deducted for rent, at which he had, affecting the Militia surgeons, who felt worked since Michaelmas. The em- much aggrieved, and the Government ployer proved no damage, but claimed would do a generous act by conceding £1, stating that it was the custom of the the moderate request made. [Mr. GLADcounty to do so. The defendant swore STONE dissented.] He was sorry to see that he had told his employer he should the right hon. Gentleman signify his leave unless his wages were raised; and, dissent, because the refusal would on its being refused, he left his work oblige him to state the complaints of the on the following Monday to go to the Militia surgeons at some length. The hiring at Swindon, but returned on the Motion did not ask the Government to following day. His solicitor urged that grant pensions, but simply to allow a the man had five children to keep on Committee to hear and consider the 9. per week, and as no damage was grievances under which these officers shown there was no case; but defendant laboured. Since 1855, the question had was fined 5s, and 5s. costs. Defendant been several times brought before the was further charged with having shot attention of the House; and it had been two rabbits on April 1. The employer practically admitted, again and again, said that he saw two rabbits hung up in that the Militia surgeons had just the house of his shepherd, who admitted ground for complaint, and were entitled that he shot one, and Smart the other, to compensation on compulsory retirewho was fined 2s. 6d. and 6s. 6d. costs. ment at the age mentioned. Promises had been several times made that their

The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.

claims should be fairly considered, as appeared by letters addressed to him (Sir Eardley Wilmot) from the War Office,

The House resumed its Sitting at Nine and to other hon. Members who had asked of the clock.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

1609

SUPPLY.-COMMITTEE.

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

ARMY (AUXILIARY FORCES)—
MILITIA SURGEONS.

MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE.

SIR EARDLEY WILMOT, in rising to call attention to the subject of Militia Surgeons as regards pensions; and to

move

"That the continual refusal by the Adminis. tration of pensions to Militia Surgeons, compulsorily retired at 65 years of age, after long periods of service, and of compensation to those surgeons who have been deprived of a large amount of their incomes by the establishment of Brigade Depôts, to which pensions or compensation they consider themselves justly entitled; as also their complaints and great dissatisfaction thereat, embodied in a Petition from them lately presented to this Honourable House, be referred to a Committee to inquire into the reasonableness and justice of their complaints,"

said, he would, at the outset, make an appeal to the Prime Minister to at once grant the request for a small Committee, and thus save much time. The case was a very hard and an unjust one as

Questions upon the subject in the House. Yet, in face of the admissions made by. previous Secretaries of State for War, the present Government were prepared to turn the surgeons adrift at 65 years of age, after 25 or 30 years' service, without any pension or compensation. No one could deny that that was a great grievance; and he would venture to say it was one at which the people generally of the country would be very indignant when they were informed of the facts. Under the alterations consequent on the adoption of short service and the brigade depôt system Militia surgeons were now deprived of many emoluments which they formerly enjoyed; and the argument that, on leaving the Service, they had their private practice to fall back | upon, and therefore were not in need of pensions, was unfair and misleading, because the circumstances were such that few of them had any private practice, at least to the extent intimated, nor could those re-commence a professional career at an advanced age, and with a gap made in it by a long employment in the Militia, in many cases at a considerable distance from their homes. He proceeded to enumerate the several Statutes passed since 1829, in every one of which the clause giving the same retiring pensions to the Militia surgeons as to the adjutants was to be found; and if the pensions granted were only those

by the hon. Member for West Aberdeen- their most careful consideration. They shire (Dr. Farquharson). It had already had supplied the War Office with their been considered by three Secretaries of opinion in writing, in which they deState of different political opinions cided against the claims of the Militia namely, by Lord Cranbrook, by his Suc- surgeons, both as regarded law and cessor, the right hon. and gallant Gentle- equity. There was another point, and man the Member for North Lancashire that was, were these officers so badly (Colonel Stanley), and by his right hon. off as had been represented? He was Friend the present Chancellor of the Ex- sure that the Secretary of State for War chequer (Mr. Childers); and, on each would be the last man to deal hardly occasion, the decision had been adverse with men who were poor, and possibly to the claims of the surgeons, both as retiring from age or infirmity; but it regarded loss of income and loss of fees must be remembered that the Militia for the examination of recruits. There surgeons received full pay at the rate was no exceptional hardship in the posi- of £1 a-day for the time that they were tion of Militia surgeons. Her Majesty out with their regiments; whilst as they had the power of deciding at what age were only out, as a rule, for a month at Militia surgeons should retire; and it a time, he could not admit that their was considered that the extension of the private professional practice had been age for retirement from 60 to 65 years thereby ruined. The War Office must of age-when the age for retirement of employ, whenever practicable, for the combatant officers was fixed at 60-was examination of recruits, the Army sura sufficient relaxation. No pensions had geons whom they paid all the year ever been granted to officers who were round. With regard to the Motion as not on the permanent Staff, and no it stood on the Paper, he must point out Militia surgeons had ever been on the that the "continual refusal referred permanent Staff since the year 1829. to had not been by the Administration, At that date, when the Duke of Wel- but by the three Administrations prelington was Prime Minister, and Sir ceding the present. He hoped the hon. Henry Hardinge Commander-in-Chief, a Baronet would not divide the House Circular was issued, stating that Militia after this explanation; but if he did. Surgeons would be struck off the per- take a division, this was the only answer manent Staff, and from that time no which he (Sir Arthur Hayter), as a pension had been granted to a Militia Minister, could give. surgeon. In the following Session of 1829 a Bill was passed into an Act, at the instance of the Government, to carry out the change, and the question of pension to Militia surgeons was not raised for many years. At the time of the Crimean War, when the Militia went to the Ionian Islands, a Circular was issued by Lord Panmure, stating that no Militia surgeon would be entitled to a retiring allowance unless he served for 10 years; but it so happened that these Militia regiments were embodied for no longer than two years. It was, therefore, clearly understood, from the terms of the Circular of 1855, that the Militia surgeons were not entitled to any allowance except for em

