HC Deb 23 April 1874 vol 218 cc991-1021

Resolutions [April 16] reported, and read the first time.

On Question, "That the Resolutions be read a second time."

MR. GLADSTONE

The Motion, Sir, that you have just announced from the Chair is, I apprehend, the first practical step which the House will be called upon to take for the purpose of giving effect to the financial plans of the Government, the assent which it gave to certain Resolutions in the Committee on a former evening having been, as it were, only a formal step taken for practical purposes, and without reference to the subsequent course that Parliament may think fit to pursue. I, therefore, apprehend that this forms a suitable and convenient occasion for offering any general remarks on the financial proposals of Her Majesty's Government and of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As it was my fate to be his immediate predecessor in the office he now worthily fills, perhaps the House will not think it strange that I should choose this opportunity for offering to it a few remarks. I have the satisfaction to say I do not rise for the purpose of entering on a general course of hostile criticisms of the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Still less do I rise for the purpose of placing in contrast or comparison with them any other proposals. The plans entertained by the late Government and by myself have been completely disposed of by the verdict, if not of the nation in every sense, yet of the constituencies at the recent General Election. I therefore feel myself able to approach the consideration of this subject without any prejudices or prepossessions, the influence of which might be largely felt provided there were some other scheme still within the possibility of being adopted, and in which I felt a nearer and a more affectionate interest than in that of my right hon. Friend. Again, if I look at the Amendments which have been placed on the Notice Paper, there is not one of those Amendments which I am disposed to support in contradistinction to the schemes of the Government on the point to which it relates. Some of them may assert principles which are in certain respects sound, and have claims on the attention of the House; but when they are considered as practical proposals, I am not aware that any one among them makes it my duty to give a vote adverse to the scheme which has been put before us with the authority of the advisers of the Crown. It will naturally occur to the mind of the House that the subject of the finance of the year must on every occasion fall into three main divisions. There arc, first of all, the Estimates, which have been submitted to the House by Her Majesty's Government, of the probable Revenue of the fiscal year, now recently commenced; then there is the subject of the Estimates of the probable Expenditure of the same financial year; and next there is the comparison resulting from the juxta-position of these two sets of figures, and the proposals which may be submitted by the advisers of the Crown either for making good the deficit—if a deficit there be—or for disposing of the surplus, in the happier alternative which it has been the fortune of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to take up. A good deal has been said here and elsewhere on the subject of certain alterations which have taken place, whether in this year or whether in some recent year, in the mode of making the statements of Revenue which are submitted to the House. I do not think that is a subject into which it is expedient for the House largely or profoundly to enter. In my opinion, the true and only security of Parliament with reference to the Estimates of Revenue on which it is called to proceed is to hold the Executive Government of the day strictly responsible for those Estimates. If we begin to examine what is behind the scenes, and to scrutinize the relations between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his permanent advisers, cither in the Treasury or the Revenue Departments—if we come forward with our own attempts to criticize and rectify the figures which he may have submitted, I. believe we may do something to diminish the dignity of our proceedings with reference to finance; but I am persuaded we shall not obtain additional security in any one particular for the public interests. That is the principle on which I shall proceed with reference to the Estimates of my right hon. Friend, and not because they precisely correspond—for I do not know whether they do correspond—with those which three months ago I was disposed to form. Indeed, the fact that three months hare elapsed since those Estimates were submitted disposes of anything like identity between them and those of my right hon. Friend, because all Estimates of Revenue have to be formed on the latest and freshest information. But I understand the case to be one which, if I am correct, will justify a single general remark. The House has been allowed to perceive that the Estimates have been framed in the present year—and possibly to some extent in preceding years—with a greater disposition to allow for an increase and expansion of the public Revenue from year to year, than has been the ease in former times. That, I believe, has been stated or admitted by my right hon. Friend, and I do not know whether such a conclusion might not have been gathered from some statements of my right hon. Friend who sits upon this Bench (Mr. Lowe), who at this time last year held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer; and what I now wish to say is, without recurring to the question of what are incidental and what may be extraordinary changes in the sources of public revenue, that the time has arrived when there should be some modification of the Estimate of the Revenue of the year as would take into allowance that which may now be regarded as a regular increment; and for this reason—that 40, 30, perhaps 20, years ago the fluctuations of the Revenue were greater than of late years, and we were much more exposed at those periods than we are at the present time to the contingency of a serious deficiency of Revenue, either in connection with commercial depression or with the occasional recurrence of deficient harvests. In truth, in my early Parliamentary days, it was a trite and sound proposition to enunciate that a bad harvest made a bad revenue. It was even commonly said that the barley harvest, and the consequent condition of the malt tax-might be taken as the criterion of the public revenue of the year. When that was the ease it was necessary, in point of prudence, to form Estimates with great caution, for the purpose of avoiding, as far as possible, those great embarrassments in which the House was placed by the occurrence of serious deficiencies. Happily, as the Revenue of the country has become more expanded, and its elasticity more marked, its stability has likewise become greater. I do not mean to say that we are placed beyond the possibility of deficiencies now from special causes; but, if we look back to cases like that of the bad harvest of 1860, or of the Continental revolutions of 1848, I think we have had the most conclusive indications in the steadiness of the progress of the Revenue of late years, as well as in its stability, that from some cause or other we stand on firmer ground than we could flatter ourselves we occupied in former times. And if I myself were asked to suggest—or perhaps I should say to conjecture—an explanation of that satisfactory phenomenon, I find it in this—the great addition, not only positive, but relative, which has of late been made through the increase of wages to the means of the labouring classes of this country. We have greatly widened the basis of the taxpaying community by the command now given to the labouring class over what may be considered, more or less, the luxuries pertaining to their condition; and, provided the principle be not pushed too far, I believe it is right and just towards this House, and that it involves no serious elements of risk, that Estimates should be made with a greater disposition to assume that a portion at least of that increment which we have witnessed now for so many years will continue than could formerly have been the practice, or, at any rate, the practice justified by the general rules of finance. I do not know whether it would be in the power of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give any information to the House in figures upon the question, so as to enable the House to judge what amount of difference in the mode of estimate they are to allow when they look at his figures. I do not know