The Finance Bill is having a remarkably easy passage. Even
on the increase in the Tea Duty, upon which any Opposition Member could produce a diatribe on the iniquity of making the old age pensioner pay for battle- ships, less than half a dozen Members troubled to catch the Chairman's eye. Not a single Front Bench gun thundered from the Opposition, and in just over an hour the clause raising the Tea Duty to 4d. on Empire Tea and 6d. on non-Empire Tea was passed through committee. At one time it seemed that the committee stage would be taken so quickly that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary would find themselves upon the controversial and complicated tax evasion amendments without the necessary departmental briefs which were being prepared for the following day. Happily, however, for Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Morrison the progress, slowed down, and by means of a series of delayingamend- meats on relatively trivial issues the Labour Party were able to make a show of opposition and the Government were spared the necessity of proceeding with the Bill further than they had intended.
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