you are imposing a tax like this you are as you The right hon. Gentleman says it is nonsense to call a shilling duty on corn Protection, but what did he say when talking about the import of flour? He said that it was not in the interest of this country that the import of flour should be substituted for the import of grain. Why not? I have always thought that the Free Trade policy was that we should be able to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest. This is an argument in favour of Protection for the millers, and in favour of getting cheaper offals and foodstuffs for the farmers, but my right hon. friend the Member for East Wolverhampton said-Where are going to stop? What a handle you are giving to men like Lord Masham by such a policy as this. What will the silk and the woollen manufacturers say? They will say-Let in the raw material and tax the imports of the manufactured article that we may compete; and the same argument will be used by the cotton manufacturers and the steel manufacturers. But if the right hon. Gentleman wants to get his off als and foodstuffs cheap, why is he putting an import duty on offals and foodstuffs? You are going to tax the farmers for quite as much as you give them. You are going to give 1s. to one set of farmers, but the graziers and the stock farmers and pig raisers you are going to tax to the extent of that which you are putting into the pockets of the corn growers. You are going to tax the labourers on what they eat themselves, on their wheat and flour, and also on the offals they give to their pigs, which go a great way towards paying the rent of their cottages; and, if I may say so, we shall be able to make good play in the agricultural districts with this double taxation. For you tax the poor man's pigs and you allow the American hogs to come in free of duty. From this very point of view the tax is thoroughly bad. The Chancellor of the Exchequer quarrels with those who say he ought to Mr. Ashton. put a further tax on sugar, but I should have said, in spite of what the right hon. Gentleman said, that I think it is a tax he might have doubled, for this reason: Although, as he said, it is not fair to put per cent., he said at another part of his a tax on anything of more than twenty He would have got from the sugar tax a speech that this tax had not been felt. far larger amount, and would have added to a tax where there would have been no temptation to increase. One of the worst features of this tax is the large temptation there will be to increase it. It is as easy to clap on another shilling on the corn duty as it is to put another penny on the Gentleman will reconsider this tax in all income tax. I hope the right hon. its points. During the last forty or fifty years we have made large strides towards prosperity in this country. By the fiery oratory of Mr. Bright, and the quiet eloquence of Mr. Cobden, this House was converted to the true principle of Free Trade. That principle has now existed for fifty years or more, and nobody can say that under it we have not prospered. We have prospered as we never prospered before, and if you reverse that policy you will kill the prosperity. It is lamentable that the right hon. Gentleman should be the man to set the ball rolling down the hill which leads to the abyss of Protection, to the ruin of the country, and to the misery of the people. (7.15.) LORD WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBY (Lincolnshire, Horncastle): It is not my intention to dwell at any length on but personally I believe that any tax, no the question of upon whom this tax will fall, matter what it may be, will, to some extent, directly or indirectly, fall upon stand, we have to face the situation that the wage-earning classes. As I underhelp expressing surprise at hon. Gentlewe require more money, and I cannot ground that it is a return to Protection. men opposite opposing the tax on the Up to the present time the British farmer has always had the worst of the markets because the foreign producer, and not he, has been protected. would be very difficult to prove that No doubt it charges in the way of rates and taxes at the present moment have the effect of putting up the price of wheat and bread. but it is equally difficult to prove that this I have mistaken. All the leaders of the labour movement were strongly opposed to the tax, and were keen advocates of the "free breakfast table." I also was of that party, and voted against the taxation of food then as now. tax on corn will have that effect. looked into the matter, and I find that if an excise duty of 1s. was levied on all imported corn, and instead of paying rates we had to pay an excise duty on every quarter of corn we sold, I should be a considerable gainer. My rates last year amounted to £75, after receiving the help of the Agricultural Rating Bill; and the quantity of corn I sold, at 1s. a quarter, would have represented £38. Therefore, I do not admit that the people can grumble at this tax on the score of Protection. I should be happy to see no tax at all on the food of the people. I think, however, it would be very hard to disprove that the heavy taxation which has to be borne by the farmers and landlords does not have the effect of keeping some land