments, as he believed it was important that the duty on foreign malt should be allowed to continue.

Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 35, after the word "viz.," to leave out the word "malt."—( Mr. Storer. )

Question proposed, "That the word 'malt' stand part of the clause."

said, that the object of the Amendments of the hon. Member was to impose a protection duty on foreign malt. As that was directly opposed to the principle of the Bill, he must decline to accede to the proposal.

said, that he must rise to complain of the off-hand way in which the noble Lord had replied to the suggestion of the hon. Member for South Nottinghamshire (Mr. Storer). That Bill had been introduced for the purpose of doing justice to the agricultural interest, and the first time an agricultural Member rose in that House and pointed out what he believed to be a serious defect in it, he was met by a remark which would imply that his suggestion was not worth the slightest consideration. He hoped that those words would go to the country, in order that the farmers might know who were really their friends. He thought it most important that there should be a duty on foreign malt. There had been a duty on malt coming from foreign countries for many years, and he thought, in the interest of the public, it ought to be continued. Those who were connected with the malt and barley trade told them that it was very much easier to introduce malt into this country where long voyages were necessary than barley. The fact alone was worth attention. He should support the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for South Nottinghamshire.

said, he would take that opportunity of stating more fully the reasons which induced him to bring forward these Amendments, because, if the word "malt" were to remain, it would be useless for him to put forward the second Amendment. There could be no doubt in the world that a very great quantity of foreign malt would come into this country if that clause became law as it at present was worded. He held in his hand a letter which he had received from a person engaged in the trade, and he would read an extract from, it, in order to show the opinion of that person on the subject. He says—

"The foreign owners of malt are now sanguine of being able to compete with the English maltsters, as they have less expensive buildings, less wages to pay, and, moreover, make a great saving over the purchase of their barley."

The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, in his introductory speech, that he had heard no good reason why foreign malt should be charged. The reason he would put before them was that the maltster had always hitherto been protected by a duty of 2 s. 1 d. , or 2 s. 4 d. , imposed on foreign malt. If that foreign malt were allowed to come in free, it would be a disadvantage both to the English maltsters and farmers; because, no doubt, foreigners would also be able to compete with advantage against the English farmer, for whom, as the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks) had remarked, that Bill had ostensibly been brought forward. He could only say that he had heard the opinions on the subject from many maltsters in his neighbourhood, and he had come to the conclusion that that duty ought to be maintained. It must be remembered that, quite recently, very large and expensive buildings had been erected, many of which would be comparatively unnecessary if the foreign malt were allowed to come in free. Consequently, he thought that the maltsters ought to be protected, at any rate, for a few years, before a change was made, or that duty recovered. Besides the erection of those expensive buildings, it must be borne in mind that the wages they had to pay were heavier than in foreign countries. He begged the Government to consider, if a change were necessary, whether it would not be wise to reduce, rather than abolish, the tax on foreign malt.

said, that the hon. Member who had just sat down had stated that there had always been a duty on malt. He believed, that if he referred to the Excise and Customs Duties, he would find that was not strictly the case. There had been an Excise restriction on the foreign malster, which enforced an extra burden of some 2 s. upon the malt; but he thought no one would defend that extra charge of 2 s. simply on the ground of its being restriction. The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks) seemed to think that he (Lord Frederick Cavendish) was to blame because he had not occupied a greater length of time in replying to the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Storer). He would venture to say that he had occupied at least as much time as did the hon. Member in moving the Amendment. The effect of that Amendment was simply to ask the question whether the duty on foreign malt could not be still imposed.

said, he had merely asked to have that duty continued. Whatever the noble Lord might say, that excessive duty of 2 s. was effectively protective; the proof of that being that only one quarter of foreign malt came into the country last year. He had no doubt himself that, in accordance with the terms of the letter he had read, a great quantity was prepared and ready to come into the country in case that Bill became law.

said, that surely the hon. Member for South Nottinghamshire (Mr. Storer) did not mean to charge upon brewers the amount of 5 s. duty on the raw material brought into this country. If so, he begged to say that that was entirely wrong, and totally inconsistent with the rules which governed the importation of raw materials into this country.

said, that they had had the foreign article before in the shape of barley. He was not himself afraid of the removal of the tax on foreign malt. The malting houses of the country were at the present moment, he believed, insufficient for the purpose of malting all that was required. On that account he thought that, in the interest of the maltsters, some restriction might be put upon foreign malt. He hoped the Amendment of his hon. Friend would receive the consideration of the Committee.

said, that it was true, as stated by the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks), that the Bill had been intended for the benefit of the farmers. At the same time, he believed it was equally well understood that it was not intended for the benefit of brewers—or, rather, it had been shown not to be so. He rose to make a remark on the subject of foreign malt. The fact of the matter was—and he wished to call the attention of the hon. Member for South Nottinghamshire (Mr. Storer) to it—that representing, as he did, a constituency largely engaged in the malting trade, he should like to assure the hon. Member that they were by no means afraid of foreign competition. If they only had good harvests, they would have as good barley as in times past. He was quite satisfied that the English maltster and farmer would both be able to hold their own in foreign competition, notwithstanding the Bill.

said, he believed the duty on the importation of malt was at present 25 s. a-quarter, and that it was proposed to take off £1 1 s. 8 d. With regard to the remarks of the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish), who said that the excess duty was 2 s. , as he understood it, the proposal of his hon. Friend was that 3 s. 4 d. should be kept on.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 79; Noes 10: Majority 60.—(Div. List, No. 71.)

said, he wished to move an Amendment of which he had given Notice, but which did not appear on the Paper. It was, to leave out from the words "the duty," in line 22, to the word "beer," in line 25. The effect of that Amendment would be——

Order! The hon. and gallant Gentleman is moving an Amendment on Clause 3. That clause has already been passed. We are now on Clause 5.

said, he should like to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the fact that some maltsters complained that they felt themselves aggrieved. No doubt, if the right hon. Gentleman had already gone into the matter, he could satisfactorily dispose of it; if not, perhaps he would be good enough to give his attention to it. The Bill provided that a drawback of 2 s. 7 d. , with 5 per cent, should be allowed. Two shillings a-bushel had been paid on the stock of malt on hand on the 30th of September last. Now, the assertion of those gentlemen was that they were entitled to an additional drawback of 2¾ d. a-bushel, or 1 s. 10 d. a-quarter, in order to put the stock of malt on a fair equality with that subsequently malted. They claimed to have recognized the value of those disadvantages or restrictions under which the malt was originally made, and an additional 1¼ d. per bushel as interest on the duty on that stock, which must have been made between the dates of 15th February and 15th May. He hoped he had stated the case rightly; he was not fully acquainted with the subject, and, therefore, spoke merely as an advocate, and not as one possessing the technical knowledge. Both those items had been estimated in the duty on beer; and, therefore, unless they obtained that drawback, the Government would, practically, receive the duty upon malt made previously to the dates he had mentioned. No doubt, the right hon. Gentleman, who had studied the question, would be able to give a satisfactory reply. He had merely repeated the representations that had been made to him, and ventured to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the subject.

said, that in answer to the remarks of his hon. Friend, he would say that the course they had adopted with respect to the question of drawback was the only one open to them. As a general rule, the plan would be to ascertain the actual charge that had been made, and to make an allowance accordingly. He observed that the case stated by his hon. Friend was that of the charge per bushel in respect of the Excise inspection imposed before on the maltster on the manufacture of malt. They would, no doubt, hear it argued that night, and confidently argued, that the Excise restrictions should remain in their present condition; but he was not by any means disposed to accede to that. The fact was, that the maltster was now going to be placed on a footing of perfectly free competition. He did not understand, nor had he ever heard of such a thing as a claim for duty rebate with interest. The maltster had enjoyed, hitherto, a great favour. Instead of being given a short limit only, he had had a long period of credit. At one time a great length of time had been given, and even lately he had been allowed a period of nine weeks in which to pay his duty. So that of the malt in stock on the 30th of September, a great deal would not have been paid for nine weeks at all. So far as he had been advised, if they went into the question of interest, they must have a claim upon the malt at different periods according to the levy that had been made. That being so, he thought his hon. Friend would see that they had no choice in the matter but to adhere to the uniform practice in the case of the original duty—namely, to take that amount which was last made, and that which had been made before and paid for, and make an allowance accordingly, so that one rule might apply to the whole.

said, that the duties repayable [on the stock of malt in hand would be ascertained on the 30th of September; but those duties would not be re-paid until the middle of November. Surely interest ought to be allowed upon the duty on the stock in hand on the 30th of September, which to a great extent, had been paid into the Exchequer so far back as last May. There appeared to be no reason why the re-payment of the duty ascertained on the 30th of September should not take place before the middle of November. At all events, interest on the amount ought to be paid from the time of its being ascertained up to the date of re-payment.

said, that many malsters would, no doubt, pay earlier than others. With reference to the date fixed in the Bill with regard to rebate, he could only say that that date was the earliest that could be arranged. He would add that, probably, an allowance had been made to those who paid the duty when it was charged in the malt-house. It was not the practice to pay interest in case of the rebate of any duties. Mr. Moss said, it was possibly unprecedented to have so large a sum as £1,000,000 to repay.

Clause agreed to.

Clauses 6 to 9, inclusive, agreed to.

Clause 10 (Brewers' licence).

said, he begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name, which was in page 6, line 10, after "brewer" insert "occupying a house assessed to the poor in a sum exceeding £6 per annum." Whilst he would endeavour to detain the Committee as short a time as possible, he hoped to be able to convince them that what he proposed was right. He felt great confidence that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would accede to his Amendment, and he trusted to be able to carry the Committee with him. The object of the Bill, they were told, was to relieve the agricultural distress. At the present moment they were calling upon all persons engaged in production in this country, whether employers of labour or labourers themselves, to meet the unrestricted competition of foreign countries. The present Bill, instead of relieving the labourers from the burdens which they had borne for many years, was going, for the first time, to tax everyone who brewed his own beer, and that at a very high rate of percentage. The tax was fixed at 6 s. That might appear a very small sum, no doubt, to many hon. Members; but, applied to the labouring class of this country, it was decidedly a large sum. In the district with which he was connected, it was the habit of the farm labourer to brew at hay or corn harvest, or at both of those times, his own beer, the quantity varying from two to four bushels. If they took the average at three bushels, which he thought rather above than below the real average, the tax of 6 s. represented 2 s. upon each bushel of malt. The houses in which those people lived were assessed at a sum under £6, and, for many years past, a law had been in operation which said that persons living in houses assessed at that value or under, should be free from rates. Notwithstanding that, they were now to be called upon to pay a beer-rate—namely, the 6 s. licence—which, if they looked at the value of the cottages, would be found equal to something like 2 s. in the pound upon the assessment. Therefore, if they took the assessment upon the houses in which these people lived, that tax represented 2 s. in the pound; or if they regarded the quantity of malt brewed, it represented 2 s. in the bushel. He thought, if they reflected, they must see how hard that would press on the farm labourers, in their distress; and, therefore, he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see his way to relieve them.

