, in rising to move—

"That, in the opinion of this House, a revision of the Import Duties upon Tobacco is expedient and necessary; that the system upon which Duty is now levied upon unmanufactured and upon manufactured Tobacco is beneficial to home manufacturers only, and is detrimental to the interests of the consumers in the United Kingdom,"

said, the method of levying duties on tobacco was very inequitable. It was a subject which affected almost exclusively the working classes in this country, because the duties were imposed chiefly on the kind of tobacco consumed principally by the working classes. The present system was one of enormous protection—a protection in favour of a few English manufacturers. He had been informed that protection as now accorded to the British manufacturer of tobacco was granted practically to 12 men who were large manufacturers in the United Kingdom. When this system was first proposed it might not have been intended that it should be in fact a protective duty. It might have been only intended to meet what would be the supposed loss in the manufacture of dry-leaf tobacco on which duty was placed. He would show, however, that there was no foundation for this belief, and that it had come to be an enormous protection. If they took 100 1bs. of ordinary tobacco of commerce, as sold in this country and consumed by the working classes, it would contain about 65 1bs. of dry-leaf tobacco, on which duty had been placed. The remainder would be water, and the duty upon that 65 1bs. would amount to £11 7s. 6d. If 100 1bs. of the same material were taken, manufactured outside the United Kingdom and brought into the Custom House, it would be charged not only upon the increased weight due to the moisture used in the manufacture, but it would be charged 1s. 4d. per 1b. more. The result was that 100 1bs. of foreign manufactured tobacco would pay a duty of £24 3s. 4d. as against £11 7s. 6d., the actual duty paid by the English manufacturer for the production of the same quantity of commercial tobacco for sale to the working classes of this country. Tobacco as consumed by our working classes was sold wholesale at 3s. 2d. per 1b. or thereabouts. The duty on that tobacco was 3s. 6d.; the cost of the tobacco he took at the low figure of 6d. as it left the manufacturer, making up a total cost of 4s. per 1b. How, then, were the English manufacturers able to sell at an apparent loss of 10d. per 1b.? Where was the profit to come from? The profit came from the pump; the tobacco was soaked in water and saturated with moisture of every description; and for that reason they were able to sell at 10d. less than the cost. Now, the manufacturers themselves were not satisfied with this system, and at their meeting on the 2nd of February, the hon. Member for Coventry (Mr. Wills) said that the addition of 4d. in thepound to the duty by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote) meant the adding of more water to the tobacco. Now, Cope's work, The Tobacco Plant, stated that there was nothing worse for tobacco than water; that it destroyed and deteriorated it. Therefore, the present system in inducing adulteration was bad. But it was even worse in the case of foreign manufactured tobacco. Suppose that a tobacco manufacturer in India proposed to import tobacco into England, when he brought it to London or Liverpool he was charged 4s. 10d. instead of 3s. 6d and adding 8d. as the prime cost of the tobacco at the docks or bonded warehouse that made up 5s. 6d. per 1b.; and that Indian manufacturer was expected to compete with the English manufacturer, who made a profit by selling at 3s. 2d. per 1b. That was because the English manufacturer was protected by the differential duty and also by the enormous adulteration in the shape of liquid. Great injustice was done to India by the present system. Taking 100 1bs. of tobacco as it arrived from India, and assuming that there was the same percentage of dry tobacco in it as in the case of 100 1bs. manufactured here, the Chancellor of the Exchequer under that system, instead of levying 8s. 6d. on that dry tobacco, levied a duty of about 7s. 6d. per 1b. The effect of that had been to prevent importation. Did the Chancellor of the Exchequer when tobacco was being re-exported from this country give a drawback on the water contained in it? By no means. He only charged for water; he did not pay for it. Now, his Motion would not interfere with the Revenue. He asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a small return to India for the £1,000,000 which she was obliged to give up on the demand of the Lancashire cotton manufacturers. India had levied a tax of 5 per cent on Lancashire goods; and what was the ground on which that tax was abolished? Not that its abolition would be an advantage to the manufacturers of Lancashire, but that it would be a great benefit to the people of India themselves. He did not ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer now to deal with the question of Indian tobacco on the same principle as was applied to Lancashire goods imported into India. He asked for nothing more than absolute equality between the English and the Indian manufacturers of tobacco. This was a question of policy as well as of justice. Was it a wise thing to treat India in this way—India that could give them a splendid and unlimited supply of the best tobacco, not like the stuff which the working men were now compelled to smoke? He thought that it was worth the while of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to encourage that country, especially as it would not affect his pocket. If this country was going to be a Protectionist country, let the fact be announced; but if we were to have Free Trade, then he wished to see it carried out with regard to India as well as to other countries. The system of Excise in America was a satisfactory one and worked well, tobacco being sold under a Government stamp. He did not wish to obtain any special favour; but he claimed that India should be allowed to manufacture tobacco and sell it to the working classes in this country without being handicapped by the system now in force, which, he believed, only existed because this question had never really been brought before the notice of the country. He had discussed the question with a good many Members of the House, and it was the universal opinion that the present system was indefensible. It was obviously desirable that the working man should have a really first-class tobacco instead of the rubbish which he was at present condemned to smoke. He was sure, if the facts of the case were known to the public, pressure would be brought to bear upon the Government, in order to bring about a change so desirable. He did not think that the argument would be made stronger by unduly prolonging it; but he desired to say that, under the present system, a premium was put upon smuggling. The extent to which this system was carried on around their coasts was enormous. Every day they had prosecutions; but still he did not believe that more than one case in every 10,000 was detected. Under the present system the temptations were great, and the amount lost to the Revenue was impossible to calculate. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would see his way to introducing a fair taxation upon tobacco when in a state fit for consumption. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution, which stood in his name.

seconded the Motion.

said, he hoped that the House would not consider it necessary to go into the whole question of the tobacco duties. The hon. Member had referred to the question of smuggling; but he thought the question of whether the tobacco duties as a whole were excessive or not was outside the present question, and he hoped that House would not discuss it; but he would say a few words on the actual Motion before them. The figures quoted by the hon. Member were accurate so far as he was aware. The hon. Member appeared to think that in the adjustment of duties on tobacco, as between tobacco manufactured at home and that manufactured abroad, especially in India, there was some unfair incidence of taxation, and that the tobacco manufactured out of this country paid more than it ought to do according to the principles of Free Trade. On this question he would remind the House of what the history was of the adjustment of the duties on tobacco. The former duties on tobacco, before the year 1863, were 3s. per 1b. on unmanufactured tobacco, and 9s. per 1b. on manufactured, including cavendish, with an addition in each case of 5 per cent. In 1862, the whole question of the tobacco duties was raised upon the representation of influential importers, not from India, but from Europe; and the Board of Customs undertook an exhaustive inquiry as to what would be a fair rate of duty to impose according to the principles of Free Trade. As the result of that inquiry, the following decision had been arrived at:—In the first place, there was an increase made of 4d. per 1b. with respect to artificially-dried, unmanufactured tobacco coming from abroad. At the same time, the duty on manufactured tobacco brought from abroad was reduced to 4s. 6d., or 4s. if manufactured in bond. So the duties remained until, a few years ago, the late Government increased the duties by 4d. per 1b. or thereabouts, making the rates on unmanufactured tobacco 3s. 6d. and 3s. 10d., and on manufactured 4s. 4d. and 4s. 10d. So far as could be ascertained from the Returns of the manufactured tobacco at home and the imports, the system had worked very fairly; and until the Notice of the hon. Member's Motion was put upon the Paper he was not aware that any considerable number of people disputed its justice. The hon. Member appeared to think they should deal specially with tobacco imported from India, because of its especial character; but, speaking generally, foreign manufacturers of tobacco were perfectly satisfied with the present duties, which were adjusted some time ago upon their own representations. When they established duties on imported articles as compared with duties on articles of the same character manufactured at home, they must do so upon general principles; and he could not consent to an alteration of the general duty on imported manufactured tobacco, with the simple object of giving India an opportunity of sending us more tobacco, to the detriment both of the foreign and home trades. They could not differentiate the duties on articles manufactured in other countries, so as to enable each to send us articles here at a profit. He quite admitted it was impossible for tobacoo from some countries to come in at a profit; but it had never been the theory of our fiscal system that duties could be so regulated as between different countries that their produce could be imported alike at a profit. That was the fault of the circumstances of the country and its produce, not of the incidence of the duty. He could only say that he was not prepared to reduce the duty on imported tobacco; and with much regret he must oppose the Motion of the hon. Member.

said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, by declining to take the question of the tobacco duties into consideration, refused to avail himself of a method of increasing the Revenue. In the year 1864 the duties were reduced by an Act which was passed in the previous year. The revenue from tobacco in 1863 was £5,774,000, and in 1864, with a reduction of duty, it rose to £5,984,000. In 1878 the duties produced £8,000,000; in 1879, £8,500,000; and this year, £8,892,000, or not £1,000,000 more than in 1878. This slightly increased revenue, however, was raised upon a much lower amount, and, consequently, the consumer suffered. When the late Government raised the duty in 1878, the retailers found that the consumer would not pay the additional farthing per ounce, and the manufacturers thereupon added 10 per cent of water to the tobacco. The poor man, therefore, continued to pay 3d. per ounce for his tobacco, but he got 20 per cent instead of 10 per cent of moisture. This was really a poor man's question. As the case now stood, the rich man paid a comparatively small duty. A decent cigar might be had at the cheapest for 40s. the 100, the duty being 5s. 6d. But the poor man, whose tobacco was only worth 6d. per 1b., paid 3s. 6d. per 1b. duty. The latter, accordingly, paid many hundred per cent of the value he received, whereas the rich man paid a trifling duty. Last year a Paper vas laid upon the Table, which showed that between 1881 and 1883 the value of the smuggled tobacco seized was £14,373; the penalties imposed, £22,000; the persons arrested, 3,000; and the quantity seized, 43,984 1bs. But these were merely the cases which had been found out, and which were but a small per centage of the whole. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer should look into this question. The Government were going to lower the franchise, and they might depend upon it that the 2,000,000 voters they were going to add to the constituencies would look into the matter for themselves. Tobacco was the only luxury of the poor man, and his most innocent enjoyment. He could not conceive how Government after Government, with all their professions of Free Trade, and of their desire to promote the happiness of the lower classes, should fear to deal with a duty yielding, he believed, £9,000,000. If they reduced the duty, they would not reduce the revenue. That was proved by what had taken place in 1864, when the reduction of the duty increased both the consumption and the revenue. The effect of reducing the duty would be that the poor man would get a better and wholesomer article instead of the dear and adulterated weed which he now smoked. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was going to debase the gold coinage; why should he not rather lower the rates on tobacco? Representing a constituency where this question was much discussed, and which was given to smoking, he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that if he dealt with the matter he would add much to the happiness of the working people.