whether he could tell us, for instance, how much the present Estimates of Revenue are above what they would have been, provided he had proceeded exactly upon the same considerations as were in use, I may say, 20 years ago. It might be convenient to do so—I am not pressing my right hon. Friend on the subject if the course would be inconvenient—but the chief advantage I should expect from it would be that it would tend to dissipate exaggerated and unfounded impressions which may have been formed with reference to the sanguine character of the Estimates of the year. Then, with regard to the Estimates of Expenditure which are before us, I conceive it to be indubitable that the very same principles which should have prevailed with reference to the Estimates of Revenue must likewise be applicable, and conclusively applicable, with regard to the Estimates of Expenditure. I say this because it is supposed by some—I am far from assuming it to be the fact—that a different view of the probable Expenditure of the year is to be gathered, on the one hand, from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, on the other hand, from the Departmental statement of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty. I say it may be understood; but I give no opinion upon the subject whether such a conflict or contrariety exists or whether it does not. Undoubtedly, it reminds me that there is a great convenience in the old rule—which should never be departed from except under special circumstances—that the submission of the statement of the Navy Estimates, as well as the Army Estimates, should precede the statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I dare say the circumstances of the present year may have warranted the departure from that usage in this particular case; I am not now throwing any blame, but I am desirous that the old and reasonable order should not be forgotten; and it is evident that the impression to which I have referred of an apparent contrariety could not have been created if the statements of the Budget had, in the ordinary course, followed the submission of the Navy as well as the Army Estimates. And hero I say that, in my opinion, there can be no such contrariety. It is not possible that there can be two statements submitted to the House by the same Government with reference to the probable Expenditure of the year. I come to the conclusion that if the First Lord of the Admiralty has been supposed to indicate a likelihood that, in the course of the year, he may have occasion, in the interests of the Navy, to demand a portion of that money which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now going to throw away on the taxpayer, the First Lord of the Admiralty must have been wrongly understood. There is no doubt that the Government cannot speak with two voices on the subject of the coming Expenditure, and that the one voice with which it does speak is the voice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As in the case of estimated Revenue, so in the case of estimated Expenditure; it is the figures of the Chancellor of the Exchequer which have the sanction of the united Cabinet, to which, and to which alone, we have to look. And if it be true—I assume it is not true—but if it be true, that there was a likelihood of new demands upon the public purse other than those comparatively trifling matters which are apt to arise in the course of the changes incident to the annual services even in time of peace—if there was a likelihood of demands of a different class in the course of the present year—it would have been the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer so far to reconsider his financial proposals as might be necessary, and to reserve a sum sufficient to enable him to meet those demands, in case it should be the pleasure of the House to entertain them. I dwell with the utmost confidence on this principle—that it is not possible to relieve the responsibility of the united Government by the declarations of a particular Department of the Government. The House is entitled to expect—and must, from its very nature as a legislative and deliberative body, expect—one declaration, and one only; and must take as that one declaration the words which proceed from the mouth of the authentic organ of the Government with respect to Finance—the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I apprehend, therefore, that our course is clear and undoubted, and that, without any fear whatever, we may proceed without prejudice to the consideration of the proposals of the united Government. And now, with regard to these particular proposals, I will first take one of which, if I understand it rightly, the magnitude has been considerably exaggerated—I mean that which deals with the question of the reduction of the National Debt. Here let me say I entirely approve of the proposal made by my right hon. Friend so far as its principle is concerned. I am disposed, indeed, to offer him a suggestion, which has nothing to do with the principle of his proposal, but merely with the practical form of its application, and which is, I think, worthy of his consideration. Now that we have already, by the operation of former years, laid quite enough of load upon the back of 1885, would it not be as well to take some other date—10 or 20 years later—with reference to which to frame our Terminable Annuities? It is very much better to have a very large and enormous remission of charge accruing in any year than an enormous extension or enlargement of charge. But none of these enormous changes are desirable. What is desirable is to give as equable a movement to our finance as possible. The sum which will be extinguished in 1885 is very large, and it would be better that the operation now beginning, and other operations of the same kind which I hope will follow, should have a later date. I entirely agree in the wisdom and propriety of the proposal of my right hon. Friend; but it would be a mistake to suppose that the proposal is equivalent to applying to the reduction of the National Debt a new fund which hitherto has not been so applied. As I conceive, he applies, in a manner which is direct, intelligible, and certain, a fund which has hitherto found its way to the reduction of the National Debt in a manner which was indirect, completely concealed from the public eye, and by no means unequivocal or absolutely certain. It is, therefore, a great improvement in the detail of our administration rather than the adoption of a large measure for the reduction of the National Debt. Of course, we have all been attracted to the consideration of that portion of my right hon. Friend's proposals which relates to the income tax. It can never be expected that upon such a subject there will be unanimity of view in this House. There is much to be said in favour of its maintenance as a permanent and perpetual tax. For my part, I have always been of opinion that it is desirable, if it be possible, that the income tax shall be allowed to lapse when the country is rich enough to dispense with it. I am of opinion, which I expressed as a Minister of the Crown three months ago, that we have arrived at a period when this might have been done. But that question has now gone by so far as I am concerned. It is totally impossible, in my opinion, for any persons except the responsible advisers of the Crown to make the comprehensive proposals with reference to taxation and expenditure which would be absolutely necessary in order to admit of the entire abolition of the income tax. That being so, we not being responsible for the expenditure, and not having the power which belongs to those who possess the initiative in taxation, I have to look, as a subject of the Crown and as an independent Member of Parliament, to the proposal now made. Looking at the matter in this light, I cannot help saying that I am thankful and grateful to my right hon. Friend for the proposals he has made. But I feel bound to say that my gratitude has been caused in a considerable degree by the belief that the proposition he has made with regard to the income tax is an important step towards the entire extinction of that tax. I think it must be obvious to us all—at any rate, to the great majority of those who have considered this subject—that if there is to be an income tax in this or any other country as a permanent portion of the finances of the country, it ought not to be an income tax only of 2d. in the pound. As regards certain Schedules of the income tax, I do not think there can be any great objection to its maintenance even at an exceedingly low rate; but it must be observed that whether high or low