at some place in Germany, after having the sanitary improvements that had been alluded to the vast number of the work-made, it was lamentable to think of the men employed, added that to be sure many frightful death-rate where large numbers of them were without shoes or stockings. of the people were gathered together. For Now it might be that some of our fellow- the last twenty years there had hardly countrymen expended a portion of their been in such cases any decrease of the earnings in clothing themselves and their death-rate. That was a most serious thing families instead of applying it to the pur- for their consideration. These men had poses of technical education; and if they been stimulated by considerable wages to did so he thought the fact was very much create an amount of produce and wealth to their credit. He was glad that the noble that was almost unparalleled, and it was Lord had agreed to grant a Committee on astonishing how the demands of the world this subject. His own opinion was that had been supplied. These men, too, who if they would give the people of this coun- were so ignorant, were sent for all over try a good elementary education those who the world to teach these "highly-educated had better heads than others would get people abroad." He was anxious that the scientific education that would enable every means should be taken to improve them to lift themselves out of the crowd. the education and condition of every class; But they could not make seamen except but there was something at the bottom of upon the sea, and they could not make this cry about the ignorance of our workskilled workmen except in a workshop. people which had been raised during the They would only deceive themselves if last two years which he could not exactly they thought they could train English see or understand. The right hon. Genworkmen in schools to be better workmen tleman the Member for Merthyr (Mr. than they now were. He should wish to Bruce) talked about the agricultural schools see them become better workmen if pos- of Zurich, but where, he (Mr. Henley) sible, because if they were better work- asked, was agriculture in a more advanced men they would be better citizens. But state than in England? Where was land of all those who had talked about foreign to be found of the same fertility which competition abroad, not one had asserted produced a greater amount of produce? that any particular process had been exe- Calling men hard names was not a ready cuted by a number of foreign workmen way to draw them, and without they had because they had been technically edu- the people with them it was useless to cated. It leaked out in all these cases attempt anything for their benefit; but that these men had worked longer hours he was sorry to say that during the last for less money than our own workmen. few years too many hard names had been That might be the secret of the competi- applied to many of our fellow-countrymen. tion for anything he knew. The hon. These artizans had certainly not had a Member for Banbury (Mr. Samuelson) said fair share of that wealth which they had something about these people abroad giving helped to create. It was only about a great attention to small economies. It ap- year and a half ago, in connection with peared that he thought our English work- the iron trade at the East End, they heard men quite above these small economies. they must meet the "world's wages. They could not shut their eyes to the vast Some gentlemen went over to Belgium, race which this country had been running and they published a string of figures. for twenty years, in which men with They said that things were cheaper in money and men without money, but with Belgium but that the work was not so credit, had run into all sorts of trades, good. He had never seen that the foreign their object being to find men who knew workman, man for man, could turn out that which they themselves did not know. more work by the same process than the It was not possible that these men should English workman. But the masters got find all that they wanted in that direc- the work done for less money. He doubted tion. It was, however, marvellous to see whether, man for man, our men would the extension of manufactures in this not work the foreigners' heads off. He country during the last twenty years, to could only say that he never saw them know how the workmen had been found, put to anything that they did not do it. how they had adapted themselves to the new state of things, and to see the wealth that they had created. Notwithstanding the wealth these men had created and MR. T. T. PAGET merely rose to say that the right hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Bruce), in the remarks he made, did not convey to his mind the idea that he he had reason to know that immense efforts were making in the University of Oxford for the express purpose of enabling it to take its proper place in this country in teaching the general principles of science to all comers; and at the present time that University was spending £10,000 on a department of natural philosophy, limited strictly to the subject of physics. He believed Cambridge was equally alive to the importance of scientific teaching. intended to cast any slur upon Leicester- [ (Mr. Baines) had cast some blame on the shire. That right hon. Gentleman merely Universities for not doing their part; but drew a comparison between the position of the canton of Zurich and that of the county of Leicester, as affirmative of the advantages which might be derived in the case of that county from the adoption of a system of education which he was known so warmly to advocate, and of which he (Mr. Paget) was a warm supporter. He was not an advocate of all that which was called technical education, because he thought that it was in some measure a work of supererogation. Such MR. SAMUELSON, in replying, said, was the opinion he entertained of the skill he was glad the noble Lord had acceded and knowledge possessed by the British to the inquiry he had proposed. With ! workmen, that he had no fear that they regard to the introduction of workshops would not be able to compete with the into schools, which the hon. Member for workmen of any country in Europe, if Manchester (Mr. Bazley) had supposed only they