BRITISH POLITICS

Otago Witness, Issue 3149, 22 July 1914, Page 27

BRITISH POLITICS

THE FINANCE BILL. . LONDON, July 13. In the House of Commons debate on the Finance Bill, Mr Worthington Evans moved an amendment to clause 5 to exempt from the income tax “incomes from colonial investments that are reinvested in the colonies. The amendment was defeated by 268 to 197. July 14. After the division on Mr Evans’s amendment, Mr Lloyd George moved an amendment providing that companies and persons who had been rolling up incomes abroad in past years should start with a clean sheet. Several members of both parties said the clause was absurd, and was badly drawn and doubtful. The debate, however, was automatically closured, and the amendment was carried by 270 votes to 190. The overseas High Commissioners are satisfied with Mr Lloyd George’s assurances to them that he will amend clause 5 of the Finance Bill so as to exempt colonials not permanently resident in the United Kingdom, thus leaving this part of the income tax law as it is at present. The Attorney-general said in the House of Commons that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had prepared amendments which would vary the effect of clause 1, and make it clear that only those colonists who are permanently domiciled in Great Britain are to be included in the clause. July 15. The committee on the Finance Bill agreed to Mr Lloyd George’s new clause making husband and wife each responsible respectively for shares in an income tax, and preventing distraint on the husband’s goods for non-payment of his'wife’s tax. Mr Austen Chamberlain was returned for West Birmingham unopposed. July 19. In the House of Commons, Mr Asquith explained the proposed legislation for the remainder of the session. The Bills lo be passed include the British Naturalisation and Merchant Shipping Bills. Mr Ramsay MacDonald protested against, summer sessions. Membership of the

House of Commons, he declared, was be coming the most dangerous of professions The casualties amongst all parties were perfectly alarming.