said, he proposed to move the rejection of the new clause.

Order, order! The new clause has not yet been moved. Does the hon. Member for Central Fins-bury move it?

Yes, Sir, I move it; and I am sorry my hon. Friend feels compelled to object to it.

said, the London County Council had agreed to withdraw the clause as it at present stood in the Bill, and to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bethnal Green. Consequently, they were not prepared to accept the proposal of the hon. Member for Central Fhisbury. The circumstances were these: The County Council, when they brought this Bill before Parliament, introduced at the request of certain Vestries the clause as to staircases. Amendments were, however, introduced in Committee, and the County Council had inquired of the various Vestries and had found that there was almost unanimous? disapproval of the clause as it now stood. As the clause as now framed came very near to an infringement of the Standing Orders, and as the Vestries at whose instance it was inserted did not approve its present form, the County Council did not propose either to accept it or to insist on its reinstatement in its original form.

then moved to re-insert the original clause (Clause 6). He said, that the Vestry of Central Finsbury having received representations from various parts—there being many buildings of this kind in the parish—that a nuisance was caused by the want of light, satisfied themselves that there was a great deal of nuisance. It was satisfactorily shown by Mr. Walton, the Chairman of the Works Committee, that the owners of buildings who let them for their own profit ought to supply all the necessary conveniences. The County Council thought proper to insert the clause which he now proposed, and he protested against inflicting on the ratepayers any expenditure to redress or correct an inconvenience which ought to be set right by the owners of houses, and for that reason he moved the Second Heading of the clause.

said, he was by no means satisfied that sufficient evidence was produced to induce the Committee to accept the clause in the first instance. He thought that the Committee in accepting it had exercised their power in a very dangerous degree. He had made the best inquiries ho could with regard to the procedure upstairs, and he found that the Committee had all the power of the House, and therefore had acted within its power. At the same time, he wished to draw attention to what he regarded as a very serious matter in connection with the clause. Private Bill Committees had often exercised the power of altering the incidence of taxation, but he did not think there was a single instance in which they had taken the initiative in imposing taxation upon the people in the shape of rates. The action taken by the Committee on this Bill, therefore, constituted an entirely new departure. As far as he could learn, the evidence produced in favour of the clause was of a very trifling and meagre character, whilst that against it was overwhelming. Singularly enough, evidence was given on the part of the Peabody Trustees and the Guinness Trustees—two of the largest owners of such property in London—and as far as he could learn it was the unanimous view of the tenants that no such lighting was necessary as was proposed by the Bill. He feared that some members of the London County Council thought that the British working man wanted a good deal of regulation and inspection. He was not of that opinion. He held by the old doctrine sneered at by some of the new politicians of the maximum of liberty and the minimum of restraint, and he was therefore strongly opposed to the retention of the clause in the Bill, and still more strongly opposed to the substitution of that which was proposed in its place. If such a regulation was to be made, let the matter be thoroughly threshed out by the Local Authorities who would have to administer it, and let them have ample op- portunity, which they had not had at present, of appearing before the Committee. As far as he could learn, all the Local Authorities in London, with one single exception, were opposed to the clause, the exception being the body represented by the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Naoroji). The Public Bodies of London certainly ought to have an opportunity of taking action, and preventing the London County Council leading them a fool's chase over this Private Bill legislation.

said, he had placed a Motion on the Paper for the rejection of the clause altogether. He hoped it would be rejected, because it had been amended by the Committee in an extremely questionable way; and if the hon. Member for Shored itch (Mr. J. Stuart) had not announced that the London County Council would withdraw the clause, he was not at all sure that he should not appeal for Mr. Speaker's decision as to whether it was not ultra vires for a Committee to insert in a Bill a clause which imposed taxation without giving any notice to the ratepayers. Even if the Committee had not exceeded its powers, he thought it would be extremely hard that the unfortunate ratepayer, and especially the smaller one, who was just now overburdened with rates, should have an additional rate put upon him for the lighting of common staircases. In a former Debate the hon. Member for Finsbury had said that the lighting of these staircases might be taken at 3d. a room per night. In the Division he represented there were probably something like 1,000 of these rooms, and if the estimate of the hon. Member was correct it was no exaggeration to say that the ratepayers of Marylebone would be mulcted in something like £4,300 a year, or more than ½d. in the £1 on the rates. He had ascertained from the superintendents of many of these dwellings that they did not think it "was necessary to light the staircases all night. They were now lighted on five nights of the week till 11, and on Saturday till 12. The inmates of the dwellings stated, he believed without exception, that they would infinitely prefer that the lights should be put out at 11 o'clock, as tramps and the houseless poor were afraid to enter the staircases after dark, and they would inevitably do so if they were lighted. This was another instance of the rather hurried way in which the London County Council carried on their legislation. His hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch (Mr. J. Stuart) said the clause was introduced into the Bill at the instance of two or three Vestries. He thought it was a great pity that the County Council had not inquired whether the clause was necessary before they introduced it into the Bill. He understood that the opponents of the clause had spent over £200 in protecting their rights, and he left the House to reckon what the London County Council paid out of the ratepayers' money in carrying on the contest. He hoped the House would strike out the clause and would reject the new clause proposed.

said, he was asked to state on behalf of perhaps the oldest Association in London for the erection of workmen's dwellings that they considered that the proposed clause would be a very great hardship. He was informed that the owners of these dwellings were already hampered in many unnecessary ways under the Metropolitan Regulations, and the proposed clause would throw a very great burden upon them. In the case of the Association for which he was asked to speak, it would throw upon them an expense of something like £10,000 a year. Their tenants had asked them not to light all their staircases and passages throughout the night, as they wished to have the lights put out late at night, just as hon. Members desired to have the lights turned out in their own houses when they went to sleep. Associations established for the purpose of assisting working men to get decent lodgings ought to be assisted in every possible way in pursuing the philanthropic objects they had in view. The proposed clause was struck out in Committee, and it seemed a little strange that the House should be asked to re-insert it without having had the opportunity of hearing any evidence on the subject. He thought it was very much to be regretted that the habit of endeavouring to review the proceedings of Private Bill Committees in the House, more or less on political grounds and without hearing evidence, was so much on the increase. He believed it was likely to injure the power and prestige of the House as an impartial tribunal for the transaction of Private Business if that practice continued to be pursued.

as the Chairman of the Committee which had considered the Bill, wished to say that the Committee was quite in agreement with the views expressed by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell) in regard to this matter. The Committee considered the evidence very carefully, and they came to the conclusion that if the authorities had power to compel the owners of industrial dwellings to light their staircases after 11 o'clock at night, the authorities should, at all events, pay a portion of the cost. It was generally understood by the Committee that both parties were quite satis-fled with the clause in the form in which it was eventually adopted. To recommit the Bill would be an injustice to the proprietors of industrial dwellings, and he should, therefore, oppose the Motion.

said, he bad received a communication from Mr. Morrison, formerly a Member of the House, to the effect that the Industrial Dwellings Company with which he was connected had tried the lighting of their staircases throughout the night, and had -found that the result of lighting them was to attract persons who were described as tramps, but might be described by a more opprobrious term. The plan, therefore, now adopted by this particular Company was to put out the lights on their staircases at 11 o'clock. The plan, therefore, which was proposed had failed on trial. He hoped the House would not fall into the practice of not accepting the Reports of Committees. He believed the hon. Member who had spoken brought an impartial judgment to bear upon the question, but the real tribunal was the Committee who heard the evidence, saw the witnesses, and had the opportunity of cross-examining them. The conclusions which the Committee arrived at were worthy of support.

thought that what had fallen from the Member for St. Pancras (Sir J. Goldsmid) and the Member for Wigan (Sir F. S. Powell) as to the action of the Committee upstairs was altogether beside the point. As he understood the position, before long the Member for St. Pancras (Sir J. Goldsmid) would be supporting the Member for Bethnal Green in upsetting the clause passed by the Committee upstairs. It was not correct to say that the Committee threw out the clause of the County Council; what they did was to take the clause, to accept the principle contained in it, but amending it with regard to the responsibility of those who were to pay for the lighting. He had not heard the evidence taken before the Committee upstairs, but he happened to have in his constituency a large number of these blocks and was conversant with the opinion of the people living in those blocks. He was glad to hear the Member for Bethnal Green say he liked the maximum of liberty; those who lived in these blocks also liked the maximum of liberty and did not like the idea of having to find their way home at 11 o'clock at night, and have to go upstairs in total darkness. There was something to be said for liberty on the other side of the question. He must confess he stood with his colleague for Central Finsbury (Mr. Naoroji) in the position of being in favour of lighting these buildings, he did not 'say all through the night, but certainly up to 11 o'clock was not sufficient for the personal convenience of the working classes. He was bound to admit the position this afternoon was a very peculiar one. The County Council brought in in their original Bill a clause with regard to lighting. That was amended by the Committee upstairs, and this afternoon they found the County Council had run away entirely from the original clause that they had put in the Bill. His hon. Friend had tried to bring back the Bill to where it was when it was originally discussed, and he did not think he had done anything rash in that, but still, as they were in a very small minority, he would advise his hon. Friend not to put the House to the inconvenience of dividing; he would advise him to withdraw the original clause of the County Council and leave the matter where the Committee left it. Then the moment they came to the Committee's clause they were all going to say determinedly they objected to their putting a rate upon the inhabitants of the locality without the people in the locality having an opportunity of expressing an opinion in regard to them. And they were not the only persons who differed from the Committee; the County Council, and those who spoke on behalf of the owners of these places, all demurred to the ratepayers being called upon to pay for lighting. He felt very pleased that this Debate had arisen, and with all duo respect to those gentlemen who read them lectures he would say that if it had not been for the action of his hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Howell) before the House rose for the Recess, they would have had the clause that they were presently going to throw out in its entirety and the rates thrown upon the inhabitants.

thought they were practically unanimous now in favour of this House rejecting any dealing by this Bill with this question at all. After all, the Local Authorities were the best judges of how this question should be dealt with, and it was only right, he thought, that their views should be followed very largely with regard to it. They stood now in the position that the Local Authorities desired this clause should be omitted from the Bill, the County Council were willing that course should be followed, the Committee who went through the question were in favour of that course, and considering there was such a large consensus of opinion on one side he thought it would be better if the hon. Member would not persevere further.

said, it now appeared that the County Council put forward this question of lighting the staircases entirely without proper knowledge of the subject, thus putting the owners of these large properties, valued at £3,500,000, to great expense, and saddling them with a large addition to the cost of lighting. It appeared that was a false position which they objected to in Committee, and they had got the Committee to accept their view of the case. It was quite wrong to say that this was a fixed tax, and that the Committee had done wrong, because it was a purely permissive clause, and gave the Vestry power to light these places if they wished, but the Committee considered that if they did they should pay a portion of the expense. He thought it was greatly to be regretted that the work of a Committee which extended over several days, two days of which were occupied in taking evidence on this important question, that after considering that evidence and coming to a conclusion on the subject, that the House without any proper information should undo their work.

asked leave to withdraw the Motion.

moved the clause standing in his name, the necessity for it arising from the fact that it was impossible otherwise for the County Council to pay the expenses of such recreation ground; it could not contribute out of any rate without the permission of the House.

moved—

"That lines 8 to 7 inclusive in the Preamble of the Bill be omitted."

moved—

"That Part III., Clause 5, Sub-sections 1 to 6 inclusive, be omitted from the amended Bill."

moved that the Bill be read a second time upon this day six months. He said, that though he did not wish unnecessarily to deal with the rights of the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company, he moved the rejection of the Bill upon good and substantial grounds, and he moved it on behalf of the riparian owners, to whom an injustice was being done by the Bill. He had thought it his duty to move the rejection of the Second Heading rather than wait until the Bill went before the Committee, and he thus took the first opportunity in his power of explaining to the House the operation of the Bill of which he complained. He would like to call the attention of the House to what was involved in this controversy. The River Rede was a small river about 25 miles long, and the point at which the Company joined was about 16 miles from the junction of the River Tyne. The body of riparian owners were small, and that fact was his justification for moving the rejection of this Bill. They were not a strong body of owners; they had not organised their opposition, and for that reason their opposition had not been fairly put before the Committee when the Bill was considered by the Committee of the House of Lords. On the other hand, they had a powerful private Water Company or Corporation working to supply water as a private trading Company with the object of putting a dividend into the pockets of their shareholders. The Company had a capital of no less than £1,277,000, the shares in which were fully paid up. There was a 4 per cent. Debenture Stock, a 5 per cent. Preference Stock, an Ordinary and a Deferred Stock, and this Company for a long series of years had paid 8 per cent. upon their Ordinary and 5 per cent. upon their Deferred Stock. As he did not wish to take up the time of the House longer than he could help, he would not enter into details more than he was obliged; but he desired to show, as he thought he could show, that the Bill in its present form was establishing a most important and dangerous precedent in upsetting a right at Common Law that had existed for the past 50 years. He would just point out how this was done. This was not the first Act this Company had asked for, for they obtained an Act called the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Act in 1889 which authorised a reservoir upon the same site on which the present Bill sought to construct it. Under the Bill of 1889 there was to be a dam of no less than 15 feet high in which there was to be a fish-bath, as the River Rede was a river in which a great many salmon were killed every year, and being a salmon river the rights of the riparian owners were very important. He was trustee to a lady who was one of the riparian owners, but she and the other riparian owners did not fight this particular Bill because the dam to be constructed was only 15 feet high, and the fish-bath to be constructed was to be so constructed that it would not interfere with the salmon getting up the river. In addition to that, the Bill of 1889 contained a short clause, which was so important that he would venture to read it to the House. It was as follows:—

"Provided that the owners and occupiers and all other persons interested in or injuriously affected by the taking of water by the Company from the River Rede shall, unless otherwise agreed, be entitled to claim and receive compensation in money for any loss, damage, or injury sustained by them, according to the provisions of the 6th section of the Lands Clauses Act, 1817."

Here power was given to the riparian owners, in case subsequent damage was proved, to go to a Court of Law, and if they could prove damage to claim and obtain money compensation. This Bill, however, proposed to take away that power, and that was the point he wished to bring prominently before the House. It was in consequence of that clause being included in the Act of 1889 that the riparian owners at that time did not oppose the Bill when it was before Parliament. Though the owners were not then satisfied with the water compensation, they were satisfied with the power given them of taking their case to the Court, and, if subsequent damage was proved, of obtaining money compensation. But what did the present Bill propose? In the first place, instead of the 15 feet it proposed to erect a dam 77 feet high, or five times the height of the dam proposed under the Act of 1889. Anyone interested in the matter and reading the evidence given before the Committee would see there was not the least necessity, either so far as the water went or the requirements of the district were concerned, for a dam of that description. If such a dam were constructed the result would be that the valuable water rights of the riparian owners would be absolutely destroyed. He ought to state that the Company had agreed to give a sum of £3,850 to the Tyne Fishery Conservancy, and with regard to that he would like to point out that the riparian owners would not necessarily get one penny of that money. The money would be spent, and he admitted it would be properly spent on the north side of the river, and there was no provision for compensating the riparian owners. But the crowning injustice of all was, by Clause 14, Section 9, to take from the riparian owners the power of going to a Court of Law and asking for money compensation if subsequent injury were inflicted upon them. He submitted this House was not the proper tribunal to assess money compensation, and he also submitted that a Parliamentary Committee was not the proper tribunal to assess money compensation, but the proper tribunal was the tribunal that had always hitherto existed—namely, a Court of Law to which every person who felt himself injured could go. The other matters were very small, but this was the grievance that had led him to take up the time of the House, and he trusted the House would pause before they allowed this injustice to be justified. No harm could be done to anyone by allowing the clause to remain, because it was obvious that the riparian owners would not bring any action unless they had good grounds to go upon; therefore he asked that the clause be reinserted in the Bill, and because it was not he moved the rejection of the Bill. There were other details, but he would not trouble the House with them; but there was one point, that with respect to the compensation water, which he was bound to mention—

I rise, Sir, to a point of Order. I wish to ask you, Sir, whether the hon. Member can move the rejection of this Bill? As I understand, the hon. Member is a trustee himself for one of the riparian owners; in the proceedings he has appeared before the House of Lords as a petitioner, and he is now asking this House to insert a clause in a matter in which he is clearly an interested person. I wish to ask you, Sir, whether an hon. Member, who is himself interested in legislation, no matter how remote, is in a position to make the Motion he has made?

No matter how closely an hon. Member may be interested in a Bill he may try to persuade the House to his own way of thinking, but whether it is possible for him to vote is another matter.

Even if he receives no pay and holds purely an honorary office?

But I say it is quite competent for an hon. Member, however interested he may be, to move the rejection of a Bill which he thinks militates against his interest, however particular or close that interest may be.

said, he would resume his argument after the somewhat extraordinary and unnecessary interruption. He stated ho was trustee to one of the riparian owners, and he was glad to say so again, and no doubt, so far as his trusteeship went, he was an interested party; but he had yet to learn the House was prepared to sanction any legislation that would prevent any body of persons from seeking the just and lawful remedies of a Court of Law. He desired to refer, only for a moment, to the compensation water which this Bill provided, and which was not adequate. The Rede was a small salmon river, and a dam of 77 feet high would destroy the value of the river. They did not ask for any compensation now; all they said was that the Bill should be allowed to pass in such a form that, in the event of any damage being done hereafter, the riparian owners should be able to go to the Court to prove their case. That was the precedent that had been established, and which was in the Act of 1889, and what they asked was that it should be included in the present Bill. It was shown that the water compensation would not be sufficiently adequate, but the water and money compensation had always been kept distinct. He had done his duty in moving the rejection of the Bill, and he trusted the House would hesitate before taking away a legal right that had existed for 50 years, and which, on the whole, had operated with justice. He would only say, in conclusion, that the riparian owners might be a small and insignificant body of persons, but in these days of agricultural depression their riparian rights were of very considerable value. When the Water Company could pay 8 or 9 per cent. in dividends, it made it all the more evident that they were depriving the riparian owners of most important rights.

I rise, in the interests of the time of this House, to protest against the proceeding of the hon. Member opposite. Let us see what it is. The hon. Member, as I understand, represents certain private interests which have been fully heard upon Petition in the House of Lords—

I do not admit that those interests were fully heard.

At all events the Bill was before the Committee for six days, and the proper and legitimate course is that a Bill of this kind should be heard and dealt with by a Committee of this House. It happens, no doubt, sometimes that large public interests, such as those which arose on the Thames Conservancy the other day, are at stake, and all these will be considered in a Private Bill for which there is an exceptional procedure. But what is to happen to the time of this House and its business if every individual petitioner who thinks his case has not been heard sufficiently in six days before a Committee of the House of Lords, is to be at liberty to come and raise a Debate here for the purpose of rejecting a Bill upon the Second Reading. And upon what sort of allegation? That the House of Lords, of all bodies in the world, has been regardless of private interests as regards property, and that it has violated all established rules which secure those rights of property; and upon an allegation of that sort we are to waste the time of this House in the manner proposed by the hon. Member. Though it has been ruled by you, Sir, that the hon. Member is entitled to make this Motion I think this House is entitled immediately to dispose of it, and the hon. Member having made that statement, and the House being in possession of that statement, I hope no further time will be occupied but a vote of the House at once taken.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman complained that Private Bills were discussed in this House. He had never known a Session when there had been so many Private Bills on Government nights. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that for several years after he (Lord R. Churchill) entered Parliament Private Bills never came on upon Government nights.

said that of late years a good many Private Bills had come on on Government nights, and so, to this extent, Government business was interfered with. He thought the sooner they reverted to the old practice of not taking Private Bills on Government nights the better it would be for Government business.

said, he would not detain the House for more than a moment or two, but this question of the supply of water was one of life and death practically to his constituents and about 400,000 inhabitants round the City of Newcastle and Gateshead. The hon. Member had stated that there was no necessity for this increased supply. As a matter of fact, during the drought of last summer, from the month of September in last year to the month of February in this—

It was an exceptional year.

admitted it was an exceptional year, but during those six months the consumption of water had to be stopped by one-half, and every householder had his supply cut off after 6 o'clock every evening.

Because the Company had not availed themselves of the powers they acquired in 1889.

said, that the reason was because the Company found that the powers they acquired in 1889 were not sufficient, and therefore they asked for these further powers, which were an absolute necessity for the health and life of the community in that district. The hon. Member had endeavoured to raise a feeling against the Tyne Water Company, but for 40 years that Company had paid on an average not more than 5 per cent., and it charged a less price, he should think, than any Corporation which supplied water—namely, only 4½d. per 1,000 gallons. On these grounds certainly it was not right that the hon. Member should try and obstruct this Bill. He agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that all these objections which had been raised could be met, and had been met. Those whom the hon. Member represented in this matter were the only individuals who went before the Lords Committee who were not fully satisfied as to the way their objections had been met, and to raise this matter now during the passage of the Bill between the Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons seemed to be an absolutely unjustifiable waste of time.

desired to say that the riparian owners had no desire whatever to begrudge the water to this Company; all they desired being that fair compensation should be awarded.

May I say a word or two ["No!"] in asking leave to withdraw the Motion? ["No!"] The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to withdraw my Motion.

No; I asked the House to negative it.

The hon. Member is only entitled to speak if he wishes to withdraw the Motion. He is not entitled to speak again on the Motion.

Then I will withdraw. [Cries of "No!"]

I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been drawn to a case tried before the Justice of the Peace Court at Tain, on the 3rd instant, Captain Monro of Allen (a J.P. recently appointed on the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant for Ross and Cromarty, and Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland), and Baillie Munro (a J.P. for the Burgh of Tain), being on the Bench, in which a crofter was convicted of having in his possession on the 8th of January last a dog for which he had no licence, and, for this offence, was sentenced to pay a fine of 25s., or, in default of payment, to go to prison for one month; and whether, in view of the fact that the sentence was passed after only eight days of the licensing year (beginning the 1st. of January) had elapsed, he can take steps towards a remission of the sentence in this case?

The Commissioners of Inland Revenue have, at my request, considered the case referred to by my hon. Friend. They cannot remit the whole fine, but, in the special circumstances, they find themselves able to mitigate it to 7s. 6d.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether the figures given in the Report of Mr. Hunter Pringle as to tithes in Essex are accurate, which show that in that county the tithe under all kinds of crop and fallow and grass is 6s. per acre, giving a rate of 6s. 4½d. per inhabitant, whilst in Lancashire it is 1s. 9¼d. per acre, and 4½d. per inhabitant?

