Balfour reiterated his well-known views on the subject. With the Government, as with the Front Opposition Bench, the question must be an open one, but he hoped that the Royal Commissioners' inquiry would have the result of so far enlightening public opinion as to render it possible for the House to deal practically with the subject.

Mr. J. Redmond (Waterford), while acknowledging the sympathetic tone of Mr. Balfour's speech, denied that the Government had any right to treat the question as an open one. The appointment of a commission now he regarded as an evasion of solemn pledges on the part of Unionist Ministers; still he did not wish to discredit the inquiry, and advised the withdrawal of the amendment. Leave for this was refused, and the amendment, after a division on the closure, was negatived without a division. On the whole, however, the general effect of the debate was to produce the impression of some development of opinion in favour of the Roman Catholic claim. It is right to mention here that the authorities of Trinity College, Dublin, had intimated shortly after Easter, in response to representations from the junior Fellows, their entire readiness to afford facilities for the religious instruction of Roman Catholic students, if they should be informed that such was the wish of the hierarchy of that Church.

The second reading of the annual bill for the legalisation of marriage with a deceased wife's sister, which measure in 1900 had been read a second time by a large majority in the House of Lords, but not considered at all by the Lower House, was moved (April 24) in the Commons by Sir W. B. Gurdon (Norfolk, N.). The debate, considering the triteness of the subject, was a fairly interesting one, and though no really new arguments could well be adduced on either side, the cases for and against the bill were stated with force and point. The mover incidentally observed that the Treasury at any rate did not recognise the affinity between a man and his sister-in-law, for if property were bequeathed by the former to the latter duty had to be paid on the 10 per cent. scale of legacies to strangers in blood. He also urged that by legalising here marriages which already were legal in the colonies an Imperial spirit would be shown and a longstanding grievance removed. In moving the rejection of the bill Mr. Griffith Boscawen (Tunbridge Wells, Kent) contended that in America and in some colonies where this violation of the law of affinity had been sanctioned the great principle of oneness of flesh and blood between husband and wife was no longer recognised, and facilities for divorce were multiplied to an alarming extent. Sir H. Fowler (Wolverhampton, E.) spoke with much vigour and earnestness for, and Lord H. Cecil (Greenwich) with intense conviction against, the bill.

In the end, the closure having been carried, the bill was read a second time by 279 to 122. No Minister took part in the debate, but Mr. Ritchie, Mr. Jesse Collings and Mr. Austen Chamberlain

H

voted for the bill, and Sir M. Hicks-Beach, Mr. Brodrick, Sir J. Gorst, Sir R. Finlay and Lord Cranborne against it—the question of the alteration of the marriage law being, like that of the Irish Universities, an "open one for members of the Government. The largeness of the majority, which was swelled by a number of Irish Nationalists, for the second reading availed nothing to secure the further progress of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill.

Ways and Means and Supply occupied most of the Government time in the Commons during the last days of April. At the morning sitting of the 23rd the resolution raising the income tax from 1s. to 1s. 2d. in the pound was discussed. It was not seriously opposed. While Mr. J. Lowther (Isle of Thanet, Kent) censured the increase in the tax and advocated his scheme for raising the funds required for the public service by a system of preferential trading relations within the Empire, Mr. Buxton (Poplar) held that to defray the cost of the war a still larger addition to the income tax should have been proposed, although he would have lightened the burden of the poorer contributors by extending the existing graduation scale.