received the elementary educa- that he favoured, he had never contemtion which would be afforded them by the plated any such plan, which was being scheme propounded by the right hon. gradually abandoned in the Continental Member for Merthyr. He did not believe schools. As to Grants for middle-class that his native country was behind other education, he had not proposed the introcounties in regard to education; but he duction of the system, as the noble Lord believed that the present system of edu- appeared to think, for, in point of fact, cation might be greatly extended and such Grants were already made in several ameliorated. Much knowledge on the sub-cases-as, for instance, to the School of ject, no doubt, might be obtained from our Continental neighbours, and with a compulsory rate, great advantages would result. MR. ACLAND, after pointing out that farmers were the only class who had prosecuted technical education for the last twenty years, remarked, that the farmer and the manufacturing implement maker, the engineers and the manufacturers very well understood their own business namely, how to make money; but he was convinced that the time had arrived when merely the art of money making would not enable this country to hold its position. In addition to capital and skill it had become necessary to diffuse amongst their workmen a sound scientific knowledge. He was of opinion that next to a good general education a knowledge of mathematics lay at the foundation of the manufacturing prosperity of this country. In three Registrar General's divisions lying on the coal field from Bristol to the north of Yorkshire there were 7,000,000 inhabitants, and instead of there being, according to calculations which had been made, about 70,000 boys in the public schools of that district learning mathematics, there were only 2,098, while the entire number learning natural science, such as it was, was only 1,009. The hon. Member for Leeds Chemistry and the School of Mines, and a contribution towards the endowment of a chair of engineering had been promised to Edinburgh; but he regarded it as a proper subject for inquiry whether grants of this kind should be continued or increased. As to extended hours of labour, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Henley) in deprecating that system, believing that such labour was in the end the most expensive. Motion agreed to. Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the provisions for giving instruction in theoretical and applied Science to the Industrial Classes."(Mr. Samuelson.) And, on March 27, Committee nominated as follows:-Mr. ACLAND, Mr. AKROYD, Mr. BAGNALL, Mr. BAZLEY, Mr. HENRY AUSTIN BRUCE, Mr. BEECROFT, Lord FREDERIC CAVENDISH, Mr. DIXON, Mr. GRAVES, Mr. GREGORY, Mr. THOMAS HUGHES, Sir CHARLES LANYON, Mr. M'LAGAN, Lord ROBERT MONTAGU, Mr. EDMUND POTTER, Mr. POWELL, Mr. READ, and Mr. SAMUELSON:-Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum. POST HORSE AND CARRIAGE LICENCES DUTIES, AND HACKNEY CARRIAGE DUTIES. MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE. Acts relating thereto read levied on stage coaches and omnibuses, in The annual licence duty, passengers. addition to the mileage duty, presented this difference, that three guineas were charged for those drawn by two or more horses, and 10s. only on those drawn by one horse and not carrying more than eight passengers. The licence duty was paid annually in the first week in November; but the mileage duty was paid monthly, the proprietors being compelled to send in monthly returns of the licence number on each omnibus belonging to them, the number of journeys run by each on every day during the month, the number of miles of each journey, the total number of miles and the amount of duty. Hon. Members might have observed men at different corners of the streets in the metropolis taking down upon slips of paper the number on the plate of each vehicle as it passed; these slips were sent in daily or weekly to Somerset House, to check the returns of the omnibus proprietors; and the cost of the ten or fifteen stations where these men took their stand was something like £1,500 or £2,000 a year. It followed, from what he had already stated, that the omnibus proprietors or their agents in the metropolis had to attend at Somerset House and make payments thirteen times a year for the duties. Throughout the country eight payments sufficed; but the House could imagine the amount of labour involved in furnishing and checking these returns. Ireland he excepted from the calculation altogether, because the system there was not identical with that prevailing in Great Britain. The post horse and carriage licence duties were levied differently in the country and in the metropolis. Hackney carriages, cabs and flys plying for hire in the public streets were taxed under these duties in every city and town throughout Great Britain, with the single exception of London. These duties were levied on an entirely wrong principle of taxation, and one which aggravated the difference between the man of capital and the man of small means. Although an alteration was made in the scale of duties in 1866, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Lancashire, which somewhat mitigated the evil, yet the evil still existed, because the larger the business carried on the less in proportion was the duty paid. For example, under the present scale of duties, the proprietor of one horse and one carriage paid £5 per annum; of twenty horses and fifteen carriages, £70 MR. ALDERMAN LAWRENCE said, that in proposing a large reduction in these taxes on locomotion, and that a great change should be made in the mode of charging, and in the manner of collecting these duties, he was aware that he was considered by some to be infringing to a certain extent upon the prerogative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, doubts having been expressed whether any Member who was not a Minister of the Crown was competent to move such a Resolution. He could assure the House, however, that he should confine his Motion within Parliamentary rules and regulations. The taxes to which his Motion referred were levied most unfairly and unequally; were collected at great expense to the Revenue, and involved a considerable loss of