I am not prepared to say that the figures cited by my hon. Friend accurately express the difference between the charge for commuted tithe upon titheable lands in the two counties named, and, indeed, any precise estimate of that difference would be attended with considerable difficulty. But it is, of course, true that the proportions borne by the charge for tithe to the acreage under cultivation and to the number of inhabitants vary very materially according to the agricultural and industrial conditions of the counties compared.

I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that several requirements are still necessary to enable repairs to armour-clad ships to be carried out at Haulbowline Dockyard, such as steam cranes for the basin and dry dock, armour-plating shop with planing and drilling machines, boiler shop, and galvanizing tank; and that no shed has yet been erected to protect the shearing and plate-banding machines; and whether, in view of the promise of the Admiralty to make Haulbowline an efficient repairing yard, these requirements will be supplied forthwith?

It is not considered necessary that the machinery and shop mentioned in the question should be provided; but provision has been made to supply during the current year such machinery and furnaces as will, in the opinion of the Admiralty, render Haulbowline efficient to the required extent. The shed referred to will be erected during the current year.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether the Board of Agriculture have issued an Order for the redemption of the tithes on property situate on the west side of High Street, in Rhyl; and whether, in such case, the owners of property there which has not hitherto paid tithe are liable to contribute towards the fund for redemption?

An Order for the redemption of the tithe rentcharge, with which the property referred to was chargeable, was made on the 7th of March, 1893, under Section 5 of the Tithe Act, 1878, which provides for compulsory redemption where the land is divided into such numerous plots as to render it impossible for any further apportionment of the rentcharge to be conveniently made. The fact that although the owners of portions of the property chargeable have not hitherto been called upon to contribute their quota of the rentcharge would not affect their liability to pay their proper share of the redemption money.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland upon what authority and for what reason a meeting for the purpose of establishing a branch of the Irish National League at Kilfenora, County Clare, was dispersed by the police on Sunday last; whether he is aware that this meeting was one of a series called by placard for the distinct purpose of establishing the National League; and, if so, whether the meeting was a legal one; whether any notice was given by the police before the day that the meeting would not be allowed; and whether, if another meeting be called in Kilfenora to establish the League, the police will be ordered to again interfere?

I am informed that the placards convening the meeting at Ballykeale, near Kilfenora, on Sunday, the 20th instant, were not posted up in the locality until the morning of that date. These placards were to the effect stated in the question, and did not disclose any illegal object. The decision to prevent the jueting at Ballykeale was arrived at, however, on the night of the 19th instant, and before the appearance of the placards, and because it was believed that one of the purposes for which it was about to be held was the denunciation and intimidation of the occupants of an evicted farm at Ballykeale. The decision of the Local Authorities in this matter was supported by a notice in the public Press, which stated that the object of the meeting was to denounce a case of land-grabbing in the locality. The County Inspector states that it was late on the night of the 19th instant that he saw the announcement in the newspaper, and that he could not therefore give notice to the promoters of the meeting until the following morning, which was done.

Has the right hon. Gentleman any objection to state the name of the paper in which he saw the announcement?

I have it not in my mind just now.

Having regard to the statement of Mr. Patrick O'Brien, who was the principal speaker at the meeting, that he was not aware of any land-grabbing in the neighbourhood and that he wished to attend the meeting in order to establish a branch of the National League, will the right hon. Gentleman allow a meeting to be held for the purpose of establishing a branch of the League?

There has been no interference with meetings held for the purpose of establishing branches of the National League or any other body since August, 1892.

If I call a meeting of my constituents for the purpose of establishing a branch of the National League and discussing the position of the Government will the right hon. Gentleman order it to be dispersed?

I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if any, and what, steps have been taken for the separation of custody, storeage, and accounts of Naval from War Office Ordnance Stores at Malta and Gibraltar, so as to secure the direct responsibility of each Service for the adequacy of quantity and readiness for use of its own stores?

The storage and accounts of Naval Ordnance Stores at these two Stations have been separated, and the Admiralty conducts the examination of the accounts. The question of separate custody is under the consideration of the Naval Warlike Stores Committee, and a Report on the subject is shortly expected. The Admiralty accept the responsibility for both the adequacy and the readiness of Naval Ordnance Stores.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he will state who any experiments have been made with the object of comparing the results of firing cartridges made up of cordite and black powder respectively on the barrel of the Lee-Metford magazine rifle?

As I informed the hon. Member on May 12, 1893, no experiments have been made with the direct object of comparing the results of firing cartridges made up of cordite and black powder respectively on the barrel of the Lee- Metford rifle. Nor are such experiments considered to be necessary, inasmuch as the preference for cordite is founded upon other considerations than the comparative wear of the barrel; and it is known that the advantages of the use of cordite involve a shorter life of the barrel.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that Miss Julie Manard was struck in the neck by a bullet whilst being shot at during a public entertainment at the Canterbury Music Hall on Saturday evening last, 26th instant, and was subsequently removed to St. Thomas's Hospital; and whether he will take steps to put a stop to such dangerous performances?

My attention had not previously been called to this matter, but I am having inquiry made into the circumstances.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can recommend a grant to the widow of the late Sergeant-Major Lowe, Army Service Corps, who committed suicide after a service of 28 years, 14 of which were spent in India, where, it is presumed, he contracted brain disease; and whether, in view of the fact that in one month more the widow would have been entitled to a pension, an exception will be made in this case?

I regret that I am precluded by Regulations from making an exception in this case.

May I point out that this is a very exceptional case, and one of great hardship?

I quite admit the hardship of the case, but it is impossible to make an exception.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will facilitate the labourers, now in many parts of Ireland bordering on starvation, to acquire land for co-operative farming; whether he is aware the land of Ireland is only partly cultivated, thereby causing national loss; and whether he will consider the advisability of raising such a sum, upon security similar to that given for other advances, as will enable a loan of about £60,000 to be made to the labourers in each of the 32 counties in Ireland?

There is no statutable power to make loans to acquire land for the purpose of co-operative farming; and without expressing an opinion one way or the other in regard to such a scheme, I can only say that at the present time it would be impossible to consider legislation on the subject.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he will explain why, in the Telegraph Department, in filling two vacancies in the Assistant Superintendentships of the second class from the class of clerks, two juniors were promoted over four seniors of the same class, one of the latter at the time of appointment having for years performed in turn the duties of Assistant Superintendent with satisfaction to his superior officer; whether he now becomes disqualified for the position of Assistant Second Class Superintendent, after performing its duties for years without remuneration; why, in filling up a vacancy for a first-class clerkship, three qualified men were passed over; and why, in filling up four vacancies in the first class telegraphists from the second class, men, with service from 20 to 30 years, were passed with only eight years' service?

I on unable to identify the office to which he hon. Member refers. If he will let me know what office it is, I will have inquiry made, and give him all the information I can.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if he will lay the Directory of the Department of Science and Art upon the Table of the House of Commons, in the same way as the Education Code is submitted?

The Education Code is laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament fin accordance with Section 97 of the Elementary Education Act of 1870. The Science and Art Directory is also always laid on the Table, though there is no statutory obligation to do so.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Police Report upon which he grounds his refusal to grant compensation to the tenant upon the De Freyne estate, from whom certain goods were taken by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary; whether the refusal is chiefly based upon the inability of the parties to identify the actual individuals by whom the property was taken; whether he will take into consideration the difficulty of such identification where most of those engaged on the eviction were strangers; and whether he will reconsider his decision if affidavits on the subject are placed before him?

It would be contrary to precedent to lay upon the Table the Report referred to in the first paragraph of the hon. and learned Gentleman's question. The charges preferred against the police were that they had burned the turf belonging to some of the evicted tenants on this estate, and used the hay and straw of others for bedding-The District Inspector inquired into the matter in November last, and two of the women who made charges—namely, Bridget and Mary Moran—acquitted the police of having stolen their turf, hay, and straw. These women, moreover, signed a statement to this effect which was taken down by the District Inspector. On November 11 the police gave to Mary Moran some turf as an equivalent for what she had given them. They gave her a quantity, if anything, somewhat more than she had given them, which she was reluctant to receive. A third woman—Anne Moran—also signed a statement that she made no charge of larceny against the police. A further charge of larceny was preferred by another woman —Mrs. Cahilan—but this on being: investigated was also disproved. The Report which has been made by the Divisional Commissioner in this matter, after a careful investigation on the spot, satisfies me that there is no foundation for the charges brought against the police; if, however, the hon. Gentleman has any fresh evidence to adduce in support of these charges, I shall cause further inquiry to be made.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when he will be in a position to give the Return which he has promised of the Irish Poor Law Unions which are in a state of financial embarrassment?

The Local Government Board promise to let me have within the next few days the information which I have called for in this matter. I shall then be in a position to judge how far the Return can be granted.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will arrange for a Return to be made to the House of Commons, showing in detail the Returning Officers' Charges in all Parliamentary elections at the last General Election in 1892?

Full information appears to be already available in the Parliamentary Return No. 423 of 1893, presented at the instance of the hon. Member for the Mansfield Division of Nottinghamshire.

The Return which I hold in my hand is the on referred to. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that it is not in sufficient detail to supply the information I want, and that it is so full of discrepancies as to be practically of no value?

I am not aware of the discrepancies.

I should like to have such a Return as is supplied to Members or their agents immediately after the election.

If the hon. Baronet moves for a Return, the matter shall be considered.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Irish Executive Government have frequently allowed Chairmen of Asylum Boards to give what is known as a casting vote; whether they have done so recently in the case of the Limerick Asylum Board, although they had disallowed such vote in any case previously to the present month; whether they had been advised during the present month that such vote should be sanctioned by statute or other competent authority in order that it be valid; and whether the fact that the custom has prevailed so long can be regarded as sufficient authority to justify the Chairman of the Carlow Asylum Board in giving a casting vote on the occasion of the election of a medical assistant in the last month; and, if not, will he take any steps to make such casting vote of the Chairman legal?

I understand that on occasions casting votes have been given by Chairmen of Asylum Boards, apparently acting on the belief that such power was vested in them. At the recent meeting of the Carlow Asylum Board the Chairman seems to have acted also under this belief. The legal power of giving a casting vote appears to have been, for the first time, questioned on the last-mentioned occasion, when the Government were advised that the power did not exist.

Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to make such a custom on the part of the Chairman legal?

That requires consideration.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General under what Act, or section of an Act, does he levy a charge of a halfpenny extra postage on letters posted in London on Sundays; whether he has the power to charge any extra postage up to 1s. on every letter; and whether he can see his way to remit this charge?

The charge of ½d. extra postage on letters posted in London on Sundays for despatch in the evening mails of that day is not made under any statutory Act. The arrangement is one made by the Postmaster General to meet the convenience of those who desire this accommodation, which in itself puts the Department to some expense. I am not prepared to withdraw the charge, as any large increase in the number of letters posted for the evening mail despatched on Sunday would increase materially Sunday work. The extra postage of 1s. referred to I presume is that made on registered letters posted up to the latest minute at the General Post Office mentioned on page 306 of the Post Office Guide. It is absolutely necessary that the charge should be sufficiently high to prevent a large number of registered letters being posted at a very late hour.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he will adopt the suggestion of Professor Adami, of M'Gill College, Montreal, and cause careful bacteriological observations to be made on such cases of suspicious lung disease as may be detected in cattle landed from Canada, so as to clear up the difficult points of diagnosis which are admitted to exist between the earlier stages of contagious and non-contagious pleuro-pneumonia?

So far as I can gather from the inquiries I have made, bacteriological observations have not hitherto been productive of any valuable results in the case of pleuro-pneumonia, no specific germ having been identified as being invariably associated with that disease. I shall be glad, however, to confer with my hon. Friend on the sub- ject, and to give the fullest consideration to any suggestions he may be in a position to make.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade if he will state the result of the correspondence with the Metropolitan Railway Company, in reference to the foul atmosphere in the Underground Railway tunnels between Baker Street and King's Cross Stations?

The Board of Trade have received a letter from the Secretary to the Company promising that the matter shall be brought to the attention of the Directors at their next meeting.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade the number of persons killed last winter owing to kitchen boiler explosions in London; and whether it is proposed to take steps to prevent such accidents in future?

The Board of Trade have no information as to the number of persons killed last winter owing to kitchen boiler explosions in London. The powers of the Department under the Boiler Explosions Act do not extend to boilers used exclusively for domestic purposes.

Can the hon. Gentleman state the number of accidents from these explosions?

No, Sir; I have no information.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state how many applications for loans, under "The Irish Reproductive Loan Fund Amendment Act, 1883," have been received from bodies of Town Commissioners in the Counties of Roscommon and Tipperary; what sum has been advanced to the Roscommon Town Commissioners under this Act; whether it will be possible for the Roscommon Town Commissioners to apply for fresh loans under the Act; and whether he can state what are the reasons which caused the Board of Works to refuse the applications of the Boyle Town Commissioners for loans under this Act?

No information has reached me from the Board of Works upon this question; but I may point out that the Irish Reproductive Loan Fund was transferred under Section 35 (5) of the Purchase of Laud (Ireland) Act, 1891, to the Congested Districts Board. Any question as to the administration of the Fund by that Board should be addressed to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that German spirit is conveyed in large quantities from Belfast and elsewhere to Bristol, where it is converted into so-called Irish whisky and put into Irish whisky casks previously shipped for this purpose as empties from Glasgow and Greenock, and then re-shipped from Bristol to Belfast and other places in Ireland as real Irish whisky; and whether, in the interests of native manufacturers and consumers generally, an inquiry will be instituted respecting the manipulation and sale of this foreign mixture sold as Irish whisky?

I must apologise to the hon. Gentleman for the delay in obtaining this information, but I am not yet in a position to answer the question.

Am I to understand that the right hon. Gentleman is pursuing inquiries with respect to this matter, because I do not intend to allow it to pass away?

I am pursuing inquiries, but the inquiries have not yet overtaken me. I have pressed for information, and I will take care that the matter is not overlooked.

I may remind the right hon. Gentleman that this is the third time the question has appeared on the Paper.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, looking to the fact that there are thousands of accounts between traders and the Railway Companies waiting settlement, to the detriment of the commercial community, until the Railway and Canal Traffic Bill has become law, he will give special facilities for the Second Reading of the Bill; and whether he can now definitely fix a day for the purpose?

At the same time, I will ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the Notices on the Paper on the Second Reading of the Railway and Canal Traffic Bill are intended to secure a short discussion in the House on the scope of the Bill, and not to defeat the Bill; and whether he will consider the advisability of taking the Bill after 11 o'clock at an early date?

I am not in a position to answer these questions at present.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he would arrange to have some payment on account of Indian Charges placed on the Estimates (as is done in the case of the Metropolitan Police Accounts), so that an opportunity might be given for the consideration of all questions appertaining to the welfare of our fellow-subjects in India?

No; I do not think it will be possible to make an arrangement of the kind suggested.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Government will consider the advisability of not filling up the vacancy under "The Political Pensions Act, 1869," caused by the death of Lord Emlyn, until this House has had an opportunity of expressing an opinion with regard to the repeal of that Act of Parliament?

No appointment has been made, but I am not in a position to give my hon. Friend the pledge for which he asks.

I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the assurances given by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian on 8th and l5th of June last, when effect will be given to the Resolution passed by this House on the 2nd of June directing that all open competitive examinations for the Civil Service of India shall henceforth be held simultaneously both in India and England?

(who replied) said: The Resolution of the House directing: that all competitive examinations for the Civil Service of India shall henceforth be held simultaneously both in England and India has been most carefully considered by Her Majesty's Government after consultation with the Government of India, and Papers on the subject have been laid on the Table of the House. The Despatch from the Secretary of State to the Governor General, dated April 19, 1894, states that Her Majesty's Government are most anxious that the natives of India should enjoy every facility, compatible with the maintenance of the efficiency of the administration and the safety of British rule, to enter the Public Service, and that they have reconsidered the whole subject with a sincere desire to give full weight to the arguments in favour of a system of simultaneous examinations; but they have arrived at the conclusion that there are insuperable objections to the establishment of that system, and that by far the best method of meeting the legitimate claims and aspirations of the natives of the country is to bestow such of the higher posts as can be made available for them on those who distinguish themselves by their capacity and trustworthiness in the performance of subordinate duties; and that upon a careful review of the whole question Her Majesty's Government agree with the Government of India that the system lately established is based on just and wise principles, and are of opinion that, subject to such alterations in detail as experience may prove to be necessary, it should be maintained.

I intend to call attention to the subject on an early opportunity.

Is it the intention of the Government to take any action to rescind the Resolution passed by the House?

No, Sir; it is not.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if, in view of the fact that the Fishery Board a year ago reported that Portmahomack Harbour required improvement in the interests of the fishermen, that the Fishery Board had no funds at its disposal at the time for the purpose of carrying out such improvements, that solely in consequence of the condition of the harbour the shipment of herrings had declined from 17,317 barrels yearly during the five years ending 1867 to 3,439 barrels yearly during the five years ending 1892, he will state whether the Fishery Board is now in possession of funds to carry out the necessary improvements; and, if not, will steps be taken to make provision for the requisite amount before the trade of Portmahomack is utterly ruined?

I am sorry to say that the Fishery Board have no funds available for the improvement of the harbour of Portmahomack. Harbours are required at many points along the coast, and the claims of this village are not so urgent as that of several others. The new harbour of Balintore, only a few miles distant, to some extent takes the place of that at Portmahomack, serving as a port for the surrounding country.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that in August, 1892, a licensed publican in Arbroath was placed in the Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum, Montrose, and has since then and down to the present time been there maintained as a pauper lunatic out of the poor rates "of the parish of St. Vigeans, Arbroath, at a cost to the ratepayers of 11s. a week; that some months ago the licence was transferred by the Licensing Authority to the wife of the person referred to, or to someone else on his behalf; and that the trade is still being carried on, and his name still appears on the licensed premises; and whether the payments so made out of the poor rates are a legal expenditure in the administration of the Poor Law in Scotland?

I believe the facts to be as stated in the question. I am informed that the man, when committed to the asylum, was insolvent, and that his wife, who now holds the licence and carries on the business, is barely able to maintain herself and children. The man is chargeable as a pauper solely because there is no other means available for his maintenance. I am advised by the Board of Supervision that there does not appear to be any illegal application of the parochial funds.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will inquire into a case which came before the Brentford Bench on the 10th of May, in which George Ball was sentenced to a month's imprisonment with hard labour for leading a horse which was unfit to travel at Southall; whether he is aware that the evidence showed that Ball had nothing to do with the horse, and was not aware that it was in so bad a state, but, being out of work, had been asked by its owner to lead it to Southall Market, and was paid Is. for doing so; whether he is aware that Sir George Measom, the Chairman of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was one of the two Magistrates who convicted and sentenced Ball; whether it is regular for the Chairman of such a Society to adjudicate upon such cases, even although he may give the accused an opportunity of objecting to his sitting; and whether, upon that ground, or upon the ground of the severity of the sentence, he will reduce the term of Ball's imprisonment?

I have carefully considered this case, with the result that I at once ordered the man's discharge, and he was released on Saturday afternoon.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether Captain Monro, of Allan, Ross-shire, who is Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland and a Justice of the Peace, recently appointed on the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant of Ross and Cromarty, is entitled to sit as a Justice of the Peace, seeing he holds a Government office and has control over the police, who, in the majority of cases falling under the jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace, are witnesses for the prosecution; whether he is aware that Captain Monro sat at a Licensing Court at Tain, on the 17th of April last, and was chairman of the meeting; and that he took statements from the police at Portmahomack and Chief Constable of Ross and Cromarty derogatory to an applicant for a licence, without allowing the applicant an opportunity of disproving the statements so made; whether Captain Monro voted against said applicant on that occasion; and that, on appeal to the Quarter Sessions, at Dingwall, went there and also voted against the applicant; and whether, seeing that Captain Monro is Inspector of Constabulary, he is entitled to sit as a Justice of the Peace on cases where penalties are incurred under the Excise and other Acts, in many cases of which police officers are the chief witnesses for the prosecution?

The facts appear to be as stated in the question, except that I am informed that the applicant was in Court and was also represented at the Bar. A Justice of the Peace is not disentitled to sit in cases where penalties are incurred under the Excise Acts because he is Inspector of Constabulary.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it has been brought to his notice that a result of the Notification issued by the British Government to the Powers on the 22ud of June, 1892, to the effect that the Sultan of Zanzibar had withdrawn the reserves under which, on the advice of Great Britain and Germany, he originally gave his adhesion to the Berlin Act, has been to prevent the further collection of the Tariff' Duties on produce reaching the coast from countries in the interior and laying outside the limits of the British Protectorate of Zanzibar; whether free transit may now be claimed through the Sultan's dominions for goods imported at the coast if declared as in transit for countries in the interior, thus passing free of payment of the 5 per cent. Import Duty at time of landing to which all goods landed are liable under the Commercial Treaties irrespective of their ultimate destination; whether the above charges, if such have taken place, are consequent upon and are authorised by the Berlin Act; and whether the Imperial British East Africa Company, administering the coast under concession from the Sultan of Zanzibar, have protested against the loss of revenue so caused to them, and asked Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to intervene in the manner specified in the Charter; and, if so, what answer has been given?

No such change as is indicated resulted directly from the notification of the adhesion of the Sultan to the free zone system of the Act of Berlin, as at the time of adhesion the East Africa Company administered the coast and the interior and had only spoken of possible retirement from Uganda. The free transit provisions of the Act have been gradually brought into effect by the successive spontaneous acts of the Company in withdrawing from the districts of the interior which it had undertaken to administer. Free transit to the districts abandoned by it may now be claimed under the Berlin Act. The Company has protested, and its protest, has been noted, but in the present position of the question the Secretary of State has not intervened.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he received communications pointing out that in the parish of Small Isles, Inverness-shire, with a population of 443, there is neither a resident doctor nor a midwife; that the nearest doctor lives eight miles from Eigg, across what is often a stormy sea; that lying-in women are exposed to great danger for want of proper attention; and that the infants are not infrequently born dead in the absence of timely aid; and what steps does he propose to take to remedy this' state of things?

My attention has been directed to the fact that there is no resident doctor or nurse in this parish, a state of matters which I regret to say is not exceptional in these outlying districts. With regard to the mortality in the parish, I am informed that last year six persons died in the Island of Canna, the youngest being 72 and the eldest 95 years of age; that there were no deaths in Rum or Muck, and eight in Eigg, including three infants, none of which wore born dead. There are no Government funds from which any special assistance can be given, as the grant for medical relief is for the benefit only of the pauper population, and the Board of Supervision would not be justified in treating one parish more favourably than another. I understand, however, that a meeting was held at Eigg on the 9th instant at which a committee was appointed, with a view to the levy of a voluntary tax to attract a resident doctor to the parish, and I trust that this scheme will be successfully realised.