out of cultivation, and preventing other land being farmed to the best of its ability. Personally, I should have thought that for the good of the country it was of far more importance that every acre should be kept under the plough rather than that the American or Argentine exporter should be relieved from having to pay something towards the revenue of the country. Levy an excise duty, and let us off the rates, and we will accept it. Up to the present we have had to pay taxes on all we produced, whereas the foreign producer is allowed to enter into open competition with nothing at all to pay. Every single grain of wheat we grow, and every pound of meat we produce, has to pay a tax in the way of rates and other burdens. So far from considering this a Protective duty, I look upon merely as an excise duty and a matter of justice to the country. it (7.20.) MR. BROADHURST (Leicester): When the Budget was first introduced I prophesied that the commercial classes would compel the Chancellor of the Exchequer to withdraw the proposal to increase the tax on cheques. That prophecy has been fulfilled. If the right hon. Gentleman had followed my advice on other points, he would not have been in the position in which he now finds himself of being strongly attacked from many quarters in regard to the proposed bread tax. In the first debate the Leader of the House declared that up to 1868, when this duty was in existence, none of the leaders of the working people objected to it. The right hon. Gentleman was MR. BROADHURST: But rare instances should not be brought forward to justify a tax on the food of the people. I spent yesterday amongst farm labourers. I met the wife of one of them -a very intelligent woman. She has nine children; her husband's wages are about 12s. a week; and she is now paying 8d. per week more for her breadstuffs in consequence of this tax. That is 2d. per stone on the flour, because most of the women bake their own bread in that district. I then asked this good woman how she fared with regard to sugar. She uses four pounds a week, making an increase of another 2d., or 10d. per week increased taxation on the necessaries of the one family circle, with a wage of 12s. I then asked about the meat. The Chancellor of the Exchequer may not be directly responsible for the price of meat, but it shows the upward tendency of food since the war began. In that part of the country the labouring people rarely see anything but pork; they are not so fortunate as the Gloucestershire folk. Pork has gone up 1d. or 11. per pound during the last two years. You com Allowing 4lbs. per week, which is not an | previously, and therefore the evidence extravagant allowance for a family of I have been able to submit to the eleven persons, that means 1s. 2d. or Treasury Bench on this point is pretty 1s. 4d. increased cost of living to the near complete. The theory of the household per week. Is that fair? Chancellor of the Exchequer that no one Coming to the situation today. I met a would be the worse for this increase of man whose wages are 16s. a week. He taxation is to my mind entirely dispelled has seven or eight children. In conse- by what has actually taken place. quence of the illness of his wife, he has cannot get over the fact that bread is been unable to have his bread baked at dearer, and that other things have been home, and has had to buy it from the stiffened in price in consequence. I baker. The family eat two 4lb. loaves entirely, strongly, and determinedly per day, which means sevenpence extra oppose any tax on the necessaries of per week for bread alone. These are life of the poorest class of workers. facts you cannot get over. When the The other day one of the minor poets right hon. Gentleman proposed this in this House, in answering a dreadful he said munication from a constituent, wrote, on the Scourge poor, that in 1868, when the tax was taken "He who taxes bread should lose his off, there was no diminution in the head." (An HON. MEMBER: He has lost price of bread; therefore, why should his head.) I think it might fairly be there be any rise when it was reimposed? put in that form, and it has been clearly I was really amused at his assumed proved by recent events in the centre of innocence. A reduction in the price of the Conservative County of Lancashire. flour is never instantly followed by a reduction in the price of bread, whereas if the price of flour is increased in the least degree those whose necessities are greatest feel it at once, and most keenly. I cannot understand why the Chancellor of the Exchequer should have been led back into the paths of Protection against his better judgment and all that he has said or written on the matter. remember his election address, and read his speeches; and if I read those speeches aright, the right hon. Gentleman was all national for keeping our expenditure within a reasonable compass in order that taxation should not be increased. He spoke highly of our fiscal system I I Now, are you going to offer exceptional benefits to one class of traders as against other classes? I represent a great industrial community, the stape trade of which is shoe making. Shoes are imported in large quantities from America free of duty. Why should the poor shoemakers of