said, that every year the Revenue sustained a considerable loss through the smuggling of tobacco; but he was not in a position to suggest how the difficulties of the case could be dealt with. He was afraid that his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Macfarlane) was not as successful in obtaining correct information as he might have been before he brought this question before the House of Commons. As a practical man, he (Mr. Wills) entirely agreed with everything which had fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he be- lieved that very few beyond the Mover of the Resolution had any doubt that the duties which were fixed in 1862 were arranged on a fair and equitable basis. Those who adjusted them, and worked them out had no pecuniary interest in the matter. Under no circumstances short of a preferential duty could Indian tobacco have any chance of consumption. On account of its inferior quality, it would never find a ready sale in the English market.

said, he would suggest that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might make some provision for facilitating the sale of cigars and tobacco in railway carriages. He thought some Revenue might be derived from issuing licences for this purpose.

said, at a time when tobacco was an absolute necessity to the comfort of a large majority of the human race there should be a revision, of the enormous duty upon it. They at present charged 3s. 6d. per 1b. duty on the commonest tobacco, while the article itself was sold at a lesser figure through being adulterated with water and certain deleterious compounds. The Scotch people, although they smoked more than, the English, consumed less tobacco, because the intelligent Scotch people after they had smoked a pipe took out the small portion of tobacco which remained at the bottom and placed it on the top of the next pipefull and resmoked it. The English people, however, had not arrived at that pitch of economy, and not only had they to pay 3s. 6d. for what was not worth more than 6d., but they had to throw away a considerable portion of what they put into their pipes. On the commonest tobacco the duty was 700 per cent, while only 10 per cent was paid on fairly good cigars. Therefore, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer paid only 10 per cent duty on the cigars he smoked, the poor man paid 700 per cent duty on the tobacco he smoked. If the Exchequer would insist on these obnoxious indirect taxes, to which he (Mr. Labouchere) was entirely opposed, there ought at least to be equality between rich and poor. Personally, he thought that the rich man ought to pay higher taxes than the poor man.

said, this debate had raised a much larger question than that of the duty on tobacco; it raised the whole subject of the incidence of taxation in this country. It seemed to him that in seeking uniformity we had sacrificed justice. Her Majesty's Government had set up the principle that duties must be uniform, whether the articles were tea, tobacco, or any other. It was a monstrous injustice to charge several hundred per cent on the tobacco of the poor man, while they charged a very moderate percentage on the cigars of the rich man. If it was possible to charge ad valorem duties in other countries it ought to be possible in this, and much easier, on account of the greater simplicity of our system and the very much fewer articles that we taxed. From his experience, he could say that the principle of an ad valorem duty worked without any practical difficulty in India; and where there was a will there was a way. He hoped the day might come when they would be able to produce a superior tobacco in India. As it was, they had not got to that point; they had quantity but not quality. The result was that under the system, by which cheap and dear tobaccos were charged at the same rate, the Indian tobacco was practically shut out, and injustice was done to our Indian subjects. This was undesirable and unfair at a time when they had abolished all import duties on articles sent from this country to India. He thought his hon. Friend had done very good service by bringing this matter forward.

said, that the consequence of the existing state of things was that the trade of India with this country in tobacco was crushed out.

said, he agreed with the hardships that were inflicted on the working class by the present incidence of the tobacco duty; but he did not understand that was the question raised in the Resolution of the hon. Member for Carlow. The question now raised was solely with regard to the differential duty on manufactured and unmanufactured tobacco in this country, and as an adjustment of the duty had been made, not only in 1862, but much more recently, he could not support his hon. Friend if he went to a Division.

said, he sympathized with much that had been said during the discussion; but he could not see his way to any alteration of the duty on tobacco in the direction in- dicated by his hon. Friend the Mover of the Resolution. He also fully sympathized with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Hollond) relative to the sale of tobacco in railway carriages; but he feared it would raise the much more serious one of the sale of liquor in dining-cars. This, he confessed, he should be sorry to have to face.

said, he rose to call attention to the following Motion, which he was unable to move by the Forms of the House:—

"That, in view of the Report of the Select Committee on Hall Marking of Gold and Silver Wares (1879), which, inter alia, recommended that 'the Duty upon Silver Plato, Customs and Excise, be abolished as soon as the state of the Revenue may admit,' and with special reference to the facts and circumstances disclosed in Parliamentary Paper No. 347, East India, Gold and Silver Plate (1884), this House is of opinion that the Duties upon Gold and Silver Plate, and the system of compulsory Hall-marking, should be abolished forthwith."

He thought he was perfectly justified in characterizing the laws and regulations which related to the trade in the precious metals as barbarous, and as affecting the trade and industry in a very injurious manner. They were especially injurious in stifling a trade which was now largely increasing in rival countries. They also had the effect of stunting the artistic design of this country, and of imposing a grievous and unjust burden on our Indian Dependency. He looked in vain for any compensating advantages arising out of the enactments relating to Hall-marking. It was, of course, alleged that they protected the purchaser and gave a guarantee of quality. If so, there would perhaps be some excuse for them; but he thought he could show the House that they failed in doing anything of the sort. It was some six centuries ago since those restrictions were first imposed. They belonged, in fact, to an era in the history of our commerce when restrictions and regulations were placed not only upon the quality, but also upon the price of nearly every article; but we had outgrown all these restrictions, except in the case of gold and silver. The public was, no doubt, compelled, in regard to the quality of every commodity it purchased, to take such precautions to safeguard itself as might be necessary; but, as he had said, these laws were no safeguard. Our Colonies, America, and other countries had got rid of enactments of this sort, as it had been found that they were no longer necessary in the interest of commerce. In this country the trade in the precious metals was languishing under the influence of these laws, while in America the trade was rapidly increasing; and, what was a still more serious consideration, our best workmen were going there because their abilities could find no scope in this country. It was not possible, for want of time, to go into these laws in any detail; but he might state that they imposed, generally speaking, the following conditions:— That all gold and silver, with the exception of certain articles manufactured in the United Kingdom, should be assayed and stamped, the cost of the stamp being 17s. an ounce for gold and 1s. 6d. an ounce for silver. There were five legal standards for gold—namely, 22, 18, 15, 12, and 9 carats, and for silver two—namely, 10 ozs. 12 dwts., and 11 ozs. 2 dwts. If manufactured articles were found not to be up to the legal standard, it was allowable to the authorities to break them up. As a matter of practice, silver goods were sent in a rough state to be Hallmarked, and then taken back to be manufactured. The next question was, what was the advantage accruing to the Revenue from all this tremendous machinery? It was but a trifling amount, and he was sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer would hardly assure the House that it was worth retaining at the cost and burden it imposed upon the country. The duty was gradually but surely effecting the extinction of the silver trade from England, though it might be said that the decline was to some extent due to the large increase in electro-plated articles. That might be so; but he could not think it was wholly accounted for in that way. In a rich country like this they might expect that the trade in articles of luxury would increase instead of diminishing. Besides, the extension, of the electro-plate trade in America had not produced a diminution in the silver industry, which, on the contrary, was rapidly increasing there. The Americans now produced articles of exquisite beauty which put to shame the silver productions of this country. As to the guarantee to the buyer, he knew it was commonly supposed that in buying Hall-marked silver the purchaser obtained a valuable security for the quality of the article. But that was not the case as a matter of fact. Imitations were made with very great skill, and with so much ingenuity as almost to defy the detection of competent experts. If that were so, surely the last vestige of argument in favour of these laws disappeared. He now came to a branch of the question of the greatest importance—namely, its relation to the trade of India and the people of that country. The injustice done to the extensive artistic silver manufacture of that country was most grievous. The rupee was the most easily available, and in many cases the only form of silver in India for manufacturing purposes, and because the rupee was below our English silver standard, we practically refused to receive the silver productions of that country. When Indian silver articles were presented at our Custom-houses, if not up to the required standard of Goldsmiths' Hall, the articles were liable to be smashed up, and this right was sometimes exercised. At best the articles were refused admission, and had to be re-exported. This was a crying injustice. We had made India drop its duties on imported cotton goods from this country, and we ought to take steps to give them a free market for their silver goods. Although he did not think the two questions were quite on the same footing, he maintained that our treatment of their productions was extremely shabby, and he thought we ought to take steps at the earliest possible moment to remedy the injustice. The revenue derivable from this source was really very small. The duty paid in 1853 was on 837,000 ounces of silver, and in 1883 on 644,000 ounces. The amount of duty now paid was only about £80,000; and he dared to say that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer agreed to this Motion, it would not be difficult to find some means by which the loss of that sum could be made up. He was aware of the difficulty in regard to the drawback; but surely the resources of our financiers could furnish, a remedy. He believed the way had lately been made easier, because he had been informed that for a sum of £100,000, or possibly less, the trade would be glad to make an arrangement with the Treasury by which the allotment of that sum might be spread over existing claims during a limited time, and thus the whole question of drawbacks be disposed of for a trifling sum. It was absurd to say that an important industry should be extinguished because a certain number of gentlemen interested in the trade would not allow the duty to be removed on account of their claims. He would rather ignore those claims altogether. All the authorities on the subject were on his side. Every sound economist was heartily in favour of abolishing the duty at the earliest possible moment. He was glad to say that both Lord Kimberley and the Under Secretary for India were not only heartily in favour of his Motion, but would, if official reasons did not prevent, give him a good word in Parliament in support of it. Certain correspondence had recently taken place in which the Under Secretary urged the Treasury to take early steps for the abolition of the duty on Indian silver. He was sure it would be gratifying to the Under Secretary and to all who took an intelligent interest in the subject, and above all to their fellow-subjects in India, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would to-night hold out some hopes of dealing favourably with the subject. He did not desire to prevent purchasers who wanted to have goods Hall-marked as a guarantee from getting them so stamped, but he objected to the Hall-mark being made compulsory. By the maintenance of this system they were inflicting a serious injustice on the trade, and perpetuating an economic heresy which was discreditable to a country professing Free Trade principles.