Seeing that the people have agreed to levy a tax upon themselves, and that the population is a very poor one, cannot the right hon. Gentleman give them assistance out of some fund?

I am sorry that no such fund exists either in England or in Scotland.

Then is this state of things to be allowed to go on?

The Parochial Board has power to deal with these matters.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he has considered that schools whose school year ends on the 31st of October should have their next annual examination in November conducted under the provisions of the New Code, seeing that the work has been carried on two-thirds of the year under the provisions of the Code 1893; and whether he has decided to compel candidate pupil teachers of 15 and 16 years of age to take the papers of the first and second years respectively, instead of allowing them as hitherto to take whatever papers they are best qualified for?

I have already issued instructions to the Inspectors to make every allowance for the fact that the requirements in arithmetic have this year been slightly raised, so that no school will suffer from the work having been carried on for part of the year under the Code for 1893. I have also laid upon the Table of the House a Minute post- poning for the present year the changes in regard to the examination of pupil teachers.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War why a peremptory Order has been issued from the headquarters of the Eastern District prohibiting the employment of civilians in the capacity of master bootmakers to the Infantry; whether he is aware that there is no such Order in regard to other districts, and none in that district or elsewhere as to Cavalry or Artillery; and what civilian or civilians this puts out of employment,' and how long notice he or they received, and for what length of time he or they have held such post?

By the Queen's Regulations of last year the shoemaker's shop of. each battalion was directed to be placed in charge of a properly qualified non-commissioned officer.: The officer commanding the 1st Battalion Suffolk Regiment having no properly qualified non-commissioned officer in his battalion to take charge of the shop, reported the fact to his General Officer commanding, when steps were taken to obtain a master shoemaker by transfer from another regiment, and to dispense with the services of the civilians who had been improperly employed.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any Code of Regulations for carrying into effect the compulsory clauses of the Education Act of 1892 in the City of Dublin has been approved of by the Commissioners of National Education, or whether any such Code has yet been submitted by the Corporation of Dublin to the Commissioners of National Education or by the Commissioners to the Corporation; and, if so, when?

The Commissioners of National Education inform me that no Code of Regulations for carrying into effect the compulsory clauses of the Education Act of 1892 has been submitted to them for approval in respect of Dublin. A sample Code of Regulations was prepared by the Commissioners and a copy was sent on November 6, 1893, to the Corporation of Dublin for consideration, as well as to the Local Authorities of all the rest of the 118 places to which the compulsory attendance clauses of the Act apply.

I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland if he is aware that two paupers, named Neil M'Hugh and Michael Cairns, were, on the 18th April last, deported from Greenock and personally conducted by a removing officer, named White, to the Enniskillen Union Workhouse; is he aware that M'Hugh had spent 51 and Cairns 35 years working in Scotland, and that the former, at the time of his deportation, was suffering intense pain from a broken arm; and will he confer with the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant with a view to amending the present law which imposes upon Irish ratepayers the cost of supporting broken - down persons who have spent their lives and labour out of the country that gave them birth?

I have now received the Report of the Inspector of Glasgow on the cases referred to. The men, Cairns and McCue, are aged 45 and 63 respectively; they were removed to Ireland on the date named, and in accordance with the provisions of the Statute, under warrants signed by two Justices of the Peace. Neither of them possessed a settlement in Scotland. McCue was last admitted a pauper on the 22nd of March, 1894, being then disabled by "fracture of forearm," and when removed on the 13th of April he was medically certified as fit for removal. The Board of Supervision have been anxious that some check should be imposed on the power of removing paupers both to England and Ireland, and also from parish to parish in Scotland, by granting a right of appeal; but I should deprecate the total repeal of the enactments in question.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that in the County of Leitrim there are only 13 Roman Catholic Magistrates, and 62 of other denominations; and that since the 11th of August, 1892, there have been appointed by the Lord Chancellor four Protestant and Tory Magistrates and only four Roman Catholics; and whether, as the population of the county contains 71,098 Roman Catholics and 7,520 of all other denominations, he can state that the Lord Chancellor will not further increase the preponderance of Protestant and Tory Magistrates on the Bench, and is prepared to appoint more Catholic Magistrates?

The relative proportions of the several religious denominations of the Magistracy in the County of Leitrim and its populations are correctly stated. The present Lord Chancellor has appointed nine Magistrates for Leitrim, of whom five are Roman Catholics, hut one has neglected to take out his commission. Of the four Protestant gentlemen referred to one is an ex officio appointment—the Divisional Commissioner. The Lord Chancellor is now making several appointments of Magistrates for the county.

On behalf of the hon. Member for Canterbury, I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that in the Town of Crieff, N.B., there was, on the 23rd instant, only one delivery of letters, at 6.45 a.m., and that, though the post office remained open during the day, no letters were delivered to those who called for them between 9 a.m. on the 23rd and 8 a.m. on the 24th, a period of 23 hours; whether letters were refused to callers at other Scottish towns on the 23rd or 24th instant; and whether he will direct that in future, on such occasions, there shall be an afternoon as well as a morning delivery of letters to callers?

I have asked for information on this subject, and will send a reply to the hon. Member when I am in possession of the particulars.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the report in The Irish News of the 17th instant of the proceedings at the special meeting of the Larue (County Antrim) Board of Guardians, held on the 16th instant, to consider the letter sent to the Guardians by the Secretary of the Local Government Board of Ireland; whether he is aware that, out of 61 inmates in the infirmary of the workhouse, 27 are lunatics; that the medical officer of the workhouse stated at the meeting that, of the three assistants who were helping the infirm nurse in charge at the time when the Inspector visited the house, the two who were then doing the work were regular prostitutes; and whether, considering the disclosures made at this meeting, some inquiry will be held into the working of the institution, or some steps taken to have a sufficient number of proper nurses engaged to attend to the wants of the patients?

The facts are as stated in the question. The Guardians at their meeting held on the 16th instant decided to appoint a probationer nurse to assist in the workhouse infirmary. They have been informed that the Local Government Board will not countenance any arrangement under which persons of immoral character are employed to act as attendants on the sick poor, and the Board have called upon them to forthwith put a stop to such a discreditable state of affairs.

Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer consider the advisability of informing the House on Thursday—when he proposes his Resolution in regard to Government business—in what order Government Bills are to be proceeded with?

I must defer my answer till Thursday.

I wish to move the insertion, in line 18, of the words "ascer- tained as hereinafter provided. "The right hon. Gentleman yesterday hinted that the Government proposed to accept the words, and under the circumstances I need not occupy the time of the House by speaking on the Amendment.

Yes, we accept it.

said, he desired to propose the insertion of the words "as set forth in the Inland Revenue affidavit." He did not, he said, mean to press this Amendment, but he wished simply to put it before the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a practical suggestion for carrying out the statute, and he would like the Government to reconsider their decision on the point. There were three matters here under consideration—assimilation, graduation, and aggregation. As to assimilation, no just-minded man could deny that it was right to levy upon the principal value of succession to real estate whenever such principal value actually passed, but the matter of assimilation was relatively a very small one. He might point out that the whole of the Legacy Duty amounted roughly to £3,000,000, the Probate Duty to £6,000,000, and the Succession Duty to £1,500,000. The question of assimilation affected but a small proportion of that £1,500,000; for he ventured to repeat the assertion he made on the previous day, that in the large majority of cases in point of value the principal value of real estate did not pass but only a life interest therein. The Chancellor had denied that, but, on inquiry, he would find it was the case. Assimilation, therefore, would only affect the lesser part, the £1,500,000,and would produce little or no money. It was, therefore, relatively a small matter. But the principle of aggregation embodied in the Bill was altogether mischievous, foolish, and impracticable. The Death Duties were already complicated enough. In these discussions hon. Members were too prone to take a simple case as illustration; but the vagaries of testators were infinite, and it was the complications caused thereby which led to all the difficulties. In a case recently taken into Court it appeared that A was entitled to some money on the death of B. B was his wife, and the children C, D, and E were also interested subject to B' s death. But A, C, D, and E died first, and then B died, and the result was that there were five devolutions and transmissions of personalty and five sets of legacy all arising out of one death. In another case cited in the book written by Mr. Wallace, of the Legacy Duty Office, 99 legatees' estates had to be followed out on one death, and if this absurd aggregation were adopted they would have had to be followed out not merely downwards but upwards, too, to make the aggregation of each. If there was this amount of complication under the Death Duties as they at present existed, a far greater complication would arise under the proposed scheme of taxation brought forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. His proposal, however, got rid of what he conceived to be the great difficulty, the great impossibility of the Budget scheme of what were improperly called Death Duties—namely, the question of aggregation—and it would reduce the duty to a Probate Duty. He did not suggest the abandonment of the desire to tax realty, because the Legacy and the Succession Duties were left as at present. His proposal would simply get rid of aggregation; it. would charge the Estate Duty on the personalty only; and if there was a wish to apply graduation and assimilation, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be perfectly free to do this by further duties either on legacies or successions, or both, and duties graduated as he might please; but the very great difficulty of aggregation embodied in the Bill would be got rid of. It was possible to graduate, and it was possible to assimilate, but not under the scheme as it at present stood. He doubted, however, whether his Amendment really effected any alteration in the Bill, for by Clause 7, Section 6, the Estate Duty was in the first instance to be calculated at the appropriate rate according to the value of the estate as set forth in the Inland Revenue affidavit. He bogged formally to move the Amendment standing in his name.

said, he was glad to hear that the hon. Member had no wish to press his Amendment. There were several objections to the Amendment, one of them being that as the affidavit was the statement of the representatives of the deceased, the authorities could not accept that statement as conclusive of the amount upon which the duties ought to be levied.

said, he wished to move an Amendment providing that in the case of every person dying after the commencement of this part of the Act the graduated Estate Duty shall be levied and paid upon the principal value of—

"the benefit accruing to any person on the death of the deceased in any"

property, real or personal, settled or not settled, which passes on death. He said that he moved this Amendment with the object of raising the first of the three or four very important questions of principle which arose on this clause. He had consulted The Times report of the Chairman's ruling, and it confirmed his recollection that the objection of the Chairman to the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Member for the University of London was based on two grounds—namely, that it increased the Succession Duties and affected the number of persons paying. He had, how-ever, framed this Amendment in such a way as not to offend against the ruling with regard to this matter given last Thursday. He did not propose to alter in any shape or form the number of persons who would have to pay; nor did he propose to increase the duties they would have to pay. His proposition was this—that the principle of the Bill as enunciated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was that taxes of this character, and, a fortiori, graduated taxes, ought to be assessed and paid in proportion to the ability of the persons who paid them. There were some very important questions to be considered in connection with that clause which, to some extent, approached the fringe of the question he was about to argue, which it was necessary for him to briefly enumerate. The first was the principle of graduation. When speaking of that, however, he would not be concerned with the principle of graduation itself, but with the effect of that principle when it was applied to the scheme of taxation under the present financial Bill. Nor was he at present concerned with the question of principal value—that would have to be fully discussed when they came directly to consider that subject at a later stage in the Debate—but only as to the way in which the principal value was to be arrived at. Then there was the question of aggregation. He was not concerned with it directly, but he should have to point out that the principle entered to a certain extent into the considerations he was about to bring before the House. What he was concerned with was the proposal that the tax should be levied in proportion to a person's ability to pay. It would be seen that he was quoting, and not for the first time, the right hon. Gentleman's own language in moving the Resolution upon which the Bill was founded. He submitted that that principle was a fair one, but that the way in which it was proposed to carry out that principle in the Bill was one that would not work fairly, and therefore he had introduced this Amendment, believing that, if it were adopted, the object of the proposal would receive effect, while the injustice of the 2>resent method would be avoided. Let them think what methods of increasing the Death Duty might have been adopted, because if they approached the consideration of the question from that point of view they would see in what respect the Chancellor of the Exchequer had either abandoned one standard principle in order to accept another, or had, as they (the Opposition) thought not wisely, mixed up two or three conflicting principles and modes of application. First of all, the right hon. Gentleman might have assimilated realty and personalty. He (Sir R. Webster) would accept for the purposes of his argument the view that it was consistent with the right hon. Gentleman's plan that, to a greater or less extent, the distinction between realty and personalty should be, broken down. He would assume that it was fundamental to the right hon. Gentleman's scheme that in future, for the purposes of taxation, realty and personalty should be amalgamated. He suggested that such a result could have been obtained without recourse to any new method—for example, it could have provided that all the property of deceased should have been brought into hotch-pot, and upon that an increased Probate Duty could have been levied. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had, indeed, last night defined this new tax as "an analogue" to the Probate Duty. Why was it impossible for the right hon. Gentleman to do this, and to merely increase the Probate Duty? It was because he had made up his mind that he would introduce the principle of graduation. There was nothing new in it. They were told that in 1889 there was a kind of graduation applied to the Estate Duty. Certain estates below a certain figure were exempted; but it was not graduation properly so-called. Small estates paid less, not through the operation of a graduated scale, but because they were allowed a certain fixed abatement. But they all knew there was a graduation of another kind depending on the degree of relationship of the beneficiaries to the deceased which applied to the Legacy and Succession Duty. Why was it impossible for the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to have adopted a simple course, and to have treated all as Probate Duty, and put an increase upon it Because the application of Probate Duty, properly socalled, was absurd. He (Sir R. Webster) was aware that this view had been clearly foreshadowed by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. Could anything be more logically absurd? than to say that the Probate Duty, properly so-called, should be graduated? It was as illogical as to say, if they wanted to graduate the Income Tax, that a man who had £1,000 a year should pay 6d., and the man with £20,000 a year 2s., because the bank with which the latter did business divided 50 or 60 per cent. dividend. Could anything be more absurd than to suggest that there was any justice in graduating the Probate Duty if they were going to regard merely the total amount of property that was to be divided, instead of the position in which the recipient stood? He did not wish to overlay his case with wearying examples, but he could not help giving one. Suppose a rich man chose to leave a very large sum of money to a charity and the rest of his property in very small legacies to different relations. Under the present scheme his relations would have to pay a high rate of duty, because the large sum that had been left to the charity would be amalgamated with the small sums left them and duty charged upon the whole estate. That surely would not be either fair or right. He (Sir It. Webster) need not refer to the Account Duty, which he would agree was an analogue to the Probate Duty, but he would pass on to consider what should have been done assuming that the right hon. Gentleman had determined to assimilate realty and personalty. What it seemed to him (Sir R. Webster) the right hon. Gentleman ought to have done, and what would have been the right scheme, even assuming that they accepted all the other views he (Sir It. Webster) had merely summarised with regard to the treatment of estates, would have been to assimilate the Succession Duty and the Legacy Duty, to have turned realty into personalty, taxed them all as Legacy Duty, and then have graduated the Legacy Duty. That was a principle upon which they might have had a good deal of controversy, but at any rate there would have been very much less friction, and alteration of accounts, and a far shorter Bill. This would have commended itself to those who desired to simplify and assimilate the duty. But the scheme they had before them was of a different kind. It had been well put by one of the Members for Essex the other night, who had said that it seemed to be

"A sort of mixing up of a duty that was a duty of alienation with duties which were duties for a benefit received,"

for what purpose he could not understand. It brought out in strong relief the principle he (Sir R. Webster) had endeavoured to embody in his Amendment, which many hon. Members were desirous of discussing in considering the scheme the Chancellor of the Exchequer had propounded. It was certainly a very remarkable thing: that, under the Bill as it stood, however small a benefit was taken by the beneficiary he would have to pay a penalty in the form of an increased duty if the amount passing to him happened to form part of a large estate. He was not going to allude to the case of the millionaire which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was so fond of trotting out on every possible occasion. He would confine himself to showing how that scheme would affect the pockets of ordinary individuals, and for that purpose he would take only simple cases. In estimating a man's ability to pay, other questions than the amount of property he possessed would have to be taken into consideration. By way of illustrating his point he would refer to the ordinary case of a man dying possessed of £100,000, and also leaving, say, 10 children. [Sir W. HARCOURT expressed dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House shook his head. Was he objecting to the £100,000, or to the 10 children? But it was not an extravagant supposition to take the case of a man who died worth £101,000, and left his property equally amongst 10 children. The Estate Duty chargeable under this Bill for each of those children receiving £10,100 a piece was 6 per cent., or £606. Take the opposite case where a father left to an only son a sum of £10,100. The duty in that case would only be £404, the difference being accounted for by the fact that in one case the amount came from a large, and in the other case from a small estate, although the position of the different recipients so far as the amount they actually received was concerned was exactly the same. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite might say that all this was not worth considering. They might say that this kind of criticism was unnecessary, because they had made up their minds that the Estate Duty should be charged in the way provided in the Bill; but the Opposition were justified in bringing out clearly that the Bill did impose upon the recipient of the benefit a tax not at all in accordance with his ability, simply because his portion happened to come from a larger pool. The same thing would happen in regard to small legacies of £200 or £300; and it must not be supposed that, because, for the sake of clearness, he confined himself to striking examples, he was putting exaggerated eases. He was pointing out the absurdity of the scheme of aggregation in the Bill as bearing on the proposition they were now considering. He was not discussing the aggregation by itself. A legatee would have to pay a penalty in proportion to the largeness of the total from which his legacy came. Suppose £50,000 were settled by a stranger upon a man for his life, and at his death passed to his eldest son. Suppose the father had £10,000 of his own and left that to be equally divided between two children. Simply because the father had a life interest in £50,000 that would be treated as estate, making a total of £60,000, and each child would have to pay £250, whereas if the father had not had an interest in the £50,000 each would have paid only £150. This was a case in which he challenged correction. No one who had studied the Bill, and who had made a calculation, would deny that in the case ho had put the estate would be treated as a £60,000 estate, and would be charged a 5 per cent. duty.

It is the legator and not the legatee who pays the money.

said, he did not suppose the hon. Member had given as many minutes to the consideration of this question as he (Sir R. Webster) had given hours. He denied that it was the dead man who paid the tax; if it were, it would be regarded as Probate Duty; it would be treated as coming out of the residuary estate. Could anything be more absurd than saying that the testator paid the duty because the duty passed away from him? He could give many instances of the absurd operation of the principle of aggregation which was embodied in the Bill, coming down to nominal annuities of £200 a year; but he did not want to complicate the matter by arguing it out on special cases. He had taken the case advisedly, on the broadest lines, and had mentioned instances which, though they were multiplied, would only multiply the principle he wanted to bring out. They had now to consider what was the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman in respect of this matter. He hoped it would not be thought that he desired in any way to blame the draftsmen. He had said two or three times from the Front Bench opposite how much Ministers were indebted to skilled draftsmen; he did not wish in anything he said to be understood as casting any reflection upon the draftsmen of the Bill; his criticisms applied rather to the directions given to the draftsmen to embody absurdities in the Bill in order to carry out a certain policy. The Bill started by speaking about an Estate Duty, which at first looked like a Probate Duty, to be paid partly or wholly by the executors. But when they passed to other sections a very different state of things arose. Having by Clause 5 provided that a certain duty should be paid, the Bill further provided by Sub-section 3 of Clause 7 that a certain portion of the Estate Duty should be a charge upon the person receiving any property coming out of an estate; and, more extraordinary still, in Clause 12 there was the remarkable provision that in the case of all wills made after the commencement of the Act the Estate Duty was to be borne by the person to whom the benefit was going, and the executor was to recover from the legatee or successor the whole rateable proportion of the Estate Duty. They then at once passed from the Probate Duty, and got into the category of Succession Duty. Where was the analogue now? There were hundreds of thousands—nay, millions—of wills throughout the country which would be affected by this Bill. He was sure, speaking as a member of the profession he was no longer entitled to represent in the House, that the Law Officers of the Crown might well, on behalf of the Legal Profession, thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the amount of work that Clause 12 would give to the lawyers. The unfortunate clients would equally not thank him. So far from the duty being an analogue to the Probate Duty, everything above 3 per cent. was to be paid by the legatee or the successor to the executor. In other words, the whole of the graduation and excess tax, which was created by graduation, was no longer to be paid on the passing of the estate, but paid and recovered from the legatee or successor. This point was indirectly brought out on Thursday by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for East Lothian, and he suspected that it was to a certain extent a revelation to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He (Sir R. Webster) could not help thinking that if the right hon. Gentleman had appreciated that in the case of all new wills the whole Estate Duty was to be put upon the legatee or successor, if he had appreciated that under all existing wills everything above 3 per cent. was put upon the legatee or successor, he could scarcely have spoken so, glibly as he had done, of this being an analogue to the Probate Duty. If the Estate Duty in full proportion was to be paid by the legatee and successor, what became of the justice of the suggestion that the Estate Duty was to be charged, not in proportion to the amount which the man received, but according to the mere accidental circumstance that what he did receive came either from a large or a small estate? That was the position of the Opposition in the matter, whether they were right or wrong. They would, possibly, be voted down by some hundreds of hon. Members, who never appreciated even the most elementary considerations of the subject. No doubt, the organs of the Government in the Press would say that the result of his argument was a long, dull speech in which no one paid any attention; but he cared not for that kind of criticism. He wanted to bring it home to the Committee that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not doing what he suggested he was doing, when he introduced the Budget, and that was, taxing people according to the ability to pay. The right hon. Gentleman was placing the penalty on the small man who received £100 legacy or the £500 legacy; and had the good luck—or rather the ill fortune—of receiving it from the estate of a man having above £10,000. He thought there should be some alteration in the way small legacies were left, because it was singularly unjust that there should be this additional burden on small legatees who received their money out of large estates. There was another very important question involved in this matter, one which embraced an entirely different consideration, and that was the absolute uncertainty that would be introduced into the Government scheme, by virtue of the varying tax, which was to be measured not by the sum received but by the total out of which that sum came. He was not attacking the principle of aggregation—the principle, namely, that the total benefit a man received in various other ways from an estate should be calculated in making out the Probate Duty he was to pay. But did the right hon. Gentleman imagine that estates of £25,000 or £100,000 could be wound up in a few weeks or months? They all knew that according to the nature of an estate a very considerable amount of time must be involved in winding it up. Take the case of shares in an Australian bank or a South American railway. It was utterly impossible to ascertain, in the course of a few days, the real value of such an estate. Again, what would happen when an estate got close to one of the six lines into which the right hon. Gentleman broke his system of aggregation under £100,000? Did not the right hon. Gentleman know that there would be an attempt made to get the estate below the line? Remember that a difference of £20 in an estate would make a difference of. £200 in the Estate Duty. Many people thought it was not a sin to evade, as far as possible, the payment of the Queen's taxes, and there was no doubt that, though his right hon. Friend the Member for St. George's thought it was the greatest sin that could possibly be committed, there was a natural tendency to try to evade taxes. There was another point. At present, if a man was left £10,000, he could go to the executors and get his £10,000 at once, paying the duty; but under the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman such a man would, in the future, be told he could not get his legacy until it was known how much the estate was, as, if it were £90,000, he would have to pay £4 10s. per cent., and if it were £100,000 he would have to pay more. The right hon. Gentleman could not deny that those were circumstances that would affect the amount of the tax recoverable and the expenses of levying it. The right hon. Gentleman might have the advice of the hon. and learned Member for East Lothian that his Budget was based on logical and scientific principles, but the practical way would be to wind up the estate at once, so that the Chancellor of the Exchequer might get his tax quickly. Reasonable as his proposition was, and just as it was to the Exchequer, he was sure that the mechanical majority of the Government would vote it down. But before the Amendment was rejected, the Opposition desired to make it clear to the House, and through the House to the country, that this tax did not proceed on the principle which the right hon. Gentleman himself laid down, that it was not assessed according to the person's ability to pay it, but according to the accidental circumstance that the legacy came out of a large estate. They must also protest against a plan which was neither a tax on the alienation or passing over an estate, or on parts of an estate, which so altered existing wills that the testator, in every case, would have to make a new will, if he desired to have his wishes before the Act was passed carried out, which meant the loss of money to the Exchequer, and great delay and expense in winding up an estate. For those reasons, some of which he hoped would commend themselves to hon. Gentlemen opposite, he begged to move his Amendment.