we are subject to the same charge for collection. I must also observe that that part of the tax which depends on percentage allowance becomes exceedingly low as the tax is reduced, as I know well was the case when the reduction to 4d. took place, and claims—and well-founded claims—are made for some augmentation for this loss on the per contage, so that as the amount of the tax diminishes the proportion of the cost of collection to the net proceeds becomes rather serious. But that is not the main item for consideration. The principal thing that requires consideration has relation to one only of the schedules—to that Schedule which includes the lowest incomes liable to the tax—namely. Schedule D—and connected with which is a very large proportion of the grievances and difficulties complained of. There is hardly a case in which the tax is levied under Schedule D that does not entail upon the taxpayer a considerable amount of trouble—sometimes such an amount of trouble as to constitute in itself a serious tax upon patience and time. People who live in the country are compelled to attend a meeting of the Income Tax Commissioners, at a distant place, without great choice as to the means of conveyance, without certainty as to when the case will be heard, and this on account of very small sums. These are difficulties which clearly ought not to be encountered except for the sake of a large benefit—except on account of an imperious and absolute demand in the interests of the public service. I therefore, without committing the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Government, look upon the proposal as being in itself an important practical step towards the total abolition of the income tax. I do not say it pledges the House; but I think it gives an indication of the mind of the House which may not be without importance at a future time. In that view I accept it with gratitude, independently of the fact that it is a serious diminution of a public burden. In regard to the abolition of the sugar duties, I cannot refrain from saying in the most emphatic manner that my right hon. Friend has made a wise choice of the particular article upon which he should bestow his bounty, and he has also done well in making a clean sweep of an entire duty affecting a great article of trade, instead of being content with any smaller measure. I know economists and financial politicians are divided into two schools upon this subject. There are those who say it is a very excellent plan to have a large number of duties laid upon a very large number of articles, provided they be not extravagant in amount. I must say my own experience and convictions are those of precisely the opposite school. I hold it is a good thing to substitute a low duty for a high one; but it is a still better thing to abolish a low duty in order to get rid altogether of the duties which bear upon trade. A considerable portion of the value of a duty lies, not in the precise amount which is collected, but in the trammels and fetters which the fact of its existence imposes upon trade. After duties lower than 5 per cent. called nominal duties, have been repealed, there has been something approaching to magic in the elasticity which has been communicated to a particular trade. In this particular case it is eminently desirable that a decisive resolution should be taken. I do not agree that you ought not to give up a tax because you cannot re-impose it; when an adequate public necessity arises you will always be able to re-impose a tax. I trust, however, that this great fiscal emancipation may be a perpetual boon, or, if not, that it will be a very long-lived boon. I am satisfied it is a superstition to suppose merely because we abolish a duty in this country that we cannot re-impose that duty, provided we are able to show an adequate public necessity. In this instance a great number of considerations concur in recommending the course taken by my right hon. Friend in the determination to devote a large sum to the relief of an article of consumption, and in the choice of sugar as that article. It is impossible to contemplate without dissatisfaction the position of the refining trade of this country. Although I know not whether the change will be one wholly unattended with difficulty to that trade, yet I am disposed to believe that only by the abolition of those duties can we give a clear and unembarrassed field of action to our Colonies and to all sugar-producing countries. They have not been accustomed to refine it. The differential duty that had to be paid on importation into this country operated most powerfully to prevent that development of skilled industry and the application of capital to machinery in tropical producing countries which I think the course of Free Trade will be very likely to produce in future years. We have been accustomed to consider Customs' duties as a system of taxing tropical commodities, and so it is in the main; but sugar is no longer a tropical commodity: on the contrary, it is a European commodity. The imports of European sugar increase from year to year; and I think this House, which is disposed to be keenly alive to the claims of agricultural industry, will welcome the proposal of my right hon. Friend on the ground that it opens up a new industry to the farmer and the agricultural interest. I know no reason why we should despair of seeing the production of sugar either from beet-root or from other commodities in this country, or of finding it taking its place among our great industries, as it has taken its place among the great industries of neighbouring countries, such as France, Belgium, and Germany. These are the main proposals: but there are two other points to which I shall refer. My right hon. Friend proposes to abolish the duty on horses, and I must own that I approach that subject with a greater mixture of feeling than that with which I approached the greater subjects to which I have referred. No doubt an assessed tax in this country never can be popular. There must always be a certain amount of annoyance connected with the collection of these taxes, and there can be no doubt at all that among the assessed taxes the horse duty is one which presents a very special element of weakness in the fact that it is not equally laid. I refer, of course, to the exemption from the duty of the horses employed in agricultural labour. I am not going to recommend the extension of the tax to horses employed in agriculture. I look upon that exemption as an ultimate and irrevocable fact; and I cannot deny that it weakens materially the foundation of the duty on horses, as compared with the other duties of the class which were formerly called assessed taxes. But I am very sorry that a question of this kind should be opened without its being carefully considered how much is implied in the proposal we are now asked to adopt, with reference to which, notwithstanding, we may be seriously fettering our own liberties for the future. I cannot deny, on the other hand, that there is rather a serious relation between the duty on horses and the railway tax. The question of the railway tax is somewhat special and peculiar. I expect that those who have been most anxious in promoting the repeal of the railway tax will be found very zealous advocates of the proposition for repealing the tax on horses, because they see the effect it will have in supplying a new argument in favour of the proposition they are so fain to urge. Then, I want to know what will be the effect of the repeal of the tax on horses upon the duties on carriages and servants? Are they also to go on the first practicable occasion? There is a great deal to be said in favour of abolishing these duties also; but then I want to know whether we have carefully considered the whole state of our taxation with reference to what is called personal property. The assessed taxes have this recommendation—that they are on personal property; and it is considered one of our great grievances that while we tax articles of consumption and so get at the labouring classes, while we tax real property and so get at the richer class, yet personal property, considered as a whole, does not bear all the charges in all respects which might be laid upon it. I do not say this is the case; but it is a serious matter to diminish materially the proportion of charge paid by personal property towards the expenses of the State. We have got, apparently, a policy that indicates a disposition to give up the income tax, or, at least, advances us a step towards its abolition; but, whatever the demerits of the income tax—and I must own, I think, its moral demerits to be very