To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will state the cause of the delay in proceeding with the

To ask the President of the Board of Trade, having regard to the fact that a Committee was appointed in 1899 to consider applications for monetary grants in aid of harbours, and that the conditions under which such applications can be received have hitherto prevented grants being made to either of the crofting counties, will he state the number of applications received for grants in aid of harbours in Scotland, and in how many instances the Committee have recommended the Treasury to render assistance, and the amount of assistance thus rendered. (Answer.) Ten applications for grants in aid of harbours in Scotland have been received and considered by the Committee. In two cases the Committee found that the conditions had been complied with. Sanction has been given by the Treasury, in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee, to a grant of £15,000 for Craigenroan Harbour, and to a grant of £1,500 for Portknockie Harbour.—(Board of Trade.)

To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will state in how many cases since August, 1900, applications have been received by him for an Inquiry under Section 56 of the Companies Act, 1862; how many such Inquiries have been held; and what are the circumstances and conditions under which the Board of Trade permits such Inquiries to be held. (Answer.) There have been two applications and no Inquiries. The decision is left entirely in the discretion of the Board, and each case is dealt with on its merits.—(Board of Trade.)

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can now say when the Report of the Royal Commission on the Port of London will be in the hands of hon. Members. (Answer.) I understand that the Commissioners hope to be able to complete their Report at an early date.—(Board of Trade.)

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether there are any regulations which prevent the public from consulting the Post Office Directory in post offices; and, if so, whether, for the convenience of the public in future, directions will be given that a directory shall be available for public use in every post office in the Metropolitan district. (Answer.) The Post Office London Directory is not an official publication, and is only supplied at some of the larger post offices for the use of the staff. When a directory is available at a public counter without inconvenience, applicants are allowed to refer to it; but the Postmaster General is not prepared to give directions that a directory shall be available for public use at every post office in the Metropolitan district.—(Post Office.)

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the mails for Carndonagh, Malin, and Culdaff before the 1st May last reached Carndonagh by train arriving at 8 o'clock, and that since the 1st May they only reached Carndonagh by train arriving at 9.55; whether complaints have been received by the Post Office authorities from merchants and others in the said districts complaining of this delay; and, if so, what steps, if any, the Postmaster General purposes taking in order to ensure as early a delivery for the above-named districts as what they had prior to the 1st May last. (Answer.) Before the 1st instant the mails for Carndonagh, Malin, and Culdaff were conveyed by a train from Londonderry, which was due at Carndonagh at 8.15 a.m., but the Company discontinued this train beyond Buncrana because the Postmaster General felt unable to agree to the terms which they demanded. There is no alternative, therefore, but to forward the mails by the later train which is due at Carndonagh at 9.55 a.m. The Postmaster General regrets that in these circumstances the improved postal service which was afforded for a few months cannot be maintained.—(Post Office.)

To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can state the total number of senior assistant clerks (abstractor class) and the number serving in the various offices; also the number of the promotions of senior assistant clerks (abstractor class) to the second division, under Clause 15 of the Order in Council of 29th December, 1898, and the names of the offices in which such promotions occurred. (Answer.) 574 persons have been certificated as old (not senior) assistant clerks. I am unable to say how many of these are still serving. They were assigned to thirty-eight various public departments. Ninety-eight of them have been promoted to the second division. I cannot give the other particulars asked for without detailed inquiry in all the offices concerned; nor do I think that, if given, they would serve any useful purpose.—(Treasury.)

To ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he will do his best to secure that the crockery used in the Refreshment Department of the House of Commons shall continue to be that which is manufactured with leadless glaze, as is the case in other Government Departments, (Answer.) The crockery used in the Refreshment Department is not now supplied by my Office, the arrangements being entirely in the hands of the Kitchen Committee. I have, however, ventured to draw the attention of the Chairman of the Committee to my right hon friend's Question.—(Office of Works.)

To ask the First Commissioner of Works what precautions have been taken against fire, having in view the largo amount of woodwork which now surrounds Westminster Abbey, in addition to the large amount collected within the Abbey. (Answer.) An excellent arrangement of hydrants exists in the Abbey; the hose is kept fixed and ready night and day. The police on duty and the Abbey firemen have careful instructions as to the use of appliances and fire calls. The Abbey has been inspected by the officers of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, and they have not at present given any sign of dissatisfaction. I have asked Captain Wells to let me know should anything, in his opinion, be required to additionally safeguard the Abbey. I am informed that the Insurance Company which insures the fabric for the Dean and Chapter has not required any premium to be paid for extra risk. I have warned the authorities of St. Margaret's to provide for the safety from fire of the stands which are being erected in proximity to the Abbey upon land not within my control.—(Office of Works.)

To ask the Secretary of State for India, seeing that it is not unusual for from 100 to 200 persons to be waiting to arrange their business transactions in a single room of the Currency Office at Calcutta, will he have some inquiry made, with a view to provide suitable facilities for the conduct of business at that office. (Answer.) There is in the India Office no information on the subject of the facilities afforded to the public at the Currency Office in Calcutta, but I have no doubt that the local authorities will remedy, on a representation made to them, any inconvenience which may arise from insufficient accommodation.—(India Office.)

To ask the Secretary of State for India whether steps will be taken such as will admit of the ratepayers at Darjeeling being empowered to elect their own representatives, especially in view of the fact that, out of twenty-six members of the Municipal Council, all of whom are nominated, several have left the district, and only five are in the habit of attending meetings of the Council. (Answer.) The municipality of Darjeeling is one for which the system of election is not considered suitable by the Government of Bengal, and I do not think that it would be advisable to interfere with their discretion in this matter. As to the statement made at the end of the hon. Member's Question, I have no information enabling me to verify its accuracy.—(India Office.)

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will state the amount raised by Cavan County Council from the rates to carry out the provisions of the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act for the year ending 31st March, 1902; what amount the County Council received from the Government grants under this Act during this period; and when will the accounts for the year 1901 be published or presented to Parliament. (Answer.) The amount estimated to be raised by the County Council in the year 1901 for the purposes of agricultural and technical instruction was £1,150. The allocation of funds in respect of schemes approved in 1901, for the period ended 31st March, 1901, is as follows—

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the expert teacher who conducted the school of crochet at Monivea, County Galway, has been transferred by order of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Education, in spite of the fact that the Tuam Committee unanimously passed a resolution recommending that the teacher be left at Monivea until such time as the class can carry on the work; whether he is aware that the class has not yet received the necessary amount of instruction; and will the proper steps be taken to prevent the stoppage of this local industry, (Answer). The facts are not quite accurately stated in the first and second parts of the Question. The class of crochet received from the County Committee the services of an itinerant instructress for three months from the 1st October last, subsequently renewed for another period of three months. The Department, having been consulted in the matter, expressed the opinion that any further extension of this teacher's services would take away the itinerant character of her work, and suggested that application should be made to the County Technical Instruction Committee for a permanent teacher. It is presumed the matter will now be considered by the latter Committee.—(Irish Office.)