I will endeavour to address myself to the very fair speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and to state some practical reasons why I cannot accept the Amendment. By this Amendment the hon. and learned Gentleman raises the whole question whether, assuming graduation, we should graduate upon the A Duties, which partake of the character of probate, or whether we should graduate upon the B Duties, which are of the character of legacy and succession, and the hon. and learned Member argues that we ought to graduate, not upon the A Duties but upon the B.

If you assume graduation.

I will assume graduation. I know that the right hon. Member for St. George's is against it, and that the Leader of the Opposition is in favour of it.

I never said I was in favour of it.

On the Second Reading of the Bill the right hon. Gentleman was extremely careful to protest against its being supposed that he was against graduation.

I said it was not necessary to raise the question of graduation—that the intrinsic absurdities of the Budget could be sufficiently exposed without touching on the abstract question of graduation at all.

Either the right hon. Gentleman is for graduation or against it. The Committee are about 1o come to a Division, and then, I suppose, it will be seen what are the views of gentlemen on the Opposition side, including gentlemen who generally act with the Opposition, including my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham, who, at all events, is in favour of graduation. I will, therefore, assume graduation in dealing with the plan of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight.

My objection would be equally strong if there had been no graduation, assuming that the Estate Duty is to be charged on the capital value of the estate and not upon the amount received.

I will take it upon that ground. As I understand, the hon. and learned Member proposes to impose a duty on legacies and succession, and I have to consider what would be the result of the Amendment if carried. Well, then, one of my main objections is that his proposal is one of insolvency, and it destroys every means of raising taxation to meet the expenditure which hon. Gentlemen opposite demanded for the Fleet. I do not quite understand whether the hon. and learned Member proposes to leave the present Probate and Succession Duty alone or not.

Those duties make no difference to my scheme, but I would not have the smallest objection to deal with probate and succession.

I should have the greatest objection, because it would destroy our proposals for the equalisation of treatment for realty and personal property. What would be the use to make a proposal to amend the Death Duties if we are going to leave the Probate Duty and Estate Duty as they are—anomalies which it has been the object of: everybody to remove? The hon. and learned Gentleman contends that instead of graduating upon the Pro- bate Duty we should have graduated on the Legacy and Succession Duty. What would be the result of that? By the hon. and learned Gentleman's plan we would at once lose £6,000,000 of the present Revenue, and as we have to find £3,500,000 more, therefore the hon. and learned Member's duty would have to be so graduated as to yield £9,500,000. Now, what would be the result to the legatees, whose interests are said to be so carefully attended to in the plan of the hon. and learned Member? The difficulty to be encountered is, that we cannot graduate any higher than the rates fixed in the Resolution of the House. Therefore, if the Amendment were adopted, we would lose the £6,000,000 under the Probate and Estate Duty; and would have to get it out of the Legacy Duty, upon the scale of graduation fixed by the Resolution. That is absolutely impossible; and so far from raising the money to meet the demands of the Fleet, you would render our Revenue insolvent. But, even supposing we could graduate the Legacy Duty to any extent we pleased, the graduation, in order to yield £9,500.000, would have to be nearly doubled. The 2 per cent. on small estates must be 3½ per cent.; the 3 per cent. below £10,000, 5 per cent.; the 4 per cent. between £10,000 and £25,000 would have to be raised to 7 per cent.; and the maximum rate would be not 8 but 14 per cent; so that, adding the 10 per cent. which may be payable under the existing Legacy Duty, the duty under the plan of the hon. and learned Member might be 24 per cent. That is the result of the practical scheme which is to render such benefits to the legatees and to the beneficiaries of these estates. Again, if the money were levied on the Legacy Duty, nothing would be collected under that duty in the course of the present financial year; it is only under the Probate Duty that any money can be got in the present year. In that case we would have abolished the whole of the Probate Duty during this year. Under these circumstances, there would be insolvency to the amount of at least £5,000,000 during the present year, and the only way in which we can meet the situation, in which the hon. and learned Member's proposal would land us, would be by a loan to fill the vacuity created. Is it possible to conceive that the House of Commons, wanting to raise Revenue in order to meet extraordinary expenditure, could be expected to adopt such a proposal? The real answer to the Amendment, to which I am now coming—[Ironical Opposition cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen are always ready to borrow money, but they do not care how it is repaid. That is their finance, but these are not the principles of the Government. The hon. and learned Member said that the Government founded their scheme upon the principle of the Probate Duty. That is perfectly true, and to that principle we absolutely adhere. The. whole of our scheme, as developed from the first clause of the Bill, is an analogue of the Probate Duty; and we stand upon that principle. So far from saying that the new Estate Duty has any reference to the interest taken by the beneficiary, I have, from the first, emphatically stated that the duty has nothing to do with that interest. I stated clearly in my speech introducing the Budget that our principle is that, upon the devolution of property of all descriptions, the State takes its share first, before any of the successors in title or beneficiaries; and I denied that the Government are taking from the legatee anything that ever belonged to himor was intended to belong to him. The. fact is, that this duty is a debt to the State; the legatee has no interest whatever in this debt, the State being the first creditor upon the property; and whatever the State does not take remains as the share of the legatee. That is the principle on which economists have always treated the Death Duties. I have shown that they were thus treated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square. I have already said that it is most important to keep that matter in view. It must not be supposed that there is any ambiguity on the part of the Government as to the principles on which this Bill is founded. Who is it that pays this duty to the State? The executor, the personal representative of the deceased. He has to make the first payment, not to the legatees, but to the State, and, he takes it out of the estate of the deceased, not out of the estate of the beneficiaries. Nothing can be clearer than the principle upon which this plan is founded,' and I maintain that in Clause 1 I have hot departed in any sense from that principle —that is to say, the payment of the Probate Duty out of the estate of the deceased by his personal representative. That is all the Revenue has to do with the matter. The Revenue receives that amount, but it knows nothing of what is done with the residue, which is distributed according to the will of the testator. Therefore, under Clause 1 I say we have nothing to do with anything whatever except the principle of probate and the payment under probate to the State. The hon. and learned Gentleman commented with great force upon the difference between the probate principle under Clause 1 and the principle under Clause 12. Upon that I would observe that Clause 12 is an entirely subordinate part of the Bill. It has nothing to do with the interest of the Revenue. If Clause 12 were out of the Bill altogether the Revenue would not lose a farthing. The money has been paid to the State by the personal representative upon the graduated scale. Clause 12 was introduced into the Bill because it was thought that it might be advisable to distribute the burden thrown upon the residuary legatee of the debt paid to the State among all the beneficiaries. Clause 12 was introduced in the interest of other persons, and not in the interest of the Revenue, and if Sub-section (a) of Clause 12 were taken out of the Bill the whole of the terrible difficulty which the hon. and learned Gentleman has raised about diminishing the interests of the legatee would disappear. Things would remain exactly as they are now under the Probate Duty. Every one of the objections which the hon. and learned Gentleman takes arose upon Clause 12, and not upon Clause 1. When we come to Clause 12 we can discuss this matter, and I will not, therefore., go into it elaborately now. I will only consider generally the reasons why Clause 12 was put in. It was thought that it might be well to relieve the residuary legatee, who now bears the whole burden of the duty, by distributing it among the beneficiaries. If the Committee object to that they may omit Sub-section (a) of Clause 12. So long as the Revenue is protected, I maintain a perfectly open mind as to the method of collecting the duty. This is merely a. question of collection, and if the Com- mittee thinks that the whole ought to be collected from the residuary legatee I do not object. I may, however, remind the Committee that, it is not until a figure over £2.5,000 is reached that the extra burden on the residuary legatee arises.

How about settled property?

said, he did not think any difficulty would arise in the case of settled property, because the payment would, to a great extent, distribute itself. He thought, however, that there were some difficulties with respect to realty which might arise, and which it might be desirable to meet under Clause 12. Under Clause 1 the Government had stood, and did stand, on the principle of the Probate Duty. He knew that the Leader of the Opposition had said more than once that he did not approve of the principle of the Probate Duty. He would ask, did he approve or not of the principle that the duty should be charged upon what was left by a man and not upon what was received by his successors?

I said that the Probate Duty, regarded as a tax, was a perfectly fair tax if you do not make it a principal source of Revenue.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman seemed to have in his mind the maxim, de minimis non curat lex. He did not object to the probate principle when only £6,000,000 were raised by its application, but thought that it became a wrong principle when it was proposed so to apply it as to raise £3,500,000 more. The duty was a fair duty, and accorded with the old system of taxation in feudal times, when the State took possession of the whole property of a deceased man, and, having satisfied its claims out of the estate, returned it upon conditions to his successor. The hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to abolish this duty, which yielded £6,000,000 to the Revenue—a sum which the Leader of the Opposition viewed apparently as a quantité négligeable. The Probate Duty had every quality to recommend it to a Chancellor of the Exchequer; it was collected in the very simplest way, and speedily. He must, therefore, decline absolutely to part with this duty and to substitute for it another which would be collected with difficulty and would create a number of complications. He denied that he had been taken by surprise by his own Bill, as the hon. and learned Gentleman had suggested. From the first he had had a very clear view of the principles on which the Death Duties ought to be reformed, and he intended to adhere to them with the support, he hoped, of what was termed his "mechanical" majority. He did not understand why majorities only should be called "mechanical," for he had observed that minorities were equally "mechanical."

said, he wished that the Committee had been told what instructions were given to the gentlemen who had furnished the figures which the right hon. Gentleman had placed before the Committee.

I merely asked them what would be the financial result of the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite.

said, that the gentlemen who had furnished the figures had not had the advantage of hearing the views of the hon. and learned Gentleman. Given the same persons to tax and the same property in respect of which the tax was to be levied, why should it not be possible to obtain the same amount of money by one method of procedure as by another? Given the same persons and properties, there were various ways in which this taxation could be so adjusted as to work fairly while producing all the revenue that was desired. He did not pretend to be a financial authority, but as an ordinary observer of what was going on he thought he might give expression to the views that occurred to him. He was aware that this Amendment was said to be a bankruptcy Amendment, but he should have thought that if it was possible to bring in a Resolution of so unjust of character as that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was equally possible to bring in a Resolution correcting the injustice. If that were admitted, there was an end to the suggestion about this being a bankruptcy Amendment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that what he had to look at was the receipt of revenue and not to the mode of collection. He (Mr. Byrne) thought, however, that the levying of the revenue ought to have reference to what was just and right, and, whatever the Chancellor of the Exchequer might think qua Chancellor of the Exchequer, he could not acquit the Government of pressing on a scheme of taxation which was monstrously unjust. This question was directly raised by the Amendment, which went to the vital principle of the Bill. There were essential differences between the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the system under which the scheme of Probate Duty was carried out. Where a man was parting with property, it did not matter to whom he was going to sell it, he had to pay a certain amount to the State in respect to the alienation of that property, and he actually paid an ad valorem duty on the value of the property independently of the person to whom it was conveyed. It was exactly the same with regard to the Probate Duty. There was an alienation of property there, and duty had to be paid before there was any alienation of property just in the same way as they were told that land should pay duty before alienation. What was the result? As a man's estate had to bear his debts, so it bad to bear Probate Duty. Then the other form of taxation was upon enjoyment; and just as under the present system of Legacy and Succession Duty the charge was upon what a man enjoyed, so in the present instance, as far as the duty was levied like the Legacy and Successionuty, it ought to be charged in respect of enjoyment. That was just what the Bill did not do. Consider the difference in method, and how far this tax was really carried out as a Probate Duty. In the first place, alienation duties were paid by the alienor, either directly or indirectly, as purchasers generally paid duties. Where a settlement was being made the ad valorem duty was paid by stamp out of the general estate, and was no burden upon the property afterwards. So far with regard to Probate Duty. As to Legacy and Succession Duty, that was paid by the persons who were to enjoy the property, without reference at present to the capital or sale value of the property. Each of those methods had worked well. Would the present scheme work equally advantageously? Undoubtedly it would have been competent to raise the same amount by means of increased Probate, Legacy, and Succession Duties. But another scheme had been put forward for the first time, and the House required to examine and see whether it was a fair scheme. As far as the amount to be paid was concerned, this partook of the nature of Probate Duty—regard was had to all that the testator had to part with. He was,of course, referring so far only to the general leading principle. The whole estate, real and personal, was treated as if Probate Duty were going to be charged and paid at once. That was an alienation. But having found how much could be got out of the estate, the Bill proceeded, as far as real estate was concerned, simply to increase the burden of Succession Duty, calculating it upon capital instead of upon the true principle in taxation of that description—the enjoyment of the property by the various individuals. The old Probate Duty was done away with in name, but a tax was imposed which was to include the amount formerly raised by means of Probate Duty. That old tax might have been increased for the purpose of revenue, but was no longer to be levied like Probate Duty paid by the executor, and then no longer a burden on the estate. The Bill treated the residuary legatee as if he were a pecuniary legatee. That was a most extraordinary doctrine. A man's debts were not paid out of his residuary estate; he was obliged to pay them out of his property before he could call it his own. And so the old Probate Duty was always payable before a man had anything to dispose of. Colloquially, paying out of residue was spoken of, but the expression was not strictly accurate —there was no residue until it was paid. The right hon. Gentleman's view of his scheme was not the true one. From beginning to end of this Bill the charge was treated as payable by the person having the first enjoyment of the estate, and would remain a charge upon it if not entirely paid by the person having the first life or limited interest. That was not a payment in any sense like Probate Duty. If the life tenant paid it he would have a charge upon the land for it. If he chose to pay it by instalments and died within two years the charge would continue for the remainder of eight years, although the property might be deteriorating from day to day, and the value had very much gone down. On an estate with open coal mines worth £25,000 in the market the successor paying ordinary duty would pay about £144 a year for 8 years; and that would remain a charge upon the property though the coal might have been all worked out within two years. An ordinary mortgagee under such circumstances would, of course, foreclose and sell in time before the property ceased to be valuable. Though it might afterwards be only worth £10,000 the charge would continue at that rate. That was a method of taxation which might commend itself to some; but, apart from the doctrine of aggregation (which seemed to be iniquitous) the whole system of taxation was false where enjoyment was charged upon as if it were alienation. Income Tax also was not charged upon the capital value of, but upon the profit made from, a business worth in the market a large sum because of goodwill and perhaps "the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice." So it should be with all enjoyment taxes. It could not be a true principle to calculate upon the footing of an alienation duty and then charge it upon the enjoyment income of the person direct.

said, the powerful and vigorous speech of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of 'Wight showed that he had given great attention to the subject, and had thoroughly worked himself into a conviction of the justice of the principles he had enunciated. He had always admired the power possessed by his hon. and learned Friend of shutting his eyes very tight or keeping them wide open, as he chose. It would be difficult to find a better example of his qualities in that respect than on this occasion. He had denounced the scheme of this Bill in most impassioned language as being unjust, unreasonable, and illogical, but he had not taken the trouble to consider the principle of the Bill. It was no good using terms of abuse to the propositions and arguments of one's enemies, but to give them every consideration. First, he would show that the Bill was clearly fair in principle. The Bill was needed because the Death Duties had become a laughing- stock from their anomalies and inequalities, yet the argument put forward against it was—"Your new scheme is illogical because it is not the same as any of those already condemned systems." It was said to be illogical because it was not identical with either the Probate or Legacy Duties, although in some respects it resembled them both, but it would have been much more illogical if it had been like either in carrying out their unsound principles. What was the principle underlying this measure? It was that when a man died the proportion of his property which went to the State was payable first, before he had any right to alienate or dispose of that which remained. That principle fairly carried out and nothing else was the foundation of the Bill as regarded testamentary dispositions. Taking that proportion at 10 per cent., for the sake of argument, the other 90 per cent. a testator had the power to alienate. Two courses might here be taken. He might be left free to alienate it as he pleased, or he might be penalised in some way if he did not alienate as was desired. The hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight wanted to interfere with the free disposition of the remaining 90 per cent., while the Bill left him free to dispose of it as he pleased. He had heard with delight the cheers of the hon. and learned Member's Party when he was denouncing the Radical Government for being unjust and unreasonable in not penalising the practice of, as it was called, "making an eldest son." He had not looked up to the Gallery to see whether any Members of the other House were present, but he wondered what their reflections would have been upon hearing a taxation proposed which would put a prohibitory weight on anybody leaving the bulk of his estates to an eldest son. They would probably have fervently exclaimed "Save us from our friends." [Sir R. WEBSTER: Why?] The hon. and learned Member would see why if, remembering his mathematics, he would take the two schemes for raising a certain sum of money, the gradation being in the one according to the single legacy and in the other according to the total estate. He would find that where the bulk of the property was left to one person a penalty would under his plan be imposed of double or treble duty as compared with cases where it was left in fairly equal portions to all the members of the family. But the hon. and learned Member's language would not be forgotten, and when the House had thoroughly established this just and great principle of taxation with regard to Death Duties it would be time to revise the Legacy Duties, and to take care, according to the "just and reasonable principle" put forward on the other side, that the big legacies left in the case of enormous estates subject to settlements which prevented the testator from dividing them equally among those who had equal claims upon him should bear the largest share of Legacy Duty. When the time came for making that alteration the House would remember the language they had heard that night as to that course being "just and reasonable." The next question to decide was: what should be the proportion taken by the State? The proportion was to be greater the larger the estate. That was thoroughly clear, sensible, and logical. They all knew that the Income Tax was very unfair and unjust, and the reason was that income was not the measure of a man's wealth, but indicated only the rate at which at the moment he was increasing his wealth. Nobody could learn how rich a man was, or how much taxation he could bear, merely by knowing at what rate his wealth was at the moment increasing. At present a man with £20,000 in Consols was only taxed like a person who had risen, say, in the Civil Service to £550 a year. They all recognised that that was an unfair exercise of the power of levying taxation. The only remedy would be to levy a tax upon the realised wealth possessed by individuals. But as they were not prepared to face the difficulties of levying a capital tax and taxing a man year by year on his realised wealth, the State waited until his death, and then taxed that realised wealth on the principle that the larger its amount the greater the proportion it could afford to give to the State. Once grant that that was a fair principle (and nobody could deny that it was logical and clear) and the whole of this Bill was carried in all its main lines. The remainder of the Bill was simply the necessary additions to prevent it being readily evaded. Having arrived at the principle that a man should pay a portion to the State and then have the privilege of alienating the rest as freely as he willed, and that the proportion it should bear to the whole estate should increase with the amount of the estate, how were they to get that portion? So far as the Government were concerned, they took it before the man had a right to dispose of one penny of the property. But it must come out of some of the property which was left behind. How did the matter stand before? Take a tax to which this Estate Duty is closely analogous—namely, the Probate Duty. The rule there was to take the whole duty from the man who had the residue and to make him pay the tax upon everything, both that which he did and did not get. The legacies, large or small, given to other persons were allowed to go untouched and undiminished. If there was no residuary legatee and the whole property was left specifically to one or more persons, or in even shares, then the duty was divided over the whole of the property. Many people thought it was very unfair that the residuary legatee should bear the whole of the tax. It led to great inequalities of treatment. In the case of an estate consisting of £5,000 Consols left to each of five sons they would bear it equally; but if the testator left £ 1,000 each to A, B, C, and D, and the residue to E, then E would have to bear the whole tax. [Sir R. WEBSTER: Not at all.] Some people might call that fair, but it was, at all events, open to question. What course had the Government adopted? The amount of duty had been largely increased. How was it to be borne? The old plan might be followed of throwing the whole of it upon the residuary legatee, or, on the other hand, it might be provided that each should bear his share. By the Bill the choice was left to the testator to do either the one or the other. If he did nothing, by the rule of interpretation in the Bill as it stood (this was not a matter affecting the fiscal part of the Bill) the State would presume that the testator meant the shrinkage due to the tax to be evenly divided over the whole of his estate pari passu. The House might or might not approve of that. It was not vital to the Bill—it was only a rule of interpretation. It, however, seemed to be fair. It did not seem just (where the testator had not given any direction in the matter) to make one man liable for the tax on the whole estate. Next came the objection that the Bill made people pay more when the legacies came from big than when they came from small estates. There was no truth in that at all. If a testator provided for the payment of the toll to the State, it would be paid in the way he directed. But if a man in drawing up his will dealt with his estate as though he had a right to alienate it all, then the State was forced to take its toll from some part of that which he purported to dispose of, and naturally would consider that all the legacies were swollen more than they ought to be in the proportion of the duty. How could it be said that this plan was unjust when people knew that it would be the rule of interpretation if no other provision were made in the will? So much for testamentary dispositions. Next, to take the case put by the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight, of an estate of £50,000 settled on a man for life with remainder to his eldest son. The man might have saved £20,000, which he is supposed to have left to two younger sons. They would have to pay at the rate corresponding to an estate of £70,000. Was that unfair? Long before this Bill was brought in it was felt that the great difficulty in dealing with estates was the practice of making settlements. How far it was right that they should be permitted was a matter of individual opinion. There was a strong feeling growing up that the unlimited right of making settlements ought to be curtailed. This Bill, however, did not propose to deal with this question. But they could not shut their eyes to the fact that a large portion of the property of the wealthy existed in the form of settlements under which they had a beneficial interest. It would be shirking the responsibility of making the tax a just one if Parliament confined itself to dealing with wills, knowing that the flank of the Bill could be turned by making settlements instead of testamentary dispositions. He thought the framers of the Bill had done their duty in a most fair manner in facing the difficulty of settlements and dealing with them, as well as with testamentary dispositions, as they had done in this Bill. What the Government said was this—"We consider that that which passes at the death of a man should include not only that which he is competent to dispose of by will, but also property which was his for life and passed away on his death to his wife or child, even though technically the right of the successor to it did not depend on a will, but depended on some other disposition." He asked hon. Members to think of some of the estates they knew of and to decide whether, when property so passed otherwise than by will on the death of the owner of the estate, such property was not regarded by the father as part of the, family wealth, and taken into account in his testamentary dispositions. The hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight (Sir R. Webster) said, that in case £50,000 were settled upon an eldest son, the other sons would have to pay extra because of the existence of that settlement. No doubt this was true, but it was to be remembered that but for the settlement of £50,000' their share of the estate would probably have been reduced. The fact that the eldest son was thereby provided for enabled the father to leave the whole of the rest of the property to the younger sons, who thus would each receive the half, instead of the third, of that property. If the point were put to them there was no doubt that they would say they would rather pay £200 or £300 more duty than not have the £50,000 settled upon the eldest son. He knew that a great many of those who were listening on both sides of the House wished to be fair in this matter, and he thought they would agree that it was fairer to include settled estate, as it was included in the Bill, than to exclude it altogether. He claimed that the Bill fairly tried to include everything which was part of the practical wealth of a man in that which was called the principal value of his estate. The levying a toll upon this in increasing proportion as its amount increased was the substance of this part of the Bill, and the mode in which this payment was taken out of the estate was a secondary consideration. But if the House was prepared to authorise the levying of a toll by the State upon the total value of a man's property, such toll to increase according to the value of the property, it must do so either by leaving it to the man to decide how the duty should come out of the specific property he left (in which case an interpretation must be put upon his silence), or it must say absolutely how the duty was to be borne. The latter course would be sup- ported by neither side of the House. It was, therefore, necessary to take the former course, and one way of so doing was that suggested by the Government. Clause 12 as it stood (although it was no essential part of the Bill) said that the man's silence should be construed to mean that the duty was to be borne pari passu. He could not help thinking that this was much fairer than to allow the enormously increased burden to fall entirely on the residuary legatee.