serious—whatever the demerits of the income tax, it certainly has this recommendation—that it does get at personal property; and if we are about to give up the income tax, or about to adopt a policy that savours of giving it up, it becomes a very serious matter at the same time to take steps that, in another direction and in another form, look towards the relief of personal and movable property from taxation. I am not saying, however, that the horse duty should be permanently maintained; but I think it a very serious question indeed, on which the House and the Government ought to have a fixed opinion, whether the assessed taxes ought to be maintained, and whether they can be maintained in such a form as to provide us with something like the sum which we now derive from them, at rates very moderate in comparison with those formerly laid on horses, carriages, and servants. I should have been very glad if it had been in the power of my right hon. Friend to bring the subject of the horse duty and the other assessed taxes before the House—because it is impossible to deny that there is a certain relation between them—at a time when he felt himself competent to propose a final and determinated settlement of the question of local taxation. As I understand it, the strength of the case of those who have so eagerly advocated change in regard to local taxation really lies in this:—They say—I fully admit with considerable force—"We lay exclusively on real property in the country charges in which personal property ought to share." I have no sympathy with the advocates of change in local taxation who seek to lay on labour the taxes heretofore borne by property; and I cannot refrain from saying two things—first, that the simple transfer to the Consolidated Fund of charges hitherto paid out of rates, whatever the immediate relief to the ratepayers at largo of all classes, is indubitably, in the long run, a transfer of a charge from a fund supplied by property to a fund jointly supplied by property and labour. I am putting it thus, assuming what I believe myself to be about the truth—though it is impossible to state it more than as conjecture—but I believe that one-half the general taxation of this country, and fully one-half, is paid by the labour of the country. If that be so, when we remove a charge from local taxation and place it on the Consolidated Fund, we are not simply relieving real property at the expense of property not real—about which I have no prejudice to prevent my concurrence—but we are relieving real property of a charge of a sovereign, and placing 10s. of that pound upon property more generally, and taking the other 10s. away. That is the first proposition I have to state with regard to this somewhat serious proposal; and the second proposition I have to state is this—I admit it is only a matter of opinion; but it is my firm and fixed opinion that, not for the purpose of the moment, but for the purpose of the distant future—to which all true Conservatives ought to look—among the many considerations they should have in view when settling the principles of our financial system, there is no one of such vital financial importance as this—that, on the whole, you should make a fair and equitable distribution of taxes as between property and labour. That, Sir, brings me to the last portion of the Budget, on which I do not find myself bound to place myself in any sharp conflict with my right hon. Friend, though his point of view is not our point of view. Outpoint of view with regard to this subject has been that when we dealt with it, it ought to be dealt with as a whole, and we ought not to commence by making those grants from the Exchequer in aid of local taxation, which we have always recognised as a portion of the work to be done in some shape or other; but we should reserve those grants, and use them as our levers for securing good arrangements in the numerous branches of that widely-complicated and difficult subject. I am not sure how far I have rightly understood the proposal of my right hon. Friend. I have stated our principle. His principle is a different one. He finds himself compelled to begin by giving away the money he intends to give, instead of reserving it till he has secured sound and good arrangements for making the present law of rating equitable, for developing the principle of local self-government, for leaving the largest possible amount of liberty to local administration, for providing against the dangerous tendency to extravagance in the expenditure connected with rates, which, unless we take great care, our system of public subvention will be calculated to encourage. My right hon. Friend naturally acts from his point of view, and I cannot expect him to act from our point of view. I do not complain of him on that account, for I dare say, in the position in which he now stands, he is acting in concurrence with the sense of the majority of the House, and, therefore, I wish him to understand that I am not a complaining party, although I wish to preserve my adhesion to the view of the subject we ourselves have taken. What I am anxious about is this. My right hon. Friend intends to reserve till another year many important portions of this subject. Then, what I hope is this—that he will not attempt, by any proceeding in the present year, to commit the House, with regard to the future, beyond the grant which he is now making for the current twelve months. Let us be allowed, when we come to discuss this matter next year, to approach it without prejudice in any respect to the course we may wish to take, except by the fact that we have distinctly held out to the payers of local rates that certain sums of money shall at least be given to them. I do not expect or desire that there should be any recession from the question of the amount now proposed; but every opportunity should be left open for considering many questions of the greatest importance, which we are bound, in the interest of all parties, carefully to examine, in order to a satisfactory settlement, which cannot be arrived at by any off-hand process. My right hon. Friend will understand that I am not officiously and gratuitously introducing this subject. There was a doubt among some who heard him as to the intention of the Government with respect to the large sum of money they proposed to give in aid of the police rate. I may state that a fear was entertained that the Government intended to bring in a Bill during the present year which would fix a contribution from the Consolidated Fund in aid of the police rate by the authority of a Statute. I trust that course will not be taken. I should regret it, as fettering our future liberty in that particular respect in a most important and injurious degree. I think I could undertake to show, if necessary, that some of the regulations under which the present subvention in aid of the police rate is given, actually tend to gross local extravagance, and that this tendency would be greatly increased if the subvention were 50 instead of 25 per cent. I ask, on the part of the House—and it will be admitted to be a fair demand—that if my right hon. Friend is allowed to take the measure he has already slightly sketched as a measure for the year, to meet what he thinks the demands of justice for the year, we shall not find ourselves committed as to the principle on which we are to proceed in the mode of applying aid to local rates when we come to consider the subject in a legislative point of view. I have gone over the main subjects referred to in the speech of my right hon. Friend, and I trust that I have justified the declaration with which I set out, that I would not enter into the discussion in any captious or hostile spirit. I can and I do very cordially join in the general congratulation which my right hon. Friend has received from so many quarters on the ability with which he has handled his various and difficult subjects, which I was quite prepared to expect; and, further, I am quite able to say that although, as I have said, our positions and points of view are not the same—that I do not approach either the Revenue or the Expenditure precisely from his point of view, and that I do not hold myself pledged to his proposals upon those matters; yet looking at the position in which he stands as the organ of the Government, supported by a majority in this House. I think he has approached the whole subject of the financial arrangements of the year in a spirit of equity and of sound discretion, and that the proposals which he has made fairly demand, as a whole, the approval and sanction of the House as proposals that are worthy of the position he holds, and are at the same time conducive to the general interest of the country.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

