asked the number of stokers and engine-room artificers required in a battleship of the "Dreadnought" class when using coal as fuel and when using oil as fuel; what would be the saving in wages if oil were used as fuel; whether it is the intention of the Admiralty to effect this saving by extending the use of oil as fuel in His Majesty's ships and vessels of war?

It is contrary to the practice to furnish information with regard to the complements of His Majesty's ships, which are confidential. I regret I am unable to give the information for which the hon. Gentleman asks.

asked whether any requests had been received from the self-governing Colonies at the Admiralty for the use by them of obsolete warships for the purpose of training ships; and whether, in view of the number of warships no longer on the effective list, the Admiralty could see their way to lend some of these ships to the Colonies for this purpose?

The "Rainbow" is being purchased by the Canadian Government for service as a training ship and for fishery supervision. No other application has been received recently.

asked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether his attention had been drawn to the omission from the Report of the recent Committee of Inquiry into the Liquor Traffic of Southern Nigeria of all reference to the widespread practice of parents pawning their children for gin in the Colony of Southern Nigeria; what steps, if any, the Colonial Office have taken or are taking to put down the practice of pawning children for gin; and (2) whether unrebutted evidence was submitted to the recent Committee of Inquiry into the Liquor Traffic of Southern Nigeria, showing that thousands of children are pawned by their parents for gin, and kept in a condition of domestic slavery for many years; if so, what steps he proposes to stop such practices?

First as regards the wide-spread custom throughout West Africa of pledging or pawning persons—not necessarily children—as security for debt. I cannot do better than quote from the recent report of a Committee, composed entirely of native gentlemen, on the laws and customs of the Yoruba country:— When a lender advances money to a borrower, he asks the latter to provide an acceptable surety who is responsible in default of payment by the borrower. The borrower is drawn into service for the lender one day in the week, the service representing interest for the money advanced; he lives in his own house. But if a child is provided as a substitute, he is to live with and work for the lender as his child; the consideration for the loan being that the borrower is deprived of and the lender enjoys the services of the borrower's child. But by this arrangement, the child does not become the slave of the lender. The child does not forfeit his rights and privileges as a free born. He can behave to the lender precisely in the same way as to his own father, indeed, he enjoys more freedom with the former, for he can at any time refuse to live with him. On the other hand, the lender is responsible to the public authorities for injury to the health of the child and for his death. The custom, although not involving slavery, is discouraged as far as possible by the Government, and appears from the evidence of Father Coquard, a missionary of nineteen years' experience in the country, to be becoming less prevalent. Should cases occur in which the person pledged is put into a condition of servitude, the offenders are punishable under the law against slave dealing. Certain statements were made by witnesses before Sir Mackenzie Chalmers' Committee as to the pawning of children for gin, but no evidence whatever was put forward to show that the practice had more connection with debts for liquor than any other debts. Indeed, one of the native witnesses, Bishop Johnson, questioned on this point, replied —" People who drink certainly get into debt more than others, but the habit is general all over the country whether they drink or not. It is an institution in the country."

If the Government are such friends of temperance as to be willing to sacrifice revenue in this country for temperance, will they not sacrifice revenue in Nigeria to save the subject race from moral and social degradation?

Oh, yes; but, in so far as the hon. Gentleman seems to imply that we are not following the same course there as we do here, the argument is all the other way, because we have for a long time put a very high tax on liquor in West Africa, and, indeed, are only beginning to follow that example here under legislation recently imposed. Without raising any controversial point I may say at once that the Government wish to restrict the sale of liquor to natives in every possible way. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the difficulty is that there are other Powers all around, and if we proceed, as we do, in this method of putting very high taxation on liquor we must, in doing so, proceed with those other Powers. We lose no opportunity of discouraging the sale.

Is it not the case that the vast bulk of the revenue of Southern Nigeria is got from the tax on liquor, and that in proportion to taxation the revenue is far greater than is got from the taxation on liquor in this country?

That must form the subject of a separate question.

asked whether the recommendations for retrenchment advocated by the Mauritius Commission were being considered by the Colonial Office; and whether, especially, an attempt will be made, as recommended, to reduce the ecclesiastical expenditure in that Colony?

The recommendations of the Royal Commission are receiving the most careful consideration of the Secretary of State.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if a provisional agreement had been come to between Great Britain, Germany, and the Congo on the question of the eastern boundary of the Congo; if such agreement permanently seats the Congo State on one of the great lakes or sources of the Nile; and if it is proposed that such agreement shall under any circumstances become a valid and a binding instrument?

The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The Congo State has always been seated on Lake Edward, one of the great lakes. It is intended that in the future, when the recent Agreement is confirmed, Great Britain and the Congo shall each have access to both Lake Albert and Lake Edward.

Has any representation been made by the Belgian Government to our Government to prevent the running of gin by our merchants over that part of the Congo frontier?

That does not arise out of the question.

Does the hon. Gentleman affirm or suggest that the frontier of the Congo on the thirtieth degree ran through that lake and so placed the Congo State definitely on that lake?

Yes, the Congo State.

The hon. Gentleman has not answered my question as to whether the thirtieth degree was the boundary.

I must ask for notice of the question about degrees.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his Department has at present sufficient statutory powers to make recommendations to or, where thought advisable by the Board, to enforce recommendations upon railway companies with respect to improved appliances for locking and unlocking railway-carriage doors?

The Board of Trade have no compulsory powers in the matter, but the absence of such powers would not prevent their making recommendations if it seemed desirable to do so.

asked what is the weight and declared value of farina imported into this country from Germany during the years 1907, 1908, and 1909?

The imports of farina and potato flour from Germany in 1909 amounted to 350,400 cwts. of a declared value of £213,200. Corresponding figures cannot be give for earlier years, the imports of farina not having been separately distinguished from those of starch.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he was aware that in all cases where a married woman claimed and obtained a rebate or return of Income Tax the authorities insisted upon making out the order for repayment in the name of the husband; and whether he would take steps to have this practice remedied?

I am aware of the practice referred to by the hon. Member. Under the Income Tax Acts a married woman living with her husband is not entitled to prefer a separate claim for repayment on her own behalf. The claim must be made by the husband, and consequently the repayment is made to him. If, however, the husband authorises the Department to make the repayment to his wife, the money order is issued in her favour.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, having regard to the 45th Section of the Income Tax Act, 1842, which provides that the profits of any married woman living with her husband shall be deemed the profits of the husband, and the same shall be charged in the name of the husband and not in her name or that of her trustee, the Income Tax Commissioners or the Special Commissioners propose to issue Super-tax notices to married women living with their husbands in cases where the husband has declared himself to be ignorant of his wife's income; if so, by virtue of what Section in what Act is it proposed to require from such a married woman a return of income not deemed to be hers but her husband's, and for which not she but her husband is chargeable, and in case such a married woman refuses to make a return what means have the Commissioners to compel her to do so; and will he, before sanctioning the issuing of such notices to such married women', consult the Law Officers of the Crown as to the legality of requiring a person to make a return for Income Tax of income declared by law to be the income not of that person but of another person, and required by law to be charged not in her name but in his name?

This matter is receiving my right hon. Friend's attention.

May I ask if that information will be given before the Bill is introduced?

I hope so.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer was he aware that statements, dated 6th June, 1910, have been addressed to numerous persons by assessors of taxes and others, acting under the direction of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and of Income Tax, stating that, in pursuance of the provisions of the Income Tax Acts, those persons are required to make a return for assessment of Income Tax for the year ending 5th April, 1911; and, in view of the fact that there was not on 6th June, and is not now, any Income Tax in existence for the year ending 5th April, 1911, can he explain by virtue of what authority a return can be required for that year by 27th June under penalty; and does he propose that in future returns for Income Tax shall be annually required before any Income Tax for the year of the return has been enacted by Law, before any Resolution fixing the rate of the tax has been introduced in this House, and while it is therefore uncertain what the rate will be, or whether there will be any Income Tax at all for that particular year?

The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend's question is-in the affirmative. The authority referred to in the second part is contained in Section 30 of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1890 (53 and 54 Viet. c. 8.) As regards the third part, my right hon. Friend does not propose to disturb the existing practice.

Do I understand that the Act which the right hon. Gentleman quotes gives authority to any official to call for returns or to assess a tax which does not exist in this case of Income Tax?

Yes; it provides that the provisions contained in any Act relating to Income Tax which were in force on the preceding day shall have full force on subsequent days.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, inasmuch as by Section 72 (2) of The Finance (1909–10) Act, 1910, the Income Tax Special Commissioners have power to require a return of total income from all sources to be made by any person whatever, whether chargeable or not with Super-tax, if he will state on what plan or principle or information the Special Commissioners act in serving notices for such returns upon some persons only and not upon others; and, seeing that there is power given by the Act to require such returns from all persons whatever, and that over-taxation and hardship are habitually and to a great extent inflicted upon persons entitled to exemptions and abatements by the system of deducting Income Tax at the source, will he consider whether there is now any reason for maintaining that system in addition to the system of universal declaration now authorised?

As regards the first part of the question, the service of notices for Super-tax Returns is governed by considerations of presumed or possible liability. My right hon. Friend does not consider it desirable to abandon taxation at the source in accordance with the suggestion contained in the second part of the question. Perhaps I may refer my hon. Friend to pages 3 and 4 of the Report from the Select Committee on Income Tax, 1906, where it is pointed out that, when collection at the source was introduced, "the yield of the tax was almost doubled immediately."

Then why have His Majesty's Government so largely abandoned it in favour of collection through declaration?

They have not abandoned it at all in the case of Income Tax.

Does the right hon. Gentleman say that the instructions given are not to send a demand for a declaration except where there is a presumed or a possible liability for Super-tax—because they are being sent wholesale?

That is so; but, of course, a presumed liability is sometimes found not to be a liability.

How do you ascertain? Do you have spies, or what?

From information in the possession of the Income Tax Commissioners.

Why are not pensions, part of which the recipients have paid, deductible in assessing Income Tax?

That is another matter which does not arise out of the question on the Paper.

asked whether income received by residents of the United Kingdom from investments in the Colonies or foreign countries was liable to Income Tax here if reinvested outside the United Kingdom and never brought here?

If the income referred to falls within the scope of the 4th and 5th Cases of Section 100 of Schedule D of the Income Tax Act, 1842, and is not at any time received in, brought into, or remitted to the United Kingdom, it is not liable to Income Tax.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, whether the re-enclosure of a large tract of land in the Forest of Dean, upon which the local inhabitants have enjoyed pasturage for their sheep for at least fifty years, was now in progress and approaching completion; and whether, if it is proposed to appoint local commissioners to approve formally such re-enclosure, their appointment will be made before the fencing is completed?

It is presumed that the hon. Member refers to land at Barn-hill and Nagshead. About 1,000 acres of that land is being re-enclosed by the Commissioners of Woods under the Dean Forest Acts, and the fencing is approaching completion. The local commissioners, of whom the hon. Member is one, approved this re-enclosure at a meeting at which he was present, held at the Speech House five years ago.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he was aware that the old age pension committee at Ballinasloe, county Galway, have applied for the removal of Mr. Aird, pension officer, in consequence of his refusal or neglect to attend their meeting, although upon the premises while the meeting was going on; and whether he will take action in the matter?

The reason why Mr. Aird did not attend the meeting in question was that he did not receive the request for his attendance in time to make the necessary arrangements as regards his other official duties. I may observe that, though Mr. Aird endeavours as far as possible to meet the wishes of the committee in the matter of attending their meetings he is not bound by the regulations to attend them. I do not propose to take any action in the matter.

asked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that Julia M'Hugh, of Cashel, Ballyvary, county Mayo, having satisfied the local pension committee and pension officer that she was seventy years old, and otherwise qualified, was awarded an old age pension, which was paid to her from January to August, 1909; that on the latter date her pension was stopped on the allegation of another pension officer, who had just been appointed to the district, that she was not seventy years of age; and could he state what evidence was put forward by this pension officer in support of his assertion that Mrs. M'Hugh was not of the qualifying age, or why, in the absence of such evidence, she was deprived of her pension?