said, he wished to bring a little friendly pressure to bear upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer with regard to this subject. He believed that it was admitted on all hands that this tax ought to be abolished. The Government themselves had, in three successive years, proposed to abolish it. The only reason that it existed appeared to be the difficulty of dealing with the question of drawback. If, as the hon. Gentleman stated, £100,000 could settle this matter, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would, he thought, be delighted to settle it on those terms. But whether that sum would or would not be sufficient, he thought that if sufficient pressure in that House was only brought to bear on the Government they would find some way of getting rid of the drawback. It was most important to encourage as far as possible such manufactures as now existed in the country, and it was greatly to the advantage of the people of India that every stimulus should be given to all the manufacturing industries which now existed. In India there was a remarkable industry in the manufacture of Indian silver articles, and it was highly desirable that the trade should receive as much encouragement as possible. No doubt, if it were not for the Hall-mark an enormous trade might be done in this country of the silver articles manufactured in India. He would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether a special law could not be passed for the assay of Indian silver articles, so as to prevent the shameful incident mentioned by the hon. Member for Manchester with respect to the articles bought in this country made of rupee silver, and which were smashed up and destroyed? That was a matter which might be dealt with without the abolition of the duty, and without the Chancellor of the Exchequer incurring any fiscal loss whatever. He hoped hon. Members of the House would press upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer the extreme importance of this matter, especially from the Indian point of view, and that they would not have to wait long before justice was done to India.

, who had the following Motion on the Paper, which he was precluded by the Forms of the House from moving:—

"That, considering the unexampled liberality of the Government of India in freeing the produce and manufactures of the United Kingdom landed on the extensive coasts of India, from all Import Duties, whereby the Home trade and industries have been largely benefited; also, looking at the assurances, and promises given, during the last three Budgets that all Silver Plate manufactured in India would he admitted into the United Kingdom, it is now expedient that, all Silver Plate manufactured within the Indian territories should he admitted into the United Kingdom, without any liability to either Customs or Excise duties; and in so resolving, this House desire to record their wish to show respect to the claims and representations so strongly urged by the Government in India, and by the Indian Government at Home, to act justly and fairly in regard to the admission into England of Indian Silver manufactures,"

said, the House was indebted to the hon. Member for Manchester for having brought forward a question of very great importance to India. When he recollected that for two years India had removed all import duties, and that goods to the value of £35,000,000 had been freed from duty, he had said enough to show the importance of the sacrifice which India had made. He thought the example which India had set in this matter was one which put England to shame, especially when they considered that this country had taken pride in hitherto being foremost in advancing the principles of Free Trade. He wished, however, to do justice to the Prime Minister and to the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1881–2 the present Prime Minister in his Budget Speech strongly advocated the abolition of the duties on silver brought to this country, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget Speech of 1883 had also advocated the same course. The objections which had been raised by both right hon. Gentlemen were on account of the large sum which it would be necessary to pay with respect to the drawback. The Prime Minister had stated that the drawback would amount to £160,000 or probably more; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that a sum ranging between £120,000 and £200,000 might be the sum demanded. But he desired to point out that they were not now fighting for the abolition of the duty, because it had been admitted that this relief should be given, but only in regard to the amount of drawback which it was necessary to pay. By a comparison of figures he could show that this would not be so large as had been paid in the case of other duties which had been repealed, such, for instance, as the duties on glass, bricks and tiles, soap, and paper. In the case of soap there had been no drawback at all, and in the case of other articles the drawback paid had amounted to but a fraction of the annual duty upon each of this class of goods. He thought that £120,000 would cover all the claims that would be made on account of drawback. In the case of a country which had been so liberal in admitting English manufactured goods free of import duty, he thought he was justified in making an urgent appeal on behalf of a similar favour being extended to Indian manufactured silver articles. The important point was that probably in the history of the world they had never had such an example as that which had been set by India; and they had also had the Government in India and successive Secretaries of State for India all strongly appealing to the Treasury to abolish the duties on silver plate—a measure which would be but a fair and just return for the great benefits conferred on the industries of the United Kingdom by the repeal of the import duties on our produce and manufactures entering India. The justice of that demand had been over and over again admitted, and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer meant to do any good in the matter it was to be hoped that he would now speak out plainly. It would be unworthy of a Liberal Government which had hitherto professed Free Trade principles not to deal fairly and justly by India on that subject.

said, that at present the question of the withdrawal of licences was not before the House; but, no doubt, before long that would be asked for from, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the meantime, it was only the abolition of the duty that was asked for. The hon. and gallant General (Sir George Balfour) suggested that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should give £120,000 to settle the drawback. He objected entirely to the Chancellor of the Exchequer giving any such sum. He did not think it was justified in any way. That the duty operated most injuriously upon the trade has been shown by the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Slagg). It was a diminishing trade. One American house, he was told, made as much as the whole British trade did. That in itself was a fact that could not be accounted for very easily on any other ground than the prejudicial effect of the duties. The American house to which he referred not only did this enormous trade, but it came over here and took away all our best workmen, and our trade was starved in workmanship as well as in other ways by the Americans getting ahead of us so much. In his opinion there should be no drawback, for several reasons. Since 1881, when it was first proposed to take off the duty, the making trade had been starved. Naturally the makers would not go on manufacturing anything they had not absolute orders for. They would not go on making for stock. Even the public would not buy anything more than they greatly wanted to buy; and, accordingly, even if the amount of duty-paid stocks on hand in 1881 was very large, the amount on hand now must be a very great deal smaller than it was then. That was one reason why no drawback should be paid. But there was another reason, which was much more conclusive. It was this. The duty was 1s. 6d. per oz., but from that there was the rebate of 3d. per oz. Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

said, that at the time when the unsuccessful interruption took place, he was explaining that there was a rebate from the duty of 1s. 6d. of 3d. per oz., on the ground that the plate was sent into the Hall in an unfinished state, and that there was a certain loss of weight in finishing. The result of that rebate was that the makers contrived to send in their plate so nearly finished, that there was much less loss in finishing than the amount of the rebate they received. He was told that on plain goods, such as spoons and forks, the makers could actually make a profit of 2d. out of the rebate of 3d., and that in one case a large manufacturer made a profit of £1,000 a-year out of the rebate. Of course, the manufacturer asked if the duty was done away with where was he to get this £1,000 of profit? But he did not think that was a ground for refusing the abolition of the duty. It was, however, a very good ground for refusing the drawback, because they could say to these gentlemen —"You have been making an unfair profit out of the Government tax, and if you add that up you will probably find that the last half-dozen years of it comes to nearly, if not quite, as much as any amount yon could fairly claim for drawback on unsold goods at the present day." Apart from that, there could be no doubt that the sudden expansion of the trade immediately on the abolition of the duty would in a very short time recoup the makers for any loss by not getting drawback. That the trade would take a sudden bound he had not the slightest doubt. The mere fact of the trade being emancipated would tend to give it a new start. The House was, he thought, bound to consider India in that matter; and he entirely agreed in the appeal which the hon. and gallant Member (Sir George Balfour) had made on behalf of that great Dependency; but he did not think it would be necessary merely for that end to abolish compulsory Hall-marking, though in the case of India it would be necessary to give thorn a special Hall-marking suitable to the rupee silver, because that was the quality in which the bulk of their manufacture was made. It was only reasonable that the public should continue to have, while they wanted it, such guarantee of the genuineness of the goods which they bought as Hall-marking gave; but it should be voluntary, not compulsory. There was practically no Hallmarking of gold now except wedding-rings and snuff-boxes, and not much of it in the case of snuff-boxes, except, perhaps, the presentation snuff-boxes to the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) for blocking Bills in that House. But he did not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer made much revenue out of them. As to wedding-rings, they were constantly sold at prices which did not admit of paying the duty; and it was probable that many of them came from abroad fictitiously Hallmarked. He had not advocated greatly the abolition of the duty, because he considered the Chancellor of the Exchequer was already committed to that, and as to the drawback he did not think, as he had shown, that the circumstances of the trade warranted it. The drawback having been the sole difficulty in the way of abolishing the duty, he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer should throw that question overboard altogether—should simply abolish the duty, and tell the makers of silver plate that they must make the best of it.

said, that it seemed to him a remarkable thing that all the speeches which had been made on the subject were appeals for justice to India, regardless that it involved injustice to Clerkenwell and the silver manufacturers of this country. He did not attribute the falling off in the trade to the operation of the duty, but rather to the altered taste of the public and to the circumstances of the time. People moved about now more than they used to do, and for that reason were more unwilling to have the risk and trouble involved in having a large amount of silver in their houses, which would have to be sent to their bankers every time they moved. They had been told of the debt which England owed to India; but he could not see how that justified a proposal that India should be repaid by the silver plate manufacturers of London and other places in this country who owed nothing to India. He thought that such a proposal was wanting in common honesty. If the duty were repealed, the English manufacturers would still have to pay their licence duties, and he claimed justice for those who had paid their money on the face of the present law. All through the debate the English manufacturers had been lost sight of. He was not asking for any protection, but he asked that there should not be spoliation. If the duty was to be taken off, the plain, simple, honest, straightforward way was to pay back the duty that had been received for articles still remaining unsold. As to the question of the American manufacturers, the real reason of their being able to do such a large amount of business was the existence of considerable protective duties.