The tone of the remarks which my right hon. Friend has just addressed to the House, and for which I beg leave to tender him my most cordial thanks, has been so favourable that there is little occasion for me to say anything which might be strictly described as an answer. My right hon. Friend has told us, indeed, that although on certain points he differs from the views which I have had to express on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, yet that he is not prepared to challenge our proposals, or to support any of the Amendments of which Notice has been given. At the same time, my right hon. Friend, speaking with that high authority which necessarily belongs to him, has called attention to one or two points upon which, under any circumstances, I should have wished to say a few words to the House, and which, as he has touched upon them. I think it desirable to notice without delay. In the first place, my right hon. Friend has referred to a matter which, as he truly says, has been a subject of comment both in the House and out of it—I mean the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure in the coming year, which, on the part of the Government, I have submitted to the House. I have been asked whether I can without inconvenience give any further information with regard to the Estimate that I have presented of the Revenue of the coining year. Now, I entirely accept the doctrine which my right hon. Friend lays down—that in these matters of estimates the responsibility attaches, exclusively attaches, to the executive Government of the day: and if, in the remarks I made last week, I spoke rather more fully than is usual of the estimates which had been placed in my hands by the permanent officers of the Revenue Departments, it was not because I wished in the slightest degree to cast upon those Gentlemen any of the responsibility which properly belongs to us, but because I was anxious it should not he supposed that having very recently acceded to of lice we had presented estimates the correctness of which we had not taken duo care to test. I am prepared to meet the request of my right hon. Friend, and to mention with a little more detail than before, the foundation on which some of those estimates rest. Now, with regard to one most important estimate—I mean the estimate of the revenue from Customs—I should like to make one or two remarks. We have assumed that that revenue in the coming year will be, in round figures, £400,000 above the yield of the Customs in the past year. Well, I am met, not at all unnaturally, by the observation that there are signs of depression of trade and industry: that there are probabilities of a diminution of the consuming power of the population; and that, consequently, we must not expect that so large a quantity of the articles which contribute to our Customs revenue will be consumed this year as were consumed in the previous year. Now, let me just refer for a moment to the particular items upon which the estimate of an increase is based. The principal increase anticipated in connection with the Customs revenue is an increase in the estimated yield of the sugar duties. It is assumed that, whereas the duties on sugar and molasses brought £1,843,000 last year, they would this year bring £2,000,000. The House will perceive the importance of that fact. Hero is at once £160,000, out of the £400,000 of which I spoke, added to the estimate of revenue for the year with reference to an article which we are going to strike out altogether; and, therefore, if you say we are too sanguine in assuming that sugar would have yielded the high amount of £2,000,000, then we reply, make it any sum you please, only remember that, the less you assume the duties would have brought if loft alone, the less is the sacrifice of revenue which you incur in taking them off; and that being so, it docs not signify to me whether you take it at £1,843,000, or at £2,000,000. Under these circumstances, the most important by far of the articles on which an increase is estimated may be put aside. Then there is the item of tobacco, in regard to which an increase of £94,993 is assumed. Well, tobacco is an article that has not been much affected for a considerable time by alterations in duty, and when we see that it has been steadily advancing in consumption every year, we think it is not unnatural, allowing for the normal increase of the population, to believe that that advance will continue. But we have something else to judge by. We know from the Board of Trade Returns how trade has been going on for the first three months of this year, and that is a point to which I directed my attention in forming my Estimates. I found that upon a large number of articles of consumption that were not much or at all affected by duties, there had been up to the very latest date for which we had Returns—namely, March 31, a steady progress in consumption. I set aside the cases of tea and sugar, because they were affected by considerations and alterations of duty and other matters; but I took, for example, bacon and ham, and I found that in the first quarter of 1872 the consumption of these articles was 754,000 cwt, while in the same period of 1873 it was 867,000 cwt, and during the corresponding months of this year no less than 1,045,000 cwt. With regard to butter—still referring to the same three months in each year—the increase had been from 255,000 cwt in 1872 to 270,000 cwt in 1873, and to 337,000 cwt in 1874. As to eggs, the number of great hundreds in the first quarter of 1872 was 915,000, while last year it was 1,144,000, and this year 1,307,000; and so with regard to pepper, and several other articles of food. Of tobacco the consumption in the same period of 1872 was 10,924,000 lbs; of 1873, 11,489,000 lbs; and of 1874, 11,859,000 lbs, taking manufactured and unmanufactured together. Similarly, I found that, with regard to wine, the consumption had risen from 4,157,000 gallons in the first quarter of 1872 to 4,178,000 gallons in 1873, and 4,335,000 gallons in the corresponding period of 1874. So also, as to spirits, which increased in the same periods from 2,106,000 gallons to 2,523,000, and then to 2,604,000. I found, in short, that the experience of the early part of this year showed there was a steady progress in the consumption of articles of food by the great mass of the population of the country; and therefore I assumed that it was not unreasonable to regard the estimates given by the Revenue Officers as at once fair and moderate estimates. There is one other item I should like to mention as showing the progress of the country during the first three months of this year. I refer to the tonnage of vessels with cargoes cleaved, outwards and inwards, and in the coasting trade, during the three periods to which I have referred. The tonnage in the first quarter of 1872 was 12,361,614 tons; while in the next year it was 12,753,742; and in the corresponding period of 1874 it was 13,327,806. In all those directions I found that there were harmonious indications of advance in trade and in importation which justified, as I thought, the anticipations of a continued increase in the consumption of the various articles to which I have referred. It will be seen that sugar and tobacco are really the two great articles in which, an increase is estimated. In tea we do not count on an increase. Last year the duties on tea yielded £3,248,000, and the estimate for this year is £3,250,000, which is practically the same amount. The House will observe that this estimate is an exceedingly cautious one, for we are only assuming that the duties will produce the same amount as in the past year. But what were the circumstances of the past year? It is well known that the effect of the announcement that was made in January was very much to check the importation of tea, and for that reason alone we may expect that there will be a considerable spring in the imports of it this year. But it must also be borne in mind that we contemplate taking off the sugar duties, and what will be the effect of that change? We are going to reduce the sugar duties by £2,000,000, and are we expect that such a reduction will produce no elasticity in tea, coffee, and other articles of consumption? Therefore, I say that our estimate of an increase of £400,000 from Customs above the Revenue of last year is—I will not say ridiculously low—but a strictly moderate figure; and if I were getting up to criticize the Budget I should be inclined to say that the amount of our estimate was likely