The pension officer in December last raised a question as to Julia M'Hugh's age, as the Census. Return of 1851 showed her to have been only ten years old at that date. The subcommittee having confirmed the pension, the pension officer appealed to the Local Government Board, who, on communicating with Mrs. M'Hugh, found that she was unable to produce any satisfactory evidence that the Census Return was in correct. On the evidence before them the Local Government Board decided that Mrs. M'Hugh had not attained the statutory age.

asked what would be the import duty paid to the Government out of £100 worth of raw tobacco used for manufacturing the tobacco smoked by working men and sold at 3½d. per ounce; and what would be the import duty on £100 worth of cigars sold at 2s. 6d. each?

As it is necessary to know the price per lb. of the raw tobacco used for making tobacco sold at 3½d. per ounce, and the weight of a 2s. 6d. cigar, the question, as worded by the hon. Member, does not contain sufficient data to enable the answer to be worked out.

asked the Postmaster-General whether a vacancy for an overseer-ship in the Central Telegraph Office has remained unfilled for the past six weeks; and whether, in view of the general stagnation of promotion at that office, he will order that the vacancy shall be filled with the least possible delay?

The vacancy referred to has been left unfilled pending the settlement of certain questions arising out of a recent revision of staff in the Central Telegraph Office which are receiving special consideration.

asked the Postmaster-General whether complaints had at any time been received by the Post Office authorities from the local authorities, tradesmen, and others in the neighbourhood of the South-Eastern District post office as to the appearance of the premises which they had some time since acquired for a post office extension, and complaining of the depreciation in the neighbouring property and businesses; and, if so, what action, if any, he proposed to take?

Such representations have been received. A sum is included in this year's estimates to enable the rebuilding of this office to be put in hand, and I will not lose sight of the necessity for carrying it out with as little delay as possible.

asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture how many arbiters have been appointed by the Board in cases arising under the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1908, since that Act came into force; whether in any case exception had been taken to such appointments by any of the parties concerned; and on what principle the Board proceeded in making appointments?

Forty-nine appointments have been made. Exception has been taken to such appointments in one case only, on the ground that the arbiter was not familiar with the class of sheep to be valued, but the Board after inquiry were satisfied that it was not well founded. It is the practice of the Board to make careful inquiry as to the professional qualifications of any gentleman whose desire for employment is submitted to them, either directly or indirectly. In the event of the inquiry being satisfactory, the name is placed on a list, from which a selection is made as occasion arises.

Has the hon. Gentleman had any complaints as to valuations that have been made?

I am not aware of any.

May I ask if it is the case that recently, in Ayrshire, a well-known expert in Ayrshire dairy cows was chosen by the Board of Agriculture to arbitrate in cases of black-faced sheep, a class of stock in which he is not an expert, and that caused irritation to farmers?

I will inquire into that.

asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that quantities of Dutch potatoes have recently been offered in the English markets and described as special Dunbars; whether he is aware that such a proceeding is detrimental to the interests of Scottish farmers; and whether the Board of Agriculture will take steps to prevent this fraud on the purchasing public.

The Board have not received any communications on this subject, but the statements which have appeared in the newspapers respecting it have been brought to their notice, and they propose to institute inquiries. They would be glad to receive any information which the Noble Lord may possess on the subject.

I shall be glad to supply information.

Will the hon. Gentleman also make inquiries as to whether it is the fact that potatoes grown in Ireland were exported to Scotland and then sold to the Irish Congested Districts Board as Scotch champions?

Perhaps the hon. Member will address a question to the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

asked, in view of the fact that outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the United States of America have been traced to vaccine farms, whether the Board of Agriculture propose to recommend that the importation of vaccine lymph into this country be prohibited; or, if not, what steps the Board propose to take to guard against the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease in this country through the medium of contaminated vaccine lymph?

The Board are aware of the inquiry instituted in the United States, and the matter is now under consideration.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will state from what quarters he obtained information as to the working of the Public-house Clause of the Children Act; whether, before arriving at a conclusion as to its beneficial results, he obtained any statistics as to the accidents which have occurred to children through being left unattended outside licensed premises; and whether his attention has been drawn to the comments of various coroners and stipendiary magistrates to the effect that the Clause in question has done more harm than good?

My opinion was based upon the reports of police officers engaged in enforcing the Act in London and elsewhere, upon whose judgment I rely. Particular attention was given to the question of the dangers to which children may be exposed by being left outside licensed premises. I am aware-that in one or two cases magistrates and others have said in their haste that the Section in question has done more harm than good, but, on a general survey of the matter, these isolated instances assume their proper place and proportions.

Do I gather that the information of the right hon. Gentleman is based entirely upon reports of the police officers?

I will not go so far as to say entirely. That would cut me off from all other channels of information, but that is the responsible basis of the information that I gave some time ago to my hon. Friend.

Has the right hon. Gentleman inquired from any other source except police officers?

I am not able to base my answer at the moment except on the authority of the police officers who were specially sent to make inquiries.

asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that Thomas Parker, aged sixteen, was charged before Mr. Hopkins, at Lambeth Police Court, with disorderly" conduct and, upon the evidence of a. single policeman, fined £5, and in default sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment in the third division, and thereupon committed to Wandsworth Prison; will he inquire into the circumstances under which a boy of good character, who denies having committed any disorder, was thus imprisoned on uncorroborated evidence; and can he say how many persons under the age of twenty-one are annually imprisoned by the magistrates of the Metropolitan, police courts in default of paying fines?

I have made inquiry as to the facts of this case. The particulars mentioned in the first paragraph are correct except that the lad was not immediately committed to prison, but allowed three weeks for payment of the fine. The offence, gross rowdyism towards women and girls, was a serious one of its class, which it was necessary to punish, but it appears to me that the amount of the fine was disproportionate to the prisoner's means. After he had been in prison for a few days the balance was paid by one of the visiting justices, and the prisoner released. The prisoner does not appear to have disputed the accuracy of the evidence given by the police-constable, and it was certainly not questioned in the applications I received on his behalf. I am sorry that I have not got the information asked for in the last part of the question. I may add, however, that I am considering the general question of the punishment of youths for minor offences, with a view to seeing in what manner committals to prison can be dispensed with or at least diminished.

asked the President of the Board of Education if he will state in how many secondary schools the Grant has been augmented in accordance with the provision of Regulation 39, with a view to meet the expense incurred in respect of special educational experiments; what has been the character and results of such experiments; and the names of the schools to which these increased Grants have been paid?

Augmented Grant has been paid under this Article to the Perse School, Cambridge, annually since the year 1907–8 in respect of special expense incurred in connection with the new oral method of teaching the classics. The results, which are both interesting and valuable, will shortly be available in a Report on the working of the system to be published by the Board. Augmented Grant has also been paid, or is payable, under the Article, to schools receiving French or German assistants under the conventions concluded with the French and Prussian Governments. These Grants were given in the year 1908–9 to two schools, and in the year 1909–10 to twenty-two. I shall be glad to give the hon. Member a list of these schools if he desires. The satisfactory result of this experiment is partly shown by the fact that sixteen of the twenty-two schools named above have applied for continuance of the arrangement for the year 1910–11, and a good many new applications have been received. It is to be borne in mind, when estimating the advantages of this scheme, that it is one side of an international arrangement under which English teachers also obtain experience in French and German schools. I may add that applications for this augmented Grant are being considered in respect of experiments with specialised commercial, engineering, and rural courses, with a new method of teaching music, with botany gardens, and with a scheme of school journeys and practical work in connection with geography and history.

May I ask whether the experiments are restricted to the teaching of classics and modern languages?

No, Sir. I have already mentioned a number of subjects for which the Grants are paid, or are now under consideration.

asked the Lord Advocate whether he is now in a position to state whether the expenses in the sheep stock valuation case of Stewart v. Williamson will be paid by the Treasury?

The matter is at present under the consideration of the Treasury, and I hope shortly to be in a position to state the result.

May I ask if in this case the Lord Advocate himself advised and conducted the appeal?

I think that question ought to be put to the Lord Advocate.

I may say I put that question to the Lord Advocate the other day, and he stated he would answer later.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in considering the adjustments of national and local finance, he would consider the desirability of dealing at the same time with the incidence of local taxation as between various classes of ratepayers?

My right hon. Friend will be glad to consider the point.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the contribution expected from local authorities in the matter of removing the Poor Law disqualification in the case of old age pensions would be exclusive of the cost of administration; and whether he was aware that as the average cost of maintenance and administration was over 4s. per head, the relief to the rates would be insignificant if the cost of administration were included?

As regards outdoor paupers—who will be mainly affected—the amounts actually paid in relief only will be taken into account, and the whole saving in administrative expenses will accrue to the Poor Law authorities. The case of indoor paupers is rather more difficult, but my right hon. Friend proposes, so far as may be possible, to arrange that the contribution payable shall not exceed the net saving.

asked how much of the War Loan redemption money was paid to holders in cash and how much was reinvested compulsorily in Consols; and at what price or prices Consols were allotted?

The amount of the War Stock and War Bonds outstanding on 5th April last, when they became redeemable, was £21,000,000. The redemption money claimed by holders in cash amounted to £18,753,137 4s. 9d. The balance of £2,246,862 15s. 3d. was on 31st May invested in Consols, in accordance with the provisions of the War Loan Redemption Act, the price paid for the stock being 82⅝.

asked what salaries attached respectively to the positions of Special Commissioner of Income Tax, Chief Examiner of Assessments in the office of the Sub-Commissioner of Income Tax, and the Chief Clerk of the Public Works Loan Board; how many of the gentlemen recently appointed to these posts were previously members of the Civil Service; and if all or any of them passed any competition or qualifying examination before being appointed?

The scale of salary of a Special Commissioner of Income Tax is £500, rising to £1,000. The presiding Special Commissioner, however, is in receipt of a salary of £1,200 per annum. The Chief Examiner of Assessments in the office of the Special Commissioner (to whom presumably the hon. Member refers) receives £500 per annum. The scale of salary of the Chief Clerk of the Public Works Loan Board is £600, rising to £800 per annum. Of the gentlemen recently appointed to the posts referred to, two (the Chief Clerk of the Public Works Loan Board and the Chief Examiner of Assessments in the office of the Special Commissioner of Income Tax) were previously members of the Civil Service, and the appointments were made under Clause VII. of the Order in Council of 10th January, 1910.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he had considered the question of the incidence of taxation on life assurance offices; whether he had received any representations on the subject from the associations representing the united British offices; and, if so, whether he would introduce in the Finance Bill provisions dealing with the question or afford facilities for its discussion when the Bill was in Committee?

My right hon. Friend has not received representations from bodies such as those described in the question with regard to the general question of the incidence of taxation on life assurance offices. Perhaps my hon. Friend will communicate with him as to the precise point which he has in mind.

Have not the Government received repeated representations from the insurance companies asked to be assessed on their profits, and not on the interest from investments?

I have answered that my right hon. Friend has not received such representations.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he proposed to collect the Tea Duty and Income Tax under Resolutions only during the summer adjournment of Parliament; and would the Income Tax deducted by bankers from dividends be retained by them or be handed over to the Exchequer pending the passing of the Finance Act?

As regards the first part of the question, the customary procedure will be followed, and the taxes in question will be collected under the Resolutions passed by the House. With regard to the second part, the amounts deducted will be paid over to the Revenue in the usual way.

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the course of collecting a tax by virtue of a Resolution is entirely unlawful?

I am not aware that it is unlawful.

Does the right hon. Gentleman anticipate that the difficulties which occurred last year will recur this year?

That depends on another place.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he proposed in the Finance Bill, 1910, to afford any relief to local taxation, either by the provisions for the removal of the old age pension pauper disqualification or by granting out of the Exchequer to the local education authorities an amount sufficient to replace the fund available in 1908 for the purposes of higher education but lost through the diminution in the consumption of whisky; and, if so, what was the estimated amount of the net gain to the ratepayers?

