Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: One very striking circumstance about this Debate up to the present moment is that it has been almost entirely confined to the one problem of the National Debt, and the methods by which it should be mot. We on these benches also concern ourselves with the problem of the National Debt and we have a solution which is fundamentally different from either of those proposed this afternoon—a...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: If the hon. Member had waited, I was going to deal with that point. There are £4,000,000,000 left, and it is possible, on the very optimistic assumption that you can convert to a lower rate of interest by 1 per cent., to save £40,000,000 a year, but there is another factor here which, I venture to say, the Chancellor of the Exchequer entirely missed out of his calculations, and that is...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: I am coming to that—and that this nation certainly has not done so. May I take the interjection made by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Wallhead). In 1817, after the Napoleonic Wars, we were left with a National Debt of £850,000,000. We entered upon a period of unexampled economic and financial growth. We entered upon a period of extraordinary ease for the Chancellors of...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: There was the Sinking Fund in operation all the time, and yet in 1914 the National Debt was still £700,000,000. It had been reduced by only £150,000,000. I admit that part of this was due to new borrowing, due to the South African and Crimean Wars, but only about £200,000,000. Of the original Debt left in 1817, £500,000,000 was still unpaid in 1914. What does this mean? It means that,...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: That is no answer to my argument that the Sinking Fund is no alternative. What does all this lead to? I say that, if we are depending upon Sinking Funds, we are going to be left with an absolutely impossible situation. Hon. Members opposite ask for a reduction of taxation in order to prevent the decline of industry and the stagnation of trade, but what I ask is this: What can there be more...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: 42. asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what, on the average, is approximately the proportion of the income payable out of the public revenue to princes of Royal blood which is allowed to be deducted in accordance with Rule 10 of the rules applicable to Schedule E, of 8 and 9 Geo. V, c. 40, before arriving at the net amount for the purposes of Income Tax and Super-tax?
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that reply does not mean, in non-technical language, that the Royal Princes pay Income Tax and Super-tax on only a third of their income from public revenues, and that four-fifths of their income is free from taxation?
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that that means that as the income of the Royal Princes increases the allowance increases in proportion, so that if the income increases from £10,000 to £25,000, only £5,000 will be paid in Income Tax, as in the case of the Duke of York?
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: I beg to second the Amendment. I should like to begin my remarks by referring to the speech that was made by the First Lord of the Admiralty, and by explaining why I do not think it was any real reply to the criticisms against these Estimates which we have to make. The First Lord based the whole of his comparisons between the Estimates of this year and the Estimates of last year or the year...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: I think it would be a misfortune for Debates in this House if the only Members who spoke on the Services were those who happened to have professional knowledge. I do not think it is really a fair jeer from the other side because a number of speakers who understand the subject—
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: But we are justified in speaking on these matters from the point of view of economy, and I shall, therefore, say something about this question, and the relationship between the different Services and the Ministry of Defence which has been discussed. When I was in the House some years ago I used, for the sake of information, to listen to the technical discussions on the Army and the Navy. In...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Twickenham said: Let the Air Service take a battleship worth £8,000,000, and let me attack it at a distance of 2,000 yards with torpedo-carrying aeroplanes, and I will guarantee that the ship shall be hit four times out of five. I am bound to say that it seems to me a pity that such a right hon. Gentleman should be buried in St. Martins-le-Grand, and...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: I tried to prevent it, and, in so doing, I was vindicated by my constituents. So far as I am personally concerned, I underwent infinitely greater danger than the hon. and gallant Member who has interrupted me.
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: Our Government sent representatives to Paris able to make what peace they liked. They made peace, and in spite of what they promised, we find now that there are more armed men in Europe and a much larger military expenditure than before the War. In this country the Army, Navy and Air Force Estimates amount to £125,000,000, and there can be no substantial reduction in those Estimates until...
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: 89. asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what approximately, down to the latest available date, are the proportions of Income Tax collected at the source and from individuals, respectively?
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: 26. asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Admiralty has come to any final decision on the subject of presenting the Estimates classified as to the purposes of expenditure on the same plan as the Army Estimates, in accordance with the recommendation of the Select Committee on National Expenditure?
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: Was not that recommendation made two years ago? Is it not now time to deal with the question?
Mr Hastings Lees-Smith: 86. asked the Home Secretary if, in the case of Mrs. Maud Hibbert, recently sentenced to nine months' hard labour for attempted suicide, after a charge against her of murder made because she had agreed to die with another person had been withdrawn, he has received a petition for the remission of the remainder of the sentence signed by a large number of influential men and women and many...