Leicester have their bread and sugar taxed, while the very articles which make it more difficult for them to earn a livelihood are admitted free? What explanation can you give of this fact to these people? What about hosiery? It is well known that large quantities of hosiery are imported from Saxony and other parts of the Continent. Why should the hosiery hands of Leicestershire be taxed on their bread and yet have Saxony goods brought free into this country in competition with their industry? A few years back a great controversy arose in this House with regard to the supply of hosiery goods, made, it was discovered, in some of the prison establishments of Saxony. should these people of Leicester be taxed to assist the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his lame Budget over penditure incurred in a cause which many of the electors strongly condemn and disapprove, and have done so for the last three years? I used to represent Nottingham, the staple trade of which is lace. Why should the lace makers of breadstuff than Nottingham be paying a tax on their the It being half-past seven of clock, the debate was suspended until the evening sitting. EVENING SITTING. FINANCE BILL. Adjourned debate on Amendment to Second Reading [12th May] continued. (9.0.) MR. BROADHURST: I do not simply rely on the cases I was mentioning before the adjournment. In my own home we are paying 2d. a stone more for Mr. Broadhurst. Why you are. bread, while French, Spanish and Swiss would be better than taxing the bread of lace goods are imported into this country the people. Again, we have the land free of charge? You cannot stop where values, the ground rents, royalties, and If you favour one section of way leaves, which might be properly the community at the expense of another taxed, but the Government are avoiding you cannot rest at that point. You must these lest they offend their own followers. go on till you have taxed all round, or if They only put the tax on food because you do not you will be continuing a they think the poor are unorganised and grave injustice to those who have to unable therefore to protect their own meet foreign competition. I am not interests. Take the case of stamps. I advocating a tax on lace, hosiery, or other am not sure that on its merits a special ready-made goods imported from abroad, duty on cheques for sums above £5 or but I am condemning this tax on the £10 might not well have been defended food of the people because it causes one on its merits. But it was absurd and section of the community to suffer at the ridiculous to put it on cheques for lower expense of another section. sums, for it would have been a factious restraint on trade. But the people who deal in cheques are organised and so their protest has proved effective, but the poor farm labourers, the riverside, dockside, and casual labourer has no organisation so he is to be taxed on the first necessities of life. This question of the bread tax is one of the most monstrous I know of. It is well known that la bourers depend for nine-tenths of their existence on bread. That and the vegetables produced in their garden they mainly live upon. Meat is only an occasional incident in their lives, so that in taxing their bread you are putting an unequal proportion of the burden on them as compared with other classes. I sincerely hope there will be such a manifestation from the other side I do not know how the Government will explain the position. If they will only make haste and wind up the business of the session, abandoning some of the terribly of the House as will demonstrate to the Government the weakness of their position, and lead them to drop this tax on bread as they have dropped that on cheques, if not in shame and humiliation, at any rate in such a frame of mind as will prevent them ever again attempting to impose taxation on the very lives of the labouring classes. controversial and destructive measures which they have now under consider ation, and appeal to the country, we will tell them how to get one of their dilemma. They will be able to leave their liabilities and the debts created by their crimes and their folly for other people to pay. And then it will be seen that they can be paid in some other way than by taxing the food of the people. Some of the poorest people in this country are now paying one-twelfth of their present income as additional taxation to pay for the debts created by the Government, and I venture to say a more shameful proposal has not been made in the history of Parliament for the last fifty years. Surely there are other sources of taxation if the Treasury had only had courage to face the difficulty. The Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us that beer, spirits, wine and tobacco will not bear a further increase of even a ld. That is all nonsense, everybody knows that they are capable of still further (9.10.) MR. KEARLEY (Devonport): taxation. Let us take the licensing A fortnight since the Chancellor system. We constantly read of licensed of the Exchequer threw out the premises, the value of which has been gibe that no one had attempted to created by law and by monopoly, in- show in any way that this duty was creasing in value by leaps and bounds, Protective. I must