My right hon. Friend stated his intentions in this connection fully in the financial statement which he laid before the House last Thursday. It is not yet possible to say what the estimated net gain to the ratepayers will prove to be.

Even on the statement to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, is not the relief of the rates purely illusory?

I have no ground for believing that that is the case.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland why the portion of the estate of the Earl of Lucan situated at Rockfield and Doon, near Westport, county Mayo, which was acquired by the Congested Districts Board seven years ago, had not yet been distributed amongst the tenants of uneconomic holdings in the district; and could he state when such distribution will take place?

The Congested Districts Board have not acquired any untenanted lands on the townland of Rockfield for distribution. All the untenanted lands acquired on the townland1 of Doon were distributed amongst tenants of uneconomic holdings more than three years ago.

asked whether the Estates Commissioners had yet acquired the untenanted lands of Liffane, near Askeaton, in the county of Limerick, on the Hewson property; and, if not, what was the reason for the delay in purchasing them?

The Estates Commissioners, in view of the provisions of Section 67 of the Irish Land Act, 1909, have published in the "Dublin Gazette" a notice of their intention to acquire these lands, which appear to be held under a fee farm grant, for the purposes of the Evicted Tenants Act, but the owner has filed an objection, which has not yet been heard.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the objection will be heard?

I am not in a position to say the exact date.

asked the Chief Secretary if he can state whether the Estates Commissioners have yet acquired the untenanted lands of Ballylin and Glenville, near Ardagh, in the county of Limerick, on the Massy estate; and, if not, whether they will take steps to put the compulsory provisions of the Irish Land Act, 1909, into operation to relieve the congestion which exists in the district?

The Estates Commissioners are in communication with the owner of the lands in question with a view to their acquisition.

asked the Chief Secretary if he can say why it is the Estates Commissioners have not reinstated Mrs. Ellen Fitzgerald on the farm at Liffane, near Askeaton, in the county of Limerick, on the George Hewson property, and from which she was evicted; and whether there is any likelihood of her being reinstated without further delay?

Mrs. Fitzgerald's application for reinstatement will be considered by the Estates Commissioners in the allotment of the lands, if acquired, but the owner has lodged an objection to their being acquired under the Evicted Tenants Act.

asked whether the Estates Commissioners have received any communication from the town tenants of Askeaton, in the county of Limerick, in reference to giving them a portion of the untenanted lands of Clounreask, quite close to the town, when purchased by them; whether the Commissioners have yet purchased these lands from Mr. Hewson, the landlord; and, if so, whether the town tenants will get a share?

The Estates Commissioners have received the communication referred to, but they cannot identify the lands mentioned in the question as pending for sale before them.

asked whether the Estates Commissioners have taken any steps recently to acquire the untenanted lands of Ballynorth, near Askeaton, in the county of Limerick, on the estate of the representatives of Dudley O'Grady; and, if so, whether they have come to an agreement with the owners for the purchase of these lands?

I have nothing to add to the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to a question on the same subject asked by the hon. Member on 14th April last.

asked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been called to the appeal circulated for financial aid to the publication known as "Grievances from Ireland"; whether, in view of the fact that the name of the treasurer and editor have recently frequently appeared in Stubb's List, the Public Prosecutor's attention will be drawn to it; and will he ascertain whether the subscriptions were properly applied?

The matters referred to in the hon. Member's question do not appear to ask for any intervention on the part of the Irish Government.

Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether or not this is the same individual who was recently engaged with Mrs. Minnie Welsh, of Dublin, and who endeavoured to induce five unsophisticated countrymen to engage in a criminal conspiracy to blow up a church?

asked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that the band of the 1st Battalion Cambridgeshire Regiment, by kind permission of Colonel Lyon, V.D., has been engaged to play under the auspices of the Primrose League at a Conservative demonstration to be held at Wilburton, Cambridgeshire, which is to be addressed by the prospective Conservative and Unionist candidate for West Cambridgeshire, and by two Conservative Members of Parliament; and if he will see that all responsible officers are specially advised of the prohibition against Army bands being allowed to play at political party gatherings?

I have had instructions issued prohibiting the band from playing, and am having the case inquired into.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not permissible for a regimental band when on furlough to play in plain clothes at gatherings of this description?

That question does not here arise.

asked the Secretary for War whether he will grant the required official facilities to enable the men employed in the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, to avail themselves of the concession of a reduced rate of entrance to the Japan-British Exhibition, which the exhibition authorities are prepared to grant?

I do not think that it is desirable for the War Department to attempt to provide official facilities for the sale of tickets to Arsenal employés. It appears to be a matter for the exhibition authorities to arrange direct with the men.

In view of that reply, and considering that many of the men in the Arsenal do not receive a living wage from the Government, and are thereby deprived of some of the pleasures of life, would the right hon. Gentleman not reconsider his decision, and give them official facilities for signing these passes, which is all that is required?

No, I do not think so. The exhibition authorities can arrange the matter.

asked the Secretary for War what are the duties of the Territorial Advisory Committee to the War Office?

The duties of the Territorial Force Advisory Council, formed in 1908, are to advise the Army Council upon such of the larger questions of policy affecting the Territorial Force as the Council feel they may require special opinion upon in addition to that which is at their disposal from the ordinary official sources. I am under considerable obligations to its members, who have many calls on their time, for their assistance, although, now that the county association organisation is completely established, there are necessarily fewer occasions for the assembly of the Council.

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if it is a fact that the Advisory Council have only met five times, and not once within the last year?

As I have said, the Advisory Committee was called into existence when we were settling the larger questions of policy. These are settled, and have been handed to the associations, which have their own councils. The county associations advise us as to what takes place under this heading.

In view of the singularly light duties of the Council, would it not be better if it were dissolved?

asked the Secretary for War whether, as the result of his inquiries, he can now say whether the average of 17s. 6d. per week paid to labourers by the Army Ordnance in Colchester constitutes fair wages; and what steps he will take in the matter?

The inquiry is still proceeding. It is being made by the Board of Trade.

Will the right hon. Gentleman include the Irish Ordnance labourers in the same inquiry?

The hon. Gentleman might put down a question.

asked the Secretary for War what steps have been taken in regard to the person who passed himself off as an officer of Dragoon Guards in the streets of London on 20th May, and brought His Majesty's uniform into disgrace; and has he ascertained whether the person in question was really an officer of Dragoon Guards or not?

I do not propose to take any action, for the reason given in the answer to a question by the hon. and gallant Member printed with to-day's Proceedings. The person in question was not an officer of Dragoon Guards.

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if his attention has been called to the rate of wages paid at the works of Messrs. Broadfoots and Co., brass founders, Whiteinch, and at the works of the Glasgow and London Shipbuilding Company, both of these firms being Admiralty contractors and paying the labourers in their employ 18s. per week instead of the current rate of £l 0s. 3d.; and if he will cause inquiry to be made?

I am making inquiries, and have written to the hon. Member asking for further information on this subject.

Several other Members took and subscribed the Oath.

informed the House that he had received, through the Foreign Office, a communication from the Marquis de Soveral, the Portuguese Minister in this country, enclosing a copy of the proceedings of the Portuguese Chamber of Deputies on 1st June, in which a motion expressing the profound sympathy of the Chamber on the occasion of the death of His Majesty Edward VII. was passed by acclamation.

The House will probably desire me to send a suitable reply. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]

I ask leave to introduce a Bill "to provide for the compulsory acquirement of the freehold of chapel sites in Wales."

The Bill is of a very simple character, and is not controversial in any shape or form. It applies only to a very small and insignificant portion of the British Empire, for it extends to no portion of it but Wales. The provisions of the Bill are very short and simple. Its purpose is to enable trustees, who hold places of worship under lease, to secure their compulsory enfranchisement, and so acquire the freehold of these premises. The premises are not to exceed two acres, and the leases under which they are held must be originally granted for life or lives, or for periods of not less than twenty-one years. The compulsory powers required are not of a drastic character. The trustees are simply given powers such as are given under private Bills, and the Lands Clauses Act and the Railway Clauses Consolidation Act. The sole difference under this Bill is that the arbitration proceedings are simplified. There will be only one arbitrator appointed by a Judge of the County Court, and in making the valuation for the purchase or acquirement of the freehold the value of the building will be excluded, and no allowance will be made for compulsory purchase. These are shortly the provisions of the Bill, and I hope they will be generally accepted. I should like to express the hope also that the Government may see their way, as we have little or no work to do to give some facilities for this Bill, so that one Act at all events relating only to Wales may be put upon the Statute Book as the result of four or five years of Liberal Government.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Walter Roch, Mr. Ellis Davies, Mr. Haydn Jones, and Sir Ivor Herbert. Presented accordingly, and read the first time. (To be read a second time upon Monday next.)

I was endeavouring on Monday night, when the Debate was adjourned, to answer the charge made against us of using the cry of social reform to catch votes. I do not want to labour that point beyond this: That when the charge is made against us, our withers are unwrung. I think we have done more than a little to redeem the pledges we have made. I should like to answer the complaint of the hon. Member for East Birmingham (Mr. Steel-Maitland) with regard to Consols. What is the matter with Consols to-day? Two and a half per cent. Consols to-day are on a parity with the old Three per cents, over par, and for twenty years the Three per cents. were as good as ever they were before they were converted. So that Two and a half per cent. Consols to-day is the dearest gilt-edged security in the market. What really wants to be explained—and that I shall endeavour to do to the satisfaction, I hope, of the hon. Gentlemen opposite—is why the Two and a half per cent. Consols ever reached the extravagant price they did. The Committee will remember they reached the price of 113. Why did they get to that price? [HON. MEMBERS: "Because they were worth it."] The particular factor was cheap money. There is this extraordinary fact to be noted: that from 1891 to 1893 the Bank rate never touched 5 per cent., and from September, 1893, to October, 1896, the Bank rate never touched 4 per cent. From the month of February, 1894, to the month of October, 1896, the Bank rate stood at 2 per cent.—a rate unparalleled in the history of the Bank of England. Now, what took place? During all that time the Government were redeeming Consols and Annuities, and the consequence was there was such a plethora of money that the discount was cut down to If to 11¾ and call money to?½ and to? per cent., and even it could not be lent at all.

The Banks commenced to buy Consols. Consols were scarce, but rather than lend money at ½ per cent, they bought Consols, and afterwards, of course, they burned their fingers. Then, in 1899, came the war. I do not intend to discuss the war. Suffice it to say it came, and then we had a break in the continuous low Bank rate. Money became dearer and Consols fell. From that time up to 1905 Consols dropped £22. I do not blame the Conservative Government for that. They could not help it; it was entirely a question of the Money Market and of supply and demand of first-class securities.

The interest was reduced a quarter per cent.

The hon. Baronet reminds me the interest was reduced. Yes, it was reduced to 2¾ per cent. In 1889, and it was reduced to 2½ per cent, in 1902. There is no question about that. But then the savings banks and the insurance companies, at a time of cheap money, bought this security. It was very little in the market, and once it was there the price ran up. When the war came, and subsequent to the war, money became dear. There was more trustee securities, and therefore the price went down.

At the time the Conservative Government went out of power they had dropped to 91 or 91½. Since then they have dropped to 82½. Therefore, if we are responsible for a drop of 9, they are responsible for a drop of 22, but I do not blame them any more that I blame this Government. Consols used to be a very favourite security for the insurance companies, but insurance companies must have an average yield upon their investments of somewhere between 3 per cent, and 4 per cent. At that time, rather than buy Consols, some of them came to Parliament for powers to lend money out of the Kingdom, and any quantity of it went to Canada and Australia. Consequently, there has been less demand for Consols. After all, the present Two and a half per cent. Consols are a good price. They are over par compared with the old Three per cents., and I do not think anybody should ask them to go higher. That is my own view. If the hon. Member says this Government was responsible, will he say they were responsible for the conduct of the City of Birmingham or of the City of Liverpool? The Chancellor is not the Lord Mayor of either Birmingham or Liverpool yet whatever he may be. What did they do? They wisely took advantage of the cheap money. Birmingham actually offered for tender Two and a half per cent. Stock at 101, and they got 102. Liverpool did the same thing. They offered at 102, and they got 104. What is the price of these to-day? Not 82, but 71. Who is responsible for that drop of 301

The Radicals.