The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the course of this debate, has referred to myself and something I wrote in reference to the corn tax, and has endeavoured to show that under the circumstances I at any rate ought not to oppose the re-imposition of the tax. I do not desire to trouble the House again by any reference to myself, but I must say that I think the right hon. Gentleman is somewhat unfortunate in his authority when he shelters himself behind Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone. The Government, indeed, are very fond of sheltering themselves behind somebody, but I think that my right hon. friends the Members for West Monmouthshire and East Wolverhampton have both conclusively shown that neither Mr. Gladstone nor Sir Robert Peel considered this tax in the light we are now asked to consider it. Sir Robert Peel imposed this duty as a purely nominal one, and Mr. Gladstone re-enacted it as an entirely provisional one. But we know that now it is not intended to be either nominal or temporary—it is, in fact, to be permanent. The right hon. Gentleman in his speech last night seemed to me to endeavour to draw a red herring across our path. He complained that my right hon. friend and those who support this Amendment had not suggested any alternative taxation to that which they asked the House to repudiate. I do not think that that is a fair taunt as regards the Opposition on the present occasion. We have always argued that not only is the right hon. Gentleman putting taxation on in the wrong way, but that he is not imposing sufficient taxation to meet the cost of the war. We have always said that there ought to be more taxation and less money borrowed. The Government admit that this is not a war tax, but that it is to be permanent, and is intended to meet the increasing ordinary expenditure of the nation. I confess it seems to me a totally new doctrine which the right hon. Gentleman has laid down that we are not entitled to criticise a tax without suggesting some alternative with regard to taxation. I can show the fallacy of that position. Hon. Members on that side as well as on this side of the House ventured to criticise the cheque tax, and it was withdrawn. Surely the right hon. Gentleman will not go so far as to say we were not entitled to criticise that tax without suggesting something to put in its place. It seems to me we are fully justified in criticising the right hon. Gentleman's proposals for taxation without offering any alteration. But, as a matter of fact, my right hon. friends and other Members have suggested alternative taxation to that proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. We are all agreed on this side of the House when you have a war expenditure of this sort, and more especially an increased peace expenditure, that we must extend and alter our system of taxation, and must raise a certain proportion of that taxation not only from direct but from indirect taxation. My right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton pointed out one or two branches of revenue which, if they had been taken one by one, would have enabled this small sum of £2,500,000 to be obtained without raising the important issue which this corn tax necessarily brings to the front. I ventured to say on the first night of the Budget debate that it is one thing to renew a tax and quite another thing to impose it. The right hon. Gentleman did not seem able to appreciate that position. He says that if a tax is good at one time it is good at another. That, however, is a financial principle from which I entirely dissent. Will the right hon. Gentleman remember this : that this tax, when it was put on, was put on simply, solely, and distinctly as a registration duty? Sir Robert Peel imposed it in order to meet the cost of registration, but I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not contend that it is necessary to maintain the duty or to put it on again for mere registration purposes. As Mr. Lowe said, you might just as well burn down your house in order to roast a pig as to keep the duty on for purely administrative purposes. This duty was continued as a nominal duty, but, seeing that the right hon. Gentleman proposes that that shall bring in £2,500,000, surely he will not contend that it is now to be a nominal duty. There is all the difference in the world between an existing tax and a new tax. To an existing tax trade gets accustomed, but a new tax necessarily disturbs trade. And again, when the right hon. Gentleman says that because a tax, when it was in existence for a long period, did not affect prices, therefore prices will not be affected when a new tax is put on, it seems to me he is putting forward an entirely fallacious proposition. I do not wish to put the matter too high. I have no doubt that this small tax will not very materially affect prices in particular districts and under particular circumstances, but unfortunately many of us think that this is only the first step, and we realise that in these cases it is not the first step that costs. The danger of subsequent additions is a real danger, and therefore we wish to enter our protest at the earliest possible moment. The right hon. Gentleman has changed his ground in regard to this matter. In his Budget speech he said the duty would not affect prices, and that the prices of bread and flour would not go up. Last night he took quite a different view. He admitted that in many cases bread, and in all cases flour, had risen in price, but he attributed the increase not to the new tax but to the shortage in the crop of corn. That shortage, however, existed when he made his Budget speech and when he said there would be no rise in consequence of the tax. I will say this: If it is true that the shortage in corn has increased the price of bread, it is quite certain that that shortage and that increased price have been aggravated by the additional 1s. per quarter duty on corn. The right hon. Gentleman further said that the bakers had taken the opportunity of the tax to put up prices, but surely it must be very bad finance to give an excuse to a large trade dealing in the necessaries of life to put up the prices in consequence of a tax which you have imposed. The right hon. Gentleman dealt in simile last night. He said the cup was full, and this tax had made it overflow. But it is very bad domestic economy when you make the cup overflow. You only make a mess, and you do not gain anything. It is very provoking, no doubt, that some bakers and millers should have put up their prices. The right hon. Gentleman has ignored flour very largely, but I do not think he will deny that a shilling per sack has been put on that universally, and that means not only an extra shilling per sack on foreign corn, but the English millers are also getting the additional shilling for English flour, which means putting the money entirely into their pockets. No doubt it is inconsiderate of the bakers to put up prices, but, after all, bakers, like Chancellors of the Exchequer, must live, and in many cases this additional tax had so reduced their profits as to make it necessary to put up prices. I will admit that the increase of price on bread has not been universal, although, as far as I can make out, it is absolutely universal with regard to flour throughout the country. That. I think, the right hon. Gentleman will admit must have added to the price of bread where there is domestic baking which is pretty universal in the North. The right hon. Gentleman says that the prices are only the same as they were a year ago, but that means that if he had not put on the tax the price of flour would have been a shilling per sack less now. The right hon. Gentleman admitted this, and tried to minimise the fact. He quoted statistics relating to a number of cities, and of co-operative societies. I do not know on what basis he made his selection, but I do not suppose that he chose the societies which were likely to have put up their prices. He said that in the cases of only thirty-two societies out of 284, the prices of bread had gone up ½d. But that was only about one-fifth of the total number of co-operative societies in the country, and if we adopt the same proportion for the whole of them, we have at least 160 societies which have already increased the price of bread. Each of these societies represents some thousands of working men, and to that extent the working classes have been prejudiced by the tax. I was rather struck by what the right hon. Gentleman said in regard to these societies. He said the price of their loaf generally was 5d. per quartern, and he congratulated himself that that was a moderate price. As a matter of fact, it is a very high price, and these are the last loaves on which this tax would have any effect. This is an illustration of the ignorance which the right hon. Gentleman has shown throughout these debates of the domestic economy of the working classes, who will be really affected by this tax. This matter is not by any means a question of the rise in price of either flour or bread. Is it a fact that if this tax had not been imposed in a large number of cases the prices would have fallen instead of rising? I should just like to quote one or two sentences from the bakers' own paper to which the right hon. Gentleman referred the other day. I find in it this statement with regard to the bread tax—that in many cases the time was ripe for a fall in prices for the higher priced bread, and that this fall was now averted—thanks to the tax. I contend that the right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to confine his attention to the districts where the price of bread has not been raised; he has to meet the argument that if it had not been for this tax, in a very large number of cases the price would have been reduced. Then, it ought to be remembered by this House that, in the northern districts of the country especially, a vast number of the working classes bake their own bread, and in many cases they will not rent rooms or a cottage in which there is not a baking oven. On all these people the weight of this tax, plus something additional, has already been imposed. I do not wish to go over the ground as to the effect this tax will have on the poorest classes of this country. Though it may be true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that their consumption of bread will not be diminished, this tax, so far as it affects the price, will curtail their comforts or their necessities in other respects. Now I come to the question of Protection. The right hon. Gentleman says that this tax will not protect. But he cannot deny that it is a Protective tax. Surely the definition of that is that it will give advantage to one producer over another : one is taxed, while the other is free. Let us, if the right hon. Gentleman chooses, call it a "sort" of Protection. It is Protection of some sort, and we have learned from experience that a "sort" of war—as the Lord Chancellor called the war now going on—is as expensive as real war when it is going on. The right hon. Gentleman forgets that in regard to this matter he has raised the whole question of Protection. The difference between the present duty and the former tax was that at the time the latter was repealed it was a moribund tax, and it was the last remnant of a discarded and discredited Protective system, whereas it is now being reintroduced, and constitutes, as many of us believe, the first step towards some further system of Protection. We have during this debate been endeavouring to get some light from Members of the Government, and I shall be glad if the Secretary to the Treasury, who is going to follow me, or the Leader of the House, who will probably speak later on, will give me a clear and specific answer to three plain questions. First, what is the definition of a Protective duty? We have never had that properly laid down.

One that protects.

That is somewhat inadequate, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will kindly develop the answer a little. We should be very glad to have from him his real definition of a Protective tax. That, however, is a comparatively small matter. There are two other matters of paramount importance. The right hon. Gentleman says a Protective duty is a duty which protects. What I want to ask is this : At what stage will this corn duty cease to be non-Protective? The right hon. Gentleman says it is not Protective at 1s. Is it Protective at 2s.?

Would it be Protective at one-eighth of a farthing?

I say that this tax, however small it may be, is in essence a Protective tax. I am not proposing the tax, and I do not see that the right hon. Gentleman has any right to catechise me as to my definition or my views. On the other hand, we have a perfect right to catechise him and the Government, as they are proposing the tax, and therefore I want to know if he will answer my questions. Does he say that at 1s. a tax is not a Protective one?

Yes.

Does it cease to be non-Protective at 2s.? Is it non-Protective at 3s.? When does it become Protective?

I would ask at what point does it cease to be Protective?

At no point does it cease to be Protective in essence. Will the right hon. Gentleman understand that I am not proposing the tax? I want to know at what point does this tax cease to be non-Protective. In my opinion, in the years to come it is going to increase. At what point will it become Protective? The right hon. Gentleman says it is not Protective at 1s.; he is doubtful about it at 2s., and would give no answer as to 3s. I suppose he will admit that at 20s. it would become Protective. Then, I want further to ask what guarantee are we going to have that this tax, which he says is not Protective at this moment, will not eventually be increased to a Protective amount? That seems to me a most important point. The Chancellor of the Exchequer pooh-poohed our fears with regard to the question of Free Trade. He said we must have very little belief in it if we were afraid of a tax of this sort. But my right hon. friend last night compared the matter to an embankment. We know, as the Hollanders know, that in regard to the safety of an embankment it is the first trickle that has to be watched for and stopped, because unless it is, it will lead to the destruction of the embankment. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet, in his speech on Budget night, said the Chancellor of the Exchequer was Cobdenite, and he denounced him as a Free Trader of the worst possible description. But if the right hon. Gentleman is a Free Trader of the worst possible description, I think we shall be in a bad way indeed when we have a successor to him who is not such a Free Trader. I want to point out to the House that already under the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman we are adopting the principle of Protection, or, as he calls it, discrimination, which is practically carrying us back to the old times at which Protection prevailed. My hon. friend the Member for Devonport clearly proved, by the figures he quoted last night, that the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to flour and corn gave discriminating assistance to flour as against corn, and that, if both were to be on an equality, the duty on flour should be 4d. instead of 5d. as proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton also quoted some figures in regard to this matter, and the reply of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was that the same discrimination was made when Mr. Gladstone altered the system from measure to weight. I think, however, that was no answer at all, because practically at that time there were no imports of flour. Moreover, it is quite arguable that the discrimination made had the effect of preventing the importation of foreign flour, for as soon as the tax was abolished the discrimination disappeared and the imports of flour enormously increased. That shows that it was a Protective duty for the English miller. On what basis has the right hon. Gentleman fixed on 5d.? Mr. Gladstone put it at 4½d., and the millers have represented that a duty of 4½d. would gave them sufficient Protection. Yet he has gratuitously added ½d., and has practically pledged himself to a discriminating duty in favour of the British over the foreign miller of no less than 1d. in regard to this duty. Has any notice been taken of this matter by the dominion of Canada? As we know a very large proportion of our flour comes from Canada. They send us very little wheat : it is almost entirely flour they send. They have, rightly or wrongly, in order to knit together England and Canada, given us favourable treatment as regards other nations, and we now, as far as I can make out, are going to put them to a considerable disadvantage in regard to flour. Will the right hon. Gentleman say if any representations have been made by Canada in regard to this matter, because I think it puts us in a very awkward position. I am sorry to say it is not only deeds but words which show which way the wind is blowing in regard to this question of Protection. The right hon. Gentleman the other day met a deputation of importers of flour in regard to this particular matter, and he stated that it was to the general advantage that flour should be ground at home rather than be imported. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture has also spoken and said he would like to see the duty on flour considerably increased. The argument of the right hon. Gentleman is that he does not think it is to the advantage of this country that imports of foreign flour should increase. That is exactly the argument which was used in the old Protectionist days. If the right hon. Gentleman is going to give his opinion as to what is for the benefit of trade, and is going to carry out his view by a discriminating duty he is reviving the arguments and the system of the Protectionists of old days. As I understand the words I have quoted the right hon. Gentleman desires by his discriminating Protective duties to diminish the imports of flour.

The report of my remarks, of course, was very brief and did not fully state what I said. I gave my reasons for desiring that wheat, for example, should be imported in the shape of corn rather than flour, and they had nothing whatever to do with the British miller. My reasons were that then you would get the whole grain, including the offal, which is extremely valuable for feeding stock purposes in this country. If you merely have the flour imported the offal remains in the United States. Their stock are fed with it and we do not get the benefit of it here.