said, they had been told that the trade in gold and silver plate was declining, and that that decline was due to these duties. He was not at all sure that it was due to the duties; he thought that there were other causes. Under the present duties trade had increased for a considerable period, until the time when electro-plating came into use. Another reason which affected the trade was the change in taste which had taken place. But, whatever the cause, the Government had more than once expressed a desire of getting rid of these duties, which undoubtedly operated to the prejudice of trade between India and this country. He might say that the Government desired to abolish the duties as soon as possible; but it was not an easy matter when the amount to be taken away was considered. There was also the great difficulty of the drawback, and he was afraid, although supported by stronger reasons than had been advanced by his hon. Friend (Mr. Anderson), it would not be easy to say they would not allow it. They had always, when abolishing duties, allowed drawbacks to some extent on stocks held on hand. They could scarcely say to a man who had a quantity of plate on which he had paid 1s. 3d. per oz. was fairly treated if they said to him he had a profit out of the 3d. of rebate, and that he must place that against the 1s. 3d. when the duty was abolished. He would reply, and justly, that whatever advantage he might have derived from the rebate was an incident in his past trade, and had been taken into account in the competition regulating the profits of the trade, and could not now be reckoned against loss on abolition of duties. The question must stand over, for the present at least. He would, however, recommend his hon. Friend the Member for Manchester not to treat the question as one to be disregarded or to be dealt with in the way suggested by the hon. Member for Glasgow, and to see if he could not come to some understanding with the big dealers in gold and silver plate as to the terms on which their claims for drawback could reasonably be met. With reference to the Hall-marking of Indian plate, the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) had spoken of the law as it stood up to a recent date. The breaking up of plate falling behind the standard was happily not now necessary. That barbarous rule had been abolished, and the Government were not unwilling to consider whether something more could be done for India. It was said that a great deal of Indian work was so delicate and fragile that the application of the Hall-mark was likely to interfere with the design of such work. That was a matter worthy of consideration, because they might decline to enforce the application of the Hall-mark without taking away the liability to pay Customs duty. Should a proposal of that kind be made by the hon. Member for Manchester, he did not think the Government would have any difficulty in acceding to it. The suggestion to have a separate Hall-marking for plate of an inferior standard was a matter which had been considered by a Select Committee, and they decided against it. In conclusion, he must again assure his hon. Friend the Member for Manchester that the temper of the Government with respect to his proposals was as friendly as ever, and they would not be deterred from carrying out the policy of which they had more than once approved; but if they could see a way to the removal of the practical difficulty of the money charge involved in an allowance for drawback and also the loss of revenue, they would be as ready in the future as in the past to consider the abolition of these duties.

desired to say a very few words, because the subject was one of great interest to his constituents. There had been some very strange speeches—one from the right hon. Gentleman who represented the City of London, which reminded him very much of the gentleman who suddenly discovered he had been speaking prose all his life; and there had been a speech from the Secretary to the Treasury, which meant everything and nothing—a sort of speech to which he had been used for many years; and when he considered that it was five years since the Committee sat, and when he remembered that they worked hard and reported unanimously in favour of the change now proposed, he could not help regretting that nothing had been done. If a Committee was to sit and Report unanimously and nothing was to be done upon that Report, he could not see any use in the appointment of a Committee. There had been speeches about protection and about honest dealing, which he liked as much as onyone; but he did not find that when a duty of 25 to 30 per cent was suddenly taken off, even with the Crown duties, on other articles of commerce, there was any idea of compensation or drawback being allowed. It was always the trade like that represented by the City Alderman which was to be indemnified for what they would or might have lost. Really, the matter was becoming very serious. It was easy for the Secretary to the Treasury to pass it over, saying when he had money he would do something; but meantime the trade was going. He had heard with pity the reason assigned for the increase of American manufactures—the heavy duties put upon the import of such goods. They had a duty and they would keep it too; but it was not merely in America that we were superseded, it was in Australia, in New Zealand, in India, and everywhere where our goods used to be exported to or from this country. The next reason why in the last 25 years there had been such a great increase in American manufacture was that by degrees they had learned to manufacture everything. Under their system of Protection, they were now taking our best workmen away from our silver trade to the United States to supply our Colonies with goods we used to make ourselves. He did not think many hon. Members were aware of the enormous amount of the tax. It amounted to 1s. 6d. on 4s. 2d. Why, scarcely a tax in the United States or France equalled that. Taking the Indian point of view, we had bullied India like a stepmother into withdrawing her duty on cotton goods. We said—"Take the 5 per cent off cotton goods and we shall see what you shall see." And what had we seen? We taxed them 1,000 per cent on salt, and we still continued the 40 per cent on silver imports. He was very much obliged for the kind speeches and goodwill of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he wanted more; he wanted to stop the decline of a trade, and to put an end to the anomaly that with Free Trade we had the heaviest internal trade tax in the world. He had no wish to abolish Hall-marking. The recommendation of the Committee was a sensible one—to abolish compulsory Hall-marking, leaving the marking "for those who liked to adopt it." He sincerely hoped that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer had the means of doing so, he would make use of his funds in the direction advocated.

said, he had, as probably others had done, considered this matter in the view of his own convenience. He had personally no interest in maintaining the tax upon plate. Then with regard to the Hail-marking, which was not quite so easy a matter, he would be quite content with the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz), that the public would be very well treated if they had the option to purchase plate with or without the Hall-mark. In such case, however, a very severe penalty should be inflicted upon anyone who fabricated the Hall-mark. India had been most prominently mentioned in the discussion. That was a country in which, no doubt, this country had more interest than any other, and India objected to the present system, both on the ground that it hindered the importation of plate manufatured in India, and also on the ground of the inconvenience occasioned by the Hall-marking of plate of the very fine workmanship produced in that country. He had the very warmest sympathy for India, more especially so because he thought that all the parts of the Empire ought, as far as possible, to be treated as one. Finally, there was the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be considered. He had three difficulties to contend with. There was the question of the Hall-mark, the question whether he could afford to part with the tax, and also the question: of the drawback. With regard to the portion of the trade which advocated this change, he believed it to be by no means suing in formâ pauperis, and, therefore, there were no grounds for the change on that score. After all, this was a matter which, in his opinion, was not to be settled by a discussion in the House at large, but by the calm and quiet consideration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the officials of his Department; and if the right hon. Gentleman could arrive at any decision which would be to the advantage of the public in this country and in India, he would have his warmest sympathy. He trusted that this question would, either next year or the year after, be completely and satisfactorily dealt with.

said, he believed he was in Order, at that stage of the proceedings, in raising the matter which was embodied in the Resolution which stood in his name. The Resolution was—

"That, in the opinion of this House, Customs Duties should be replaced upon those Foreign importations which, contributing nothing to our National Revenue, come into unfair competition with our National industries; also, that; Spanish and French Wines and other Foreign alcoholic drinks should be made to contribute more largely, and that the moneys thus obtained should go in reduction of the taxation which is proposed by the Budget Resolutions."

It seemed to him that the question that they had been discussing was part of a larger one, a question which deserved larger consideration than it was likely to get in the present state of the House. [There were not more than a dozen Members present.] Let him, before he passed to the specific subject, express his sympathy with what had been said by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) and the hon. Member who had just spoken as to our duty towards India with regard to the silver trade. He wished, in general terms, to express his concurrence in their objections to the proposals of Her Majesty's Government in the Budget, and he would proceed to speak, as briefly as he could, on the particular proposals he had expressed in his Resolution. It seemed to him that those questions in the present stage were questions for the country, rather than for the House of Commons; and he thought they had some reason to complain that those who directed the fortunes of the Conservative Party did not keep their eyes open as to the necessity of treating these trading questions in the way he thought they ought to do. They followed too much the error which applied to the Front Benches on both sides of the House, and thought too much of Party politics, and too little of the great questions with which the bulk of our population were concerned. As regarded the franchise, he remembered well a speech of the late Lord Beaconsfield, when he was defending himself, and how that great man said that, for himself, he could always trust the common sense of the people of this country. Like him, he (Mr. Mac Iver) felt that the common sense of the people might be trusted fully when the franchise was extended; and they would find the common sense of the people calling out for more attention to questions where their trade, their wages, and even their welfare and happiness were concerned. It seemed to him that, in the question of manufacturing industries, there was nothing of greater or more direct interest than the unfair competition of foreign manufacturers, and there was no part of Her Majesty's Dominions which had a greater complaint to make in the matter than the little Island across the Channel (Ireland); for when it suited us to be Protectionists, we destroyed her trade; and we destroyed her manufactures when it suited us to be Free Traders. He would have no case at all in support of his Resolution, if he could not show that the foreign importations which contributed nothing to our National Revenue was very large. It was said constantly that our importations were so trifling that it was useless to tax them. That, however, was not the case. The figures were very succintly set forth in a statement prepared by Mr. Slier-look, of Liverpool, whom he knew well. Taking only seven articles, which everyone would admit were manufactures, and which came in competition with our home industries, they got at once figures which completely disproved the case set up against him. The articles he proposed to take were silks, woollens, cottons, gloves, manufactures of tanned leather, clocks and watches, and manufactures in iron and steel. Looking back for the last 10 years, and simply adding up the figures of the Board of Trade Returns, what was the value of the importation of these seven articles? They might be insignificant, but he found that they amounted to more than £355,000,000 sterling. Those who maintained that it was useless to tax such articles had only to figure it out, and they would find that a duty of 10 per cent upon these seven manufactured articles alone would have produced in the 10 years £35,937,887 sterling, or something very closely approaching half the entire Revenue which it was proposed by Her Majesty's Government to raise by the present Budget. He went further, and said that there was not one of those articles which was ever purchased by the working classes of this country. They were the luxuries of the rich; they were not the necessaries of the poor. They were things which might well be taxed, and which, if taxed, would produce a large revenue, and which in turn would enable the Government to remit a large amount of taxation, and do a great deal to render unnecessary many of the proposals in the Budget, which generally he intended to oppose. It might be that the case which he sought to present to the House would receive very little attention or sympathy from politicians in the House of Commons; but he could assure hon. Members that he had had within the last year or two addressed working-class audiences in Bradford, Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, Ashton, Liverpool, Birkenhead, and elsewhere, and he had addressed audiences, not specially Conservative audiences, on this question, and wherever he had spoken he had found entire sympathy from the working men, who were perfectly able to appreciate the reality of foreign competition, which was taking their employment from them and reducing their opportunity for earning wages. Take, for instance, the present position of our trade with France. They heard a great deal of the advantages of cultivating the trade with France; but it was not everyone who had carefully looked into the statistics of that trade, and there were comparatively few who knew what the trade really was. Without wishing to weary them, he wished to point out this—that the importations from France of farm and garden produce alone, amounted in value to something like £15,600,000 sterling annually. That was to say, those things alone, without any question of foreign-manufactured goods, were worth more than the whole of everything which this country was able to send to France. He was, therefore, surprised that hon. Members representing agricultural constituencies did not join him in asking that Customs duties should be imposed on the products of foreign countries. France would not take our manufactured goods; but we took from France every year manufactured goods to the value of upwards of £25,000,000 sterling, and the whole of these goods came into competition with the industries of Great Britain and Ireland. Take those articles of ladies' dress, which if they did not come from France, would come from Ireland. It seemed to him to be a monstrous injustice that we should continue to receive these things from France and other foreign countries, and that they should contribute nothing to the relief of our National Revenue. Those who manufactured similar articles in this country contributed to the National Revenue. It was only the foreign manufacturers which did not; and if our home manufacturers were able to make a profit—he was afraid that of late profit upon home manufactures had been very small—they were required to pay Income Tax upon that profit. One Member of Her Majesty's Government, and more than one hon. Gentleman he saw sitting opposite to him, invested their money in manufactories in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent of Europe, and it did not follow at all that they paid Income Tax on any of the profits that they received from the imports they introduced from those countries. His authority for the statement, if it were true, was Mr. Giffen, who enjoyed a dual capacity—a gentleman who, at the same time, was at the head of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade, who was a Radical in politics and was one of the staff of The Times newspaper—who argued that there were large sums of British money invested abroad. The return from Income Tax on those foreign investments ought to correspond with the value of the shipments, if those shipments represented, as Mr. Giffen declared they did, the profits on our foreign investments. That gentleman argued against a case which some friends of his (Mr. Mac Iver) were endeavouring to show—the case of excessive importation of foreign-manufactured goods to this country. He told them they were wrong about the balance of trade being against this country—that this balance against us was really profit—and that any other idea was an old and exploded fallacy. Well, that was true in a way, but it was only true half-way. What was also true, was that, for the last few years, when this country had been depressed, we had a balance of trade not only against us, but much more against us than before. ["No, no!"] Mr. Giffen argued that such an excessive balance of trade against us was caused chiefly by foreign countries paying us for our shipments to them. It was very difficult to confute that statement, until they came to this—by considering the question of Income Tax generally; because if it was true, as Mr. Giffen said, that there were large sums of money invested abroad, the returns for Income Tax for those moneys ought, in some measure, to correspond with the value of the profits represented by shipment of goods to this country. Nothing of the kind, however, took place, because there was a large missing balance, and, therefore, he thought it was perfectly clear that the investments abroad, or many of them, altogether escaped the payment of Income Tax. Then, again, with respect to our commercial relations with Spain, he thought the Government were rather unwilling, at this time, that those relations should be spoken about. It was very difficult to get anything out of the noble Lord the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and he sometimes doubted whether it was because he was unwilling, or because he did not know. This much, however, we had been able to glean—that when the Government entered into negotiations with Spain, they properly asked to be put on the same footing with Spain. They were obliged to say, however—"We cannot give anything, because we have nothing to give;" and Spain declined to give us anything because we had nothing to give. Lord Beaconsfield pointed out how hopeless was the position of this country in sending to bargain with other countries, because we had no duties in hand, and nothing to give. The position he understood Lord Beaconsfield to take up was this—that it it was not for him to, or the Party which he led, to move in the question unless the country asked them to do so, but that we had a right to do what he (Mr. Mac Iver) asked the House to do that night—replace duties on the goods of foreign countries who would not meet us in a fair spirit, and then we should have something to give in return when we wanted anything to be done.