I am glad to hear they control Birmingham. I hope they will continue to do so. It is therefore absolutely idle to try and make out that this Government are in any way responsible for the drop in these securities. It was an inflated time of cheap money. People nowadays are not content with 2½ per cent. What your charge means, if it means anything, is that when a Liberal Government is in power people want 3 and 4 per cent., and that when a Conservative Government are in power they are content with 2½ per cent. There is another complaint that has been answered in this House, but I want to answer it in rather a different way. The complaint is about capital going out of the country. An hon. Gentleman said that out of £100, £67 went abroad, £27 to Canada, and only £6 remained in this country. What are the facts with regard to that? There are no less than 7,860 banking offices in the United Kingdom. There are £1,000,000,000 on deposit at these banks, and of that sum at least £600,000,000 is lent to commercial men, traders, and to the industries of this country. Let me cite one example of the ease with which money may be got. During the boom in cotton we all know that capital was found for building fresh mills a long way in advance of the time for them, and there is not a single trader conducting his business properly and showing a sufficient margin of profit who cannot get money in this country to expand his business and still leave plenty to go abroad. A great deal goes for Argentine railways and for Canadian railway extensions. Will hon. Gentlemen keep that money in this country for railways? Where are you going to build them? The London and North-Western goes from London to Holyhead and cannot go any further. Railway development is as big as it can be in this country, but in Argentina and Canada there are thousands of miles ready for development. Surely if the hon. Member was offered Birmingham Stock at 2½ per cent, and Canadian Railway Stock at 5 per cent, he would not hesitate which to take.

I can give the House another simple figure with regard to the increased facilities for banking in this country. The overturn at the Clearing House in the first week in 1908 was £242,000,000, in January, 1910, it was £335,000,000, and in April, 1910, it reached the record figure of all the Clearing House returns in existence of £389,000,000. That shows there is plenty of money circulating in this country, and that the point they try to make that money is going out of this country at such a rate that it does not leave enough for development here is altogether ridiculous. Would hon. Gentlemen wish to keep some of that money in this country for the purpose of reviving some of the decayed and decaying industries that we hear of? Would the hon. Member put down £10,000 to revive a factory for pearl buttons? There is no necessity for wasting money in trying to revive trades for which we have found no use and which have gone away from us. I can remember, and I dare say other hon. Members are old enough to remember, the pearl buttons, and the nuisance they were. The man who revived that trade would deserve to be executed. There is plenty of money for all purposes, and there is plenty to go out and increase our trade and bring us income. So long as foreign politics do not intervene, I do not suppose either party, whatever their policy, will affect the Money Market or the value of securities to any appreciable extent.

I should like to say a word to the Chancellor with regard to old age pensions. I entirely approve of his removal of the restrictions of the pauper disqualification, but I heard a good deal of complaint in the North of pensions being paid to people who had money in reserve at the bank, some £500, £600, £700, and even as much as £800 and £1,000, which was earning only deposit interest, the balance being made up from the pensions. I do not think that is right. I have no objection to encouraging thrift in every possible way, but it does not seem to me that this is a question of thrift. If a man has £800 or a woman £500 or £600 they can buy an annuity for themselves which would be in excess of the total pension, and I see no reason why we should provide not a pension for the pensioner, but provision for his next-of-kin. We ought, I think, to draw the line at that, and I should be glad if the right hon. Gentleman can see his way to remedy that.

I want to make an appeal once more to the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the Licence Duties, which press somewhat heavily upon second-class hotels and restaurants. He said 70 per cent, of the Licence Duties had been paid. I quite believe it, but, then, 70 per cent, would only be raised to a very small extent, if at all It is the others we are concerned with. I am appealing on behalf of houses which serve a certain useful purpose in towns, and I have some cases here which illustrate the hardship to which they are subjected. I have here one on which the old duty was £35 which has been called upon to pay £145, an increase equivalent to 350 per cent., and I am told that that is but a sample of many cases.

In that case is not the higher figure based on the assumption that it is the maximum charge on the rateable value of the house? I should not think it possible at the present moment to assess the amount the hotel or restaurant will have to pay. It depends entirely on the proportion of the receipts from alcohol to the total receipts.

But these figures are taken from the actual demand notes. The right hon. Member for the Spen Valley (Sir Thomas Whittaker) smiles. I am not pleading the case of anyone connected with liquor, but if you are going to have restaurants—and it will be admitted that they are a necessity— you must not subject them to a tax which will render it impossible for the business to be carried on at a profit. I have here another case—a small hotel, the old duty on which was £50; the demand for new duty is £333! At that hotel 1,400 gallons of whisky are sold in the year. There is a shop rated at the old duty at £21, and at the new duty at £35—an increase of only £14, which sells 3,500 gallons of whisky. In the case of the restaurant there must of necessity be a larger rating, because more space is required for the restaurant business, and it makes it unfair that that space—devoted to restaurant purposes— should be assessed on the same basis as the smaller space where nothing but drink is sold. Yet a shop, rated at £50, if it happens to be in the centre of a large industrial community, sells more drink than a £300 house in the City. I know the Chancellor of the Exchequer will contend that he is bringing these houses under the compensation value. But I am speaking of houses in Scotland, where at present compensation is not known. I suppose, however, that there ultimately we shall know all about it. I think hon. Members of this House, without exception, will admit that the Licence Duty must hereafter be based on a percentage of actual sales. Until that is brought about there will be an enormous number of anomalies. Men will be paying more or less—as the case may be— than they ought to pay. Admittedly the old duties were too small, but surely to increase the burden on a man by 500 per cent, is too much. I believe the only arrangement acceptable both to the country and to the trade would be to base the Licence Duties on a percentage of the sales.

4.0 P. M.

I think the last portion of the speech of the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire will convince the Committee that the pursuit of morality by methods of taxation leads one on to a rather thorny path. As long as the Chancellor of the Exchequer adheres to finance which imposes taxes for the purpose of raising revenue he will find it comparatively easy to place his burden equally on those who are paying the tax. But the moment he leaves that path and branches out into a course by which he hopes to reform a section of the population by taxing other people, he will find himself landed into difficulties, and the illustrations cited by the last speaker go far to show that the right hon. Gentleman has been totally unable to attain his object. I should like to go further than the hon. Member, and to dot the "i' s" and cross the "t' s" of his speech with regard to the liquor taxes, and particularly in reference to the Whisky Duty. That tax was originally imposed with a purely revenue object. It failed entirely to achieve that purpose, and thereupon credit is claimed that the tax has produced a good effect morally. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Spen Valley used the expression that its justification was its moral effect, and that, too, is the attitude of other hon. Members opposite, as well as of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Surely, however, if morality be required for the benefit of the community, the community ought to pay for it. What is the attitude which the community takes under the guidance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? The State enters into a partnership with the trade and shares profits with it, as about one-half of the profits of the trade go into the pockets of the State. The State thinks that there should be some morality introduced into the business, and it says to its partner, "Let us make a sacrifice in the cause of morality," and the cost of the sacrifice to the State is another half million of revenue and the share of the trade is that it shall be taxed out of existence.

That is the absolute and concrete position taken up by the Government, and the right hon. Gentleman admitted that in his Budget speech, because he referred to the fact quite casually that houses were to be closed on account of this new taxation. That is to say, that the persons who were earning their living in these houses are to be taxed out of existence. We also know very well that certain breweries and distilleries have been taxed out of existence. I do not think we on this side of the House are any the less anxious for temperance than hon. Members opposite, but I do not think we should consider it fair to attain a national object, however good—and there is no better object than that of temperance—to place the burden upon one small section of the community which is actually in partnership with the State and to raise that burden to the point which involves that they alone should make the whole sacrifice of which the nation has the benefit, but makes no sacrifice for it. Who else makes any sacrifice? [An HON. MEMBER: "The public."] What sacrifice does the public make? The State gets half a million of revenue, and according to the right hon. Gentleman the public gains in spending power, in temperance, and in health. He makes the claim that drunkenness has been reduced by this taxation, and the whole of his claim is, not that the public have made a sacrifice, but that the public have gained. The whole sacrifice falls upon one limited class, and my contention is, not that the right hon. Gentleman has failed in securing some measure of temperance—that is a matter which it would be difficult to prove one way or another—but I contend that whether he has done it or not, his success has been attained by the sacrifice of one section of the community. The right hon. Gentleman gets the cash, and he claims credit as well. He puts himself and his friends on a pinnacle of morality, and the trade have to make the whole of the sacrifice, and then are looked down upon as well.

That is the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman and the party opposite. In what way do the right hon. Gentleman and his friends, who advocate these taxes, suffer? They have never touched the burden with their little finger, and they bear nothing. This Budget is supposed to distribute taxation equally over all classes of the community, but I will ask the right hon. Gentleman what extra burden—what pennyworth of extra burden —is placed upon a man, a supporter of the right hon. Gentleman, in a Nonconformist chapel in Wales who does not smoke tobacco? Perhaps I may assume that he is one of those who have been cured of the habit by this Budget, and that being so, what does he contribute? [An HON. MEMBER: "Sugar and tea."] The right hon. Gentleman has not increased the duties on tea and sugar, and I was asking, what has he to bear by this Budget, which is to attain social reform by means of a burden which is to be distributed equally upon all classes of the community? I ask, what share of that extra burden imposed by this Budget does an individual in that position contribute? [An HON. MEMBER: "Land Taxes."] That will depend upon how much land he has; but I am assuming he has no land. A very large class of the community does not own land, and does not drink whisky, and does not smoke tobacco. And what do they pay under this Budget? Not a farthing. It is very easy to get up and be moral at other people's expense. I am sorry to do anything to reduce the self-satisfaction which shone in the right hon. Gentleman's Budget speech. My point in regard to this form of taxation is that it benefits all sections of the community at large at the expense of a certain small section whose votes do not go for the Radical party, but are mostly given against it. That is my view. I should not have made that remark except that I think the Committee will agree with me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech, in introducing the Budget, was very unusual.

It is not usual to introduce political considerations into the discussion of the financial proposals of the year, and I think it is obvious that the Chancellor of the Exchequer set an example. His speech was more like a political manifesto than any Budget speech which I have heard delivered in this House, or of which, so far as I am aware, there has been any record. However, I will pass from that. What was the general claim which the Chancellor of the Exchequer made? He claimed that as the result—not as the result, but in spite of, his last Budget, which had been so vigorously and violently attacked— there was a general trade revival in this country. What does that mean? It means this: To the extent to which there is a trade revival, that it is part of a general trade revival throughout the whole world, common to all countries alike under whatever fiscal system they may happen to be, and, so far as we can judge, our share of it is not greater than that of other people —in fact, it is rather less. Surely the right hon. Gentleman overrates his own power for mischief if he suggests that the effect of his Budget should be that this country should have no part in the general prosperity common all over the world. We have made no such claim as that, and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman puts his claim very high if he puts it no higher than that. With regard to other countries, I am sure I think the right hon. Gentleman's attitude was not, to say the least of it, a very polite one. He plumed himself on having made both ends meet. He adopted rather the attitude of the Pharisee. He did not say, but he implied, that he thanked God that we were not as other nations. [Hon. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad to hear those cheers. That is the attitude of mind of the righteous party, I know, and I know it gives great satisfaction to themselves, but it does not tend to our popularity with the world at large. The right hon. Gentleman's expression was quite of a piece with those cheers. He referred to other nations generally as "lumbering along with their burdens and with their deficits from one futile financial expedient to another." That, again, is the attitude of the party which is always right while everybody else in the world is always wrong.