I did not say that the right hon. Gentleman was arguing from the point of view of the millers. My point is that he is giving his personal opinion as to what is best for the trade of the country, and to carry it out puts on a discriminating duty. That is the sole basis on which the old Protectionist system was founded. Further, his discriminating duty will reduce the imports of flour, and so adversely affect the revenue; yet this duty is professedly solely a revenue duty. Under this tax, as it stands, practically he is putting a duty on the raw material which is consumed—he is putting on a duty discriminating against the British farmer in regard to his food products in favour of the foreigner. The foreigner practically will receive to the extent of the duty a bounty on his goods. I cannot understand how the right hon. Gentleman will be able when this question comes up again for consideration, to resist the argument which will be logically and justly raised in favour of putting a duty on foreign food products which come into this country and unfairly compete with food products grown by the British farmer. Then, in regard to the matter of Protection every single argument that the right hon. Gentleman has used in favour of the 1s. duty would, it seems to me, equally justify a 5s. or a higher duty. Indeed, it seems to me that the argument once admitted would be considerably more in favour of a higher than a lower duty. There is the ordinary financial economic argument which many of us raised in regard to the sugar tax, namely, that if you are going to put on taxation at all you should put on a considerable amount. It is an economic fallacy to put on a small duty and disturb trade for very little benefit. That argument will be in favour of an increase of this duty. There is also the argument which has been used a good deal in the course of these debates, namely, that in regard to a small tax the Exchequer will not benefit nearly to the amount the consumer loses. This will also be a great argument in favour of the increase of the tax. Then, again, as our expenditure increases, and it is bound to increase, it will furnish an irresistible argument for raising the tax. When the right hon. Gentleman or his successor finds out that by one turn of the screw he can produce further revenue from this tax, it will, I think, be impossible to resist taking that course. There is another argument to which I wish briefly to refer. In consequence of this tax we are practically largely reverting to the old system of taxation—the old basis of many years past. The policy of taxation has been, for some time past, to get a large revenue from a few branches, while others should go free, the obvious reason being that any tax necessarily interferes with the trade, enterprise, and energy of those engaged in commerce. I think it is very significant, and I do not know that the House quite appreciates what has been the result of the policy of the right hon. Gentleman in the last two or three years. One of our boasts has been that our Customs tariff has been simple and small. We had reduced our duties from 1,000 to only 46. The other day the right hon. Gentleman made some mystery about the duties put on in connection with the corn laws; but, at all events, this is clear, that while our duties before two years ago were only 46, they have risen at the present moment to 124. This is what is called broadening the basis of taxation, but the broadening of taxation is practically the narrowing of trade. I desire to oppose this tax on one or two very considerable grounds. In the first place, I think it violates the principle of Free Trade; in the second place, it appears to me to be gratuitously raising the question of Protection; in the third place, I think it has been amply proved that it will fall with the greatest severity on the poorest class; and, in the fourth place—and I do not think it is an unimportant point—it has shown to nations abroad, and I am not sure that it has not had the same effect in South Africa, that this country has arrived at such a financial condition that it is obliged, in order to carry on the finances at all, to resort to the food of the people. I believe it has done a good deal to weaken our position abroad, and that it will weaken it in South Africa. As the tax is one that will be felt by the poorest class of the community I, for one, will give it my most strenuous opposition.

When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire initiated the debate in which we are now engaged, he promised that if we desired a united and vigorous Opposition, the tax we are now seeking to impose would provide us with the object of our wishes. I think as regards the vigour of the Opposition I need say nothing when I survey the aspect of the Benches opposite. [Laughter, and an HON. MEMBER: Look at your own Benches.] But we do not pretend that the whole financial system of the country is being upset; we do not pretend that a burden is being placed upon the poor of the country which they will regard as intolerable; we do not pretend that a revolution is being worked in the system which has prevailed here for the last fifty years. On the other hand, hon. Gentlemen opposite would have us believe, in the face of those empty Benches, that the whole country is seething with fierce indignation against the action of the Government, and they ask us to believe that it is nothing but the inconvenience of appearing in this House at two o'clock that prevents Members coming to give proper vent to the feelings of the country. I need not say more about the vigour of the Opposition. I think its union is even more remarkable. It has union in negation and destruction only. The moment you come to any suggestion of a constructive character, the moment you come to any suggestion for an alternative method of meeting the financial situation, that union disappears, and we get the most discordant notes from every quarter of the Opposition. If the state of the House does not lend much excuse for the prolongation of this debate, on the subject which has now been before us for four days, I find some consolation in the fact that it has afforded the hon. Gentleman who preceded me an opportunity of explaining his position and himself. We all admire his courage, in whatever cause it is shown, and in the face of the hon. Gentleman's written declaration on this matter, I think it does require some courage to come down and oppose the tax in this House.

If the hon. Gentleman did me the honour to read all I said on the subject, I hope he read it in a copy he bought, and not one that he borrowed.

I think I need not submit to cross-examination on that point. I say that it requires some courage on his part, having regard to his past utterances, to come down and oppose this step. The hon. Gentleman has left it on record, in a considered opinion, formed in the calmness of his own study, that this tax was one which was profitable in itself, collected with little trouble or expense and little interference with trade, and which had practically no effect on the price of bread.

At that time.

The laws of political economy, of which we have heard so much, are apparently something quite different in 1902 from what they were in 1869. The hon. Gentleman shed a tear over the abandonment of the tax. He thought the tax was given up recklessly, and he has left on record his opinion that if the tax were still in force nobody would propose to abandon it.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. I will not say that he desires to misrepresent me, but if he quotes, he should read all that I wrote on that particular Budget. I do object to have certain extracts read from something which I said, without the context. If he will read the other parts, which, apparently, he has not done, he will see that on every principle I condemned the tax. I was talking of it, I think, with reference to other matters.

If the hon. Gentleman condemned it on every principle, he, at any rate, on grounds of expediency thought that it had practically no effect on the food of the people.

At that time.

The hon. Member thought that if it had not been given up nobody would be so foolish as to give it up today. After all, I do not wish to press that point too hard. I do not pretend that we can justify the tax merely by what the hon. Gentleman has written, or that I have to prove that the hon. Gentleman's opinion at one time was not exactly the same opinion as he holds now. I listened to the whole of the hon. Gentleman's speech, but failed to find in it any appreciation, and I might almost say any reference to the situation with which we are dealing. What is that situation? We are face to face with an enormous expenditure—an expenditure swollen at the present time by the heavy cost of the war in which we are engaged—an expenditure which we can all see, even when peace has been restored, will be upon a very heavy scale. We are bound by some means to meet that expenditure. There has hardly been a suggestion that any other solution is possible. It is true that my hon. friend the Member for Exeter said the crux of the situation was the necessity for increased vigilance and prudent thrift. That is a principle to which at other times my Hon. friend the Member for Oldham has also lent some countenance. I hope I may live long enough—and I believe I may—to see my two hon. friends Chancellor of the Exchequer and Financial Secretary to the Treasury, although I will not indulge in the ambiguous task of deciding to which of these offices the respective hon. Gentlemen may be allocated. But I should watch them in either position with great interest. I have served my financial apprenticeship, so to speak, in the great spending Departments. I have now been for nearly two years at the Treasury, and I have had some experience of both sides of the national balance sheet. I venture, therefore, to tell my hon. friends that, unless they are prepared to revoke the considered policy of this country—not only in foreign and colonial matters, but in domestic concerns—they will find it impossible largely to reduce the expenditure on which we are engaged. What, Sir, are the causes of that expenditure? In the first place, the war. But apart from the war, we have been obliged to increase very largely the sums which are provided for the maintenance of our Army. The war has illustrated the weaknesses of our existing system : it has not created them; and whether there had been war or not, it would still have been necessary to strengthen the Army, and improve its organisation. It is not the war that has led to the increase in the Navy. This has been the result of the increasing competition of the great Naval Powers which we see arising in all parts of the world. What is the next great subject of expenditure? It is the education grant; but is there a man in this House—yes, there is one, my hon. and gallant friend the Member for the Chelmsford Division of Essex; he, however, stands alone—who has any desire to reduce that Vote? At any rate, the hon. Gentleman opposite has frequently told us that he looks forward to a large increase of that Vote. Now, by this analysis I have accounted for nearly the whole of the increase which has taken place in our expenditure. The major portion of the additional expenditure will be found to be employed in the foreign and Colonial services which concern the administration of our great African possessions. It has been the subject of accusation against my right hon. friend that he has not provided sufficient funds for meeting the expenditure of the war; but, at any rate, he is doing something to redress the balance, in Lord Rosebery's phrase, by providing the money for the development of those possessions which will be of great benefit to the trade and commerce of the country in the years that are to come. I have ventured to summarise the great sources of increased expenditure for the purpose of asking the House this question—for whose benefit is that done? Can it be pretended that any one of these expenses is for the benefit of a particular class or of the wealthier classes of this community? Is it not true that the poor are at least as much interested, if not more so, in the maintenance of the open highways across the seas, and in the preservation of such open markets as still remain to us? Is it not the fact that their wages and employment would be the first to feel any shortage of our predominance on the ocean, any closing of the markets against our goods which we still preserve, while all the markets of our possessions are preserved open to the world? I say it is necessary to provide new taxation, and that it is just, necessary, and to the common interest of all classes, that the expenditure should be derived from sources to which all contribute. An hon. Gentleman opposite suggested that the taxation ought to be placed on the millionaires, on the income-tax payers, on site values—in short, that it ought to be placed anywhere except upon one single class or interest, and that on no account are we to place it on the shoulders of the taxpayers as a whole. I join issue with hon. Members when they put forward any such doctrine as that.

was understood to ask who had made these suggestions.

All the suggestions which I have quoted have been put forward from the opposite side of the House, and have been cheered by hon. Members behind the right hon. Gentleman.

I suggested that should you take off' the doles.

Let me point out the difficulty of dealing in general terms with the whole discussion, because that united opposition which the right hon. Gentleman promised is only, as yet, faintly adumbrated, and has not produced any adequate visible results. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that we should take off the doles from the agricultural interests, that we have imposed this tax for the benefit of the farmers, and that if he and his friends went to the country and offered free feeding stuffs they would be supported. But will they go and tell the farmers that what they take off the feeding stuffs they will put on the rates? The courage of the right hon. Gentleman opposite stopped short at that statement, and I would be very much surprised if in that dim and distant future when he and his colleagues achieve a majority any one of them will favour the repeal of the tax we are now imposing. But what have we been told? When the right hon. Gentleman interrupted me in order to make his own position clear—I am sure he will acquit me of any intended misrepresentation—I was saying that it had been suggested that we should have selected taxes which would fall on the few instead of being spread over the whole population. But that is inconsistent with the high doctrine of political morality preached at the same time by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and by none more eloquently than by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose-Burghs, who laid it down—and I agree with him—that it would be pitiable for this country to attempt to teach the majority of the electors that they may call for any expenditure at other people's-cost without any fear that any part of the burden of that expenditure would fall on them. And I venture to think that none of the solutions which they have so readily put before the House would, if the occasion arose, be adopted by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I will not delay the House by examining these solutions at length. When I spoke about the proposed tax on site values I was met by cheers from hon. Gentlemen opposite; but I venture to say that for any such proposal they will get cold Comfort in the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, on which they appear to rest their case. That Report says that the land affords no large undeveloped service of taxation for local purposes, still less for national purposes. A Iarge part of the burden of the rates already falls on the owners of site values; and the Commissioners propose not so much a new source of revenue, but a re-arrangement of the burdens which already fall on that class of property. Yes, but if you are going to re-arrange the burden-by transferring to the owners some part of the rates which the occupiers now bear, do you think there would be any margin left over for the national taxcollector when he comes round to try and get a share of it? I need not labour this point, because from both sides of the House I can quote twenty expressions of opinion that we are face to face with, circumstances in which we cannot rely on direct taxation alone to meet the growing necessary expenditure of the country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton said the other day that it was impossible to meet the whole of the expenditure of the country by direct taxation, and last year, when we were discussing the coal tax, in answer to an interruption thrown out, he said—

"I do not like the tax on sugar, but at the same time I have no right to complain if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when we are pressing him to raise more money by taxation, puts a tax on an article which the whole community will feel."