Amendment proposed,

In page 6, line 10, after the word "brewer," to insert the words "occupying a house assessed to the poor at a sum exceeding six pounds per annum."'—( Mr. Hicks. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

said, that the hon. Member was in error, no doubt accidentally so, in stating that the sum of 6 s. represented a charge of 2 s. in the pound upon the assessment of the house.

said, that what he had stated was that the average assessment of labourers' cottages was under £6. He believed that it was, in fact, about £3.

said, he was afraid he could not agree with the statement that £3 was the average. To say that the houses of those labourers under the Act the hon. Gentleman had referred to had an average of £3 was, in his opinion, a great error. He could not agree with the hon. Member upon that; but that was not the question. The question was, what were they going to ask the man to pay in comparison with that which he paid then? If the man brewed at the present time he had to buy the malt; and if he bought the malt he would buy it with the Malt Duty; and, being a small quantity, probably with a highmaltster's profit charged upon it. In order to brew, as the hon. Member said, two or four bushels of malt, he would certainly, in his (Mr. Gladstone's) opinion, pay a larger sum than 6 s. In fact, he believed that he never had paid so little as 6 s. , because the profit of the maltsters would always bring it above that figure—that was where the man brewed the absolute minimum. It was was not very often that so small a quantity as that was brewed, although it might be the case in the district to which the hon. Member had alluded. One of the most common mistakes made in that House was for an hon. Member to speak of his friends and neighbours as being the pattern, or rule, which should be administered to the rest of the country. He believed he was stating it moderately when he said that in £10 houses, and in houses of an assessment much less than that, the people brewed two, four, six, or eight—aye, more than eight bushels—eight bushels representing about four barrels. Their object had been to obviate two evils. In the first place, he thought it ridiculous to propose to adopt a system whereby every man who brewed, as it was termed, his own beer, should do so without charge. That meant a great injustice to the brewer. The man must certainly pay the full duty upon every barrel he brewed. In the second place, it meant a heavy money premium given out of the receipts of the State for a particular method of brewing, if they were going to charge nothing for such licences. The fact was, that they were to enable private persons to do without payment to the State what the brewer could only do by payment. It might be said truly that, to a certain extent, he was liable to reproach, because he asked that 6 s. should be levied on houses assessed under £10. Under that amount the rate might be rather higher in proportion; but when they reached £10 they all paid alike. Therefore, he would admit this much—that it was not desirable to carry any further than could be avoided a system that might be more or less unequal. The Committee would see that they had fixed the most moderate charge for those licences that they possibly could—namely, a charge which represented, or rather barely represented, the smallest quantity that any person brewing for himself was known to brew.

said, that it appeared to him that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had mixed up two clauses—namely, the one under consideration, and a later one in the Bill which dealt with other licences. He would venture to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact, that Clause 10 enforced a licence which was an entirely new burden, and had nothing to do with the duty on malt. It was placing a duty on private persons, which had hitherto been payable only by brewers. He wished to call attention to the fact, that by that clause, every person who wished to brew in his own house must take out a licence of 6 s. That licence might be necessary for the purpose of the arrangements of the Excise, but he begged to submit that that was not the question. The question was, whether it was necessary to require those very small occupiers to pay so large a duty as 6 s. That tax was to be placed upon persons who had been relieved from taxation by an Act of Parliament, and, therefore, at the present time paid no rates. With regard to the men likely to brew, no doubt, as the right hon. Gentleman had stated, many people living in small houses might brew their own beer to a larger extent than he had mentioned. The people he alluded to, when he had previously addressed the Committee, were not those of small towns, but agricultural labourers in country villages, brewing a quantity such as they required as agricultural labourers. He was not in any way trying to mislead the right hon. Gentleman—in fact, he should be sorry to do so; but he could assure him that the average assessment did not exceed £3 in such cases, and the quantity generally brewed by such people did not exceed three bushels. He could only say that a number of tenants, of whose cottages he was the proprietor, did not average anything like that amount of assessment, particularly if they deducted that for the small gardens attached to the cottages in some cases.

said, that, no doubt, the Committee would perceive that the Bill relieved those men from one duty, and that he proposed to put upon them instead a lower duty than they paid before, but a little more troublesome machinery for paying it.

said, that he thought the proposal of a 6 s. duty was somewhat unequal. He quite corroborated what fell from the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks) as to rentals in agricultural districts. He did not mean to say that they were not high in large and populous towns; but that was not the case in agricultural districts with reference to the rateable value of agricultural dwellings. He thought that 6 s. was a high charge on those who only brewed once a-year, and many of them he knew only brewed at harvest time. Therefore, he considered that a much smaller tax would meet the case. He believed there would be an exemption in such cases if the original proposition of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had been carried out. If the rateable value of £20 had been fixed as a limit, it would not have borne so hardly. Sometimes the Revenue officers put up the rental to £20, in order to make them pay inhabited house duty. Therefore, if a rateable value of £20 had been accepted, and the limit fixed at that figure, they would have been much indebted to the right hon. Gentleman. The Committee did not appear to be of that desirable nature that they could have wished. He did not think that the agricultural labourer would be able to thank the right hon. Gentleman for having to pay such a duty as 6 s. For his own part, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would re-consider the matter, with a view to making some reduction, if possible.

said, he had been requested by some agricultural labourers of Suffolk and Norfolk to ask a question with reference to the new tax on brewing. Those agricultural labourers were in the habit, as they could not all afford brewing utensils, of getting their beer brewed for all at the house of one of their number who happened to have the necessary appliances. Would that expose the particular person at whose house the brewing took place to a duty as a brewer for sale? He did not brew for sale, nor did he get any sort of remuneration he believed. If he was now deemed to be a brewer for sale, he would not only have to pay the higher duty of £1 for his licence, but he would be also liable to other duties, as had been already pointed out. He was referring to the duty in Clause 10, and had illustrated it by reference to Clause 20. He had no knowledge of the subject other than the information he had received. He had brought the matter forward in the interest of those labourers, as he had been requested; and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would explain the matter.

said, that as far as he was able to speak, he did not think that the person so giving his premises and use of utensils for brewing would be liable to the £1 duty; but, undoubtedly, they would be liable to pay the brewing duty. If they did not make them liable for that, they would be opening a wide door to the establishment of all kinds of brewing-houses, in which a number of persous clubbed together, and brewing was extensively conducted. It was perfectly right that in such cases they should pay the tax. The principle was, that those who drank the beer should pay the duty on it. With regard to the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Colonel Ruggles-Brise), he wished to say that the labouring man would be called upon, just as others would be, to make returns as to the materials, &c.; and upon those returns the charges would be made. He was bound to say that he could not allow that Bill to go forward if the principle sought to be set up were included in it. He could not admit that any class of the community, such as workpeople and their families, however plausible it might sound, should have the privilege of producing beer without duty, whilst the rest of the community could only have it by payment of that duty.

said, he supposed that, under the circumstances detailed by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh), a brewer would be liable to £1 duty.

said, that would be so.

said, that with regard to the statement of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks), he wished to point out that the person who brewed the smallest quantity of beer named would not make a loss under the new arrangement. The 6 s . duty would put the labourer in a better position than he was at present. He fully agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that, under the cir- cumstances, no exemption should be allowed in the case of that class.

said, that having regard to the definition of brewers for sale contained in Clause 20, it would be only right to decide by whom the licences to be taken out at the cost of £1 should be paid.

said, he entirely concurred with the remarks of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks). He feared that the enforced payment of 6 s . would practically prevent many labouring men from brewing beer at home. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to accepting the Amendment, as the effect of the clause, as it stood, would be to put the agricultural labourer to great hardship.

said, he did not think the charge of 6 s . excessive.

said, he thought the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks) had taken a very fair average. The Bill was not one for the relief of the agricultural labourer. He supposed that the labourers, who were the subjects of this clause, would presently have votes; and he should like to know how long this charge would continue after their enfranchisement! Was it to be supposed that when they knew that in Russia, Germany, France, and the United States of America, the labourers had their beer free of duty, that they would consent to pay this tax? It was not likely; and, therefore, he hoped the Committee would act generously, and give them this little boon.

said, he would like to know if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had any information which he could lay before the Committee as to the amount of Revenue expected to be gained with respect to this tax? He would like to know on what grounds the Government proposed it at all?

said, it was not possible to form an estimate of the number of private brewers in the Kingdom, and, therefore, he could not say what amount was expected to accrue from the licences. The sum, however, would not be a large one. He would take this opportunity of saying that he found he had given a wrong answer to the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) a few minutes ago. It was the case that a private person brewing for others would have to take out a licence.

said, it was not a question of competition between private brewers and brewers for sale. It was a question of licence pure and simple, and as to who were to pay for the privilege of brewing. The tax was a perfectly new one. The right hon. Gentleman had already changed the limit of exemption, and was merely asked to make a farther unimportant alteration.

said, that in the North of England there were numbers of people occupying manufacturing villages who would gladly avail themselves of the right and privilege of paying 6 s . for the purpose of being enabled to brew for themselves.

said, he had a suggestion to make which might, perhaps, be accepted. He proposed that the sum of 6 s s. should be levied bienially, instead of at one time, in the belief that it would be a great convenience to the agricultural labourer, while it would in no way injure the trader.

said, he would like to amend the proposed Amendment by substituting the sum of 2 s . for the charge of 6 s . named in the clause.

said, the tax was an entirely new one. He could say, from his own knowledge, that there were many labourers in the West of Suffolk who brewed only during harvest time, and who had hitherto paid neither Malt Tax nor Licence Duty.

said, the explanation of the point raised by the hon. Member for East Suffolk (Colonel Barne) was very plain. The farmer made his labourers a present of three bushels of malt, including the duty, which duty would amount to, say, 9 s ., if not more. Now, if the farmer could afford to give his labourer 9 s . in the shape of Malt Duty, he could very easily give him 6 s . to pay for Licence Duty.

said, three-fourths of the farmers were losing capital, and ought not to be asked to be generous.

said, he appealed to the Prime Minister, whether, after what he had heard, he could not make some alteration, in view of the exceptional hardship which would press upon the agricultural labourer? He hoped before the Report the matter would be considered, and that some means would be adopted to mitigate the hardship by spreading payment over the year.

said, he failed to see what hardship would be imposed upon the agricultural labourer. He could only repeat what had been stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that 9 s . duty was paid on three bushels of malt; whereas the licence would be 3 s . less than that amount. It surely could be no hardship to exempt a man from the payment of 3 s . a-year.

said, he should have been glad to support the hon. Members in their advocacy of the interest of his brother farmers on the opposite side of the House in their proposal that there should be a free use of the mash-tun for their agricultural labourers; but he could not see how a line could be drawn between the employers of the agricultural and the manufacturing labourer. As he was absent when the question was answered, he should be glad if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would inform him as to the course it was intended to pursue with reference to labourers upon the farm being allowed to brew in one building, either at the homestead or some convenient place set apart by their employers.