said, he fully supported the views of the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Mac Iver). He had been expecting both this and last Session that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have gone further than he had yet done, and that he would have made a bold and liberal effort to wipe off those miserable and petty duties which pressed so heavily on the working classes throughout the United Kingdom—namely, the duties on tea, coffee, cocoa, dried fruits, and similar articles. The total sum yielded by those imposts was only £4,500,000 a-year. He (Mr. O'Sullivan) understood it cost nearly £500,000 to collect them, and the remaining £4,000,000 might be replaced by an additional 2d. on that popular tax—theIncome Tax; and when he said popular tax, it was proved in 1874 that the tax was popular with the electors of the country, because when the present Prime Minister offered, in that year, to abolish the Income Tax if returned to Office, the reply of the electors was to send him back in a minority, and put those in Office who would continue the tax. An Income Tax, properly adjusted, was one of the fairest of taxes, because the pauper and the working man escaped it altogether; but he thought the impost might be made lighter on precarious than on permanent incomes, and he hoped that the day was not fur off when some Government would be courageous enough to place it on a fairer basis. There was a description of property which ought to be one of the first subjects of taxation, but which was now, in his opinion, most unfairly exempted. He meant ground rents of houses, which accumulated, not by any exertion or outlay of capital on the part of the owner, but by the industry and thrift of the working classes, who built houses which were, perhaps, 50 years afterwards confiscated by a succeeding owner of the ground rents. It was calculated the ground rents of this country amounted to about £20,000,000 a-year. A tax of 10 per cent on that sum would produce £2,000,000 of Revenue, or about half the amount required to take off the potty taxes now pressing on the working-classes to which he had referred. Indirect taxation was very unequal in its incidence on the poor and the rich. For example, common. London gin, of which 19–20ths were, unfortunately, consumed by the poor and working classes, was worth only from 20s. to 24s. per dozen, duty paid; and on that duty was 15s. per dozen; while champagne, that was worth from £3 to £5 per dozen, was only charged 2s. duty per dozen. Again, Madeira, old-crusted port, and sherry paid only 5s. duty per dozen; whereas whisky, which was worth 30s. per dozen, paid 18s. duty per dozen. The poor man's tobacco was also taxed far more heavily than the rich man's finest cigars. He reckoned that the working man paid 10 per cent of his income in taxation, while the man with £10,000 a-year did not pay 5 per cont. The tendency of all the laws of England showed that they were made by the rich simply to tax the poor; and so long as that state of things existed it was a disgrace to England. He could see no reason why Clubs should not be taxed, as they were made use of by the rich for the purpose of luxury, or in some instances as a means of evading the law. They sold ad libitum duty-paid articles without a licence; while the unfortunate trader was compelled to pay a licence tax for everything that he sold. The result was, that they had considerably increased; and he therefore asked why should not Clubs be taxed? As an instance of the abuse of Clubs, he would mention the case of one in Dundee—the Artizans' Club—which did not consist of more than 100 members, whore it was proved in Court that, on Sunday, the 13th of April, there were sold in the Club-house no fewer than 290 glasses of whiskey, 1,200 bottles of porter, and 18 gallons of draught beer. He should have thought it impossible that, in a Club of 100 members, so much liquor could be consumed in one day. He did not bring this instance forward as a point against Scotchmen; but he mentioned it simply to show how Clubs, which had not to take out licences, and which were petted by the Government, abused their privileges. ["No, no!"] At any rate, it was clear that a tax upon such institutions would help considerably to swell the balance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget. Another matter to which he wished to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the great reduction of expense which would be brought about by the amalgamation of the Customs and Inland Revenue into one, and so reducing the expense of collection.

said, he wished to bring under the notice of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer a rather curious class of his constituents who desired to be taxed; and he thought it would be the first instance that evening in which they had men themselves coming boldly forward and pleading to be taxed. It appeared that, according to the Scottish law, dwelling-houses might be let on verbal leases, and that such verbal leases were binding. It was desirable to have some record of these agreements, and it was the usual custom of the landlord or house-factor to write and ask whether the tenant meant to continue in occupation. That communication and the reply of the tenant in the affirmative, were held as proof of the verbal agreement. It had, however, been held that these written memoranda of verbal agreements were equivalent to leases, and consequently subject to a tax of 10s. per cent. The tax was the same for yearly letting as for a lease of 30 years; and the consequence was that this heavy tax discouraged the keeping of written memoranda of agreements of house-letting. The house-factors of Scotland, therefore, came down to the House in his (Dr. Cameron's) person, and begged the Chancellor of the Exche- quer to impose a small tax upon these written agreements. They suggested that he should sanction a 1d missive stamp as legalizing an agreement for the letting of a house under £10 a-year rent, and they pointed out that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would make money by the transaction. In Glasgow, at the present moment, the right hon. Gentleman did not receive £15 of duty, because 95 per cent of the agreements were simply verbal, and consequently paid no tax whatever. They stated that if a 1d. missive stamp was imposed it would be universally used, and would yield £132, or a clear gain in Glasgow alone of £117. The amount was not much; but, in those days of small surpluses, it might be of some advantage. The house-factors of Edinburgh endorsed the view of the Glasgow house-factors, and they put forward the statement, for example, that of 4,274 houses let at rents under £10, there were only 20 cases where stamps were employed. Had 1d. stamps been employed, instead of the £2 now accruing to the Revenue, the amount would be £17. The same story was told throughout Scotland, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would be able to oblige them by imposing this tax.

said, that he had had a Motion on the Paper—

"That this House regrets to learn that no provision has been made in the Financial proposals of Her Majesty's Government to give effect to the Resolution of the House of Friday, March 28 (on the subject of Local Taxation);"

but he thought that this was hardly a fitting opportunity to bring it forward. He would therefore propose to reserve his remarks until an occasion arose on which he could take the sense of the House upon it.

