when more good men were rendered | to the several heads of lighting, water, necessary, fewer good men were willing and sewerage. And since the totals do and available for the duties of local administration. Every year while reform is delayed, the number of local authorities and their official expenses and liabilities are rapidly increasing, and create a rapidly increasing expenditure and difficulty in the way of reform. I appeal to those who are best acquainted with this subject; I appeal to the Ministers themselves who have had charge of matters of this kind, whether there is not wanting that exact and comprehensive knowledge of the facts of local organization, as it now exists, which is an essential preliminary, not merely for devising a remedy, but for knowing what the disease itself is. We are in the dark about the incidence of taxation itself. We do not know, and the Government cannot tell us, into whose pockets the relief will go which is promised even by the Bills of this Session. The right hon. Gentleman has made a most interesting, and, on the whole, valuable statement on the subject; but it is not possible for him to tell us, for instance, how much of the subvention of half the cost of the police will go to the town ratepayers, and how much to the farmer. The Returns relating to local taxation and expenditure now published do not furnish the necessary materials, either for comparing the ordinary expenses of local administration in urban and rural districts, or for determining either in urban or in rural districts the relation between the expenditure for particular purposes, and the incidence of the burden of that expenditure, or for ascertaining the ordinary urban expenditures for the different heads of the so-called sanitary purposes. For example, there appear to be no means of discovering how much of the £6,000,000 spent on the relief of the poor outside the metropolis is borne by urban and how much by rural ratepayers, unless in the few cases where the boundaries of a town are conterminous with those of a union; how much of the millions spent on county police represents. the police employed in urban districts other than boroughs; how much of the £6,000,000 of urban expenditure for "sanitary purposes "belongs to new works, and how much to ordinary expenditure; or how much of ordinary expenditure for "other purposes" belongs Mr. Rathbone not distinguish between places where gas and water are supplied by private companies, and places where gasworks and waterworks are provided by the local authority, they would, in any case, fail to give any real account of the cost of these important items. Further, there are £3,000,000 of receipts, and £2,500,000 of expenditure, with respect to which no indication whatever is given of the sources of the receipts, or of the objects of the expenditure. It is, therefore, impossible either to discover the present incidence of taxation, or to calculate with any precision how far it would be disturbed or altered by the operation of any new scheme which may be proposed. Nor is it probable that any Return which could be obtained, under the present condition of areas and authorities, would furnish the desired information. The right hon. Gentleman has told us the grand total of local indebtedness. The rapid growth of that total may startle and alarm this House; but it will probably not give a moment's uneasiness to a single ratepayer. Why? Because, in the existing condition of things, the ratepayer does not, and cannot, know how much of the burden affects his own town or parish. If the ratepayer's district were the same for all purposes, and were governed by one body, he would know the total debt of his district. He would jealously watch its growth. He would know the reason why for every increase; but, as things are now, the truth is concealed from him. For some purposes he is governed by the County Justices, who have a debt for asylums and prisons; for other purposes he is governed by Guardians, who have a debt for workhouses, and perhaps for drains; for other purposes he is governed by a school board, who have a debt for schools. So with highways, and perhaps with cemeteries, and so on. The ratepayer could not find out the grand total of the indebtedness of his district, if he tried. In fact, he does not live in one district, but in many districts. He could not bring pressure to bear upon his various governing bodies, if he tried. How can he influence all at once the Justices, the Guardians, the School Board, the Highway Board, the Burial Board? This evil of growing indebtedness can only be dealt with locally; but it will not, and it cannot, | under the present law. If a district rebe dealt with locally until its existence mains under the rural sanitary authority and its tendencies have been brought the incidence of taxation is very different home to the ratepayer, and they cannot from what it would be if it were to form be brought home to the ratepayer until itself into a local government district; you make simpler areas and simpler go- and it really amounts to a mere accident verning bodies. More than this, the under which of these authorities your debt will never be brought under con- taxes happen to be levied. Clearly, one trol until owners as well as occupiers or other of these systems of levying taxes are made to feel the burden while it is must be unjust. I will give you another being created, and are both empowered instance. I had a letter from the prinand induced by interest to take an ac- cipal landowner in a parish containing tive part in economical administration. two large villages. The rateable value And really