submitted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given no clear and sufficient reason against the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman, in an interesting letter to The Times, stated—and he had repeated to-night—that rights of inheritance were given by wills; that the power of willing was given by the State, and he drew the inference that the State was the primary heir. The right hon. Gentleman justified what was now proposed by the precedent of what was done in feudal times. Surely that would not be regarded as a satisfactory precedent by supporters of the Government. At any rate, it was a retrograde step, and a precedent which Liberals, he should have thought, would have been very loth to follow. No doubt, wills were of comparatively recent origin. They did not involve any increase of the rights of children at the expense of the State, but they involved an increase of the rights of the dead to modify the previous custom with a view of securing a fair division. The Greeks had no wills until the Peloponnesian War; the primitive Romans had no wills. The Teutonic races had no wills in the time of Tacitus. Among the Hindoos, the first will was said to be that of Omichund in 1758. He was not sure that archaic customs and rights had much bearing on the question; but when the proposals of Government were justified by general statements as to ancient laws and customs, it seemed well to point out that they had no sanction from any such venerable authority. The right of the heir was far older than the power of willing. The claims of the State were the creation of law; the right of the children were primeval and preceded the very idea of a State. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir W. Harcourt) stated in his Budget speech that every authority on political economy was in favour of the principles he proposed. He had already denied this statement, and challenged the right hon. Gentleman to produce any evidence in support of the statement. This he had not done, but he repeated the same assertion to-night, and quoted his own Budget speech in support of it. The right hon. Gentleman claimed, indeed, the support of Adam Smith on the strength of a passage in which the father of political economy expressed his opinion that—

"It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."

What, however, was Adam Smith's position? The House would judge whether the right hon. Gentleman was justified in leading them to suppose that he had the authority of Adam Smith. In his introductory chapter Smith laid it down that—

"The subjects of every State ought to contribute towards the support of the Government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities;"

and he went on to explain—

"That is in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate."

He laid it down, then, as a general axiom, in opposition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that taxes should be in proportion to income. Having done this, he discussed different classes of taxes, and when he came to those on the transference of property, he said—

"All taxes upon the transference of property of every kind, so far as they diminish the capital value of that property, tend to diminish the funds destined for the maintenance of productive labour. They are all more or less unthrifty taxes…Even when they are proportioned to the value of the property transferred they are still unequal. When they are not proportioned to this value, which is the case with the greater part of the Stamp Duties and duties of registration, they are still more so."

He then discussed taxes on houses. These, he said, would fall most heavily on the rich—

"A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."

The quotation referred to by the Chancellor was, therefore, merely a defence of the House Tax, and gave no support whatever to graduation, which Adam Smith had already condemned. The only other authority which the Chancellor had produced in support of his proposal was John Stuart Mill. But what did Mill say? His words were—

"The principle of graduation, as it has been called—that is, the levying a higher percentage on larger sums, though its application to general taxation would be a violation of first principles—is quite unobjectionable as applied to legacies and inheritances;"

that was to say, not to estates as proposed in the Bill, but to legacies and successions as proposed in the Amendment. Mill had never expressed himself in support of the proposals of the Government. If they were to have graduation it ought logically to be, not on the estate, but on the legacy, He thought he had shown that of the two great authorities cited by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, one, Adam Smith, was against graduation altogether, and the other, John Stuart Mill, was in favour, not of graduation on estates, but of graduation on legacies and succession. The House would judge whether it was right for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to come down and tell them, and through them, the country, that economical authorities were in favour of his proposals, when, on being challenged, he only referred to two, and those two, when examined, were found to be against him, and not in his favour. Now, why had economists denounced graduation? Economists were not capitalists, and had no desire to protect capitalists. They condemned these proposals in the interests of good finance, of justice, and of the working man. They pointed out that if this system were begun there was no logical point in which to stop. Then, as shown by Professor Fawcett and other economists, a tax upon income merely led to the denial of some luxury or comfort. But a tax on capital, as this was, fell eventually on the working man. No doubt this imposition would fall primarily on children, but political economists were agreed that taxes on capital would fall ultimately on the working classes. It would create the maximum of distress for the minimum of result, because it would be so uncertain in its results and press with so much severity upon particular neighbourhoods. Every year they would have some 10, 20, or 50 properties on which heavy fines would be inflicted. What would happen? The person coming into the property would shut up the house; go away and live cheaply elsewhere, probably abroad, for a few years, until he had saved up the amount; or, at any rate, he must sell horses, dismiss grooms, gardeners and woodmen, diminish his expenditure with tradesmen of all kinds, and the result would be a dislocation of village life, a sudden diminution of employment, the ruin of small tradesmen—a sudden curse descending first on one village and then on another, which could not be foreseen or guarded against. Who would be the real sufferers? Who would be the victims of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? The landowner, or the poor men whose employment was taken away, the small tradesmen, who were ruined? This cruel injustice would, however, be to some extent diminished if they deducted the amount, not from the estate, but from the legacy or succession. Another advantage which would result would be the greater certainty that the State would receive the amount of the duty. No executor would pay away legacies to others without making sure that the duty was paid. But the Government were evidently afraid that residuary legatees would omit to pay the Estate Duty, which would come out of their own pocket. He would ask the Committee to look at the extraordinary provisions of Clause 8. None of the property of the deceased was to be sold until the Estate Duty was paid; no stocks, shares, funds, or securities were to be sold. Where, then, were the executors to get the money to pay the duty? Other complications would arise. Insurance Offices, for instance, found that persons were very anxious to receive moneys payable under policies as soon as possible; but they would hereafter be unable to pay the policies until the Estate Duty was paid. This would be a great inconvenience to the public. There was, indeed, one source from which he feared that in too many cases the necessary sum would be obtained by the executors and others—namely, from the timber. This proposal would lead to the ruin of those woodlands which were the beauty of our country. There was another question of great importance arising out of this. Under Clause 8 no stocks, shares, or securities standing in the name of a deceased person, either alone, or conjointly with others, could be sold until the Estate Duty was paid. No person could give a good discharge unless the Commissioners gave a certificate that the duty was paid, every purchaser of any stocks, shares, funds, or securities must not only see, but must retain and be always able to produce, this certificate. In the case of Consols and other available securities held by merchants, banks, insurance offices, and other business institutions to enable them to make sudden claims if one of the trustees wore to die, they would be unable to sell any of these securities until the Estate Duty was paid. They could not quicken the process. That rested with the executors of the deceased, and under Clause 5 might be postponed for eight years. Another point was that no one could safely purchase securities coming out of the name of a deceased person. No doubt Sub-division 3 of Clause 8 said that—

"Nothing in this section shall invalidate the title of a purchaser for valuable consideration without notice,"

but if the securities came out of a deceased name he had, ipso facto, had notice. If it meant that a purchaser might retain his purchase unless he had had notice from the Commissioners that the Estate Duty had not been paid, it reduced all the preceding sections to a farce. It was quite impossible that this clause could be allowed to stand in its present form. He was astonished that it should have been proposed. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that questions raised by this Budget must ultimately be decided by the country. The country, however, would have no opportunity of deciding that or anything else if the Government could prevent it. They had been told, indeed, that if the Government could force their Budget through by a majority of 10 or even of 2 they would do so. The right hon. Gentleman had expressed complete confidence that the country would support the proposals of the Government. No doubt they were tempting. The Government always seemed to think that to say they were taking from one man to give to several was a sufficient justification for the change. This simple, not to say vicious, principle ran through much of their legislation. It was tempting. But was it right? Was it just? Was it wise? It would unsettle everything, upset all calculations, diminish inducements to thrift, and settle the security of investment. He had great confidence in the justice and good sense of his countrymen, and he believed that if their opinion could be taken upon the Budget proposals alone by means of an appeal to the country like the Swiss Referendum they would not sanction these proposals. Now, what was the object of the Government? As he understood they wished to throw more of the burden of taxation on the rich. He would not occupy the time by again going over the ground that had been so ably dealt with by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight (Sir R. Webster). The hon. and learned Member for South Hackney (Mr. Moulton) told them a person might have to pay more because he received less, because it was in the power of the testator to say the whole of the Estate Duty should be paid by the residuary legatee. That was true, but two residuary legatees might receive exactly the same amount, yet one might have to pay a much larger sum than the other. If graduation was to be established it should be on the succession, and not on the estate. The object was that those who inherited most should pay not only in proportion, but more than in proportion. But the proposal in the Bill did not effect this. Two men might inherit exactly the same amount, and yet one might have to pay half again as much as the other. If the Government did not accept this suggestion they ought not to say that they proposed to tax the rich more than the poor, because in a great many cases their proposals would have the very opposite effect. He maintained, therefore, that if they were logical the Government, in order to carry their own principles into effect, ought to support the present Amendment.

said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer based his chief argument against this Amendment upon financial necessity, and, of course, they must concede that the taxes must be raised and that the Government were primarily responsible for them to the country. He readily conceded, too, that in this year the Government were entitled to additional consideration inconsequence of their response to the demands that were made in relation to the defences of the country; but when a Budget was put forward as substituting equality for inequalities, and order for anomalies, it became very necessary to see carefully whether that Budget itself was based on just and equal principles, and the Debate that afternoon, which had been by far the most important contribution to the whole discussion, was chiefly directed to that end. The Amendment challenged the provisions of the Budget as to equality and justice, and suggested a mode in which those principles could be practically established on the general lines of the Bill, and he concluded from the speeches he had heard, and not only the speeches but from many of the provisions of this measure, that the Amendment itself was based on the principles of assimilation and graduation—principles of which were the underlying elements of the Budget. For his part, he accepted the principle of graduation; he believed it to be based upon a proper rule—namely, that of coordinating taxation with ability of payment and with equality of sacrifice; but he thought that rule would be best carried out by dealing with the recipient who had the accruing benefit and the actual present enjoyment, and in whose hands they could measure the benefit derived. And, if he had to vindicate the principle of graduation, he would point out that in the exemptions from the Probate Duty and the Income Tax they had that principle of taxation actually in operation at the present time. Then with regard to assimilation, he believed that in the matter of taxation the present position of realty and personalty was distinctly unequal, and the maintenance of that inequality was in itself undesirable oven if it existed only in appearance. There ought to be apparent equality in contribution to taxation, and for that reason he thought that any inequality ought to be removed; and, so far as the Budget carried out that principle he was heartily in favour of it. He could not help thinking that on his own side of the House the differences between realty and personalty and the difficulties of dealing with them respectively had been considerably exaggerated, and even then they did not justify the inequalities of Imperial taxation as between real and personal property. Cases had been quoted referring to persons who held plentiful cash and Consols as representing personalty; but the practical questions they had to deal with in administering estates were not altogether those of cash and Consols. They had to deal, for instance, with leaseholds and with ships as well. Take the case of a large merchant steamer costing as much as an ordinary estate. In case of death the owner paid duty on the capital value, while an estate paid only on the commuted life interest. The case of a ship raised all the difficulties which had been ascribed to realty—those of valuation, sale, and payment. The values were equal: but the ship depreciated as much as realty, and, though a large number of ships were practically unrealizable, the duties had to be raised by some system of insurance taxing the income, the effect being to make a man live according to his means. He took a stronger case with which they were very familiar in the North of England, where whole towns were built on leasehold tenure. He would take the case of a large town in the North which was owned by one freehold owner deriving from it an income of from £80,000 to £100,000 a year. This owner did not contribute anything, at any rate directly and apparently to local taxation as he ought to do, and yet when a leasehold tenant died he had to pay on the capital value of his leasehold, while the freeholder paid only on the commuted life interest—a matter of vast difference. What was the distinction in any of the alleged difficulties between leaseholders and freeholders? Both an estate and a ship had to be valued, and in the case of a ship it was often the more difficult. Each class of property, whether leasehold, freehold, or ships, had, it might be, to be sold in order to raise the duties, and to realise leaseholds or ships was often a great deal more difficult than freeholds, owing to the existence of rents and covenants. It was apparently sometimes forgotten how much personalty there was in the world, and how much realty was dependent upon personalty. Equality is equity; and he agreed, therefore, with the Associated Chambers of Commerce, which had often resolved that there was need for an equalisation of those duties. To meet some of the arguments he would quote from his own Party's authorised and authoritative chief publication. Here was one extract—

"It must, however, be conceded that land is now too much an article of commerce, and the value of urban and commercial realty has increased in such large proportion in relation to that of agricultural land and residential country estates that it is not possible to make an absolutely satisfactory defence of the inequality of the Death Duties considered by themselves alone."

But he had a more extraordinary extract from the Unionist Party literature, which said—

"At present real estate is more highly taxed as regards the Death Duties, but personal property escapes duty."

That would be a balance of taxation which would not be disadvantageous to many of those engaged in various pursuits, but he was afraid it was not true, and he was quite unable to accept that view. But he was bound to admit that he thought there was a case for grave State and Departmental inquiry as to the proportionate burdens upon personalty and realty so far as local taxation, at any rate, was concerned. This was a matter that must be most carefully entered upon and inquiry undertaken, because this question could not be delayed after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India. Undoubtedly it involved wide and difficult considerations, but on the other hand he thought it was a matter in which the lauded interest was entitled to ask this House and the country to consider whether at present the balance of taxation in that local direction was quite right, and to claim, after inquiry, a fair and proper adjustment, for, if only for social considerations, no class ought to be unjustly treated. So far as the Budget sought to deal with these anomalies and inequalities, he heartily agreed with it; but he asked, did it do so as completely as this Amendment? He thought the Amendment had the advantage. In listening to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight (Sir R. Webster) he could not do otherwise than believe that if the Budget removed some anomalies and inequalities it created others which were worse and of greater magnitude, especially in taxing the estate as a whole, instead of following out the principle which was involved in graduation of dealing with those who received and enjoyed the benefit from the various portions of the estate. It had been pointed out by an hon. Member that in the case of a legacy of £5,000, which formed part of a settled estate of £50,000, the legatee would have, for that reason, to pay a much higher rate of duty, though he derived no benefit out of the £50,000. That had been regarded as a great hardship on the legatee, nor did he think that the objections against that part of the scheme had been removed by the speech of the hon. Member for South Hackney. No doubt it was a hardship on the legatee, but there was even a greater question to be considered, and that was whether such a provision was just. If it were not just then it became merely a question of the legatee ransoming his legacy, and to say that he obtained some advantage from the fact that the £5,000 formed part of a rich estate was, in his opinion, wholly without foundation. What would be thought, in commerce, of a claim of a higher price for a commodity simply because it came out of a larger bulk? Yet this absurdity was not greater than taxing a legacy on a higher scale simply because it came from a larger estate. Just graduation was taxation of the legacy itself according to its amount, and the plan of the Bill was ransom and injustice. He also objected to the scheme because, instead of taxing, as it professed to do, according to ability, it involved too great an element of uncertainty and chance. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had in his reply pointed out that the provisions set out in Sections 9 and 12 must be dealt with as separate issues, but he (Sir A. Rollit) contended that they must be read as forming part of the Budget proposals treated as a whole. If they considered those sections, moreover, they would see that Section 9 referred to the charge of Estate Duty on property and facilities for raising it, while Section 12 referred to the apportionment of the duty to be paid. That was not only a permissive right to the executor to recoup the duty, it was a clause giving distinct apportionment of that duty, and it seemed to him Sections 9 and 12 had the effect of making the executor a mere agent of the recipient for the payment of the duty which was afterwards to be recouped by him.

If they stand in the Bill.

said, the relationship as it stood in the Bill was that of principal and agent. The right hon. Gentleman said "if they stand in the Bill," but they could only take the Bill as a whole. It was a Bill which proposed a whole scheme for the remedy of anomalies and injustices, and for settling the Death and other Duties on a footing of justice and equality. One must look at these sections as elements in the whole scheme, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to him to have contemplated in his first thoughts as a just provision, but one which was not quite consistent with the provisions of Clause 1 as it stood in the Bill. He had only to add a word upon the question of aggregation, and he spoke from some experience of the matter. He was afraid, however, that the scheme would introduce some new difficulties, and that it would, for instance, lead to litigation and delay. It was proposed that the rate of duty should he calculated on the value of the whole of the estate. To do so, therefore, before any legacies could be paid the whole of the estate would have to be valued and often to be actually realised, while by taxing the recipient in return for the State protection of his legacy estates could be much more speedily distributed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had opposed the Amendment on the ground that it would cause a loss to fall upon the Revenue. That was not, in his opinion, a sufficiently good ground for not supporting the Amendment. If the principle of graduation were accepted at all he was prepared to regard the proposed scale as a fair and moderate one, and he saw no reason why even a higher rate of duty should not be levied on the very largest estates of millionaires. He was bound to say, speaking on behalf of the Chambers of Commerce, and he believed, also, for many of his constituents, who belonged chiefly to the middle classes, that, taken as a whole, the Death Duty clauses of the Budget were based on principles that were acceptable to their views; and this was especially the case, and most just, in the greater exemptions which it gave to the less wealthy classes of clerks and tradesmen and the like, who now often had a very hard struggle to make ends meet. But he thought that upon the point under attack to-day an inroad had been made upon its justice and expediency by the speeches delivered on that side of the House; and if the Amendment could be embodied without loss of Revenue, as it might, it would meet more justly the ends and results he assumed the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in view which he himself approved and which the Amendment would achieve more practically and with more real and true equality of incidence.

did not consider the speeches of the hon. Member who had just spoken, or of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight (Sir R. Webster), were serious, as all the objections urged by those hon. Members were to Clauses 9 and 12, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated he was willing to concede something on those points. But, with regard to the clause that they were then considering, by which it was proposed that the legatee, and not the legator, would be liable to pay the duty fixed on the whole estate under the graduated scale, he pointed out that it would be better for the Revenue if the payment of the tax were placed upon the estate before it was divided. He thought an exception to this rule might advantageously be made in the case of a small devise of real estate on which the recipient should only be taxed in proportion to the value of the estate that he actually received. He felt that this Budget was a great reform of the taxation of the country, and it was one the people of the country were pleased to get, and that the proposed alteration would weaken it.