said, that he had early in the Session put a Question as to the carrying out of the Resolution which had been passed last year advocating the reduction of the National Expenditure. The reply of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to that Question had been that, in con- junction with some gentlemen of the Treasury, he had been engaged in a very careful examination of different branches of expenditure, and that, in consequence of this investigation, he believed he was on the way to secure a considerable economy, without interfering with efficiency. For his (Mr. Rylands's) own part, however, from the Estimates laid on the Table, he was bound to say that down to the present time he saw no very great evidence of any remarkable economy on the part of Her Majesty's Government. The present Government had made large promises to secure economy in administration, and to relieve the country of much of the burden of taxation; but, so far from doing that, in some cases the burdens were increased. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that throughout the country, and especially in the manufacturing centres, there was great dissatisfaction as to the expenditure incurred and justified by Her Majesty's Government. He thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in making his very decided separation between what he called taxation and income not in the nature of taxation, was somewhat misleading the House and the country. Take, for example, the postage and telegraph stamps. There were several millions of profit left; and he thought that the moment they got a profit, then they were bound to consider that that profit was a portion of the Revenue of the country that was imposed on the taxpayer. He was not so unreasonable as to suppose that reductions in expenditure could take place without some delay; but he believed that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, instead of adopting so ambitious a scheme in regard to the reduction of the National Debt, which gave no general satisfaction to the taxpayers of the country, had given a certain portion of the money which would then have been at his disposal to the relief of the taxpayer and to the loosening of the springs of industry, that would have been a far more popular and far more advantageous thing to the country. He did not say that it was not prudent to discharge national obligations; but what he complained of was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had, at a time when the trade of the country was suffering from foreign competition, raised money which would benefit people who in future years might be able to bear burdens better than the taxpayers who were now living. At the present time, also, the people were paying for local advantages which ought to have been provided by their predecessors, and establishing permanent institutions which would benefit future generations. These local burdens amounted to many millions. He could understand the argument in favour of a large payment to the National Debt if the Government had made a considerable reduction in the expenditure of the country; but he was bound to say he had seen no evidence of that economy which he had reason to hope would have been displayed by Ministers. What he had looked forward to, and what he desired, was the Government proposing the appointment of Committees of that House to inquire into the condition of the great spending Departments. He had too much confidence in the Chancellor of the Exchequer to unduly press his views in that respect upon him during the present Session; but he hoped that when they came to examine the expenditure of the country during next Session, in accordance with the expectation held out by the right hon. Gentleman, the Committees would consist of Members of that House, and not of Gentlemen who were permanent servants of the Crown. The Heads of the great Departments of the State deserved the highest possible honour and respect. They were, however, Gentlemen who, by the very nature of their position and by the conditions of the society in which they moved, were always awake to their own interests. When the people were asleep, they were awake. He hoped the Government would tell the House what course they proposed to take to reduce the evergrowing expenditure; and he should be very glad indeed if the right hon. Gentleman could give the House and the country some definite assurance with regard to its reduction. Next Session he hoped, at least, that the Government would appoint Select Committees carefully to investigate the main branches of the National Expenditure.

said, he wished to refer to a subject which affected a large number of the labourers in the Eastern Counties—namely, licences to private persons for permission to brew. Since the alteration of the Malt Tax in 1880—an alteration made avowedly for the purpose of benefiting the agricultural interest—the labourers had been charged 6s. for these licences to brew. But the average quantity of malt brewed by these men did not, he believed, exceed three bushels; in many cases he did not suppose it exceeded two; and the charge of 6s. for a licence was therefore some few pence more than the duty under the old Act, which, for two bushels of malt, would have been about 5s. 8d. The average assessment of agricultural houses in the country did not exceed £3, and this licence for being permitted to brew was accordingly equal to an Income Tax of 2s. in the pound upon the houses occupied by these labourers. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be able to see his way to reduce the cost of the licence, although he was perfectly well aware of the impossibility of doing away with it altogether. Without licence or registration, no doubt there would be a good deal of evasion of the law and fraudulent brewing; but he could see no reason why the 6s. licence should not be reduced to 1s., or, at any rate, to considerably less than the figure at which it stood at present. This suggestion he earnestly commended to the serious attention of the right hon. Gentleman in the hope that, at some future time, he would afford the desired relief.

said, he hoped that if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not acquiesce in the suggestion of his hon. Friend (Mr. Hicks), he would, at least, say whether it was not in his power to order that this tax of 6s. upon brewing might not be collected, say, in two half-yearly instalments of 3s. each, instead of in one lump sum for the twelvemonth; or whether a man might not be permitted to take out a licence for six months instead of for twelve. On the Budget night he ventured to place before the right hon. Gentleman an idea of the extreme hardships inflicted on the agricultural labourers who had to pay 6s. before they could brew a drop of beer. Although the total amount might appear to some to be comparatively small, still, at the same time, it came to be a very considerable amount to the labourer to find, when they came to consider that, in addition to the tax on brewing, he had also to find his materials wherewith to brew, and which would amount to 12s. or 13s. He might instance a parallel case in which the right hon. Gentleman, as he had himself admitted, had attained considerable success, and that was with regard to the 14 days' game licence for £1. No doubt it was an extremely useful privilege for a lawyer to be able to have the great pleasure of shooting a grouse or a partridge during the early days of August and September during the Long Vacation. It was also equally pleasant for a boy come home for the Christmas holidays to have a shot at a cock pheasant. But he submitted that the relaxation for which, he asked was of much greater practical benefit; and he certainly thought that, considering the advantage it would be to the labouring man, the suggestion was one which ought to commend itself to the serious consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. During the Budget debate, the right hon. Gentleman said there were some people who would prefer paying the 6s. in one sum; and, of course, he (Mr. Clare Read) was not prepared to assert that everyone would take half-yearly licences. If people wanted to pay the whole of the money at once, by all means let them do so; but he fully believed the right hon. Gentleman would not find a cottager in the United Kingdom that would not prefer half-yearly payments. In fact, he was almost certain it would be found that many cottagers would be glad and only too willing to pay the half-yearly instalment of the tax, who could not pay that for the 12 months. The transfer of the tax from malt to beer had been most profitable to the Revenue, for whereas the duty upon the malt had been 5s. 1½d. per barrel upon the beer, now the duty was upon the manufactured article it paid 6s. 3d.

said, that he was much obliged to hon. Members who had given him such valuable suggestions for a fancy Budget. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver) had made an interesting speech in favour of protective duties, and had enumerated seven articles which might be so taxed as to produce a revenue of £3,500,000. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was, however, afraid that that was not the time to re-introduce the policy of Protection into this country. He, therefore, could not accept the hon. Member's suggestions. The hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) had spoken of additional revenue to be derived from what he was pleased to term that popular tax, the Income Tax. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had never heard it called a popular tax before; but the hon. Member had judiciously explained that it was popular with those who had not to pay it. The hon. Gentleman had proposed to raise £2,000,000 a-year by taxing ground rents; but he did not seem to be aware that, although ground rents were not subject to local rates, they were already subject to the Income Tax; so that they would have to be subject to a special rate of Income Tax, if more was to be got from them in this way. The hon. Member thought that the duty on gin ought to be reduced, and that the tax on certain wines, such as Champagne and Madeira, might be increased. But it would be difficult to make much out of that proposal, as the duties on spirits amounted to£l8,000,000or £20,000,000, while those on wines brought less than £2,000,000. It was not easy, therefore, to see how any sensible relief could be afforded in that way to spirits; for the increase of revenue from wine would be far from, meeting the decrease from spirits. With respect to the taxation of clubs, he did not think that much could be made out of them. He would admit that there were in the country many spurious clubs; but the police had, during the past year, brought prosecutions against several of them with considerable success. While, therefore, he was anxious to do all he could to deal sharply with sham clubs, he should be very reluctant to discourage real working men's clubs by taxing them, and it was undesirable to do so. For his part, he was not prepared to say that the working men's genuine club, of which there were many, should be subject to taxation any more than the clubs of those who were in a better position in life. His hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) had made a suggestion which, he imagined, could not but be palatable to him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), inasmuch as he proposed a new tax on people who were ready to pay. But when he detailed his plan, it turned out to be only a proposal to tax agreements for letting houses in Scotland 1d., instead of the much higher rate to which they were now liable, but which was sometimes evaded. He was not prepared to do this. He desired to treat the remarks of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) with great respect. The hon. Member had been for a long time past a consistent advocate of the reduction of Public Expenditure, and the Motion he had made last year had not been unproductive. The question of economy in connection with the permanent officials of Departments had not escaped his (the Chancellor of the Exchequer's) attention, as he had shown in his Budget speech, and good results had already been achieved, and better were hoped for in the future. The hon. Member for Burnley had said he could not see, on the face of the Estimates, where economies had been effected. But, in dealing with the expenditure of a large number of Public Departments, whose expenditure ramified in many directions, and was under the direction of many persons, they could not, without great patience and a considerable interval of time, largely reduce establishments. The process must be gradual, and the result of the most careful deliberation. At the same time, with the assistance of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and of the permanent Heads of the Departments, he had initiated and carried out an exhaustive examination of a portion of the Estimates submitted to the House. When the Votes were taken, his hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney) would be able to show what improvements had been effected, and also what prospective economies it had been decided to carry out. In the speech he had referred to, he had stated the general effect of what the Government was doing and what they proposed to do; and he could only say he should not shrink, so long as he continued in his present Office, from going on in the course he had taken during the past year of pressing on and enforcing economies in this, as in other matters, gradually where opportunity presented itself, and where it could be done without detriment to the Public Service. He did not wish to overrate the amount they had done; but, comparing the present with the Estimates for 1873–4, he had already shown that, excluding the Post Office, the grants-in-aid of the local taxpayer, and education, great economies had been effected. But the real offender was the House of Commons. For one proposal to reduce expenditure, there were 20 or 30 to increase it. This tendency was not limited to the Army and Navy; there was hardly any Department with respect to which the Treasury had not to meet proposals for additional charges. For instance, he had been asked that day to approve a great additional charge for the Inland Revenue Department, which he did not think necessary; and he would, therefore, ask his hon. Friend and those who thought with him to join in assisting the Government in resisting the pressure for increased expenditure in that House, which was far stronger and far more difficult to meet than any pressure on the part of public servants. With regard to what fell from the hon. Member for West Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) on the subject of brewing licences, he must admit that it was by no means an easy question; it was one, moreover, which concerned not only the small brewers to whom he had referred, but those who contributed much larger sums to the Revenue. He believed he had answered all the questions which had been put to him, and he trusted he had satisfied hon. Members. He hoped the House would now resolve itself into Committee.

I wish, Sir, to submit to you, as a point of Order, whether, on the Motion for leaving the Chair, I cannot call attention to your ruling and conduct in the Chair on a recent occasion? There has been some question whether any Motions raised on going into Committee of Ways and Means must not be relative to the Budget; but I have looked into the authorities on that subject, and I find that Sir Thomas Erskine May, in his Parliamentary Practice, ninth edition, lays it down that the ancient Constitutional doctrine of redress of grievances before Supply is now represented by the practice of permitting every kind of Amendment to be moved on the Question that the Speaker do leave the Chair. I therefore wish to ask you, Sir, if I am not entitled to submit to the consideration of the House certain rulings of yours on a former occasion?

I submit this as a point of Order.