"The American miller is on the whole relieved to find that he has escaped the Budget with nothing worse than this comparatively small difference in favour of his British competitor. In fact, if it were not for the far more serious handicap which the export of flour made by the American railway in their differential rates against flour, and in favour of wheat, the British duty would not he worthy of consideration."

"Minneapolis millers are generally of opinion that the duty will have no serious effect on their trade with the United Kingdom."

Is that the view taken in Canada?

I think what is true of the United States is equally true of Canada. But, as the right hon. Gentleman has called my attention to it, I venture to say to him that he must decide which horse he is going to ride; is the consumer in this country going to pay, or the producer in Canada? If he tells us that we will have to bear the whole burden, he must not encourage the Canadians to believe that they will have a grievance in the tax.

The hon. Gentleman has mistaken me. I say there is an unfair discrimination in the case of flour as compared with corn.

In that case the quotation I have just read is equally applicable to the case of Canada.

I only asked if Canada were equally satisfied.

The right hon. Gentleman need not have interrupted me to ask that question. He has opportunities of learning the opinion of Canada equally as good as mine. I quoted the extract to show that the discrimination, if discrimination there be, involved in this tax in favour of whole grain as against flour, is as nothing compared with the discrimination hitherto in force by the railway and shipping companies in favour of one and against the other. When we get over these difficulties raised by hon. Gentlemen opposite, they meet us with another. They say that this tax falls on the poor, and that it falls with especial severity on the very poor. When hon. Gentlemen are arguing that point they are accustomed to talk as if this were the only tax we have to pay. You cannot judge of the equity of the taxation of this country without making a survey of the whole field and the resources of our revenue. It is not fair to take one tax by itself, and to say because that tax presses more on one class of the community than on another, that, therefore, that in itself is sufficient to condemn it. You must look at taxation as a whole, and see whether, as a whole, it is equally distributed among all classes of the community. I do not want to trouble the House with many figures. I appreciate very much the kindness with which hon. Members have listened to me, but let me put in as few words as I can the figures which my right hon. friend gave the House yesterday. Take the figures of the year of the greatest expenditure in connection with the Crimean war, the finance of which period we are told to compare ours to, and to hide our diminished heads; that period when pure finance was supreme, and the expedients of the present day were unknown. In 1855–6 indirect taxation was 58·6 per cent. of the whole, as against 47·7 per cent. today; direct taxation was 41·4 per cent. as against 52·3 per cent. today. The amount produced per head of the population from direct taxation was 19s. 8d. as against £1 12s. 11d., and from indirect taxation £1 6s. 9d. as against £1 9s. 11d. today. Even that comparatively very small difference in the amount produced per head by indirect taxation is made up, and more than made up, by the increased taxation of alcohol, and I think there is no considerable body of Members on either side of the House who wish to see the taxation of alcohol reduced. Lot me add one figure. If we take the indirect taxation of 1855–6, the year I have already spoken of, and compare it with that of 1901–2, we find that the tax on alcohol produced 13s. 8d. per head of the population, whereas today it brings in 18s. 6d. All other indirect taxation produces today 11s. 5d. as against 14s. 3d. in 1855–6. No one will contend for a moment that the prosperity of the country is not greater, that it has not descended deeper, and that the working classes are not more able to bear burdens today, than in the days of the Crimean War. And yet the burden of indirect taxation, which is the burden that falls upon them, is less per head of the population, if we exclude alcohol, than it was at the time of the Crimean War. Hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House have appeared to think it a sufficient condemnation of the tax that it would fall on all people of the country. How far are they prepared to press that argument? If you are not to tax the very poor, it is not this tax alone that you must not impose. There are other taxes also that you must take off. You must abolish the tax on sugar, which my right hon. friend put into his Budget last year. You must abolish the tax upon tea, which my right hon. friend has frequently imposed. You say these people are to be excluded from all taxation and all contribution towards the revenue. I venture to say that under such circumstances it would puzzle any Chancellor of the Exchequer to find revenue sufficient to meet our expenditure, and it is entirely contrary to the view which hon. Members and right hon. Members on that side of the House have laid down—I refer to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton. The hon. and learned. Member for South Shields has opposed this tax on two occasions during this session, and I would commend to him the study of his own remarks on the Budget of last year. At that time he was very much concerned about the coal tax, which he denounced as a tax which rested on a particular class of the community only, and was not spread over the whole community. He accused my right hon. friend of reversing the whole policy of the country upon which taxation has been levied during the last fifty years, and said that it had been the whole aim of taxation to reach as far as possible the whole community. That was the aim of the tax upon tea, that was the aim of the tax up on sugar, and so on. Now, the hon. Gentleman, who opposed the tax upon coal because it rested upon a particular class, opposes this tax because it rests upon all. The hon. Member for the Luton Divison of Bedfordshire opposed it with more emphasis than anybody to whom I have listened during the course of the debate, when he said that, though reluctant to use strong language, he could only describe this as an infamous tax. Why infamous? Infamous because the mass of the people cannot escape, if they would. A tax that the mass of the people must pay is an infamous tax! It is no use for the hon. Member to shake his head; that is the view of his colleague the Member for the Luton Division. I do not wish to sow dissension in an otherwise united Party. I merely show the extraordinary results of the arguments used. Now, I have approached this tax so far as if it were going to fall entirely upon the consumers of the country, but will it? During this debate we have had some references to the laws of political economy, and some very instructive statements upon them. I admire the command which hon. Members opposite have over the laws of political economy; it would seem that those laws alter from year to year as the exigencies of the Opposition demand. Last year, when an export tax was being put upon coal, we were told that surely the occupants of the Treasury Bench were not so foolish as not to see that an export duty must fall upon the consumer. This year we are discussing an import duty on corn, and we are told that it is axiomatic that an import duty of a shilling levied in Liverpool falls upon the consumer in this country, while an export duty levied in New York or Buenos Ayres would fall upon the producer in those countries. Then we had the argument of the hon. and learned Member for Launceston, which was a very seductive argument, in which he sought to prove that the consumer would not only in the end pay all this tax, but an extra shilling besides. But is it so certain that the price will be raised? Is it so certain that the assumption of the hon. and learned Gentleman has any necessary foundation in fact? If it be certain that in every case the price of an article to the consumer would be raised by the whole amount of the import duty, and not only that, but by an extra sum which the various people who handle the commodity have put on to recoup themselves, will hon. Gentlemen explain to me how it comes about that the average price of wheat in France, during the last year, instead of being greater than the average price of wheat in this country by the whole amount of the duty imposed in France, was only greater by about half the amount of the duty? I venture to say that a reference to the debate of last year and the immutable laws of political economy as they are propounded by the Opposition, and the consideration of other circumstances such as those to which I have alluded, tends to show that this proposition is not so simple as hon. Gentlemen would have us believe, and that the incidence of an import duty is a much more complicated and doubtful question than anybody would suppose. I admit that there is great difficulty in tracing the incidence of an import duty, but speaking generally, and in the long run, omitting the disturbing conditions of a given moment, I believe that if the supply is greater than the demand at the current prices of the day, the duty will tend to be borne by the producer; but that if the demand is greater than the supply, the duty will tend to fall upon the consumer. It will depend, therefore, on all the varying circumstances which regulate the law of supply and demand as to what proportion of this tax is borne by the consumer in this country or by the producer elsewhere. The hon. Member opposite thinks that because in thirty cases out of the 280 into which he made inquiries, the price of bread has been raised, that is a conclusive proof that the duty will fall on the producers of this country. Hon. Members take no account of the conditions of the market at the time, and no account of the prospective sources of supply; they take no notice of the fact that in certain of these districts rates have been cut down below the cost price. It is enough for them to say "Post hoc, propter hoc."—the price has been raised, and the cause is the duty. I think the tax will be borne sometimes by one and sometimes by the other. We know that already the American interests are combining to consider how they shall maintain their trade with regard to this duty, and we know that in the case of one railway at least they have reduced their rates for flour, to enable flour to be brought into this country at the same price as formerly. But, whether I be right or wrong, whether this tax falls mainly on the producer and the middleman or whether it falls on the consumer in this country, I, for one, will never stand here to defend the proposition that the great masses in this country are to be shielded from the responsibility of sharing the expenditure for which they are responsible. We are proud of our institutions; we are proud of our great Imperial inheritance. I believe that the people to the full share that pride, but I have never hesitated to tell them that with the enjoyment of the privileges that that great position brings, come its obligations and responsibilities, and I for one will not believe that those who have approved the policy which we are carrying out, those who have seconded all our efforts to pursue it to a successful conclusion, will grudge their contribution to the expenditure that is involved, or will expect that they are to have all the advantages of Empire without bearing any portion of the cost.

I desire briefly to intervene in this debate in order to put before the House the view which is taken by the Irish Party of this tax, and to state the course they intend to take. On this matter, as, indeed, upon every question on which they have to act in this House, the Irish Members will be guided solely by what they consider to be the interests of Ireland. They will look at this question entirely from the Irish point of view. Looking at it from that point of view, we have made up our minds, after careful consideration, to vote in favour of the Amendment which has been moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire. We believe that, taking everything into account, and viewing all the circumstances of the case, and balancing one thing with another, the imposition of this tax will be injurious to Ireland. We feel very strongly that it will press upon the poor in Ireland, and that the poorer the population the more it will press upon it. We believe that this imposition is—to use a phrase which has already been current in this debate—a mean and somewhat contemptible expedient, in a Budget of £200,000,000, of raising a paltry sum of £2,500,000. We believe further that it will increase the unjust burden of taxation which weighs upon Ireland. Finally, we object to this tax because it is imposed for the purpose of raising money to maintain this war, and our position—our consistent position from the very first—has been to refuse to vote a single shilling for any such purpose. The Irish Members have been told in some quarters that, in view of Ireland's peculiar position as a purely agricultural country, they ought to vote in favour of this tax—a tax which, as has been pointed out to them, may be regarded as the commencement of a policy of Protection. It is rather amusing to find that this argument is addressed to us by people who, when they are arguing the question with Liberals above the gangway, maintain that the tax is not a Protective tax at all. We are not deceived, we are not influenced by such arguments at all. It is quite true that there are many Irishmen who would be glad to see, in a self-governed Ireland, the power of Protection in the hands of an Irish Parliament. Indeed, it is small wonder that that feeling exists among certain sections of the Irish population. If there is one fact in the history of Ireland about which I never heard any dispute, it is this : that the policy of Free Trade, while it was of inestimable benefit to this country, was the ruin of Ireland. I remember very well a Liberal Free Trade Chancellor of the Exchequer—the late Mr. Childers—declaring in the draft Report which he prepared at the Financial Relations Commission—which draft Report was, I believe, almost his last serious work before his death—that—

"Just as Ireland suffered in the last century from the Protective and exclusively commercial policy of Great Britain, so has she been at a disadvantage in this century from the adoption of a policy of Free Trade."