said, that the hon. Member for Somersetshire, speaking on the question before the Committee, which was on whom the duty would fall, agreed with the Opposition that, in considering such a question, it was desirable to look at the breadth of the shoulders on which they proposed to place the burden; but when the hon. Member went on to say that they should calculate the total ability to pay the tax of the recipient of the legacy on succession, he showed that he did not know the very nature of Probate Duty. They were assured by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the clause made the tax Probate Duty, and if it were Probate Duty, then the tax was not in the nature of payment for services received, but was in the nature of payment for the conveyance to the living man of a certain part of the property of the dead man. In that case, what did it matter to them what was the total ability of the recipient to bear the tax? What they must look to—if the tax were really Probate Duty—was the amount of property conveyed by the enactments of the State, with regard to succession, from the testator to the recipient. The only question was—what had the State given to the recipient? It was that, and that only, that the State had the right, and indeed the possibility, of taxing. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer quoted extracts from his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill to show that, since the Second Reading, he had not changed his opinions—a matter on which the right hon. Gentleman plumed himself very considerably. The right hon. Gentleman said he made it clear on the Second Reading that the incidence of the tax was mot by the words the Amendment proposed to leave out, and not by the words it proposed to insert. But what the right hon. Gentleman said about graduation on the introduction of the Budget gave away the case against the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman then referred to Mr. Pitt's expedients for a system of graduation. He said that Mr. Pitt introduced a system by which a man who had two carriages was to pay more in taxation than the man who had only one carriage. But in the case of a owner of two carriages who had given one away, Mr. Pitt did not make the tax fall on the person who received one of the carriages, and have the tax increased or diminished, not by what was received by the recipient, but by the number of carriages possessed by the man who gave him the carriage. He wished to point out that there was a great difference between the two forms of taxation upon the passage of property at death—the taxation upon the conveyance of property and the taxation upon the enjoyment of property. The taxation on conveyance was, of course, in the nature of Probate Duty, and the taxation on enjoyment was in the nature of Succession or Legacy Duty. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had the option of framing his Finance Bill so that the tax should fall on conveyance or enjoyment; and the right hon. Gentleman selected the Probate Duty. But the country would rather have the tax on the enjoyment of property. All taxes on enjoyment, such as Succession Duty and Legacy Duty, could be regulated in accordance with the consanguinity scale; that was, that in assessing the tax they could take into account whether the man who got the property was the son of the deceased person or a stranger in blood who had come into the property by some happy accident, and it was undoubtedly the desire of the country that the tax should be regulated in that way. But by making it a tax in the nature of Probate Duty, the Chancellor of the Exchequer shut himself out from the opportunity of acting on the consanguinity scale; for, of course, if they put the tax on the whole of the property as it left the dead man's possession, it was impossible to consider the date of relationship to the dead man of those who received his benefaction. The Committee had the advantage of a speech from the hon. and learned Member for South Hackney, who was brought in to bless the Bill, but who cursed it altogether. As the arguments of the hon. and learned Member developed, it became evident that he was giving away the whole case for the Bill. The hon. and learned Member said that the whole of the Succession Duties bristled with anomalies and inequalities. But the gist of the speech of the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight was that the scheme of the Government proposed new anomalies and developed fresh inequalities. The hon. and learned Member went on to call attention to what should be the strongest argument in favour of the Amendment. What was the aim of the Radical Party? It was that property should be distributed, and if the Amendment were carried there would be a strong incentive to the distribution of property. If the clause were carried as it was drawn, the man who left the whole of his property to his eldest son would have to pay the heaviest rate, and if, on the other hand, he scattered his property between ten or twenty recipients, he would still, as the clause stood, have to pay the same rate. But if the Amendment was carried, what would have to be considered was the amount received by the individual recipient, and not what was left by the dead man, and on the amount received a lower rate would be levied. Therefore, a testator would have the opportunity by distributing his property of lowering the amount of money he would have to pay to the State. That was a sound argument from the Benches opposite in favour of the Amendment. The hon. and learned Member for South Hackney also said that Clause 12 was wanted in the Bill because it was felt that the whole Estate Duties should not fall upon the residuary legatee; and the hon. and learned Member was, of course, an authority on the reasons why the Bill had been drafted. The hon. and learned Member said it was hard that a man should be taxed, not on what he got, but on what somebody else got. That was a very strong argument in favour of the Amendment. In fact, it was the case for the Amendment. The hon. and learned Member attempted to dispose of one of the arguments of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight, which showed one of the peculiarities and discrepancies of the first clause of the Bill. The hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight pointed out that if a man who had a life interest in £50,000 bequeathed it to his son, and had £10,000 of his own, which he left to two other sons, the two sons to whom he left the £10,000 would have to pay duty at the rate, not of 1 per cent., which would be applicable to the amount of money they had received, but 4 per cent., because their elder brother had received £50,000. The hon. and learned Member for South Hackney, in trying to reply to that argument, said that the younger sons should be glad that their £10,000 were left to them clear of the elder brother's claim, and that, therefore, they should not miss paying the extra duty. But suppose it was settled money—that the £50,000 went to the eldest son, and the £10,000 to the younger children—there would, in such a case of settled property, be no advantage to the younger sons that the elder got £50,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not seem to care much about the effect of Clause 12 on the case for the Amendment. The Committee could not discuss the Amendment without looking at Clause 12, because the Amendment was a question of the incidence of the tax; and to really understand how the Bill made the tax fall they should look at Clause 12 as well as Clause 1. The right hon. Gentleman said that Clause 12 was immaterial, because it did not assist the Revenue. That might be the point of view of the right hon. Gentleman as the guardian of the Public Purse; but the point of view of every one who hoped to be a residuary legatee was different. Every man who might be a residuary legatee desired to know whether the tax was to fall upon the residue or upon the residuary legatee. The Bill was so drawn that if a follower of the Government desired the tax to fall on the residue, he was referred to Clause 1, as carrying out his wishes; and if another follower of the Government desired that the duty should fall on the individual legatee, Clause 12 was pointed out to him. Both of those alternatives could not be supported. The Committee would like to know on what stool the Government would stand. If they attempted to stand on two stools, it was only natural that the Bill should fall to the ground. They were also told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Amendment was an amendment of insolvency, that it would mean a loss to the Revenue. But the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were based entirely upon supposition, because, in order to get at a correct estimate of what would fall to the Revenue under the Bill for the next three or four years, they must know in what way people who died in that period left their property. If they left their property in lump sums, they would pay a high graduated tax, and if they dispersed it through various beneficiaries they would pay a smaller graduated tax. The right hon. Gentleman having stated that it was Probate Duty proceeded to show that it was Legacy Duty; for he defended the taking of the money from legatees because the State claimed it. But the right hon. Gentleman could not have it both ways. If he defended the taking of the money from the legatee because the State claimed it, he was not taking it from the residuary legatee. With regard to the advantages which would accrue from the Amendment, the first was that the tax would fall upon the recipient of the money. If they went to the executor he could not tell them what passed under settlements, and in other ways, on the death of the testator; but the recipient knew very well what he had got, and could give a true return to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He also thought that the desire to evade the duty would be very much increased by the fact that the duty would be augmented according to the amounts received by other persons. Surely it was necessary and desirable that evasion should be made as difficult as possible. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to have estimated for immense evasions. The right hon. Gentleman's figures of the result of the proposed taxes were far less than the amount that ought to be realised. Where did the difference slip out? By evasions, against which they could close the door if they made the tax fall on the recipient and not on the executor, who would not know where the money had gone to. He had already spoken of the encouragement of the distribution of property that would be affected by the Amendment. If it were carried the matter of winding-up an estate could be concluded in a reasonable time, because they were only looking to the one estate that passed into the hands of the recipient. He could sum up what he received, and make an affidavit and get his certificate in a few weeks; but if they made the duty fall on the total amount of the property situated all over the world, looking at the provision of Clause 8, they made the winding up of an estate a matter of endless difficulty and complication. This clause made the unfortunate person who received a legacy from a large estate pay a high duty, whereas the man who succeeded to a small estate had to pay a small duty. As the Amendment would make the burden fall where the advantage was to be gained, and where they could calculate the ability to bear it, he considered that it would to a great extent improve the Bill.

said, he desired to support the Amendment, as he thought it would press unfairly on the children of the men who had large estates. It would be a great hardship to people who had slender means, and who would feel very severely any increase on the Death Duties. The hon. Member for Hackney had said, the larger the estate the larger the duty should be. He (Mr. Jeffreys), on the contrary, said, the larger the legacy the larger the duty should be. There was every difference between a large estate and a large legacy. As had been pointed out by the late Attorney General (Sir R. Webster) a man might be one of ten children, and his father might have an estate of over £100,000. He, receiving one-tenth of that, would have to pay more on account of his father having had £100,000 than would the man who received £10,000 from a father having a smaller estate. He (Mr. Jeffreys) had been the first to submit this argument to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the instance he had chosen being that of a man who, with six children, left £50,000 to one, and £10,000 each to the other five. Each of the five would have to pay a larger duty than would an only son, who received £10,000 as representing the whole of his father's estate. Such a state of things was most unfair, and the more the country knew of it the more they would be inclined to think that it pressed hardly on members of large families who inherited small amounts, although the testator might have had an estate of over £100,000. Therein laid the kernel of the question, that if there was to be graduation of the Death Duties, the man who inherited, or succeeded, to the large estate should pay the increased duty. He did not think that would be half as unpopular as the proposal in the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that unless these Death Duties were raised there would be a great deficit, and that would cause the present Legacy Duty to be increased, especially on small legacies. He objected to that portion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, because whenever the right hon. Gentleman wished to answer any of their questions or arguments ho at once appealed to the small taxpayers, and said—"If you wish to raise more money, you will have either to increase the Death Duties or the Income Tax on the small owners." Why should that be? If there was a certain amount of money to be 'collected and a certain amount of property to be taxed, it came to the same amount whether they taxed the large or the small property. But the right hon. Gentleman's statement was only an appeal to the constituencies—a kind of threat to the small proprietors, that if he were defeated in this he would have to impose a largely-increased tax on these people. He would have to do nothing of the sort, because for years Governments had gone on levying the taxes on large estates, and there was no chance of the country becoming insolvent. It was a most unfair argument for the right hon. Gentleman to say that these extra duties were put on the moneyed classes of the country to raise a fund for the Navy. If they were put on for that purpose they would only be levied during the present financial year and then taken off again. He was certain, however, that once these Death Duties were put on, they would never be taken off—at any rate, not during the term of Office of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. Many people would not grumble to have to pay for the Navy by an increased Income Tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had asked, "Where are you going to get your money?" It was not for him (Mr. Jeffreys) to advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he could tell the right hon. Gentleman that he would himself be willing, much as ho disliked the Income Tax, to pay an extra amount in that way if he knew that the money went for the Navy. But why he objected to the new Death Duties was because he was sure, from the manner in which they were imposed, that they would never be taken off again, and because they would be an immense burden to the real estate of the country. The right hon. Gentleman had said that if the Opposition had to raise money for the Navy they would do it by borrowing. Well, every prudent man avoided borrowing as much as he could; but notwithstanding what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, the effect of these Death Duties would be that many landowners would have to increase their mortgages to pay the charges. If an estate passed through several hands during a short term of years it might be burdened with heavy charges, whereas in the case of an estate left to an infant it might be 70 or 80 years before the tax had to be paid a second time. He held, therefore, that Death Duties were most unequally levied. If there was to be any justice at all in them they ought to be levied in such a way as to prevent estates being saddled with enormous debts which would become almost unbearable in the course of time. He was sure a tax must be excessive and oppressive if the first thing people did was to try and find some way of evading it. And what was the ease at present? Everybody who had to face this increased Death Duty began to think of how he could possibly avoid it. It was a common subject of discussion outside the House how a man could best transfer his property to his children so as to avoid the increased Death Duties of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That was proof positive that the duties must be excessive. He sincerely trusted that they would never come to such a state of things in the country, through the oppressive burden of taxation, that people would endeavour to conceal the amount of their wealth so as to defraud the country of its just due of taxation. Every Member of the House was aware that most people out-of-doors just now were discussing with their lawyers how they could dispose of their property so as to avoid the immensely increased duties that would be levied under the Bill if it became law. He maintained that the tax would be oppressive, and he only hoped that even at this late hour some impression might be made on the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that he might be inclined to levy the duty not on the estate that the dead man left, but on that portion that a man succeeded to or inherited.

said, he had listened with some interest to the answer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the late Attorney General. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman pointed to the result that would follow the carrying of the Amendment. He endeavoured to terrify the House by pointing to the awful character of those results. But if the results were such as the right hon. Gentleman anticipated it would be no answer to the Amendment. It was no answer to say, "I will impose an unjust tax because I cannot see how to get money otherwise"—and that was the substance of the reply the right hon. Gentleman gave. What were the facts with regard to the result which the Chancellor of the Exchequer anticipated? As he (Mr. Butcher) understood the point of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Wight, it was this—"Keep the existing Probate Duty and Account Duty as they are, and, if necessary, have a duty on real property of the nature of the Probate and Account Duty; but if you want an increased duty, then have a graduated duty in the nature of the Legacy and Succession Duty, graduated according to the amount that the successor gets." How did the Chancellor of the Exchequer meet that? He represented that the object of the hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight was to abolish the Probate and Account Duties altogether, and the right hon. Gentleman went on to draw the terrible picture of the loss to the Revenue of £6,000,000. Such a circumstance would be most disastrous, but he denied that such a result would follow directly or indirectly from the proposal of the late Attorney General. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had put an imaginary and absurd Budget into the hands of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and had produced from that, no doubt, very absurd results. As regarded the general question of graduation, he (Mr. Butcher) looked with no objection upon graduation as a general principle. On the contrary, he thought it was a most reasonable proposal that those who got large sums of money from a dead person, or under settlement, should pay a larger sum by way of duty than those who received smaller sums. But the Bill omitted from consideration altogether what a man received by will or by settlement. The Chancellor of the Exchequer took an artificially aggregated fund, and assessed duty upon it; but how did he make that duty payable? Not out of the artificially aggregated fund, but out of the smaller sum the successor received. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had invented an artificial argument to justify that. He said the duty was not one paid by the successor, but was really a debt due to the State. What did it matter what name it received? By whatever name it was called, it came out of the interest of the successor. Take even the interest a man received under a will. In that case, under Clause 12, the duty paid was recoverable from the successor. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to think it was not entirely defensible, and he intimated somewhat broadly he was prepared to throw the proposal aside when they came to Clause 12, but that was not the only section which threw the incidence of the duty upon the successor, because under Clause 7 beneficiaries under a settlement were bound to pay the duty, and would have to pay it out of the money they received. They had this absurd result. Duty was assessed on a fund which bore no relation to what a man got, and it was paid out of a fund which bore no relation to the fund upon which it was assessed. He asked the Committee to say that that was a proposal which was wrong in principle, and which would be unjust in operation. The Leader of the House had referred, in support of his proposals, to certain recent legislation in the Colonics which bore on the Death Duties. He had not been able to find a single instance in support of the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but, on the other hand, he had found a colonial model of legislation which was against the right hon. Gentleman—the South Australian Act. In that Act the very principle for which the Opposition were contending was carried out to the letter, as the duty was charged upon what a man succeeded to and not upon what was left. In that case what was left by will was distinguished from what was left by settlement. The total amount received by the successor was ascertained and the duty was levied on that. As regarded the question of principle, they had John Stuart Mill and they had the Australian precedents with them. The hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight gave some instances of the unjust effect the Bill would have if passed in its present form, and he would give one or two further instances. If the Bill passed as it stood, when a man died the successor would pay an increased duty upon what he got under the will or settlement because other persons unconnected with him got benefit under other wills or settlements. Suppose a man died leaving by his will, or having settled by deed upon his widow his whole fortune of £5,000. Under the scheme of the Bill she would, if there were no other settlement, pay £150. But suppose a stranger settled £100,000 on the deceased for his life and left it after the death of the deceased to the son, then the widow's £5,000 was aggregated with this £100,000 in which she had no interest, and the duty was levied upon that aggregated amount, so that instead of paying £150 she paid at the rate of 6 per cent., or a sum of £300. In other words, because a stranger had been liberal to a son of the deceased man, therefore the widow had to pay double the amount of duty she would otherwise have to pay. That was one of the anomalies that would be removed if the Amendment were carried. Let him give one other illustration. Under the Bill a person who took a small benefit under the will of a dead man would pay an increased duty because other property in which the dead man had no interest whatsoever went to someone else. Supposing a man left £5,000 to his widow, and had no other property, under the scheme of the Bill the widow would, if there were no other settlement, pay 3 per cent., or £150. But supposing that a stranger in blood altogether, who had nothing to do with the dead man, had settled £100,000 upon someone else during the life of the deceased, and that property changed hands on the death of the deceased, and went over to the son, then the widow paid 6 per cent., or £300. So that they had the astounding result that, although the dead man had no fraction of interest whatever in this property, because on his death it went to the son, therefore the widow had to pay double the duty she would otherwise have to pay. That was the result of the scheme embodied in the Bill. He asked the Committee to say that this proposal which they now sought to amend was unjust in principle, that it would have a most inequitable operation in practice, and that it would increase the many anomalies which were already incident to the levying of the Death Duties. The object of the Amendment, was to remove some, at any rate, of these anomalies, to prevent some of these injustices, and to remove some of the inequitable results that the Bill would have, and for these reasons he asked the Committee to think long before they sanctioned this principle.

said, it was rather remarkable that although this Debate had proceeded now for five hours—[Ironical Ministerial cheers.] Did hon. Members think that in regard to so complete a change as was about to be made in the whole law and practice governing the devolution of estates they should not have a Debate of even five hours? During that Debate they had had no independent support of the principle proposed by the Government from any hon. Member of this House except the hon. Member for North Somerset. There had only been two other speeches made from the other side of the House in favour of this change, one by its putative father the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the other by the hon. Member for South Hackney, who spoke with all the interest and affection of the real parent and whose influence in prompting this change had been already acknowledged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He should not complain of that if the two speeches they had heard really dealt with the arguments brought forward by the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight. The hon. Member who cheered just now the idea that they should have got through this Debate with a few sentences of protest had hardly considered, after all, that this change which they proposed to drive through Committee by the votes of the majority was one which would be felt henceforth by every person who left property throughout the whole of the Kingdom. They had a right to expect from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he should give them some argument. The right hon. Gentleman was an adept in making debating points; he was well able in debate to meet any Member of this House, and what they wanted was some reply on the hard cases which had been instanced as likely to occur under the Bill. It was not enough for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say with a wave of the hand that they could shunt this from one person to another. They wanted to know whether that was a just position. They wanted men of the calibre of the Solicitor General—who had not even taken a note whilst the last speaker was instancing these hard cases —to deal with the difficulties which had been pointed out. It was no argument for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deal with this question as if it applied only to millionaires. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have got millionaires on the brain—a sort of plutocratic delirium. It was no argument for the Government to ignore the difficulties of settlement. The right hon. Gentleman told them that Clauses 12 and 7 could be discussed when they arrived at them, and that there was nothing which had been said by the Member for the Isle of Wight which had anything to do with Clause 1 as it stood. It was all very well to say, as had been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Member for South Hackney, that under Clause 1 a man could make what disposition he pleased. That was an absolutely erroneous statement. It was impossible for a man to make what disposition he pleased so long as they mixed up settled and unsettled property in regard to this tax. They did not, as had been said by the Member for South Hackney, leave it to the man to decide. A man could not decide so long as property devolved under settlement, as was mostly the case at present. Supposing they had got a man succeeding to landed property of £60,000 or £80,000 and whatever was left in the way of personalty went to the other children. If there was £20,000 to leave among four children and a sum of £60,000 or £80,000 was left to the eldest son, both in settlement, one by marriage and the other by no action of the testator, what power had he of adjusting the duties? How could he decide for himself? In what way was it possible under Clause 1 for a man with settled property to guard his younger children, to whom he was leaving small fortunes, from having out of these small fortunes to pay large sums because of having an elder brother who had come in for the larger share of the property? That man could not decide for himself and provide for his younger children. He could not alienate or sell in many cases; he could not divest himself of settled land, and he was bound to leave a charge very often of 4 or 5 per cent. on those who were already considered an object of charity, because the Government had already stepped in and declared they were not persons from whom Income Tax could well be levied. The hon. Member for South Hackney failed altogether to make out any case for charging this duty on the principal value. The figures given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to the effect of this duty on agricultural land were proved in the course of the Second Reading Debate to be erroneous, while those which had been quoted by the right hon. Gentleman that day were utterly unreliable and not supported by a single argument. He confessed to great disappointment at the manner in which the Government had met the Amendment. The Committee had a right to ask that the Government should apply their minds to the obvious difficulties which arose in connection with the Bill, and he was quite certain that no Member of the Government would rise to justify the charges which were put upon small estates by the clause. They were not in this case arguing against the principle of graduation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had made this a question not of graduation, but of the incidence of the duty on the smaller estates, and the Opposition now wished to protest against the creation of a false corpus as the basis of excessive and inequitable taxation. He had endeavoured to put before the Leader of the House a plan of which he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would take notice, and he would ask him to consider whether his action in pressing for the rejection of the Amendment would not largely increase the tendencies to evade the duty? He only wished he was at liberty to describe to the Chancellor of the Exchequer some of the manœuvres which were being executed in order to evade the clause. He could give an instance in which a man had already transferred a large property to his son in return for an annuity, and in other cases men who had been making allowances to their sons had transferred to them the principal. [Laughter.] The Chancellor of the Exchequer laughed, but it would not be a laughing matter for the Exchequer. This was a really serious matter, and he would urge the right hon. Gentleman not to shut his eyes to the facts or to ignore the arguments which had been placed before him. He could only, in conclusion, express his firm belief that so far from causing an increase of revenue the clause would lead to an enormous reduction in the prosperity of the agricultural districts, and would perpetuate and increase the inequalities between realty and personalty.

said, he proposed to occupy the attention of the Committee for some little time, partly because the importance of the subject justified it and partly because he had to submit some considerations which so far had received no attention. He occupied a rather unfortunate and peculiar position. He approved the principle of most of the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman, but he could not agree with the arguments adduced in support of them. That might be perhaps a perfectly insignificant circumstance, but was one right in acquiescing in a thing without examining the arguments on which the conclusion was arrived at? It certainly ought not to be done in this case. They were dealing with a Budget which might fairly be described as historical, and it involved the application of new principles to taxation. When they remembered the great Budgets of 1841, 1853, and 1860, he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer might well feel proud at having his Budget raised to the historic rank. But as they were taking a new departure, it wase xtremely desirable that they should completely understand upon what reasoning these proposals were based, and ascertain their justification not only in vindication of their own action, but in view of the fact that what they did now would be done again in the future. Now, he had entirely failed to find the moral and ethical basis of the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman. They had been told it was desirable and essential that taxation should be in proportion to the payment to the receiver. He could not accept the word "receiver"; it would be too limited an application. The recipients of bounty would in future be taxed as members of the community in respect of what they enjoyed, and it was extremely doubtful whether they should receive an additional burden merely because it was convenient at the moment that they should do so. The hon. and gallant Member for one of the divisions of Essex, in a speech the arrangement of which he admired exceedingly, had pointed out that there was some disposition to accept arbitrary propositions as determining the basis of taxation. What was the history of the tax upon alienation? Hon. Members must know that they could not finally settle this matter by saying that here was an existing tax and that consequently it was a good one. They should surely have respect to the position which a tax had in relation to other taxes. It was extremely doubtful whether this tax on alienation could be justified at all. The Chancellor of the Exchequer justified the tax as one that was analogous to the Probate Duty. The State at present demanded a toll because it guaranteed the validity of a gift, and the State was therefore justified in intercepting a portion in the passage from the dead to the living man. The tax was an arbitrary one in exactly the same way as the tolls were arbitrary that were levied upon traffic passing from one station to another where the passengers made a change. It was no doubt an extremely convenient course to levy a tax which should be payable upon the passing of property from a dead to a living man, but it rested upon convenience only, and that was no ground whatever for argument in favour of taxation. This alienation tax was therefore convenient in the eyes of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose idea was that, so long as he got a certain amount of money, it did not very much matter by what means he got it; and it was not only a very convenient but a very productive tax. When they abandoned the notion that these taxes were defensible as tolls on passing goods, the time would also come when they would abandon tolls on the passage of property from the dead to the living. He ventured to say that if they really wished to discover a moral basis for this or any other system of taxation, they must consider that they were dealing with living members of a living community, and must look at them and consider how they were taxed. They must take a larger contribution from persons of large means. He was not now going into this at length, because practically it had been decided in the discussion in the Committee. He thought the Member for the Isle of Thanet was the only Member who had raised a voice against it. They had to regard this strictly as a problem of taxation. The true way of levying the cost of national government and national action from the members of the community would be to tax them from time to time, and, if possible, from day to day, according to a graduated scale in accordance with the totality of their powers. But it was difficult to establish such a theoretically perfect scheme of taxation as that, and to carry it into operation from year to year. The direct taxation which we did impose upon the living was the Income Tax, and it was impossible to have a graduated Income Tax which should be collected with convenience and certainty. The tax in its present form involved the necessity of collecting it at the same rate, whatever might be the wealth of those on whose incomes it was levied. That was a necessity of the case, and therefore the system of direct taxation which we could apply to the living was one under which the richer members of the community were not taxed to the degree up to which they ought to be taxed. The rich man who died was, therefore, in debt to the State. There was an accumulated deficiency in his contributions to direct taxation, and the simple defence of the Probate Duty—or Estate Duty, as it was in future to be called—was this, that it was a debt due from the estate of the deceased to the State in consequence of the deficiency of his contributions during his life. If once people got hold of that luminous idea their minds would he relieved of a great many difficulties. Tenants for life, for example, would realise that a growing debt was being run up against them, and that they must save in order that it might be paid when they died without injury to their successors. It should be understood that a man had no more to leave to his successors than the residue of his property after payment of the duty. It was idle to say that the legatee paid. The duty was a debt which must be paid out of the dead man's effects before they could be distributed. In future, it was to he hoped that men would bear in mind the necessity of providing for the payment of this debt, just as they were supposed to provide for the discharge of other just obligations. If they could view the Probate Duty as a debt people would get rid of the notion that it was a toll upon the testamentary disposition of property, and similar notions derived from imperfectly developed communities like Scotland. It was of the highest importance that they should have a true knowledge of the basis upon which this tax rested. If they understood how it was justified they would also understand its limitations, and it would no longer be viewed as a convenient tax from which largely varying sums could be obtained at different times by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If the tax were looked upon as a tax in payment of arrears accumulated during life much of the aversion caused by it would disappear.