I think that we in this country would not be at all averse to show the deficits which those other nations are subject to if we might be let off with their burdens. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, I repeat that. Will any hon. or right hon. Gentleman on that side of the House suggest to me that the burden of taxation in this country is not greater per head, and greatly greater per head, than in any of those other countries to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred. His comparison is valueless, unless he compares the weight of the burden of taxation in this country with the weight of the taxation there. [An HON. MEMBER: "There is the wealth of the two countries."] The wealth of the country is not a test at all, because if the burden is in proportion to the wealth of the country, surely this must apply. If the wealth of the country is greater than the wealth of another country, then equal taxation will produce a larger revenue. If you are living, not on your extra rate of burden, but on your greater wealth, it means that you are put under a heavier rate of taxation than other countries, or that you are obtaining a larger revenue than you require. Is that our position? It is not our position that the rate of taxation in this country is not heavier than in other countries. Is that the right hon. Gentleman's contention? If so, I hope he will show us in what other country the burden per head of taxation is greater. There is no country in the world which has to bear such a great burden per head as we in this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's sole test financially on the success of his methods is the test of Dr. Sangrado: "How much blood he can draw out of the patient." But surely that is only a partial figure. You have not only to inquire as to the amount of your revenue, but the means by which this revenue is obtained, and the burden falls upon those from whom it is drawn. I do not profess to have absolutely complete information—in fact, my information is only partial—but I shall be glad to be corrected, if I am wrong, when I suggest that under no financial proposals in any other country of the world has any Finance Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted that he has been obliged to start out to tax a class of taxpayers out of existence. I should suggest that you must be driven into a corner before you start out to tax people out of existence, and on that I think it is pertinent to say that at one and the same time to pose and plume yourself upon the general prosperity of the country, the improvement of trade, the ease with which revenue can be raised from increasing wealth, and then to admit that under these conditions you are starting out to tax certain classes out of existence appears to me to be a position which is impossible from the point of view of sound finance.

I think we may apply another test. There was a very able, interesting, and useful speech from this point of view, made by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden), who quoted some very valuable figures to show that the sum assessable to the Income Tax in this country was constantly increasing, the trade returns of this country were constantly increasing, and that at one and the same time wages were decreasing, and he made a great point of that to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I doubt if it is possible to find a greater condemnation of our fiscal system than is afforded by those figures. Let us again take a comparison with other countries. In comparing wages, wealth, taxation, progress, and industry between one country and another you are comparing a moving condition and not a stationary condition, and the question is not whether the wage here to-day is exactly equal or greater or less than the wage of some workman in Germany or America to-day. You are studying progress or decline, and you have to examine the rate at which you are advancing as compared with other countries, and whether you are in an advancing or a declining period of trade, progress, or industry. It does not require figures to show that the incomes of our great trade rivals, whose fiscal system is different from ours, have increased, their wealth has increased, and their trade figures of imports and exports have increased equally with our own. But would the further statement of the hon. Member (Mr. Snowden) about this country be true there? Have their wages decreased? [An HON. MEMBER: "Yes, taking into consideration the cost of living."] I did not mention the cost of living. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is an example to his own side. Whenever an argument is put forward which he finds some difficulty in meeting ho can always evade it by raising up some side issue. I do not think the point raised by the hon. Member is of the slightest value, because the cost of living has increased in this country as well as in others. There is no doubt whatever about it. But even if it had not it does not affect my point. My point is that wages in other countries, whose wealth has increased, whose assessment for income has increased, have also increased.

The hon. Member, after careful study of the question, puts forward figures to show that in this country alone of the great trade countries in the world wealth increases but wages decrease. Why is that? Where is the difference between us and those other countries except in our fiscal system? It can be directly proved. This is not one of those speculative questions, where you may argue for ever between post hoc and propter hoc. The connection is perfectly plain and perfectly obvious. Why does capital benefit under our present conditions when labour does not equally benefit? For the simple reason that capital has the whole world to go to. Capital is not injured by our present fiscal system. You can increase your income by investment abroad, and without the employment of British labour. That is the obvious deduction to be drawn from the hon. Member's figures, that in this country labour does not get the employment it ought in proportion to the income, the expenditure, and the wealth of the country. What is the remedy in the right hon. Gentleman's Budget? Unemployment is on both sides of the House a subject constantly in our thoughts, and constantly upon our tongues, and we are both anxious to deal with it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to tax incomes at a higher rate than they have ever been taxed before. Taking Income Tax, Super-tax, and Death Duties together, there is now a higher rate of tax upon fixed incomes than there has ever been before. That money is to be used for social reform and partly to give State doles to workmen who are not employed because it is obtained by the use of foreign labour instead of British. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will have the sympathy of everyone on this side of the House so far as his desire goes to relieve the hardships and troubles suffered by workmen who are unable to obtain employment, but our criticism upon this is that your remedy, good as it may be for the individual employé, is liable to aggravate the disease by causing more unemployment. It is constantly tending to cause further investment abroad, and less employment at home, which again has to be remedied by further taxes. It is a vicious circle in which money is invested abroad, and British labour is not employed, and unemployed labour has to be relieved by excessive taxation upon money which is made by foreign investment. That system surely cannot be a sound one, and the right hon. Gentleman himself must be aware that it is a process which can have no end.

I want to come to one or two particular points in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. I am speaking now mainly on the question of the revenue which he proposes to obtain by this Budget, and the methods by which he will obtain it. In regard to Death Duties, the right hon. Gentleman said he hoped to obtain an increased yield by improved methods of valuation, and that that process had already begun, and was having excellent results. I do not know what the Chancellor of the Exchequer considers to be "improved methods of valuation," but information reaches me as to what those methods are, and perhaps the Committee will judge for itself whether they are an improvement on the old ones or not. I have the actual letters of a case which occurred in the North of England where a man died who owned a house which had cost him, including the site, £570. It was fourteen years old. It was returned by the executors for Death Duties at a valuation of £500. After the valuation had been sent in the successor of the deceased received a visitor, who said, "I have come to ask whether you will sell your house." He said, "I am not particularly anxious to sell it, but I might sell it at a price." The visitor asked, "Will you take £700 for it?" The inhabitant said, "Oh, dear, no; I have been offered £750 for it." "Will you take £8001" "Yes, I will take £800." "Oh," said the visitor, "now we are coming to business. I am a valuer for the Department of Inland Revenue." Upon that came a letter from the Inland Revenue, claiming duty on £800. Is that a method which commends itself to hon. Gentlemen opposite? I do not defend the owner for saying he had been offered £750, but he is put in that position by what the French call an agent provocateur. What is the position of a man who is asked by a stranger whether he will sell something which he had not thought of selling? Does he not invariably ask a higher price than he would under other circumstances? Is it a fair, dignified, or proper method? These are the improved methods of valuation, to send agents of Somerset House, who pretend that they want to buy people's property, and then claim upon it at an enhanced figure. I should not smile if I were in the right hon. Gentleman's position. I do not know whether those methods are approved of by him.

Can the right hon. Gentleman give me the name?

The case occurred at Hartlepool. The solicitors are Messrs. Fryer and Webb, 18, Scarborough Street, West Hartlepool.

The name of the estate?

The estate is that of Robert P. Lund, deceased. I have taken great pains to verify the case before I raised it in the House, and I have copies of the letters which actually passed. I will give another case. This is only one which has been sent to me in correspondence, and I have not been able to verify it, but I have every reason to believe the facts to be absolutely as stated. It is a case of a ground-rent at Brighton let at £235, and valued for Death Duties at £3,025. For no reason, so far as I am aware, the Revenue Department claim £3,575. The owner, by way of showing his bona fides, is desirous of selling the property. He puts it up to auction, with a reserve upon it of £3,025, the figure at which he had return it for Death Duties, and fails to obtain a single bid. He cannot get in the open market the figure which he has put down for Death Duties, but still the claim is persisted in by the Inland Revenue authorities. These methods are nothing less than extortion. It is no laughing matter for those who are concerned. Complaints are general all over the country of the new methods, the improved methods, of valuation which the right hon. Gentleman has adopted. Surely he must be aware that in cases of death property is not always saleable, and the principle of the administration of Death Duties up to now—and it is a reasonable and fair principle—is that property which passes at the death, if it is forced upon the market, will never fetch the full value which it might obtain if it waited for a favourable opportunity. You cannot expect to assess Death Duties at the full value which the property might obtain if the owner waited for a favourable opportunity and sold it when the market was at the best point to suit him. The Revenue Departments must exercise a little discretion and a little mercy. They take their tone from the right hon. Gentleman. Why is this attitude adopted now? It is adopted—and there can be no doubt about it, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has openly told us in this House what his views are on this subject-—because he has given orders to the Revenue authorities to screw up the valuation, or what he calls improve the valuation. I protest against it, and I tell him he is causing undue hardship. He is putting a burden upon people, and many cases have been brought to my notice. I do ask the right hon. Gentleman to give instructions to the Revenue authorities to exercise a little more discretion, not to send agents provocateurs, and not to raise the Death Duties in an undue proportion.

There is a point in relation to the question of the revenue from the Land Taxes to which I wish to call attention. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget statement estimates his total receipts from the Land Taxes at £600,000. But we have a little more light thrown upon that by his Budget speech. In that speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer gives the figures-£350,000 for Mineral Duty—that is, the duty on royalty or its equivalent. That is included in his total of £600,000. Therefore the total revenue which he expects to obtain from all the Land Taxes other than Mineral Duty is £250,000 in the current financial year. We have had a Supplementary Estimate recently presented to the House of no less than £480,000 for the cost during the year of the staff which is to collect this £250,000. The Committee will observe that in raising the Mineral Duty no valuation is required; it is purely additional Income Tax and nothing else. The whole of the cost of valuation is for the purpose of obtaining the £250,000 revenue, but that is not nearly all, because this half-million which is to be the cost to the State is a great deal less than a moiety of the cost to the taxpayers. Every individual who receives one of these notices has got to take legal advice as to how he will deal with it, and if the cost to the individual who is brought into contact with this new Department is added to the cost of the Department itself, I am putting the figures far below the mark when I state that the total cost to the taxpayers will be in this current year considerably over £1,000,000, and there will be endless trouble, anxiety, and expense to raise the estimated £250,000. If my figures are wrong, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will correct me, but I have taken them from his own statement.

I want to ask a question on this matter. I have here what purports to be an advance copy of the valuation forms which are to issue from Somerset House, and it is stated here that these forms are to go out on 1st August, and are to be returnable in one month. This appears to be an official document, and I believe it has been issued to solicitors, and is perfectly genuine. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer will see that as a matter of administration anything more unfortunate or more irksome to those concerned than to send out forms like this on 1st August, returnable, subject to a penalty of £50, within one month, could hardly be conceived. The 1st of August is the time when everyone is hoping for a little rest and holiday, and it is unfortunate that he should find himself faced on that day with one of these universal forms. I do not say that it is going to be done, and I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will tell the Committee whether he is going to send out the forms on that date. I wish to know also, on whatever date they are sent out, if it is to be done universally, because I am sure the Committee will agree with me that nothing could be more unfair or improper than that the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer should arrogate to themselves the power of selecting particular individuals to whom they are to send forms returnable in one month. I am sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer will admit that it would be a most improper course, and that not a single form should be sent out until all the forms are ready to be sent out at the same time. Of course an individual may be missed by accident, but so far as information is available, every individual subject to valuation in respect of these Land Taxes should have his valuation form simultaneously despatched. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will satisfy the Committee on that point. If it is his intention to ask that these forms should be returnable within one month, I would suggest to him that he should modify the request and make it at least three months before they are returnable. I do not ask him to defer the date of sending them out for this reason. He is well aware that there are a large number of cases of sales where delay and difficulty are caused owing to the non-completion of the valuation.

indicated dissent.