Question put.

The Committee divided: — Ayes 52; Noes 172: Majority 120.—(Div. List, No. 72.)

said, the object of the Amendment he had to move was to limit the amount of Licence Duty by the quantity of malt brewed. He thought it very hard upon the agricultural labourer, that he should have to pay as much as a person occupying a house rated at £10 a-year. They had been told that in all matters they were to have free trade and equality; but if that were so, they ought to have it in the same way as those other countries to which had had referred. He had alluded to America, where every brewer did exactly what he liked. Now, if the labourer was to compete with other countries, he must be placed in the same state of freedom as prevailed there. With regard to the labourer having to pay less under the Beer Duty than under the Malt Tax, that argument appeared to him to be little else than a quibble. His argument was that they ought not to ''muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. "He begged to move, in page 6, line 10, after "brewer," to insert "brewing over two quarters annually."

Amendment negatived.

said, the question involved in his Amendment must be looked at from a rural point of view. It appeared to him that the Bill would cause the private brewers to pay 25 per cent more tax than they were now paying. In the first place, the Malt Duty was 21 s . 8 d . per quarter; but from that had to be deducted the increase on the malt which was not paid for. That he took to be 4 or 5 per cent, and reduced the duty, in effect, to 20 s . 8 d . As the Chancellor of the Exchequer had pointed out, the maltster must have a profit for the interest of his money. That he estimated at 8 or 9 per cent on his half-year's business. Therefore, making allowance for maltsters' profit, he added 1 s . 9 d ., which made the duty now paid by the home brewer 22 s . 5 d . per quarter. But, under the present Bill, upon the four barrels of beer brewed from one quarter of malt he would pay at the rate of 6 s . 3 d . per barrel, or 25 s . Now, taking the case of farmers who brewed only three quarters of malt in the year, the Licence Duty would amount to 2 s . a-quarter, and adding this amount, together with a further 1 s . for advantages in free use of sugar and raw corn, to the duty of 25 s . upon the beer brewed from a quarter of malt, there resulted the sum of 28 s . per quarter as a tax upon malt to be paid under the present Bill, as compared with the 22 s . 5 d . per quarter now paid, or a difference of 25 per cent. That being so, he thought that the Licence Duty might very properly be reduced from 6 s . to 2 s . In addition to the increase of duty to which he had referred, he would mention that the farmers would be subject to many other inconveniences under the Bill. For instance, they would have to open their doors at all hours to the Exciseman, as well as mark all the vessels upon the premises used in brewing. To the labourer, the licence would be equivalent to a 1½ d . Income Tax on him, and would be 10 per cent on his rent. To thousands in Suffolk, who now only brewed the malt supplied by their employers for harvest, it would be a new tax, as they would get no benefit on such malt by repeal of duty. The loss in revenue could be made good by lowering the line of exemption. In view of these circumstances, and of the fact that neither the Revenue nor the brewers would suffer, he urged upon the Government the acceptance of his Amendment—namely, in page 6, line 10, leave out "6 s .,"and insert "2 s ."

said, the charge of 6 s . was somewhat hard upon the agriculturists, who were the only persons supposed to derive any benefit from the Bill. The men who cultivated the barley for brewing, and the man who reaped it, obtained little or no benefit from the exemptions, while the occupier of the soil was unable to do what he would with his own. If the Amendment were agreed to, he thought it would be satisfactory to the Committee if there were no exemptions at all.

said, the hon. and gallant Member should bear in mind that the agricultural labourer obtained more than the mining or manufacturing labourer because he was permitted to brew, and probably would brew, for 6 s ., a quantity of malt paying at present more duty than 6 s. ; while the mining and manufacturing labourer had no opportunity of brewing for himself.

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 11 (Excise duty on beer).

, in moving, in page 6, line 25, to leave out "fifty-seven," and insert "sixty," said, he was fully aware that this Amendment went direct to a very delicate point, and was a question of the extract now obtained from a quarter of malt. The point where the brewers differed from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was whether he was right in the amount which he took as an equivalent for the Malt Tax. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he wanted to increase the tax at the present time; but said he only wished to do so in a very slight degree, and the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the sum of £300,000. He wished to explain to the Committee, first of all, what the present duty was. The present duty was nominally 22 s . 8½ d. ; that was, 21 s. 8½d. malt duty, and 1 s. brewer's licence. The brewer did not quite pay that amount, because there was an increase of about 3 per cent in the amount of malt extracted from a quarter of barley. A quarter of malt increased about 3 per cent beyond what the barley was. Therefore, the duty which the brewer paid was 21 s. 8½ d. , less 3 per cent, or 21 s. , as 3 per cent would come to 8 d. With regard to the 1 s. brewer's licence, that was the old hop duty, for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, nearly 20 years ago, transferred the hop duty to the brewers. Since that time there had been a constant agitation against the tax. He had not himself taken any part in that agitation, because he had not thought it a very large point. He would only say, with regard, to this duty, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, in introducing his Budget, said the subject was one upon which there was a great difference of opinion, and that it was a "subject not of unjust grievance and complaint." They had, then, this admission of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—that there was a great complaint against this 1 s. duty, and he said it would disappear. The 1 s. certainly disappeared in the form of the hop duty; but the 1 s. was not removed from the shoulders of the brewers. It was now proposed to be transferred on to the Beer Duty; and all the brewers had to say was that it ought to be transferred equally, so that when they paid the Beer Duty they would pay the same sum that they would on the malt itself. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to make the transfer in the following words:—"Upon every 36 gallons of worts of a specific gravity of 1,057 degrees the duty of 6 s. 3 d. "The Chancellor of the Exchequer calculated that the brewers got four barrels from a quarter at a strength of 20·5, or 1,057 degrees, and he allowed 6 per cent for waste. That, practically, made the duty, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 23 s. 6 d. This calculation was based on the supposition that 82 lbs. was extracted from a quarter of malt. But what did the trade say about that amount? The London brewers all said that they could extract 85 lbs. and more per quarter, and the Burton brewers claimed 85 lbs. and over, and the Dublin brewers over 85 lbs., and the country trade, from whom the Returns had been collected with, great care, claimed to obtain an extract of 85·9 so that the brewing trade altogether claimed to get more than 85 lbs. from a quarter of malt. What was the calculation of the Government about the extract, and how nearly did it coincide with that of the brewers? He believed the authorities of Somerset House were satisfied that 60 per cent of the malt used produced 85 lbs. and over; that 20 per cent of the malt used produced 82 lbs. extract; while with regard to the remaining 20 per cent, the accounts were so various that the Government authorities had considerable difficulty in arriving at any just conclusion. When, however, it was remembered that the last 20 per cent of the malt used was brewed by 20,000 brewers, who, on an average, did not brew more than 65 quarters each during the whole year, the House would at once see the impossibility of collecting the Revenue from these small brewers in the form of a Beer Duty. There was no doubt the Government would be obliged to collect the Beer Duty from those brewers on the materials used, and not on the beer produced; therefore, the 20 per cent need not be taken into the calculation. The case then stood that the Government were agreed that three-fourths of the malt used, on which the Beer Duty would be paid, yielded over 85 lbs., say 85·5 lbs., and one-fourth 82 lbs., or an average of 84·6 lbs. And, even on that calculation, a duty of 6 s. 3 d. per barrel at a strength of 1,060 specific gravities—or 21·6 lbs.— would yield the Government, after deducting the 6 per cent for waste, 23 s. per quarter, against the 22 s. they now got. If the figure was altered from 1,057 to 1,060, then the trade would get 3 barrels 33 gallons from every quarter of malt, which would produce 23 s. of duty. That was what his Amendment went to. Hitherto, all the Government had received on a quarter of malt was 22 s. , and by his Amendment, he contended, they would get 1 s. more. From Michaelmas, 1878, to Michaelmas, 1879, if this Bill had been in force, the firm of which he was a member would have paid 24 s. 6 d. duty on every quarter of malt; and for the nine months from Michaelmas, 1878, to the present time, they would have paid 24 s. 3 d. He was quite willing to show his accounts to the right hon. Gentleman; and he should like a committee of Somerset House, or anyone, to go into those figures, as they would bear out all that he had stated. He thought the right hon. Gentleman himself would see that he was charging the brewers a higher amount of duty than he himself supposed. The brewers had a vivid recollection of what occurred in 1854, when an extra 10 s. was put on the Malt Duty. The consumption of malt then fell off something like one-eighth. In 1850 the consumption was 39,000,000 bushels; in 1851 it rose to 40,000,000 bushels; in 1853 it was 41,000,000 bushels; in 1854, when the duty was raised, it fell off to 35,000,000 bushels; in the next year it fell off to 34,000,000 bushels; in 1856, when the 10 s. duty was taken off, at the end of the Crimean War, it rose to 40,000,000 bushels; and in the next year it rose to 44,000,000 bushels. He thought the brewers were naturally afraid of the proposed increase of duty under the Bill as it now stood. He did not pretend to say that the brewers would not pass off the cost of the duty on to the consumers; but the effect would practically be to raise the price of beer; and if they did that they would, to a great extent, stop the consumption. The right hon. Gentleman said he was going to give free trade—that he was going to take away all Excise restrictions, and do the trade a great deal of benefit. It was quite true that he was taking off the restrictions and giving free trade in malt making; but he was putting them on the brewer. For 50 years the brewers had been free of the Exciseman; but now they would have the Exciseman at every operation of their trade. They would have to teach the Exciseman everything, and they would find him a nuisance. The Exciseman would be a much greater nuisance to the brewer than ever he was to the maltster. The Exciseman would have to follow all their operations, and the brewers would be practically teaching the Government how to brew. Then, again, he supposed the Exciseman would be moved from one brewer to another, and it would be very inconvenient to have those gentlemen constantly changed. He believed that the restrictions they would have under the Beer Duty would be 50 times worse than the restrictions they had hitherto experienced under the Malt Duty. He hoped he had satisfied the Committee on the point that the present amount of duty was 22 s. a-quarter; and that, quoting the Chancellor of the Exchequer's own figures, the brewers would have paid last year 24 s. 3 d. , and this year 24 s. 3 d. , if this Bill had been in force. If the right hon. Gentleman looked carefully into the figures, he was satisfied that he would give some relief. He was not only speaking for himself, but for all the London brewers, who were all willing to submit their books to the Government. He felt sure the Committee would see when he made this proposition that the brewers, at any rate, believed the truth of their statement.