bodied service. In 1876 a Warrant was issued by Mr. Gathorne Hardy; and it was stated that nothing contained therein should be held as giving a medical officer of Militia a claim to a pension or retiring allowance. The case of these gentlemen had been submitted by the War Office to his hon. and learned Friends the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, and they had given it

MR. DUCKHAM, in supporting the Resolution, said, he knew of one case, during the Crimean War, in which a Militia surgeon was called upon to be away for 12 months with his regiment, and to break up his home, and all his professional connections; and now, at the age of 65, although in full health and vigour, he was called upon to resign, with nothing to fall back upon. Whatever was done generally, he hoped this case would receive special consideration at the hands of the Government.

Question put.

The House divided:-Ayes 61; Noes 48: Majority 13.-(Div. List, No. 122.)

Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

INLAND REVENUE-THE INHABITED

HOUSE DUTY.-OBSERVATIONS. MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCE, in rising, according to Notice, to call the attention of the House to the Inhabited House Duty; and to move

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD said, he was of opinion that the injustice to which the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Alderman Lawrence) called attention had its origin largely in the obsequious attention which the various assessment committees throughout the country were disposed to pay to the upper classes in regard to the assessment of mansions. In many cases, these committees were under a delusion as to the state of the law in regard to this important question. Something might be done to remedy the pressure of local taxes on the tenant farmers throughout England, if the mansions of the great were rated equitably for the relief of the poor. The words of the Parochial Assessment Act in regard to this matter were--"That such a house shall be rated at what it may reasonably be expected to let for from year to year." The late Lord Chief Justice, however, in a case not well known, declared that it was absurd to suppose that a large mansion could be regarded as a house lettable from year to year, and he laid it down that it should be rated at what it would let for under lease. It was thus quite within the discretion of the assessment committees to make a much more equitable assessment of what were called by the hon. Alderman "the mansions of the great." Not along ago this subject engaged the attention of the Duke of Richmond's Commission on Agriculture; and in giving evidence before the Commission, Mr. Hedley, a most experienced land valuer, gave it as his opinion that mansions were at present rated on no basis at all, that they were generally rated far below their actual value, and that they ought to be rated on the occupation value of the occupieron the same principle, for instance, that a railway station was rated. No benefit could be greater than that they should have an equal and impartial assessment throughout the whole country.

pound as property tax, and the tenant of paying it; and, therefore, that the 9d. in the pound on the same assess- tax constituted an evil which could not ment as house tax on every house which be defended, and that it should consecame within the range of the tax. But quently be repealed. ducal palaces, and the residences of the higher classes, came off almost scot free. They were supposed to be rated at the sum at which they would let to a tenant from year to year who took the house with about three-quarters of an acre by way of curtilage. Of course, they would not really let at all, for who could afford to rent a ducal palace but a Duke? They were, however, rated at a nominal amount. Thus, magnificent mansions with large gardens and conservatories, and houses for stewards and coachmen and other dependents, and which cost, perhaps, £500,000, only paid tax on a few hundreds a-year. He was aware that it was a favourite argument of political economists that this tax was the most equitable that could be imposed, because it allowed persons indirectly to assess themselves by placing a tax upon the house they felt themselves justified by their incomes in inhabiting. But the fact was that the richer a man was, and the larger the house that he occupied, the less in proportion he paid under this tax. What was the use of reducing the taxation on a man's food and clothing, if his house was to be taxed unfairly? The country mansions built by successful traders, as well as those of the aristocracy, were taxed at too low a rate; and in many instances, where such persons had expended £20,000 or £30,000 on the construction of their mansions, they were only assessed to this tax on an assumed rental of £60 or £80 per annum. This house tax did not extend to Ireland, and, as a consequence, the members of the middle class in that country were better housed and lived more comfortably than those of the same class in this. Scotchmen, too, would doubtless be surprised to hear that Edinburgh, Lanarkshire, and Renfrewshire, between them, paid one-half of the house tax of Scotland. The county of Sutherland only paid £152 to the house tax, and the county of Cromarty £25. He had said enough, he thought, to prove, in the first place, that this tax interfered MR. HEALY said, that, in his opimaterially with the construction of houses nion, the speech of the hon. Gentleman for the working classes, as restricting the Member for the City of London the building of blocks of houses adapted (Mr. Alderman Lawrence) did credit alike for their use; and, in the next place, to his head and heart, because he had that the tax became lighter as the man taken up a grievance of a class of perhad a greater income and larger means sons who could not be said to be at all