such reforms as the measure of the parish is £34,000. The rural before the House, and the Act which sanitary authority propose to adopt a it proposes to amend, and even the relief drainage scheme for one of these villages offered by the Government to local tax- and its neighbourhood, which would inpayers, are, in the absence of reform of volve a rate of 18. in the pound on the the administration, of very doubtful whole rateable value of the entire parish. benefit. Your facilities for borrowing My friend owns property at the other and your contributions to local taxpayers end of the parish, with the other village are very apt to be swallowed up by the built upon it. He is divided from the expenditure of local authorities too nu- district which it is proposed to drain by merous to be vigilantly watched or effi- two miles, a river, two valleys, and conciently organized. The very creation of sequently two water sheds, and could these loans on unsatisfactory areas is a not by any possibility derive benefit, most serious obstacle to their rectifica- present or future, from the proposal. tion. Just let me give a few instances Yet his property will be subject to 18. of the anomalous, unjust way in which in the pound, or £120 a-year additional our local taxation is at present levied. rates, for improvements from which Take the case of highways, and the neither he nor his tenants can derive House must not consider that I am any benefit whatever. Without the wandering from the question even of facilities for borrowing from the Public loans, for I know a case in which the Loans Commissioners, works of this kind excessive charge for highways on a dis- would not be attempted. In giving them trict has led to borrowing money for the means of executing such works at work that really ought to have been the charge of future generations, we are paid out of current taxation. Take a bound to take some security that the district lying between one district con- proceeds of the loans are put under the taining coal mines and a manufacturing charge of authorities more efficient than town. A road runs through it, which our present ones, and that the taxation passes through this district which is not to repay them should be more equitably relieved by the rates levied on the mines levied than it now is. Such anomalies or the town. The tax upon that inter- are constantly occurring, and will inmediate district is enormous, and the crease rapidly with the spread of the benefits which it derives are very small call for sanitary improvement. They indeed. In some instances as much as began with the towns; they are now 58. in the pound will be levied for the extending to the suburban and country support of that road, of which the in- districts; and I assert, and should at habitants make very little use, and from the right time be prepared to show, that which they derive only an indirect benefit. such injustice is absolutely unnecessary, I am aware that the Government have and that in applying a remedy to it we made a very creditable attempt to remedy should remove some of the greatest diffithat grievance in the Highway Bill; but culties in the way of obtaining suitable if that Bill ever comes on it will be per- areas and suitable authorities for local fectly easy to show that, for want of government. This is not an occasion to well-arranged areas and County Boards, go into detail in these matters, but I it is a very imperfect measure, and could would again urge that the Government only half meet the injustice which it should appoint a Royal Commission to seeks to remedy. Take another case assist them in their investigations. A great deal of thought has been bestowed | the only remedy for the state of things upon this subject during the last five or which the hon. Member had described six years, and such a Commission would was to be found in the good feeling of find at its disposal an immense amount the owners of property. If they were of practical and useful suggestions. not willing to come to the relief of those Having devoted for many years very who held property under them, he did close attention to the subject, I do not not see how the Legislature could interhesitate to say that there is not a diffi- fere in the matter. The present Bill culty attaching to the improvements re- promoted and instigated still further the quired which cannot be met by simply local expenditure of the country, and using the results of our own experience. permitted the Government to raise money Every difficulty which affects the country for the purpose of making loans for that generally has in one form or another object. Before they stimulated local exbeen met by experiments in local Acts penditure, and prepared to raise money or otherwise, the results of which we which would have to be repaid, they have only to see, and in no case shall ought carefully to adjust the means by we be obliged to resort to any untried which that money was to be collected. theories or experiments. This being That, however, had not been done. the case, I conceived that this Govern- They had not taken the preliminary step ment, possessing as it does among its of ascertaining their measure of value supporters an unusual number of men for the purpose of rating property for trained in the work of local government, local taxation. This, he thought, was are utterly inexcusable if they delay any creditable neither to the House nor to the longer systematically to consider and country. He had a very serious grievundertake the reform of our local admi-ance to complain of in reference to the nistration and taxation. In all my experience of and investigations into the subject, I have seen no reason to despair of local self-government in England. On the contrary, I feel strongly that it is the very vital source of the manhood and vigour of our individual and national life; and I think it will be a disgrace to our statesmen, and a discredit to the practical common sense of Englishmen, if we allow it to remain any longer in its present state of confusion, inefficiency, and waste. Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question." MR. J. G. HUBBARD said, it was impossible to deny there was a great deal of truth in the remark of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) as to the incidence of the rates gradually accumulating on the occupiers throughout the country. He feared, however, that Mr. Rathbone progress of a Bill which he introduced early in the present Session for the purpose of relieving, not only his own constituents, but the inhabitants of the metropolis generally, from a burden imposed on them in the matter of Imperial taxation. Under the imposition of the house tax the whole country was liable to be taxed upon the annual value of houses; but by the Metropolis Valuation Act that annual value was converted into gross rental, and this change made a difference of 20 per cent to his constituents and imposed a tax in addition to the house duty wrongfully upon £5,000,000, the sum by which the gross value of the house property of the metropolis exceeded the net or rateable value. This was the result of the persistent encroachment of fiscal rapacity. With regard to the Bill itself, he thought the large funds which the Government held in hand in the shape of savings-bank deposits might very properly be employed in making these loans. He thought it would be a very advantageous arrangement, and he was not aware that there was any constitutional impediment to it. He did not wish to prevent the Bill going into Committee, but he hoped some consideration would be given to the points to which he had drawn attention. MR. GOSCHEN said, he did not wish to retard the public business, and there fore he should be very brief in his re-arrangement of rents throughout the remarks. At the same time, it must be country. In a large part of the country remembered that this was a somewhat the farms were not rack-rented, and the important and quite a new occasion farmers feared that if the rates were when they had placed before them in a divided between landlords and tenants very interesting manner the general there would be a general re-adjustment state of local finance in the country by of the rents. It was said that in the end the right hon. Gentleman the President the rates were really paid by the owner. of the Local Government Board. The That was, no doubt, true as a general Government, therefore, might fairly ex- principle; but where there had been a pect them to ask any questions with large increase of the rates the increase regard to the progress of local taxation chiefly fell on the occupier, who, as a which were suggested by their Local rule, was not in a position to propose a Taxation Budget. With regard to the change in the terms of his agreement Resolution moved by the hon. Member with his landlord. And now, adverting for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), he would to the interesting statement of the Presay the subject was a most important sident of the Local Government Board, one, which thoroughly deserved the which showed in a graphic manner the attention of the House. He had done progress of expenditure and of rating in great service in ventilating it; but, at different parts both of town and country, the same time, he (Mr. Goschen) trusted and the increase or decrease which had that he would not divide the House upon taken place, he would venture to call the present occasion, because no action attention to the remarkable fact stated could be taken upon it at present. He by the right hon. Gentleman, that the would remind the House that a Com- unremunerative rates had at length bemittee had examined into the matter in gun to decrease, while remunerative rates 1870, and that the majority reported in were increasing. He recommended that favour of a certain proportion of rates fact to the attention of the Local Taxabeing placed on the owners as well as tion Committee, which sat in London, on the occupiers. This was not, there- and boasted that they had prevented the fore, a new idea of the hon. Member for passing of 16 Bills which would add to Hackney; it had the sanction of a the burdens of the ratepayers. Parliamentary Committee; and though thought the Chancellor of the Exchethere was some difference of opinion on quer last night intended to give a reply that Committee, and though certain re- to a question which he put to him when solutions were carried by a majority of he said that the relief now given was one, there was among the minority a "the crowning point." He ventured considerable adhesion of opinion that a again to appeal to him, so that there certain proportion of rates should be might be no misunderstanding, and to placed on the owner as well as on the ask if he was able frankly to state to the occupier. He hoped the Chancellor of House that the programme of relief the Exchequer when he spoke would not, sketched and drawn for him by the hon. even at that period of the Session, en- Baronet the Member for South Devon courage the idea that it was absolutely (Sir Massey Lopes) had been at length impossible to deal with the question. carried out. There were circumstances The question well deserved the con- in the future over which he had no sideration of the