Amendment proposed, in page 6, line 25, to leave out the words "fifty-seven," and insert the word "sixty."—( Mr. Watney. )

Question proposed, "That the words 'fifty-seven' stand part of the Clause."

said, that he sincerely hoped that the statements of the hon. Member for East Surrey were correct, and that the Bill would tax beer as highly as he said it would. He could not understand why the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had striven to be so scrupulously exact in placing upon beer the same amount of duty that formerly fell upon malt. The fact was that beer was an alcoholic commodity, and if alcohol was to be taxed at all it ought to be taxed at a uniform rate. At present it was taxed extremely unequally, the difference raging from 55 s. to 57 s. 9 d. , and the proposal of the hon. Member for East Surrey was that that inequality should be made still greater. He wonld not take up the time of the Committee further in the matter, but would only express his hope that the Amendment would be rejected.

said, that he rose to support the position taken up by the hon. Member for East Surrey. He had been 40 years and upwards in a profession which had to do almost entirely with brewers; and being intimately acquainted with the internal economy of breweries in all parts of the Kingdom, he knew that the extract of malt averaged considerably more than 83 lbs. per quarter. He held in his hand a Return he had hurriedly got together from 80 brewers from various parts of the country, and he found that the extract per quarter averaged 85 lbs. and eight-tenths. He could not understand how it was that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer endeavoured to impose a further duty of 2 s. 6 d. per quarter on malt in the form of beer, after stating distinctly that all he wished to do was to realize the same amount as the Malt Duty. There had been some slight restrictions on the malt trade, but they did not interfere with the maltsters to any extent. Under the present Bill the Exisemen would have to be in the brewery, and that would be a serious interference; but as brewers could not suggest a remedy, they must put up with it. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would withdraw Clause 1 for the present, and take an opportunity of examining the figures produced by the hon. Member for East Surrey, and the books of the London brewers. The brewers of Burton would also be glad to allow him to examine their books. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman would find that it was only fair to brewers that the change advocated by them should be made. He was aware that brewers were supposed to make enormous profits from their business; but he was there to say that their average profits did not amount to more than 10 per cent on the capital invested. Ten years ago he had the honour to give evidence before a Committee in that House, and he then stated, as he stated now, that the average profit of the brewer did not exceed 10 per cent on the capital invested. That could not be considered a large profit for a trade subject to all the risks experienced in the brewing trade, and he hoped this statement would disabuse the public mind on that point.

said, that he had a similar Amendment to that of the hon. Member for East Surrey. After the full statements on the question of specific gravities made by the hon. Member for East Surrey, he would not occupy the Committee by going into the figures; but, in confirmation of the accuracy of the hon. Member's calculation, he might mention that he had been furnished with calculations by the Irish brewers, in which it was estimated that assuming a specific gravity of 1,060, as proposed in the Amendment of the hon. Member, a profit of 10 d. per quarter would accrue to the Revenue. That, he would submit, ought to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman; and he would urge upon him to accede to the Amendment, the more especially as the right hon. Gentleman had stated that his object in imposing the duty was merely that the loss from the abolition of the Malt Duty should be recouped to the Revenue. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would make further inquiries in this matter before coming to a conclusion.