to be exceeded rather than that there was any danger of its falling short. Then, with regard to the Inland Revenue and the Excise, the two principal items are of course malt and spirits. We estimate that malt will show an increase of £220,000 over last year, when it produced £7,780,000. We estimate that it will yield this year£8,000,000. I would add that in regard to the income from malt we are not left entirely in the dark. A very large proportion of the revenue for the year to be derived from malt is already ascertained. The system on which the malt duty is charged is, that the officers go their rounds, bring to charge the quantity of malt already made, and collect the charge in the following round. They are thus able to compute the yield to the Revenue from the quantity already made. One of the most important rounds of the year has just been concluded, and it has been found that a very large quantity of malt has already been made; therefore, the officers of the Inland Revenue in their estimate of the income from malt this year gave an opinion which is not purely speculative, but derived to some extent from ascertained facts; and I believe that it will be found that they have been safe and cautious in their estimate. Then there is the great article of spirits. Undoubtedly a large increase in spirits has been estimated for. It is an increase of no less than £750,000 on the revenue of last year, which was £14,650,000. I cannot deny that that is an exceedingly large increase; but I find that year by year the quantity of spirits consumed has gone on steadily increasing. It is still my belief that the highest point of the consumption of spirits has not yet been reached; because I observe, on comparison, that the quantity of spirits consumed per head of the population in each of the subsequent years since 1852 has not yet reached the quantity per head of the population consumed in that year. The House will hardly be prepared for this statement, and it is a very remarkable one. Since the year 1852 there have been a good many changes in the rates of duty on spirits. The Scotch and Irish spirits have been gradually raised and brought up to the level of the English duty. The effect has been to check consumption; but, of late, the consumption has been again advancing, and it now stands thus:—In 1852 the quantity of British spirits consumed per 1,000 of the population was 918 gallons; in 1855 it was 908 gallons; in 1872, 844 gallons; and last year it was still only 899 gallons. The consumption of foreign spirits has, of course, also been increasing, though perhaps not in just the same ratio. The increase in the consumption of British spirits, at all events, has been going steadily on; but it has not yet quite readied the consump- tion per head of 1852, before the duties were increased. On the whole, therefore, I think that the Estimates that have been taken are Estimates which may be confidently recommended to this House, barring, of course, accidents which it is impossible to foresee. And although we have felt it our duty to warn the House that we have taken a rather sanguine view, yet we think it by no means a rash view, but that the Revenue of the coming year may be fairly and reasonably expected to reach the amount at which we have placed it. The next point to which my right hon. Friend adverted is the exceedingly important question of the Estimate of Expenditure of the year. My right hon. Friend made the observation—which, as a general rule, is perfectly true—that it is more convenient that the Army and Navy Estimates should be laid on the Table before the Financial Statement is made. As a general rule, I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend; but circumstances which the House will recollect made it necessary for us to depart from the rule this year. When we came into office there was very little time before us. It was impossible for us to examine the Army and Navy Estimates so as to lay them on the Table before Easter. It was of the greatest importance in the interests of trade, which was seriously paralyzed in some brandies, that the Budget should be brought forward as early after Easter as possible. We took the very first day after the Easter Recess for this purpose, and we were obliged to bring on the Navy Estimates after the Budget, instead of before it. The state of things, however, is not such as to affect the judgment of the House upon our proposals. The Budget statement was made on Thursday, and on the following Monday my right hon. Friend (Mr. Hunt) brought forward the Navy Estimates. The House has met to-night to consider how far they will give their approval to the financial proposals of the Government, and they have before them all the information necessary both with respect to the Army and Navy Estimates. Well, Sir, the Financial Statement is not, as some seem to suppose, made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his individual responsibility, any more than the Army or Navy Estimates are proposed upon the individual responsibility of the Secretary of State for War or the First Lord of the Admiralty. The financial proposals, both with regard to Revenue and Expenditure, are made on the authority of the whole Government, and of course we are responsible for the whole of what we present to the House. It may happen, as it has happened, that in the course of a Session of some months' duration, circumstances may arise which may upset the calculations made in the early part of the Session; but it would be a reflection on the Government of the most serious character if between Monday and Thursday they were to alter the whole scheme of their Expenditure. I can hardly conceive that we have done anything to lay ourselves open to the imputation of being so utterly "bird-witted" as to come forward on Monday with a totally different proposal from that which we had made on the previous Thursday. In what has been said and done we have acted with perfect consistency, and with a full consciousness of the bearing of one part of our proposals upon the other. I stated to the House, when I brought forward the Budget, that we accepted the Estimates of Expenditure left us by our predecessors. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] My right hon. Friend was not here. In general terms, I said, we accepted, after a general examination, the Estimates prepared by our predecessors—that we considered that, upon the whole, these Estimates would suffice, or nearly suffice, for the Expenditure of the year. I threw out then a remark which I considered was within the cognizance of everybody—that every year there are Supplementary Estimates brought forward. I expressed a hope that we might go through the year without any, but I added that we could not be sure that that would be our fate; and when I look at the fact that, of late, almost every year there have been Supplementary Estimates of £200,000,£ 300,000, or £400,000, I cannot feel at all sure that it may not be our fate to provide for some such Supplementary Estimates as those. I hope still we may-escape any necessity of that kind. We have, however, a reserve of between £400,000 and £500,000, and if it should turn out that there are any Supplementary Estimates that might require an expenditure of £100,000 or £200,000, we shall be in a position to meet them without in any way upsetting the finance of the year. Some persons have run away with the idea, from what fell from my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty in proposing the Nary Estimates, that the Government intend to bring forward some enormous Supplementary Estimate for something like a partial re-construction of the Navy, which will more than absorb the surplus, and, indeed, upset the whole of the financial arrangements of the Government. This idea seems to have taken a hold upon the public mind, and to have given rise to most extraordinary imaginations. One report stated that I was going to propose to negative the Resolutions with regard to the horse duty, and, in fact, some persons got so bewildered that they mistook plums for horses. Now, I sat by my right hon. Friend while he was making his statement on Monday, and though some things which he said with respect to the state of the Navy seemed to me to be by no means satisfactory, and although I thought he rudely dispelled the dreams in which many persons had indulged that the great reductions which were made by the late Government had been consistent with the maintenance of the Navy in that condition of efficiency which we all so much desire; yet I gathered nothing from the observations of my right hon. Friend that at all disturbed my equanimity as to the