I do not want to quarrel over words, but there is inconvenience. The question of the Increment Value Duty cannot always be settled when the purchase is negotiated.

What has the purchaser to do with it?

I did not say purchaser. I merely made a general statement that inconvenience and trouble are caused because the amount of the Increment Value Duty cannot be settled in every case. I maintain it. Trustees and innumerable other people responsible for dealing with money cannot deal with it until they know whether they are responsible for Increment Value Duty or not. Therefore the sooner the forms are out the better in order that all those subject to that difficulty may be able to return them at the earliest possible moment and have the Increment Duty settled. But in the case of the general public where no sale has yet occurred, and where the individuals are put to the greatest trouble and inconvenience in filling up these complicated forms—there are pages of questions which are very difficult to answer— is it a right or fair method of administration to throw at the head of every individual in this country this form just as he is starting for his holidays on 1st August? [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but I would ask: Are they not to have holidays? I think 1st August is the universal date for people who are not above taking holidays. I doubt whether a month is sufficient time to allow for making the return in the case of a large estate, because a return has to be made for every separate occupation. I imagine that means that where a field or area is divided into forty allotments forty returns have got to be made. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will enlighten us on that point. It involves immense clerical labour, and it is a severe penalty on those individuals who own land and who have endeavoured to sub-divide it amongst small holders. If you have a few large farms on an estate you will soon be able to fill up the forms, but if you have fields broken up into small allotments and occupied by a lot of small holders, then you will have an innumerable bundle of forms to fill up, and you will be put to endless trouble and expense. I feel that this Debate is really only a continuation, after a short interlude, of the Debates we had last Session. This may be called a humdrum Budget by some hon. Members. I suppose there are hon. Members opposite who would consider any Budget humdrum which did not propose some fresh measure of spoliation. In that sense I suppose we must be thankful for small mercies when a Radical Chancellor of the Exchequer brings in a Budget by which nobody finds himself deprived of something he previously thought was his own. But, after all, I look upon this year's Budget and last year's Budget as really one Budget. The right hon. Gentleman rightly claimed that his Budget was revolutionary.

indicated dissent.

The right hon. Gentleman may not have used that expression himself, but the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden) used it. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will deny it. If he does, he will lose a great deal of the credit he has got. I do not think I am going too far when I say that he himself called it unusual, and that his supporters in the country consider it revolutionary. I do not think we disagree with them, but revolutionary Budgets cannot be brought in and have their full effect and value in a few months. Even the right hon. Gentleman and his party require a little time to develop their policy, and this is merely a stage in the development of the Budget introduced last year. We at that time discussed in detail many of its provisions, and I think the right hon. Gentleman owes us a debt of gratitude for a great deal of information we gave him regarding matters not in his Budget when he introduced it. We do not desire now to enter further on the discussion of any matter of detail. We did our best last Session 'to lop off from the measure the cruder and more unjust parts of what we believed were crude and unjust proposals in themselves, and we do not abate one jot of our protest. Our attitude now is that we adhere to every sentiment uttered last year, and we now await the judgment of the country upon these proposals.

Hear, hear.

The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme sees through a pair of spectacles of his own.

So does the country.

The hon. Member has a hobby, and he cannot ride anything else. I have no doubt, therefore, that whatever happens he will be satisfied provided that the Land Taxes remain. But we are awaiting the opinion of the hundreds and thousands of people who find themselves put to trouble and expense in respect of the Increment Value Duty claimed from them, and who will have to judge the Budget not by what its authors claim for it, not by the exemptions on which they fondly believed they could rest, but on the actual results which are seen when they get their valuation papers, and when they go to the Liberal agent or candidate who told them they were exempt. When they show him their papers they will say, "You told me friendly societies were exempt, and you told me small holders were exempt. I am a member of a friendly society and I am a small holder, and I have to pay the taxes in both cases." And I think the support of those persons which was obtained by those promises will not be continued to the party opposite at the next General Election. We are content to leave the issue on that basis, and I think that when the country has assimilated the real results, the wasteful results, the enormous extravagance, and the enormous expenditure of pounds to get shillings, this method of taxation, which is quite foreign to any financial scheme ever introduced into any country in the world, will pass into the limbo of things that have been, never to be disinterred.

The hon. Member who has just spoken is certainly one of those who, with great force and perfect consistency, have represented a certain school upon the subject of these Land Taxes. I am not going to discuss them this afternoon, because although I agree with him that these Debates are a continuation of our Debates of last year, and of the General Election itself only an interlude in those Debates, yet in deference to those who have as much right as I have to take part in this Debate, and owing to the shortness of the day, I propose to con fine myself almost entirely to one point in connection with which it is necessary to ask for further explanations. One word only upon the general question that arose in the hon. Gentleman's speech. He complained that the working classes, as I understood him, did not pay their extra taxation under this Budget—

Surely the right hon. Gentleman would not suggest that the working classes as a body are supporters of the Government?

Then the portion of the working classes who support the Labour party and the Liberal party— is that it?

I said those of the supporters of the right hon. Gentleman who do not happen to smoke tobacco or drink whisky.

That is not it. That was one of the statements, but there was a more general statement. There was the question of extra taxation. I am not raising it on this occasion for polemical purposes, but the mere fact that quite apart from the tremendous increase in the Tobacco Duty, which does impose a heavy Income Tax upon the poorest working classes, the mere leaving of the Tea Duty at the point at which it stands, and leaving the Sugar Duty without reduction, means that we are continuing very much to our electoral detriment an enormous taxation, an enormous Income Tax, upon the poorest people of this country. It strikes especially the poorest people in the rural districts, and strikes in some cases with peculiar hardship, as in Ireland, and is in a sense an extra tax under this Budget. For who can doubt with a party coming in with such an overwhelming majority to this House, with the support of the Labour party and the Irish party on such questions, that those taxes ought to have been reduced, and that they would have been reduced but for the feeling that the working classes ought to contribute or think they ought, a large proportion towards this enormous Budget. It was not, I imagine, the belief that the Sugar Duty ought to remain at all, or that the Tea Duty ought to remain at its present enormous figure, which is far higher than it is elsewhere, as taxes in this Budget, that made my right hon. Friend (Mr. Lloyd George) leave them there this year. The reason was probably that he felt that the working classes were prepared to-pay their share towards the social reform programme, and even very largely towards the naval programme, which was before the country, and he probably thought that he would be stronger in fighting that Budget through as an honest Budget if he left in that enormous taxation, which otherwise, he would have lessened or removed.

Having said those few words by way of preface, I want to turn to a side of the Budget which I think I ought to refer to, because I have pressed those matters forward upon my right hon. Friend, and, therefore, on behalf of those in whose name I spoke, I shall try to make this matter clear, or, at all events, try to make clear what his position is. The last speaker suggested that there was no money in the new Land Taxes. There is a. great deal of money in the taxes of which I spoke just now, which press heavily on the poor, and the fact that there is a great deal of money in them was the most powerful weapon in the campaign which some of us had to fight in all our rural parishes in order to keep the majority which we have in them. The fact that these taxes are so heavy was the most powerful argument used against us there. We heard nothing about Land Taxes in those parishes, and there were no leaflets upon the subject. There was nothing discussed except beer, tea, and tobacco, and masses of leaflets dealing with tobacco alone. We heard of nothing except about the overwhelming indirect taxation inflicted upon the poor. There was no reference to the Land Taxes of which the hon. Member complains, in these leaflets. I have collections of all the leaflets, and he will find that every leaflet in the rural parish which I have in my mind was almost entirely upon those points. So far as they were not Tariff Reform leaflets or Protectionist proposals, they were entirely on tea, tobacco, and beer. We are told there is no money in the Land Taxes. As regards this year, the question of the money raised under this head bears very closely upon the matter upon which I wish to say a word. As regards the future, it may or may not bear upon it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, of course, is very often looked upon by us as a daughter of the horse leech, but in the Bible, I believe, there were two daughters of the horse leech, and he looks upon the rating authority as a daughter of the horse leech. Apart from the merits, I think the House generally will agree that anything like a promise should be kept, and my case is that the daughter of the horse leech who sits here has made a very distinct promise to a sister on the subject and has not kept it. That is how the matter appears to me. The promise was twofold, and it is replaced now by that very vague and general promise which has been made so often that I think there is hardly anyone in this House who is not a little bit ashamed of it. The general settlement of the question between the Imperial authority and the local authority has been promised in the self-same words since 1883 or 1884, and that promise has been renewed in every year.

Valuation makes a difference.

I know that, but you have not got that valuation. I am not differing as to who is in fault, but I only mean that it is not much of a promise to the local authorities and that they do not see the prospect of a realisation of the promise which has been made so frequently. Of course, valuation is the first difficulty, as everyone knows who is aware of what is involved in the question of what is agricultural land, and the separation of agricultural land from building land in the accounts of unions, affecting, as they do, the relations between county and county, with the result that all those grants which are made at the present moment are so different in different parishes, a fact which makes a 4 to? difference in parishes which are identical. There is nothing approaching a uniform basis of valuation at the present moment throughout the country. That difficulty, of course, is an enormous one, but a promise is a promise as regards the future. As regards the past, of course, these Land Taxes were formerly promised to the local authorities, who were the persons who started the agitation for them. It was a Glasgow movement. As regards the facilities of getting the tax and as regards the nature of the tax, I believe that while there is money in it any way there would be more money in it, and with greater facility of getting it had it been a local tax. Here are the promises. They are of two kinds. There is the promise which was given a few months ago about giving half—a promise which was made in this House in very strong words indeed by my right hon. Friend—the proceeds of all these Land Duties to the local authorities for the relief of local rates. Of course, that has been affected by our accepting for this year the replacing of the whisky money deficit by the allocation to that deficit of that fund.

Is that the same half?

5.0 P. M.

That is the question I am asking. I am familiar with the question my hon. Friend put on Monday to the Secretary to the Treasury on that point, and the answer, I confess, was not very clear, but it was assumed in the speech of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, with which he opened this Debate. He put it clearly, and it will require a reply upon that portion of the case. The other branch of the promise is, of course, that which has been reopened this last week in the Budget speech of my right hon. Friend. He promised, we thought, not in 1909, but in 1908, in very definite terms, as to financially relieving the rates. He claimed credit from the local authorities for so doing by taking off their hands the pauper old age pensioners.

No, not in 1908.

Not in Cabinet Minister's addresses and pamphlets of the Liberal Publication Department?

I am dealing with what I said in the House of Commons. My right hon. Friend is referring to what occurred in the course of Debate.

No.

I made it clear in the Budget speech of 1908. In the course of the Debates on the Old Age Pensions Bill, in reference to an Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Shropshire, who proposed this very plan, I said then that in my judgment that was the way in which it ought to be dealt with. Lord Robert Cecil proposed a similar plan and I said then that I thought it the only way it could be dealt with. I simply restated last year in my Budget speech the position I took up most definitely when I promised to get rid of the pauper disqualification, and I think I said the same to a small deputation which I received, and at which I think my right hon. Friend was present.