said, that he had listened with great attention to the lucid statements of the hon. Member for East Surrey, in which he demanded, on behalf of the brewing trade, that the Government should raise the specific gravity to 1,060. He had already raised the specific gravity from 1,055 to 1,057, at a cost to the Revenue of about £250,000 a-year; and if it were further raised to 1,060, it would be a loss to the Revenue of about £400,000 a-year. In other words, while they were going to confer very great advantages both upon the maltster and upon the brewer, they were asked to confer still greater advantages at a cost to the Revenue of £400,000 a-year. He did not wish the Committee to be misled on this subject. The right hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) had criticized him for having been so particular in endeavouring to make the duty on beer produce the same sum as was produced by the Malt Tax, in pursuance of his Statement when introducing the plan to the House. There was something in the criticism of his hon Friend; but, upon the whole, he thought it would be best and most satisfactory that he should endeavour to give the strictest application to the principles he had laid down. According to the safest and strictest calculation, the figures he (Mr. Gladstone) had arrived at were perfectly correct. He need not say that he must oppose the Amendment, and that he must adhere to the basis he had arrived at. The basis he had laid down was that he took no account of the indirect advantages which the brewer would have from a free choice of materials. He did not propose to put a money value upon that advantage, although he thought it could not be denied that it was a great benefit. It was a benefit that had a money value, although hon. Gentlemen would not admit that that was the case. He had never known any trade affected by important legislation imposing any fiscal change, that would allow that they obtained any advantage. What he had stated was this—that he considered they were entitled to impose on beer all that the brewer now paid to the maltster, with a turn of the scale in favour of the Revenue. The hon. Member had spoken of the reduction which he said the maltster allowed the brewer, and he also instanced cases where brewers were also maltsters. Such a proposition as that he could not admit. The rule upon which Parliament was now agreed to act was id impose as a duty upon beer all that the brewer paid the maltster, giving a turn of the scale in favour of the Revenue. He would point out that those who represented the interests of the Revenue in trifles of this kind were under very great disadvantages. They had in this case to deal with gentlemen of the highest honour and integrity, and of the highest knowledge and skill; and it was a necessity of the case that they should assume the attitude of counsel in their own cause. They had the immense advantage of their technical knowledge; and, besides that, they had their servants, who, in many instances, had even more technical knowledge than they themselves possessed. It was very easy for those gentlemen to make a calculation of Revenue for which they were not, nor could not be, responsible. He remembered the case of the Succession Duty, in 1853, which he was told would realize £4,000,000 by those who professed to have a practical acquaintance with the matter. He very timidly held out to the House that in a series of years it might amount to £2,000,000; but the result had been that £2,000,000 had never been realized, nor was it ever likely to be realized by that duty. In making the calculations for the computation of Revenue he, as a responsible person, must abide by the views of those who were responsible, after taking every means in his power to bring those views into the closest accordance with the truth. As he had said, the brewers declined to admit anything in the nature of benefit from this change. The hon. Gentleman spoke of relief having been given from the trifling restrictions upon the maltster; but, some time ago, they told a very different tale. The Government, when asked to repeal the Malt Duty, were told of the arbitrary arrange- ments required by the Excise which, were reckoned at a money value of 1 s . 9½ d . per quarter, and that, they were told, acted as a prohibitory duty. He mentioned this matter to show how difficult it was, in approaching these discussions, to get at the root of the matter. It was now said that the Government were going to impose something 50 times worse than the 1 s. 9½ d . a-quarter on malt. What was this horror that was 50 times worse? It was the presence of the Exciseman. He did not say that the presence of the Exciseman was agreeable; but he wanted to know in what way it was that the presence of the Exciseman was a monetary injury? He was afraid that they could not raise an Excise Revenue without inquisition and inspection of some kind. They proposed, he might say, no restriction as to process, times, or materials; they proposed only that which would keep the authorities acquainted with what was going on, and would impose no practical, no material, burden upon those concerned in the trade. Although he sympathized with the hon. Gentleman on having the presence of the Exciseman in his premises, yet the hon. Member did not attempt to show what portion of his business would be interfered with by the Exciseman. The Government was going to give direct benefits to the brewer in the removal of the Malt Duty and of the Brewer's Licences, and of direct benefits in the removal of the maltsters' profit on the Malt Duty, and also in the abolition of those Excise restrictions, which had been estimated that very night, on the part of the trade, not at 1 s. 9½ d . per quarter, but at 1 s. per quarter. The main point of the contention was reduced to the standard of specific gravity. At the opening of these discussions the specific gravity had been fixed at 1,055, and since that time the Government had obtained further information and had raised it to 1,057. He would show the effect of that by-and-bye; but, for the present, he would confine his consideration to the further demands now made upon them. In the first place, the Government endeavoured to investigate what this specific gravity ought to be in transferring the Malt Tax into a Beer Duty. Although hitherto they had had no Beer Duty in this country, yet they had had a drawback upon beer. That had been fixed by the Revenue Department, after the strictest possible investigation. What was the basis of that drawback? In all their operations up to the present time the basis for that drawback had been 1,055. [Mr. WATNEY said, that he thought it was 6 s. 3 d. upon 1,055.] That 1,055 was the basis of the arrangement for the drawback adopted at the instance, and with the concurrence, of the trade. It was their duty, in computing this matter, not to allow themselves to be misled; and, after long investigation, they had come to the conclusion that, undoubtedly, a larger amount than 1,055 should be procured from a quarter of malt. Therefore, 1,055 had been changed to 1,057, and that corresponded with a weight of 82 lbs. The Committee should bear in mind that one of the main, if not the insuperable portions of the difficulty which had been presented lay in the unequal product of the quarter of malt in the different breweries of the country. The hon. Member for East Surrey, and other Gentlemen connected with the trade in that House, represented establishments in which the highest products that could be obtained from the very best barley were actually obtained. But a duty had to be fixed to run over the miscellaneous mass of 22,000 brewers, and they had to estimate not only the average yield, but, so far as they could judge, the distributed percentage the different brewers got from the quarter in establishments of an entirely different order. There had been something said about a Memorial from the brewers of country generally; but it was not at present in his hands, and he did not think the brewers of the country could render any trustworthy scientific accounts of the specific gravity of malt. What they had to do was to fix a product which would meet the case not of the best breweries only, but of the majority of breweries throughout the country. They had to take evidence, in the first place, as he had mentioned, with respect to the drawbacks, which was founded on the views of the trade at the time it was passed, although he admitted that since that time there had been improvement in the process of brewing. Burton brewers had kindly supplied him with the analysis of the yield of a quarter of malt in a large number of establishments. The lowest yield of a quarter of malt showed a specific gravity of 50, and the highest a specific gravity of 64; and the figure proposed by the Government was the exact medium or half-way house—namely, 57. They had also, he would mention, thought it right to employ the resources of science as a test as to what could be got out of the quarter of malt. It should not be supposed, therefore, that they were going to allow that every brewer, or that every average brewer, obtained as much from the quarter of malt as could be done by scientific means. Thirteen specimens of malt, fairly representing all the malt commonly in use, had been experimented upon. They had an average weight of 40 lbs. per bushel, and the result had been that the average was 846; while the figure that he proposed to take—57 —corresponded with 82. The question arose, what were they entitled to charge the maltster? They gave him the relief of the duty on malt—20 s . 8½ d . It had been said by an hon. Member that the maltster had not paid that duty. No such communication had ever been made to Her Majesty's Government when the trade were in communication with them upon any question such as the drawback, because it was evident that if they did not pay that duty the drawback had been fixed a great deal too high, and they had been parties to that arrangement. The brewer was charged, however, by the maltster, 21 s. 8½ d. , the maltster paid the profits of the duty, which he took at l0 d. There could be much dispute about that figure. The authority upon which he gave it was that of Mr. Prentice, a highly respectable maltster, who gave evidence before the Select Committee of 1868, and placed the profit at 2 s. or 2 s. 6 d. per quarter. The Brewer's Licence of 1 s. was to be abolished, as were also the Excise restrictions, which the trade formerly valued at 1 s. 9½ d. per quarter. He could not admit that those restrictions were worth nothing per quarter. On the contrary, he found that applications were already coming in desiring permission to alter the form of the malt-houses because of the disadvantages inflicted upon the processes, and those disadvantages were money and loss. He had a letter from a gentleman at Newark, who wrote to Mr. Young at the Board of Excise, to ask for an interview upon the subject of the depth of their cisterns, which was limited to 40 inches, and during the cold weather at least 10 per cent more malt could be steeped when the cisterns were deeper; and he asked the indulgence of being allowed to add one or two courses of bricks to the cisterns. Those restrictions upon the quarter of malt, which were estimated by the trade in fixing the duty at 1 s. 9½ d. , had been estimated that night, on the part of some members of the trade, at 1 s. per quarter. In his calculations he had put them at the modest figure of 5½ d. , and, putting them at that, he found that the sum of which the brewer was relieved—that was, the charge formerly upon the brewer—was 1 s. 4 d. per quarter, or 6 s. per vat. That was the charge from which the brewer was relieved in respect of the liquor. In the fermenting square the Excise charged 6 s. 3 d. , and from that they made a reduction of 6 per cent, or 4½ d. on the 6 s. 3 d. , thereby bringing the charge to 5 s. 10½ d. per vat. He would now tell the Committee what were the calculations upon which Her Majesty's Government felt bound to proceed as to the yield of the quarter of malt. They believed, on the very best investigations they could make, that three-fifths of the malt which passed into the brewers' hands produced, on an average, 59; and, for convenience sake, he assumed that he had better take the computation upon a fixed total of British malt in order to make it unvarying, and show how the figures came out. He took 7,500,000 quarters of malt, and out of this he allowed that three-fifths might make 59, equal to 18,631,000 barrels as charged in the square. One-fifth, he thought, he was taking somewhat high in estimating at 55, equal to 5,760,000 barrels as charged in the square. That was a total of 30,391,000 barrels; but 6 per cent was allowed off the quantity charged in the square for waste, amounting to 1,823,000 barrels, and that gave for a net charge of duty 28,568,000 barrels; and if they allowed upon each of these barrels 6 s. 3 d. a-piece, they got as a result a Revenue of £8,927,000. If 7,500,000 quarters of malt yielded £8,927,000, it would be found that that was equal to £1 3 s. 9 d. per quarter of malt. Then, the hon. Member could fairly say that 6 per cent Malt Duty was set against that which was only £1 1 s. 8½ d. , so that there was an apparent surplus of 2 s. 1 d. per quarter, or 6¼ d. per barrel. That sum, multiplied by 28,568,000 barrels, yielded an apparent profit to the Revenue of £781,000 a-year. Against that they had to set generally the loss of £384,000 for licences, of which as yet he had taken no account. They would lose a small sum in raising the drawback upon beer from 5 s. l0 d. per barrel to 6 s. 3 d. per barrel. They would also lose a small sum upon the trifling quantity of malt now consumed for vinegar and yeast, and they had to make the best estimate they could against that of what they would gain by the private brewers. They had also to charge themselves with the increased cost of establishments of not less than £40,000 a-year, at any rate, at the commencement of the system. The fact was, that to the £384,000 for Brewers' Licences, they had to add £40,000 for increased establishments, and about £21,000 for the other small items he had named, making £445,000 to the bad. Deducting that from the £781,000 he should only obtain as the result £336,000 a-year, and from that again he deducted £50,000 as the loss of Revenue on testings of the minutest quantities, leaving £286,000 which he estimated as the financial result of the change from the Malt Duty to the Beer Duty. Under those circumstances, the Committee could scarcely be surprised if he were not prepared to adopt the views of the hon. Member for East Surrey. He would point out that the effect on these figures of raising the specific gravity to 58, and putting the waste at 7 per cent, would be that instead of a Revenue of £8,927,000, it would be £8,674,000, or a reduction of £253,000. The real point was whether they were right as to the estimated yield of a quarter of malt. The Government had gone as far as they could in the direction which the hon. Member wished them to follow. They had gone to the point which showed the profits, as far as it could be shown. The effect of the Motion of the hon. Gentleman, were they to accede to it, would be, according to their calculation, not only to destroy their whole profits, but leave them losers to the extent of nearly £500,000 per year. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would say to him that they would be wiser a year or two hence than they were now. That might be so, and no judicious man would shut his eyes to instruction. For the present, all they could do was to make themselves thoroughly masters of such knowledge and information as the present yielded to them. That which the present yielded to them, on close and careful examination, was the conviction of all those who were best qualified to judge that the computations which he had made at first as to the gain could hardly be maintained on the basis on which they now asked the Committee to grant the Beer Duty. Much as they desired to meet the wishes of those whom they had every reason to respect, they could not move forward in the direction of the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman.

said, that before the Committee went to a division he wished to say a few words. At that late hour he would not go over again the elaborate figures that were given by his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Watney), and which had been already answered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but inasmuch as he was opposed, he was sorry to say to that right hon. Gentleman on one or two points, he did wish to make a few remarks. He would not contend that the change proposed was altogether without benefit to the brewing trade; but what he did complain of was, that while the Government gave them a boon in the free choice of materials with the one hand, they took away a good deal more with the other. He would advert for a moment to what the right hon. Gentleman had said about the maltster's profit and the money value of the restrictions now imposed on the making of malt. He supposed that one did not read the papers very carefully; but, at any rate, the first time that he had ever heard of the money value of a restriction was from the lips of the right hon. Gentleman when he introduced the Bill. He could not deny the fairness of his taking a certain value for those restrictions; but he must remind him that if there was any money value to be attached to those restrictions on malt, they must have a value at all the later stages of the manufacture. If the brewer was to be set free in the choice of materials, still those restrictions were only moved from an earlier to a later stage of the manufacture. The way to remove them from the trade altogether would be to place them on the finished article. With reference to the presence of Excisemen in the brewhouse, he did not attach much value to that. He did not think that there was anything to conceal; but he did think that the process that the officers had to go through was one attended with a good deal of difficulty. For instance, in the taking of samples for specific gravity it required great nicety, for it mattered a great deal whether the sample were taken from the surface, or just below, or still further down. What they feared was that, perhaps, it might give rise to constant ill-feeling with regard to the taking of measurements which were most minute, as there were many more difficult processes to be gone through than in the case of the mere measurement of the barley. With regard to the maltster's profits, he believed that the right hon. Gentleman was not correct. He supposed, that when the right hon. Gentleman stated that the maltster's profit on the duty must be taken at 10 d. , he had roughly calculated that as the duty was about one-third of the cost of the malt when sold, so one-third of the maltster's profit should be assigned as profit on the duty—that was, as profit on capital locked up in paying the duty. But what were the facts? Let it be assumed that the maltster held his malt for six months after the duty had been assessed upon it, although he (Mr. Whitbread) believed that it could be shown that, on the average, the period during which malt was held by the maltster was four months at the outside. He believed that was quite within the margin, as he trusted was everything he said upon the matter. But, taking it at six months, let the right hon. Gentleman ask the maltster how much capital it was really necessary to lock up in paying duties. He would find that for the first six weeks of that period he got credit from the Government, and a further credit of six weeks upon depositing a bond. For the second three months he got a further credit from the Government by paying 3½ per cent upon the duty; or, in other words, 2 d. So that, if the maltster held for six months, there was an amount of capital necessarily locked up in paying interest upon the duty of 2 d. Therefore, the maltster's profit on the duty was at a figure much too high. It could not have, properly, any value assigned to it—it was not 1 d. upon the whole. There was another point in the statement of his hon. Friend (Mr. Watney) which he did not think had been met by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His hon. Friend had said, truly, that the crucial point was, what was the extract from the quarter of malt? The right hon. Gentleman admitted that the officers of Inland Revenue put the extract from the quarter of malt at 85. His hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey had pointed out that, although some brewers might get a lower extract, the duty might be levied, not upon the extract, but on the materials. The right hon. Gentleman had not met that point. In the case of the large number of small brewers who brewed less than 1,000 barrels, as the duty was levied in that way, the Revenue would not stand to lose upon that. There could be no doubt about the way they had been treated. The right hon. Gentleman, in the consideration of the details of the Bill, had meet them fairly; the only question really in dispute was that of the extract. That matter was one of the utmost difficulty, and he believed the Government fully perceived that. What he complained of was, that in making that change a great number of processes had to be gone through, in each of which the Government appeared determined to make themselves safe. The trade would have said nothing, and made no complaint, when the right hon. Gentleman proposed to take an additional duty from them, because he (Mr. Whitbread) thought that most of them felt the benefit they derived from the choice of materials. But he was going to take a great deal more than he had estimated when introducing the Bill. They felt confidence in their own figures, and they believed that the right hon. Gentleman was unwittingly about to impose a severe tax upon the trade. The object of the change was, no doubt, two-fold—namely, first, to meet the wishes of those engaged in agriculture; and secondly, to make some provision by which the Chancellor of the Exchequer could increase the Revenue in future years. That being so, the Committee would admit that when the right hon. Gentleman made such a proposal, their should be allowed to contend for a fair equivalent. He was quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that if they were to be subjected to an increased tax, it should be done openly, especially upon the present occasion, when,. he believed, a somewhat severe tax was to be imposed.