"This is glorious news for Ireland; your farmers will now all begin to grow wheat again."

"The case in Ireland is quite exceptional. Ireland imports maize and barley in large quantities for cattle feeding. She also buys offals in the shape of bran and pollard from English millers and also from Canada and the United States. The introduction of cooperative creameries has stimulated an increased demand for Indian meal, barley meal, and all other feeding stuffs, all of which are now taxed, as the English miller is adding the duty to the price of the offal. To show the extent of the tax upon some small Irish farmers I would point out to you that a farmer whose poor law valuation does not exceed £12, would consume on an average 2 cwt. of Indian meal weekly, 1 cwt. of bran, and 1 cwt. Hour monthly, the tax on which would amount to 40s. yearly, or almost as much as his rates would come to. I do not believe that this has any parallel in any part of the United Kingdom. In selling his butter the Irish farmer has to compete with Denmark, to which country, while there is a tax on wheat, feeding stuffs are admitted free. For a number of years past Danish merchants have been our keenest competitors for the offals of the English and Scotch flour and oatmeal mills. It is the same with the Irish farmer when he comes to sell his pork and beef. … The food is taxed and the corn is taxed. It is worth a passing notice that while maize and barley, the staple feeding stuffs used by Irish farmers, are taxed, the linseed and cotton seed cake, the principle food used by English and Scotch farmers is admitted free of duty."

Seventy-five per cent.

It is something between 73 and 78 per cent. of the whole, whereas in England the direct and indirect taxation have become almost level. Why is it that the indirect taxation of Ireland remains so high? It is because Ireland by comparison with this country is so poor, that the only way in which you can raise taxation is, not by taxing the income or the properties of the people, but by imposing taxation in an indirect form upon the very poorest classes of the community. No one who is not really intimately acquainted with Ireland can have any conception of how horribly a tax like this bears upon the people. Hon. Members who have not studied Ireland—and how few hon. Members have done so—intimately, have no conception of the poverty of large masses of the Irish people. I have in my hands a Report of the Local Taxation Commission, which issued special Reports dealing with Ireland, and here is a separate Report containing recommendations made by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, the Chairman of the Commission, and another member. Lest it should be thought that this is an expression of opinion coming from two individuals, it is well to know that there is appended to this recommendation a declaration by Sir Edward Hamilton of the Treasury, and Sir George Murray, endorsing the recommendations contained in this separate Report. And what is the statement in that?—

"In round numbers the population of Ireland in 1901 was 4,457,000 people, and the rateable value £15,200,000, or £3 8s. 2d. per inhabitant. But three-fifths of the value is agricultural, and the assessment value, in the sense of the English Agricultural Rates Act—that is, taking into account land at only half its value, and other property at its full value—is £2 10a. per inhabitant, whereas the average assessable value in England and Wales is over £5, and, there-fare, it would appear that England is twice as rich in taxable ability as Ireland is by this test. And in Scotland the figures are practically the same, except this, that the difference is between £1 and £3 per inhabitant."

"After making every allowance for defects of valuation, it remains true that Ireland is much poorer than England in general, and that in parts of the west of Ireland in which the extreme depths of poverty are reached, 10s. assessable value is the minimum in Ireland, £2 10s. per inhabitant being the minimum in the poorest parts of England."

"These are the only classes in the community—the poor and the destitute."

"In the congested districts there are two classes—the poor and the destitute. There are hardly any resident gentry; there are few traders of officials; nearly all the inhabitants are either poor or on the verge of poverty. La these districts the taxation is by far the highest, but the local resources are so low, that even with a high rate of taxation the indispensable needs of the locality cannot be properly met."

I do not follow what was said by the hon. Member in his eloquent speech on the effects of Free Trade in Ireland. We are told that it was a terrible grievance to the Irish people that it was carried out in Ireland. Surely Free Trade, which has worked for the advantage of the people of this country, also appeals to the Irish people. The hon. Member must view this policy one way or another. He cannot say that this is an injustice to Ireland while the people of that country get the benefit of the policy. He has referred to the financial relations of the country with Great Britain. I will not go into that question, but I will say that I differ from the hon. Member upon it. I wish that Irishmen, when they discuss these subjects, would stand on the same footing with Englishmen, and not consider it a grievance to be treated in the same manner as Scotchmen and Englishmen.

They are not treated in the same way.

I am a Free Trader, and I do not go the length of the hon. Member and say that the policy has been productive of evil to the Irish people. Instead of saying that Free Trade has been a benefit or a grievance in particular parts, they should extend their views a bit and look at it all round. If you take the country district by district, and parish by parish, you will very likely find that Free Trade had done injury here and there, but you will see that on the whole the blessings of Free Trade have been greatly and widely spread. I say that the hon. Member who has just spoken should not exclude from his view the hundreds and thousands of Irishmen who are prospering in this country, for instance, in connection with the great industries of Lancashire. He should not forget that Irishmen as well as Englishmen are infinitely wealthier in many parts of the world in consequence of the introduction of the Free Trade policy. It is my duty to remind hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite as concisely as I can what it was the Free Trade policy of Sir Robert Peel accomplished. I can give the result of that policy in a couple of sentences. The result of his action, carried further as it was by others, was to make of the whole world a granary for the United Kingdom. Before that, the laws were framed with the view of excluding corn from the markets of England, for the express purpose that those who grew corn in England should make a good thing out of it. Nothing in the tax proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer will lessen the character which the world holds as the granary for the United Kingdom. Not a single quarter of corn will be excluded, and, that being so, what is the use of again and again repeating the cry that the Government are harking back to Protection? Nothing of the kind. Protection of that kind does not consist in raising a duty upon corn. It may be a politic and a wise thing to do. The great mass of corn that now comes into the country surely may be taxed to afford the Chancellor of the Exchequer some direct pecuniary advantage in view of the enormous advantage which British subjects derive from these imports. Why is that to be altogether excluded from contributing to the necessities of the nation? I could not help being struck throughout the debate with the utter neglect that has been shown to the situation and the circumstances in which we stand. If I were standing up in a University debating society and the question were propounded, "Should there be an import duty on corn?" I would very likely argue the contrary proposition. Nobody maintains that it is specially desirable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should put his hand into the pocket of the country in this way, but we must look at the circumstances of the case. When we do so I maintain there is enough to make the people pause when they consider the growth of our normal expenditure and of war expenditure in recent years. During the whole period that he has been in office the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been warning the country of the steady growth of normal expenditure, and he has been meeting the difficulty systematically by extending the basis of taxation. The right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton, in suggesting further taxation on beer and tobacco, does not seem to see that we have reached a state of things in which a new departure is to some extent necessary. I get every day Protectionist literature which seems to me to be utterly fallacious in its character. The signs of growing prosperity and wealth are treated as signs of national decay. I cannot accept that. I read the other day in a document that the British public in 1874 paid £900,000 for foreign watches, and that two years ago they paid a sum approaching £2,000,000 for foreign watches, and I am asked to despair of the condition of things in this country. I would ask the gentlemen who send that literature—Do they suppose that the individuals who made the watches in 1874 are doing nothing because we buy £2,000,000 worth from foreigners now? They have gone into businesses which thirty years ago were not dreamt of—it may be the making of bicycles or electrical machinery to supply the wants of the British public. The British public apply themselves to that which they can make with the greatest advantage, and import that which other nations can make more cheaply. I deprecate the Protectionist language made use of in this House. To my mind the real question throughout those debates has been not so much one of political principle but of the highest political expediency. The difficulty and doubt was whether, if the Government raised this sum of money, perfectly rightly and properly, by this means their action would not raise the expectations of those who are avowed or unavowed Protectionists, and that it would be difficult in the future to resist opening the door still further. I had a copy of his speech sent me by my right hon. friend the Member for Sleaford. I must say I was one of those unduly suspicious persons as to the Free Trade principles of the right hon. Gentleman; but when I read his speech I found him again and again talking of the bad old days of Protection and the evil days of the corn laws. That is very satisfactory, and if the agitation now going on has brought conviction to the other two Gentlemen suspected of Protectionist leanings, I do not think that we need very deeply regret this agitation. I, for one, have been pleased at the general strong testimony given in these debates as to the absolute necessity of retaining firmly our Free Trade principles if we are to sustain the commerce and industry of the country. It is on these main lines that I hope the House of Commons will regard this question. I know that certain differences will crop up. Encouragement seems to have been given to our Colonies, and perhaps even to foreign Powers, to haggle for commercial tariffs. Imperialists, like Unionists, differ from one another. There are some Imperialists who are so parochially minded as to he jealous of trade by foreigners. I have the old and pleasant hope of dealing with foreigners as possible customers; and when I am told that we should only buy corn from some countries where the Union Jack flies, I begin to question whether that is real business. It seems that there are some Imperialists who cannot emancipate themselves from a narrow way of looking at questions. This is the greatest commercial nation in the world; we trade with everybody for our own sake and for theirs, and to say that we should not spread our trade and commerce wherever we can is not patriotic. I hope that Imperialists will not spread their views too far in that direction. I cannot help referring to the speech made by the hon. Member for Exeter, who admitted that he had nothing to suggest except economy. But his economy seems to be founded on the principle of hesitating to pay your bills. True economy is to keep down expenditure, and when peace is established in South Africa to cease borrowing money to pay current expenses. I trust that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not accept the very bad advice given him by the hon. Member for Exeter to go on borrowing. Surely it cannot be said that our English working men are unwilling to bear their share, their fair proportion, of the cost of carrying on the business of the country and of the war. I do not wish to go into the policy of the war, a question which is not now before us; but I believe that the English working classes are quite equal to rising to the occasion, and to paying their share of the enormous expenses of the war. For, after all, they are Englishmen, and the credit of the country is their credit. Therefore, do not let us adopt the tone that all this is a question of taxing the unfortunate poor or the widows. What we are mainly concerned with are the industrial classes who are at present prosperous, and I believe that in the long run their true patriotism will toll. I believe that our friends opposite have gone on an altogether wrong tack, and that there is no other alternative but to raise the tax in question. I venture to praise the Chancellor of the Exchequer for his quality of honesty, and I maintain that this is a perfectly straightforward and honest Budget, and that it will receive the support of the country.

A great deal has been said in the course of the debate as to who it is who is to pay the tax, and I would like to hear a satisfactory answer to that question. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has wriggled a good deal to get out of the idea that the consumer will have to pay the tax. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman has taken that attitude because he feels that if the consumer has to pay the tax it must be a bad one. On what grounds does he try to shift the tax from the shoulders of the consumer on to those of somebody else? Fortunately we have a dictum of the right hon. Gentleman when he was introducing the sugar duty—

"I want a tax," said he," which everybody will pay, not only those who are privileged to pay income tax or the death duties, or those who indulge in alcohol, or tobacco."