Government. It was control, and it would be wrong to press difficult to know how to get at the him unduly on this point; but he should owner, but there was the precedent of be glad to know whether they might the Income Tax. It was against the understand by this expression, "the law for an owner to contract himself out crowning point,' ," that they had now of it, and the occupier was at liberty to arrived at the time when those who had deduct the tax from the owner. It was insisted with great pertinacity on relief said that this was a question which did being given from local burdens were not excite much attention in the country fairly satisfied that the Government had districts. The reason why the farmers redeemed their promise to the ratedid not feel much interest in a division payers, and that from this time forward of the rates between landlord and tenant they would stand on clear ground in was, that they were afraid that its con- that respect. He understood that they sequence would be a disturbance and repudiated the idea that the last boon He was, in fact, to be considered as a small | Parliament should be cognisant of the instalment for the agricultural interest. manner in which the Commissioners He hoped the right hon. Gentleman exercised the discretion given to them in would be explicit on this point. The apportioning the loans under special President of the Local Government Acts, the administration of which was Board gave the rates at 28. 9d. in the entrusted to them. This was the prinpound in agricultural portions of the cipal point of detail in connection with country, and he now put them at 2s. 6d., the Bill, which would be open to conwhich he considered was not unduly sideration when it got into Committee. high. The President of the Local Go- Her Majesty's Government had reason vernment Board was speaking as the to feel gratified generally at the manner authoritative organ of the Government in which the House had appreciated when he expressed that view, and he their endeavours, and at the reception hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer which the clear and succinct statement would concur in the view he had stated. of his right hon. Friend had been reMR. THOMSON HANKEY, referring ceived. He hoped, however, that the to the difficulty which had arisen as to House would not yield to the temptathe construction of the Act of 1875, ex- tions to discuss all the questions of local pressed a hope that the opportunity finance and taxation, running as they would be taken of inserting a clause in did into the question of local administhis Bill which would extend the discre- tration. The hon. Member for Hackney tion of the Public Works Loan Com- (Mr. Fawcett) had raised a question missioners-if such was the intention of very pertinent to the subject of the Bill, the Legislature-to restrict the term for but which, if discussed fully, would lead which loans were granted. The term of into a very wide field. He would 50 years was considered too long, and 30 abstain from following the hon. Member years, which was the usual period for and those who succeeded him into the which loans were granted in Scotland, question of the incidence of rates upon would be preferable. He hoped the the owner and occupier; but he would Chancellor of the Exchequer would con- say in answer to the right hon. Gentlesider this point. man opposite (Mr. Goschen), when he asked him to abstain from committing the Government as to any division of rates between owner and occupier, that he was not only making a very moderate request, but one which had been answered by anticipation, because on more than one occasion the present Government had passed measures in which the principle of allowing the tenant to deduct a portion of the rates from the rent was recognized, as in the case of the rating of woods and mines. In the Highways Bill, now on the Table, the same principle had been carried out, and they would be always ready to act on that principle whenever it was applicable. Now, some distinction should be made between sums raised by way of loan for the public service and for what might be called public improvements, which might be distinguished as remunerative and unremunerative. right hon. Gentleman had called attention to the fact that it appeared from the statement of his right hon. Friend that the burdens of the country in respect of unremunerative expenditure had, in fact, retrograded, and he took occasion to express a hope that we had THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER would first of all pay a tribute of thanks to the hon. Gentleman and the other Commissioners for the assistance they gave in undertaking this work. Representations had been made to the Treasury by the Public Works Loan Commissioners within the last few days on this very point; but, after taking the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, he saw there was some difficulty, and it might be advisable to take the opportunity afforded by this Bill of carrying out the object to which he had referred. What he proposed to do was to commit the Bill pro formá, to meet the points which his hon. Friend had suggested. He would say generally that, in introducing the Bill, what the Government desired was, as far as possible, to divest the Treasury of the inconvenient control and power of granting relaxations which it possessed under the old system. The Government thought that there were questions as to the manner in which the Public Works Loan Commissioners had exercised their duty which ought to be discussed in Parliament, for they believed it would be most desirable that Mr. Goschen The |