financial proposals of the Government. Indeed, it was not until the late First Lord of the Admiralty rose to address the House that I felt at all unhappy on the subject. He certainly did say something which, had I not stronger nerves than I am supposed to have, might have upset me. That right hon. Gentleman did not say that my right hon. Friend (Mr. Hunt) was entirely wrong in the views which he had expressed; he did not contend that our Navy was in a perfectly unexceptionable state of efficiency; but he said, "If those are your views"—not very much disputing their correctness—" you ought not to lose a day in coming down to the House and bringing forward Estimates for re-constructing the Navy. We may have left the Navy in a very unsatisfactory state, but then we have left you a surplus to put it in order again." These are not the views of my right hon. Friend or of the Government, but of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen). But we decline altogether to be bound by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman or by the inferences which he has drawn. It is perfectly true that my right hon. Friend stated on Monday that some of our ships were not in a satisfactory condition; I have no doubt, too, that he is addressing himself to the question of what may be done to improve that condition; and we must presume that in course of time we shall have some representations made for an increase of expenditure; but I hope that this expenditure may be balanced by savings elsewhere, or that means may be provided for meeting the expenditure. This, however, I will undertake to say—that as we object very much to the principle of violent reduction into which our predecessors hurried when they took office, we equally object to any violent launching into sudden expenditure; and though we shall address ourselves, of course, to the very important task of putting the Navy of this country in what we consider to be a proper state, we do not intend to make any proposals this year which shall disturb the financial scheme of the Government. [A laugh.] I do not know what hon. Gentlemen opposite mean by that laughter; but, without entering into any inquiry as to its causes, I repeat that we stand by our Estimates, both of Revenue and Expenditure. Passing from that point, I should wish to refer briefly to one or two matters which have been touched upon by my right hon. Friend to-night. He alluded to the proposal for the appropriation of a certain sum of between £400,000 and £500,000 for the creation of Terminable Annuities winch were to expire in 1885; and while approving that proposal as a whole, he expressed it to be his opinion that it would be better to take a later date than the year I have named. Now, that is a question with respect to which I should very much like to have a quiet argument with my right hon. Friend. I should wish to know exactly what it is he means. Does he mean that we should make arrangements for redeeming a larger portion of the Debt at a later date? At all events, we appropriate such a sum as will exactly extinguish £7,000,000 by the year 1885, and £7,000,000 of Debt happens to be within a few hundred thousand pounds of the amount which the Controller of the National Audit Office tells me can be conveniently and safely applied from the Post Office Savings Bank money to the purpose of creating Terminable Annuities. If you go about redeeming Debt by means of annuities, you must find somebody who will buy those annuities: for it is not possible to dispose of Terminable Annuities in the open market. You can, consequently, have recourse to them only by taking them out of one of the funds which are under your own control; and what funds, let me ask, are they? There is one fund which can be conveniently used for this purpose. It is the Post Office Savings Bank fund, because there being a national guarantee for the amount of that fund, there can be no difficulty in investing it in the purchase of Terminable Annuities. There are other funds which the Government hold as trustees. There is the moderate fund which is vested in them as trustees of the old savings banks, and the great fund which they hold as trustees of the Court of Chancery. But, then, the difficulty would be to deal on the spur of the moment with those funds, and an Act of Parliament would, I believe, be required for the purpose. That being so, and taking into account the short time the Government had to consider their plans, I think they took the best and most convenient course in applying the Post Office Savings Bank funds to the extinction of a certain amount of Debt, as they have proposed. It is not that we do not contemplate in the future the possibility of some more extensive dealing with the Debt in reference to the funds under our control, but these are matters which require grave consideration; and I feel assured, if we had dealt on the spur of the moment with so great a fund as the Chancery fund, we should have had all the lawyers upon our backs, that many doubts would have been raised as to the expediency of the proposal, and that much valuable time would have been lost. But my right hon. Friend says that we are laying a great load on the year 1885. I say, quite on the contrary, that we are taking a great load off that year. A sum of between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 per annum will then fall in, which will no doubt be a very large relief to the expenditure of the country. I will not on this occasion, however, enter into a general discussion on the subject of Terminable Annuities. I will merely add that we had a fund with which we could deal easily and conveniently on the spur of the moment, and that we dealt with it in what we considered to be the best and most appropriate way. But then my right hon. Friend says that we are, after all, not doing much in making this proposal, because the money must have in some way or other found its way to the relief of debt. Now, that is a statement to examine which would lead me into too technical a discussion, and I will now content myself with saying that the remark is to a certain extent just; but I must enter a caveat against being supposed to admit its correctness to the full extent of my right hon. Friend's manner of stating the question. Now, as to the income tax. I do not think the House will be surprised if I abstain from entering into a discussion which my right hon. Friend hardly seemed desirous of raising. The great question of the income tax is one which we have distinctly and avowedly reserved for full consideration next year. We have made certain concessions to the payers of income tax, but they in no way touch the principle of the impost. We evaded—and we did so deliberately—all questions as to the incidence of the tax, because we wished to keep the subject open for the present. I will merely add, therefore, that so far as the income tax is concerned, we adhere to the proposals which we have made. As to the sugar duties, my right hon. Friend has given in better language than I could command the reasons which induced the Government to abolish instead of reducing those duties. I will mention, while on this point, a story which I heard a few days ago, and which well illustrates the inconvenience and the uncertainty of the sugar duties. I was told by a friend of mine that he met a gentleman who said to him—"I have a cargo of sugar at this moment coming to this country. It depends upon the decision of an officer of the Customs—of whose qualifications I know nothing—whether it should be put in one class or another, and according as it is put in one class or another I shall either make or lose by the cargo £1,200." Now that is, I think, a very strong illustration of the way in which the sugar duties operated as regards the different classes of sugar. Then, the right hon. Gentleman, after having expressed his approval of our proceedings with respect to the sugar duties, expresses his dissent from our proposals relating to the horse duty. Well, the remission of that duty has, no doubt, been received with some surprise in certain quarters. It is said that it is a remission which was not called for, and one of which the advantage will mainly be felt by the rich. Now, I entirely deny the accuracy of both these propositions. As to the repeal of the horse duty not being asked for. I would remark that although I certainly did not receive any deputations on the subject, yet I have had memorials—very important memorials—from Glasgow, Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Aberdeen, and various other places, all urging on me the importance of relieving trade from that heavy burden. I will not