In the course of his reply on the debate, the Chancellor of the Exchequer argued that to make the death duties vary according to the variation of the income tax, as Mr. Moulton (Launceston, Cornwall) had suggested, would be extremely unjust. For his part he did not look forward to a permanent income tax of 14d. in the pound, for he hoped that the heavy imposts levied this year would open the eyes of the people to the virtue of economy. The proposal made in some quarters that he should exempt incomes under 500l. from paying the additional 2d. he refused to entertain, believing that by granting such an exemption he would be guilty of an act of financial immorality, and lay himself open to the charge of purchasing the support of those who would be benefited. To raise the limit of total exemption would be, in his opinion, a great error, and with regard to graduation he held that the present limit of 7001., above which no abatement was allowed, was reasonable. In the case of small incomes, the relief given under the present system of graduation was very considerable. He would not say that at a future time further relief might not be given, but he certainly could not propose anything of the kind this year. That the income tax was a perfect tax he did not affirm. But by the operation of the death duties a fair distribution of burden was effected as between persons who worked for their living and persons who derived incomes from property, and on the whole he did not believe that any country had ever devised a better system of direct taxation than ours.

The income-tax resolution was carried by 363 to 88. On the following evening (April 25) the resolution continuing the duty of sixpence in the pound on tea was considered.

Sir H. S. King (Hull, Central) alleged that the tea industry

in India was being taxed out of existence. Mr. Broadhurst (Leicester) suggested, in the interest of the poor consumers, that tea should be taxed according to value rather than weight; and Mr. W. Redmond (Clare, E.), who argued that the duty pressed hardly on the Irish, moved to reduce it by 2d. The Chancellor of the Exchequer attributed the present unsatisfactory condition of the tea industry in India and Ceylon more to overproduction than to last year's increase of taxation. Ireland, he said, had been carefully considered in the framing of the Budget, and the coal tax would not touch her. Ad valorem duties on tea had caused so much confusion in the past that they had been abandoned with the consent of everybody concerned. The reduction was negatived by 221 to 140, and the resolution passed by 221 to 130. The resolutions continuing the existing Customs duties on tobacco, beer and spirits were also agreed to after a motion to exempt Ireland from the tobacco duty had been defeated by 278 to 56.

With almost irresistible appropriateness, as a response to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's repeated observations on the duty of economy in public expenditure, there was raised in Committee of Supply (April 26), on the vote of 32,4431. to complete the sum required for the law officers' department, the question of the method of remunerating those members of the Government. Mr. Asquith (Fife, E.) supported an amendment for the reduction of the vote, as emphasising his regret that the Government had departed from the good rule introduced by their predecessors, under which inclusive salaries were paid to the law officers. The combined salaries of the two law officers in the last year of Lord Rosebery's Government, he said, amounted to 19,000l., but in every year since then that sum had been largely exceeded. He could not imagine a fairer case for economy. Mr. Balfour argued that the mixed system of payment by salary and fees was more rational than the system of payment by salary alone and more advantageous to the public. If the country wished to secure the services of the pick of the legal profession it must pay the law officers an amount equal to that which they would earn by practising privately. It was of the highest importance that the law officers should keep in constant touch with the courts, and it was probable that, if they were paid by salary only, they would delegate a good deal of their contentious work to their juniors.

There was, however, a certain touch of frivolousness-at least so it seemed-in Mr. Balfour's treatment of the subject, and more than one independent Ministerialist joined in the protest against a system which had brought up the sums paid to the law officers by steady increments from 19,000l. in 1894-5 to 30,000l. in 1899-1900. The Chancellor of the Exchequer explained that he looked carefully after the fees charged when they were of at all abnormal dimensions, and had "continually reduced them." He added the expression of his honest belief

that the system of payment by fixed salary for ordinary services, and fees for exceptional services, such as the Venezuela arbitration, was the best system. But the Government majority dropped to 33-the division showing 185 to 152.

Returning to the Budget (April 29) the House of Commons, in Committee of Ways and Means, declined, by 342 to 56, to entertain a Nationalist protest against the re-imposition of the existing excise duty on spirits. Sir M. Hicks-Beach admitted that the tax on spirits did pro tanto press more heavily on Ireland than on Great Britain; but the pressure of other taxes was greater in Great Britain than in Ireland, and he felt bound to ask for the maintenance of the spirit duty at its existing level, at any rate for another year.