I said the ordinary expenditure had not risen so much as in the previous year.

Well, the growth is quite small—something like £1,600,000, and this he got out of the greater productiveness of his sugar tax. The sugar duties proved more productive-than he anticipated. The right hon. Gentleman estimated they would produce £5,100,000; they produced between £6,000,000 and £7,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman, in introducing his Budget, said—

"I am, therefore, endeavouring now, as I endeavoured last year when I asked the Committee to raise additional taxation in order to meet the charges of the war, so to frame that taxation as that when peace returns, and it is possible also to return to ordinary expenditure, we may have no difficulty in setting it on a basis which will be equitable to all the taxpayers of the country."

"If during the war we be not shrink from bearing the part of the cost of the war which we fairly ought to bear, then at the end of the war must come the reduction of taxation, On previous occasions it has always been felt that the income tax payers had the first claim to such a reduction."

I do not know any event which has given rise to such a remarkable speech as that delivered by the hon. Member for Waterford a few minutes ago. That speech probably impressed the House more than any other that has been delivered during this debate. I rise, not representing the class for which he pleads, but to reinforce the arguments he addressed to the House. Two things must strike the House as being remarkable. One is that although this debate has taken three days, only one representative of Ireland has taken part in it, and the other is that although Ireland has no love for Free Trade in the abstract, the Irish representatives on that side of the House representing the poorest part of the people of Ireland announce their intention of voting against this proposal. Why is it that Ireland, while in favour of Protection, is going to vote against this Bill, and why is it that in a three days' debate only one Irishman has taken part in the discussion? I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not draw any conclusion from the latter circumstance. At all events he knows Ireland well. He knows she suffered from Free Trade in the past. We were a corn growing country, and we have been turned into a cattle ranch, and now I contend we are going to be hit harder than any other class by this proposal. If the proposals were frankly Protectionist, I suspect many of us Irish Members would find ourselves in a difficult place. I am a convinced Free Trader, and should oppose this proposal under any circumstances, but that is not the position of the great majority of the Irish Members and the Irish people. If the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are Protectionist, then we ought to know what the proposals mean. Is the bread tax a war tax? That is the first thing I desire to know. I have sat through these debates and Ido not now know whether it is a war tax or a tax for present emergencies. If this tax is simply to be raised as a necessity and given up when peace is reached, so far good; but if it is to be part of a policy of broadening the basis of our financial system inaugurated in 1895, under which the national taxation has gone up £40,000,000 sterling, the right hon. Gentleman ought to admit that it is a permanent tax, and then we could draw our own conclusions. If it be a war tax let him say so, and though many of us will think it is the worst that was ever imposed, it will not be a national step back towards Protection. If, on the other hand, it is to be a permanent tax we shall know what it means. Let me say this, you can do some electoral business if you frankly call Protection to your aid, but you will never gain anything by a twopenny-halfpenny policy like this. What is the position of Ireland at this moment in regard to this tax? I have been entreated from every part of Ulster to vote against these proposals. It is curious that the North and South should be united in this matter; they are not always united, but this tax hits the farmer probably harder than anybody else in Ireland. It brings nothing to him—corn has not been grown for years, and milling has become a lost art. Driven to cattle-raising, they import meals and offals in large quantities, and all this is now to-be taxed. The real truth is, there is not a farmer raising cattle, a peasant raising pigs, or a poor woman raising poultry, who will not feel this tax. My hon. and learned friend the Member for Waterford referred to a communication which came to him from the north of Ireland. I presume it is the same as that which came to me from Portadown.

Yes.

That is not a place he has much communication with, and it means that the farmer who has a farm for which he pays £12 rent will have to pay as much through this tax as the rates on his farm, and that is said to be a relief to Ireland. Ireland has to compete with Denmark in butter, but food stuffs go to Denmark free, and in Ireland we must pay this duty. The same with pork. We have to compete with Denmark and the United States, where these feeding stuffs go in free. All the feeding stuffs are now to be taxed. But while the feeding stuffs that go into Ireland are to be taxed, it is a very strange coincidence that those mainly used by the English farmer—linseed and cotton seed cake—are to be free. So far as the Irish farmer is concerned, he knows what this tax means. He knows it is a veritable tax for him, and that it will handicap his industry in the future. Let no agricultural representative from the North of Ireland make any mistake as to what he is going to do if he votes for this tax. My right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton was taken to task the other night for calling this a mean tax. He did not put it half as strongly as he might have done. Take the West of Ireland, a district which nobody knows better than the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. I unreservedly subscribe to the doctrine that every class, whether rich or poor, that has called for and approved of this war ought to be made to feel it. But you cannot apply that argument to the West of Ireland. So far as the great majority of the people of Ireland are concerned—I regret it, but they have a right to their opinion—they have given no support to the war; they have passionately protested against it. You talk about maize and Indian meal. We call it yellow meal in Ireland. It is an article upon which you would not feed your dogs, and which your dogs would not eat. [A laugh.] This is no laughing matter to these poor people. The food upon which you feed your animals happens to be the food of great numbers of these poor people in the West of Ireland. Am I to be told that this great and rich country, with its enormous resources, will stoop so low as to put a tax upon that yellow meal which those poor people are compelled to use as an article of food? I say the right hon. Gentleman was right in calling that a mean policy, and the country will take the same view. I have been pressed by Ulster farmers, not in my constituency alone, but all over the province, to vote against these proposals. I do so, first of all, because I believe they are the initial step back to Protection, that the Government will not be able to stay where they are even if they wish to, and that the Protectionists will press them forward and compel them to go further. I will be no party to taxing the bread of the people, or the food of the poor. You may tell me that the tax upon tea involves the same principle. Anyone who remembers the old controversy on Free Trade knows the answer to that argument. I shall oppose the tax at every stage, because I will be no party to taking even one step on the fatal road of Protection. I shall oppose the tax, because it is unjust in its incidence on the country, a part of which I represent. When this proposal was first made I do not think the people knew what it really meant. It is easy to speak of a tax on corn and flour, but nobody ever imagined it meant a tax on bran, Indian meal, pollard, and offal. The moment the people realised that they spoke out against it. Finally I oppose the tax because it is a mean tax, as it is placed on the food of the poorest of the poor, which they have trouble enough to get without taxation.

I am bound to say I never expected to live to see any responsible Minister get up in this House and propose such a mean tax as one upon the bread of the poorest of the poor. Leaving for the moment the question of Protection and Free Trade, I should like to look at this matter simply as a tax, as a means of collecting money. Looked at from that point of view I say that it is about as clumsy and extravagant a tax as any man could devise. This is a new tax affecting imports to the value of millions of money at every port in the country. It will consequently necessitate a large increase of staff, and, in many cases, an increase of warehouse accommodation. Again, the amount of red tape and circumlocution which will be necessary to collect the tax must impose considerable restrictions and inconveniences upon the importers of corn into this country. The tax is also a wasteful tax. It represents a tax of 5d. per cwt. on flour, or 1s. 0½d. per sack. A sack of flour makes about ninety 4lb. loaves. Therefore, supposing a baker puts ¾d. on each 4lb. loaf, the consumer will pay 1s. 10½d. to allow of 1s. 0½d. going to the Exchequer, that is, 45 per cent. of the amount paid by the consumer will be wasted. But, supposing, as is already the case in many places, the baker charges an additional ½d. per 4lb. loaf; the consumer will then pay 3s. 9d. for every 1s. 0½d. which goes into the Exchequer. I think I am therefore justified in saying this is a wasteful tax. Then one word on the question of who pays this tax. On the first night of this debate the junior Member for Leicester said the consumer would not pay it, but the producer would. The Financial Secretary this afternoon also appeared to favour that way of looking at the matter, If that is so, why do not these hon. Gentlemen propose that the duty should be 5s. instead of 5d., so that we may collect £30,000,000 from the foreigner, and not a mere £2,500,000? There is no doubt in the minds of the poor people as to who will pay the tax. The right hon. Gentleman says he must have the money. I know he must, but there are many better ways by which he might have got it. The Financial Secretary reminded us of the various increased expenditures which necessitate increased taxation. But he failed to remind us of one increase—the money that he and his friends have given to their own political friends and supporters, the landlords and parsons, in the Rates Act. When seeking for additional money it would have been better if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had repealed those iniquitous Acts which take from the poorest of the poor money to pay the rates of one of the richest classes in the country. The Financial Secretary also told us of the money that has been laid out "to peg out claims for posterity," and to open up new markets for our people. Let me tell him that the best market in the world is here at our own doors. Nearly one-third of our entire population are today in receipt of wages which do not enable them to develop their full physical forces. If we want markets, let us set to work and clothe and feed our own people. There is no occasion for us to spend our money all over the wide wide world to find markets when we have them in our teeming poor populations at home. Then, Sir, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer objected to repeal those Doles Acts, why did he not increase the income tax? I know that is an unpopular thing to say, but I am not here to say popular things. I am here to say that if it is a question between the poor man and the rich man it is the rich man who ought to be taxed. To say that our income taxpayers cannot pay any more is to say that which is not correct. According to the Income Tax Returns, the income taxpayers under Schedule Dare paying upon gross profits of £120,000,000 a year more than they were fifteen years ago. I take the period of fifteen years because that is covered by the statistics. As our manufacturers are making today £120,000,000 a year more profit than they made fifteen years ago they ought not to have grumbled, and I doubt whether many of us would have grumbled if some little additional tax had been put upon those incomes instead of upon the food of the poor widow and orphan. There is one other source of income which some Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to tax sooner or later, and it is the income derived from land values in the neighbourhood of our towns. The Chancellor of the Exchequer knows that in the neighbourhood of every town in England there are enormous quantities of land which today are bringing in thousands of pounds per annum where they only brought in hundreds per annum a very few years ago. This land has increased in value from £100 to £1,000 per acre, and this increased value is not the result of anything that the nominal owner has ever done. On the contrary, in very many instances, that increased value has risen in spite of the owner, and in spite of his efforts to thwart the development of a town. And therefore I say that those increased land values, which are the creation of the community, belong, in all fairness and common honesty, to the community, and offer a fruitful source of taxation. I only hope that the right hon. Gentleman opposite will be the first to tax that source of income. There is one advantage in taxing land values which commends itself to my mind, and it is that this is the one tax which cannot very well be shifted off the shoulders of the rich man on to the toiler, for I hold that it is the toiler who eventually pays every form of taxation which is imposed in this country, and I have yet to learn how it would be possible to run the affairs of this mighty nation upon the past labour of men if you excluded present-day labour. I hold that it is present-day labour that runs the whole thing. I am bound to confess that I do not believe that it was to get a paltry £2,500,000 the Chancellor of the Exchequer imposed this tax. I believe this tax has been imposed for the purpose of getting in the thin end of the wedge of Protection. I am not sure that this tax commends itself to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this light, but it does to the Colonial Secretary, for, if I am not very much mistaken, he looks forward to adding to the glories of the Colonial Office by doing a little reciprocity deal with our colonies. I say that this tax is Protection pure and simple, in spite of what the Secretary to the Treasury said this afternoon. He asked us what is a Protective duty? A Protective duty is one which raises the price of home-grown stuff, and that is what this tax will do. The effect of this tax will be to put 4s. per acre on to the rental value of every acre of land in this country that grows wheat today. It is sufficient for my argument to know that the man who owns 1,000,000 acres of land which are growing wheat to-day will be £400,000 per year better off for this tax. [Ministerial laughter.] Hon. Members opposite laugh, but I do not suppose a single one of them will deny that the price of the 8,000,000 quarters of wheat which we grow in this country will be enhanced to the extent of 1s. per quarter by this tax. We also grow 8,000,000 quarters of barley, and the value of that also will be enhanced. We grow in this country 16,000,000 quarters of oats every year, and altogether what we produce is something like 32,000,000 quarters of corn. Therefore, it seems to me perfectly obvious that if you put 1s. a quarter duty on imported corn, you will raise the value of home-grown corn to the same extent. Consequently, under the operation of this tax, there will be something like £1,500,000 per annum going into the pockets of the owners of ploughed land in this country. We often hear this question argued as if it were a farmers' question. But it is not; for whatever benefits the agriculturist must, in the long run, benefit the man who owns the land. The farmer is the landlord's bailiff working piecework, and anything which benefits the farmer must benefit the man who owns the land. I contend that this tax is Protection pure and simple. I have read in the history of this country the awful misery and desolation caused in the homes of our poor people by Protection, and I could not rest until I had denounced this tax. There are very few people alive today who suffered under the old bad Protectionist laws, but let me remind this House of a short resolution passed by the City Council of London in 1842, after long years of Protection, which shows what was the condition of the country at that time. I feel sure that there is not a single hon. Member on either side of the House who wishes for one moment to return to such a condition of things. The following, resolution was passed on December 8th, 1842, by the Common Council of the City of London—