said, that he did not wish to detain the Committee; but, inasmuch as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed determined to place a serious tax upon them, he should like to say a few words. As to the Malt Tax restrictions of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke, he had it on the authority of their responsible managers, that the real money value of those restrictions was inappreciable. Both his hon. Friends who had already spoken had referred to the average extract of the quarter of malt. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to levy a duty of 23 s. 6 d. per quarter, on the supposition that a quarter only produced 82 lbs, of extract into the fermenting squares. In other words, the tax for every 1lb. of extract, in the squares, was at the rate of 3 4/10 d. , per lb. They asserted that 85 lbs. was the average extract which, if multiplied by 3 4/10 d. , gave a result of 24 s. 4 d. Under the old system, the Licence Tax and Malt Duty together, amounted, theoretically, to 22 s. 8½ d. per quarter; or, practically, about 22 s. ; so that the right hon. Gentleman was really about to obtain the sum of 2 s. 4 d. per quarter increase. He was about to obtain from them about £840,000 more than before. It seemed to be allowed by the Inland Revenue authorities that, at least, three-fifths of the malt brewed yielded 85 lbs. per quarter. Their contention was, that that portion yielded over 85 lbs. One other fifth was estimated to yield 82 lbs., and another fifth considerably under that—about 79½ lbs. The effect of the right hon. Gentleman's proposals would be, as regarded this last fifth, to put the duty not on the actual extract in the fermenting squares, but on the presumptive amount that should be yielded from the materials used. In other words, this last fifth would pay the full 23 s. 6 d. per quarter, because it would pay by the presumptive charge which calculated each quarter of malt or grain to produce 82 lbs extract. The right hon. Gentleman said that the average yield of a quarter was only 82 lbs.; but they could adduce evidence from hundreds of brewers, that the average extract was at least 85 lbs. The large brewers were acknowledged to obtain this, and the country brewers, he believed, would show the same average. They had handed in figures which showed that to be the case; but the only answer they could get from the right hon. Gentleman and the Board of Inland Revenue was — Non possumus! We don't believe it. We don't believe that the evidence you adduce carries any weight." It seemed to him, that as they were placed in that position, it was hardly any use arguing the question any further. They were perfectly satisfied to submit to a duty upon what could be shown to be a fair average. As he understood that the right hon. Gentleman did not intend to yield in that matter, he must, in despair, ask him one question. If it turned out that the result of the year's Revenue showed his calculations to be wrong, and that the trade were right, would he, when he brought in his Budget next year, do the brewers justice so far as to secure that the duty should not produce a larger income than he then professed to expect?

said, there were two points in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer which he (Mr. Watney) thought he had hardly treated quite fairly. One was with regard to the 21 s. 8 d. per quarter. He (Mr. Watney) said that on a quarter of malt 21 s. was paid by the brewer. The cost to the maltster was 3 per cent more; and, therefore, while the brewer paid 21 s. , the maltster paid 21 s. 8 d. With regard to the amount of 1,057 degrees, which had been fixed, he was of opinion that the calculations that had been made by the authorities only bore out his figures, and, therefore, ought to be changed to 1,060 degrees. He would not trouble the Committee with the number of figures gone into by the right hon. Gentleman, but would merely say that he thought he had proved his case. The average of 84·6 lbs. ought to be taken. He believed that the right hon. Gentleman would see, by-and-bye that 84·6 lbs. was the actual average produced.

said, he did not propose to go into the details of the matter, but only rose to make one remark. The discussion had taken rather the character of a controversy between the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the one hand on the side of the Revenue, and the brew- ing interest on the other. It must be borne in mind that it was not the brewing interest alone that was concerned in that matter. Of course, the question did immediately affect brewers; but it affected also, indirectly, both the public consumers and also the growers of barley and other ingredients. With regard to the question before the Committee, they were very much in this position. A boon had been given, in the first instance, in the abolition of the Malt Duty, and that everybody was well disposed to accept; but then came the other side of the picture, and they were asked to provide that which should be the purchase money for that boon. Some took rather a gloomy view of the price which was asked to be paid for that advantage. It was very difficult for anyone not connected with trade, when they considered the advantages the Government had of looking into the matter through the agency of the responsible advisers of the public in the Inland Revenue, to enter fully into the calculations made us to whether they were satisfactory or not, or whether the views expressed by the responsible persons were correct or not. It appeared to him (Sir Stafford Northcote), however, that the proposal made by the hon. Gentleman opposite was not an unreasonable one— namely, that there should be some independent inquiry in order to decide on the points raised. No doubt, enormous pains had been taken by the Government and Board of Inland Revenue in regard to that matter; but, after all the pains taken, they were practically engaged in a dispute to a considerable extent. They must bear in mind that a very novel and difficult operation had to be performed. They had been asked to transfer the duty from one stage to another, and, further, to make a change in such a way as to give some addition to the Revenue by the operation. If the proposal had been one which was so far a simple one that the whole operation would have been self-supporting, and they had not been asked to make provision from other sources, it would have been different; but the difficulty came to be felt when they were asked to make the change so as to throw a greater burden upon the grower of barley or the consumer of beer, so that an additional sum might be provided for the Revenue out of the taxpayers' pockets. Look- ing closely into the proposal as made in reference to that particular transaction, it did seem to him that the proposal made by his hon. Friend that the matter should be investigated by a Committee, appeared to be worthy of support.

said, that with regard to the statement of his hon. Friend the Member for East Staffordshire (Mr. M. A. Bass), he could only say that the Government had examined into the figures which had been submitted to them, and had come to a different conclusion to that arrived at by his hon. Friend. Then the hon. Member charged them with making the answer, non possumus , because they could not agree with him. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) said that it was not an unreasonable proposal to refer that matter to a Committee, so that persons of some authority might look into the matter. Was the right hon. Gentleman desirous of handing over the whole Revenue of the country to a Committee? Who was to be responsible for the computations of that independent authority, or how was such an arrangement to fit in with their principle of a responsible Government and the responsibility of Ministers? It might be a convenient thing, it might be an extremely convenient precedent for any Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was desirous of avoiding the performance of his duties, by referring such matters to an independent authority. In his previous remarks he had foolishly omitted one question. He could not agree with the statement of the hon. Gentleman who had referred to the 20 per cent of the malt brewed, where the duty was to be taken upon the materials and not upon the squares. He understood that they should be obliged to make much more use of the presumptive charge on materials than they had previously done in establishments of the superior character represented by the hon. Gentleman. But when they came to make use of that presumptive charge, they should have great difficulty in levying the duty upon that portion of the beer which it was necessary to include, leaving a certain margin for any error with respect to it. With respect to the maltster's profit, his hon. Friend (Mr. Whitbread) had stated that they had a credit of some 10 weeks; but that was not the question. However that might be, there could be no doubt that they were bound to pay the duty, whether it was represented by an adequate profit or not. He just wished to observe, with regard to their extracts, that he had stated what their extracts were. He supposed that in the case of brewers in the country the average would vary infinitely, inasmuch as the means of ascertaining it was probably defective, and not those employed by the the most scientific men. He would not trouble the Committee again with his figures; but the fact was, that there was a disputable factor in his calculations and those of the hon. Members, and if he were to accede to the suggestion to raise the standard one degree, it would absorb the whole profit of the transaction. With regard to the question of drawback, he would say that the standard he had referred to was a kind of pivot-standard, and the charges were made with reference to it. Of course, it varied with the quality of the beer; but the allowance for drawback, and the different allowances, were all founded upon one basis and upon one assumption. He thought it would be a great advantage if, with a further development of that important and difficult measure, they could arrive at a state of things at which they could tax the finished article. He desired that exceedingly; but they did not feel that it could be done at the present time, but it was clearly a matter for consideration. The right hon. Member for East Staffordshire had asked if the matter could be re-considered, in case they found they were wrong at the end of the year. It was an arrangement which could not be said not to be open to re-consideration; but before that could be done an adequate time must have elapsed, in order that they might see how the new arrangement worked. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) had also clearly and methodically, as he usually treated of matters in that House, made an application to get an equivalent for the duty, and to re-open the matter at a future time. Hon. Gentlemen must not expect him to say more than this—that, having regard to the inadequate evidence which they possessed at the present time, it might be found desirable to re-open the question on a future occasion.

said, that the result of the Bill would be that the Irish brewers would be taxed to the extent of £70,000 or £75,000 a-year, should the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Watney) not be adopted. The Irish were already very heavily taxed, and paid £2,300,000 more than their fair share of the Imperial taxation. Irish Members on each side of the House ought to protest against their country being made to pay £70,000 a-year more than they now paid of the Imperial taxation.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 188; Noes '151: Majority 37.—(Div. List, No. 73.)

said, that he hoped that the Government would now report Progress.

said, that the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) was precluded by the Rules of the House from moving the Amendment which stood in his name. It was not in Order for a proposal to be made to increase the taxation of the country without the consent of the Crown.

said, that he bowed to the ruling of the Chair. As he understood, when the Resolutions were passed through Committee, the House was not pledged to the particular form of the Resolution; but now it appeared that he ought to have moved the Amendment of which he had given Notice at an earlier stage of the Bill.

House resumed.

Committee report Progress, to sit again To-morrow.

Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act (1880) Amendment Bill—[Bill 265.]

( Mr. Forster, Lord Ferderick Cavendish.

Consideration as Amended

Order for Consideration, as amended, read.

Motion made, and Question,

"That the Bill be re-committed, in order that clauses providing for railway and other loans might be inserted,"— ( Majar Nolan ,)

—put, and

Bill re-committed; considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

On the Motion of Major NOLAN, the following Clauses were agreed to , and added to the Bill:—

(Railway and other loans.)