I have listened, as I confess I always do listen, with very great interest to the speech of my right hon. Friend, who seems to me to never speak with more effect or power than when he finds himself at loggerheads with his Party or when he intends to support a proposal, as on the present occasion, and cast his vote along with the Government. His arguments, I must say, this evening were of a kind which we have not yet heard, and were entirely inconsistent with the course taken from the beginning by the Government. I do not wish to dwell at any length upon his arguments, because, owing to the understanding that has been come to, the time for discussing this question is running very short, and I have to deal with important arguments that have been advanced by those Members who are the chief supporters of the Bill. It appears to me, however, that he has not carried out his arguments to a logical conclusion with the views that he so strongly expressed upon the proposed Death Duties. Shortly, his opinion, I think, may be stated to be that these Death Duties are in the nature of a slowly accruing debt to the State, which arises from the fact that during life the owner of the estate had not contributed enough towards the Imperial taxation of the country, and that therefore this deficit should be made up out of his property that remained at his death. But I would ask my right hon. Friend to notice that the amount that a man should pay does not depend upon the amount of the property he leaves, but upon the length of time that he had the good fortune to enjoy it. A man who came into a million of money at 45 years of age and died at 50 owes evidently a very small sum to the State. Yet the Government comes down upon his unfortunate heir, who will have to pay 8 per cent. For my own part, I cannot see the justice of such a course. I can quite understand his view that a person who is possessed of a very large property should pay more than a man who has only a very small property. Unfortunately, the extra sum that the former should contribute cannot be extracted from him by means of the Income Tax alone, because there are technical difficulties which prevent a graduated scale of taxation being applied to that form of tax. But if, on the other hand, he were to contribute in proportion to the length of time that the individual enjoyed the estate, I think the present proposal would not answer the purpose, and that the difficulty could be met by a fairly arranged Income Tax based upon a differential scale. If this be so, then a poor man who has enjoyed but a small property, but has enjoyed it for a long time, ought to pay more than a rich man who has only enjoyed his fortune for a short time. The principle pursued in this matter by the Government, so far as I can understand it, has not been embodied in what may be considered as an equitable scheme. I have but little hopes of converting my right hon. Friend, but I do hope that when he records his vote to-night he will feel that though he is with the Government he is not of them. I pass now to consider the arguments which have been put forward by the more enthusiastic supporters of the proposal. In the first place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer—who already, I may say, seems to regard his own utterances on the question as classical expositions which may be quoted by any Member of this House when referring to the subject with the greatest safety—gave us a considerable number of arguments, all of which were very naturally strongly in support of the proposal; but it is only in reference to one or two that I think it will be necessary for me to ask for your attention now. The right hon. Gentleman said, "If you carry out your present Amendment it will be impossible to find the money that is necessary." I do not doubt for a moment that if the Amendment is carried a difference will be felt by the Government. But let me point out that in that case it would be the business of the Government to fill up the gap in the Exchequer receipts by some other means. At any rate, it would not be our business to take any steps in the matter. We all of us admit that if this Amendment were accepted the calculations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer made upon this source of revenue would be upset. But if that were an argument of real weight no Budget would ever be passed with Amendments at all. The Budget comes before this House year after year as the organised machinery for meeting the indebtedness of the State. Either the Chancellor of the Exchequer must put these things right, or give way to persons who will put them right; and, if the difficulty reach a serious crisis, such persons may possibly be found.

That is a reason why I do not accept the Amendment.

But it is no reason why we should accept a proposition of the Budget as a just proposition. Everybody will have felt that the defence of the Government proposals, not only in this but in other respects, is of a very technical character. It has been pointed out by my hon. and learned Friend in his very able speech that, by Clause 12 of this Bill, the Government have provided that the duty paid by the individual legatee should be proportioned, not to the amount received by him, but to the amount of the estate from which the legacy is derived. What was the reply of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? It was that Clause 12 had very little to do with the financial scheme of the measure, that it was to be taken or to be left, and whether it was taken or left, the Government at all events would get the money. Well, that is not the way a Chancellor of the Exchequer should deal with a great financial problem. The right hon. Gentleman does not appear before us as an official concerned with no other duty than that of extracting from the taxpayers a sufficient amount of money to meet the national obligations. He comes before us, or he ought to come before us, as a statesman, and a statesman who lays before us proposals for collecting the money necessary to meet the national obligations in a manner fair and equitable to every class concerned. But for the right hon. Gentleman to say, "I, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, care nothing at all for Clause 12; it is in my Bill which you have read a second time; take it or leave it; my money in either case is secure, "is, I venture to say, to adopt a policy never adopted before by any Chancellor of the Exchequer, and un worthy of the right hon. Gentleman, both in his capacity of Chancellor of the Exchequer and in his capacity of Leader of the House. Clause 12 is an integral part of the measure as proposed by the Government; we cannot regard Clause 1 irrespectively and independently of Clause 12; it must be interpreted by Clause 12. I have no time to go into the details of the question; but I am in entire agreement with the hon. and learned Member for Hackney, who said in his speech that Clause 12 was intended to protect the residuary legatee, for the residuary legatee, without Clause 12, might find himself in the unhappy position of being saddled with the whole of this progressive tax, all the other beneficiaries escaping without any special taxation at all. I entirely agree with him; it would be unjust to the residuary legatee; but suppose you abolish Clause 12 and throw upon the residuary legatee the whole weight of this tax, is it not obvious you would commit an injustice precisely similar to that which we complain of in the whole scheme of Government taxation? What is our complaint of the scheme of Government taxation? It is that you tax a man not upon what he has, but on what somebody else had who left him the property. That injustice would not be removed by abolishing Clause 12. Cut out Clause 12 if you will, and you may remove this particular injustice from other legatees, but it only means that this particular legatee will be taxed not upon what he receives, but upon the magnitude of the property from which he receives it. This is what we complain of; this is the fundamental injustice lying at the root of all the Government proposals; and it would not be removed by abolishing Clause 12, just as it is not mitigated by leaving Clause 12 in the Bill. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Courtney) who has just sat down and the hon. Member for Hackney have both announced that the occasion of the present Budget is one upon which we ought to revise from its very basis our whole system of the Death Duties upon ethical and moral grounds. I entirely agree; but we should be content to go on with the old system until some reconstruction is initiated; and what I complain of in the Government proposals is this—having taken in hand to equalise the Death Duties, having taken in hand the gigantic task of putting in order the accumulated anomalies of half a century, they have not attempted to go to the root of the matter; they have not attempted to deal with it on fundamental principles; they have not attempted to make their proposals square with the eternal principles of justice. Not one word has fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer or from the hon. Member for Hackney to make me believe that they have in any respect attempted to frame these new duties upon a plan which will stand criticism, going to the root of the matter, upon principles which are fair and which may make them a permanent subject of taxation. I do not mean to dwell upon them now; but, if Death Duties are to be passed in the shape proposed now by the Government, I cannot believe they would be permanent. I do not say we should have to go back on all the changes they have proposed; but it would come before every Government as a practical matter to be considered whether they would not revise the whole system which the Government had adopted. That is the melancholy state to which we should come. If the Government think they are strong enough to carry a great alteration of the Death Duties, they ought to see that it is a great reform. The Government have not taken the trouble to do that; they have not gone to the root of the matter; and the result of that laches on their part will be that the fabric that they are so elaborately and laboriously constructing will have to be pulled down by their successors, and reconstructed upon some more equitable plan more in consonance with the necessary and elementary principles of justice. Sir, I have already dealt with my right hon. Friend's ethical defence of the Budget. Let me turn to the ethical defence given by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite. What is it he founded himself upon? He founded himself on certain metaphysical principles with regard to property which, I will venture to say, have no basis in reason, and no justification beyond the speculations of certain 18th century legislators.

Hear, hear!

The right hon. Gentleman based himself upon Blackstone. I believe the right hon. Gentleman is, above all things, an expert in International Law; and I have noticed that these experts in International Law are more confused with regard to first principles than anyone else. What is it that these unfortunate experts in International Law are driven to? It is what is called "the law of nature."

The Law of Nations.

The basis for them of the Law of Nations is what they call the law of nature—a metaphysical conception, partly of antiquity and partly of the 18th century. When the right hon. Gentleman had the courage to lay down in this House the principle that when a man dies his whole property belongs to the State, and that after the State has extracted from that property all that seems good to it, then the heirs ought to be glad to have any fragments that remain, he was basing his speculations, not upon history, and not upon law, but upon the false metaphysics of the law of nature. Perhaps, in one sense, I am doing the right hon. Gentleman an injustice; because, while he depended upon the law of nature in his Second Reading speech, in his speech to-night he depended on the feudal law. We have the extraordinary spectacle of a Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer driven out of the law of nature, and obliged to come to this House to tell us that this is a good old feudal Budget. I listened with intense enjoyment the other night to the right hon. Gentleman when he was driven to quoting Mr. Pitt against Mr. Fox; but I certainly did not look forward to the further satisfaction of hearing him three nights later tell us that his Budget was not based upon modern principles of legislation, but that it had its roots in the feudal system. Sir, is not there an extra- ordinary absurdity in supporting the proposition, partly defended by the right hon. Gentleman himself on the ground, as I understand, explicitly stated by the hon. and learned Member for Hackney, that these duties are the price paid by the individual for the right of disposing of his property? That is a grotesque contention. According to the universal tradition of civilised society, property is the property of the individual, and after his death of the family who succeed him. Different nations have given different degrees of liberty of bequest to the individual; but the theory of all nations through civilised time has been, as my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London has pointed out, that property is not the property of the State, but of the individual and of the family to which he belongs. The idea that it rests with the State to take as much of the property as seems good to it without being guilty of any injustice is a gross innovation, not justified even by the law of nature or by the feudal system.

The right hon. Gentleman misrepresents mo. I neither used the word "price" nor did I say that the State had the right to take any capricious portion of the whole for the privilege of alienation. I said it was "toll" paid. That is the word I adhere to.

I am aware that the hon. and learned Gentleman used the word "toll." But I thought that he laid down the principle that the right to dispose of property was something which had been purchased from the State; and that the amount of the duty which was to be exacted from the property was, as it were, a preliminary debit due to the State before anyone took anything. Of course that is true, legally and technically. But do not let us confuse the technical with the moral aspect of the question. Morally, the property belongs to the individual, and after him to his family and successors. That has been the universal practice of civilised society. What nations have done in limiting the bequest has been to prevent a man from leaving his property out of his family. So far from denying the right to bequeath to the family, they have said that the property belongs to the family so much that it may not be left away from it. For either the hon. and learned Gentleman or the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come here and assert that property, after the death of the owner, is at large, and belongs to the State, until the State chooses to give some fraction of it back to the heirs, is to assert that Which has no foundation in practice, in law, in justice, or in equity. If we are to give up that principle we are driven back on the principle for which my hon. and learned Friend contended in the Amendment; it is simply that we should exact from each member of the community a tax which would involve an equal sacrifice in every case. Can it be pretended by any defender of the Government's proposals that they will carry out that object? My hon. and learned Friend gave one or two cases. Have they been answered? Has there been any pretence of answering them? The hon. and learned Member for Hackney made a pretence of answering one of the strongest of the cases. It was that of a man who enjoys a life interest in £50,000, settled at his demise upon his eldest son, and who has two younger sons, to whom he can leave £5,000 each—money which he has in his absolute gift. Under the Bill of the Government, on the death of that man the £5,000 left to each of the younger sons would be taxed, not in proportion to the amount they received, but in proportion to the total £60,000 which has passed upon the death of the testator. That is obviously unjust. He said these two sons were damaged in one sense by the fact that £50,000 passes to the elder brother; but, on the other hand, he said if there were no £50,000, and if the £10,000 had to be divided among the three brothers, how much worse off would they all be ! But supposing that £50,000 were £100,000, £200,000, or £1,000,000, the unfortunate recipients of £5,000 would be mulct in the 4 per cent., 6 per cent., or 8 per cent. duty, while if the £60,000 were reduced to £10,000 they would hardly be mulct at all. That inequality existing, I want to know upon what principles is it defensible. If the £50,000, the £100,000, or the £1,000,000 were settled away upon a stranger, the two sons would be taxed at the rate of 8 per cent. How are you going to justify that?

said, if the right hon. Gentleman would look at the Bill he would find that it was not so.

The smallest annuity is included in the table. Will the hon. and learned Member deny that any annuity would be taxed on the higher rate? I may take it. therefore, that even in the opinion of the most strenuous defenders, or, as some almost suspect, the authors of the Bill, this monstrous and obvious injustice would be found in the Bill.

said, if the right hon. Gentleman would refer to the clause inserted for that particular purpose, he would find that his interpretation of the Bill was still wrong.

As I read the Bill—I was going to say of the hon. and learned Gentleman—but of the Government, if any benefit is reserved at all, the whole property comes in, and therefore the smallest annuity would drag in the whole of the property to determine the succession of the unfortunate persons whose condition I have described. That is an indefensible proposal. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us that he requires these unjust measures in order to collect sufficient money for the State well and good, but he should not come down to this House and pose as the heaven sent Minister of Finance, who is at last groins to reduce the chaos of the Death Duties into order—to introduce justice where injustice has hitherto reigned. We have a right to ask him that the principles upon which this measure is framed shall stand examination; but we have seen that, whatever else may follow, this Budget cannot pretend to be the equitable adjustment of our Death Duties, which we were led upon the Second Reading to suppose would follow from the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman.

said, he very much regretted the absence of his right hon. Friend the Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin), who had put a Notice on the Paper indicating his intention of calling attention to the importation of Canadian cattle. In consequence of his unavoidable absence, his right hon. Friend had asked him to draw attention to the position in which the question stood. Nobody in the House was more conversant with the question than his right hon. Friend, and his absence was to be regretted, because had he been present he would have brought to the consideration of the question not only the charms of his personal presence but the force of his personal experience. The question was one of very pressing importance, and he thought that those who were interested in agricultural questions were justified in believing that it was necessary to call the attention of the House to it. He hoped that the President of the Board of Agriculture (Mr. Gardner) would accept from him the declaration that in raising the question he was animated by no desire whatever to impugn the right hon. Gentleman's action since he had occupied his present official position. On the contrary, he believed the right hon. Gentleman had uniformly done his best to protect agricultural interests. At the same time, the right hon. Gentleman was necessarily exposed to very great pressure to withdraw what some people naturally regarded as objectionable restrictions, and the agricultural Members on the Opposition side of the House wished to give the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that they were anxious to support him, not in excluding the importation of cattle where there was no suspicion of disease, but in securing to the herds of this country that immunity from disease which could only be secured by preventing the importation of cattle from countries where any suspicion of disease existed. The justification for the action which he (Mr. Long) was taking was to be found in a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Gardner) on the 23rd of April last, in reply to a question. The right hon. Gentleman then stated that he proposed to institute an examination which would not be of a protracted character, and that if it had certain results he would remove the restrictions. The contention he (Mr. Long) submitted to the House was that pleuro-pneumonia was a disease of so peculiar a character and was so difficult of detection, besides being frequently so long latent in an animal, that it was impossible to remove the restrictions without running some risk of having an importation of the disease into this country. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that since last June there had been three or four cases of this disease, that the difficulty of detection was extremely great, and that the disease was in Canada.

was understood to dissent.

said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman would, at all events, admit that his Department had stated that the disease was in Canada. If it were the case that the authorities in Canada prevented animals which had a suspicious appearance from being sent across, and if it was the case that it was very difficult to detect the disease in the living animal, he thought it would be admitted that the mere fact that cases had been discovered recently rendered the removal of the existing restrictions unjustifiable. In a letter from the Department of Agriculture to the Secretary for the Colonies on the l5th of August, 1893, the following statement occurred:—

"There is abundant evidence that contagious pleuro-pneumonia may remain dormant during a lengthened period, and it was stated in the evidence given to the Departmental Committee in 1888 that cases had been known of the development of the disease after no less a period than 15 months."

Hon. Members knew that there was recently in the Isle of Thanet a case of pleuro-pneumonia which had been dormant since last August. The right hon. Gentleman had denied that he had himself expressed the opinion that pleuro-pneumonia was still in Canada. The right hon. Gentleman, however, was reported in the Parliamentary Debates of August 3, 1893, to have said—

We agree that there is a disease in Canada-Canadians say that it is not contagious pleuro-pneumonia. We say it is."

The right hon. Gentleman had seemed to indicate that under certain circumstances he might be induced to withdraw the existing restrictions. They were anxious not to press him —and he (Mr. Long) was sure he spoke for every agriculturist on that side of the House—for a declaration which, in his opinion, would prejudice his action, but the right hon. Gentleman would admit they were entitled to know now the policy of the Government with regard to this important question. Many agriculturists of the country were compelled to make their arrangements for the year now, and they should know at once whether or not their stock was to be open to the risk of infection. The right hon. Gentleman had been exposed to pressure from quarters which they might have expected to be favourable to British agriculture. A correspondence had taken place between the Colonial Office and the Board of Agriculture, in which the Colonial Office sought to induce the Board to remove the existing restrictions. It was clear from the correspondence that the Secretary of State for the Colonies thought himself justified in attempting to dictate to the Minister for Agriculture what should be the policy of his Department. The right hon. Gentleman, he understood, considered either that there was no risk at all or very small risk of the importation of pleuro-pneumonia from Canada. But the latest information received by his right hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford went to show that Canadians themselves admitted the existence of disease and the risk of infection in some quarters of the Dominion. The desire of the Government was, he understood, that the food supply of this country should be abundant and cheap, but that object would not suffer by carefully restricting the importation of cattle from countries where the disease existed. He believed himself that by insisting on slaughter at the port of debarkation they would do more to cheapen the supply of meat than they would by any other process they could adopt. It was well known that if meat was imported dead or slaughtered at the port of debarkation it must be rapidly got rid of, and sold in the nearest market that offered, and in all probability it was disposed of cheaper than meat imported alive, and kept until it could be got rid of in a market prepared for it. He did not think that any argument could be advanced for this restriction on the sale of cheap food for the people. He quite admitted there should not be any restriction unless they could show there was risk of disease. With regard to Canadian cattle, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford had placed in his hand a copy of a Montreal paper of the 27th of April, in which there was an article on this subject, in the course of which it was stated—

"It is only a short time since one of our prominent cattle shippers stated to the writer, in the presence of others, that he would undertake to prove there was more disease in Canadian herds than there was in American herds."

That was the opinion of a Canadian writer writing only a few weeks ago, and the right hon. Gentleman would find there were large numbers of people in Canada who candidly admitted that there was this disease, and that there was the greatest difficulty, even with the exercise of every precaution, in preventing an invasion of this disease from their neighbours. In view of this, and having regard to the fact that the breeding, raising and fattening of cattle was almost the only industry which was remunerative now left to the British farmer, the right hon. Gentleman if he were to do anything which would lead to a recurrence in this country of the disease which was so disastrous in days gone by, would be striking a lasting blow at the existence of this great industry, which he was sure the right hon. Gentleman as well as they was anxious to protect and promote. If the right hon. Gentleman did not feel himself to be in a position to give the House an assurance that night that the existing restrictions upon the importation of Canadian cattle would not be removed, he hoped that, in view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government were about to take the whole time of the House, the right hon. Gentleman would undertake that the restrictions should not be removed without the Government giving the House an opportunity of discussing the matter.

said, he was sure that the House would agree that the Government had nothing to complain of in the speech to which they had just listened. The hon. Gentleman had spoken, as he always did, with great moderation, and had put his points before the House with great clearness, and he should be the last, man to find fault with the hon. Gentleman for taking the opportunity of raising this question, which he, for one, admitted to be of a most important character. He was glad to find that the way in which the hon. Gentleman regarded the matter did not differ in the slightest from the way in which the Government regarded it. They looked upon the administration of these Acts solely from one point, and that was for the protection of the herds of this country from disease. They looked upon this matter from no other point of view whatever. He did not wish to raise any contentious matter, but it had been stated in that House and elsewhere that it was desirable that the Government should adopt a drastic policy in regard to this subject, not for the purpose of keeping out cattle disease, but because harm might come to the farmers of this country by the lowering of the price of meat if cattle were to be imported, otherwise than for slaughter at the ports, from the United States as well as from Canada. That, however, was a position which he altogether repudiated, and which he believed the hon. Gentleman would also repudiate, and, as he had already stated, the sole object of the Government in enforcing these Acts was to prevent the introduction of cattle disease. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the correspondence which had passed between his Department and the Colonial Office. He thought, with all respect to the hon. Gentleman, that he forgot when he alluded to the action of the Colonial Office that Canada was still an important portion of the British Empire, and which, moreover, was represented in the Im- perial Parliament by his noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies. It was, therefore, a most natural and proper action on the part of the Colonial Office to communicate to the Board of Agriculture the views of the Dominion Government on this subject.