"The increasing depression in the manufacturing, commercial, and agricultural interests of this country, and the widespread distress among the working classes, are most alarming. Manafacturers without a market, shipping without freights, capital without investment, trade without profit, and farmers struggling under a system of high rents with prices falling. The working, population is rapidly increasing, and there is a daily decreasing demand for its labour. Union houses overflowing as workshops are deserted, corn laws to restrain importation, and inducing a starving people to regard the laws of their country with a deep sense of their injustice."

The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken seems to claim for hon. Members on the other side of the House a monopoly of compassion towards those who are in troubled circumstances. Let me tell him, and others who have made use of that argument before, that we who support this tax are not less solicitous for the welfare of the people, and not less compassionate towards those who have a hard life, than those who make such remarks about taxing what they call poor people. I have listened attentively to the debate for two days, and nothing has struck me more than the fact that although hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and especially the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton, said it was going to unite the Liberal Party, it certainly has not united the views they have expressed on this tax. They have condemned this tax, certainly. Some of them have condemned it because they say it is Protection, while the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton said—and perhaps he will allow me to say that I respectfully agree with him—that no majority of 130 will ever enable any Government in this country to restore the principle of Protection. It is not possible for the right hon. Gentleman on the one hand to entertain the belief that Protection cannot be restored, and for his colleague the hon. Member for Poplar to say that they resist this tax because, forsooth, of their apprehension of that Protection, and at the same time to claim to be united. I avow myself as staunch, and I hope, as convinced a Free Trader as any hon. or right hon. Gentleman opposite, and the question which I ask myself and which I have not heard answered is this. If it is Protection, whom is it going to protect? We heard from the hon. Member for South Tyrone, and the hon. Member for Waterford, that this tax, if it is not going to ruin, is going seriously to prejudice, the Irish people. Certainly I think it will be costly to the Irish farmer and to the English farmer, but how can you say in the same breath that this tax is going to be costly to the British farmer, and claim for it that it is Protection in the interest of the British farmer? I support the tax, because I believe there is not in it a shadow of Protection whatever. I am not so timid as the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be of the great principles of Free Trade; that by the enactment of a small tax which has no shadow of Protection about it, we need fear that a Protective duty of 4s., 5s., or 20s., as some Gentleman said, will be hereafter rendered possible in consequence of that. But there is one more reason which has been alluded to in all those debates which particularly interests me. It is the growing—I would almost say the appalling growth—of the expenditure of the country : the growth of the normal expenditure, and the growth of the Debt in consequence of the war, and the importance, in my opinion, of restoring the operation of the sinking fund, and the reduction of the Debt as soon as peace is restored. How can that machinery be put in operation again, unless there is a basis of taxation which will enable that to be carried out? My right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer foreshadowed this five years ago in his Budget speech of 1896, when there was no question of war, when he felt, as every Chancellor of the Exchequer must feel, the importance and the serious results of the growing expenditure of the country. He said, on the 16th of April, 1896—

"Now I think the Committee will see that if our expenditure goes on increasing we shall he within measurable distance of the time when our choice will he between diminishing or putting an end to the reduction of our National Debt, or resorting to an increase of taxation."

I think the economic aspect of this tax has been, if not exhausted, at all events very fully discussed, and I will only say one word about that side of the question. I do not understand the position of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. I do not understand why the farmers will not be injured as well as the poorer part of the population, for the farmers are consumers like ourselves. It is rather upon another side of the question that I wish to say a few words. We have not yet heard whether this tax is intended to be permanent or purely a war tax. I have very little doubt that it is intended to be the beginning of a series of taxes of this character, which, starting with one necessity of life, corn, will gradually be extended to articles of manufacture and to the whole range of products to which Protectionists desire to see taxes of this kind applied. It is on that ground that I wish to make my protest against this tax, because I think it will not do considerable damage by itself. But it is true also that it is a war tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has put it perfectly plainly that this tax would never have been thought of, and never would have been imposed, if it had not been for the war. The policy of the war may be light or wrong—I think it is wrong—but this is the price the people have to pay for it. Taxes ought to be assigned to their causes. I should like to see it impressed on the minds of every man, woman, and child that this tax is appropriated to the war, which is the parent of the tax. What will be the effect of this tax on those who will have to pay it? It is quite clear that to those who are well-to-do, it will be imperceptible; they will not feel it. But to the very poor, as has been established in this debate, it will be a most serious tax. In the first place, my hon. and learned friend the Member for South Shields pointed out that in the East End of London one-third of the population were insufficiently fed, some of them occasionally, many of them generally. Then we have had from my right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton, who is a high authority, that to a man whose wages are 12s. a week this tax means a tax of 6d. a week. We have heard-from the hon. Member for Waterford a most touching description of the misery and want in which the people in many parts of Ireland live. I trust that hon. Gentlemen opposite will remember that our duty to the people of Ireland is at least as great as to our own people. The hon. Member for South Tyrone has also made reference to the effect that this tax will have on the poor in the North of Ireland. To my own knowledge cases quite as distressing arise in Scotland. There were sent to me from a charitable institution not long ago some particulars of the condition of the people in many parts of Glasgow. There was one case in particular of a woman who was bringing up a grandchild, and the two together had 3s. 6d. a week to live upon, and out of that they had to pay 1s. in rent. In the rural parts of Scotland, what is allowed for out-door relief, which is very common in that country, though uncommon in England, is 3s. per week. Now, upon these poor people, so numerous in the East End of London and elsewhere, of whom one-third are on the verge of starvation, and in constant want, this tax is cruel and inhuman. It is a tax that drives them to hunger; it is a tax which leads them from partial starvation to greater starvation; it is a tax which ought not to be imposed except from dire necessity, and there is no dire necessity here, or anything of the kind. There is some confused notion in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite that those who have supported the war ought to pay for it, and there are some of my own friends with whom this argument finds peculiar favour. They say that those who have been responsible for such a deplorable affair as this war has been, ought to be made to feel the effects of it. But this tax squares ill with any theory of retributive justice, for the very poor, who will feel it most, have seldom any votes. To begin with, they are largely composed of women and children. Then, the people as a whole have been largely misled in regard to this war; they have been committed to it by the unwisdom of the Government. They are unable to master the huge volumes which contain the story of the negotiations prior to the war, even if these were accessible to them. Again, they were asked to support the war because it was in the interest of the country. There is no basis in justice in imposing a tax of this kind. I will not myself believe that, after hearing what was said in this debate, the Chancellor of the Exchequer likes to put it on the people. Is the tax necessary? I am not going to enter into that argument, for it is a considerable argument; but I am not satisfied with the right hon. Gentleman's explanation as to why beer cannot bear this tax, and I do not think anybody has been satisfied with it. Why should there not be an increase in the death duties? I do not say that the death duties are very high for people who are rich, or moderate for people who are not very rich; but anything is better than to put a tax of this kind on a class of people who are on the verge of starvation. Suppose that the death duties were increased for millionaires from 18 to 22 per cent., or even 25 per cent., or if all the people whose estates amounted to upwards of £1,000, were taxed, these death duties would make up all the money required without anyone feeling it at all. Lastly, let me ask this question: Is this a politic tax? I do not mean politic from the point of view of Party, although. I think the right hon. Gentleman will find out soon that he has not done wisely from a Party point of view. I judge of it from the point of view of the public interest. The noble Lord the Member for South Kensington made a speech yesterday, which I listened to with great interest, in which he said that all persons would welcome, from a lofty, ideal point of view, the call to make personal sacrifices for the purposes of the war, and for the purpose of maintaining our great prestige. I suppose that some who hear me sympathise with the noble Lord's new Imperialism, although it is rather a refined term. I have nothing in common with the methods of the new Imperialism. I have nothing in common with its materialism, nor with its violence, nor with its intolerance of the free expression of the opinions of other men. Still less have I any sympathy with levity as to the awful issues of peace and war. But I share with the noble Lord, and every other person of my acquaintance, sober pride in the greatness of this country, and the most earnest desire to see it unimpaired. I do not want to see feelings encouraged which may grow up in this country, such as was pointed to by the hon. Member for Market Harborough, if we call on the people for sacrifices greater than human nature can bear. I ask what sacrifices are we expected to make? Well, the sacrifices the Government are asking from rich men are practically nothing. There are many rich men in this House, many men well oft'; and, whatever the effects of this tax may be on those who make their business in trade, do they really suffer anything from this Budget? Have their comforts and their luxuries been in the least impaired through anything imposed by way of taxation by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's recent Budgets? I think candour will oblige them to acknowledge that that is not so. Even those of only moderate means—working men with from 30s. to £3 or £4—have made some sacrifice, but it comes to very little, and has involved no very great sacrifice of comfort. The people of this country have shown that they are prepared to sacrifice anything in reason; but from the class from whom so many brave men have already made sacrifice of life and limb, the class who are willing to make any other sacrifice in reason, it is asking too much to expect that they should see their wives going with insufficient food, or to hear their children crying for food when they have nothing to satisfy them with. I say that that is a sacrifice these men will not make for any ideal, which they ought not to make, and which you have no right to ask them to make. And that is the sacrifice you ask these poor people to make by this tax. I believe, myself, that the very ideal which the noble Lord most cherishes, and has most eloquently put before the House, is in danger of being shattered if you tax the necessaries of life.

The hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, with all the sentiment and feeling he invariably displays, has, I think, exaggerated the effect of this tax. Lot me remind the hon. Gentleman that he is incorrect in stating the full effect of the death duties. It is possible to get at present not merely 18 but 19 per cent. from the millionaire. We have had some extraordinary incursions into the regions of economy and morality in the course of this debate. The right hon. Gentleman opposite suggested that this tax would re-establish the state of things which existed in 1842. No, Sir; if it re-establishes anything at all, it will re-establish the state of things which existed in 1868–9, between which and the state of things in 1842 there is an enormous difference. Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman that in the intervening years the corn laws were abolished, and that when in 1846 that occurred the Corn Law League dissolved itself on the professed ground that its work was done, although this very tax, now proposed to be re-imposed, was still left. Why then was this tax of 1s. a quarter abolished? It was abolished purely in the name of abstract science and speculation. I will quote Mr. Lowe on the subject. He said in 1869 when he proposed the abolition—

"Surely there is such a thing as faith in politics as well as in religion; and if we cannot, at this time of "lay, trust enough to the doctrines of political economy and Free Trade to believe that when you raise nearly £1,000,000 sterling from the poorest of your people you do an immense amount of mischief, what is the use of abstract science and speculation at all? "

I am not in the habit of unduly obtruding myself on the attention of the House, but I feel this is one of the occasions on which I should not like to give a silent vote. In all our previous debates on South African affairs, and on every phase of the war, I have remained silent. Not because I have not a very clear and very firm conviction as to the rights and wrongs of the war, but I did not wish it to be thought that I was hampering the hand of the Government or interfering with the work they were carrying on, and I remained silent. But, Sir, tonight I feel I should like to utter my protest, both on my own account and on account of those I have the honour to represent in this House, against the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tax the food of the people. I protest emphatically against the allegation that was made in the previous debate by the First Lord of the Treasury, and repeated again tonight by the Secretary to the Treasury in his very able and lucid speech, namely, that the crisis which has compelled the Chancellor of the Exchequer to seek new sources of revenue is a crisis which was created by the working classes, and for which they ought to pay.

If I might interrupt the hon. Member, I never suggested, or intended to suggest, that the working classes were more responsible than any other class of the community. All I said was that the nation at large, including the working classes, was responsible for this policy.

I am quite sure I am not misrepresenting the right hon. Gentleman when I remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman said that he refused to believe that the working classes were unwilling to bear their share of the cost of a crisis which they had created and endorsed. I deny that they created the crisis; the crisis was of your own creation. It is perfectly true that they endorsed the policy—a thing which I regret, and which they now regret. I object, therefore, in their name, against the price of their food being increased in order to meet a crisis which was not of their creation. I agree with my hon. and learned friend who has just addressed the House that there is no basis of justice in the proposals now made to tax the food of the people. The working classes have not shown themselves unwilling to make sacrifices. They have made great sacrifices; they have sent their sons to the front, who have given their lives not in hundreds but in thousands. And what reward do you offer to the widows and children they have left? You tax their food when their breadwinner is not here to protect their interest. I regret to say they were beguiled, by scheming investors and ambitious politicians, to endorse a policy which they now bitterly regret. That is my opinion. Now, Sir, I listened very carefully to the whole of this debate, and I have been very much surprised to hear many hon. Members opposite, from the Chancellor of the Exchequer downwards, declare that this £2,650,000 which he hopes to realise by the corn tax is going to affect nobody. Nobody is to be a penny the worse for the imposition of this duty. Now, I do not speak as a student of economy, but I have been, in my humble way, a keen observer of practical affairs, and I will tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer what, in my opinion, will be the effect of this step. The result will be to increase the cost of living to the poorer classes of this country. I have been somewhat surprised to hear the references made, in a somewhat light spirit, by hon. Gentlemen opposite to this tax. I do not wonder that they should regard it as a very harmless thing. They have never passed through the ordeal which many of us, I am sorry to say, have had to go through. Nursed themselves in the lap of luxury, roared in homes of comfort and plenty, they have never realised what it is to feel the pinch of poverty and to go short of bread. It has been my misfortune, in my early lifetime, to have experienced these things. I can remember that when I was a pit lad I had to work thirteen hours a day, and my only refreshment was a piece of bread and a bottle of cold water; and that experience which came to me in the early days of my life made me determine when I entered public life that I would resist to the utmost of my strength and ability any attempt to legislate the effect of which would be to increase the cost of the poor man's bread. Let the House distinctly understand that this is not a war tax. No one has got up on that side of the House in the whole course of the debate and defended it as a war tax. My hon. friend who represents the Tyne-side Division of Northumberland, in reply to a correspondent The other day, said that this was essentially a war tax. It is nothing of the kind. It is a tax rendered necessary, in the opinion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Government, to meet the growing expenditure of the country—the ordinary expenditure. Nor is it a tax that is likely to be first considered when the war is over—for the Chancellor of the Exchequer has reminded us that on previous occasions the income tax payer have been the people who have received the first consideration; and, although the Member for Tyneside pledged himself that when the war was over, and exceptional expenditure is no longer required, he would be willing to vote against this tax being re-imposed, I think I have shown that he himself is likely to receive consideration before his constituents are attended to. The hon. Member for the City of Durham, who spoke early in the debate this evening, said he looked on these proposals at first with some amount of anxiety, but on following the debate he had been very much consoled by the fact that the Protectionist Party had taken so little part in the debate. That is a feature in this debate which fills me with a considerable amount of fear. These Gentlemen are wise in their day and generation. Their interest today is to lay low and say nothing. Let the tax be imposed, and, once we have made a start in that direction, it will be easy to press on future Chancellors of the Exchequer in that direction. The junior Member for Newcastle-on-Tyne practically said as much last night. He said the tax was the beginning of a new policy in the direction of Protection, and I can well understand that hon. Members who believe in that policy can afford to remain silent on an occasion like this, and allow this tax to be carried silently through the House, because there will be less difficulty in the future in making it more Protective. Let the House be under no misapprehension with regard to this tax : small as it is, it is a Protective tax. In 1869 The Times newspaper said with regard to the old registration duty—

"The tax, small as it is, is a Protective duty, and that it is sufficient to condemn it."

It did on a very large proportion of the export.

On a very infinitesimal portion. I may remind the right hon. Gentleman that I am talking of what I know. I know what goes on in the North of England, particularly in the mining industry. I would not speak with so much confidence of any other industry, but I do speak with confidence of this, because I have had official connection and dealings with it now for more than twenty-five years. An infinitesimal portion of the coal bearing the duty came into the ascertainments in the months to which I have referred. In conclusion, let me say that already the effect of this proposal has been to increase the price of bread stuffs to the poorer people of the country. The hon. Member for Waterford gave some interesting statistics showing how wages affected the food of the people. I recently looked over a Return issued by the Labour Department of the Board of Trade in 1889, relating to the workmen's wages and the cost of living. The workmen's budgets there given show clearly that when you come to the people with the lower salaries an increased proportion of the income is spent on bread. There was the case of a workman with an income of £28 12s., more than 60 per cent. of which was spent on meal and flour. As you go up the scale, the proportion spent on meal and flour grows smaller. It therefore comes to this: that this tax will fall with greater severity upon the poorer classes, and for that reason I shall object to it at every stage. We have been twitted for not making any counter-proposals. On a former occasion we were told that it was not our duty to prescribe until we were called in. If, however, I made any proposal, it would simply be that you should withdraw the doles given to privileged classes and persons, by which means you would obtain more money than you can possibly get by the proposal now under consideration.

I recognise the great difficulties in which the right hon. Gentleman is placed in bringing this Budget Bill before the House, but at the same time I cannot help thinking that his choice in the matter of this corn tax has been a most unfortunate one. I have listened carefully to almost every speech which has been made, and I do not think it is worth our while, as business men, and men of common sense, to discuss any longer whether this impost is going to be felt on the price of bread or not. It does not appear to me to matter much whether statistics are brought forward to show that during the last three weeks bread has risen or has not risen in some places, because the state of this trade, and of this trade in particular, is such that the commodity goes through so many hands that it is impossible that the effect could be felt from one extremity to the other of the trade in such a short time. If you put 1s. upon the permanent cost of bringing corn into the English market, I cannot help feeling that it will produce a permanent increase in the price. When this tax was taken off many years ago the bulk of our corn supply was produced in this country, but who will contend today that the fixing of the price of corn does not lie in the hands of those who import the corn? It stands to reason that the British farmer will get all he can, and we know what low prices he has been obliged to take. Therefore I am reluctantly compelled to believe that the effect of this tax will be felt by the consumers of corn, bread, flour, and other articles which are consumed in this country.

We have heard so many excellent and able speeches, so exhaustive in their character, that it has become very difficult to say anything that is very novel or fresh with regard to the measure now before the House. Amongst those speeches, the one which we have just heard from the hon. Member who has just sat down is not the least interesting. If I had to describe one of the speeches delivered yesterday, I should call it the fratricidal speech of the hon. Member for Exeter. Whatever characteristics we can ascribe or deny to the Government at the present juncture with regard to the introduction of this Budget, there is at any rate one quality which I will not gainsay the Government possesses in a large degree, and that is the quality of courage. This is not, in my judgment, a cowardly Budget. It may be cowardly in its effect but I do not think it is cowardly in its conception. The right hon. Gentleman has described this as a punitive Budget. He says that the public have backed up the Government in a loyal manner in carrying out this war, and, therefore, the public are to be punished for their efforts and endeavours in this direction. This is an instance of what I should call splendid ingratitude. With reference to the dropping of the cheque tax, the tax was a proposal of an infantile and nursery character, but if it had been persisted in, I should have supported the Government as a protest against the action of their own followers. I am at a loss to understand the frame of mind of hon. Gentlemen opposite who object to a cheque tax, but who, without any qualms of conscience, will readily support a tax upon the food of the people. This is the case of the rich and influential man, because he can make a noise in this House, obtaining his own way, whereas the case of the poor is ignored. Whenever the interests of the frock-coat clash with the interests of the smock-coat, then, unfortunately, the smock-coat has to go to the wall. It being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate was suspended until the evening sitting.