trouble the House by reading them; but they are memorials from persons who represent that they are very seriously burdened in carrying on the trade of the country by this duty on horses. That was a matter which was pressed on me almost daily from many influential quarters—some of them in large towns. It was a matter also which was brought under my notice by the officers of the Inland Revenue, whose attention was directed to the collection of this tax. They represented to me that the tax, being entirely founded on exemptions, was one which it was exceedingly difficult and inconvenient to levy; that there were constant complaints made as to the levying of the tax on a horse, which ought to be exempt, because a man happened to ride it once. And so again with what was connected with that duty—the horse dealers' licence duty—there was a difficulty as to who was and who was not a fit subject for the impost. We took these memorials into consideration, and also the representations made by the officers of Inland Revenue, and we believed—and still believe—that in repealing this tax we are conferring a great boon, not so much on the agricultural interest—although to some extent it is a boon to them and to horse breeders—but to a far greater extent on the commercial and trading classes of our great cities and towns. Well, my right hon. Friend says this connects itself with the railway passengers duty, I admit that there is a kind of seeming analogy between them; but I do not think they stand on the same ground. At the same time, I have always said that the railway passengers duty is one which, if we could see our way to couple its remission at a future time with proper regulations with respect to railway traffic, we should be very glad to deal with. With regard to carriages and servants, the tax upon which has been mentioned by my right hon. Friend, I do not know that we need go into those questions now, as we are making no proposal with regard to them. But I wish to say a very few words on the concluding remarks of my right hon. Friend about our proposals as to local taxation. My right hon. Friend says he agrees with us in thinking it fair and reasonable that some remission should be made and some benefit conferred on local ratepayers; but he thinks that the proper way to do that would be to reserve the grants which would be made as levers to assist in bringing about improvements in the system of local taxation. Well, we were not in a position exactly to reserve those grants as levers; because if we had done so it would have meant that we were reserving a considerable surplus which we now propose to dispose of, as the House is aware. We should have been reserving that and what would have been the consequence? We should have have had applications made to us which it would have been difficult to resist, for the appropriation of that surplus to other objects; and we should have had no levers left to effect our operation. But we had another thing to consider. My right hon. Friend and his Government had been applying these levers for a considerable time, without, as it seemed to us, producing any great result. And it appeared to us that, perhaps, a somewhat different mode of proceeding would be preferable, and that we should do better by taking up the question of local taxation in the way we have done, showing our anxious and earnest desire really to deal with it, announcing at the same time—as we have said, in the most distinct manner—that we do not regard the grant towards the cost of lunatics and the police as the be-all and end-all of this subject, but pointing out that the question is one of the greatest questions of the clay, and not to be disposed of in one year or in two, but that the whole question of local administration and local agency closely connects itself with those great economical and social improvements which it is important to make, and that we are prepared to deal with local taxation with the view of promoting and facilitating those improvements. And when my right hon. Friend talks about transferring burdens from funds supplied by property to funds supplied by property and labour, he is really carrying us off into disquisitions which I think are altogether wide of the mark. This is not, in our view, a question of the shifting of burdens; it is a question of the adjustment of taxation with a view to administrative reform; and we altogether deny, in the first place, the truth of the saying that this is a transfer of burdens from property to property and labour; and, in the second place, we say, even if it were in any sense such a transfer, the object for which it would be made is the benefit, not of property, but of the country, and of the labour of the country especially. It is because we feel that these improvements are of such great and vital importance to the labouring classes—improvements in the character of their dwellings, improvements in the sanitary arrangements of the country, improvements in the development of habits of providence, and other things of that kind, which depend on the establishment of a sound system of local agency, founded on a sound and proper system of local taxation—it is because we believe this, that we are so urgent in pressing this matter and putting it as our first question for consideration. We entirely agree with my right hon. Friend, that if we stopped where we are now, and simply made the subsidies we propose, and left everything else as it is, we should deal very inadequately with this great question. But, as I said when introducing the proposals of the Government, we do not intend to stop here. We intend to take up this question as a whole, and we trust that what we are doing now will not hinder, but will help that which we shall feel it our duty to propose in another year. These are the principles on which the financial proposals of the Government are founded; these are the principles on which we submit them to the House, and we trust it will support us in giving effect to them.

MR. GOSCHEN

Perhaps the House will permit me to offer a few words in explanation after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the other night I had practically admitted the truth of the statements made by the present First Lord of the Admiralty. I beg to say most emphatically that I admitted nothing of what the First Lord of the Admiralty said. ["Oh!"] Hon. Members will search the record of the debates in vain to find that I uttered one single syllable to depreciate the state of the Navy at the present moment. Three long speeches had been made from three different quarters as indictments of the Naval administration of the last five years. To those three speeches it was my duty to reply. One of those speeches proceeded from the right hon. Gentleman the present First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Hunt), and it was not only what he said, but the manner in which he said it, that impressed the House at the time. There was in it that ominous inuendo which was taken up by the Press next day. I did not think that I could in an hour's time refute all the statements made in the course of the evening. I knew that our vindication would come, and also whence it would come. I knew it would come from the front bench opposite, and from Her Majesty's Government. I knew that by the proposals which they would ultimately submit to the House the country would see that they were wrong in the inferences they had drawn from the speech of the First Lord of the Admiralty. And now we see that the whole of this "scare" which has frightened the public for these two days is a matter of about £100,000 on an expenditure of £10,000,000. If after an administration of five years when the Conservative Government come into office they think there are no greater errors to repair than that, I say that it is the best vindication of our conduct—better than if I had made a speech of two hours denying or dealing with every part of the First Lord of the Admiralty's statement. I thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the statement he has made to-night. Now, we shall be able again to discuss the Navy Estimates on a reasonable footing.

First Resolution read a second time, and amended, by inserting, after the word "Marmalade," the words "Plums preserved in Sugar."

Resolution, as amended, agreed to.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, that he had intended to lay a tax on plums preserved in sugar; but finding that the lax as proposed would only yield a revenue of £12 per annum, he had now to propose that the second Resolution should be negatived.

Second Resolution disagreed to.

Subsequent Resolutions agreed to.