In replying on a discussion on the report of the resolution authorising the War Loan of 60,000,000l., which he had held that it was the most advantageous course to raise all at once, the Chancellor of the Exchequer mentioned that he had issued half the loan to certain large financial firms in the City in order to make sure of success, and he rather prided himself on having arranged to secure as the price 944, considering that on the morning following the Budget statement Consols touched 944. He did not believe that the issue of the loan had had the effect of depressing securities, as was alleged in some quarters. The knowledge that a large loan was impending did, no doubt, depress securities, but since the issue they had risen again.

The resolution was confirmed by 213 to 128, and a still larger majority-251 to 148-confirmed that authorising the sugar duty-Ministerialist members having probably begun to realise that an unfavourable impression was likely to be produced in many quarters with regard to the firmness of the national purpose if the Government could not count on more than a half or a third of their normal majority in support of taxes required to pay a limited portion of the expenses of the war. Before the vote was taken on the sugar duty, the Chancellor of the Exchequer took occasion to express the great pleasure with which he had observed the reception of this tax by the working classes, on whom he had recognised that it would impose a considerable burden. He appealed to the traders, as to the "pillage" of whom one Member had complained, to view the matter with equal patriotism. He indicated a readiness to do anything that could be done to avoid needless inconvenience in the methods of levying the tax on manufactured articles containing sugar; and as to the mode of taxing the raw article, he maintained that though the scale, which was based on the amount of crystallisable sugar in a pound of so-called raw sugar, might seem complicated, it would soon be found quite simple, being based on the custom of the trade.

Private members had a good day on Wednesday, May 1. A measure called the Education (Scotland) Bill, the general object of which was to assimilate the Scottish with the English

law in regard to the conditions of partial and total exemption from school attendance, and the early employment of children in factories, was supported by Scottish members of both parties, and accepted with some qualification by the Lord Advocate, Mr. Graham Murray (Bute). It was read a second time and subsequently ran a sufficiently smooth course through the Standing Committee on Law, in the Commons again, and through the House of Lords, and ultimately was added to the statute book. Not so fortunate was a measure requiring that persons in charge of boilers or steam engines (certain classes excepted) should have their competence certified as the result of a Home Office examination. This also was read a second time (May 1) on the motion of Mr. Jacoby (Derbyshire, Mid), Mr. Collings (Bordesley, Birmingham), Under-Secretary to the Home Office, offering no opposition for the Government, but some depreciatory predictions as to the advantages likely to result from such legislation. It was referred to a strongly representative and practical select committee, and reported thence without amendment three weeks before the end of the session, but was crowded out a rather melancholy example of the inefficiency of the Parliamentary machine.

On May 2, whence it was adjourned to May 6, came the full-dress debate on the coal tax, which, though the issue, if it had ever been in doubt, had been set at rest by the threat of a strike, was not unworthy of the House of Commons. It was opened by Sir W. Harcourt (Monmouthshire, W.), who denounced the proposed duty as worse than a protective duty, because an export duty must in the first instance be a burden upon British trade. In many places on the Continent an addition of much less than a shilling a ton to the cost of our coal would give our rivals an advantage. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir W. Harcourt maintained, was taxing a falling trade, a thing which he had said he would not do. Already mines were being closed and men were being thrown out of employment. It was upon the miner that the burden of the tax would fall, for when competition was keen and profits were small the only reduction that could be effected was in wages. A better way of obtaining money would be by saving the sum given in relief of agricultural rates. In order to obtain a comparatively trifling addition to the revenue the Government had disorganised and dislocated one of the greatest trades of the country. It was the bounden duty of the Opposition to offer a determined and continuous resistance to this proposal.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer cautioned Members against making the mistake of regarding an export duty on coal as they would regard export duties on corn, cotton, or timber. He said that the real issue before the House was whether the export trade in coal could bear this tax of a shilling a ton. For his part he believed that the foreigner would pay a very considerable proportion of the tax; and in any case it would not be necessary