I will trust to my right hon. Friend's general recollection of what took place between him and myself last year. I said the promise was made the year before, but he says he recorded it last year. His colleagues put it in their election addresses and the Liberal Publication Department put it in their leaflets; but, taking what he said last year, I ask him fairly, as man to man, does he think I was able to make out—I may be specially ignorant of the subject, although I ought not to be; I have had to deal with it from both ends—does he think I was able to make out a case? He says he said he was to be met by some contribution from the local authorities. I am going to put myself frankly in his hands. When he spoke of wanting to make some contribution towards the cost of old age paupers to the local authorities he said, "I am negotiating with the local authorities." That is according to "The Times" report. According to the Official Report he says, "My right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board is to negotiate." I do not think he said so. I think it is wrong. What did he mean by these, negotiations? What was the contribution the Local Government Board was to offer? I pressed him to state. "Was it going to be half-and-half, like the Land Taxes? He said "something of the kind," but I did not understand it—I do not think the Committee understood it—and the local authorities did not understand it. I failed, after the utmost trouble, to find a trace of the negotiations of which he speaks. Might I press my right hon. Friend, as there is a real grievance, that there has been some recession from the plans made? I press him to tell us what these negotiations were? What contribution was asked for, and in what form was it to be made? No doubt we must have some opportunity of discussing it as regards the future, which is more important in the long run as regards the Land Taxes than anything this year can be; but, as regards the old-age paupers' arrangements, which may be made in the negotiation which may have already taken place, these must affect not only the present year, "but the future, and we must press as to what ultimate form it is going to take. There is an unfortunate fault in the report of the Budget speech on this point. My right hon. Friend is reported in the Official Report as saying:— The President of the Local Government Board and I had entered into some negotiations with a view to effecting an arrangement which would enable us to add a contribution to the rates next year and wipe out the pauper disqualification. That, I think, must be wrong. In "The Times" he is reported as saying:— Last year, I said we were negotiating with the local authorities with a view to effecting an arrangement which would have enabled us, with the aid of a contribution from the rates, to wipe out the pauper disqualification. These two reports are different, and I do not quite know what they mean. They both appear to point to some sort of negotiations, but as to some contribution from the rates none is specified. What we fear is that the arrangement is to be one which will throw this entire cost on the rates, which we have been told in many election addresses they were to have been relieved from. The Liberal party have been promising, and the Prime Minister, who has just come in, is familiar with his own promise, so often quoted, on the subject of fresh sources of funds from which to meet the demands of new social legislation. My hon. Friend (Mr. Wedgwood) suggested that the Labour party, in passing a resolution with that view in end, were animated by a desire to catch votes. I think in this House we had better avoid that interjection, or, rather generalise it, and make it universal. I believe the real opinion each Member is that there is no Member of the House, except himself, who does not catch votes by means not absolutely defensible. I will exempt my hon. Friend if he likes in my own place. But there is, quite apart from any desire to catch votes, a great deal to be said from the view of the promise that was made by every Labour Member, every Liberal, and many Conservatives, that something in the nature of these Land Duties would form a source of future revenue to the local authorities out of which to meet these enormous charges, which are really Imperial, and are constantly being thrown upon them. I am sure my hon. Friend (Mr. Wedgwood) agrees that the spirit of that Resolution, which was to some extent censured by him, is really the spirit in which we have promised fresh sources from which these really Imperial services may be met—such as the feeding of children. He will also agree that we have not kept that promise up to the present time. We ought, at all events, to prepare how we are going to keep it in the future. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year accepted the spirit of that view. He renewed the promise of the Prime Minister on the subject, and he stated that, in giving away about half of the Land Duties, that it had always been his view that the local authority had an indisputable claim to a portion of the Land Value Duties. Therefore it was that he proposed to divide these duties equally with the local authorities- Now he was thanked for that. After having received these thanks, and two or three months had gone by, we thanked him again for the same money. He made a fresh gift to us of what he already had given, but I understand only as regards this year. The whisky money having fallen short, he came forward and offered to pay it out of that which he had already given, and had already been thanked for. The case was put most admirably by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer in his speech the other day. Here is the way in which it was put in a memorandum by the county of the Division which I have the honour to represent: There has been a serious falling off of 30 per cent, in the residue. A promise has been made of a Grant in Aid of this deficiency. That Grant to be paid out of the moiety of the proceeds of the new Duty on Land Values, which had already been appropriated to local authorities, so that the local authorities will have to bear the burden of the loss of revenue. As I put it, he has been twice thanked for this matter, and although we raised no objection to same, it makes us nervous about the future, as it is not likely that the immediate settlement which he again promised will be brought about so speedily as to affect the finance of the following year. As regards the other matter, I will conclude by stating that I have done my very best to obtain the views of those who are likely to understand the proposal that is made. The point that it introduces variation between different districts was raised by the Irish Members in the course of Debate. It is extremely technical, and I will not keep the House by attempting to describe it, in which attempt I should probably fail, but I will give the words as I have received them from the highest authorities I can consult on the subject. They say:— They do not quite understand what the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer really is, or how long any contribution from the guardians is to be continued. Moreover the principle of giving the relief varies considerably in the different Unions, it seems very desirable that further information should be obtained during the Debate from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In other words, they do not understand, and I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman will feel that it is desirable the matter should be made clear after—I will not say the pledge, if he does not like that—but after what he said last year. Every Liberal candidate, and many Members of the Government, put in their addresses that there was to be relief of the rates, and it is desirable to make the matter clear and to prevent anything like a charge of breach of faith. It was not a technical pledge which was given, but there was a substantial belief generally entertained in reference to the matter which should be made clear. The words employed were these:— There will be a relief to our rates by the pensioning of those over seventy who have been a charge on the poor rate, and that will be taken out of the Treasury. We cannot see the relief in regard to this particular point in the proposal now made. The statements which were made in regard to the matter were very definite. I have a leaflet of the Liberal Publication Department, in which it says:— The cost of the new pensions to the Treasury will be £2,850.000, and the ratepayers will be saved about £1,620,000 by the new arrangement. I cannot see that they are so saved, and I think that it is, at all events, a matter which I could not do otherwise than bring before the House, as it so happens those promises were made to me in Debate.

I trust the House will pardon me for taking part, even if only for a few minutes, in this Debate. It is the first speech that I have delivered in this House, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will realise that to me it is an ordeal, particularly when one has to follow such an old Member as the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean (Sir C. Dilke). I could not help being struck last Thursday when the Chancellor of the Exchequer was making his Budget speech. His whole atmosphere was permeated by an airy optimism. It is possible that an airy optimism may be better than an organised despondency, which the right hon. Gentleman seems to think is the heritage which has come down to those who sit on this side of the House. But be that as it may, he drew an extremely roseate picture of the state of trade and of the position of the country generally and of the reasons which made him think that the demands he makes on the national purse would be met very readily indeed. He concluded by stating that his estimated surplus would be no less than £861,000. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Pretyman) has already mentioned that one might almost treat the Budget of this year and the Budget of last year as one and the same. At any rate, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has sown under the old Budget, and he intends to reap under this one. It would, of course, be presumptuous in a Member like myself to attempt to grapple with the various problems which this Budget raises, but one cannot help feeling that there are certain risks in treating taxes which are only on paper as if they were already solid money. There are, of course, salient features which strike even a novice like myself, and one is inclined to think that the whole Budget is one which may be described as containing castles in the air. One point to which I wish to refer is in regard to the Spirit Duty. At one moment the Chancellor of the Exchequer confesses himself a discredited prophet, and in the next breath he consoles himself by informing us that he is at any rate a temperance reformer. It seems to me that not even Cabinet Ministers can eat their cake, even the moral cake, and have it; it cannot be consumed both ways. I confess I always imagined that the aim of a Budget was to raise revenue, but this Budget seems to destroy it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer fails to collect the money from this particular duty, yet he boasts that this very failure constitutes him an apostle of temperance. The contention on this side of the House last year always was that the real reason for the duty on spirits was not so much to get revenue as to wreak vengeance upon a class of persons who were engaged in a calling which was obnoxious to right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House.

We were told that we were wrong, but I cannot help feeling that the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's speech last week, and the results of his experiments in this direction, confirm us in the opinion we then held, and that after all we were not so wrong in holding that retribution was his object more than the ends of finance. The right hon. Gentleman quoted the practices of the trade to show us that, after all, things were not so bad. We were told that there were two courses open to the trade which were adopted for a time. One was to raise the price, and the other to cut down the measure. But there are two other courses open to the trade, and I fear that one or the other will be adopted. One will be that the trade may unhappily find it necessary to close their places and works—a course which has already been adopted in one conspicuous instance in Dublin, where it must mean the throwing out of employment of a large number of the population, men who depend on the distillery trade and its various subsidiary trades. The second course, it seems to me, is that they will be tempted to sell an inferior article at the same price. I believe if that course be generally adopted we shall find that not only the health of the nation but the sobriety of the nation will suffer. I alluded at the beginning of my speech to the airy optimism which seems to pervade the ideas of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We are told, and we are delighted to hear, that the trade outlook is extremely good, and that the crops show every sign all over the world of being extremely abundant. But we all know nature is proverbially fickle, and whatever the crops may prove to be—and we all trust they will be good—yet on this point I will quote what is said by the correspondent of "The Times" at Toronto, in the issue of that journal dated the 28th of June. He says:— The hot weather is threatening serious injury to the crops in the Western Provinces. As yet the damage is not great except in the old settled districts, where the land has been cultivated for many years. Saskatchewan was greatly assisted by rains ten days ago, but moisture is again needed. This applies also to Alberta, where the winter wheat in some districts will be a total loss. There is an agitation in the wheat market at Winnipeg, but timely rains may save the situation. We are told that other nations are in the trough of "financial despondency." One is America and the other Germany. In the latter country the labour and social conditions show general prosperity, while in America the average income per head is far higher than in this country. The case of Germany has been cited in various ways during the last few months, and I would call the attention of hon. Members to a pamphlet lately issued, and which is open to anyone to read, in regard to the labour and social conditions which now prevail in Germany. The reports which that pamphlet contains I believe to be quite unprejudiced, having been made by men of all sorts and shades of political opinion; and we have every reason to conclude that they are reliable. I now come to the question of the Death Duties, which were so much discussed last year. They seem to me to constitute one more sandy foundation on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is building his revenue. Last year, we are told, was an especially fatal year for millionaires, and it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The Chancellor of the Exchequer now appears to be in the position of an heir-expectant, stepping, if not into dead men's shoes, at any rate into their shekels. He seems to count on the high fatality of last year being maintained; perhaps he calculates on the mortal depression caused by Radical legislation terminating the lives of aged plutocrats. The supply, however, is not inexhaustible, and the more that die off the fewer will be left to pay Super-tax. Be that as it may, it is the fact that the Death Duties totalled for twenty years £500,000,000. I mention that point to show what a serious drain that is to the capital of the country. Surely that is the very worst form of taxation if carried to excess. If all these speculations come off we are told that there will be a sum of £861,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has told us how this money will be devoted, but is it not possible that that money which he proposes to allocate may not be available when the time comes? A paper which is very widely read at the present time by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, the "Nation," in its current number thinks fit to doubt whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer may be able to allocate the money in the directions he is proposing. The "Nation says:— But the future is necessarily speculative. The world's crop which now looks so well might come to disaster through bad harvesting weather, frost in Canada, locusts in Argentina, drought in Australia, rain in Europe. Again, the fair political weather might be broken by a storm of war, and we are disposed to qualify the Chancellor's hopes of being able to provide for invalidity and unemployment pensions next year. What if Mr. McKenna and the Admiralty impound the whole increment of the Budget and something more? If the Chancellor is again overruled on this head his large and bold scheme of social amelioration will suffer shipwreck, and the Radicals will learn once more that jingoism is fatal to reform. It seems to come to a point, as has been mentioned in one of our local issues of the Press, to be a question of doles versus "Dreadnoughts," and that the only question is which is to come first. There is a large section of the population who believe that doles should come before "Dreadnoughts." It is such an obvious fact that it is unnecessary to labour the point that we do not wish, of course, to build "Dreadnoughts" from any motives of boastfulness or pride, but because we believe that by making this country really strong in the future we shall then be in a better position to provide for the wants of our fellow creatures. The temptation, no doubt, is very great at the moment to a great proportion of the electorate to look upon material advantages for themselves, and not to take the long view which may really be necessary instead of letting to-morrow take care of itself. Time was when the Liberal party regarded economy as a very valuable possession, and when thrift was considered of vital importance. Thrift now seems to have given place to drift. It is notorious that there are fat years and lean years, and I think that in our fat years it would be wiser to look after the needs of the Sinking Fund. I would ask whether it is wise to lay out every penny of our income? I venture to hope that the party to which I belong will continue to rely rather on cautious methods of a businesslike nature. To do otherwise might lead to popularity at the moment, but I really believe that in the end the common-sense of the English people will prevail, and that we on this side of the House shall receive the confidence and the gratitude of the people.