time, labour, and money to the parties whom they affected; and acted as restrictions opposed to the first principles of Free Trade, being alike injurious to the trader and the public. The House, and possibly the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, might be surprised to hear that these taxes were levied in five distinct ways, formed five distinct items of account in the statement of the public Revenue, and, more extraordinary still, were paid on thirty different occasions in each year, some at one place and some at another. For instance, if the same person were the proprietor of an omnibus, a cab, and a brougham, let for hire in London, he would have to pay five distinct duties, and to make the payments in two separate places in the metropolis at thirty different times every year. The only wonder was that the system had lasted so long, and that the business of locomotion continued to be subjected to such exceptional imposts. The stage coach and omnibus mileage duty was levied at a uniform rate of a farthing per mile throughout England, Wales, and Scotland, and in the metropolis the duty was paid monthly at Somerset House. The amount of duty was the same whether the omnibus was drawn by one horse and carried eight passengers, or was drawn by two horses and carried twenty-five passengers, or was drawn by three or four horses and carried thirty-five or forty per annum; and of fifty horses and twenty-stage carriage duties and the post horse five carriages, £100 per annum. These duties were originally imposed in 1779, duties were paid differently from the stage. the largest amount received from them coach and omnibus mileage duty, being being in the year 1836, when £524,500 paid once a quarter or four times a year was received for stage carriage duties, and in advance at the nearest district office £266,500 for post horse duties. The of the Inland Revenue, each proprietor metropolis had submitted to those large making a return of the number of horses taxes, because neither the public nor the and carriages which he employed. Then cab proprietors were aware that they were with respect to cab duties, the grievance paying so much in excess of what was here was still greater. The proprietor of paid in other towns, and he believed that cabs at Liverpool, Edinburgh, Birmingham, even many Members of that House were Brighton, and other places paid the post not aware of the difference. It might be horse duty, the charge for which com- asked why were there so many cabs if they menced at £5 for one carriage, and dimi- did not pay? But it was well known nished on each additional carriage in pro- that they were starving the cabmen out, portion to the number kept. But in Lon- and it would be seen from the Returns don the proprietor of one cab had to pay issued at Somerset House that in April, £19 58. per annum, and the like sum for each 1867, the number of cabs in the metroadditional cab. This was enormous. That polis had diminished by 304, and there the system should have lasted so long was had been a further diminution of 500 this most extraordinary! It was true that if year, and the number was still decreasing. he used it only six days in the week he It was all one trade whether cabs or omnipaid only £16 138. But compare this buses were employed, or post horses and amount with the sum paid in other towns. carriages were let for hire, and why, then, In the metropolis there were proprietors was there such a difference made in the who had as many as fifty cabs, and they had amount of duty and the mode of paying exacted from them fifty times the charge it? How did the cab proprietors pay the of one cab. This was altogether a different duty? Once a year they had to pay the principle from that of the post horse duty licence duty of £1 for each cab, which prevailing in the country. So that the was due on the 1st of January, and must proprietor of fifty cabs in London had to be paid before the end of March in each pay the enormous duty of £962 10s. per year; they had to pay the remainder of annum, while the proprietor of fifty cabs the duty at Somerset House monthly. at Liverpool, Edinburgh, Brighton, &c., In this metropolis, there were 2,000 had to pay only £170 per annum. The cab proprietors, of whom 1,400 owned complaint was often heard that the me- only a single cab, and from the first Montropolis was not supplied with vehicles day to the first Friday in each month the as it ought to be, and that the London duty was received at Somerset House. cabs were not equal to those of Bir- There the men went in droves, and, almingham or Manchester and other Eng- though great improvements had been made lish towns, and compared most unfa- in the mode of receiving the duty, yet it vourably with those of Continental cities. was well known that they were often But it should be remembered that in Lon- obliged to wait one, two, or even three don the highest possible duty was exacted, hours before they were able to pay it. and the lowest fare awarded, the fares The loss of time incurred in that way being much less in London than in any might be taken as equivalent to a loss of other city or town. It was perfectly 2s. 6d. on each occasion, and if, from sickclear that between the two a very good ness or any other cause, a cab proprietor article could not be supplied. The duty was not able to pay the duty between the was originally imposed as a war duty, and first Monday of the month and the Friday hackney carriages and sedan chairs in Lon- following, immediately on the Saturday a don were taxed at the same time, when summons was issued by a solicitor in Chanthere were only 800 hackney carriages and cery Lane, and he had to go and pay that 300 sedan chairs: it was made a security gentleman a fine of 10s. and make arrangefor a loan, and its duration was limited to ments for paying the duty within a certain thirty-two years; but it had not been limited time. The cab proprietors were taken off when the war had ceased, and supplied with fresh licence number plates had been allowed still to continue, to the from Somerset House every three years, great disadvantage of the public. The and an additional plate, with a different number, was affixed to each cab by the riages, it would undoubtedly afford more especially at small railway stations in the |