say that on that while the licence charges are ridiculously occasion he gave us a very poor opporlow and absurdly cheap. Why not tunity of doing so, for when he made increase the taxation on these licences the remark he had risen in succession to and make it proportionate to their the great speech delivered by the right value? There is at present no com- hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolparison in the proportion of charge verhampton, and I think he rose quickly for the ordinary beer house and the with the idea of obliterating the effect great taverns which change hands at that that speech had undoubtedly made on £20,000 and even £30,000. Surely that the minds of those who heard it. Now I wish to point out that the tax is a raised the correlative duty on flour to Protective one. The right hon. Gentle- 5d., and the reasons he gave for it man the Member for East Wolverhampton were extraordinary. He said, in the laid down the general proposition as to first place, that the milling circumwhat constitutes a Protective tax. He stances of this couutry had largely pointed out that if you impose at the changed, and that whereas in the past port of entry a tax on an article also milling was done by stones, now it was produced in this country, which you fail done by a much improved process. He to levy here, you are going against the further made the astounding statement principles of Free Trade. That statement that the extraction under the old system has not been refuted; indeed, it is un- of milling was as high as 80 per cent., answerable. while under the modern system it was only 72 per cent. He said it was therefore necessary to equalise the duty as between flour and corn, by raising the correlative duty on flour to 5d. But the extraction by the old system of milling was nothing like so high as he mentioned, and on the other hand under the modern system it is higher than it ever Now, I shall endeavour to prove that this тах is not only Protective but that its intention is Protective. My hon. friend the Member for one of the Divisions of Bedfordshire quoted an extract from a speech delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reply to the representations made to him by a deputation of flour importers in this country. Since then another colleague of the right hon. Gentleman has been expressing his views in the country as to the desirability of putting a Protective duty upon flour. The Minister of Agriculture, in pursuit of the policy he has announced of meaning business in his Department, addressed the farmers of Norwich on Saturday last, and said this tax on flour would do a great deal to bring back the milling industry to this country, and that the tax would not increase the price of food, while it would give the farmer his offal. I regret the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not here. I have made three speeches on the Budget, and he has been absent each time. But I will point out to his custodian that in taxing flour imported into this country he is doing something which he does not perhaps comprehend. Is he aware that the English millers are compelled to mix a certain percentage of the flour which comes from America and Manitoba with the English flour in order to produce the flour which is in demand, and that, consequently, if this impost is decided on the English miller's trade will be injured? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in introducing his Budget, pointed out that formerly when the tax existed the correlative duty on flour was 44d., as against 3d. on wheat. He said the correlation was based on the average quantity of corn it took to make a certain amount of flour. I presume that that is the basis on which he is proceeding at the present moment. But he has Mr. Kearley. was. The correlation that existed under the old duty of 41d. on flour, and 5d. on wheat, was established so long ago as 1828, when the sliding scale on wheat, ranging from 1s. to 25s. per quarter, was fixed by Act of Parliament. In those days, too, the duty was levied not on the basis of weight, but on that of measure, and 381 gallons were estimated to weigh 289 lbs.; consequently 289 lbs. of raw material was estimated to give 196 lbs. of flour. Upon that correlation the duty was fixed and it continued on that basis until the corn laws were abolished. When ther registration duty was finally a bolished in 1864, Mr. Gladstone substituted weight for measure, but it continued to be worked on precisely the same basis. a I think that I may claim to have shown that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was wrong in his statement as to the relative amounts of extraction under the old and the modern systems, and that therefore he was not justified in raising the correlative duty from 41d. to 5d. Taking his own figures, however, I am now going to show that he sets up a discrimination against flour imported from our colonies. Take 100 cwt. of wheat at 3d., and bearing in mind the extraction he suggests, you get 78 cwt. of flour on which the duty is 5d. There remains 28 cwt. of offal. There is a discrimination against flour of 22 per cent., and if you take the flour and offal together you get a discrimination of 50 per cent. Is not that Protection? What |