I rose to speak to that point of Order. The hon. Member has raised, very fairly and distinctly, the particular point which he wishes to submit to the decision of the Chair. He desires to know whether he is right in thinking that the question he proposes to raise respecting certain rulings from the Chair cannot be properly debated before going into Committee of Ways and Means, although it does not relate distinctly to the matter of Ways and Means. I also wish to submit to you, Sir, as the hon. Member has kindly stated the purpose with which he raises this question, certain other considerations that appear to me to bear upon the point of Order. The hon. Member, as I understand, desires to question certain rulings of yours. He desires to question your conduct in the Chair in the discharge of your duties as Speaker of this House. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the hon. Member is right in saying that the mere want of relation between the subject he wishes to introduce and Ways and Means is no impediment, it appears to me that there are other impediments. They are these. In the first place, I observe that no Notice has been given of the hon. Member's intention to question your conduct in the Chair in the discharge of your duties. He gave a Notice this evening—though I did not hear the precise terms of it; but I believe I am correct in saying that a verbal Notice in the strict sense is, in this House, no Notice at all, and that a Notice must be put upon the Paper in a distinct and definite form.

That is where Notice is required.

I am not attempting to lay down any general dictum as to where Notice is necessary and where it is not. I am only observing that in this case there is no Notice before the House of the hon. Member's intention. Secondly, I observe that as the Motion before the House is "That the Speaker leave the Chair," and as the hon. Member does not intend to make a Motion, but merely to call attention to the Speaker's conduct, that is a course which I think the House will not permit. I apprehend that if anyone were to attempt to call into question my own conduct or that of any other Member of this House days or weeks ago, he would not be permitted except under these two conditions—first, that he must give Notice; and, secondly, that he must submit a distinct Motion to the House. My belief is that that is a protection which would be extended to every Member of this House. If that be so, I do not enter into the question whether the Speaker ought to have greater protection than any other Member, or how much that protection ought to be; but I put it to you, Sir, for your consideration, that the protection afforded to the chief officer of the House in regard to matters connected with the discharge of his duties ought not to be less than that afforded to any other Member; and that the House should not allow his conduct to be called in question without the two safeguards of Notice and of a definite Motion. It is with some regret that I have to call on you to give a decision in a matter in which you are supposed to be yourself concerned; but I am sure that a sense of public duty will prevent you from allowing any indisposition on that score to interfere with your free and impartial judgment.

Before the Speaker gives his decision I would like to refer him to a precedent that will, I think, be found to govern the present case. On August 4, 1881, a question was raised by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) in regard to Mr. O'Kelly's suspension; and the question was raised when, the Motion for the Speaker leaving the Chair having been negatived, no Division could be taken on the hon. Member's Motion. On that occasion the Prime Minister said—

"Though you may be bound to accept the ruling at the moment, there is nothing to prevent your impeaching that ruling at a future time. If I am cast by what I deem to be an unjust verdict, I must submit to it for the time, though afterwards I may condemn it."—(3 Hansard, [264] 869–70.)

The right hon. Gentleman also said—

"I admit fully that every Member of the House is entitled to impugn and pronounce censure upon the conduct of the Speaker on grave and sufficient grounds."—(Ibid. 866.)

It is not from any want of courtesy to the Speaker that no Notice of this matter has been given on the present occasion. I had intended making the Motion on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply on Tuesday, and giving Notice in due course; but if I had adopted that course, I would, I knew, be counted out. I have, therefore, resolved to bring the matter forward on the Motion to take effective Supply. If I gave Notice, I might lose many excellent opportunities of bringing it forward. Three weeks ago I gave verbal Notice of my intention to call attention to this matter, and I have again given Notice to-day. I therefore disclaim any idea of being discourteous to the Speaker by not giving him Notice. Whatever the ruling of the Speaker may be I will accept it, altogether apart from the question that it is the Speaker's own conduct that I wish to bring under the consideration of the House.

In replying to the points of Order which have been raised by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) and by the Prime Minister, I have to say that I hope in deciding upon them I shall dismiss all personal considerations. I have to thank the hon. Member for Monaghan for the courteous manner in which he has referred to these personal considerations. I am bound to consider the matter as a question of Order and precedent. I can assure the House that I have had no Notice whatever of the point to be raised by the hon. Member for Monaghan, and until this evening I had no idea that any Motion was going to be made on the subject of my conduct. Immediately after the Easter Recess the hon. Member for Monaghan stated that he should at some future time take an opportunity of calling the attention, of the House to my conduct in giving a certain ruling in the course of an event that occurred on the preceding Friday. Prom that day to the present nothing has occurred that could make me suppose that any Notice was going to be given of my conduct in the Chair. No Notice having been given, it appears to me that I am bound to hold that the rule which I should lay down in the case of any other Member of this House I cannot depart from in my own case. It would be establishing a very difficult and dangerous precedent if the action of a Member of this House were to be called in question without any Notice to that Member, and without the House generally being aware of the course about to be taken, and without the House being in a position to come to a decision on the matter. The House at large was not at all aware that the hon. Member for Monaghan was going to question any ruling of mine; and I should wish respectfully to submit that any question affecting my conduct in the Chair, or any ruling given by me, should come before the House in such a way that the whole House should be able to decide upon it either for or against myself. Under these circumstances, although it is certainly against my own personal feeling that the matter should not now come on, I am bound by precedents, and cannot depart from them for any advantage to myself. I must, therefore, rule that the proper course for the hon. Member for Monaghan to adopt is to give Notice, and put his Motion in a specific form before the House, so that the House at large may be able to pronounce an opinion upon it.

I accept your ruling, Sir; but I desire to ask one question. Is that ruling based on the fact that no Notice has been given, or on the fact that the Motion has been brought forward when there could be no Division upon it?

This is such a very grave question, that I hope, Sir, you will be able to give a definite decision upon it. I should have thought, in accordance with the views expressed by the Prime Minister, that a review of the conduct of the Speaker could not properly be proceeded with without allowing the House to pronounce an opinion on the matter. Any other course would be one which would entirely destroy the authority of the Chair.

I think, Sir, there can be no question whatever that, for the convenience of the House, and in support of the authority of the high personage who presides over its debates, it is most essential that any Motion calling in question the conduct of the Speaker should be raised in such a manner that the House should have full knowledge that it was coming on, and also that the House should be able to pronounce an opinion upon it. Nothing can be more important than that the delicate relations between the House and the Speaker should be maintained in all their integrity. We have the greatest confidence in our Speaker; but it is, of course, possible for anyone to go wrong, and it is right that there should be an opportunity of questioning his conduct. But for the maintenance of the proper proceedings of this House it is necessary that full and ample Notice should be given; and that there should be a proper opportunity of discussing and deciding upon any Motion impugning the conduct of the Speaker.

I wish, as a point of Order, to call your attention, Sir, to a precedent which occurred in the case of your Predecessor in the Chair—namely, that of August 4th, 1881; and I ask that no decision should be come to on this point that has arisen until you have had an opportunity of seeing the Motion before you, and also of considering the point raised on the last occasion, when the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), after the other Motions on the Paper had been decided, proceeded to call attention to the suspension of the hon. Member for Roscommon (Mr. O'Kelly). I may also mention that the hon. Member for the City of Cork stated that he would not have an opportunity of dividing the House, and that the speech of the Prime Minister was directed to taking objection to the hon. Member bringing the subject forward on such an occasion. I should like to read two or three passages from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister upon that occasion. He said—

"I should have thought it was a well-known principle of our system in this House—and I am astonished that a man with one-tenth part of the discernment of the hon. Member should not have perceived it, and had the hon. Member been guided by a right sense of his duty to the House he would have perceived it—that the judgment of the House stands between himself and the Chair, and protects the Chair from the charges that he has brought against it."— (3 Hansard, [264] 867.)

There are other passages which I cannot find at the moment; but the whole argument of the Prime Minister during the debate was founded on the fact that the judgment of the House could not be taken on the occasion; and therefore I submit, as a point of Order, that until you, Mr. Speaker, have had an opportu- nity of examining the Records of August 4, 1881, when Mr. Speaker Brand was in the Chair, it would be inconvenient to decide this matter at the moment.

I do not wish to anticipate the decision of the Chair; but I am not quite certain that I have understood the contention of the hon. Gentleman. I have the impression that these references may have been in a case where the question was immediate.

No, no!

Oh, then it was retrospective?

Yes.

Then, if that is so, I admit that it is possible I may be wrong.

On a matter so gravely affecting the interests of the House, I am clearly of opinion that not only, as has been stated, is it necessary that due Notice should be given of a Motion of this kind; but that the House ought to be in a position to give a final verdict upon the question proposed to be challenged; and that a challenge of the Speaker's ruling should not consist of mere fault-finding, but should be submitted to the judgment of the House.

Mr. Speaker— [Cries of "Order!")

Does the hon. Gentleman rise for the purpose of raising a point of Order?

Yes, Sir; I rise to a point of Order, and the point of Order is this—whether or not, in the circumstances, the Government cannot set up Supply in order to give an opportunity for discussing the matter, and a decision being arrived at—[Cries of "No!"]

I beg to give Notice that on Tuesday next I shall put down, a Motion on this subject, and I shall see whether the Government will keep a House for the purpose of considering the question.

said, he believed the time had now arrived for the Committee to consider the proposals which were laid before the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Financial Statement. He thought it was somewhat unfortunate that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have adopted a course which practically precluded the Committee from considering the important points of interest raised in that speech—namely, the conversion of certain Stock and alteration in our gold currency. It was, he believed, quite unintentional on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he took a course which precluded such a discussion; but, at the same time, it was obvious that the course that had been taken was an inconvenient one when the Bills which the Government proposed to put forward on this subject were not prepared, and when, therefore, the Government could not be put in fall possession of the views of that House on those two important matters. There were one or two points in connection with the Statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer which he thought worthy the attention of the Committee. Perhaps he might first be permitted to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the lucidity of his statement, and the clearness with which he had marshalled his figures. But the result, or the estimated result, of the expenditure in the present year was, in his (Lord George Hamilton's) humble judgment, very unsatisfactory. There was an estimated surplus, according to the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of £241,000. Now, he had ventured to call the attention of the House twice earlier in the Session to the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was transferring from the Estimates of this year certain payments which ought to be met out of the income of this year; and the result was that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to omit the payment of £250,000, which ought to have been paid to India towards defraying the charge which some four years ago the Prime Minister, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, agreed should be annually paid, which charge was £500,000. If this sum of £250,000 had been paid, as it ought to have been, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have found himself with an absolute deficiency amounting to £9,000; because, as the right hon. Gentleman was aware, if they deducted from the surplus of £241,000 the £250,000 that ought to have been paid, there would have been, instead of a surplus, a deficiency.