The hon. Member who has just sat down has, if he will allow me to say so, made an interesting speech, and we shall look forward with expectation to his future participation in our Debates. If I do not follow him over some part of the ground which he has covered, it is because I do not wish in any way to anticipate the general review which at a later stage the Chancellor of the Exchequer will no doubt make to the able criticisms made in the Debates. I intervene only for two or three moments to make, if I may, one or two observations of a more general character suggested by the remarks that have fallen from preceding speakers. This Budget, as has been pointed out more than once, is, indeed, in one respect, at any rate, unique in the experience of all of us who are now living in that it makes no change, either by way of extension or by way of reduction, in the existing taxation of the country. The reason why the Government adopt that course is obvious. Last year we had a Budget which made many changes in taxation, modifying old taxes and introducing new ones. The proposals contained in that Budget were subjected to a Parliamentary review, unexampled in length and in minuteness, extending over many months of the summer and the autumn. The Budget, too, was a prominent topic at the General Election at the beginning of this year, and once more came to a general review before the new House of Commons, and only received a short time ago the assent both of this House and of the House of Lords. That in itself would seem to be more than sufficient ground for maintaining things for another year as they are. Further, as we know in regard to many of the new taxes, the machinery for their assessment and collection has either not yet been completely set up or is in such an early stage of working that we have no experience that would enable us as yet to pronounce with anything like authority or confidence upon the justice of the anticipations which have been put forward by my right hon. Friend.

Therefore in what I am going to say I shall deal with only two points of a more general character, namely, the indictment which has been preferred more than once in the course of these discussions against our finances, first, on the ground, the alleged ground, of an excessive growth of national expenditure, and next upon the ground, or the alleged ground, that we have made insufficient provision for the reduction of the national liabilities. As regards the first point, that of expenditure, my object really is to put clearly before the Committee, if I can, what are the actual facts. I take first of all our expenditure on the Army and on the Navy, the defensive forces of the country, and I would compare the Estimates of the present year of actual expenditure on those two Services with that for the two financial years 1904–5, the last year in which our predecessors were in office, and 1905–6, for the Estimates of which they were mainly and substantially responsible. Take the Navy first. In 1904–5, if you add, as you must for this purpose, dealing with the expenditure of the year, to the sum on the Estimates the amount raised by loan, the actual expenditure in that year on the Navy was £42,000,000. Upon the Army in the same year, adopting the same method of calculation, the expenditure was £33,600,000.

When the right hon. Gentleman adds what is called capital expenditure which is raised out of borrowed money to the expenditure of the year, does he, on the same principle, deduct the interest paid?

I am going to deal with that which is an elementary fact, and I will give the deductions subsequently. The aggregate total expenditure of that year (1904–5) for the two Services was £75,600,000. You must deduct from that the interest on the repayment of principal and capital, a sum of £1,300,000, which reduces the total expenditure of that financial year for the two Services to £74,300,000. If you adopt a similar process of calculation for the year 1905–6 you will see that there is a very large reduction. In that year the expenditure on the Navy was £35,500,000, and on the Army £30,050,000, a total of £65,600,000. From that, again, you must deduct £2,000,000 interest on the reduction of principal and capital, bringing the total expenditure on the two Services for the year to £63,600,000. I take the Estimates for the present year. What are they? For the Navy, £40,600,000, and nothing raised in the shape of loans, the whole expenditure being in the Estimates. For the Army, £27,750,000 and £100,000 raised by loan. That amounts for the two Services in the Estimates of the present year to £68,450,000, from which you have to deduct, as in the former case, repayment for interest and principal amounting to £2,500,000, which brings out the total of £66,000,000. Let me repeat the figures. They are, with the proper additions and subtractions:— 1904–5 £74,300,000 1905–6 £63,600,000 1910–11 £66,000,000 In other words, the Estimates for the present year are £8,000,000 less, compared with the actual expenditure in 1904–5, and they show an addition of £2,500,000 over the expenditure of 1905–6. When we come to the Navy Estimates, we find that they are up by £5,000,000 this year, and the Committee will see that that not only accounts for twice the whole of the difference but for the whole of the increase in the two Services. These are the figures with regard to the Army and the Navy.

Let me deal in a similar manner with the Civil Services. As there is very little difference between the years 1904–5 and 1905–6, for the sake of simplicity I will take 1905–6. There is no doubt a very large and marked increase in the expenditure in the course of those years upon what I call the Civil Services. Take, first, education. I am dealing with the three principal Grants for public education, mainly elementary education. In 1905–6 those Grants amounted in round figures to £16,000,000; in 1910–11 they amounted to £18,000,000, a growth of £2,000,000, which is to a very large extent an automatic growth due to increase of population, and, at any rate, a growth which I do not believe any Member, in whatever quarter of the House he may sit, will dispute to have been necessary in the best interests of the children of this country. I come next to what are rather vaguely called in our national accounts, "Other Civil Services." There has been there a rise from £12,500,000 to £15,000,000, but it is very desirable in regard to that that a rather more careful analysis should be made than is commonly the case. Nearly £1,000,000 of the increase may be accounted for in this way: Labour Exchanges, £225,000; and Ireland, the Cinderella of the British household, out of the extra £2,500,000 has no less than £700,000 for herself; universities and colleges, £163,000; agricultural and technical instruction, £224,000; and the Irish Land Commission, £300,000. If I were to go to the smaller items the Committee would find that this very large increase in the aggregate cost of what is called the Civil Service is due, in part I agree, to increase in staff, but in still larger degree to the necessity of meeting demands pressed upon the executive Government from every quarter of the House. Those are demands which no Government has yet found itself able to resist, and demands which I believe to be founded in reason. For instance, I am not complaining of the Irish items. I do not think the money has been misspent. But the demands are pressed with ever increasing urgency from every quarter of the United Kingdom, and they are urged on the Government of the day with not the least importunity by those who on the platform are apostles of economy. That is a fact which, if I may venture to say so, some lion. Members on both sides of the House might bear in mind when next they raise the flag of economy in the constituencies. It is the House of Commons and not the Government of the day which yields reluctantly to pressure put upon it by its followers and its opponents and from every quarter of the House—I say deliberately it is the House of Commons which is directly responsible for nine-tenths of this increase in the civil expenditure of the country. I now come to another matter which makes an enormous difference in the expenditure of 1910–11 as compared with 1905–6, namely, old age pensions, which are estimated this year to cost something like £9,500,000. I do not want to go back to past controversies. It is now common ground that the man who suggests that it would be possible under any conceivable circumstances for any party or any Government in this country to lay a sacrilegious hand or even a finger on old age pensions is a man who is not deserving of credence. [OPPOSITION cheers.] Yes, but you cannot have it both ways. If you recognise that this system of old age pensions which the late Parliament built up rests upon an impregnable foundation which cannot be curtailed or mutilated in the future, but is, as everyone knows, going to be developed and extended, I hope within reasonable and moderate limits—if you once recognise that that is the common doctrine of both parties in the State,, you cannot in logic or in reason or in justice complain of this item being added to the national expenditure. I may add an item, comparatively small, compared with the figures with which I have been dealing, of £1,500,000, which my right hon. Friend is appropriating to the Development Fund. In consequence of the legislation of last year, the really un-contentious legislation, so far as the character and the extent of the expenditure are concerned, that amount is going to be applied to development purposes. I think when these figures are borne in mind, I may justly say that this increase, enormous as I admit it to be, in the Civil expenditure of the country, is an increase which it does not really lie in the mouth of any party or section of the House to incriminate, unless they are prepared to go back—which I do not believe any are—on the advances made in the last four or five years as regards education, old age pensions, and other items of social reform.

The only other topic upon which I wish to say two or three words is the second of the two general allegations brought against us—namely, that we have dealt, half-heartedly or ineffectively with the liabilities of the country. The figures for last year are complicated, as everyone knows, by the temporary borrowings, due to the rejection of, or the delay in passing, the Budget. At one moment in the month of April they reached their maximum amount of £28,000,000; on 1st April this year, at the beginning of the financial year, I think I am right in saying that the amount outstanding for those temporary borrowings was £21,000,000. That amount ought to be left out of account, as it is not part of the permanent debt of the country, is gradually disappearing, and in a short time will be completely wiped out, and we shall only have to remember that it cost the Exchequer, in the shape of interest, a sum of about £400,000. Leaving that temporarily disturbing factor out of the account, let us see how we stand in regard to the reduction of debt. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. A. Chamberlain) that we ought to keep the deadweight debt clear from the other capital liabilities of the country, because many of the latter have sinking funds of their own, but for the deadweight debt we have to provide out of the taxation of the year. The deadweight debt is one which some people say is not represented by visible assets other than the Suez Canal shares, but which I have always said is represented by the most considerable asset in the whole world, namely, the British Empire. I do not say the money has always been wisely expended; I believe a great deal of it has not; but it is by means of this debt that the Empire has been to a large extent built up and maintained. Therefore it is not quite fair to treat it as if it had all been blown away in powder and shot, and had nothing left to represent it. That, however, is a parenthesis, and I do not wish to raise unnecessarily controversial points. The deadweight debt amounted, on 1st April, 1905, to £755,000,000; and on 1st April, 1906, owing to very large reductions made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, to £743,000,000. On 1st April, 1909, before the disturbance in the late financial year, it had been reduced to £703,000,000; and on 1st April, 1910, if you eliminate the temporary borrowings of £21,000,000 which will disappear, it was £692,000,000. In other words, in the year it had been reduced, roughly speaking, by £10,000,000. I will say in a moment how. If you look to the other capital liabilities, they were, on 1st April, 1906, £46,000,000, and on 1st April, 1910, £49,000,000; but for the first time in the history of these capital liabilities, a history of something like twenty years, there was in the last financial year not an increase, but a decrease in the capital amount. Between 1st April, 1909, and 1st April, 1910, these liabilities were reduced by no less than £2,000,000. Therefore you have a total reduction of the gross aggregate capital liabilities of the country in the financial year which has just come to an end, of £12,500,000. The larger part of that undoubtedly was provided by the operation of the Sinking Fund of previous years, but of that £12,500,000, substantially, in round figures, £6,000,000 was provided out of the revenue of the year.

Then how do we stand in regard to the year upon which we have now entered, and for which my right hon. Friend has made provision in this Budget? This year, with a fixed debt charge of £24,500,000, which the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the other night, described as inadequate, there will be available £6,500,000—a new Sinking Fund of £4,000,000, and the capital portion of the terminable annuities, part of the dead-weight debt, £2,500,000. The capital portion of the terminable annuities borne on Votes in respect of other capital liabilities has risen to £2,500,000. Therefore the total amount made available out of the revenue of the year for the repayment of principal will be £9,000,000. I do not think that that can be regarded as an unsatisfactory result. No one has ever urged with more persistency than I have the importance of the duty of making provision against debt. I was happy when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in having an expanding revenue, and in some respects in enjoying unexpected savings in expenditure, and I was able to make a very large provision for that purpose. But I think it is a matter of legitimate satisfaction, and it ought to be a common satisfaction to people of all parties and in all quarters of the country, that,' although in common with the other great nations of the world we are being exposed to a concurrent increase in two classes of burden—the burden of national defence, and the burden of social reform— yet we alone among the great countries of the world are able, side by side with making what we believe to be adequate provision for both of those purposes, we are able so largely to reduce the capital liabilities of the country. That is the claim which, under this head, I beg to put forward for our finance, and while I admit there are criticisms both of this or that item of expenditure, and of this or that item of proposed taxation, I have thought it well to put these facts briefly before the Committee in order that they may come, as I hope they will, to the same conclusion as that at which we have arrived, namely, that for all the essential purposes of maintaining our national defences and providing for the real needs of the great masses of the people, our system of finance has weathered the storm, and has proved itself seaworthy and capable of carrying the country to the desired haven.

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