STAMP DUTIES. (Hansard, 11 April 1836)

§ Mr. Hume
stated, that he had received communications asserting that the present consolidation would be found as oppressive as that which Mr. Goulburn had brought in. He had not himself seen the schedule; but he was told that in many cases it would aggravate the pressure of taxation. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would inquire into the subject; for he believed there must be some mistake. Certainly the gentleman from whom he received the letter was one upon whose judgment and experience he was disposed to place every reliance. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give full time for having the details examined into.

§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer
had already observed, that he only wished that the Bill should be now read a second time that evening. His intention was to postpone the Committee until the 29th of the present month, and this for the purpose of affording all parties, in and out of the House, full time for considering the Bill. If persons were to take up par- 872 ticular parts of the Bill, if they were to look to some duties, an increase might be shown. In one particular branch of duties, those on conveyances, for instance, he had no doubt but an increase might be shown; but, in such cases, the increase would be upon those duties that were unjustly low. The fate of the Bill ought not to be determined by the consideration of whether certain duties were increased; but let the House decide whether the ad valorem principle was a just one or not. When they decided that in the affirmative, it was in vain to exclaim against a particular tax. The Bill was intended to remove an inequality of pressure: it could not do that without pressing in some degree upon those who were now too lightly taxed. The Bill was intended to apportion justly that which was now unjustly distributed. He begged to say, that he had received a great many valuable suggestions, particularly from Members of the legal profession. He should give the earliest intimation of any alterations intended to be made in the Bill.

§ Mr. William Smith O'Brien
wished that the right hon. Gentleman would take this opportunity of announcing something calculated to allay the ferment that prevailed in Ireland with respect to the stamp duties on newspapers. The demand in Ireland was, that the stamp duty should be reduced one-half what it was intended to be in England, as it is at this moment.

§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer
was, he said, unwilling to discuss a question now, which would be so much better postponed to a future stage. For his own part he begged to say, that he thought the arguments used on the part of his Irish friends on this subject, were quite untenable. The Irish newspapers were to be conveyed post-free. Upon this point he would also call the attention of those who demanded an entire repeal of the stamp-duty upon newspapers, that supposing the repeal were to take place, and they followed up the argument used in favour of the Irish newspapers, having repealed the whole amount of the duty in England, they would be bound to pay a bounty to the Irish newspapers. He would take the opportunity to notice, that his proposition had been subjected to gross misrepresentation. It had been said, that it amounted to the same thing as the proposition for raising the stamp- 873 duty to 4d. in both countries—a proposition that he had resisted; that was a proposition for doubling the amount of stamp-duty, while his was one for reducing it one-half.