"The Commissioners of Public Works may, if they think fit, with the consent of the Treasury, out of any moneys placed at their disposal by Parliament for the making of loans, make loans to Railway and other public Companies, to the Trustees of Canal and River Navigations, and to Harbour Commissioners, now or hereafter to be incorporated or constituted as the case may be, having borrowing powers, and in favour of which any such guarantee as is hereinafter mentioned has been given; and also to the Trustees of Drainage Districts appointed and constituted under the provisions of the Act of the fifth and sixth years of Her present Majesty, chapter eighty-nine, and the Acts amending the same, the loans shall be made at such rate of interest as the Treasury have fixed for loans, to which section two of 'The Public Works Loan Act, 1879,' applies, or may from time to time fix in pursuance of that section, and otherwise upon the same terms and conditions as apply to loans made by the said Commissioners for the like purposes under the Act of the Session of Parliament of the first and second year of the reign of His late Majesty King William the Fourth, chapter eighty-three, entitled 'An Act for the Extension and Promotion of Public Works in Ireland,' and the Acts amending the same: Provided, That no loan under this section and the following section shall be made to any Railway Company or Tramway Company, or to the Trustees of any Canal and River Navigation, other than those mentioned in the Schedule to this Act."

(Guarantees by presentment sessions.)

"For the purpose of enabling any barony or baronies to give a guarantee in favour of any such Railway or other public Company, or Trustees of any Canal or River Navigation, the Lord Lieutenant may, from time to time, if he thinks fit, in exercise of the power conferred upon him by 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,' convene extraordinary presentment sessions for any barony, and may, by instructions to the justices and the associated cesspayers assembled at such sessions, authorize and empower them by presentment to charge the barony, by way of guarantee, with the repayment of any principal sum, with interest, thereafter to be borrowed by any such Company or Trustees, upon such conditions as the Lord Lieutenant, with the consent of the Treasury, may prescribe.

"The baronial presentment sessions may agree with the Company or Trustees as to the mode in which the Company or Trustees contracting the loan shall repay or secure to the barony any sums paid by the barony on account of such loan, with interest thereon.

"Such security may be taken on behalf of the barony by the secretary of the grand jury of the county.

"For the purpose of taking such security, the person holding the office of secretary of the grand jury of the county shall be a corporation sole, and shall have perpetual succession, with a capacity to acquire and hold lands, Government securities, shares in any public Company, securities for money, and real and personal property of every description, to sue and be sued, using an official seal, to enter into engagements binding on himself and his successors in office, and to do all other acts necessary or expedient to be done in the execution of this Act.

"Provision may be made by the Lord Lieutenant, with the consent of the Treasury, in any such instructions for all matters and things, whether of the same nature as those above-mentioned or different, which appear to the Lord Lieutenant to be necessary or expedient for the purposes of such presentments.

"So much of the provisions of the eleventh section of 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,' as relates to the powers of the Lord Lieutenant, and to the instructions issued by him, and also the provisions of the twelfth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth sections of the said Act, shall apply to all presentments made at any extraordinary presentment sessions convened in accordance with this Act.

"For the purposes of this section only, the power of convening extraordinary meetings of the baronial presentment sessions of any barony vested in the Lord Lieutenant may be exercised by the Lord Lieutenant at any time before the thirty-first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one."

(Supplementary provisions as to presentments.)

The Commissioners of Public Works shall, from time to time, for the purpose of enforcing any presentment made by the baronial presentment sessions of any barony charging the barony with any sum according to the provisions of this Act, make out before each assizes a certificate for each county in which such presentment has been made, specifying the amount then properly chargeable upon the barony under such presentment, and shall transmit the certificate to the secretary of the grand jury, to be laid before the grand jury, and thereupon the grand jury shall, without any previous application to presentment sessions, make a presentment for the amount specified in such certificate as payable by such barony, or, in default of such presentment, the amount shall be raised off the barony by an order of the judge of assize, which order shall have the force of a presentment. The amounts raised under such presentments shall be paid to the Commissioners of Public Works in such manner as the Treasury shall direct.

said, that in moving the Schedule of which he had given Notice, he wished to state that the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had seen it, and was quite willing that it should be inserted in the Bill. It was as follows:—

Proposed Schedule read a first time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That it be now read a second time."— ( Major Nolan. )

said, that the proposed Schedule limited the discretion of the Treasury to the particular undertakings mentioned in it. He did not suppose that the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Major Nolan) meant to prejudice the power of Parliament to consider any new matter when the Bill came before the House.

said, that he should like to know whether the Government would accept the Amendments standing in the names of other hon. Members, as well as those standing in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan), for, if they did, it would facilitate matters very much? He should probably take a division upon some of the schemes which were included in the Schedule of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway. He thought there were other schemes equally important in several districts which were not inserted in the Schedule. He thought that the selection, of those schemes should be made by the House, and that hon. Members who had anything to advance in favour of any particular scheme could then lay it before the House. No doubt, the hon. and gallant Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, might be convinced of the merits of these schemes; but he (Mr. Callan) thought that the House also should have some information upon them. It seemed to him that some of the lines proposed were of no importance whatever; whereas others of undoubted importance had been omitted from the Schedule.

Question put, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Schedule be now read a third time."—( Major Nolan. )

Amendment , to add, after No. 11, the words "and Mitchelstown,"—( Colonel Colthurst, )— agreed to.

moved to amend the Schedule by inserting the words "Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Canal," at end.

Amendment proposed, at the end of the Schedule, to add the words "Ballinamore and Ballyconnell Canal."—( Mr. Tottenham. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

said, he wished it to be understood that the object of inserting Companies in the Schedule was that there should be a limitation of Companies for whom it was possible that guarantees should be asked from the baronies. The fact of a Company being scheduled did not in the slightest degree imply that money would be lent by the Board of Works without full consideration of each application on its merits-

said, that the Colleague of the hon. Member who had made this Motion had, on a former occasion, painted this canal in the blackest colours. It would seem that the canal was perfectly worthless, and that the large sum of money spent by the Company had been entirely thrown away. He would remind the Committee that canals in the North of Ireland were the worst description of property; and, therefore, he thought that it would be injudicious to sanction the completion of the scheme, which had better be left alone. He should divide against the Amendment.

hoped that the Committee would not have to divide upon the Amendment. No sanction whatever, as he (Mr. W. E. Forster) had said, was given by the fact of a Company being scheduled, and he had already pointed out that this did not in the slightest degree imply that any money would be advanced.

said, he hoped the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) would not persist in dividing the Committee, because, as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) had stated, the Schedule did not imply that any scheme would be put into operation, or that any money would be advanced. The Government had given way on the point of the Railway Company being inserted in the Schedule, at the suggestion of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell), in order to facilitate the passage of the Bill. No actual pledge was given that the hon. Member for Cavan would not divide on a particular name; but, in the course of conversation, it was understood that everything would be done to pass the Bill through Committee.

said, he also trusted the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) would not divide the Committee. It was all very well, however, to say that the insertion in the Schedule did not bind the Local Government authorities to give the money. But it certainly presented the scheme as one worthy of consideration. He thought it was quite proper to oppose any addition to such schemes as the canal in question.

said, that as the Schedule was to be a list of possible and not impossible works, he hoped that the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) would withdraw his Amendment. He did not wish to do anything in opposition to the Government; but if his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) divided the Committee, he should be compelled to go into the Lobby with him, because he felt there was no use in including in this Schedule words which could not be carried out.

said, if the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) went to a division, he should vote against him; but he was not disposed thereby to commit the Government to any sort of action with regard to this canal, of which he knew nothing. He understood that some Irish Members disapproved the guarantee of the baronies; but that they had given up that objection upon the understanding that the Railways for which possible guarantees might be asked should be scheduled. He had been in doubt whether that should be done, but had assented, not wishing to throw any difficulties in the way of useful public works.

said, he hoped it was clearly understood that the claims of these Companies were not advanced one iota by the fact of their being included in the Schedule. It would be a grave matter if such a thing were supposed. It would be the duty of the Treasury to consider the claims put forward, as well as the capacity of the baronies to meet the charges which might be imposed by the Guarantee Railways in Ireland, on which Government money had been lent, and which had not, he was sorry to say, turned out profitably. However, if the advances tended to develop industry in Ireland, it would be a good thing.

said, the Committee would distinctly understand that there was nothing approaching to an opinion given in any way whatever by the Treasury. The words of the clause were—"The Commissioners of Public Works may if they think fit."

said, he knew by experience that the words, "may if they think fit," were very widely interpreted. If it was understood that the word "may" did not mean "shall," he should be contented.

said, that the words, "if they think fit," removed all doubt as to the meaning of the word "may."

said, that the reason why Irish Members were anxious to get Railways scheduled was that the consent of the special baronial sessions was sufficient for the purpose of making application for advances. One of the greatest blunders committed by late Administrations had been the difficulties placed in the way of making advances to Irish Railway Companies during periods of distress.

said, he appealed to the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) to withdraw his Amendment. It must be clear to the Committee that Railways must be more profitable than canals. He would remind his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Galway (Major Nolan) that understandings of the kind he had referred to were inconvenient. His feeling was quite as strong against the clauses of the Bill as formerly, and he certainly understood it was thoroughly open to any Member of the Committee to criticize the details of the Schedule. He should have had no objection to include any project that was unknown to him; but the one in question he knew to be of a very objectionable character, and, therefore, felt it his duty to oppose the Amendment. The Government, in his opinion, should support his contention, and the hon. Member for Leitrim, he hoped, would not put the Committee to the trouble of a division.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 155; Noes 4: Majority 151.—(Div. List, No. 74.)

The following additions to the Schedule were

"Railway from Ardee to junction with Great Northern Railway, at or near Blackmills, county Louth.

"Railway or Tramway from Port Oriel, Cloggerhead, to junction with Great Northern Railway, at or near the Cross of Grange, county Louth.

"Railway from, at, or near Kingscourt, to Carrickmacross, in the county of Monaghan.

"Railway or Tramway from Inniskeen to Carrickmacross, in the county of Monaghan."— ( Mr. Callan. )

"Tramway between Railway Station Kanturk and Newmarket, county Cork."—( Colonel Colthurst. )

"Railway from Swineford to Ballaghaderin, county Mayo."—( Major Nolan. )

"Tramway from Youghal to Cappagh; Causeway and Toll Bridge connecting Cunnigar with Dungarvan."—( Mr. Litton. )

"Railway from Headfort to Kenmare."— ( Mr. A. Moore. )

"Railway from Ballina to Ballisodare, county Sligo."—( Mr. D. O'Connor. )

"Railway from Laffins Bridge to Cashel."— ( Mr. O'Shaughnessy. )

"Railway or Tramway from Moate to Edenderry."—( Sir Patrick O'Brien. )

Schedule, as amended, read a third time, and agreed to.