The right hon. Gentleman entirely mistakes me. I did not suggest it was not right of the Colonial Department to communicate their views to the Board of Agriculture. What I suggested was that it was highly improper of the Colonial Office to dictate to the Board of Agriculture what should be the policy of that Board with regard to British agriculture. That is a wholly different matter.

did not see where the dictation came in. What the hon. Gentleman had most at heart was that there should be no unrestricted importation of Canadian cattle, because he considered there was danger to the herds of this country in consequence. His noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies very properly put before the Board of Agriculture the views of the Dominion Government on the subject, but as at the present moment no action had been taken in regard to the admission of Canadian cattle, he could not see how that communication was, in any sense, to be considered as dictation, nor how the agricultural interests had in any way suffered by that correspondence. The hon. Gentleman in his remarks seemed to think that because there was a case of pleuro-pneumonia found amongst cattle landed at Deptford in last October that therefore the time was too short for them to take off any restrictions in regard to the admission of cattle into this country. The decision which the Minister in charge of this matter had to take was not wholly based upon the fact that cases of disease came into this country, though that was, of course, an important factor. It was necessary for the Minister to take many other factors into consideration as well as the fact of an animal having arrived in this country which was proved to have pleuro-pneumonia. It must be a very conceivable case to the hon. Gentleman that by some accident an animal might come over the borders of the United States. The Canadian Government might subsequently fortify their restrictions against the United States to the satisfaction of the Government of this country; and many facts might come to light which might cause the Minister in charge of the Board of Agriculture to be perfectly satisfied that there was absolutely no danger of the introduction of disease at all, in spite of the fact that some months before an isolated case of disease might have occurred. Again, there might be no cases of diseased cattle in Canada, and yet the information in his possession might be such that the Minister would think it his duty to withdraw the privilege of free entrance. He could assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that in taking any action he had taken on the subject his action had not been based solely upon the consideration of whether disease came in or whether it did not come in; but it was taken upon all the circumstances as known to him. He must say that, in regard to any decision he might have to take, he was not in a position at the present moment to make any definite promise on the subject. The hon. Gentleman knew as well as he did that in the administration of these Acts they could not lay down what was going to happen possibly six months, or it might be a year, hence; but that they must consider the whole of the circumstances from time to time, and take their decision upon them. With regard to the question of cheap food, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman that the prohibition of the importation of these store cattle would probably not raise the price of meat one farthing; but, on the other hand, it might raise the price of store cattle, and there were many dealers and graziers who, when the price of stock was rising, as it was at the present moment, were very anxious that their views should be considered, and, though they might not be authorities on the agricultural interests of the country, they were still gentlemen whose views ought to be taken into consideration. He could promise the hon. Gentleman one thing, and that was, that the policy of the Government on this subject was to administer this law in such a way as to protect the agricultural interest from any danger of disease; and as long as he remained at the Board of Agriculture, if there was any doubt as to disease being imported into this country, he should always act in favour of the home country in preference to any other.

said, he rose to support the Minister for Agriculture. Representing as he did a large agricultural district of Yorkshire, where cattle were largely bred, he would like to say there was one point which had not been mentioned and which was this. Not only might cattle from Canada bring disease into this country, but disease might be propagated on board the ships in which they were sent. The very circumstances of the case—the number of cattle which were huddled together, the atmosphere they breathed, and the state they were in when landed at the ports, must engender fever, and fever was the prelude of pneumonia. It was well-known that pneumonia in the human being was contagious, and in cattle why should it not also be? In 1890, 8,500 cattle died and were thrown overboard on their way from Canada and America to this country. They might imagine, therefore, the state of the cattle when lauded at the various ports. They were all in favour of having fat cattle brought over and enabling poor people to get meat at as reasonable a price as they could, but what they did object to was store stock being brought over and allowed to go about this country. Why should they run this risk? Their herds and flocks were clear of disease, and why should they run the risk of having disease disseminated by cattle being brought over? If they took the statistics of the meat supply of England and Wales they would find that 70 per cent. of the cattle were furnished from this country, leaving 30 per cent. which were imported, of which only 10 per cent. were landed at the ports in a healthy state, and out of that number scarcely 1 per cent. were sent to the country. But it was this 1 per cent. they were afraid of. Up to February, 1892, all along the eastern portions of France foot-and-mouth disease raged, but it never entered France owing to the Regulations enforced in that country. In February, 1892, the Regulations were taken off, and in a very short time 404 districts in that country were impregnated with the disease and 43,000 animals were affected. Fancy the expense to the country in stamping that out! Take the last outbreak in Scotland. In 1890 there were 79 cases from one cargo of Canadian cattle, and it cost something like £1,000 or more to stamp it out. What they wanted was to keep disease away, and to protect the country and the farmers from having all their markets stopped, and inconvenience and cost thus entailed in stamping out disease. He felt sure the Minister for Agriculture would do his very best to keep disease out of the country.

observed that in Scotland, as in England, there was great complaint of agricultural depression, but a great majority of the agriculturists in Scotland looked to the importation of Canadian store cattle as a means of meeting that depression. They knew by experience that these cattle were worth from £4 to £5 per head to them. In Aberdeenshire alone that represented £80,000 per annum, distributed chiefly among the tenant farmers. They benefited to that extent; the landed proprietors benefited to that extent, and it was not from Scotland that any appeal came for the imposition of these restrictions. But it must not be supposed that the Scottish farmers were more anxious for the importation of disease than the English farmers. They had had experience of cattle disease as well as the English farmers. In no part of the Kingdom, for instance, was rinderpest more severe and destructive than it was in the counties with which he was connected; and if the agriculturists of Scotland believed—as they did not believe—that the removal of these restrictions would tend to promote the dissemination of disease and the destruction of their herds, they would be as strong as hon. Gentlemen opposite in asking that those restrictions should be continued. But they had not the fear. They sincerely believed that what was said to be contagious pleuro-pneumonia in Canada was not the type of contagious pleuro-pneumonia which some considered it to be. In fact, they did not believe it was contagious at all; and they were fortified in that belief by the strongest opinions of eminent veterinary surgeons who were second to none in the world in their knowledge of cattle diseases. The hon. Gentleman who last spoke said there had been 79 cases in Scotland from the outbreak to which he had referred. That he denied. There were supposed to be two cases, but the cattle which were reported from these two vessels were distributed in 79 centres, and they were destroyed under the Orders of the Board of Agriculture, for the purpose of preventing any supposed danger. Allusion had been made to the correspondence between the Colonial Office and the Board of Agriculture. He was surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Long) speak of the representations of the Colonial Office as amounting to dictation. There was not one dictatorial sentence or word in the communications from the Colonial Office to the Board of Agriculture, and they simply summarised and embodied the views that had been strongly pressed upon them by the Canadian Government. The hon. Gentleman had quoted from a single article in a Montreal newspaper, but he might have quoted page after page from letters and statements of Government officers in Canada; inspectors, large cattle dealers, purchasers of cattle, and wholesale and retail butchers all bearing testimony to the healthiness of the herds in Canada. He was somewhat surprised when they heard so much and so often from the other side of the importance of maintaining considerations of Imperial interests that on this question they attached so little value apparently to the loyalty of the people in Canada and to the very important interests which they had in this question of the exportation of cattle. It was a most valuable trade to them. It was a trade which ought not hastily and without the greatest deliberation on the part of the Department on this side to be put a stop to. So far as all the interests in Scotland were concerned, there was a very strong feeling indeed against anything being done hastily to shut the door—and, apparently, to shut it for ever—against the continuance of this very large and important trade between one of the greatest and most important colonies and this country—a trade which had been conducted with great benefit to their shipowners, with great advantage to their large harbours and seaports, and with very great benefit indeed to the agri- culturists and the lauded proprietors in Scotland. Nor did he understand that the feeling in England was as unanimous as it was represented from the other side to be. There were gentlemen on his side of the House, representing some of the Eastern Counties of England, whose Chambers of Agriculture had passed resolutions in favour of the importation of Canadian cattle, and he therefore hoped the President of the Board of Agriculture would not, because of the pressure put upon him from the other side, shut this door for ever—as was apparently desired—against the importation of cattle which were believed by the Scottish farmers to be the healthiest of all the cattle imported into this country.

could assure the hon. Gentleman that nobody wished to exclude these Canadian cattle except only so long as they had the slightest trace of disease upon them. All they desired was to keep their herds perfectly pure and free from disease, and that was all they asked the President of the Board of Agriculture to assist them in doing at the present time. To show the great danger in admitting Canadian cattle he would remind the House of what the President of the Board of Agriculture said only the previous day in reply to a question on this very subject. The Minister for Agriculture said that cattle recently landed at Liverpool from Canada were found to present appearances which justified the suggestion of pleuro-pneumonia. And yet, in face of that declaration, the hon. Member for Dundee wished to import those cattle wholesale into Scotland, and thereby run the risk of giving the disease to the whole cattle of Scotland. The hon. Member said it was a great shame to keep out cattle from Canada, because Canada was a loyal country. But the disease did not come from Canada altogether. It had been proved over and over again that the disease came from the United States to Canada, and from Canada to this country. He quite understood that a few Scotch graziers liked to buy cheap, underbred, and poorly-fed imported animals, their object being to feed them up, and then sell them in the London market as prime Scotch beef. But they all knew that there was a great difference between prime Scotch beef and those ill-bred and mongrel animals from Canada, whose importation into Scotland was, he knew, strongly opposed by numbers of Scotch farmers. If more store cattle were wanted in Scotland, let the animals be imported from Ireland and let the communications between the two countries be facilitated for that purpose. That would be to the advantage of Scotland and Ireland alike. The only recommendation of Canadian cattle was that they were to be obtained cheaply; but that was because a great many people would not buy them—first, because they were under bred animals; and, secondly, because they were afraid of bringing all sorts of diseases into their native herds.

interposing, said, that Scotch farmers generally were of opinion that the Canadian cattle were a much healthier and a better class of cattle; that they laid on flesh much more quickly, and were in every way better, as stores, than the Irish cattle.

said, he could not agree with the hon. Member. He had never bought Canadian cattle himself, but he had seen them frequently, and was astonished at their under-bred appearance. Agriculturists in England thanked the Minister for Agriculture for the position which he had taken up in connection with this matter, for if disease were now to attack their herds in the present depressed state of agriculture they would soon be completely ruined.

said, he had some practical experience in this matter. He had many hundreds of cattle on his farms in Scotland, and he had tried Canadian cattle; and he had come to the conclusion, from his experience of imported Canadian cattle, that English and Irish beasts were very much better for store purposes. Therefore, the advantages of the importation of Canadian cattle to Scotch farmers were not so great as his hon. Friend the Member for Dundee imagined. In fact, the farmers in large portions of Scotland were opposed to the introduction of Canadian cattle. He knew that the farmers about Dundee were in favour of the importation of Canadian cattle; but the farmers of the South of Scotland were not, for they were well supplied with store cattle from Ireland and Eng- land, and exported thousands of them, well fed, into England every year; and that being mainly dairy farmers they were against the importation of Canadian cattle, because of the serious danger to their herds in the case of an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia. He congratulated the Minister for Agriculture on the firm attitude he had taken up in this matter. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would adhere firmly to the purpose which he had expressed, and that before any alterations were made in the Rules now in force the House would be given an opportunity of fully discussing the subject. He was satisfied that if the matter were fairly considered in the House, they would come to the conclusion—first, in the interest of the people who required good and cheap food; and second, in the interest of the farmers, who had to try to make their rents, that it would be better to slaughter the cattle before debarkation rather than to allow them to come into the country alive to spread disease amongst their herds.

said, he could not allow the Debate to close without saying a few words as an Irish cattle breeder. The hon. Member for Dundee seemed to think that they would be wanting in appreciation of Canadian loyalty if they did not throw open their ports to Canadian cattle. But those cattle, though shipped from Canadian ports, might not be Canadian cattle at all. And surely the hon. Member, who held strong views as to Ireland's political wrongs, might consider Ireland in the matter. Irish cattle breeders, while they had no wish to compete unfavourably with Canadian stores, felt that the importation of disease would be a fatal blow to their trade. Some time ago there was an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia in Westmoreland, and the cry was at once raised that it came from Ireland; but investigation proved absolutely that the disease had not come from Ireland, but from an adjacent English county. In the same way, if there were an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia, it would be said that it came from Ireland. As any stick was good enough to beat a dog, so any accusation was good enough to make against Ireland. He thanked the President of the Board of Agriculture for the position he- had taken up in the matter, but he should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he was satisfied whether quarantine for three months, which was the maximum period enforced on the American-Canadian frontier, was sufficient to protect them from the importation of a disease which often had an incubation of 15 months? If the right hon. Gentleman was satisfied with the period, it was more than he, as an Irish cattle breeder, could pretend to be. However, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would stand firm in his present position; but if he intended at any time to remove the restrictions, he should do cattle breeders the justice of giving ample notice of his intention, so that they might avoid all contact between their herds and the imported animals.

said, he desired to call attention to the action of the President of the Local Government Board in connection with the extension of the City of Liverpool and the redistribution of the wards When the Parish Councils Act was under discussion in that House and in another place an attempt was made to give to the Local Government Board the final decision as to proposals for the compulsory acquisition of land. It was urged that the President of that Board was in his administrative, as apart from his political, capacity a strictly impartial officer, exercising his functions in a judicial spirit. The late President emphasised this attitude in a remarkable speech when he said that should the holder of the office at any time transgress this rule his conduct could, in that House on the Estimates, or by moving the Adjournment of the House, be forthwith called in question. His action was in accord with that suggestion. The facts he had to state to the House which were the basis of his complaint were local, but they had a general application. It was well known that municipal communities desiring to extend their boundaries, and at the same time alter their ward arrangements, had as an initial step to memorialise the Local Board, and that body appointed a Commissioner to inquire locally into the merits of the scheme, with a view to advising the Board of the propriety or otherwise of promoting in that House a Provisional Order to give effect to the proposal. No subject required more careful or more impartial handling than did that of determining the boundaries of electoral areas, if confidence was to be given to the people and justice was done. The City Council of Liverpool did in November last memorialise the President of the Local Government Board, asking that the boundaries of the city might be enlarged, and that if this was approved, the same Provisional Order should, in the words of the Memorial, provide a scheme for re-arranging the boundaries of the existing wards of the city. Both proposals were favourably entertained by the late President of the Local Government Board, and under his instructions a Commissioner held a Court of Inquiry in March to hear evidence in the first instance as to the extension of the boundaries. There was some opposition at the outset on the part of Local Authorities to have their districts absorbed, but mutual agreements were ultimately made to carry out the scheme on terms arranged, which were submitted to and approved by the Commissioner. One of the conditions so determined was the number of municipal representatives to be granted to the districts to be added, and when this was arranged the parties had before them only the desire of the Council to re-arrange the boundaries of the existing wards. On this the proportion of Councillors the new and old districts should respectively obtain to each other was fixed. The Local Government Board expressed their approval of the proposed extension of the city, and undertook to apply for the necessary Parliamentary authority. The Board then instituted a public Court of Inquiry to consider the second portion of the Council's application—namely, what alterations were required in the ward boundaries of the existing city. No change had been made in these for 60 years; meantime the city had more than doubled in population, and naturally great changes in the comparative population of the wards had arisen. For many years everyone in Liverpool had admitted the anomalies and unsatisfactory condition of their ward system, but as politics ruled all elections to the Town Councils, and the smaller wards were in the hands mainly of one Party, so the political Parties failed to obtain the majority of Councillors necessary for providing a scheme of distribution. There were 16 wards in Liverpool returning 48 Councillors, with an aggregate electorate of 77,000, and apportionment of the electors to Councillors was so unequal that on one extreme 700 electors had three representatives, whilst at the top of the scale 26,000 electors only had the same number of members. That it was a burning Party question the House would understand when he said that four wards containing 54,000 electors had only 12 members, who were all Unionists, whilst 23,000 electors in the smaller wards had 36 representatives, of whom only nine were Unionists. This preponderance of one Party representing the small wards controlled the Council, and they had very naturally been loth, in spite of their advocacy of the "One Man One Vote" principle, to change a state of matters so much to their advantage. However, last year both Parties agreed to the necessity of an extension of the boundaries of the city, and thus had an opportunity, as they supposed, of securing the impartial and independent aid of a Government Commissioner to carry out both objects and with justice to all parties. On the eve of the ward inquiry the City Council by a party resolution, carried by 33 members representing 20,000 electors (the theoretical supporters of the One Man One Vote Party) against 27 Councillors who represented 60,000 electors, put forward a plan not for re-arranging the existing wards but for increasing the number of wards. Naturally the new districts objected to this, as it destroyed the relative proportion of Councillors between the old and added portions of the city, and was a breach of agreement made with them. Evidence was hear I by the Commissioner. His attention was also called to the unfair allotment of Councillors which the scheme gave even amongst the electors of the present city. For example, it gave to the supporters of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division a Councillor to every 650 electors, whilst in the Everton Division a Councillor was called upon to represent 1,400 electors. In regard to rating, the same ludicrous political partiality was exhibited. When rating told against the dominant Party it was ignored, but when it was favourable it was adopted. All points were brought before the Commissioner, who himself said, in the course of the inquiry—

"If the Corporation had intended to alter the number of wards I think it should have been stated in the recommendation."

The advocate for the City Council who supported the plan which he had been criticising wound up the proceedings by saying,

"I must leave the question in your hands as to how these words ought to be re-arranged; what principle is to be adopted in carrying out that arrangement."

He also added that

"He felt sure the Commissioner would give such effect to the representations which had been made to him as he, in his opinion, would think right and in the best interests of the City of Liverpool."

To his mind, nothing could have been more straightforward than this promised acceptance of the decision of the Commissioner. The Commissioner of the Local Government Board, General Carey, a most competent and experienced expert in these inquiries, had stated that he prepared before he entered upon the inquiry, in accordance with instructions from the Board, a ward scheme on the basis of 16 wards for the existing city, with boundaries entirely irrespective of those proposed by the City Council. After the inquiry so satisfied, no doubt, was he of the fairness of this scheme that he made no attempt to prepare another, but simply completed his plan and submitted it to the Board. Immediately, however, on the conclusion of the inquiry by the Commissioner some members of the political Party now in the majority in the City Council of Liverpool, fearing, no doubt, that their gerrymandering scheme was in jeopardy, and then there would be an end to their power in the city, despatched one of their number to London to do what is known in America as "lobbying." How far the extraordinary decision which the Local Government Board had given, and to which he would shortly refer, was influenced by the representations made through this Party emissary he was not in a position to say. He had now brought his case up to the point when it came into the hands of the President of the Local Government Board for decision. That right hon. Gentleman had entirely ignored the Report of his Commissioner and the instructions which he gave him, and in a letter dated the 22nd of May had communicated to the City Council of Liverpool that he felt precluded from proceeding with the Provisional Order for extending the boundaries until some agreement had been come to on the subject of the wards between the City Council and the authorities in the proposed extension as to the representation of the existing city. This conclusion of the right hon. Gentleman was in effect to decline to discharge the very duties for which his Department existed. He relegated to a body composed mainly of his political supporters a duty which it was incumbent upon him—not as a political officer, but as a judicial administrator—to perform. To leave the matter to the determination of the City Council is to say to the minority on that body, who represent so large a majority of the electors, "I leave you in the hands of your political opponents. I will not exercise the power the law imposes upon me and prepare such a scheme as I think just, which you can accept or not as you think proper." In his letter he refers to a "misunderstanding," but the very object of a Commissioner's inquiry—with the Local Board as an Appeal Court—was to hear and determine the merits of the case. The City Council had in express words through their advocate asked the Local Government Board to prepare its own scheme if it thought proper. The Commissioner had prepared a scheme which the President had set aside. The right hon. Gentleman might say he had only postponed the question. Who was to put him in motion? Certainly not the majority in the City Council, who now knew the fate in store for them under the scheme. And so the matter would drop and a small minority of ratepayers continue to govern the large majority. Important works of a sanitary character were held in abeyance pending a decision as to what authority would have to carry them out. By the delay confusion would also be created in regard to the elections under the Parish Councils Bill. Had the President settled the municipal ward question no doubt the same boundaries would have been adopted for the wards of the Parish Councils. As it was, there would be confusion, trouble, and cost through there being different areas for the Parish Council and the City Council elections. In conclusion, he asked the President of the Local Government Board to reconsider the whole circumstances of the case, and instead of placing a matter, upon which the daily life, health, comfort, and welfare of hundreds of thousands of people depended, upon the shoulders of a body which regarded the matter only from a political standpoint, to himself adjudicate upon the question in his judicial capacity as the Parliamentary officer entrusted with the duty of determining the matter.

I am very sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has not had a better opportunity of making his statement, and that I myself have not had a better opportunity of replying, not merely to the statement which the right hon. Gentleman had just made, but to the far more serious, important, and altogether unprecedented speech which the right hon. Gentleman made against me at Liverpool. I am perfectly astounded that the right hon. Gentleman should have addressed the House and made no reference to that speech. He has not repeated what he said at Liverpool a few days ago, and this perfectly amazes and astounds me. The House will be surprised to know that before I came to a conclusion on the case, when I had not even read the Papers connected with it, the right hon. Gentleman went down to Liverpool and made an attack on me of the strongest possible character, which I venture to say no ex-Minister ever made against another, accusing me of having been guilty of the most flagrant political job, of having dishonoured the Office which I hold, and of having been guilty of political chicanery.