The money has been paid.

said, there was still a sum due to India. The arrangement was that every year's Estimate should be charged with £500,000; but this year's Estimate was only charged with £250,000; but if the whole sum arranged by the Prime Minister had been charged this year, as he had said, there would have been an absolute deficiency amounting to £9,000. It was the first time during the 16 years that he had been in Parliament that he had ever known the Chancellor of the Exchequer having a deficiency in time of peace; and although, undoubtedly, during the time the late Government were in Office there were deficiencies at the end of the year, those deficiencies had always arisen from circumstances which were unforeseen at the commencement of the year, and in every single instance, at the commencement of the year, there was a considerable margin between income and expenditure. Would any hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House get up and say that their foreign relations were so satisfactory and so free from danger and menace in every part of the world that they were not likely to be called upon to make exceptional expenditure before the end of the financial year? If they were called upon to make exceptional expenditure during the year, where were the Ways and Means? The most remarkable feature of this year's Budget was that although the Government came into Office pledged to enonomy and to alter the extravagant procedure of their Predecessors, yet after four years of Office and of peace Estimates they could only, by a hocus pocus, produce what he maintained was a false Budget. What was the cause of their great difficulty in balancing income and expenditure now? It was certainly not due to the Government being in possession of a less income than their Predecessors. The figures were a little startling. He had taken the trouble to estimate what was the sum received during the last four years of the Administration of the late Government and the sum received during the last four years of the present Government; and he had found that the income of the present Government had been £25,000,000 in excess of the income of the late Government; and, therefore, each year, on the average, Her Majesty's present Government had been in receipt of an income of more than £6,000,000 in excess of that which their Predecessors had secured. Then, he said, how came it to pass, in these four years of the tenure of Office of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, when they had been in receipt of such a largely increased income, that they had been barely able to meet their expenditure? The reason was very simple; it was owing to the very steady and continuous growth of their expenditure. How much greater that expenditure now was than it was three or four years ago would, he thought, startle anyone who looked at the figures. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had made two alterations in the accounts which, however they might improve the account, made comparisons between the present and preceding year somewhat difficult. But the extra receipts for the Army and Navy were struck out on each side of the account, and this year, therefore, was struck out the extra receipts in relation to India. If they wanted to compare the expenditure of the Government with the expenditure of their Predecessors, they must include both these items, which during the present year had been excluded; and by including those items, and comparing them with the last Estimate the late Government left on the Table of the House, hon. Members would be able to see exactly how great was the increase of expenditure. The Estimate of expenditure this year was £85,291,825. To that had to be added extra receipts for the Navy, £270,235, and for the Army, £595,635, amounting in the aggregate to £866,167. Adding that sum to the £85,291,825, they had a total of £86,677,992. To that must be further added the receipts for Indian charges, which he took at the figures of last year—namely, £1,045,000, and that brought up the total estimated expenditure for this year to £87,152,992. What was the Estimate of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister four years ago? Why, in 1880–81 he estimated the Expenditure at £82,075,922, so that in four years the expenditure of an economical Liberal Government had increased by £5,087,000, or an annual increase of £1,275,000. The expenditure was increasing, to borrow an expression of the Prime Minister, by "leaps and bounds;" but the income was more or less stationary. What was the cause of this great increase of expenditure? There was a popular delusion cherished by certain Gentlemen, especially those below the Gangway, that this increase was due to the paying off by the present Government of debts incurred by their Predecessors. ["Hear, hear!"] Yes; hon. Gentlemen opposite were still under that delusion. If hon. Members would be kind enough to look at the charges put on the Consolidated Fund in relation to the service of the Debt in the year 1880–81 and in the present year they would find that the Consolidated Fund charges in 1880–81 were £31,346,978, while for the present year they were £31,103,673. Thus there were actually £243,000 less charged on the Consolidated Fund for the present year than there was four years ago; and it was a curious fact that the only extra charge that the Government had had to incur in the present year was a charge in relation to a payment to India on behalf of the Afghan War, which amounted to £250,000, and which almost exactly balanced the £243,000 just referred to as the amount less than that paid four years ago in relation to the service of the debt. Therefore, they must look elsewhere. This increase of expenditure was due to the Supply Services costing far more than they did four years ago. The Army now cost £1,000,000 more than it cost four years ago; the Navy, £500,000 more; the Civil Service, £3,000,000; making a total of £5,100,000. That was the increase of expenditure which, during the last four years, had taken, place under an economical Liberal Government. Now, he thought that the Prime Minister had a financial conscience. He had always been consistent in reference to finance; and he (Lord George Hamilton) thought the right hon. Gentleman would recollect that, amongst other attacks which the Opposition had thought unjust that he had made on the late Government, he had particularly attacked the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) for his management of the Civil Service Estimates. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had been unwise enough to make use of the expression in relation to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon of a "chicken-hearted Chancellor of the Exchequer."

Not in reference to the expenditure.

If it was not in reference to the expenditure, what was it in relation to? The right hon. Gentleman had found fault with their Estimates; and he (Lord George Hamilton) had shown that the right hon. Gentleman's own Estimates had increased £5,100,000 in four years—an increase that was absolutely unprecedented, and far greater than anything that had occurred during the tenure of Office of his Predecessors. The right hon. Gentleman must feel that the strictures he had cast on the financial management of his Predecessors were unjust. He (Lord George Hamilton) was quite ready to give all credit to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary to the Treasury for their exertions during the past year; because the attention of the House had been called to the enormous increase in the Civil Service Estimates, and, in consequence, a Resolution had been almost unanimously passed—indeed, he thought without a Division—that economies in regard to this branch of the Service were necessary. He thought it had been, therefore, to the credit of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury that they had this year presented Civil Service Estimates which he believed he was correct in stating were less than those of last year. There was the automatic increase in relation to education and local subsidies; and therefore he admitted that the result of the exertions of these Gentlemen had been most creditable to them, as, in spite of their increase, the total expenditure was less than last year. There was one part of the Civil Service Expenditure which he thought deserved the careful attention of the House—namely, the Post Office expenditure, which had enormously increased. The Post Office was pushing its operations into all sorts of new spheres. As far as he could make out, it was rather difficult to be correct in investigating the exact results of the accounts. Although the expenditure on the Post Office was far larger now than it was two or three years ago, and though the capital sums expended in that Department were annually increasing, yet the net income from the Post Office was less than it was some years ago.

was here understood to intimate some dissent.

said, the net income was £200,000 less than it was four years ago. They were all ready to admit that the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General discharged his duties very satisfactorily; but the point to which he was especially calling the attention of the Committee was whether it was expedient or not that the State should so develop its operations, and should, through the Post Office, undertake a number of fresh duties, because it seemed to him a question that could be considered from two points of view. In the first place, it undoubtedly involved greater expenditure; and, in the second place, it led to a large increase in the number of Government employés. Considering, that there was a Franchise Bill before the House, and that the tendency was to increase the franchise, he doubted whether it was expedient to largely increase the number of persons depending for their daily bread on the Government. Unquestionably, there always was, and always would be, a disposition on the part of Ministers to favour the claims of certain gentlemen. Pressure was brought to bear upon the Government by Members of their Party, which it was difficult for them to resist. As he had stated, the surplus was only £240,000, and there seemed to him to be two charges which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was almost certain to have to meet during the present year. There was the charge in reference to the serious alteration proposed in the coinage. That, of course, he was not at liberty to discuss, at the present moment; but he should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the large receipts which he estimated the Mint would receive this year — namely, £120,000, had any connection with the proposed alteration in the gold coinage?

No.

The Estimate was exceptionally large; and he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been a little premature in taking credit for a certain amount from the proceeds in the alteration that he proposed, before the sanction of the House had been given to his claim. If, then, they dismissed any charge that might be imposed on the Revenue in reference to the alteration of the coinage, they must remember that they might still be called upon to meet a large charge in consequence of the menacing state of affairs in Egypt and elsewhere. If they were called upon to meet an increased charge in regard to these matters, where, he asked, were the Ways and Means to be found? The Prime Minister had made an attack upon the late Government from the hustings because they had a deficiency, which deficiency had been caused, in almost every instance that had occurred, by circumstances arising after the beginning of the financial year which they could not foresee. In 1879–80, for instance, there was an estimated surplus of £1,900,000, which was insufficient to meet the war expenditure which it had been subsequently found necessary to incur. It was tolerably clear, he thought, to every Member of the House that after the discussion that had taken place on Monday and Tuesday last, it was almost certain that they would, in some shape or other, have to incur an additional expenditure during the present year; because, without referring to the late debate, or debates, it would be undoubtedly necessary to do something to rescue General Gordon from Khartoum. If it was found necessary to put a stop to the insurrection going on around General Gordon, how was the expense to be met? Egypt was practically insolvent. Therefore, he wished to raise his voice very respectfully to warn the House that these Estimates, though they seemed satisfactory, were yet most unquestionably quite insufficient, when they took into consideration all the exceptional conditions and emergencies that were almost certain to occur before the financial year closed.

said, that he did not propose to follow the noble Lord who had just sat down through the whole of his remarks; but while he agreed with him that it was undesirable for Her Majesty's Government to follow the example set by the other side of the House in regard to their financial arrangements, and to end the year with a deficit, he must say that so long as they had a surplus of something like £240,000 he thought it would be very inconvenient to impose taxes for an emergency which they must all hope would never arise. He had no doubt that, if emergencies did arise, the Government would then impose additional taxation, in order that they might have a surplus at the end of the year. There was no doubt that the surplus was small, as the noble Lord had pointed out, and that the expenditure was large; but, to a great extent, the increase was nominal. Fortunately the question lay in a nutshell; because, while the increase of expenditure was between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 more than it was four years ago, if they looked into the details they found that £1,000,000 was not expenditure in any real sense, but was spent in the repayment of the Debt.