Bill reported: as amended, considered.

Clause—

Postponement of making special rate under "The Seed Supply (Ireland) Act, 1880.")

"(At any time before the making by the board of guardians of any union of either of the special rates which the guardians are authorised to make under the provisions of the seventh section of 'The Seed Supply (Ireland) Act, 1880,' the Local Government Board, if satisfied by the representations made to them by the board of guardians or otherwise that it is expedient and necessary to do so, may, by order, authorise, or, if they think fit, may require the board of guardians to postpone the making of such rate for one year, and the board of guardians shall postpone the making of such rate accordingly.

"Such order may be made with reference to the whole of any union, or with reference to any electoral division in the union.

"Whenever any such postponement of the making of a special rate takes place in any union or electoral division, the payment of the amount of the instalment due in respect of the loan to such union or electoral division, and payable by the board of guardians of the union to the Commissioners of Public Works next after the issuing of such order, in accordance with the provisions of the fourth section of the said Act, shall likewise be postponed for the period of one year,)"—( Mr. William Edward Forster ,)

—

moved, as an Amendment, to insert in the first line of the clause, after the word "before," the following words:—"Or within one month after." The rates would be made in August, and the Bill would hardly be passed before the rates were made.

Amendment proposed, in line 1, after the word "before," to insert the words "or within one month after."—( Major Nolan. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

apprehended that the Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend (Major Nolan) required some further words to make it consistent, because, to insert those words merely, would make the clause an absurdity.

said, he believed the Amendment was not necessary, because the Local Government Board had been aware, for some time past, that the Bill would be brought in, and there would be no danger of its being made use of, and because he had every expectation that the Bill would become law before the end of the month.

said, the Seeds Act provided that the rate to be made for re-payment of loans advanced under the Act should be made, in the first instance, on the persons who obtained the seeds; but he believed that, in a great many instances, the rate had been made upon the entire electoral division, which was clearly illegal. It was evident there was a misapprehension on the point, and he wished to know whether the Chief Secretary for Ireland would take steps to set the matter right?

said, he would cause inquiry to be made. He had not previously heard anything of the matter.

said, if the Chief Secretary desired it, he would withdraw his Amendment, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would consider the point, and cause an Amendment to be made in "another place."

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause added.

, in moving the following Clause:—

(Guardians to be at liberty to sell seed sufficient for two acres.)

"That in case where the Guardians of any Union shall have sold to the occupier of any land valued at not more than fifteen pounds a quantity of seed, potatoes, or other seeds sufficient to sow two acres of land statute measure, and that the total cost of such seed shall not have exceeded the sum of five pounds, the Local Government Board, if satisfied that the land of such occupier was better suited to the production and growth of corn from the seed so sold to him as aforesaid, may, if they think fit, sanction the payment by the Board of Public Works of the seed so sold as aforesaid, notwithstanding the provisions of the sixth section of 'The Seeds Supply Act 1880;'"

said, the circumstances were, shortly, these. The Seeds Supply Act provided that two descriptions of seed might be sold to tenants who held land to the value of £15 per annum, sufficient to plant two statute acres, and to the extent of £5 worth of seed. In some cases the Guardians had exceeded their powers by supplying one kind of seed for the two acres which was suitable for particular lands, and this was a clause to indemnify those Guardians. They had in no instance exceeded the amount of money they were authorized to advance; and, therefore, he trusted the Government would allow the insertion of the clause, so as to protect the Guardians from any loss. It was quite in the discretion of the Local Government Board to refuse the payment of these monies in any instance where they were not perfectly satisfied that the transaction was bonâ fide , and arose from a mistake in the construction of the Act.

Clause (Guardians to be at liberty to sell seed sufficient for two acres)—( Mr. Foley, )— brought up , and read the first and second time.

said, he understood this was a very small matter. If there really was any misapprehension on the part of Boards of Guardians, he did not wish to take any advantage of that misapprehension.

did not object to the decision of the Government to accept the clause, if they understood it; but he found considerable difficulty in discovering exactly what it meant. How were the Local Government Board to be satisfied that a certain two acres of land were "better suited to the production and growth of corn from the seed so sold to him as aforesaid?" Were they to bind down Inspectors? The clause conveyed no precise notion to his mind of what was to be done, and he hoped that if the right hon. Gentleman was satisfied with it he would be able to carry it out.

said, there had been a blunder committed. Some of the Boards of Guardians, not reading the Act as lawyers, gave seed which they had in their stores, and which was suited to the quality of the ground. They made a mistake, and exceeded their powers. It was solely to allocate seed that was best suited for the ground. The fact was, that a blunder was committed in the drawing of the Act, through the ignorance of those concerned, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson) was himself mainly responsible that the Act did not provide for the contingency that had now arisen. If the Chief Secretary for Ireland applied to the Local Government Board and asked for a Return of the correspondence on the subject, he would find that the blunder was pointed out by a very large number of Guardians in Ireland; but it was too late then for Parliament to remedy it. Now, it would be but an act of equity and a considerate proceeding towards the Boards of Guardians on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to save them from the responsibility that had been entailed upon them by the blunder of the late Parliament.

said, he would suggest that the views of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson) as to the clause might be met by striking out the words in line 6—

"If satisfied that the land of such occupier was "better suited to the production and growth of corn from the seed so sold to him as aforesaid,"

as those words were not very grammatical.

said, if the words were struck out, the clause would read much better.

Motion made, and Question, in lines 6, 7, and 8 of the clause, to leave out from "if," to "aforesaid," inclusive, put, and agreed to.

Words struck out accordingly.

Clause, as amended, agreed to , and added to the Bill.

Clause 10 (Definition of improvements under s. 4 of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870).

in moving, as an Amendment, to insert in page 5, line 7, after "increase," the following words:—

"Of rent shall exceed the rate of two and a half per cent per annum interest on the capital expended in the execution of the said works, and",

said, he did not think it would be unreasonable to retain the rate of 1 per per cent, as a margin of 1½ per cent did not seem to him to be an unfair margin, considering that the landlord had the responsibility of making the works.

said, that under ordinary circumstances he would see no objection to an Amendment of this character; and, probably, under present circumstances, it would be prudent to accept it.

I must point out, before the Amendment is put, that the hon. Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) has a Notice on the Paper to move the ommission of the clause. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) will now withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

then moved to omit the clause, on the ground that it would impose an additional charge upon the landlords.

Amendment proposed, in page 5, line line 2, to leave out Clause 10.—( Mr. Warton. )

Question proposed, "That the words, 'Whenever by any award or otherwise' stand part of the Bill."

said, nothing could have been put in a fairer or more reasonable way; and he would not like to accept the responsibility of supporting the clause. There was something in the objection of his hon. Friend the Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) that it did, to a certain extent, add a new term to the contract. He would not suggest that it was a breach of faith; but it was a very serious thing to add a new term to the contract. However, having regard to the state of the House, he did not suppose his hon. Friend would press his Motion to a division; and he would admit that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland's Amendment presented the clause in a somewhat better form.

Question put, and agreed to.

Amendment ( Mr. W. E. Forster ) again proposed, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, at end of Clause to add the following words:—

"But the Court in awarding compensation, if any, to such tenant in respect of such improvements shall, in reduction of the claim of the tenant, take into consideration the time during which such tenant may have enjoyed the advantage of such improvements, also the rent at which such holding has been held, and any benefits which such tenant may have received from his landlord in consideration expressly or impliedly of the improvements so made."— ( Mr. Gibson. )

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

said, the Amendment was perfectly unnecessary; because, under the 18th section of the Land Act, the Judge could consider all those equities between landlord and tenant.

said, the Amendment contained nothing more than was contained in the Land Act; but he would not object to it.

said, it could do no harm; and it might do some good in "another place."

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

said, there were no further Amendments; and, on account of the urgency of the Bill, he ventured to ask the House to allow it to be now read a third time.

said, he saw no objection.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—( Mr. William Edward Forster. )

asked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would have any objection to insert words as to the time for the completion of works by landlords?

said, there would be no objection to lay upon the Table a Return showing the time at which the works were to be completed.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the third time, and passed.

Industrial Schools Act (1866) Amendment Bill.—[Bill 247.]

( Colonel Alexander, Mr. Robert N. Fowler, Mr. Villiers-Stuart, Mr. Whitley, Mr. William Holms, Mr. Blake. )

Consideration, as Amended

Order for Consideration, as amended, read.

, in moving that the Bill, as amended, be now considered, said, its object was to supply an unfortunate omission in the Act of 1866, which provided that girls under the age of 14, who were found destitute, or in company of reputed thieves, should be sent to an industrial school, but did not make the same provision with regard to young girls found associating with prostitutes. He was sure that children found with the latter class were quite as much in need of protection as if they were in the company of thieves; but, unfortunately, the law on the point was doubtful. In four streets in the Tower Hamlets, there were found no less than 58 girls of tender age, who were living in common brothels, and attending the board schools by day. The total number of girls in industrial schools in 1876 was only 200 as compared with 1,300 boys. He was sure the House would appreciate the magnitude of the evil for which the Bill was intended to provide a remedy, and in which this country was at present far behind many of the Colonies, Miss Ellice Hopkins, who deserved credit for having brought the matter under the consideration of the country, stated that juvenile prostitution was becoming daily younger and younger. He hoped that the House would not hesitate to grapple with, and, if possible; stamp out this hideous plague spot of juvenile prostitution. The hon. and gallant Member concluded by moving the consideration of the Bill.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill, as amended, be now taken into Consideration."— ( Colonel Alexander. )

Motion agreed to.

Bill, as amended, considered ; to be read the third time To-morrow.

Metropolitan Board of Works (Money) Bill

On Motion of Lord FREDERICK CAVENDISH, Bill for further amending the Acts relating to the raising of money by the Metropolitan Board of Works; and for other purposes relating thereto, ordered to be brought in by Lord FREDERICK CAVENDISH and Mr. JOHN HOLMS.

Bill presented , and read the first time. [Bill 272.]

House adjourned at half after Two o'clock.